Raḥmah in the Qurʾan

On the authority of Abū Hurayrah (may God be pleased with him), the Prophet ﷺ said: "Indeed, the womb (raḥim) is a branch (shijnah) of the Most Merciful (al-Raḥmān), and God said: Whoever keeps you connected, I keep connected to him, and whoever severs you, I sever from him"^[1]. And "al-shijnah" in its origin is the interlaced, intertwined roots of a tree that cannot be separated from one another without the trunk itself being harmed. So the womb of the mother from which every human being is born into the world — the first place he knows, and the first warmth that embraces him — bears the same name that the greatest of the names of God bears: al-Raḥmān. This is not a passing verbal resemblance, but — as the hadith itself establishes — a real interlacing: the tie of kinship (raḥim) is a branch attached to the very being of al-Raḥmān, so whoever severs it has severed himself from something of His mercy.

This linguistic interlacing between the raḥim (the womb of the mother) and al-Raḥmān (the greatest name of God) is the key to understanding the concept of mercy (raḥmah) in the entire Qurʾan.

Delimiting the word and the count

The root "r-ḥ-m" occurs in the Qurʾan three hundred and thirty-nine times (339), in nine forms: twenty-eight times as the verb "raḥima," twelve times as the noun "arḥām" (in the sense of the physical wombs), four times as the elative "arḥam," once as the noun "ruḥm," fifty-seven times as the name "al-Raḥmān" — which is almost the only name used in the Qurʾan as a direct substitute for the name of majesty "Allāh" itself ("Say: Call upon God or call upon al-Raḥmān," [17:110]) — one hundred and fourteen times as the noun "raḥmah," one hundred and sixteen times as the adjective "raḥīm," once as "marḥamah," and six times as the active participle "rāḥimīn." So the total of the two forms "raḥmah" and "raḥīm" alone reaches two hundred and thirty places — that is, more than two-thirds of the entire root — which makes this root among the most frequently occurring ethical and creedal roots in the Qurʾan at all.

The linguistic root: wombs and mercy from a single origin

It is striking that the very root that yields "al-raḥmah" and "al-Raḥmān" also yields "al-arḥām" — that is, the physical organs in which the fetus is created: "It is He who forms you in the wombs (al-arḥām) as He wills" [3:6], and "God knows what every female carries and what the wombs lose" [13:8]. So the connection between mercy and the womb is not a late exegetical innovation, but an original linguistic reality confirmed by the Prophet ﷺ in the aforementioned hadith: the tie of kinship bears its name from the name of God al-Raḥmān because it is — in its essence — a trace of the traces of His mercy branching out from Him, not a social quality independent of religion.

The central structure: a circle expanding from the womb to what encompasses everything

The Qurʾan draws for mercy a circle of successive expansion, beginning from the narrowest scope and ending at the widest. The first of the circles is the wombs of mothers, where the life of every human being begins surrounded by a care in which he possesses nothing for himself. The second circle is the tie of kinship ("al-raḥim") which the Qurʾan warns against severing: "So would you perhaps, if you turned away, spread corruption in the land and sever your ties of kinship (arḥāmakum)?" [47:22]. The third circle is God's mercy toward His servants in general, which the Qurʾan described as a self-imposed obligation, not an incidental favor: "Your Lord has decreed upon Himself mercy" [6:54] — the verb "decreed (kataba)" here parallels the irrevocable legal obligation, as though God made mercy obligatory upon Himself as a legislator makes a law obligatory upon others, as an honoring of His servants, not out of need from Him for them. And the widest of all the circles is what God affirmed for Himself in a dialogue with the angels: "And My mercy encompasses everything" [7:156] — so there remains outside this last circle no existent thing.

A Qurʾanic model: mercy as the description of the message itself

The Qurʾan does not content itself with describing God with mercy, but describes with it the very message of the Prophet ﷺ in the most concise verse possible: "And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds" [21:107]. So mercy here is not a description of the Messenger among other descriptions, but the cause of his being sent and its comprehensive aim, encompassing all the worlds, not the believers alone. And in another place, the Qurʾan describes the Qurʾan itself with mercy: "And We send down of the Qurʾan that which is healing and mercy for the believers" [17:82] — so the Book that carries the rulings and the legal limits is described in the first place as a mercy, not a mere legislation.

