Name 72 of 99

المؤخر

The Delayer

Al-Muʼakhkhir

The delayed answer — a lateness that was a mercy.

Meaning

From ʼ-kh-r, the root of al-ākhir, the Last (Name 74), and of al-ākhirah, the Hereafter; this Name is its verb of delay, which stands 25 times in the Qurʼan. Allah is the one who delays seven times: the wrongdoers to a Day (14:42), people to a named term (14:10, 16:61, 35:45, 71:4), the punishment (11:8) and the Day itself (11:104). Twice the delay is denied, when a term has come (63:11, 71:4). Four ask to be delayed, and only Iblīs is granted it: go, for I have delayed you, in aṭ-Ṭabarī’s words at 17:63. The Name-form is not in the Qurʼan; in the six ḥadīth editions al-muʼakhkhir is said of Allah in twelve records, each after al-muqaddim.

Root ʼ-kh-r — to put back, to defer

Counted from the Tanzil text with the hamzah kept: ʼ-kh-r 320 swept, 70 look-alikes (kh-r-j 61, d-kh-r 4, m-kh-r 2, kh-r-q, s-kh-r, f-kh-r), 250 real. Al-ākhirah 115; ākhir 40 (al-ākhir of Allah at 57:3); ākhar, other, 39; ukhrā and ukhar 31; the verb of delay 25 in 23 verses. Akhkhara 15: Allah delaying 7 (11:8, 11:104, 14:10, 14:42, 16:61, 35:45, 71:4); denied 2 (63:11, 71:4); asked of Allah 4 (4:77, 14:44, 17:62, 63:10); a soul’s own 2 (75:13, 82:5). Taʼakhkhara 3 (2:203, 48:2, 74:37). Istaʼkhara 7, denied or known (7:34, 10:49, 15:5, 15:24, 16:61, 23:43, 34:30). Aṭ-Ṭabarī: at 14:42, the punishment delayed to the Day of Resurrection; at 14:10, yunsiʼu fī ājālikum, deferring your terms to the time written in the Mother of the Book; at 71:4, no destruction by drowning or otherwise; at 63:10–11, from Ibn ʻAbbās, the man who dies with his zakāh unpaid asks to be sent back; at 17:63, go, for I have delayed you; at 11:104, the Day neither before its term nor after; at 2:203, the one who delays leaves with his sins removed if he feared Allah, not merely without blame for the delay; at 15:5, az-Zuhrī: until a term comes Allah delays what He wills and advances what He wills. Ibn Fāris, read in his own text at Name 74: one origin, the opposite of going forward. The six editions swept for al-muʼakhkhir: said of Allah in twelve records, each after al-muqaddim; the same spelling otherwise only of rows at prayer. Duʻāʼ: al-Bukhārī 1166; Muslim 2719a; al-Bukhārī 1120. Reports: al-Bukhārī 4686 and 6340; Muslim 2735c.

Story

Rania asked for one thing for eleven years, and it did not come. She wanted a house of her own, in her own town, near her mother — an ordinary want, held tightly, prayed over nightly. Twice it was nearly hers and twice it went to someone else at the last moment, in ways that felt almost designed.

The second time was the worst of it. She had the deposit counted into an envelope and had already decided which wall the bed would go against, and on a Thursday afternoon a cousin of the seller made a better offer and it was over before she had been told it was in doubt. She sat in her rented room that night doing the arithmetic of the next five years and could not make it come out to anything.

She stopped praying for a while afterward. Not dramatically — she simply stopped arriving at the part of the evening when she would have, and eventually the time passed without her noticing it, and weeks went by. When she started again it was a Tuesday morning, because she could not sleep, and she sat on the edge of the bed in the gray light before dawn and said what she had to say very plainly and with no particular idea of what would come of it. It felt less like resuming something than like writing a letter to an address she was no longer certain of. She sent it anyway. The starting again took a good deal longer than the stopping had.

The house did not come. She stayed where the work was: a rented room in a city she had not chosen, doing a job she had taken as a stopgap. The stopgap turned into a profession more gradually than she would have wished — there was a year in the middle when she was not certain it had, and took a second job on Tuesday evenings to be sure. The profession turned into a reputation. The reputation turned into an offer she could not have received anywhere else. She married a man she met through it, the kind of meeting that happens when you have been somewhere long enough to have a history. Her whole life, as it turned out, was assembled entirely out of the years she had spent waiting for it to start.

She got the house eventually, at forty-one, and could afford a far better one than the one she had wept over at thirty. Standing in it the first evening, she found she was not thinking about the house. She walked through the empty rooms deciding which wall the bed would go against, the way she had eleven years before, in a house that had never been hers. This time nobody came to the door.

Poem

A skilled composer will sometimes write a rest exactly where a listener expects a chord to land —
one beat, sometimes less, of pure silence,
right before the resolution the whole piece has been building toward.

