—such as the recurrence of iyyāka, al-ṣirāṭ, and ʿalayhim, and, on the view that the basmala is part of the surah, the repetition of al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm.

If it is said: “The Almighty’s words, ‘We have indeed granted you the Seven of the Mathani’ (15:87), show that al-Fatiha is merely one item among the mathani and not the sum total of them, whereas the hadith states that the Prophet ﷺ said of al-Fatiha, ‘It is the Seven Mathani,’” the answer is as follows.

The Quran as a whole is divided into four categories: the Seven Lengthy Surahs, the Hundreds, the Mathani, and the Detailed. This is confirmed in the Musnad and elsewhere in the report of Wathilah ibn al-Asqaʿ, where the Prophet ﷺ said, “I have been given, in place of the Torah, the Seven Lengthy Surahs; in place of the Psalms, the Hundreds; in place of the Gospel, the Mathani; and I have been favored with the Detailed.” (1)

A similar classification has been transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbas and others.

The Seven Lengthy Surahs are al-Baqara, Al ʿImran, al-Nisaʾ, al-Maʾida, al-Anʿam, al-Aʿraf, and Yunus, according to Ibn ʿAbbas and Saʿid ibn Jubayr. Another opinion holds that the seventh consists of al-Anfal together with Baraʾa (al-Tawba).

The Hundreds are the surahs that come after these, each of which is roughly one hundred verses in length.