In Depth Explanation of Surah Al- Fatiha:

Insha’Allah, you will find the meaning and explanation from a

different perspective and mind opening of what you have
read or heard before.
• This is the first complete surah revealed on Prophet Muhammad
(S.A.W).
• Allah Himself told us in Quran about the importance and
significance of this Surah. [We have given you the seven verses
that are worthy of recitation over and over again (surah Al-Fatiha)
and the glorious Quran.] Surah Al-Hijir, Ayah 87.
• Prophet (S.A.W) said the surah Al-Fatiha revealed to him has no
parallel in all Allah’s divine books (Bukhari).
• This surah is also called umm-al-Kitab (Mother of the book),
foundation and essence of the Quran. Its recitation is mandatory
in each Salah.
• This prayer is all for those who want to study the message of
Allah. It is placed at the very beginning to teach the reader that if
he sincerely wants to benefit from Al-Quran, he should offer this
prayer to the Rabb of the universe. Al-Fatiha teaches that the best
thing for a man is to pray for” guidance towards the right path”
and to study Al-Quran with the mental attitude of a seeker of
truth, and to recognize that the Rabb is the source of all
knowledge. One should therefore, begin the study of Quran with
a prayer to Allah for seeking His guidance.
• It is important to know that the real relation between Al-Fatiha
and Al-Quran is not that of an introduction of a book but that of a
prayer and its answer. Al-Fatiha is the prayer from the devotee,
and the rest of the Quran is the answer from Allah. The devotee
prays to Allah to show him the “Right path” and Allah places the

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 whole of Quran before him in answer to his prayer, as if to say:
“This is the guidance that you have asked for”
• This Surah consists of seven Ayahs (verses) and is distinctly
divided in three parts. First part belongs exclusively to Allah
Himself, second part is common between Allah (the master) and
His Slave (us) and the last part exclusively belong to His slave.
• In a Hadith Qudsi, Prophet (S.A.W) said that Allah, the Glorious
and Exalted, said, 'I have divided the prayer between Myself and
my servant equally and My servant shall be granted what he
asked for.' Therefore when the servant says, 'all praises and
thanks are due to Allah, the Master of all nations; Allah says, 'My
servant has praised Me.' When he says, 'that He is extremely
loving and caring right now and in the future; Allah says, 'My
servant has extolled Me.' When he says, 'Master of the Day of
Judgement,' Allah says, 'My servant has glorified Me.' When he
says, 'It is only to you that we give ourselves totally and
absolutely to slavery and worship and it is only you we ask help
in the matters we are struggling with; Allah says, 'this is between
Me and My servant and My servant shall have what he
requested.' When he says, 'guide us to the straight upward Path,
the Path of those whom You have favoured, not of those who
have received anger/rage, neither of those who are lost;' Allah
says, 'this is for My servant and My servant shall have what he
asked for.'
Now the meaning and detail Tafseer and
explanation of each seven ayahs:
Ayah 1
All praise and thanks belong to Allah, the Rabb of all the nations.
Explanation: All praise, thanks/gratitude is sincere, genuine and is
absolutely ultimate. This praise and gratitude to Allah are totally
independent of anybody praising or thanking Him or not. He is the

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Rabb/Master means He is the owner, in charge, caretaker, maintainer
(keeping alive and making sure everything exists) and giver of gifts to all
nations (people of the world).

Ayah 2
Extremely loving and caring right now and loving and caring in the
future.

Explanation: Ar-Rehman means extremely merciful, loving and caring

right now, but is temporary (can be taken away). Ar- Raheem means He
is Merciful, loving and caring permanently/ constantly, may not be
necessarily happening now and not extreme. So Allah has both these
qualities at the same time and thus it covers quality of being merciful
from all angles. Allah’s mercy is beyond human imagination. The
multiple facet of the meaning of Ar-Rehman and Ar-Raheem, coveys
the all-encompassing nature of our merciful creator, whose extreme
love and care informs the minutest aspect of our existence. Ibne Abbas
RA, describes the two qualities of Allah, Ar-Rehman is for this
temporary world for everyone and Ar-Raheem for believers in the
permanent hereafter world.

Ayah 3
King and the owner of the Day of Judgment.

Explanation: Allah alone is the Judge on that day and He controls the
time on that Day. With His infinite justice and wisdom He will give
reward and punishment to each individual based on their deeds they
did in this world. Every soul will be held accountable and answerable on
that day to His Master and will be presented to their Rabb individually.
As we all know this world Allah created is not meant for total justice, it
is impossible to have true justice in this life, imagine if somebody kills
few people without any justifiable cause, the best possible justice in
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this world will be to kill that person. But he will be killed once, say in
retaliation of one person, but what about other persons he killed, he
cannot be killed several times to compensate for other killings. Only
Allah has the power to kill him once, bring life to him again and then kill
him again so on and so forth. Even a person kill one person and his life
is taken away as to give justice to the killed person, but who will
compensate killers family, kids, spouse etc and the suffering they will
have rest of their lives. So it is humanly impossible to do justice in this
world. This attribute of Allah is appreciated by uncountable human
beings who have been denied justice throughout the human race and
will see their day of compensation on the Day of Judgment. As Allah
controls the time on that Day, that is why in Quran it is mentioned that
the Day of Judgment will be 50,000 years [Q70/4].
Note: the above first three Ayahs of Surah Al Fatiha are complete
introduction of Allah by Himself. Based on first three ayahs that He is
our Rabb, Ar-Rehman, Ar-Raheem and king/owner of the Day of
Judgment, it has become abundantly clear the reason why we should
praise and thank Him.

