The Lord's Prayer -- Part I

Many commentators on the Quran have gone into detail about the meanings of the seven verses of The Opening, and I don’t want to repeat here what you can find in most commentaries or Quranic exegeses.  For example, I don’t want to expound upon the hadith describing how The Opening is an interactive prayer between the worshiper and God (you can read that hadith here (see Number 0775 of Book 4)), or to cite sources supporting the notion that The Opening is required to be recited in every physical prayer.  Rather, I would like first to comment briefly on the individual ayahs that make up the surah and then share some thoughts on The Opening’s crescendo and its ultimate message.  This should take two or three posts to get through, so we might as well just dive in.

1.   In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

See my prior post on this phrase here.

2.   Praise be to God, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds;

After invoking the name of God, the first thing we are taught to do is to praise God.  It is significant here that the ayah does not say “We praise You, oh God” or “You have our praise, oh God.”  Rather, the ayah says “Praise be to God” or, literally, “The Praise, to God belongs” (adjusting for grammar: “To God belongs the praise”).  The ayah is a declaration: The Praise, and all of it completely, rightfully belongs to God.  Whether or not we human beings deign to utter words in praise of God is ultimately of no significance with respect to God's glory.  By praising Him we are doing nothing more than giving Him what He rightfully owns.  As declaration, the ayah also performs an identifying function: Who is God?  God is the one to whom true praise for all things belongs. 

That begs the question: Why does it belong to Him?  Well, for starters, He is the “Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds.”  A.Y. Ali translates the Arabic word Rubb as “Cherisher and Sustainer,” although it is commonly translated as “Lord.”  A.Y. Ali’s translation is probably closer to containing the richness of meaning the Arabic word Rubb evokes. 

The word Rubb in Arabic is used to describe someone who molds, cherishes, sustains and raises.  Parents who properly raise their children are said to Rubbee the children, as they provide for them, guide them, mold them, bring them to maturity and otherwise provide for their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, teaching them through patient and thoughtful guidance how to interact with the world around them.  The Hebrew word rabbi (translated by Websters as “my master”) has the same meaning in Arabic and is derived from the root word rubb.  Muslims use the same word rabbi (pronounced rub’-ee in its non-anglicized form) to refer to God (the Master, Cherisher and Sustainer).  

It is also significant that the word Rubb is used in this ayah rather than any other word (e.g., Creator, Ruler, Innovator, etc.).  Here, God is identified not (merely) as the creator of the universe, or the architect of all of the “worlds” (see below for more on the use of this word), but as their Rubb.  Not only has God created the universe, but he continues to care for it.  He did not, as deists might suggest, create the worlds and the laws of nature a long time ago ("In the beginning," to quote a biblical phrase) and then step back to observe, leaving the worlds and all of creation to navigate through nature without consequence.  He did not just create a roulette wheel and spin it to see where the ball lands.  He continues to create, to foster, to cherish, to sustain, to guide and to rule.  

God continues his creation every moment.  God created this moment in time…. and this one.  He has not abandoned the worlds and their inhabitants to their own devices within defined parameters that govern the rules of what is possible.  People are not free to act as they will without consequence, oppressing or injuring others while hoarding desirables.  There will be a time when God, the Rubb of this world and all others, calls all to account.  This ayah, in all its succinct glory, says all of that (at least to me) in four words.   

The last word of the ayah is ’aalameen, meaning “the Worlds” or “The Universe.”  The most important aspect of this word is that it is all-encompassing.  It is of little consequence whether your understanding of ‘alameen is that it means, for example, the worlds of men and beasts, and of insects, fishes and other creations; or whether it means planets and solar systems and space and infinity; or whether it means periods of time through the ages; or whether it means something else altogether related to dimensions of which we have no knowledge.  The God of the Quran is the Rubb of all of them, without exception.  If it exists, the God of the Quran brought it into being and is its Lord, its Cherisher and its Sustainer.  He created it, He continues to create it and He has not abandoned it.

Finally on this ayah, I am certain we will get into monotheism in more specific detail at some point in our blogging journey, but for now I would like to note that monotheistic ideals permeate the language of The Opening from the very beginning.  We do not invoke the name of a god, we invoke the name of the God (Allah literally means “The God”).  We do not say that God is a Lord, a Cherisher or a Sustainer but the Lord, the Cherisher and the Sustainer.  The language is exclusive to the One to whom The Opening is addressed as prayer, and monotheistic currents run throughout The Opening and indeed the rest of the Quran.

3.   The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful (Al-Rahman, Al-Raheem);

Once we have declared that to God belongs the praise and identified Him as the Cherisher and Sustainer of all things in existence, we repeat in this ayah the two names and attributes of God to which He has given the most prominence, ­Al-Rahman and Al-Raheem. 

The repeating of these names serves at least two purposes: (i) it further identifies the One to whom this prayer, The Opening, is addressed; and (ii) it reinforces the characteristics God chose to emphasize for us to help us know Him, and again, as we discussed before, those characteristics are mercy, grace and compassion. 

We are told that God lords over all things; that to Him belongs all praise; that He is omnipotent.  Then we are quickly reminded that He is Mercy and He is Grace and Compassion.  All is not lost.  We are vulnerable before God’s awesome power, but we may still be enveloped by His Rahmah.  In a subsequent post, we’ll talk (God willing) about the surprising way in which we ask for that Rahmah through the ayahs of The Opening.