Cut that silence, resolve the chord early instead,
and the same notes, played in the same order,
land with almost none of the power they’d have had
if the composer had simply let them wait
one measure longer.

The silence isn’t empty time.
It’s the exact length of holding back
that makes the arrival, when it finally comes,
land like something earned
instead of something merely next.

That is Al-Muʼakhkhir: not the silence — the One who holds the note.
He does not need the pause to make the arrival land;
He appoints the pause, and the arrival, and the ear that waited.
And what is held back here is not always given here —
some rests run past the end of the piece,
and resolve somewhere the listener has not yet been.

Reflection

The Not Yet

The Name before this one is the half you can celebrate. This is the half you have to live in. Allah advances what He wills and holds back what He wills, and in the six ḥadīth editions the Prophet ﷺ never says the one without the other: “You are Al-Muqaddim and You are Al-Muʼakhkhir.” Al-Muʼakhkhir is the One who puts a thing behind its moment — and who is Himself delayed by nothing: “never will Allah delay a soul when its time has come” (63:11).

Understand first what delay is not. When Allah withholds, He has not stopped attending. The Qurʼan says of the wrongdoers that “He only delays them for a Day when eyes will stare” (14:42) — a delay given as a threat, and even that one is deliberate, dated, and watched. Nothing is running late. Nothing has slipped His notice while He was occupied elsewhere.

The woman in the story asked for one ordinary thing for eleven years, and twice watched it go to someone else in the last hour. What she could not have known, at thirty, sitting with an envelope of deposit money she no longer needed, was that the years she was calling wasted were the years her actual life was being made out of — the work, the reputation, the marriage, the house better than the one she had wept over. Read carefully what the story does not claim: it does not say she was rewarded for waiting well. She stopped praying for a while. Starting again took longer than stopping had. Allah’s arrangement did not depend on her holding it together.

And read carefully what this Name does not promise. Some things you are asking for will not come in this life at all. The delay is real and it is sometimes permanent on this side, and no amount of devotional language should be used to talk you out of that grief. The Prophet ﷺ gave the shape of the truth instead, in a report Aḥmad records of the one who asks with no sin and no severing of kinship: Allah gives him one of three, “either He hastens his request for him, or He stores it up for him in the Hereafter, or He turns away from him an equivalent harm.” Two of those three you will not see from here. The rest, as the poem has it, runs past the end of the piece, and resolves somewhere you have not yet been.

There is one failure this Name warns against, and it is not the waiting. The Prophet ﷺ said the servant goes on being answered so long as he is not hasty — and, asked what haste is, he defined it: the man who says, “I have supplicated and I have supplicated, and I have not seen it answered for me,” and grows weary and leaves off supplication. The fault is not the length of the wait. It is the verdict pronounced from inside it — the moment you convert not yet into no, and stop bringing it to Him. That is the only way this ends badly.

So bring the same request again tonight, in the same words if you have no others. You are not nagging Him; you are doing the one thing He asked of the waiting. And notice what both of these Names quietly assume — a before and an after, a sequence, a clock. That order is itself a creature, made and running. Which raises the question the next Name answers: what was there before the sequence started? Al-Awwal — the First, with nothing before Him.

Delay is not absence; He has never once looked away.

Qurʼan

وَلَقَدْ عَلِمْنَا الْمُسْتَقْدِمِينَ مِنكُمْ وَلَقَدْ عَلِمْنَا الْمُسْتَأْخِرِينَ

And We have already known those who advance among you, and We have already known those who lag behind.

15:24 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71, whose note gives aṭ-Ṭabarī’s readings. Al-mustaʼkhirīn, form X of this Name’s root: in the reading aṭ-Ṭabarī holds soundest, those whose death is delayed, the living and those not yet born, beside those whose death came first.

يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ مِنْ ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُؤَخِّرْكُمْ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى ۚ إِنَّ أَجَلَ اللَّهِ إِذَا جَاءَ لَا يُؤَخَّرُ ۖ لَوْ كُنْتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ

He will forgive you your sins and delay you until a specified term. Truly the term of Allah, when it comes, is not delayed, if you only knew.

71:4 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Nūḥ to his people: yuʼakhkhirkum, with Allah the subject, and then lā yuʼakhkharu, the term of Allah not delayed. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: He delays you in your terms and does not destroy you by punishment, by drowning or otherwise, until a time He wrote in the Mother of the Book that He would keep you to, if you obey Him; and the term of Allah, when it comes, is not put back from its appointed time. Mujāhid, in aṭ-Ṭabarī: what is written of the term; when Allah’s term comes it is not delayed.

رَبَّنَا أَخِّرْنَا إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ قَرِيبٍ نُّجِبْ دَعْوَتَكَ وَنَتَّبِعِ الرُّسُلَ

Our Lord, delay us for a term nearby; we will answer Your call and follow the messengers.