Ayah 4
It is only to You that we willingly give ourselves totally and
absolutely to slavery and worship now and in the future and it is
only You we ask help now and in the future in the matters we are
struggling with.
Explanation: This Ayah is a declaration of slavery by us that we are
giving up our freedom and independence to Allah as we are slave and
He is our Master 24/7. In reality the real independence comes to us
when we enslave ourseves to only Allah. Because in this world, many
people are enslave to different things like our bodies, temptation,
fashion, entertainment, culture, fake ideology, society pressures etc.
The real independence comes when we do not care about anything else

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except to please Allah. In this Ayah we ask for help, but we do not say
what help? There are few reasons for that
1) Allah knows what we need help in.
2) List is too long.
3) We are desperate, so no time to list, just cries help.
And the best and most important help we are asking is to help us
to become your slave. We cannot fulfill this huge obligation
ourselves without your help.

Ayah 5
Guide us to the straight and upward path.
Explanation: As far as belief in Allah, His oneness and His praise and
gratitude is concerned, a decent natured person will do that and will
recognize that, because Allah has put in every human beings intellect
called “Fitra”. Now when we already declared his slavery, the question
is what we have to do as slave, we need instructions to follow His
commandments. This instruction is called guidance in every aspect of
our life. In Arabic guidance to right path includes, showing, telling,
helping understand the straight path, it also includes that heart and
mind is completely satisfied with this path. The greatest gift anybody
can get from Allah is guidance. Guidance comes only from Allah alone,
nobody even our beloved prophet has the ability to guide anybody; we
can inspire people but absolutely cannot guide people. Allah gives
guidance only to those who ask it again and again (like in every salah,
even every Ruku we ask for guidance again and again, repeatedly day
and night) and are willing and desirous of it. The simple question is why
we ask something again and again, it obviously means we need that
thing and we do not have it. Allah gives everything to human beings
without asking (like life, food, security, you name it) but He never gives
guidance automatically. This guidance is not permanent, it can be
increased or decreased or even taken away by Allah in any instant. That
is why we continuously ask Allah for guidance and even our beloved
Prophet asks for guidance from Allah constantly. Any blessing of Allah
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without guidance can be very harmful, for example if we have wealth
without guidance, you see how people misuse this wealth to harm
humanity, and similarly if we have health without guidance, we see
how people misuse it. It is also very important to clearly understand the
difference between knowledge and guidance. Gaining knowledge is
absolutely desirable but it is not the goal, the goal is total guidance. We
may have a lot of knowledge about Quran, fiqh etc but it is very
possible we may not have guidance; we can retain the knowledge, but
cannot retain guidance unless we ask for it. Even knowledge sometimes
leads to arrogance, if we do not have guidance. Knowledge alone
cannot guide us to the right path. We may be Muslims, but not
necessarily guided. Abu Lahab and Abu Jahal knew Quran very well,
that was reveled in their language and its explanation came to them
none other than prophet himself, so they had knowledge but no
guidance so what happened to them?
Although we need guidance from Allah on every aspect of our life, but
there are 5 major conflict exists throughout the human race. We as
humans with our intellect and all the resources and advancement of
science cannot decide and resolve these conflicts without divine
guidance. These are;
1. Relationship and rights between men and women.
2. Relationship and rights between capital and labor.
3. Relationship and rights between government and people.
4. Distribution of inheritance to the survivors.
5. Internal conflict between body and soul (Conscious and
temptations, greed and justice , spiritual need and physical needs
Every entity in the above subject matter will try to suppress others
rights and take full favor to themselves if they have the power to do so.
To resolve this conflict, so that everybody is provided their fair share of
rights and nobody oppresses the other, we have no choice but to ask
guidance with our Rabb, who not only created us and knows our
strength, weaknesses and every body’s need, but He is also wise and
fair to His entire creation.
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 Ayah 6
The straight path of those, who you already made this path easy
and showered them with your favors.
Explanation: After asking for guidance to the straight past, we need
examples of people who Allah favored, remember this is past tense, so
our role models are the ones who are gone not the present ones. In
other words we are asking Allah’s guidance for straight path in our
present life but looking for past people. And those people are prophets,
the sincere and steadfast affirmers of truth (Siddiqeen), the martyrs
and the righteous (Salaheen). These people made efforts and Allah
guided them to straight path (effort and result).

