Sūrat al-Fātiḥah and Sūrat al-Baqarah (Part 2)
Final part of observations on how the contents of Sūrah al-Fātiḥah lead into Sūrah al-Baqarah
Last week we observed how the themes of Sūrah al-Fātiḥah feed directly into the beginning passage of Sūrah al-Baqarah. This week we’re going to resume our observations on how the subject matter of Sūrah al-Fātiḥah continues to overlap with the beginning of Sūrah al-Baqarah.
But in order to do that, and to fully appreciate the discussions within al-Baqarah and how they are related, it is important to bear its historical context in mind.
Historical Background
Most of the sūrah was revealed over the course of the first year and a half of the Medinan period, after the Messenger’s migration to Medina in the summer of 622 and before the Battle of Badr in March 624. Most of the inhabitants of Medina had embraced the message of Islam, and they had invited the Messenger ﷺ and his followers in Mecca to come settle in their city.
As a result, in Medina, the Muslims no longer remained a small, persecuted minority, but became an autonomous community independent from the Quraysh of Mecca, regulated by the Quranic revelations, and with the Messenger ﷺ as their political and judicial head. Moreover, they entered into a pact or covenant of solidarity with the city’s Jewish tribes, which stipulated that in the event of an outside attack, they would all fight as one for the common defense.
The Medinan period was not without serious challenges, however. Despite the pact, the leaders of the Jewish tribes became increasingly antagonistic towards the Messenger ﷺ and the Muslim community, resulting in deep political and religious tensions. Along with members of the Jewish tribes, there were insincere converts within the Muslim community - especially former political or tribal leaders - who attempted to undermine the authority of the Messenger ﷺ and the unity of the Medinan society.
Moreover, the need for a unified and disciplined community was becoming increasingly urgent, as the Quraysh continued to be a hostile force and the prospect of war with the far more powerful pagan tribe was becoming imminent. Sūrah al-Baqarah was revealed to address these audiences and circumstances.
Sūrah al-Fātiḥah to Sūrah al-Baqarah
We have seen that the second half of Sūrah al-Fātiḥah is a prayer by the worshiper requesting guidance: “Ihdi-nā (Guide us) along the Straight Path” (1:5). This dovetails with Sūrah al-Baqarah which opens, “This is the Scripture concerning which there is no doubt, hudā (guidance) for the God-conscious” (2:2). The rest of the Quran is thus presented as the answer to the prayer for guidance.
We have also seen that Sūrah al-Fātiḥah concludes by classifying people into three groups with respect to guidance (the transliteration is being provided to demonstrate Arabic parallels later):
Those whom Allah ﷻ has guided - “Ihdi-nā (Guide us) along the Straight Path, the Path of those you favored” (1:5-6)
“al-maghḍūbi ʿalay-him (Those who have earned anger)” (1:7)
“aḍ-ḍāllīn (The astray)” (1:7)
Similarly, al-Baqarah opens mentioning three groups of people with respect to guidance:
“The God-conscious”;
“alladhīna kafarū (those who disbelieve)”;
The pseudo-believers (also known as “the hypocrites”)
The three groups mentioned at the end of al-Fātiḥah correlate with the three groups mentioned in the beginning of al-Baqarah:
The first group mentioned in al-Baqarah, “the God-conscious,” are described as being “on hudā (guidance) from their Master” (2:5), thus identifying them with the first group in al-Fātiḥah, those who are guided along the Straight Path.
Concerning the second group in al-Baqarah, “alladhīna kafarū (those who disbelieve),” a later āyah in the sūrah says of them, “How evil is that which they sold themselves, that they would disbelieve (yakfurūna) in what Allah sent down… They have earned anger upon anger (bi-ghaḍabin ʿalā ghaḍab), and the disbelievers (al-kāfirīna) will have a humiliating punishment” (2:90). Hence they are tied to the second group in al-Fātiḥah, “al-maghḍūbi ʿalay-him (Those who have earned anger)”.
