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The basmallah, the very first (1:1) and most recited Quranic verse is a declaration, invocation, commitment and goal. It declares that Allah is widely and indiscriminately loving, kind and merciful to every individual life. It invokes this Rahma upon the reciter of the basmallah, it binds the reciter’s actions to this Rahma and it hopes for an outcome that is Rahma. It brings Allah’s Rahmaniyyah to the front, out of which the world is created; and Allah’s Rahimiyya, through which each creature in this world is sustained and cared for through continuous and repeated acts of Rahma. Both Rahman and Rahim are rooted in ‘rahm’, the womb, the loving and nurturing source of life.

— Dr. Ghazala Anwar

Travel earth: to keep the heart soft to reasoning and listening, to learn from the past, to understand that no amount of power can bypass the inevitable annihilation of those who reject reality and worship false idols. This is what the Beloved wants of us.

The Beloved made the earth manageable so that we could move about in its regions (67:15). We are asked to travel the earth and land— to learn from history's rhymes and echoes (3:137-138), to keep our hearts soft to reasoning and listening to each other (22:46), to see the divine design of life and how it originates into being (29:20), but above all to insight gain insight from similar situations, the rhymes and echoes in humankind's narratives (3:137-138). We are asked to travel earth to see the fate of those who deny and reject reality (6:11), the wicked (27:69), the ones who worshipped false idols (30:42), those who met their end unprotected no matter how super strong or how impressive the marks they left on the land...

The scientific use of fingerprints as a means of identification began in the late 19th century; fingerprints are still considered one of the most reliable forms of forensic evidence today. Sura al-Qiyamah (75:1-4) translated by Abdel Haleem: "By the Day of Resurrection and by the self-reproaching soul! Does man think We shall not put his bones back together? In fact, We can reshape his very fingertips."

Woe to every fault-finding slanderer,
who amasses riches, counting them over,
thinking wealth will make them live for ever.
No indeed! Such a person will be thrust into the Crusher!

— The Qur'an, the Slanderer chapter 104