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===The Basmala=== | ===The Basmala=== | ||
The Islamic bismillah, "In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful" (Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem), is recited before the start of each surah | The Islamic bismillah, "In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful" (Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem), is recited before the start of each surah and begins the al-Fatiha prayer. Within the surahs themselves, it occurs once only, in {{Quran|27|30}}. | ||
In 2018 the first known pre-Islamic Basmala inscription was found on the side of a cliff in Yemen, reading "In the name of Allah, Rahman; Rahman lord of the heavens". Writing about the discovery, Ahmad al-Jallad, who is renowned for his work on the languages and writing systems of pre-Islamic Arabia, observes that Al-Rahman was originally a distinct deity to Allah, and not a descriptor of him. Maslamah, a Yemenite rival prophet to Muhammad, worshipped al-Rahman, the deity of ancient Himyar. Al-Jallad proposes that the basmala was used to synchronize the two monotheistic poles of Arabia, Allah in the north (where other deities completely disappear from the epigraphic record by the sixth century CE) with al-Rahman in the South. This equivalence was probably introduced during the Himyarite northward excursions in the sixth century. This regional difference is echoed in {{Quran|17|110}}. Ar-Raheem (the merciful) would then be an Islamic innovation appended to al-Rahman of the pre-Islamic Basmala which by then had come to represent an adjective describing Allah. | In 2018 the first known pre-Islamic Basmala inscription was found on the side of a cliff in Yemen, reading "In the name of Allah, Rahman; Rahman lord of the heavens". Writing about the discovery, Ahmad al-Jallad, who is renowned for his work on the languages and writing systems of pre-Islamic Arabia, observes that Al-Rahman was originally a distinct deity to Allah, and not a descriptor of him. Maslamah, a Yemenite rival prophet to Muhammad, worshipped al-Rahman, the deity of ancient Himyar. Al-Jallad proposes that the basmala was used to synchronize the two monotheistic poles of Arabia, Allah in the north (where other deities completely disappear from the epigraphic record by the sixth century CE) with al-Rahman in the South. This equivalence was probably introduced during the Himyarite northward excursions in the sixth century. This regional difference is echoed in {{Quran|17|110}}. Ar-Raheem (the merciful) would then be an Islamic innovation appended to al-Rahman of the pre-Islamic Basmala which by then had come to represent an adjective describing Allah. | ||