ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
The Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
The usual English translation of “ar-Rahmani-r-Raheem” is “The most Gracious, the most Merciful”. Some translated “ar-Rahman" as “the most Beneficent” or "the Most Gracious". Not many people know what “Beneficent” means or what is the context of the "Most Gracious". The purpose of translating a word into English is to bring in a word that people can identify with. It is more useful to translate “ar-Rahman" to "the Most Compassionate" that most people can relate to.
“Ar-Rahman” and “Ar-Raheem” are repeated again in this Surah
At the start of the Qur’an, we read the “Basmalah” with the mentioning of “Ar-Rahman” and “Ar-Raheem”. This is meant to start off the act of journeying into the Quran with the Name of a Compassionate and Merciful God.
In this Ayah 3, the context is to provide more details of His attributes. Ayah 3 is a continuation of the sentence in Ayah 2 where "Robb" (Master or Lord) is mentioned. “Ar-Rahman” and “Ar-Raheem” are attributes on top of the attribute of "Robb". Hence the context is a Master who is Compassionate & Merciful.
In ayah 2, we have a sense of fear towards the Master of all creations.
In the next ayah 4, it is also about fear to the King of the day of judgement.
If ayah 2 and ayah 4 are put next to each other, this may make people to tremble in fear and run away from God. Instead of sadistically make his slaves to fear Him, he is calming us not to be alarmed. He wants us to be close to Him instead of running away by emphasizing on his Compassionate and Merciful attribute. The fear is to condone us from doing evil like a disciplinary teacher in a school threatening rebellious undisciplined students with his cane. The teacher will not do a public caning of a student unless it is really necessary to send a message to the rest of the students not to cross the disciplinary line.
God is telling us that He is "Ar-Rahmaan Ar-Raheem" to show that He loves us. Hence the correct and ethical way to do is to love Him back. We performed the Solah everyday because we love Him. Allah accepts Solah that is performed out of love towards Him. If you have been practicing the Nawafil prayers (the Sunnah Prayers), then that is one way of measuring your love to Him since the Nawafil are extra voluntarily prayers. If you wake up in the middle of the night to do Tahajjud prayers when everybody else are asleep and nobody knows of your action, that is an act of conviction to your Master. Increase your Solah.
Paradise is for people whom He loved and they loved Him in return. People who love their Lord will spend more time remembering and worshiping God more then on self entertainment. Eg. The Prophet (saw) was sitting with his beloved wife Aisha (r.a) and having quality good time with her. Then he said to his wife, I love you but I love my Lord more and he went away to worship Allah. Aisha replied, I love what you love and she too went to worship Allah. Aisha said that she forgotten what both of them had been chatting before worshiping their true love, Allah.
If we truly understand the Mercy of our Lord, there is no reason for us to be mad towards our Creator. Some people got angry and blamed God for things that happened. They have not understood or know God.
After informing us of His name and that He is our Master and we are His slaves (ayah 1 & 2), immediately in this ayah 3, He is showing that He is Merciful and not doing injustice to His slaves. He is not benefiting from our worship to Him, unlike the Human master where everything the slave does is for the benefit of himself.
Other than being the Creator of all creations, He does not leave them to rot. Because of His mercy, He sustains/maintains them to be in perfect order. A Merciful Creator must also be a God that never dies. If the Creator/owner dies, the world will perish.
Imagine an old man who lives alone and has been taking care of his house all this while. When he suddenly dies, the house will start to grow cobwebs, infested with rats and cockroaches, etc.
Therefore, another definition of a God is that He can never die so that he can maintain the heavens and the earth.
Sometimes when we own a car, we are not being merciful to the car. We neglect to periodically changing the engine oil until the car broke down. Meaning we do not love the car enough.
People might ask, if God is so Compassionate and Merciful, where is God’s Mercy when something bad happens, eg. you lost your job, tsunamis or earthquake hit a country and causing death and destruction, people starving during drought or war, etc. and the list goes on.
Firstly, living on earth is not meant to be living in Paradise. Earth and Paradise are two different places. Some people think that if there is a God, then there should not be any sufferings on earth. This person thinks that earth should be Paradise. Everything must be easy and humans can do whatever they want without any problems or sufferings. If that is not the case, then they said there is no God to begin with. They do not understand that earth is not designed and created to be a Paradise.
If there is no suffering on earth, then might as well just put every human in Paradise. The earth will be just another Paradise. What is the purpose? The earth is a testing ground for humans to see who among us deserves to go to Paradise and who deserves to go to hell.
Secondly, many disasters in one way or the other are caused by human corruption, tampering of nature, greed and evil over each other, carelessness, lack of mercy, etc. People blaming God for not preventing disaster caused by themselves.
