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The importance of saying Bismillah

“How brief is the action, which consumes neither time nor energy, and yet how immense is the gain — it is a regular alchemy, transmuting the profane (dunya) into the sacred (din); a disbeliever eats and drinks just as a Muslim does but in saying Bismillah as he begins to eat, the Muslim affirms that it was not in his power to obtain this little morsel of food which has passed through innumerable stages from the sowing of the seed to the reaping of the grain corn, and which has during this process required the labours of the wind, the rain, the sun, of the heavens and of the earth, and of a thousand men — and that it is Allah alone who has granted him this morsel of food or this draught of water by making it go through all these stages.”

–Maulana Mufti Mohammad Shafi, Maarif ul Quran