Commentary

The Book opens with a letter before it opens with a word. The bāʾ is in Arabic a particle whose senses do not let themselves be counted; the best known are the gluing, the seeking of aid, the accompanying and the cause. And in its written shape it is a dot set under the belly of a vessel open upward, as though it were the first thing to receive. So when the first verse opens the Book with a b, it announces, before saying anything at all: what follows does not come from the reader's own self, it is glued to the raised name, it leans on it, it keeps it company. Whoever begins with the basmala before every act learns from the first letter to attach himself to what is above him.

And so the reader goes down, inside the basmala, from the whole toward the part: a Book whose key is al-Fātiḥa, a Fātiḥa whose key is the basmala, a basmala whose key is the bāʾ. And it is the bāʾ that clings to the name; the human then becomes one who clings to what the name clings to.

Arabic knows a fine difference between wasm and ism. A wasm is a mark applied from outside onto the surface of a thing, as the iron marks the camel. An ism, on the root s-m-w, is a mark that rises above the thing and raises the thing with it, and that points to it from above. The sky (samāʾ) comes from the same root, and elevation (sumūw) as well. "The name of Allah" is therefore not an adhesive laid from outside upon His own Self, but a raised mark by which the heart makes its way toward what does not let itself be enclosed.

From this comes the Arabic turn of phrase "a name was raised for him", whose sense is: his mention was lifted. And the one named, in this usage, is higher than the name: the name is a sign that falls short, and no speech and no tracing shuts the named one in. The basmala, opening upon "by the name", therefore acknowledges first that what is named is what none is able to enclose; a mark is raised for it instead, a mark by which passage is asked, and the mark is kept company so that it keeps company in return. And al-Baqara utters this sense without detour: ﴿وَلَا يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيْءٍ مِّنْ عِلْمِهِ إِلَّا بِمَا شَاءَ﴾. The name is raised, and the enclosing is refused.

R-ḥ-m is a single root whose axis is the living containment. From it comes al-raḥim, the womb: the organ that holds what is carried, feeds it and shields it, and does not part from it until it is complete. From it comes also al-raḥma in its Arabic sense: an enveloping that shields and makes grow, and not a pity come from above that gives and then withdraws. And Arabic names close kin by "those of one womb" (ūlū al-arḥām): those whom a single womb gathers, upon whom a standing bond therefore falls.

Al-Raḥmān follows the pattern faʿlān, which indicates in Arabic the filling and the amplitude in one single embracing act (as ghaḍbān, shabʿān, ʿaṭshān: a being filled with a state). The All-Enveloping in Mercy is therefore the ample in mercy, in one overflow that reaches every creature, whether it has given its trust or not, animal or inert, since all live in the lap of that mercy. And al-Raḥīm follows the pattern faʿīl, the pattern of what is settled and renews itself (as karīm, ʿalīm, ḥakīm). The Ever-Merciful is therefore the lasting in mercy, in a nearness that comes down upon whoever has opened his heart to the listening.

This is why the Book sets the two names one behind the other: the first an amplitude that excepts no one, the second a nearness that keeps to its own. And the reader stands between the two: he enters first a lap that does not drive him out, then, if he holds to the listening, a nearer quality stays upon him.

And these two forms do not come back together in the whole of al-Baqara except once: ﴿وَإِلَٰهُكُمْ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ ۖ لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الرَّحْمَٰنُ الرَّحِيمُ﴾. It is as though the long Surah had been built to reach, midway through its course, the saying again of that with which the Book opened: the oneness comes back to settle in the same lap. The amplitude first, then the nearness, then: no god but He.

And when al-Baqara mentions the Ever-Merciful alone, it mentions Him at the instant of the return: ﴿فَتَلَقَّىٰ آدَمُ مِن رَّبِّهِ كَلِمَاتٍ فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ﴾. The Ever-Merciful here is the One who lasted over Adam after the fall. The basmala promises, and al-Baqara confirms: the amplitude takes you in when you had gone out, and the nearness comes down upon you when you have come back.

Had the Book opened directly upon the Named, the reader would have found himself summoned to enclose. But the bāʾ places him in the position of the one who follows and not of the one who encloses: "by the name" means in the company of a raised mark, and not in the claim of a complete knowledge. Then come two of His most beautiful names, which say that the One for whom this name is raised neither frightens nor casts out: He is an ample mercy before every thing, and a lasting mercy at every instant.

