Shaykh Sohail Hanif explains in “The Sunna Prayers Related to the Obligatory Prayers”

Two [sunna] before Fajr:

It is from the sunna to recite Suraal-Kafirun in the first rakat and Suraal-Ikhlas in the second sometimes, and that one pray it at home at the beginning of the prayer time. [al-Fatawa al-Hindiyya, 1:112, Bulaq]

Surah Kafirun is one of those short but difficult surah that children often have difficulty memorizing. The difficulty, from my understanding, is due to the “repetition” of a particular verse. So I set out to understand the surah by reading Mufti Shafi Uthmani’s commentary (Ma’ariful Qur’an). What I came across was nothing less than a miracle. I would have never guessed the deeper meanings. Here’s an excerpt.

[Ibn Kathir] expounds that the particle ma is used in two ways:

[1] as mausulah or relative pronoun in the sense of al-ladhi [that which]; and

[2] as masdariyah transforming into infinitive the verb it governs.

In this Surah, the first ma is a relative pronoun in the sense of al-ladhi, and the second ma is an infinitival particle.

Thus in verses (2 & 3) the particle is a relative pronoun and may be paraphrased thus: ‘I do not worship the deities that you worship nor do you worship the One Whom I worship’ and in verses )4 & 5( the particle is an infinitival particle and may be paraphrased thus:

ولا انا عابدٌ عبادتكم ولا انتم عابدون عبادتي

‘I will never adopt your mode or manner of worship, nor will you adopt the manner in which I worship.’

In this way, verses (2 & 3) show that the objects of worship are different from each other, and the verses (4 & 5) show the differences in the modes of worship. In sum, ‘neither our objects of worship, nor our manner of worship, are commonly shared by us; they are different.’

In this way, it is seen that there is no real repetition, because while the formal expressions might be identical or near identical, but the deeper semantic meanings are different. The mode of worship was revealed to the Prophet by Allah and passed on to the Muslims through him. The pagan manner of worship is self-fabricated.

This way we see how every word, every sentence in the Quran is the most appropriate for the meaning, the context, and the rhythm.

In my next post, Insha Allah, we’ll see how words that appear to be synonyms can have a different effect on the listener. As Shaykh Sohail puts it, “every word has a soul of its own.”