Another model: the Most Merciful of the merciful on the tongue of the distressed

Three prophets resort, each in the most intense moments of his distress, to supplicating by the name "the Most Merciful of the merciful (Arḥam al-Rāḥimīn)" specifically: Jacob when he loses his two sons ("and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful," [7:151]) — Joseph when his judgment over his brothers is sought ("and He is the Most Merciful of the merciful," [12:64]) — and Job when harm touches him ("Indeed, harm has touched me, and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful," [21:83]). So the elative here is not summoned in a moment of well-being, but in a moment of despair of every possible human mercy, when the supplicant realizes that there is no merciful one surpassing all the merciful except God alone. And this accords with what was drawn from the expanding circle of mercy: for when the nearer circles of mercy narrow — family, relatives, friends — there remains for the distressed to resort to the circle that never narrows.

And in another place the Qurʾan pairs mercy with marriage directly, describing it as a pillar of the pillars of marital repose alongside affection: "And He placed between you affection and mercy" [30:21]. For affection is a natural inclination that may arise without cause, but mercy is the continuation in giving and forbearance even when the natural inclination fades or a coolness comes over it, and this explains why the Qurʾan pairs the two words together and does not content itself with one of them.

The Prophetic witness

The hadith "the womb is a branch of the Most Merciful" accords with another scene the Prophet ﷺ narrated concerning God's vast mercy on the Day of Resurrection: that God divided mercy into a hundred parts, and sent down a single part among the creatures by which they show mercy to one another — so much that the mare raises her hoof away from her foal for fear of striking it — and withheld with Himself ninety-nine parts by which He will have mercy on His servants on the Day of Resurrection^[2]. And this hadith clarifies that every mercy a person witnesses in this world — the mercy of the mother, the mercy of the father, even the mercy of the animal for its young — is but a single part of a hundred of a far vaster divine mercy, which accords entirely with the breadth of the last circle drawn by the verse "My mercy encompasses everything."

An additional scene: a wall whose inner side is mercy

The Qurʾan draws on the Day of Resurrection a scene that embodies mercy in an architectural embodiment: a wall struck between the believers and the hypocrites, "having a door — its inner side contains mercy, and its outer side faces punishment" [57:13]. So mercy here is not an abstract emotional state, but a place actually entered, having an inner side in which one takes refuge from whoever is outside it. This embodiment parallels what appeared in an earlier article of this series concerning sakīnah which "is sent down," for the Qurʾan describes both concepts in language that is almost sensory, not an abstract meaning that remains confined to feeling.

An objective-based (maqāṣidī) reading

It is observed that "al-Raḥmān" is the only name that is paired with "al-Raḥīm" in the opening of every sura of the suras of the Qurʾan except one, a pairing in which many scholars saw an indication of mercy's comprehension of two kinds: a general raḥmāniyyah encompassing all creation, their believers and their disbelievers, in this world (like provision, air, and the sun), and a special raḥīmiyyah particular to the believers in the Hereafter. And this distinction, though its detail is disputed among the exegetes, is consistent with the structure of the verses themselves: for when God's mercy is described as having "encompassed everything," that is in the context of the general raḥmāniyyah, while when mercy is mentioned as a condition for entering Paradise ("so their Lord will admit them into His mercy," [45:30]) that is of the special raḥīmiyyah.

The contemporary applied dimension

The linguistic connection between the raḥim and al-Raḥmān reminds us that the severing of relatives is not a mere social failure, but — as the hadith declared — a severance from a trace of the traces of God's mercy itself. And in an age in which families grow geographically distant and the ties of kinship are severed under the pretext of lack of time or old disputes, this connection serves as a reminder that the tie of kinship is not a social courtesy that can be dispensed with, but a living extension of a name of the names of God. And whoever finds himself today in the position of Jacob or Job — a distress for which he finds no merciful one among creation — the Qurʾan reminds him that the last circle of mercy, which encompasses everything, is never closed however much the nearer circles narrow. And on the other hand, the breadth of the Qurʾanic circle of mercy — from the womb to the worlds — invites whoever practices mercy in its narrowest circles (his family and relatives) not to stop at them, but to extend it to the wider circles the Qurʾan drew for the message itself: a mercy to the worlds, not to a particular household. And the description of the message and the Qurʾan themselves with mercy (not with wisdom or knowledge alone) reminds whoever bears the responsibility of teaching, calling to God, or leadership that the first criterion for the success of his message is not the precision of its information alone, but the measure of manifest mercy it carries for those to whom it is directed, whether believers or non-believers — exactly as the verse "a mercy to the worlds" was not restricted to one category rather than another.

Conclusion

From the womb of a mother from which every human being is born, to a mercy God decreed upon Himself, to a mercy that encompasses everything, the Qurʾan draws for mercy a single expanding circle, not separate circles. And whoever severs the narrowest of these circles — the tie of his kinship — has severed himself, by the text of the hadith, from a branch attached to the widest of them. And God, the Exalted, knows best; He is the Guardian of success.