The basmala, before it is a formula of blessing, is a door of entry into the reading: none reads the book of mercy who has not come in by the door of mercy. And whoever opened the Book at another entrance read its letters without the letters having read him.

The Book opens itself upon a letter before it opens upon a name: the bāʾ glues itself to what follows and puts the reader in the position of the one who follows, not of the one who encloses, so that the one who enters the Book is the one who claims no encompassing of what is in it. Then comes the name, and not the Named directly: a raised mark, drawn from the rising and not from the stuck brand, pointing to that upon which no enclosing settles. And after the gathering name, Allah, come two names drawn from the root of the womb: the All-Enveloping on the pattern faʿlān, in one single overflow that reaches every creature, and the Ever-Merciful on the pattern faʿīl, in a settled nearness that renews itself upon those who listen. Four steps in one breath: an attachment, then a raised mark, then an amplitude that holds, then a nearness that lasts. This is the threshold of the Book: its pages are read only by the one who came in through this door, clung to the name, raised it above the reader's own self, entered a lap that does not drive out, and over whom a descending nearness lasts.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first keeps the familiar opening in place; the second recovers what the letters and the root already say before any inherited term settles on them. This book chooses the additional listening.

Commentary

Arabic separates al-ḥamd from al-shukr by a fine shade that translation loses. Shukr is the praise of a benefit fallen upon the one who gives thanks; it is said only in the face of a precise gift, and that is why it runs from a human to a human. Ḥamd is the praise of what deserves to be praised for itself, whether a gift has reached the one who praises or not. The generous one is praised for his generosity itself even when nothing has been received from him. Hence the definite article fixed in the word: al-ḥamd, and not an indefinite ḥamd; that is to say, the whole class, every praise to which the name of ḥamd truly belongs, comes by right to this Name.

And Arabic usage keeps the distinction: one says "I made the ḥamd of so and so" when praising his dispositions, and "I thanked him" when recalling his benefit. The basmala began with the All-Enveloping and the Ever-Merciful, two qualities of giving; the verse that follows brings the reader into ḥamd, wider than thanks, since it takes in the praise of what has not been seen of the creation, and the unseen there far exceeds the seen.

Rabb is most often rendered "Lord", and the rendering keeps the authority and loses the growing. The root of rabb (r-b-b) is the root of "rabba the child": he made him grow and led him from suckling to walking and then to speech; and of "rabba the plant": he followed it until it stood up straight. The Arabic word for the one who brings up, murabbī, comes from the same root. The rabb is therefore the one who takes the creature from its seed to its completion, and not only the one who owns it and disposes of it from outside.

From this comes the difference, in Arabic, between al-ilāh and al-rabb: al-ilāh is the one who is served, al-rabb is the one who brings into being and makes grow. The verse chooses here al-rabb and not al-ilāh: it sets out first the image of the One who creates and takes care of the creation as one who brings up takes care, before asking service of it. This order has its sense: before the reader is called to serve, he is reminded that he is himself one who is brought up, carried in the lap of a growing under way.

Al-rabb is likewise distinct from al-malik, the king. The king disposes of his subjects by the fact of power: he commands and forbids, he judges and decides, and it is all one to him whether he takes care of the one under his hand or not. The rabb stands to his creature by growing and not by power: he is rabb only by leading the one in his charge from the seed to his fullness. This is why sūrat al-Nās, at the closing of the Book, gathers the three names in a deliberate order: ﴿بِرَبِّ النَّاسِ ۝ مَلِكِ النَّاسِ ۝ إِلَٰهِ النَّاسِ﴾. It begins with the rabb, for the growing that stays close comes before every thing; then kingship is mentioned in the sense of the full authority; then what belongs to the One who is served. And al-Fātiḥa opens the Book with the first of the three: before a power that is feared, and before a served One before whom one goes down, comes a rabb with whom the creation grows.

And when al-Baqara opens the door of the call addressed to people, it takes up this very quality before any command: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ اعْبُدُوا رَبَّكُمُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُمْ﴾. It is not said "serve your ilāh", but "your rabb"; and the reason for it is given by "who created you", which ties the service to the growing and not to the power. Al-Fātiḥa announces who He is, and al-Baqara turns the announcement into a call.

