Name 66 of 99

الواحد

The One

Al-Wāḥid

Two houses — a heart that will not divide.

Meaning

From w-ḥ-d, which Ibn Fāris gives one origin, being single: a man is the wāḥid of his tribe when none among them is like him, and aḥad is a branch of it. The Name-form stands six times in the Qurʼan, always of Allah and always with al-Qahhār after it, and as-Saʻdī reads the two as inseparable: the One is only Qahhār, and the Qahhār only One. The indefinite is said of Him sixteen times, each time of ilāh: your god is one god. Aṭ-Ṭabarī records two readings of that oneness: that nothing is like Him, as a man is called the one of his people, and that He is apart from things and they from Him. In the six ḥadīth editions every record that says al-Wāḥid of Allah sets aṣ-Ṣamad beside it, and none al-Qahhār.

Root w-ḥ-d — being single, alone (al-infirād); aḥad a branch of the root

Counted from the Tanzil text. A sweep for wāw or alif, then ḥāʼ and dāl, returns 202 words; 49 are look-alikes (al-ḥamd 28, al-ḥadīth and aḥādīth 11, al-ḥadīd 3, and seven more), and the root is 153. Al-Wāḥid, the Name-form, 6, all of Allah and each followed by al-Qahhār: 12:39, 13:16, 14:48, 38:65, 39:4, 40:16. Wāḥid indefinite 24: of Allah 16, every one describing ilāh (among them 2:163, 16:51, 18:110, 37:4, and 38:5 in the mouths of those who refuse it); of creatures 8, among them 54:24, the one man Thamūd would not follow. Wāḥidah 31, never of Allah; ten are one blast, shout, blow, levelling or command, as 54:50. Waḥdahu 6, all of Allah: refused or recoiled from at 7:70, 17:46, 39:45 and 40:12; declared when the punishment was seen at 40:84, and not accepted; Ibrāhīm’s condition at 60:4. Waḥīd once, 74:11, of a man created alone. Aḥad and iḥdā 85: of Allah once, 112:1; anyone or no one, in denial, prohibition, question or condition, 48, seven of them denying Him a partner and 112:4 an equal; one, affirmed, 4; one of, 32. Ibn Fāris, in his own text: w-ḥ-d one origin, al-infirād, and al-wāḥid is al-munfarid; aḥad a branch whose origin is the wāw. Aṭ-Ṭabarī at 2:163: two readings of His oneness; at 13:16: the single One with no second. As-Saʻdī at 39:4: His oneness and His subduing inseparable. The six editions swept for al-wāḥid: said of Allah outside the lists (at-Tirmidhī 3507, Ibn Mājah 3861) in five records, four using Allāhu l-wāḥidu ṣ-ṣamad for Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (al-Bukhārī 5015, Abū Dāwūd 1423, at-Tirmidhī 2896, Ibn Mājah 3789) and one a supplication (an-Nasāʼī 1301); aṣ-Ṣamad in all seven, al-Qahhār in none. Duʻāʼ: al-Bukhārī 6403 and Muslim 2691; an-Nasāʼī 1301. Reports: al-Bukhārī 5015; al-Bukhārī 4114 and Muslim 2724; al-Bukhārī 7372, yuwaḥḥidū.

Story

Ghassan took work in two houses because he needed the money, and for a while it seemed clever. Mornings for one merchant, afternoons for another; two wages, one man. He was good at his job and both houses were pleased.

The trouble was not the hours. It came the first time the two merchants wanted opposite things — the same contract, the same shipment — and Ghassan discovered that he was not two servants but one man with a divided heart, and that a divided heart does not do half as well for each. It does badly for both. He began to shade the truth in one house to protect his standing in the other. Within a year he was lying in both, and doing well in neither. The lying had come easily, which was the part that frightened him.

He gave one up in the end, and the relief was out of all proportion to the lost wage. He had not known how much of him had been spent on the management of the division itself — the calculating, the withholding, the constant small betrayals. He slept properly that week for the first time in a year and a half.

