Surah Fatiha

Tafseer 4-7

Iyyaka Na'budu wa iyyaka nasta'een

إياك نعبد وإياك نستعين

In reality, the first ayah should suffice for us to declare our enslavement to Allah, Who is the

Rabb, the Master. If that is not enough, then He is the extremely Merciful, who is being merciful

to us right now, and His Mercy is always there for the believers but can be taken away from us if He wills, and if that is not enough, then the fact that He is the King and the Owner of the day of Judgement, when there will be no king or owner of anything, except Him. And this is the thought-process of the believer.

This ayah is often translated as, "You Alone we worship and You Alone we ask for help."

Unsurprisingly, this translation fails to convey the entire meaning of the verse.

Firstly, we need to add the missing dimension of slavery to Allah in that translation.

In Arabic, the phrase we worship ( نعبد ) includes both slavery ( عبد ) and worship ( يعبد ) are combined. This is important to understand because a person may appear to worship Allah, but not necessarily act like His slave; worship and slavery are not the same.

This is the case of a person who only takes from Islam what pleases him. While a true slave is one who only does what his master asks him to do. That is the master-slave relationship.

This ayah is therefore a declaration of slavery, to none other than Allah. When we declare slavery to Allah, only then we truly free ourselves. Otherwise we are either enslaved to

entertainment, culture, peer-pressure, false ideologies, fashion, and so on. To be free from all that is by being a slave of Allah, the Creator, the Only One worthy of being enslaved to. The only One we need to impress is Allah.

The next part of this ayah is iyyaka nastain. While this is often translated as "You Alone we ask
for help," the word 'help' does not do justice to the statement in this ayah.

The word nastain is the same as istiaana (to seek) help, and is a derivative of the word 'aaun,' which is not merely help, rather a type of help that you seek when you are already struggling with something.

For instance, you are on the highway and have a flat-tire, you have everything with you to fix that tire, but you ask someone for help because you would rather listen to the radio. This is seeking help in a matter that is not difficult for you and you are not struggling in. On the other hand, imagine a similar scenario, but this time you are not strong enough to lift and fit the spare tire.

This time you are already struggling and so the help you seek here is different. When we are told to seek help from Allah in this verse, it is the help in matters we are already making considerable effort in, and struggling to complete. In reality, if one is not struggling, then it may be even be appropriate for that person to seek help. A common example of that is a person who complains about not being a good Muslim, complains that Allah is not helping him be one, but does not make effort to actually be one. Such a person is not struggling and so is not technically doing istiaana.

Another way of looking at it is as a warning from Allah to only ask for help if we are sincerely struggling, and need it desperately. This is the case with the righteous of the past,Ibrahim alayhi as-Salam was first thrown into the fire and then the fire was cooled by the will of Allah, the outnumbered believers first went to the battlefield of Badr and then the angels descended to help them. If we understand this, it would change the way we act and seek help.

Put this into perspective, how bad it is to lie to a human being, and how often we insincerely seek help from Allah in our prayers when we recite this ayah.