14:44 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The wrongdoers on the Day ask for this Name’s verb: akhkhirnā. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: delay Your punishment from us and give us respite, so that we answer Your call and follow Your messengers; Mujāhid: a span in which they would act in the world. The āyah answers: did you not swear before that you would have no passing, which aṭ-Ṭabarī, with Mujāhid, reads as no passing from this world to the Hereafter.

وَلِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلٌ ۖ فَإِذَا جَاءَ أَجَلُهُمْ لَا يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ سَاعَةً وَلَا يَسْتَقْدِمُونَ

And for every community there is a term; when their term comes they will not delay it an hour, nor will they advance it.

7:34 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. The form X verbs of this Name’s root and Name 71’s, denied to a community when its term comes. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: they are not kept back in this world an hour, nor do they go ahead of the time Allah set for their destruction. The same clause stands at 10:49 and 16:61, and of a Day at 34:30; 15:5 and 23:43 give its first half with tasbiqu for the going ahead.

وَلَا تَحْسَبَنَّ اللَّهَ غَافِلًا عَمَّا يَعْمَلُ الظَّالِمُونَ ۚ إِنَّمَا يُؤَخِّرُهُمْ لِيَوْمٍ تَشْخَصُ فِيهِ الْأَبْصَارُ

And do not think Allah unaware of what the wrongdoers do. He only delays them for a Day when eyes will stare.

14:42 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Yuʼakhkhiruhum, with Allah the subject. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: your Lord, Muḥammad, delays these wrongdoers who deny you only to a Day on which the eyes of creation stare; He delays their punishment to the Day of Resurrection.

وَلَوْ يُؤَاخِذُ اللَّهُ النَّاسَ بِمَا كَسَبُوا مَا تَرَكَ عَلَىٰ ظَهْرِهَا مِن دَابَّةٍ وَلَٰكِن يُؤَخِّرُهُمْ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى ۚ فَإِذَا جَاءَ أَجَلُهُمْ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ بِعِبَادِهِ بَصِيرًا

And were Allah to seize mankind for what they have earned, He would not leave upon its surface a single creature. But He defers them to an appointed term; and when their term comes, then truly Allah is ever Seeing of His servants.

35:45 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 32. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: had Allah taken people to account for what they earned He would not have left a creature on the earth, but He delays their punishment and their being taken to account to a term known to Him, fixed, which they neither fall short of nor pass when they reach it.

وَلَوْ يُؤَاخِذُ اللَّهُ النَّاسَ بِظُلْمِهِمْ مَا تَرَكَ عَلَيْهَا مِنْ دَابَّةٍ وَلَٰكِنْ يُؤَخِّرُهُمْ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى ۖ فَإِذَا جَاءَ أَجَلُهُمْ لَا يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ سَاعَةً ۖ وَلَا يَسْتَقْدِمُونَ

And if Allah were to take people to account for their wrongdoing, He would not leave upon it a single creature; but He delays them until a specified term. And when their term comes, they will not delay it an hour, nor will they advance it.

16:61 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. Yuʼakhkhiruhum, this Name’s verb said of Allah. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: by His forbearance He delays these wrongdoers and does not hasten punishment on them. Az-Zuhrī, in aṭ-Ṭabarī: so long as a man’s term has not come, Allah delays what He wills and advances what He wills.

وَلَئِنْ أَخَّرْنَا عَنْهُمُ الْعَذَابَ إِلَىٰ أُمَّةٍ مَعْدُودَةٍ لَيَقُولُنَّ مَا يَحْبِسُهُ ۗ أَلَا يَوْمَ يَأْتِيهِمْ لَيْسَ مَصْرُوفًا عَنْهُمْ وَحَاقَ بِهِمْ مَا كَانُوا بِهِ يَسْتَهْزِئُونَ

And if We delay the punishment from them until a counted time, they will surely say: What holds it back? Truly, on the Day it comes to them it will not be turned away from them, and what they used to mock will surround them.

11:8 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Akhkharnā, with Allah the subject, and the question the delay draws from the mockers. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: if We delay the punishment from these idolaters of your people, Muḥammad, and do not hasten it, extending their terms to a counted time; the ummah here is a span of years, named so because a people lives in it.

قَالَتْ رُسُلُهُمْ أَفِي اللَّهِ شَكٌّ فَاطِرِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ يَدْعُوكُمْ لِيَغْفِرَ لَكُمْ مِنْ ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُؤَخِّرَكُمْ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى

Their messengers said: Is there doubt about Allah, Originator of the heavens and the earth? He calls you to forgive you your sins and to delay you until a specified term.

14:10 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The messengers to their peoples. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: yunsiʼu fī ājālikum, He defers your terms, not punishing you now to destroy you, but delaying you to the time He wrote in the Mother of the Book that He would take you, the term He named for you. The portion printed is the first part of the āyah.

