Sūrah 1 · Āyāt 2–4

Al-Fātiḥa 2–4 — al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-ʿālamīn · al-raḥmāni l-raḥīm · māliki yawmi l-dīn

After the Basmala the servant turns to praise: "Praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the Worlds; the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful; Master of the Day of Judgement." Five of the six sources speak here; Tafsīr al-Qummī is silent for these three verses in the consulted corpus (its material begins at v. 5).

al-Ḥamd (v. 2). al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī open identically with the lexical triad: ḥamd is the contrary of blame and shukr the contrary of ingratitude; ḥamd may be for any excellence while shukr is tied to a favour received — yet each stands in the other's place ("al-ḥamdu lillāhi shukran"). Both stress that the definite article makes the verse comprehensive — "all praise," the whole genus, belongs to God — which is why the reciters fix the nominative al-ḥamdu (a statement of fact about all creation) over the accusative (praise from the speaker alone). al-Mīzān (Ṭabāṭabāʾī) sharpens this: since every beauty and every good emanates from Allah, every true praise uttered by anyone for any good in fact returns to Him alone. al-Baḥrānī's narrations dramatize the same: al-Ṣādiq — "the perfection of thankfulness is the man's saying al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-ʿālamīn" [1], and the Kashf al-Ghumma story of the recovered mule [2], where the single phrase "al-ḥamdu lillāh" is held to exhaust every possible praise because its alif-lām "comprehends the genus."

Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn (v. 2). al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī catalogue rabb (obeyed master, owner, reformer — rooted in tarbiya, nurture; applied absolutely only to God) and al-ʿālamīn (the "worlds" — the company of rational beings, or all created things). al-Mīzān reads rabb as owner-manager and al-ʿālamīn as the totality of realms. al-Baḥrānī supplies what no other source does: a long sequence of cosmological narrations glossing "the Worlds" by multiplying them — seventy thousand worlds behind the veil [9], a mountain of green chrysolite ringing the world [10], ninety-nine "wests" of sinless creatures [11], forty suns and forty moons each with their peoples [12], a thousand worlds each greater than the seven heavens and earths over which the Imam is "the Proof" [13], the two cities of east and west awaiting the Qāʾim [14–16], and the fourteen worlds traversed without moving [17]. Woven through them is the Shīʿī motif of walāya and barāʾa (allegiance to the Imams and disavowal of their foes). The great Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī narration [18] then reads al-ḥamd as God's acquainting His servants with His countless blessings and rabb al-ʿālamīn as their Owner and sustainer who drives apportioned sustenance to each, and embeds the Mūsā narration on the surpassing excellence of Muḥammad's community.

al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm (v. 3). al-Ṭabarsī notes the names are repeated here for intensification (mubālagha), citing al-Rummānī that there is no mere redundancy: in the Basmala they were joined to servitude, here to praise. al-Ṭūsī is terse — two genitive attributes whose sense "has already passed." al-Mīzān and the Enlightening Commentary treat the pair fully under the Basmala (universal mercy / believers' mercy).

Māliki Yawm al-Dīn (v. 4). al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī weigh the two canonical readings — mālik (Owner: more general, since one owns only what one truly possesses) versus malik (King: more majestic) — and survey al-dīn (recompense, reckoning, obedience, custom, subjugation). Both conclude the verse extends God's sovereignty from this world (rabb al-ʿālamīn) to the Hereafter, and read it as a proof of the Return that moves the responsible soul between hope and fear. al-Baḥrānī's brief report [3] glosses māliki yawmi l-dīn as "the Day of Reckoning" (proof: 37:20), and al-Faḍl ibn Shādhān's rationale [19] reads it as the acknowledgement of the Raising, Reckoning, and Requital — part of his remarkable verse-by-verse account of why the ritual prayer opens with this sūra.