seeks to eliminate them; and just as a verse itself can be established only through mutawātir (mass) transmission, so too can its very placement.

Abū al-Barakāt added that reversing the order of the verses is unanimously deemed reprehensible, for it risks changing the meaning—unlike switching the order of two separate surahs.

Such are his words. What should rather be said is that this risk makes the act unlawful, and that inverting the words within a verse is expressly forbidden and, by consensus, invalidates the prayer.

The majority of scholars—including the Mālikīs and the Shāfiʿīs—maintain that the arrangement of the surahs was determined by the Companions through ijtihād.

Imām Abū al-ʿAbbās said: On that basis it is permissible to recite one surah before another, and likewise to write them in that order. For this reason the Companions’ personal codices differed in their arrangement. However, once they agreed upon a single muṣḥaf in the caliphate of ʿUthmān—may Allah be pleased with him—that arrangement became one of the practices instituted by the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and the hadith shows that their practice must be followed.⦗1⦘

It has also been said that it is called “the Opening” (al-Fātiḥah) because praise—al-ḥamd—is the opening of every discourse.

Another view holds that it was so named because it was the first surah to be sent down from heaven.

Al-Thaʿlabī said: It is introduced by the very verse with which auspicious undertakings are themselves begun, as a means of seeking blessing.