We blame ourselves first. We have no right to blame God. Allah’s judgement and knowledge is beyond our limited understanding and knowledge. He sees the future and He knows what is best for the people. Eg. A mother feeds her small child who is down with a fever with a very bitter medicine. The child, as naive as he is, will refuse the medicine while screaming. The bitter medicine is to cure the child even though it seems awful for the child. Another example: Parents bringing a child to the doctor for vaccination which can only be administered with an injection. The child sees the doctor as a horrible person causing pain.
The logic in the divine perspective is much larger than this mother and child parable. There are two worlds running at the same time. There are the physical material world and the spiritual divine world. What may look bad in the material world is not necessarily be bad in the spiritual world. It may look bad in a person’s physical being but may be good for his spiritual being. It looks bad in this temporary world but good for the eternal hereafter.
[Quran 2:216] .... Perhaps you dislike something which is good for you and like something which is bad for you. Allah knows and you do not know.
The wisdom of what Allah does is beyond our material understanding. He sees both the material world and the unseen world at the same time. When anything bad happened to you, please cultivate a habit of reminding yourself that there is always a blessing in disguise no matter how painful your short understanding of the situation is. Remember that your life does not end on your death but continues into the hereafter. You might get the blessings there. Maybe because you have suffered once in this world, He might give you eternal bliss in the hereafter.
If you count the hours that you have been sad, it is just a little portion of your life on earth. Most of the time you are not sad. Anything that happened is under the concept that either Allah made it happen OR Allah allowed it to happen. The same concept goes to anything that doesn’t happen. He knows what is best for you.
The terms “ar-Rahman” and “ar-Raheem” translated casually seems to be exactly of the same meaning = “Compassionate/Merciful”.
“Mercy” in human terms only happens when someone is about to be punished and the authority having mercy by letting him go.
A better translation for both words would be “Love with Care”. Love and care happen in all situations, like a mother’s love and care for her baby.
However, there are differences between “arRahman” and “arRaheem”. In classical Arabic, when two words of similar meaning are put side by side is to emphasize the difference between the two with a common meaning as the base.
(1) “Ar-Rahman” is Allah’s mercy (Love and Care) in one area and “ar-Raheem” is His mercy (Love and Care) covering the remaining areas.
(2) "Ar-Rahman" is by nature the Merciful attribute of Allah. "Ar-Raheem" is the action of Mercy by Allah.
“The Most Gracious or The most Compassionate”
(1) Extremely Merciful
Even though He is so Great, He still looks after us the tiny humans, etc.
(2) Mercy (Love with Care) is happening right now.
Example: You are telling some people that you have a friend that is a very hardworking person. You can never be sure whether he is being hardworking right now when you are talking about him. He might be sleeping now. However when you say that Allah is merciful, He is being merciful to you right now. (In English, the word “merciful” doesn’t capture both meanings of the one who is merciful and is being merciful right now.)
When you are doing nothing (like sleeping), His mercy is happening “right now” or else you may be dead (eg. oxygen level drops etc ).
“Ar-Rahman” is mercy that solve your problem “right now”.
(3) Transients = temporary.
Example: Someone who is extremely hungry, his hunger is “temporary”. Once he gets food to eat, he is no longer hungry. Someone who is extremely angry, his anger will stop when he gets what he wants. The same goes for “ar-Rahman”. The mercy that you get right now is temporary. It can be lifted up if something else happens.
“Ar-Rahman” = being temporary, is mercy for all humans in this world. When the "Hour" starts (i.e the end of the world) there will be no more mercy to the Disbelievers.
The value of this world
The Disbelievers got the mercy of Ar-Rahman in this temporary life since it has no value as compared to the eternal life.
[Riyad as-Salihin 476]
Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, "Were this world worth a wing of mosquito, He would not have given a drink of water to an infidel."
(1) "Ar-Rahman" is the only name that has been equated to the name Allah.
[Surah Al-Isra':110]
قُلِ ٱدْعُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ أَوِ ٱدْعُوا۟ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنَ ۖ أَيًّۭا مَّا تَدْعُوا۟ فَلَهُ ٱلْأَسْمَآءُ ٱلْحُسْنَىٰ
Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “Call upon Allah or call upon the Ar-Rahman —whichever you call, He has the Most Beautiful Names.”
(2) The only name that an entire Surah is named upon it = "Surah Ar-Rahman". The Surah explains what is "Ar-Rahman".
