#214 - al-Fatihah part 1

In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful.

Assalamualaikum wbt. 

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It's 6:09am right now. I have a clinical class about tuberculosis in about 2 hours from now. Anyway, it's not TB that I wanna talk about.

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Have I ever told you that my house here is called Fatihah w Lodzi? It is wrong grammatically because it comprises of two different languages. 'Fatihah' (arabic) which..you know what it means right? And 'w Lodzi' (polish) which means 'in Lodz'. So basically, we (me, Pidah, Fadh, Yuyu) thought about us being the first batch to be sent to Lodz (little did we know at that time that we are not just the first, but also the only), and Fatihah just seemed like an appropriate name.

And it still is appropriate despite the grammatical error. I so love my Fatihah w Lodzi and the people inside it! ^^

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Just like the first surah in the holy al-Quran, al-Fatihah. It is the first surah, the opening to another 113 surahs to come. It is not only the first, but it is also such a special surah that without this surah, none of our solat will be accepted. Why is it so special, that we recite it at least 17x/day?

Here's one of the many reasons.

Al-Bayhaqi quotes al-Hasan who said, "It (al-Fatihah) sums up the Quran."

Whoever understands the real meaning of Al-Fatihah will understand his/her purpose of life, I shall say. Understanding, not as in the literal translation from verse 1 to verse 7. But understand why Allah started the surah with basmalah, then alhamdulillah and ended it with wa ladhallin. (forgive my roman spelling for the arabic words) Understanding why was this word was used instead of that, why did this word come first before that etc etc. If you understand it, I believe we will have a different feeling when reciting it in our solat.

InsyaAllah, whatever I know, I shall share it here. So that whatever I know, everyone who reads this will also know. 

I believe that most of you (if not all) already remember the literal translation of al-Fatihah. If you don't, here's for you. [Makna Surah al-Fatihah] InsyaAllah for my next post, I'd like to share what I understand from the surah. So that we will be able to have the appropriate feeling when reciting it. This should be a very special surah to us, that's why we read it everyday. 

But for now, take some time to think. Why is al-Fatihah so special? Why is it that this is the surah chosen to be recited in the solat? We memorized it since we were a mere 6-year-old, do we really understand what it wants to tell us after all this years?