The Quran

Preface

كَذٰلِكَ أَرسَلناكَ في أُمَّةٍ قَد خَلَت مِن قَبلِها أُمَمٌ لِتَتلُوَ عَلَيهِمُ الَّذي أَوحَينا إِلَيكَ وَهُم يَكفُرونَ بِالرَّحمٰنِ ۚ قُل هُوَ رَبّي لا إِلٰهَ إِلّا هُوَ عَلَيهِ تَوَكَّلتُ وَإِلَيهِ مَتابِ

Ahmed Ali

That is how We have sent you to a people before whom many a people have come and gone, so that you may announce to them whatever We have revealed to you. But they do not believe in Ar-Rahman.¹ Tell them: “He is my Lord. There is no other god but He. In Him have I placed my trust, and to Him is my reversion.”

Allah and Ar-Rahman (generally translated as the Merciful) are names of the same Supreme Deity as this verse clarifies. The Northern Arabs called Him Allah, which emphasises His qualities of Lordship, omnipotence and majesty; and Ar-Rahman, perhaps an Arabised form of the Hebrew word Rachman, was used by the Southern Arabs, which emphasised His qualities of mercy and benevolence, as in Rahim, the ever-merciful. This, however gave ruse to confusion in the minds of infidels that they were two separate deities, to which verse 60 of Surah 25 refers. In the Qur’an, Allah is used 2698 times and Ar-Rahman 51, mostly in the Makki Surahs, and only twice in Surah 2, the Cow, an early Madani Surah, apart from its use in the invocation that heads all the Surahs except 9, where it has been used as an adjective, but is really a proper noun with Ar-Rahim, which is another name of God.