He was not owed a clean ending and did not get one. The house he left had been the one that treated him better, and he chose it precisely for that reason, because it was the one he could look in the eye while resigning. The other kept him another ten years and he never much liked the work. He was at the gate every morning at the same hour, and did it properly, and was one man doing it.

Poem

Look at an ordinary metal spoon under strong enough magnification,
and it stops looking like one solid piece of metal at all.

It’s actually millions of tiny crystals, each one grown
in a slightly different direction, fused together at their edges
into something that only looks whole from a normal distance.

Those edges — the seams where one crystal ends and the next begins —
are where metal often gives way, when heat or time or corrosion work at it.
Those cracks follow the boundary rather than the middle.
They start where one “whole” quietly stops
and another “whole” quietly begins.

There is a rarer kind of material, though — grown slowly, carefully,
as a single continuous lattice from start to end,
with no seam anywhere inside it,
because there was never a second crystal
for a first one to be joined to.

Nothing in it is stitched to anything else.
There is no seam inside it for a crack to follow,
because there is no “inside it” and “the rest of it” to begin with —
only one continuous whole, the same all the way through.

Set that crystal beside Al-Wāḥid and even it comes apart:
an assembly of atoms past counting, grown in a furnace,
grindable back to dust, ending where the air begins.
His oneness is not the finest instance of the kind.
There is nothing like Him to set alongside and measure —
and the image, having carried you this far, stops.

Reflection

The Undivided

Count what you are actually serving. Not what you would say if asked — what you rearrange your week around, what you protect first when something has to give, whose bad answer would ruin your month. Most people find more than one thing on that list, and most find the items on it do not agree with each other. The two-house servant in the story learned it directly. You learn it in one life. A divided servant does not give half to each; he gives badly to both.

Al-Wāḥid is the Name for the fact underneath that discovery. He is One — not first among many, not the largest of the powers, not the best of the available claims. There is no second to compare Him with, no rival authority whose demands could be weighed against His, no partner holding a share. Six times the Qurʼan gives this Name, and six times it is joined to another: al-Wāḥid al-Qahhār, the One, the Subduer. The pairing is doing work. If He is One, every other claimant is overcome by simple fact, without a contest ever being held.

This is the sobering half. Divided worship is not a lesser worship; it is a different thing altogether. To assign Him a share is to have understood nothing, because a share implies a second holder, and there is none. The Qurʼan does not treat this as a shortfall in devotion but as a false account of what exists — indeed, association is a great wrong (31:13). You are not being invited to prefer Him among options. You are being told there were never options.

And this is the consolation, which is larger than it first looks. Because He is One, there is only one direction to face. One approval that finally counts, and it is not administered by anyone in your building. One account to settle, with no second creditor waiting behind Him. What exhausted the two-house servant in the story was never the work; it was the upkeep of the division — the calculating, the withholding, the constant small betrayals. Remove the second master and the exhaustion leaves with him. The undivided heart is not a harder discipline. It is a lighter load.

There is a trace of this in you, and it has to be named carefully, because it is not a share in His oneness. It is the plain human incapacity to be two — that a divided heart works badly, that the man who serves two houses is worse in both. Allah has not made for a man two hearts in his interior (33:4). That is a statement about your limits, not about His nature. You are one because you cannot be more. He is One because there is nothing else to be.

Al-Wāḥid says there is no second beside Him. Al-Aḥad, which follows, is the word that closes the first and the last āyah of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ: “He is Allah, the Unique,” and “there is none comparable to Him.”

You did not choose Him over the others. There were no others.

Qurʼan

يَا صَاحِبَيِ السِّجْنِ أَأَرْبَابٌ مُّتَفَرِّقُونَ خَيْرٌ أَمِ اللَّهُ الْوَاحِدُ الْقَهَّارُ

O two companions of the prison, are separate lords better, or Allah, the One, the Subduer?

12:39 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 15. Yūsuf, in prison, to the two men imprisoned with him. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: is the worship of scattered lords and gods that neither help nor harm better, or the worship of the One who has no second in His power and dominion? Ibn Isḥāq, in aṭ-Ṭabarī: is it better that you worship one god, or scattered gods that avail you nothing?