وَمَا نُؤَخِّرُهُ إِلَّا لِأَجَلٍ مَعْدُودٍ

And We delay it only for a counted term.

11:104 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Nuʼakhkhiruhu, with Allah the subject, of the Day. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: We delay the Day of Resurrection from coming to you only so that its decree be fulfilled; He set it a term, counted and reckoned, and it comes neither before that term nor after it.

وَأَنْفِقُوا مِنْ مَا رَزَقْنَاكُمْ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ يَأْتِيَ أَحَدَكُمُ الْمَوْتُ فَيَقُولَ رَبِّ لَوْلَا أَخَّرْتَنِي إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ قَرِيبٍ فَأَصَّدَّقَ وَأَكُنْ مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ ۝ وَلَنْ يُؤَخِّرَ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِذَا جَاءَ أَجَلُهَا ۚ وَاللَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ

And spend of what We have provided you before death comes to one of you and he says: My Lord, if only You would delay me for a near term, so that I might give in charity and be among the righteous. But never will Allah delay a soul when its time has come; and Allah is Aware of what you do.

63:10–11 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

A man’s plea for this Name’s verb at death, and the refusal. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: my Lord, why did You not delay me and give me respite to a near term, so that I pay the zakāh of my wealth and do what You command. Ibn ʻAbbās, in aṭ-Ṭabarī: the believing man who dies with wealth whose zakāh he has not paid and from which he has not made the pilgrimage asks to be sent back, and Allah said: never will Allah delay a soul when its time has come.

وَقَالُوا رَبَّنَا لِمَ كَتَبْتَ عَلَيْنَا الْقِتَالَ لَوْلَا أَخَّرْتَنَا إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ قَرِيبٍ ۗ قُلْ مَتَاعُ الدُّنْيَا قَلِيلٌ وَالْآخِرَةُ خَيْرٌ لِمَنِ اتَّقَىٰ وَلَا تُظْلَمُونَ فَتِيلًا

And they said: Our Lord, why have You prescribed fighting for us? If only You had delayed us for a near term. Say: The enjoyment of this world is little, and the Hereafter is better for whoever fears Allah, and you will not be wronged by so much as a thread.

4:77 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Those commanded to fight ask why they were not delayed. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: a near term, until they die in their beds and their homes. He records from Ibn ʻAbbās that ʻAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn ʻAwf and companions of his came to the Prophet ﷺ saying they had been honoured as idolaters and humbled as believers, and were told he had been commanded to pardon and they should not fight; when Allah moved him to Madīnah and fighting was commanded, they held back. The portion printed is the second part of the āyah.

قَالَ أَرَأَيْتَكَ هَٰذَا الَّذِي كَرَّمْتَ عَلَيَّ لَئِنْ أَخَّرْتَنِ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ لَأَحْتَنِكَنَّ ذُرِّيَّتَهُ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا ۝ قَالَ اذْهَبْ فَمَنْ تَبِعَكَ مِنْهُمْ فَإِنَّ جَهَنَّمَ جَزَاؤُكُمْ جَزَاءً مَوْفُورًا

He said: Do You see this one whom You have honoured above me? If You delay me until the Day of Resurrection, I will surely bring his descendants under my sway, all but a few. He said: Go; and whoever of them follows you, then truly Hell is your recompense, a recompense in full.

17:62–63 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Iblīs asks for this Name’s verb, and is granted it. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: Allah said to Iblīs, when he said if You delay me until the Day of Resurrection: go, for I have delayed you; whoever of Ādam’s descendants follows you and obeys you, Hell is your recompense and theirs. Of the four in the count who ask to be delayed with this root, he is the one granted it; 4:77, 14:44 and 63:10 are answered with a rebuke or a refusal.

فَمَنْ تَعَجَّلَ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ فَلَا إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ وَمَنْ تَأَخَّرَ فَلَا إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ ۚ لِمَنِ اتَّقَىٰ

Then whoever hastens on in two days, there is no sin upon him, and whoever delays, there is no sin upon him — for whoever fears Allah.

2:203 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Taʼakhkhara, form V, of staying on at Minā. Aṭ-Ṭabarī records it read as no sin in hastening departure to the second of the days of tashrīq and no sin in delaying it to the third (ʻAṭāʼ, al-Ḥasan, ʻIkrimah), and rejects that reading: he holds soundest that whoever hastens and whoever delays leaves with his past sins expiated, if he feared Allah in his pilgrimage. The portion printed is from the middle of the āyah.

مَا تَسْبِقُ مِنْ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلَهَا وَمَا يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ

No community goes ahead of its term, nor do they delay it.

15:5 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Form X of this Name’s root, with tasbiqu, to outpace, where 7:34 has yastaqdimūn. Az-Zuhrī, in aṭ-Ṭabarī at this āyah as at 16:61: when a term has come it is not delayed an hour nor advanced; so long as it has not come, Allah delays what He wills and advances what He wills.

