Guide us in the right path;

The Quran teaches that guidance belongs to God alone. He designs His creatures and guides them (87:3), and "Whomever GOD guides is the truly guided one, and whomever He commits to straying, these are the losers" (7:178). Guidance is His knowledge of the right path, given to people so they can follow it. It is why the believer's central prayer asks, "Guide us in the right path" (1:6). It reaches people as revelation. From the first descent of humanity, God promised, "When guidance comes to you from Me, those who follow My guidance will have no fear, nor will they grieve" (2:38), and that whoever follows it "will not go astray, nor suffer any misery" (20:123). The Quran calls itself "a beacon for the righteous" (2:2) and "a beacon to guide whomever we choose from among our servants" (42:52). It describes itself as the best Hadith, a consistent book that "points out both ways" (39:23).
The Quran speaks of guidance in two ways at once. It is God's decision: "GOD sends astray whomever He wills" (13:27), and "If He willed, He could have guided all of you" (16:9). Yet the same verses say how that will works. God "guides to Him only those who obey" (13:27). He guides "whoever chooses (to be guided)" (2:272), and He guides "in accordance with His knowledge of those who deserve the guidance" (28:56). The same allegory guides some people and misleads others, "But He never misleads thereby except the wicked" (2:26). Dr. Khalifa explains this in Appendix 14. God knows beforehand which souls are good, so as far as God is concerned predestination is a fact. As far as we are concerned, we are completely free to choose. God then "assigns our souls to the circumstances that we deserve." He gives the example of Abraham, who was granted his guidance because God "was fully aware of him" (21:51).
Guidance also grows or shrinks depending on how a person responds to it. "As for those who are guided, He augments their guidance" (47:17). "Anyone who believes in GOD, He will guide his heart" (64:11), and those who strive in God's cause are promised, "we will surely guide them in our paths" (29:69). The reverse holds too. In his footnote to 2:6-7, Dr. Khalifa says that people who decide to reject God "are helped in that direction." They are kept from seeing any proof or guidance for as long as they hold to that decision. One sobering result is that people can stray while sincerely believing they are guided, because they have taken the devils as their masters "yet they believe that they are guided" (7:30).
Because only God guides, messengers and believers carry a limited task. The messenger invites to "a straight path" (23:73), and through the revelation he guides "in a straight path" (42:52). Yet he is told, "You cannot guide the ones you love" (28:56), and "You are not responsible for guiding anyone" (2:272). From this, the Quran Talk blog draws a practical lesson: no one can force guidance into another heart, however much they love that person. So believers are to "worry only about your own necks," since others who go astray cannot hurt them "as long as you are guided" (5:105).
What the Quran asks of the reader, then, is to become the kind of person guidance reaches. That means reverencing God, believing, obeying, and striving. It also means responding when the message softens the heart (39:23), rather than waiting for a miracle (13:27). The Quran Talk blog puts it this way: understanding the Quran starts with working on ourselves, not with cleverness. We are to worship God alone, tell the truth, act justly, and correct ourselves when we fail, because the Quran ties guidance to the condition of the person reading it. Guidance is a gift, but God gives it to those who choose it and deserve it. And "Whomever GOD guides is the truly guided one" (18:17).
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Guide us in the right path;
the path of those whom You blessed; not of those who have deserved wrath, nor of the strayers.
*1:7 Sura 1 is God's gift to us to establish contact with Him through the daily Contact Prayers. This fact is supported by an earth-shattering, simple-to-understand-but-impossible-to-imitate mathematical composition that challenges the greatest mathematicians on earth, and stumps them; it is far beyond human capabilities: (1) The sura number, followed by the numbers of verses, next to each other, give 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. This number is a multiple of 19. (2) If we substitute the number of letters per verse in place of verse numbers, we get 1 19 17 12 11 19 18 43. This number is also a multiple of 19. (3) If we insert the total gematrical value of every verse, we get 1 19 786 17 581 12 618 11 241 19 836 18 1072 43 6009. This number is a multiple of 19. (4) The number shown above includes all parameters of Sura 1, and consists of 38 digits (19x2). (5) It is noteworthy that this 38-digit number is still divisible by 19 when we write its components backwards, from right to left as practiced by the Arabs. Thus, 6009 43 1072 18 836 19 241 11 618 12 581 17 786 19 1 is also a multiple of 19. (6) The mathematical representations mentioned above participate in numerous extraordinary mathematical phenomena to confirm all details of the five daily Contact Prayers (Appendix 15). (7) Many more astounding phenomena are given in Appendix One. Thus, the reader is handed at the outset tangible proof that this is God's message to the world.
Had GOD willed, He could have made you one congregation. But He sends astray whoever chooses to go astray, and He guides whoever wishes to be guided.* You will surely be asked about everything you have done.
*16:93 God knows the sincere believers among us who deserve to be redeemed. Accordingly, He guides them, while blocking out those who choose to disbelieve.
Whomever GOD wills to guide, He renders his chest wide open to Submission. And whomever He wills to send astray, He renders his chest intolerant and straitened, like one who climbs towards the sky.* GOD thus places a curse upon those who refuse to believe.
*6:125 Centuries after the revelation of the Quran, we learned that the proportion of oxygen diminishes as we climb towards the sky, and we gasp for air.
This is the straight path to your Lord. We have explained the revelations for people who take heed.
GOD is the light of the heavens and the earth. The allegory of His light is that of a concave mirror behind a lamp that is placed inside a glass container. The glass container is like a bright, pearl-like star. The fuel thereof is supplied from a blessed oil-producing tree, that is neither eastern, nor western. Its oil is almost self-radiating; needs no fire to ignite it. Light upon light. GOD guides to His light whomever He wills. GOD thus cites the parables for the people. GOD is fully aware of all things.