Al-Raḥmān
This chapter of the Qur’an calls the audience’s attention to God’s creation in all of its parts—the heavens and the earth, the land and the sea, the humans and the jinn—and the arrangement of these parts in such a way that the two species of humans and jinn benefit from them in their lives. In this way, the cosmos is divided into two stages of creation (nashʾatān): The creation of this world (nashʾa dunyā), which will pass away along with its inhabitants, and the creation of the next world (nashʾa ukhrā), which will endure, and in which felicity will be utterly distinct from misery, and blessings from afflictions.
On this basis, it is apparent that the cosmos—in both its this-worldly and next-worldly aspects—is governed by a single order that unifies its parts and brings together its components, and that this order rests on firm and mutually-supporting foundations, such that each part complements and completes the other.
So, all that this world contains, in both its causes and its effects, are the blessings and bounties of God, and for this reason, this chapter of the Qur’an repeatedly poses a question mixed with a rebuke, namely: ‘Which of your Lord’s bounties will you both deny?’ This question is repeated a total of thirty-one times in this chapter.
This is why the chapter begins by invoking God with the attribute of His universal and all-encompassing mercy (raḥma), which envelops the believer and the disbeliever in this world and the next world without discrimination, and concludes by celebrating His praise with the words: Blessed is the name of your Lord, the Lord of majesty and honour!
This chapter could be either Meccan or Medinan in its revelation, although it is closest to the Meccan chapters in style. It is also the only chapter of the Qur’an to open with one of the divine names immediately after the bismillāh. In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, it is narrated from Imām Mūsā b. Jaʿfar, from his forefathers, from the Prophet, who said: ‘Everything has its bride, and the bride of the Qur’an is Sūrah al-Raḥmān!’ And the same tradition is narrated in al-Durr al-Manthūr from al-Bayhaqī, from ʿAlī, from the Prophet.
This is the ʿAllāmah's introduction to the sūrah, from the opening of the commentary.