مَا تَسْبِقُ مِنْ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلَهَا وَمَا يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ

No community goes ahead of its term, nor do they delay it.

23:43 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The clause of 15:5, after the peoples raised up after Thamūd. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: no community among them is destroyed before the term set for its destruction or after it; a warning to the idolaters of the Prophet’s ﷺ people that the delay in their terms, with their disbelief, is only so that they reach the term set for them.

قُلْ لَا أَمْلِكُ لِنَفْسِي ضَرًّا وَلَا نَفْعًا إِلَّا مَا شَاءَ اللَّهُ ۗ لِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلٌ ۚ إِذَا جَاءَ أَجَلُهُمْ فَلَا يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ سَاعَةً ۖ وَلَا يَسْتَقْدِمُونَ

Say: I have no power over harm or benefit for myself, except what Allah wills. For every community there is a term; when their term comes, they will not delay it an hour, nor will they advance it.

10:49 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. The clause of 7:34, after the Prophet ﷺ is told to say he holds no harm or benefit for himself but what Allah wills. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: every people has an appointed time for the end of its span; when it comes they are not given respite an hour.

قُلْ لَكُمْ مِيعَادُ يَوْمٍ لَا تَسْتَأْخِرُونَ عَنْهُ سَاعَةً وَلَا تَسْتَقْدِمُونَ

Say: Yours is the appointment of a Day which you will not delay by an hour, nor advance.

34:30 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. The clause said of a Day. Ibn Kathīr: an appointment deferred, counted and fixed; when it comes it is not put back an hour nor brought forward.

يُنَبَّأُ الْإِنْسَانُ يَوْمَئِذٍ بِمَا قَدَّمَ وَأَخَّرَ

Man will be told on that Day of what he sent ahead and what he left behind.

75:13 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. Akhkhara with qaddama, said of a man. Aṭ-Ṭabarī holds that every reading is meant: the practice he left behind to be followed after his death, the obedience he held back, the rights of Allah he left undone, and the last of his deeds.

عَلِمَتْ نَفْسٌ مَا قَدَّمَتْ وَأَخَّرَتْ

A soul will know what it has sent ahead and what it has left behind.

82:5 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. The same pair, said of every soul. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: the practice it began and left behind for others to follow; ʻIkrimah and Qatādah, in aṭ-Ṭabarī: the duties it left undone.

لِيَغْفِرَ لَكَ اللَّهُ مَا تَقَدَّمَ مِنْ ذَنْبِكَ وَمَا تَأَخَّرَ وَيُتِمَّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكَ وَيَهْدِيَكَ صِرَاطًا مُسْتَقِيمًا

That Allah may forgive you what went before of your sin and what came after, and complete His favour upon you, and guide you to a straight path.

48:2 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. Taʼakhkhara, form V, of sin. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: forgiven what went before the opening and what came after it.

لِمَنْ شَاءَ مِنْكُمْ أَنْ يَتَقَدَّمَ أَوْ يَتَأَخَّرَ

For whoever of you wills to go forward or to lag behind.

74:37 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 71. Yataʼakhkhara, form V, left to the one who wills. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: to lag behind in disobedience to Allah.

Dua

وَإِن كُنتَ تَعْلَمُ أَنَّ هَٰذَا الْأَمْرَ شَرٌّ لِّي فِي دِينِي وَمَعَاشِي وَعَاقِبَةِ أَمْرِي … فَاصْرِفْهُ عَنِّي وَاصْرِفْنِي عَنْهُ

And if You know this matter to be bad for me in my religion, my livelihood, and the outcome of my affairs … then turn it away from me, and turn me away from it.

al-Bukhārī 1166 · ṣaḥīḥ

From Jābir ibn ʻAbdillāh: the clause of the istikhārah for a matter that is bad, whose other clause stands at Name 71 and whose opening Names 19 and 69 carry. It has no word of this root: iṣrifhu, turn it away, is ṣ-r-f. The ellipsis stands over the transmitter’s doubt, aw qāla fī ʻājili amrī wa-ājilih.

اللَّهُمَّ اغْفِرْ لِي مَا قَدَّمْتُ وَمَا أَخَّرْتُ وَمَا أَسْرَرْتُ وَمَا أَعْلَنْتُ وَمَا أَنْتَ أَعْلَمُ بِهِ مِنِّي أَنْتَ الْمُقَدِّمُ وَأَنْتَ الْمُؤَخِّرُ وَأَنْتَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

O Allah, forgive me what I have sent ahead and what I have left behind, what I have concealed and what I have made public, and what You know better than I. You are Al-Muqaddim and You are Al-Muʼakhkhir, and You have power over all things.

