Questions will be posted by the end of the day

The Three Fundamental Principles [2/37]

- Explaining the Basmala in detail

[end of introduction lecture]

Allah knows best, and may peace and blessings be upon his final Prophet Muhammad.

[answer]:

(d) -

1. You begin actions by saying the basmala, and the shaykh has spoken about this throughout this introduction.

2. The proof of doing so is in the (a) Qur'an and (b) Sunnah.

(a) - The basmala appears 114 times in the Qur'an, almost always at the beginning of a surah, except for surah al tawbah. But this is made up for in Surah an-Naml, where the basmala appears again.

(b) - The Prophet (sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam) began of his letters with the basmala

(c) - Saying the basmala blesses the action that you are engaging in

[answer]:

It goes before, never after. This is for 2 reasons:

(1) - The name of Allah comes first in the sentence to bless it.

(2) - due to the Arabic grammatical rule "تأخير العامل يفيد الحصر", by saying bismillah before you do an action it limits your action for Allah alone. So, if you say bismillah before eating - then you're doing that action only for the sake of Allah, only for Allah I eat, only for Allah I write, and so on and so forth.

[answer]:

(b) - "No"

There's a grammatical rule in arabic called الجار والمجرور في البسملة متعلقٌ بمحذوف تقديره فعل لائق بالمقام

This means that the basmala automatically implies the action that you are doing. So, if you say bismillah before drinking water, the action of drinking water is already implied when you say bismillah. Likewise, if you say bismillah when eating, standing up, reading something, before an exam - all of it is implied when you say bsimillah.