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.

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Amazing Grace

Updated on Saturday, May 2, 2009 at 9:23AM by The QB

While it is universally accepted that the phrase “In the name of God, The Most Gracious (or The Most Compassionate), The Most Merciful” is part of the Quran and rightfully belongs at the beginning of each surah, there is a difference of opinion among Quranic scholars over whether the phrase is actually a numbered ayah of the first surah (which is called Al-Fatihah, or “The Opening”).

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