(3) The most significant name after the name Allah is "Ar-Rahman". Other names will appear in the Quran in pairs such as " السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ " the "all Hearing" & "all Knowing". However for the name "Ar-Rahman", multiple times it appears as itself without pairing. Even the name "Ar-Raheem" will appear in pairs such as غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
the "Oft Forgiving", the "Merciful".
(4) Allah's Rahmah overcoming His Wrath :
[Sahih Muslim 2751a]
Abu Huraira reported that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said: When Allah created the creation as He was upon the Throne, He put down in His Book: Verily, My mercy (Rahmah) predominates My wrath.
You may say a person is a nice guy by his nature, meaning he has been nice to you before but at the moment when you are praising him, he is not doing anything. Allah being “ar-Rahman” is constantly doing nice things for us. He is executing His mercy right now while we are reading this document.
Eg. You are currently breathing oxygen into your lungs. Allah constantly gives you oxygen to breathe. Sustainable oxygen level in our atmosphere. Too much or too little, humans will die. We constantly have the ability to breathe. With the given light, you are able to see.
Imagine a person who is taking care of a delicate plant. He puts a stick into the soil of the pot so that the plant can stand upright. He places the pot near a window so that it can get sunlight in order to grow. The window has grills so that any flying objects will hit the grills and not the plant. He waters the plant everyday. The many ways Allah takes care of humans are a lot more than how you take care of your plant in a pot. There are many examples that you can think of yourself. Eg. the daily food that you eat, etc. Billions of people get to live and getting provisions from Him all at the same time. That is extremely Merciful.
The attribute of “ar-Rahman” exclusively only belongs to Allah. Nobody else is able to fulfill this attribute. Even if you are taking care of a plant, you will not be able to constantly be watching the plant. You have to sleep, etc. You will die while the plant grows into a tree and live longer than you. Hence we are not capable to have the “Rahman” attribute.
“Ar-Rahman” is His Compassion granted to both the believers and disbelievers in this world. The very existence of His creations are coming from “ArRahman”. The non-believers get to enjoy this world that is being provided by their Creator even though they ignore Him and say that He does not exist. The non-believers are not being fair to the Creator. It is only a logical response that they will be ignored in the hereafter.
Imagine a very Mighty entity with unlimited Power being nice to tiny weak humans. How is our reaction to a tiny ant bothering us when we are drinking a soda? We kill it immediately without any compassion. The tiny ant is trying to feed himself from the soda. You will then realize how Compassionate your God is towards you.
Allah’s “Ar-Rahman” is executed right now for everybody but it will not be forever.
If there is only Ar-Rahman without Ar-Raheem, if you sinned once, you didn’t get punished immediately because “arRahman” is happening. However if you continuously sinning the same thing, the mercy that you are getting can be lifted as it is temporary. Hence, you have no more Mercy from Him if there is no "Ar-Raheem".
If you currently are eating and drinking well, you wear good clothes, paid your bills every month, have a good car, everything is good, does that mean you can stop worrying about the future? You still have some concerns of the future, eg. getting married, your children’s education, your health when you get older, etc. That is what Ar-Raheem is for. If there is no Ar-Raheem, you don't have a future.
Therefore other than “ar-Rahman” that takes care of your current needs, you still need the assurance of “ar-Raheem” to take care of your future needs. Like a mother taking care of her baby, cleaning and feeding it, etc. Other than taking care of the current needs of the baby, the mother will think and prepare for the years to come for the baby.
(1) Permanent
His mercy is always in existence. If someone did bad to us once, twice or more, we will stop being nice to him in the future. The believers have committed sins every now and then and yet Allah's mercy towards him in the hereafter is still there. He will not let the believers to rot in hellfire forever.
(2) It isn’t necessarily happening “right now”.
Example: A person is very strong. He is still a strong person even when he is sleeping, meaning he is not using his strength right now (while sleeping, etc). The mercy of Allah is always there but the mercy isn’t necessarily executed right now. If a person with grave sins wished to repent in the future, he will find the Ar-Raheem of Allah waiting for him. Each person is given time to repent.
ٱلرَّحِيمِ “The extremely Merciful". It is an attribute of forgiving.
Allah has been merciful to you before and will be merciful to you in the future, i.e in this world and in the hereafter. This mercy is only catered for the believers. Forgiveness in the hereafter while the disbelievers get none. An additional Mercy for his believing slaves.
This attribute can be attributed to humans as well as people have the ability to be nice to you in the past or in the future. A good person who has been nice to you before may be nice to you in the future. The goodness in this person is always there but not necessarily he is doing nice things to you right now.