Finally, the third group in al-Baqarah, the pseudo-believers, are described as having “purchased error (aḍ-ḍalālah) in exchange for guidance” (2:16), and are therefore included in the third group in al-Fātiḥah, “the astray” or “those lost in error” (aḍ-ḍāllīn).
Additionally, every term that occurs in the first-second-person address in al-Fātiḥah has one or more parallels in al-Baqarah (click to zoom in):
Finally, not only is al-Baqarah immediately preceded by a prayer by believers in the first-person plural (“we”) to Allah ﷻ in the second-person (“You”) (1:4-7), it also concludes with such a prayer:
سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا ۖ غُفْرَانَكَ رَبَّنَا وَإِلَيْكَ الْمَصِيرُ …رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذْنَا إِن نَّسِينَا أَوْ أَخْطَأْنَا ۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحْمِلْ عَلَيْنَا إِصْرًا كَمَا حَمَلْتَهُ عَلَى الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِنَا ۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلْنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِ ۖ وَاعْفُ عَنَّا وَاغْفِرْ لَنَا وَارْحَمْنَا ۚ أَنتَ مَوْلَانَا فَانصُرْنَا عَلَى الْقَوْمِ الْكَافِرِينَ
"We hear and we obey. Grant us Your forgiveness, our Master. To You we all return." …"Our Master, do not take us to task if we forget or erred. Our Master, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Our Lord, and do not burden us with that which we have no ability to bear. And pardon us; and forgive us; and have mercy upon us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelieving people." (2:285-286)
The believers’ prayer to Allah ﷻ not to “burden us as You have burdened those before us” is an allusion to the Israelites, who were the previous religious community to be given a divine law, but failed to live up to its mandates. This parallels the believers’ prayer in al-Fātiḥah that Allah ﷻ not let them be among “those who have earned anger, nor of the astray.”
The relationship between al-Fātiḥah and the concluding prayer of al-Baqarah is mentioned in a hadīth (narration of the Messenger ﷺ). It states that once, while the Archangel Gabriel was accompanying the Messenger ﷺ, a gate opened in heaven that had never been opened before, and an angel descended from it. The angel delivered the following message to the Messenger ﷺ: “Rejoice in the good news of two lights given to you, the like of which has not been given to any prophet before you: the Opening (al-Fātiḥah) of the Scripture, and the concluding āyāt of al-Baqarah. You will never recite a word from them without being given the blessings they contain.”
والله أعلم - And Allah knows best
Sources
Ali Khan, Nouman and Sharif Randhawa. Divine Speech: Exploring the Quran as Literature. Bayyinah Institute, 2016.
Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī, Tadabbur-e-Qur’ān: Pondering Over the Qur’ānm Volume 1: Tafsīr of Sūrah al-Fātiḥah and Sūrah al-Baqarah, trans. Mohammad Saleem Kayani (Kual Lampur: Islamic Book Trust, 2006), 526-527
Mustansir Mir, “The Sūra as a Unity: A Twentieth Century Development in Qur’an Exegesis” in Approaches to the Qur’an, eds. G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, eds. (London: Routledge, 1993), 211-224
Robinson, Discovering the Qur’an, 201-223
A. H. Mathias Zahniser, “Major Transitions and Thematic Borders in Two Long Sūras: al-Baqara and al-Nisā’” in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, ed. Issa J. Boulatta (RichmondL Curzon, 2000)
Raymond Farrin, “Surat al-Baqara: A Structural Analysis,” Muslim World 100.1 (2010): 17-32
Nevin Rida El-Tehry, Textual Integrity and Coherence in the Qur’an: Repetition and Narrative Structure in Surat al-Baqara (PhD diss., University of Toronto, Toronto, 2010)
Farrin, Structure and Qur’anic Interpretation, 9-21
The observations shown in the table above come from Neal Robinson, “The Dynamics of the Qur’anic Discourse: Tradition and Redaction” in Bert Broeckaert, Stef Van Den Branden, and Jean-Jacques Perennes (eds.), Perspectives on Islamic Culture: Essays in Honor of Emilio Platti (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 3-18.
Hadith quoted at the end is taken from Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, no. 806