The comments of the month of Ramadan: an unknown sura, the fatiha (the one that opens)
SURATE Al Fatiha is proof of the miracle of the Koran. Indeed, it is the one that we recite (at least) seventeen times a day without ever getting tired of reciting it while man quickly gets tired of something he repeats.
This sura has an almost magical power, we will show it later. However, one of the difficulties in repeating the same formula is the risk of no longer being able to grasp it by letting the routine take over our souls.
There is a prerequisite to recognize when we read the Word of God. All the masters of the Koran claim that it is necessary to become a “being capable of God”, that is to say that it is necessary to prepare to make themselves available to welcome his word. This is what the Koran asks for “those who believe” in sura the thunder (C.13, 28-29): “Those who believe, and which their hearts reassure themselves at the reminder of God-and what else, that of the recall of God, does the heart need to reassure themselves”?
This verse clearly establishes this need to make yourself available to God, by the heart, the center of man’s inner life and the seat of essential knowledge, to hope to become this “being capable of God”.
To illustrate what has just been said, let’s take the example of the Grand Omar Ibn Al Khattab. The caliph used to treat certain suffering by reciting Surah Al Fatiha. After his death no one in his entourage could not do it again. One of his companions had been asked to heal a patient in the same way by reciting Surah Al Fatiha, but that did not work, he would have said: “Fatiha, remains Fatiha and she will always remain with us, but Omar, he is no longer”. This is proof that an internally purified receptacle is very important. This is why the Ta’lim (learning) and Tazkiya (the purification of the soul) are inseparable in reading (having an ear), understanding (having a heart) and the assimilation of the Koran (becoming a witness): “This is a reminder for the one who has a heart, who lends the ear and testifies” (C.50, 36).
Millions of comments have been written to draw the senses of Sura Al Fatiha, and still today, we are looking for meaning. It is impossible to have read everything about the countless understanding that she has aroused since her revelation. Nevertheless, in past comments (medieval) as contemporaries there are many repetitions. In Islamic knowledge it is a fact, our scholars repeat themselves a lot; We can easily bring all of these understanding to the essentials, while recognizing that no understanding will exhaust the Koran.
We can already say, on the shape of sura from our sources, that it is divided well into two parts. The first segment consecrates the exaltation of the transcendence of God (verses 2 to 4) and the second part is dedicated to the believer and its multiple requests (verse 6 to 7). Surat has seven verses and, as in all suras, you must be attentive to the median verse (here, the 5thth). This sura prepares and installs a personal dialogue between God and the believer. Now, as in any dialogue with the divine, there is a prerequisite: we first rent the one to whom we are going to ask for benefits.
What we want in this synthesis of comments is to give the French -speaking Muslim public, access to meanings that have been unknown or forgotten. The modern world being totally desecrated considers the universe and what it contains as autonomous, while a balanced traditional society claims that this universe is linked to its divine principle; This is what distinguishes a traditional Muslim from a Muslim built by modernity, the second practices a rite but at a vague idea of this link between the universe and its divine principle. The modern Muslim believes in a distant God, blurred and cut off from the universe but he begs as he has been taught to pray and in this sense, he is more Muslim than believing.
Surah Al Fatiha, at the time of post-truth, must be reread to deconstruct this agnostic perception of God which nourishes the desecrated Muslim and to restore to this latter, the true intellectuality offered by the Koran and which opposes degenerative and Promethean rationalism.
On the form therefore, we said that sura is divided into two very distinct parts, which confirms a prophetic tradition, and it is one of the rare suras having been revealed in one go. The intermediate verse (Barzakh), “It is you that we love and it is you that we implore for our help” is this moment when, after having exalted the transcendence of God, we can ask him for his graces. Here, worship does not only mean worship or rite, it is an adoration-connoissance; Who knows loves and who loves knows. The believer must know the one he prays: the Lord’s God (Rûbûbya), the godmarkious god (Rahmaniya) and the God-King (Malakut). Personal transfiguration can only be done thanks to the realization of what our theologians call the “‘Abdiya”. The “Abdiya” is this state of devotion, which requires making the wish to serve.
Without this state of devotion, we will not be able to move from the world of prayer with the language to full and conscious prayer. It is not so strange that our requests are so rarely granted when they were so often in the companions without the latter abusing it or that they make a privilege to catch gullible people like it is legion these days; There are many religious but very few “men or women of the Lord” (rabbaniyoune).
The Basmallah of the first verse calls us to focus our whole being on God. “Prayer,” said the Prophet (ç), requires real and high concentration “. We know that the Grand Ali gave it a deep meaning by recalling that the whole sura focuses on the point of the letter “Bâ”. Difficult to know what he really wanted to mean, the science of letters no longer being taught, but we can already say that the form of the letter “Bâ” /(ب) Diagram a descent then a link linked to the right (by the good) to the following letter. Everything is said: “Revelation descends to connect man to his divine principle and link it by good to a sacred world”.
Furthermore, Fakhr-Al-Dine Al Razi, had asked himself the question of why in this prayer we say “al-hamdou llah” (praise to God) rather than “al-hamda llah” in the second verse? According to our scientist, if we say “Al Hamdou llah” it is because we affirm a truth that transcends us, it is God himself who praises himself; In other words, we are only a receptacle that echoes this truth.
Because, recalls Al Razi, if we had received the verse according to the formula “Al Hamda Llah” we would have been required to be completely truthful when reciting this prayer otherwise we would have been considered liars, thus making our prayer vain because considered to be a lie. Now it is very difficult to say this praise in all truth and fully aware. Thus, the fact of saying “Al Hamdou llah” is the expression of a divine mercy because it is to accept that the believer can say this formula while sometimes being distracted during his prayer; The believer is only the place of passage of a truth that comes from elsewhere.
Whether or not there is present during this prayer, the whole universe recognizes that God is worthy of praise. Even if I do not fully understand what I say or that I am distracted while I pray, God will not count this as a lie. The mercy of God is found in the very choice of the words of the Koran.
Finally, to close this rapid look around our sura, our commentators have sought to understand why the one who prays and who is supposed to be on “the right path” (Sirate Al Moustaqim) still asks that God guides him on “this right path”? Asking for it is for the believer the expression of inner humility: I am not on the right path thanks to my efforts only but thanks to the goodness of God. Man puts a limit to his own power by recognizing that there is even greater power.
Surah Al Fatiha has not yet revealed all its secrets, but it allows everyone to rediscover it according to their heart of the heart. It is she who opens up a whole Koranic universe, but also and above all a whole inner world, in order to protect us from our ills and prevent the world of human chaos.
Because let’s not forget, that we should not re -enchant the world as the Western “ignorant thought” affirms, and repeat it stupidly some Promethean Muslims, but he Above all, must be resacralized by connecting it to the divine principle. Koranic thought lives in our future and sura al Fatiha is the key.