The word by which the Book opens its door is no prisoner of Arabic. The sound nucleus R-B runs in neighbouring Semitic tongues carrying the same sense: the one who holds and takes in charge what is under him, and makes it grow. In Arabic, rabb, who leads the one in his charge from the seed to the completion. In Hebrew, rav (רַב), the great one, who stands over the assembly by enveloping it, whence rabbi (רַבִּי), "my master", the word by which the Jewish master of a house of study is called. And in Aramaic, rabbā (ܪܒܐ), the great one in the sense of the ample in taking and in holding. A single sound skeleton, R-B, which the tongues carry with a steady nucleus: the one who holds and multiplies what he has held.

The English reader has known the word rabbi since childhood: the Jewish master in his community, who stays beside his students and makes them grow. And when he turns toward al-Fātiḥa and hears "the rabb of the worlds", he hears the same word widened to its furthest: not the master of an assembly, but the one who makes whole worlds grow. The difference between the human and the divine is not in the word, it is in the span of what the word holds. The human rabb holds his circle; the divine Rabb holds every world. The nucleus is one, the amplitude differs.

There is in this what enriches the received English rendering. Lord is a feudal word: the master under whom land and subjects are gathered by the fact of rank, distant, standing over, and nothing grows with him. But rabb carries in its root the clinging and the keeping close: the rabb is knotted to the one in his charge, he runs with him in his growing. And whoever has heard the word through rabbi has heard its nearest face: the master who is with, and not the master who is above.

The word crosses the tongues of humans, and its meaning stays fixed in its sound skeleton. What the master is called in a Jewish house of study is the very root by which the Book opens the growing of the worlds.

Al-ʿālam is in Arabic neither "the universe" nor "nature": it is what bears a mark. Its root is ʿ-l-m, root at once of al-ʿilm, the knowing, and of al-ʿalāma, the mark. A ʿālam is that by which a thing lets itself be known, what carries an indication of what is greater than it. And Arabic says "I set a mark upon the thing" when a sign is put on it that tells it apart. A world, in this sense, is a being that carries within itself a mark pointing to the one who made it.

And the plural, "the worlds", does not fall back upon a single world but upon many worlds: the world of humans, that of the jinn, that of the angels, that of the beasts, that of the inert, and worlds that none numbers but their Creator. Each of them is a sign standing on its own, and carries of the workmanship what belongs to it. And all of them come in under a single growing: the one who makes grow leaves nothing without leading it to the completion that befits it.

And al-Fātiḥa proclaims this quality in the tongue of the Book, while al-Baqara sets it out in the tongue of one single human. Commanded by his rabb to hand himself over, Ibrāhīm answered with no name of a group, neither one who trusts (muʾmin) nor one who hands himself over (muslim): he said ﴿أَسْلَمْتُ لِرَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ﴾, "I have handed myself over to the One who makes the worlds grow". The very word with which the Book opened comes out of the mouth of a human as an answer that carries his identity. Al-Fātiḥa says who the rabb is; al-Baqara shows what it means, for a human, to hand himself over to Him. The word precedes the term, and the role of the one who hands himself over precedes his name.

The verse raises an order in three moments: first the ḥamd, a settled recognition of a desert; then the Name at which it arrives, Allah; then the quality that ties the Name to the creation, rabb of the worlds. The order therefore does not set out from the one who serves toward the One who is served, but from what comes by right to the One who is served toward the whole creation. In this verse the reader does not yet speak of himself; he stands in the position of one who listens before entering. He will enter at the fifth verse, when he says: "You alone we serve, and You alone we turn to for help."

And in this order there is a great bearing: whoever would call upon the One who makes him grow will begin with the praise that asks for no gift, then with the mention of the Name, then with the mention of the quality of growing; the request comes only afterward. Al-Fātiḥa teaches in this way the whole bearing of the call in seven verses: three of praise, one in which the bond is knotted, three of request. And when al-Baqara closes itself upon the call ﴿رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذْنَا إِن نَّسِينَا أَوْ أَخْطَأْنَا﴾, it comes back to the name by which al-Fātiḥa had opened: a thousand pages of legislation, of accounts and of human dealings, and then the last word comes down upon "our rabb". The whole Book turns in the orbit of this name.

