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بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والحمدلله وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمدا عبده ورسوله صلى الله عليه وسلم

A series of threads explain it the entire Quran verse by verse إن شاء الله تعالى


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>>19750281

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This week’s verse
>الحمد لله رب العلمين
Alhamdulilahi Rabil ‘Alameen
The Praise to Lord of the Worlds

>الحمد Al-Hamd
So Hamd (حمد) means “praise”. Muhammad means the praises one for example and Ahmad means someone who praises (the h in these words is ح by the way, which is like blowing on your glasses, it’s not the guttural خ h that right wingers use when mispronouncing Ahmad). In the older sense this was also verbal gratitude. Shukr (شكر). Some linguists say Hamd comes from praising someone for a quality whereas shukr comes from praising them for an action, so to praise a quality you compliment but to praise a favor you return it or try to otherwise show appreciation. You may have noticed the word here has the definite prefix al, الحمد. That is because when something is definite in Arabic it can also make it definitive. This if you say someone is honest and praise it that’s Hamd but if you praise someone for ALL their qualities that would be Al-Hamd. And we only do that with Allah عز وجل. We don’t for example praise the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم for his quality of mortality, rather we praise him for select qualities, not every single quality.

Now, why Alhamdu (الحمدُ) instead of Alhamda (الحمدَ)? That is, why is this nominative declension rather than accusative? Because that would indicate an unstated subject giving the praise, a third party.

>لله lilahi
Why this form instead of الله (Allah)? In Arabic two definite prefixes don’t follow, example Medinat an-Nabi (City of the Prophet) is not called Al-Medinat an-Nabi. In almost all cases, the definite prefix is dropped from the first word, but if we did that here we would lose the particular significance of attaching it to Hamd.

Continued in posts below