Allah’s “ar-Raheem” is always there but not necessarily executed right now. When “ar-Raheem” is executed in this world, the next “ar-Raheem” will be executed in the hereafter. Eg. A person was made possible to do the pilgrimage (“Hajj”) in this world. In the hereafter he gets Allah’s acceptance of his worship with His mercy. That is “ar-Raheem”.
Another example: A year ago, a person got hidayah and reverted to Islam. Two years later he is gifted with a child from his marriage. Allah has been nice to him in the past and in the future.
“ar-Raheem” is something noticeably nice that has happened or will happen. Something nice that you are given that make you appreciate.
If Ar-Raheem is without Ar-Rahman, you will not get the daily maintenance that you are getting now such as your body functioning as it should be.
If Ar-Raheem is without Ar-Rahman, when you are sinning right now, you will get punished immediately. No waiting for any repentance.
If you are thirsty while lost in the desert and you found a bottle of water, will you drink it immediately or will you decide to drink it about an hour or more later? You will drink a little immediately but you will not finish the whole bottle as you need to save some water for later. At least you want to have an assurance that there is still water that you can drink later while lost in the desert. When your immediate needs are covered, immediately you will think of your needs much later.
“ar-Rahman” is mentioned first as we need to solve our problems now. Once the problem is solved, we will start thinking of our future needs, and that’s covered by “ar-Raheem”.
Hence by putting “ar-Rahman, ar-Raheem” together, Allah tells us that His mercy covers all aspects of your life in this world and in the hereafter. Allah’s mercy is beyond our imagination. His mercy is not to be compared with any mercy of a human. It’s on a different level. Mercy in human perception is not the same as divine mercy.
“Ar-Raheem” being permanent, is His Mercy given to the “Believers” in the hereafter which is permanent. A person enters paradise because of Allah’s Mercy on him and not solely because of his own good deeds. A person who constantly engages in sincere good deeds will surely get His mercy but this person must first believe (having Eeman) that God is Uniquely ONE and to be worshiped.
This “Mercy” is not catered for the non-believers in the hereafter. A person who does not believe that God exists (having no eeman) or worshiping idols will have no reason that God should give him the same mercy of “Ar-Raheem” as that given to the believers in the hereafter.
Only the sincere believers know the value of the eternal Paradise and striving to earn the mercy of Ar-Raheem. The Believers are grateful to Allah for mentioning His Ar-Raheem attribute in this Surah, that covers our Real future in the hereafter. Our fake "future" in this world will be like a forgotten dream.
Allah created all humans. Is there any Divine value on the physical human body? If there is any physical value, no humans will be cast into hellfire to burn. We discard things that have no value. The human body has value only when it is attached with Eeman. Eeman is the one that can save the human body in the hereafter. Those with no Eeman has no value in the day of judgment and will be discarded and forgotten into hell.
We are introduced in this Surah about a Merciful Master and we praise and thank our Master. In any situation, the first thing in our mind is praising and thanking Him first. If you complain, that will chase off mercy. It shows that you have not much gratitude. Anytime you feel of complaining, think of His mercy first and thanking Him. That is what makes a very patient person in the face of calamity.
In short, ar-Rahman, ar-Raheem = “The Extremely Loving and Caring, The Extremely Merciful and Forgiving”. After reciting this ayah, Allah replied, “My slave has exalted (or lauded) me”
A son taking advantage of his father's kindness. Students taking advantage of the teacher's kindness. If a leader is always kind without executing his rights, he will gain no respect and be bullied. One of Allah's attribute is that He is patient. He is patient with whatever of our sinful acts, waiting for us to repent. His Mercy covers our past and future. Unfortunately people take His Mercy for granted.
A religion who thinks that God is merciful upon a person who commits all kinds of transgression murdering people and God is willing to kill a part of Himself to relieve that man from his sins is a religion that is too good to be true scamming its followers.
Muslims too are taking Allah's Mercy for granted. It is common to see them doing sins and expecting automatic forgiveness making it a trivial matter until it no longer considered as a sin.
Muslim women not modestly dressed dancing and singing on TV with "painted" faces and nails have become a norm in Muslim society. Casually missing out on Solah is a norm too.
Men dating with non-Mahram girls riding motorcycles is a usual scene with the excuse that they are engaged for marriage later.
Other Muslims performed good deeds to compensate for their routine sins. Example, a Muslim in the liquor business who donates to a masjid every week. A person who engages in haram business all year-round donates a large sum of money to charity at the end of the year. A person who refuses to perform “solah” all his life is very active in volunteering in charity organizations.
“Oh, Allah is so Merciful, I will surely enter Paradise because I am a good person”. Hold on! Do not be carelessly confident. Justice must be executed. Read the next Ayah!