Sūrah 1 · Āyāt 1–1

Al-Fātiḥa 1 — bism Allāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

The sūra opens with the Basmala: "In the Name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful." In the Imāmī reckoning this is not a mere preface but the first verse of al-Fātiḥa — and of every sūra except al-Tawba (9). Of the six consulted commentaries, four speak to it directly; al-Ṭūsī's al-Tibyān and Tafsīr al-Qummī carry no basmala commentary in the consulted corpus, so the reading below rests on al-Ṭabarsī, al-Baḥrānī, al-Mīzān, and the Enlightening Commentary.

Its status as a verse. Al-Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān) opens by recording the Imāmī consensus that the Basmala is a genuine verse of Sūrat al-Ḥamd and of every sūra, so that to omit it in the ritual prayer voids the prayer, and that it is to be recited aloud; he notes the wider juristic disagreement and the long-standing dispute over how the sūra's seven verses are counted (those who count the Basmala redraw the division of v. 7). The Enlightening Commentary corroborates this with Muʿāwiya b. ʿAmmār's question to Imam al-Ṣādiq (peace be upon him) and the report from the Commander of the Faithful that the "seven oft-repeated" (al-sabʿ al-mathānī) include the Basmala as one of the seven.

The Name and "Allah." Al-Ṭabarsī's lexical section derives ism from sumuww (elevation), then surveys the classical views on the word Allāh — al-Khalīl's that it is a non-derived proper name, against the derivations from ulūhiyya (worship), walah (bewilderment of the intellects before His greatness), refuge, or veiledness. Al-Mīzān (Ṭabāṭabāʾī) supplies the parallel philosophical reading: the name is other than the named; the preposition bi- attaches to an implied "I begin"; and Allāh, originally al-ilāh (= al-maʾlūh, the One worshipped), is the proper name that gathers every attribute of perfection. Al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) anchors the same point in narration: Hishām b. al-Ḥakam's report from al-Ṣādiq that "the name is other than the named," whence true tawḥīd is to worship the meaning, not the name — together with the well-known taʾwīl reports (via Ibn Sinān and Abū Baṣīr) that read b-s-m as the bahāʾ (splendour), sanāʾ (sublimity) and mulk (sovereignty) of Allah, and read even the letters of "Allah" as His ālāʾ (bounty), ilzām (binding) and the hawān (abasement) of those who oppose Muḥammad and his Family — tying the Name to walāya.

Al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm. Here all four present sources converge: two names built from raḥma, with faʿlān more intensive than faʿīl. Al-Raḥmān is the all-embracing mercy that reaches every creature, believer and disbeliever alike; al-Raḥīm the special, lasting mercy reserved for the believers. Al-Ṭabarsī cites al-Ṣādiq — "al-Raḥmān is a particular name with a general attribute, al-Raḥīm a general name with a particular attribute" — and the "hundred mercies" tradition (one sent to earth, ninety-nine withheld for the Day of Resurrection). Al-Mīzān maps al-Raḥmān onto the universal this-worldly mercy and al-Raḥīm onto the perpetual mercy of the Hereafter; the Enlightening Commentary reads them identically and closes on the same "hundred mercies" report.

Purpose. Al-Mīzān frames the whole verse as the servant's pledge of servitude, spoken by Allah on the servant's behalf: "In Thy Name I begin." Al-Ṭabarsī prefers the construal "I begin my recitation by naming Allah," noting we are commanded to open our affairs in His Name (as over food and slaughter), not merely to report His greatness. Al-Baḥrānī's narration from Imam al-ʿAskarī dramatizes Allāh as the One to whom every creature turns when all means are cut off — the parable of the wrecked ship (paralleled in al-Zamakhsharī's Rabīʿ al-Abrār) — and preserves the Prophetic maxim that "every affair of consequence not begun with the Name of Allah is maimed (abtar)."