From the Founder: The Beauties of Surah Fatihah
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian
The Message, December 2005 Issue, p. 7
In the beginning of Surah Fatihah it is said that Allah, Most High, is the only Being Who possesses all praiseworthy excellences and combines in Himself all attributes and is the only Being Who sustains all the worlds and is the Source of all mercies and grants everyone the fruits of his labour. By enumerating these attributes, Allah, Most High, clearly sets forth that all power is in His hand and all emanates from Him. He has glorified His Being so highly that He sets Himself forth as the Disposer of all the affairs of this world and the next, and the Cause of all causes in relation to everything and the Source of all benefit, pointing out, at the same time, that independently of Him and His mercy the life and comfort and tranquillity of no sentient being was possible. Next, He instructed man in humility in the words:
“O Thou Fountainhead of every benevolence, we worship Thee alone and seek help from Thee alone as we are altogether humble and can do nothing on our own without the favour of Thy help and support.”
Allah, the Sublime, has thus furnished two incentives to prayer: First, His Own glory and its accompanying compassion, and secondly, the humility and unworthiness of man. These are the two incentives that must be kept in mind at the time of prayer by the supplicants. Those who have tasted some of the flavour of prayer know well that without these two incentives no true prayer can be offered and without them the fire of Divine love can scarcely burst into flame. It is evident that one who does not keep in mind the glory and mercy and perfect power of God can in no wise turn to God, and that the soul of one who would not confess his own humbleness, helplessness and destitution, can never bend down before the Generous Lord. This is a verity which does not call for any deep philosophy to be fully grasped. In fact, when the magnificence of God and one’s own humility and helplessness are borne in on one’s mind, that particular condition itself convinces one that it is the only approach to true prayer.
True worshippers appreciate well that the concept of these two aspects is essential for prayer; first, that Allah, the Glorious, has the power to grant every kind of providence and sustenance and mercy and reward and that His perfect attributes are ever-operative in their respective spheres, and secondly, the conviction that man can do nothing by himself without Divine help and support. Without doubt, both these concepts are such that once they take hold of the mind at the time of prayer, they transform suddenly the whole attitude of man so much so that a haughty one falls down crying and a conceited and hard-hearted one bursts into tears. This is the mechanism that quickens an indifferent corpse. Through the realisation of these two factors, every heart is drawn towards prayer. In brief, this is the spiritual means which turns the soul of man towards God and gives him an insight into his own weakness and the reality of Divine help. It is by this means that man is transported to a state of self-forgetfulness where no trace of his own opaque existence remains and only the Majesty of the One Being meets the eye and only that Being, All-mercy, the Support of every entity and the Remedy of every ill and the Fountainhead of every grace comes in sight, until, ultimately, through it, a state of obliteration-in-Allah takes shape at the advent of which man is bereft of all inclination towards any created being or towards his ego, or towards his volition, and is totally lost in the love of God and through true perception his own entity and the entity of all created beings appears non-existent to him. God has called this state, sirat-i-mustaqim (the right path), to seek which He has taught the prayer:
“Guide us on the right path,”
meaning: Grant us the way of obliteration and Unity and Divine love which the above verses signify and cut us off totally from all others than Thee.
Thus, in order to generate fervour in prayer, God, the Sublime, has provided such true incentives as transport the supplicant from the state of ego to that of self-forgetfulness and negation. It should be remembered that Surah Fatihah is not just one of the ways of prayer for guidance; in fact, as we have shown, it is the only effective way to induce fervour in the heart for prayer and which appeals to human nature as truly responsive to its urge. The truth of the matter is that as Allah has laid down laws in respect of other matters, so has been set down a particular way of prayer which comprises the incentives mentioned in Surah Fatihah and unless these two incentives are kept in mind, no enthusiasm can at all be aroused in prayer. The natural attitude in prayer is the one set down in Surah Fatihah. This then is one of the beauties of this surah [chapter], that it teaches prayer together with its incentives.