the Bismilláh itself in the form in which it was taught by the Holy Prophet. For so late as the sixth year of Hejira, when a truce was drawn up between the Muslims and the Quraish, Suhail ibn-i-’Amru, on behalf of the Quraish, refused to prefix Bismilláh-ir-Raḥmán-ir-Raḥím to the agreement, saying "I do not know this," and the agreement was therefore headed by Bismika Alláhumma, the form in common use among the Quraish (Tb). That some nations had some such form which they prefixed to their writings cannot be denied, but the mere existence among any other people, as the Jews or the Sabeans or the Zoroastrians, of any expression which they prefixed to their writings does not show that the Holy Prophet had borrowed the idea from here or there. It is in the choice of the words that the real beauty lies, for the real message of Islam was the perfection of religion, and this perfection is made clear in its Bismilláh, in the very first words with which it opens. Islam has never claimed that what it preached was never preached to the world before; on the other hand, it lays claim to purifying and making perfect the old doctrines (5:3). Even the words Bakhsháishgar and Dádár, meaning respectively the Pardoner and the Just, make no approach to the beauty of the two fundamental attributes of love and mercy made manifest in the words Ar—Raḥmán and Ar-Raḥím. The choice of these two attributes of love and mercy as the prime attributes of the Divine Being is sufficient comment on the misstatements of the carpers at Islam, who misrepresent the God of Islam as a Cruel and Wrathful Being.
The Fátiḥah has a special importance as a prayer, being an essential part of every prayer, whether offered in congregation or in private. Its Oft-repeated Seven Verses constitute the prayer for guidance of every Muslim at least thirty-two times a day, and therefore it has a much greater importance for him than the Lord's prayer for a Christian. And there is another difference too. The latter is instructed to pray for the coming of the kingdom of God, whereas the Muslim is instructed to seek for his right place in that kingdom, which had already come, the hint no doubt being that the coming of the Holy Prophet was really the advent of the kingdom of God about whose approach Jesus preached to his followers (Mark 1:15). Thus the prayer is a model prayer taught to the Muslims, and the objection as to the inconsistency of the form of address adopted here with the Divine authorship of the Book vanishes in the light of these facts. The numerous prayers contained in the Holy Qur-án follow the same rule and are never preceded by the word "say" or any other word to that effect. For instance, compare the prayer contained in the concluding verse of the 2nd chapter, and also the prayer contained in 8:7, 8 and 3:190-193 and elsewhere. That a form of prayer or supplication is meant for the supplicant is so clear that any introductory word commanding men to pray in that form would have been superfluous.
Some hostile critics have suggested that such a prayer is suited only for blind and sinful men groping in the dark to find out the way. Surely it is a very distorted view of the sublime words, which express the natural yearning of the sincere soul to be kept on the right way and to be saved from stumbling. The prayer contained in this chapter is the sublimest of all the prayers that exist in any religion, and occupies the first place among all the prayers contained in the Qur-án itself. A chorus of praise has gone forth for it from the greatest detractors of the Holy Qur-án, and they have been compelled to "admire its spirit." The entire chapter is composed of seven verses, the first three of which speak of the four chief Divine attributes, viz. providence, beneficence, mercy, and requital, thus giving expression to the grandeur and praise of the Divine Being, and the last three lay open before the Great Maker the earnest desire of man’s soul to walk in righteousness without stumbling on either side, while the middle one is expressive of man’s entire dependence on Allah. The attributes referred to are those which disclose Allah's all-encompassing beneficence and care, and His unbounded love for all of His creatures, and the ideal to which the soul is made to aspire is the highest to which man can rise, the path of righteousness, the path of grace, and the path in which there is no stumbling. If, on the one hand, the narrow views which addressed the Divine Being as the Lord of a particular nation are swept off before the mention of His equal providence and equal love for all mankind, nay for all the creatures that exist in all the worlds, and the idea of