Al-Fatiha: Difference between revisions

'''1:5''' The words إِيَّاك ('īyāka) and وإِيَّاكَ (wa'īyāka) have no clear translation and no fewer than three variants. Arthur Jeffrey located several Qur'ans with different readings and one without any version of this sura.<ref>Jeffrey, Author, "[http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/fatiha.htm A Variant Text of the Fatiha]"'', The Muslim World'', Volume 29 (1939), pp. 158-162.</ref> One of the variants is the pair حِيَّاك (ḥīyāka) and وإِيَّاكَ (wīyāaka). Jeffrey has stated that "[these] seem all to be independent attempts to interpret the unvoweled, unpointed skeleton term ([[w:rasm |rasm]]) that stood in the original codex." The most likely translation is a 2nd person masculine singular emphatic accusative (emphatic object).

There are several indications that this text was a prayer prepended to the Qur'an, possibly to be recited before reading it. This prayer was almost certainly composed orally before the rest of the Qur'an was put to writing, and it likely changed over time. This prayer may not have been included in the recension that produced the current longest-to-shortest ordering of the suras. When the Qur'an was printed, the exact pronunciation had likely been forgotten, which would explain the ambiguity of 1:5.

Unlike in every other surah of the Qur'an, Allah is referred to in the second person here, instead of the first-person perspective employed through most of the text. The surah's major textual variations sugggest that it was recorded after the period of "revelation." They also suggest that this surah fell into disuse and its pronunciation had to be reconstructed.

This surah additionally violates the longest-to-shortest organization rule, and one variant lacks the[[w:basmala | basmala]], meaning it is unlikely to have originated here.