Muslim 2719a · ṣaḥīḥ (muttafaq ʻalayh)

Shared with Name 71. From Abū Mūsā al-Ashʻarī. The clause names Him by the participles of the two verbs the servant has just used, what I have sent ahead and what I have left behind. In the six ḥadīth editions al-muʼakhkhir is said of Allah in twelve records, and every one sets al-muqaddim before it.

فَاغْفِرْ لِي مَا قَدَّمْتُ وَمَا أَخَّرْتُ وَمَا أَسْرَرْتُ وَمَا أَعْلَنْتُ أَنْتَ الْمُقَدِّمُ وَأَنْتَ الْمُؤَخِّرُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ

So forgive me what I have sent ahead and what I have left behind, what I have concealed and what I have made public. You are Al-Muqaddim and You are Al-Muʼakhkhir; there is no god but You.

al-Bukhārī 1120 · ṣaḥīḥ (muttafaq ʻalayh)

From Ibn ʻAbbās: the close of the supplication the Prophet ﷺ made when he rose at night for the night prayer, whose other portions Names 51 and 63 carry. The narrator adds a doubt: or, there is no god other than You. Muslim 769a has the report closing with forgive me what I have sent ahead and left behind, concealed and made public; You are my God, there is no god but You, without the two Names.

Hadith

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَيُمْلِي لِلظَّالِمِ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا أَخَذَهُ لَمْ يُفْلِتْهُ

Truly Allah gives respite to the wrongdoer, until, when He seizes him, he does not escape.

al-Bukhārī 4686 · ṣaḥīḥ (muttafaq ʻalayh)

From Abū Mūsā al-Ashʻarī. Yumlī, He gives respite, is from another root than this Name’s; it is kept for a delay the report says ends in a seizing. The Prophet ﷺ then recited 11:102, which Name 99 carries. The printed wording is al-Bukhārī 4686’s; Muslim 2583 has ʻazza wa-jalla after the Name of Allah, yumlī without the lām of emphasis, and fa-idhā, so when, for ḥattā idhā, until when.

يُسْتَجَابُ لِأَحَدِكُمْ مَا لَمْ يَعْجَلْ يَقُولُ دَعَوْتُ فَلَمْ يُسْتَجَبْ لِي

The supplication of any one of you is answered so long as he is not hasty, saying: I supplicated and I was not answered.

al-Bukhārī 6340 · ṣaḥīḥ

From Abū Hurayrah. The printed wording is al-Bukhārī 6340’s. Muslim 2735a has it with fa-yaqūlu qad daʻawtu and a doubt between fa-lā and fa-lam, and 2735b with qad daʻawtu rabbī. The question what haste is, and its answer, stand in Muslim 2735c, below.

قِيلَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ مَا الِاسْتِعْجَالُ قَالَ يَقُولُ قَدْ دَعَوْتُ وَقَدْ دَعَوْتُ فَلَمْ أَرَ يَسْتَجِيبُ لِي فَيَسْتَحْسِرُ عِنْدَ ذَلِكَ وَيَدَعُ الدُّعَاءَ

It was said: Messenger of Allah, what is haste? He said: He says, I have supplicated and I have supplicated, and I have not seen it answered for me; so he grows weary at that and leaves off supplication.

Muslim 2735c · ṣaḥīḥ

From Abū Hurayrah, by way of Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī: the second part of the report whose first part Name 44 carries, the servant answered so long as he does not ask for sin or the severing of kinship, and so long as he is not hasty.

Study Notes

Verified — derived; paired formula strong

ShowHide the Study Notes (1,752 words)

CARRIED ON THIS PAGE: twenty-two entries, four before and eighteen appended. Before: 15:24 and 7:34, shared with Name 71; 71:4, now printed whole; 14:44. Appended and new to the book: 14:42, 11:8, 14:10, 11:104, 63:10–11, 4:77, 17:62–63, 2:203, 15:5 and 23:43. Appended and shared exactly: 35:45 with Name 32; 16:61, 10:49, 34:30, 75:13, 82:5, 48:2 and 74:37 with Name 71. With them the page carries every one of the 25 words of the verb of delay in the Qurʼan, in their 23 verses. The distinct verse count moves from 586 to 596.

NAMED HERE BUT NOT CARRIED ON THIS PAGE: 57:3, carried at Name 73 and Name 74 and Name 75 and Name 76; 11:102, carried at Name 99.

CORRECTED ON THE RECORD, THE COUNT: ʼ-kh-r is hamzated, and strip() makes ākhar, ākhir and akhkhara one spelling, so the sweep was taken on the Tanzil text with the harakat removed and every hamzah carrier kept (count_akhr.py): 320 words, 70 of them look-alikes (kh-r-j with the causative hamzah 61, d-kh-r 4, m-kh-r 2, and one each of kh-r-q, s-kh-r and f-kh-r), leaving 250, split on the pointed text and asserted in build_N72.py. AL-ĀKHIRAH, THE HEREAFTER, 115. ĀKHIR, LAST, 40, among them al-ākhir said of Allah at 57:3, the Name of Name 74. ĀKHAR, OTHER, 39. UKHRĀ AND UKHAR 31. THE VERB OF DELAY 25, in 23 verses, and it is this Name’s sense.

