“Allah (mighty and sublime be He), has said: I have divided prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves, and My servant shall have what he asked for. When the servant says: Bism Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Allah says: dhakarani abdi (My servant has mentioned me). And when he says Al-hamdu lillahi rabb al-’alamin , Allah says: My servant has praised Me. And when he says: Ar-Rahman ar-Rahim , Allah says: My servant has extolled Me, and when he says: Maliki yawmi d-din, Allah says: My servant has glorified Me. And when he says: Iyyaka na’budu wa iyyaka nasta’in, He says: This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he asked for. And when he says: Ihdina as-sirat al-mustaqim, sirat al-ladhina an’amta alayhim ghayr al-maghdubi alayhim wa la ad-dallin , He says: This is for My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.”
: The Messenger of Allah swt, Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.
Thus we have our own dialogue with Allah most High during our mi’raj, our Salaat. Now the Qur’an commands us to recite the Qur’an in the form of tarteel, or to pause between the verses, and the great scholar Ahmad ibn Idris emphasizes the importance of doing this during the Fatiha in the Salaat, saying “Stopping at the ends of the verses is for the sake of his Lord’s reply, and that is because for the servant to start saying the next part before his Master’s reply to his first speech is ill-mannered.” So when reciting the Fatiha in our Salaat we must be conscious of Allah’s response to what we are saying, and that we are engaging in two-way speech with the Divine.