(The Discourse on the Interpretation of the Opening of the Book)

{All praise is due to Allah}:

Abū Jaʿfar said: The meaning of "All praise is due to Allah" is pure gratitude to Allah—exalted be His praise—to the exclusion of all else that is worshipped besides Him, and to the exclusion of all that He has created from His creation (1), for the blessings He has bestowed upon His servants, which numbers cannot recount nor can anyone other than Him encompass their count: in keeping the instruments sound for His obedience, enabling the limbs of the bodies of those subject to legal obligation to perform His obligatory duties, along with what He has expanded for them in their worldly life of provision, and fed them with of comfortable living without any entitlement on their part from Him for that, and along with what He alerted them to and called them to of the means leading to everlasting eternity in the Abode of Permanence in abiding bliss. So to our Lord belongs praise for all of that, first and last.

And according to what we have mentioned regarding the interpretation of the statement of our Lord—exalted be His mention and sanctified be His names—"All praise is due to Allah," the report has come from Ibn ʿAbbās and others:

151 - Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAlāʾ narrated to us, saying: ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd narrated to us, saying: Bishr ibn ʿUmāra narrated to us, saying: Abū Rawq narrated to us, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Gabriel said to Muḥammad—peace be upon them both—: Say, O Muḥammad, "All praise is due to Allah." Ibn ʿAbbās said: "All praise is due to Allah" is gratitude to Allah, submission to Allah, and acknowledgment of His blessing, His guidance, His initiation, and other than that. (2)

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