AKHKHARA 15: ALLAH DELAYS SEVEN TIMES (11:8 the punishment, 11:104 the Day, 14:10 and 71:4 a people to a named term, 14:42 the wrongdoers to a Day, 16:61 and 35:45 people to a named term); HIS DELAY IS DENIED TWICE, when a term has come (63:11, and lā yuʼakhkharu at 71:4); IT IS ASKED OF HIM FOUR TIMES (4:77, believers commanded to fight; 14:44, the wrongdoers on the Day; 63:10, a man at death; 17:62, Iblīs); and it is a soul’s own twice (75:13, 82:5, with qaddama). OF THE FOUR WHO ASK, ONLY IBLĪS IS GRANTED IT: aṭ-Ṭabarī at 17:63 gives Allah’s go as go, for I have delayed you; 4:77 is answered with the enjoyment of this world is little, 14:44 with did you not swear before, and 63:10 with 63:11.

TAʼAKHKHARA 3: staying on at Minā (2:203), where aṭ-Ṭabarī records the reading no sin in the delay and rejects it for his own, that the pilgrim who fears Allah leaves with his past sins expiated whether he hastens or delays; sin forgiven (48:2); left to the one who wills (74:37). ISTAʼKHARA 7, every one denied to people or known of them (7:34, 10:49, 15:5, 15:24, 16:61, 23:43, 34:30). THE SIX ḤADĪTH EDITIONS SWEPT FOR AL-MUʼAKHKHIR: said of Allah in the twelve records Name 71 lists, and al-muqaddim stands before it in every one; the same spelling stands in eight other records, every one of a row at prayer (Muslim 840a and 2942b, Abū Dāwūd 671, at-Tirmidhī 3122, an-Nasāʼī 818, 870 and 1549, Ibn Mājah 1046). So the Prophet ﷺ is not recorded in the six editions naming Him by either Name without the other. FOUND / CORRECTED / REMOVED, AS UNVERIFIED: THE 7:34 NOTE SAID IT IS THE ONLY PLACE THE TWO VERBS STAND TOGETHER IN ONE CLAUSE.

FALSE: 10:49, 16:61 and 34:30 carry the same clause, and Name 71’s count found the two roots together in nine verses; corrected here as it was corrected at Name 71. THE 14:44 NOTE SAID THE WRONGDOERS HAD SWORN THAT NO SUCH DELAY WOULD EVER END FOR THEM; aṭ-Ṭabarī, with Mujāhid, reads their oath as that they would have no passing from this world to the Hereafter; rewritten, and its claim that this Name grants the living the delay unasked, which no source read says, removed. THE 15:24 NOTE SAID THIS NAME HAS FIRMER SEPARATE GROUNDING than Name 71; no source says so; removed. THE 71:4 NOTE SAID THE VERB IS APPLIED TO THE WHOLE TERM OF A LIFE; aṭ-Ṭabarī reads it as delay in their terms without destruction by drowning or otherwise, to a time written; rewritten, and the āyah printed whole so that lā yuʼakhkharu, which the ref quoted, is on the page. THE DUʻĀʼ NOTE narrated editing (appended at Name 71; run over without a mark before) and called iṣrifhu the nearest available phrase; iṣrifhu is ṣ-r-f and the supplication has no word of this root; rewritten. THE AL-BUKHĀRĪ 6340 NOTE carried a reading record with a date and in-book numbering, a chapter heading taken from a website, capitals, a pointer at the ref, and said Muslim 2735a was not read. Read now: Muslim 2735a has fa-yaqūlu qad daʻawtu with a doubt between fa-lā and fa-lam, and 2735b qad daʻawtu rabbī; neither carries the printed wording, so the citation stays al-Bukhārī 6340 alone. Muslim 2735c carries the question what is haste and its answer, which MEDS 72 quoted in words the page did not carry; that portion is added, linked to Name 44, which carries the report’s first part. THE AL-BUKHĀRĪ 4686 NOTE’S account of Muslim 2583 (ʻazza wa-jalla added, yumlī without the lām, fa-idhā for ḥattā idhā) was read against both records and is true; its gloss that the delay ends exactly when it was always going to end had no source and is removed; the note now names 11:102, which the Prophet ﷺ recited after it. THE DESC said a delay from Him is a decision about time taken with the whole of what follows in view, and that what He holds back in this life He may be keeping for the next, neither sourced; struck; rebuilt on the count, aṭ-Ṭabarī and the sweep. THE REF carried Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6398, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2719a, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6340 and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2735a against house form, cited 2735a for wording it does not carry, and called delay the thing most often mistaken for refusal, from no source; rebuilt. THE ROOT FIELD took its gloss from the desc; now from the count and aṭ-Ṭabarī, with rootRelation pointing at Name 74. ADDED on the Duʻāʼ page: Muslim 2719a, shared exactly with Name 71, and the closing of al-Bukhārī 1120, the night supplication, linked to Names 51 and 63. MEDS 72 said the Prophet ﷺ never said one Name without the other; true in the six editions, now bounded to them. It called 14:42 the most frightening delay in the book, a superlative with no source, and described its wrongdoers as left alone in their prosperity, which the āyah does not say; both removed. It paraphrased the three outcomes of a supplication in words that were not the book’s; it now quotes the book’s English of the report Aḥmad records, carried at Name 44. It quoted I supplicated and I supplicated, and I was not answered; now Muslim 2735c in the page’s English. POEMS 72 read and not changed: a rest before a resolution is a device composers use, and landing with almost none of the power is figure, recorded and left. CH 72 read and not changed: its ages agree (thirty, eleven years, forty-one) with the meditation.

