You can download it here: first is an updated explanation in text, and the one below it is a brief one-page summary + a Quranic Architecture chart for illustration:
This is a shortened version of the original that may help assimilate the idea (which can get very complex the more details you include). Photo of Al-Fatiha’s structure is below.
The number 19 is, for a number, relatively famous (or perhaps infamous) as a Quranic number, but is mentioned in the Quran (74:30) and is a factor of the number of suras in the Quran, 114 = 6 x 19. The number 9.5 is not known to be significant, but revealed a significance while studying the metaphor of the chambered nautilus and its significance in the Quran. That is explained elsewhere on this blog, but I will flesh it out separately here. The numbers 9.5 and 19 are formative elements in the design of Quranic Architecture as discussed on this blog. In its calendric architecture, the Quran is divided into 12 months for each “year,” or each complete turn of the spiral. For 114 suras, there are 9.5 years, expressed by an equation: 114 ➗ 12 = 9.5. Then when we multiply 9.5 x 2 = 19, we can ask the question “is there any significance to this equation in terms of the meaning of the Quran?” And the answer is a resounding YES! Explained below:
Continue reading
There is no dispute that the Basmalah contains the first words one reads in the Quran, and in that sense one could consider it the gateway into the Quran. Similarly, as the “opening” to the Quran, most graphically illustrated in the “nautilus shell” architecture discussed on this site, Al-Fatiha (the first sura whose name literally means “opening”) is our point of entry into the Quran, establishing its perimeters, in particular the primacy of salat, of connecting to Allah the Exalted. But it also symbolizes the gate to paradise as is mentioned in three ayat discussed below. Because of course, the Quran is our guide to how to get through the coming catastrophe of Al-Akhira to the ultimate success that transcends the tests and suffering of our brief mortal existence.
Continue reading
This sounds counterintuitive, but while discussing the nature of “conquest” in the Quran in my previous post, it occurred to me the root-word connection between fat’h meaning “conquest” and “Al-Fatiha” — the name of the Quran’s first sura — meaning “the opening,” has implications for the first sura itself. In that post I noted how the fact that both words share a root affects the understanding of of the word “conquest” to have a different nuance to it than the English definition and sense of “conquest” as being more of an “opening” in the conflict than merely a subjugation or advantage that often lends to the winner oppressing the loser. But could that same sort of victory or opening in a conflict also deepen our understanding of Al-Fatiha?
Continue reading
Despite the Basmalah (pictured above) being the first aya of Surat Al-Fatiha in most printed copies of the Quran including those printed in Saudi Arabia (a copy of the Quran in writing being called a mus’haf not a Quran), there are Muslims, especially of the Hanafi and Hanbali schools of the Sunnis, who believe the first numbered verse of Al-Fatiha to be not the Basmalah but instead what is aya 2 in its most commonly printed text meaning “Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all worlds!” (Pictured below.) We shall discuss the differences of opinion and examine the implications of each.
An ancient method of literary writing that has (relatively) recently been re-discovered in t ancient and religious texts is Ring Composition, a form of mirror writing called chiasmus, described by the anthropologist and scholar Mary Douglas in her book Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition (Yale University Press, 2010) as essentially “a framing device” wherein the first section of a text corresponds in some clearly evident way with the last section, and the middle sections form a mirror pattern around a middle section which is also the central idea or turning point for the entire text. The mirror pattern can be described as ABCBA, expandable to more or fewer (at minimum 3) sections as needed with a center section “C”. This website gives an excellent example from the Quran, analyzing Surat Al-Baqara (the Cow) as well as significant subsections of it, including the famous Ayat al-Kursi (2:255). But for this post I will analyze Surat Al-Fatiha in Ring Composition, which provides evidence of two things: that the first numbered aya must be the Bismallah, which precedes all other Surahs except the 9th (“Repentance”) without being numbered; and that the two great attribute names for Allah the Exalted, Al-Rahman (The Almighty), Al-Raheem (The All-Merciful) express the two polarities of Power/ Yang and Mercy/ Receptivity/ Yin. Below is a graphic of this analysis:
When most people think of “Islamic prayer,” they picture rows of worshippers bowing and prostrating in unison, usually inside a mosque, facing Mecca (Makkah). But the act of worship pictured is salat, a specific act of worship with geophysical as well as body-language physical protocols, requiring a ritual ablution, preferably in water, prior to its performance. The word du’a, on the other hand, is equivalent in meaning to the English word “prayer,” which is simply “supplication.” To refer to salat as “prayer” is convenient, because there is no English equivalent, but inaccurate. Continue reading
Continuing from Day 1 of Ramadan with al-Fatiha, we shall begin to look at the structure of this Sura, guided by its unique significance and characteristics.
Continue reading
The first Sura of the Qur’an is al-Fatiha, or “the Opening.” It is short, consisting of 30 words arranged in seven ayat. Note the word for “verse,” when referring to the Qur’an, is aya (singular) or ayat (plural), and means “sign” or “signs.” This also carries the sense of “miracle” as it does in English. Continue reading
114 Chambers 