The first utterance of the Book after the threshold is not a piece of news about the human, but the recognition of what is higher than him. Ḥamd is a praise that demands no counterpart, and it parts from shukr, which answers a gift received: ḥamd knots itself upon what deserves esteem for itself. Then every praise is rendered to the name of Allah, so that the whole of the praise arrives at a single centre. Then comes "the rabb of the worlds": not the master who stands over by rank, but the one who makes grow and carries his creature from the seed to the completion; and the root r-b-b crosses the Arabic tongue toward neighbouring Semitic tongues (rav, rabbi, rabbā): a single sound nucleus, carrying the sense of the one who holds and takes in charge what is under him. And the worlds, in the root ʿ-l-m, are many worlds, each carrying a mark that points to the one who made it. The verse therefore gives the reader a frame before asking anything of him: before he says "I", he listens to a rabb who grows with every being in every world.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first holds the verse in a familiar register; the second returns each word to what its root is already saying. This book chooses the additional listening.

Commentary

The Book repeats nothing at random. In the basmala, "the All-Enveloping in Mercy, the Ever-Merciful" named the Name in its two names, before any meeting at all. Here the same two words name the nurturing in its two names. The basmala said: the Name itself is a wide mercy and a lasting mercy. The third verse completes the sentence: and the nurturing He sends down upon the worlds comes out of these two names, not from anywhere outside them.

And the repetition here is not merely a verbal support: its place changes its work. The two names pass from qualifying the Name, in the basmala, to qualifying the nurturing, here, and then, in the verse that follows, to qualifying the holding. Three rungs, and all of them under one roof of mercy.

"The All-Enveloping in Mercy," al-Raḥmān, is a width that excepts nothing: it covers every one of the worlds just named, and mercy reaches a being by the sheer fact that it is a being, with no condition of merit set to measure it. "The Ever-Merciful," al-Raḥīm, is a duration that reserves itself: it holds upon the one who has opened his heart to listening, and that one finds that mercy does not come once and then turn away, but renews itself.

And in the whole of al-Baqara this pair returns joined in one place only: ﴿وَإِلَٰهُكُمْ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الرَّحْمَٰنُ الرَّحِيمُ﴾, "and your object of worship is one object of worship, there is no object of worship but He, the All-Enveloping in Mercy, the Ever-Merciful." The declaration of oneness, in the longest surah of the Book, seals itself on the two words of the Fātiḥa's third verse, letter for letter. It is as though al-Baqara returned to these two qualities to confirm what the Fātiḥa had said: no object of worship but He, and these two qualities are the door one enters by.

And the placing of these two names before the verse of reckoning that follows is meant: mercy is named twice before reckoning is named once, so the reader who listens knows that what comes next does not undo what came before.

The divine names in the Fātiḥa are not heard as a list of attributes but as a building that rises rung by rung. The first verse set the Name in width and in duration. The second put acknowledgment in its place and tied the Name to the worlds. The third says: and this bond is not the bond of a distant king, it is a womb that contains and that lasts. The reader who has reached this far has entered three handholds: a name raised, an acknowledgment that comes back as a due, and a mercy that stays. Only after these three can he hear what there is in the Book of reckoning, and only then can he say "You alone we serve."

And al-Baqara does not stop calling up "the Ever-Merciful" at the places of turning back and beginning again, joined to the One who receives the return: ﴿إِنَّهُ هُوَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ﴾, "He is the One who keeps turning back, the Ever-Merciful," and ﴿إِنَّكَ أَنتَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ﴾, "You are the One who keeps turning back, the Ever-Merciful." The very root by which the Fātiḥa opened, r-ḥ-m, returns where there is acceptance after the stumble. The Fātiḥa opens the door, and al-Baqara shows the reader where this same name does its work.

The same wording returns from the basmala, but its place changes its work: there, a quality of the Name before any meeting; here, a quality of the nurturing, once the worlds have been named. The One who nurtures the worlds does not follow what He created with the hardness of a distant owner, but with a width that contains and a duration that comes down upon the one who listens. And that mercy is named twice before the verse of reckoning that follows is a silent saying held in the order itself: with this rabb, mercy comes before the sentence.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first preserves the repetition as emphasis; the second listens for what the new position does. This book chooses the additional listening.