“All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of all the worlds” (Qur’an 1:2).
The word hamd [praise] means praising a person or a creature for an attribute or an action they have taken at their own will. If a person has a quality that is not due to their own choice, we do not use the word hamd for praising them. For example, if we wanted to compliment someone because of their beauty, we would not use the Arabic word hamd. However, a person’s courage or generosity can be praised, and we can use the word hamd when praising these characteristics. Righteous deeds or a quality that a person has created in him/herself can be praised. Alhamdu, all praise, lillah, is for God. What this sentence tells us with this amount of awareness and attention is that all the goodness, beauty, and all the things that can be praised belong to God.
Imam Khamenei
March 13, 1991
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