So We listened to him, and delivered him from Distress; Thus do We Deliver those who have faith.

So now here we are, a third of Ramadan having disappeared behind us, the remaining two-thirds threatening quickly to follow.  We are in the midst of it now: praying, fasting, struggling to fight off feelings of familiarity and routine; feelings that are the bane of a worshiper’s focus, the enemy of a dedicated heart.

I have seen two common ways in which this language is interpreted.  The first implies that the two identifying descriptions that appear at the end of the ayah (“those whose portion is not wrath” and “those who go not astray”) are counterpoints to and elucidate the meaning and identification of the path. The second (A.Y. Ali’s view) is that those two identifying descriptions are counterpoints to and elucidate the meaning and identification of God’s ni’mah (translated above as “Grace,” but which can also be translated as Blessing/Favor/Tenderness).

Before we get into the text of the final ayahs of The Opening, let’s pretend for a moment that we don’t know what the ayahs actually say.  Let’s ruminate then, in our state of feigned ignorance, about what we would assume the last few ayahs of The Opening ought to say.

“[I] in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping.  Everybody worships.  The only choice we get is what to worship.  And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

- The late David Foster Wallace, 2005

I was introduced to the writings of David Foster Wallace in the fall of 2008, shortly after he hanged himself after a decades-long bout with depression.