Ayah 7
Not the people who received anger and rage and also the ones
who are lost.
Explanation: Allah is telling us that we do not want to be associated at
all with these two groups of people. The first category of people Allah is
so angry that He did not even want to mention His name alongside
them, but just said they received anger, also means not only they
receive anger and rage from Allah but also from other creation,
because they misled other people too. These are the people who
knowingly denied the truth. Second group of people are those who are
lost, means they did not want to find the truth. Remember this is in a
noun (timeless) sentence in Arabic, means these groups of people were
there before and are still present. So we do not want to become any of
those groups.
As a case study Prophet (SAW) describes these two groups of people as
Jews and Christians. Jews knew the whole truth in their books about
final testament (Quran) and final Messenger prophet Muhammad
(SAW), but knowingly denied the truth. On the other hand Christians
never tried to find the truth, although guidance came to them and just
followed their whim about Allah and Jesus (PBUH). Prophet is talking
about Jews and Christian’s behavior that are mentioned in Quran. He is
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not talking about persons or labeling people, but as a matter of fact
anybody who knows and finds the truth and then reject it or anybody
does not want to find the truth belongs to these categories. Here Allah
closed the loophole of getting guidance, that if you know the truth and
deny it, you are guilty. But you cannot be excused that you are lost,
because if you do not know then learn to find the truth. No excuse of
not knowing.

This Surah is a complete balance;

1) The Word “HAMD” balances between Allah’s praise and gratitude.
2) Ar- Rahman and Ar-Raheem balances with Master of the Day of
Judgment, so people cannot take advantage of His Mercy.
3) First three Ayahs are about Allah, 4th between us and Allah and
last three about us, a perfect balance.
4) First three Ayahs are noun in Arabic grammar, means permanent.
These describe Allah which is permanent. 4th Ayah is verb and
noun, means temporary and permanent, it talks about both us
and Allah, so we are temporary and Allah is permanent. The last
three Ayahs describe about us, which are verb in Arabic grammar,
which is temporary and we are temporary. A perfect balance in
grammatical form.
5) First three Ayahs are about knowledge (Who is Allah?), 4th Ayah
about action (declare our slavery and asking help to fulfill our
commitment), 5th Ayah, we want to be people who were on
straight path (they had both knowledge and action), 6th Ayah, we
do not want to be those who received anger (they have
knowledge, but no action) and the 7th Ayah, we also do not want
to be those who are lost (action without knowledge). The whole
surah is a perfect balance between knowledge and action.

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 6) First Surah in Quran is Surah Fatiha, the last Surah is Surah An-
Nas,
a) Surah Fatiha begins with positive, Praise to Allah, Last Surah
begins with negative, refuge from Allah
b) First Surah we say Allah is Master of the nations, in last Surah
we say Master of the people.
c) First Surah we say King of the Day of Judgment, last Surah we
say King of people.
d) First Surah we say, we are ready to worship you (declare our
faith, there is no God but Allah), last Surah we say Lord of the
people.
e) First Surah we say keep us to the straight path and save from
two groups of people, those who receive anger and are lost. In
the last Surah we say save us from bad influence inside me
from two groups, bad Jinns and people.
A perfect balance and connection from beginning and end of
Quran
Subhan Allah who can reveal a Surah with perfect balance like
this?

Conclusion
This Surah begins with the introduction of Allah. When we recognize
Him, His power and attributes then we understood why we should
praise and thank Him. Based on the above fact we declare our
unconditional slavery to our Master. We then asked His guidance in
every step of our life, asked Him to make us from those passed people
who He showered His favors and not those who received anger and

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rage and also who are lost. To reply to this asking of guidance, Allah
said here is My instruction (The Quran).
It is not coincidence that the first words from Quran right after this
Surah are (ALIF-LAM MEEM, This is the book in which there is no
doubt. (Since its author, Allah, the creator of the universe, possesses
complete and perfect knowledge, there is no room for doubt about its
contents.) It is guidance for the God conscious (who not only ask for
guidance but are also desirous of it.)
It is also to be noted that Allah taught us a beautiful prayer “Say, our
Rabb, let our heart not deviate after You have guided us and grant us
from Yourself mercy. Indeed You are the grantor of bounties without
measure. [Al-Imran, Ayah 8]. This also tells us that one should not be
content that he got guidance, keep asking and working for guidance
throughout your life.
Note: As we ask Allah for guidance again and again, but remember
there can be no guidance for three kinds of people.
1) Who are not grateful to Allah
2) Who are not willing to accept slavery to Allah.
3) Who do not have sense of justice (Selfish).
Allah in Quran talks little about knowledge, but a lot about thinking.
Knowledge without thinking and pondering is no use. For example we
all know and believe in the Day of Judgment or we are slave of Allah,
but do we think what it means to be slave of Allah 24/7 or what kind
of accountability we have to give to Allah on the Day of Judgment?
Without this thinking our lives will not change.

May Allah give us the ability to understand this Surah and ask for His
guidance all the time. Ameen!

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