Completion

Some noble narratives related about the merit [fadl] of this blessed Surah:

The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) has been quoted to have said to Jabir ibn ‘Abdullah al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him):

“O Jabir, don’t you want me to teach you the most merited Surah revealed by Allah in His Book?”‌ Jabir said: “O yes, may my father and mother be your ransom, Messenger of Allah, teach me.”‌ He, thus, taught him [Surah] “al-Hamd,”‌ the Mother of the Book. Then he said: “O Jabir, don’t you want me to tell you about it?”‌ “Yes may my father and mother be your ransom, Messenger of Allah, tell me,”‌ said Jabir. “It is a cure for every ailment except death,”‌ he said.

He is also quoted to have said: “The Opening verse of the Book is the cure for every illness.”‌

Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (A.S) is quoted to have said that if the verse of the Opening did not cure a person, nothing else would cure him.

Imam Ali (A.S) is quoted to have said that the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: “Allah, the Exalted, told me: “O Muhammad, We have given you Sab‘ al-Mathani [another name of the Surah of the “Opening”?] and the great Qur’an.”? I am graced with a separate favor by the Opening of the Book, which is put on the same level as the Qur’an. Indeed, the Opening of the Book is the honored thing in the treasures of the ‘Arsh, and Allah, the Exalted, has bestowed its honor Muhammad (PBUH), sharing no one of the prophets in it, except Solomon, to whom Allah gave the Bismillah of the Opening Surah, i.e. Bismillah ir-Rahim, as Bilqis says: “An honorable letter has been thrown to me. It is from Solomon, and it is: In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.”? So, whoever recites it, believing in loving Muhammad and his offspring, obeying its command and believing in its outside and inside, Allah, the Exalted, will grant him, for each of its letters a favor, which is, in fact, preferred to the whole world and whatever is in it of different kinds of properties and good things. Whoever listens to it being recited will get one-third of that which is given to its reciter. So, let everyone of you increase his share of this blessing offered to him, as it is a chance that you must not be late in taking it, otherwise your hearts will regret it much.

Imam al-Sadiq (A.S) is quoted to have said: “It is no wonder if [the Surah of] al-Hamd is recited seventy times over a dead and it comes back to life.”‌

Ubay ibn Ka‘b narrated: “I recited to the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) the verse of the Opening. He said: “By the One in Whose life is my soul, Allah did not reveal in the Torah, nor in the Gospel, the Psalms or the Qur’an a Surah like “The Opening of the Book.”‌ It is Umm al-Kitab (The Mother of the Book) and Sab‘ al-Mathani (the repeated seven. It is divided between Allah and His servant, and it is for His servant to demand whatever he wants.”‌

Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman (may Allah pleased with him) is quoted to have said that the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: “Allah, the Exalted, may send an inevitable punishment upon a nation. Then one of their children recites: ‘All praise is for Allah, the Lord of the worlds,’ in the Book of Allah. On hearing this, Allah, The Most High, postpones torturing them for forty years.”‌ Ibn ‘Abbas  said  that  once  they  were  sitting  with  the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) when an angel came and said: “Good tidings to you for the two lights which have been given to you, and never given to the prophets before you. They are ‘The Opening of the Book’ and the seals of the Surah al-Baqarah. No one recites a single word of them unless his demand is granted.

This narrative is also related in “Majma‘ al-Bayan”‌ with the same content.

Source:

A Commentary on the Chapter of ‘Praise’ 

Witten by: Imam Khomeini(R.A)

Translator: Bahram Afrasiabi

Other Links:

A Commentary on the Hamd Surah: part 15

A Commentary on the Hamd Surah: part 16