Who is waiting?

الرَّحْمٰنُ · الرَّحِيمُ

ar-Raḥmān and ar-Raḥīm · The Entirely Merciful and the Especially Merciful

Deep, deep down in the dark sea, where no sunlight ever reaches, an octopus mum found a rock. She laid her eggs on it, and then she wrapped her long arms around them.

And she waited.

She did not go off to find food. She did not swim away to explore. She kept the eggs clean and safe, month after month. Scientists checked on her with an underwater robot. She waited for fifty-three months. That is four and a half years. It is as long as it takes you to grow from a baby into a schoolchild. At last her babies hatched and swam away into the sea.

In some lakes, a little fish mum has a different trick. When danger comes, her babies swim straight into her mouth. She keeps it closed and does not eat while they hide. When the danger has gone, she opens up and out they swim.

On a farm, a mare stands in the field with her new foal. When she moves, she lifts her hoof carefully, so she does not tread on her baby.

Mothers and fathers, all over the world, wait and watch and care. Maybe someone waits for you too. They wait at the school gate, at the window, or with a cup of warm milk when you are poorly.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) once saw a mother who had lost her baby in a crowd. She searched and searched. When she found a baby, she held him close and fed him. The Prophet asked his friends: “Do you think this mother would ever throw her child into a fire?” “Never,” they said. Then he told them: God is more merciful to His people than this mother is to her child.

He also taught that God made mercy in a hundred parts. He kept ninety-nine parts with Him, and sent just one part into the world. All the kindness of every mother and father comes from that one part. So does the care of the octopus, the fish and the mare lifting her hoof.

So how big are the other ninety-nine? Nobody can say. That is what the Names ar-Raḥmān and ar-Raḥīm are about. Ar-Raḥmān means the Entirely Merciful. It is mercy for everyone, which nobody has to earn. Ar-Raḥīm means the Especially Merciful. It is mercy that comes again and again, every time we turn back.

Muslims say these two Names before eating, before a journey and before almost anything they start. They say: Bismillāh ir-Raḥmān ir-Raḥīm, “In the name of God, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.”

Jewish people speak about God’s mercy too. In the Torah, God is called “merciful and gracious”. In the book of Lamentations, a writer who was very sad remembered that God’s mercies “are new every morning”.

Christians ask for God’s mercy in many church services. They pray “Lord, have mercy”. In some churches they sing it in old Greek: Kyrie eleison.

New every morning. Just like the sun coming up, again and again.

Watch together

▶Baby fish hide inside mother's mouth - Animal Super Parents: Episode 1 Preview - BBC · BBC

A fish mum hides her babies safely inside her mouth, from the BBC.

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