The 99 Names · Name 1 of 99 · Act
الرَّحْمٰنُThe Entirely Merciful; mercy as the very nature of God, embracing all
Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 1:3.
Heard together with: ar-Raḥmān / ar-Raḥīm
Then take away everything it needs. What is left is not a bigger version of us. It is the Name.
Episode 1Nine months of carrying a child, then years of sleepless care. In the Prophet (peace be upon him)'s time (peace be upon him), a woman who had lost her baby among the captives nursed every child she could find, until she found her own. He said: God is more merciful to His servants than this mother to her child (Bukhari 5999). But a mother's mercy goes to her own first. It tires. It needs food and sleep.
Episode 2Deep in the Pacific, an octopus guarded her eggs for 53 months, never leaving, never eating: “by far the longest egg-brooding period ever reported” (Robison and others, 2014). One clutch, and then she died. Mercy in nature is real, and it costs everything.
Episode 3A neonatal intensive care unit at 3am. An RNLI lifeboat crew, volunteers since 1824, launching into a storm. Our best mercy is organised and brave. It still needs money, staff, beds and shifts, and someone always has to wait.
Episode 4Take away earning it, deserving it, being family, getting tired, running out. What is left is not a bigger mother's love, but mercy nobody earned and nothing uses up. “My mercy encompasses all things” (Qur'an 7:156).
From the tradition: Hadith: mercy divided into 100 parts, one sent down 'so that even the mare lifts up its hoofs away from its baby animal' (Bukhari 6000); kinship (raḥim) is 'a branch' of ar-Raḥmān (Bukhari 5988, ). al-Ghazālī (Maqṣad): ar-Raḥmān is the more specific Name, used of God alone; its mercy is the kind beyond human reach: bringing into being, guidance to faith, happiness in the next life and the vision of His face. The 'all creation vs believers' split is a different classical explanation, not al-Ghazālī's
On screen
One bishop's mercy remakes one thief. ar-Raḥmān is the source every bishop, mother and mare is borrowing from.
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
api.quran.com v4 tr.20; cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/fawazahmed0/hadith-api (Bukhari 5999, 6000); journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103437; sefaria.org Exodus 34:6; bible-api.com WEB; gutenberg.org/ebooks/135