READ: the Tanzil text, every word of the verb of delay in its verse, the other classes by pointed form. Aṭ-Ṭabarī at 2:203, 4:77, 11:8, 11:104, 14:10, 14:42, 14:44, 15:5, 17:62, 17:63, 23:43, 35:45, 63:10, 63:11 and 71:4 through the tafsir dataset, with the readings at 7:34, 10:49, 15:24, 16:61, 48:2, 74:37, 75:13 and 82:5 taken at Name 71. Letter by letter with their grade rows: al-Bukhārī 1120, 1166, 4686 and 6340; Muslim 769a, 2583, 2719a, 2735a, 2735b and 2735c; the twelve records Name 71 lists; Muslim 840a and 2942b, Abū Dāwūd 671, at-Tirmidhī 3122, an-Nasāʼī 818, 870 and 1549, Ibn Mājah 1046; the six editions swept for al-muʼakhkhir.

NOT READ: IBN FĀRIS FOR ʼ-KH-R WAS NOT REACHED IN HIS OWN TEXT. The islamweb page for the bāb did not surface in search; the Shamela index surfaced but not the page; the Hawramani aggregator page surfaced twice and timed out twice. A one-line quotation of him in a secondary article was seen and is not relied on. The gloss rests on the count and on aṭ-Ṭabarī’s yunsiʼu and yumhil. Al-Ghazālī’s al-Maqṣad al-Asnā.

OPEN: Ibn Fāris for ʼ-kh-r, owed at this pass, was reached at Name 74 (below). The 7:34 note was closed here, and Name 71’s Study Note now records it. 15:24 and 7:34 are linked to Name 71 as p though the Arabic and English are identical on both pages, the book’s paired-Names convention; left. MEDS 72 says the order of time is itself a creature, made and running; a reflection with no source cited, left for the author.

COHERENCE: for the appends, Name 42’s Study Note line on 17:62 now reads carried at Name 72, and Name 34’s NAMED line for 35:45 now reads Name 32 and Name 72. 35:45 is shared exactly with Name 32, whose English says defers; the shared entry keeps that English. Muslim 2719a is carried here and at Name 71 with the same Arabic, English, source and grade, linked exactly, and at Name 14 as another portion. Al-Bukhārī 1120 is carried at Names 51, 63 and 72 in three portions, linked both ways. Muslim 2735c is carried at Names 44 and 72 in two portions, linked both ways.

AFTER NAME 74: Ibn Fāris for ʼ-kh-r is reached in his own text (Shamela, the Hārūn edition, vol. 1 p. 70): one origin to which its branches return, the opposite of going forward, an analogy taken from al-Khalīl. The ref and senseNote, which said he was not reached, now give it.

AFTER NAME 99: al-Bukhārī 4686 is carried on Name 99’s Ḥadīth page as well, in the same Arabic, English, source and grade, and linked with this page as an exact share.

ON THE AUTHOR’S LIST, THE RECORDED GROUP: the list gathers in one place the passages of the creative pages that are the author’s own and are kept, so that no later pass corrects them. The entry at this Name is the meditation’s close, that the sequence both this Name and Al-Muqaddim quietly assume is itself a thing made and running. This note already records it as the author’s, with no source cited; that record stands, the passage is unchanged, and it stays with him.

IN BUILD 187, FROM THE PHASE 2 READING: the sweep with every hamzah carrier, alif with hamzah below among them, returns 320 words, 70 of them look-alikes, kh-r-j 61: the six masdars ikhrāj at 2:85, 2:217, 2:240, 9:13, 60:9 and 71:18 are the difference, all look-alikes, and the 250 and every class stand.

الأولNext · Name 73The First

Al-Awwal

Read Name 72 in the full reader