قُلِ اللَّهُ خَالِقُ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَهُوَ الْوَاحِدُ الْقَهَّارُ

Say: Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the Subduer.

13:16 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The close of an āyah that asks who is Lord of the heavens and the earth, and whether they have set up partners who created as He creates. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: and He is the single One who has no second; al-Qahhār, the One to whom godship and worship are due, not the idols that neither harm nor benefit.

قُلْ إِنَّمَا أَنَا مُنذِرٌ ۖ وَمَا مِنْ إِلَٰهٍ إِلَّا اللَّهُ الْوَاحِدُ الْقَهَّارُ

Say: I am only a warner, and there is no god but Allah, the One, the Subduer.

38:65 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Aṭ-Ṭabarī: say to the idolaters of your people, I am only a warner; and there is none worshipped to whom worship is due but Allah, the One who should have no partner in His dominion and no consort, al-Qahhār over all below Him by His power.

يَوْمَ تُبَدَّلُ الْأَرْضُ غَيْرَ الْأَرْضِ وَالسَّمَاوَاتُ ۖ وَبَرَزُوا لِلَّهِ الْوَاحِدِ الْقَهَّارِ

On the Day the earth is changed into another earth, and the heavens too, and they come forth before Allah, the One, the Subduer.

14:48 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 15. The Name in the genitive, after li-llāh: all come forth before the One, al-Qahhār. As-Saʻdī: the One alone in His greatness, His Names, His attributes and His mighty acts, and subduing every world.

سُبْحَانَهُ ۖ هُوَ اللَّهُ الْوَاحِدُ الْقَهَّارُ

Glory be to Him — He is Allah, the One, the Subduer.

39:4 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 15. The āyah denies that Allah took a child. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: all things are His dominion, so how could He have a child, and He is the One with no partner in His dominion and power. As-Saʻdī: His oneness and His subduing are bound together; the One is only Qahhār and the Qahhār only One, and that denies Him partnership in every way.

لِمَنِ الْمُلْكُ الْيَوْمَ ۖ لِلَّهِ الْوَاحِدِ الْقَهَّارِ

To whom belongs the sovereignty this Day? To Allah, the One, the Subduer.

40:16 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Name 15. The question asked on the Day, and its answer. As-Saʻdī: that Day partnership in dominion is cut off and the ties are severed; the One is alone in His essence, His Names, His attributes and His acts, with no partner in any of them.

وَإِلَٰهُكُمْ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ ۖ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الرَّحْمَٰنُ الرَّحِيمُ

And your god is one god; there is no god but He, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

2:163 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The indefinite wāḥid said of Allah, as it is sixteen times, each time of ilāh. Aṭ-Ṭabarī records two readings of His oneness. Some said it denies likenesses and equals, as a man is called the wāḥid of his people when none is like him: of the senses of one, being one of a kind, being undivided like the part that cannot be divided, and being alike, are denied of Him, and the denial of any peer remains. Others said it is His being apart from things and theirs from Him, entering nothing and entered by nothing.

۞ وَقَالَ اللَّهُ لَا تَتَّخِذُوا إِلَٰهَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ ۖ إِنَّمَا هُوَ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ ۖ فَإِيَّايَ فَارْهَبُونِ

And Allah said: Do not take two gods; He is only one god, so fear Me alone.

16:51 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Aṭ-Ṭabarī: do not take a partner to Me and do not worship two objects of worship, for if you worship another with Me you make Me a partner, and I have no partner.

إِنَّ إِلَٰهَكُمْ لَوَاحِدٌ

Truly your god is One.

37:4 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

An oath opens Sūrat aṣ-Ṣāffāt, and Qatādah, in aṭ-Ṭabarī, says the oath falls on this. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: one, with no second and no partner.

أَجَعَلَ الْآلِهَةَ إِلَٰهًا وَاحِدًا ۖ إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَشَيْءٌ عُجَابٌ

Has he made the gods one god? This is truly a strange thing.

38:5 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The indefinite in the mouths of those who refuse it. Aṭ-Ṭabarī reports from Ibn ʻAbbās that when Abū Ṭālib fell ill Quraysh came to him, and the Prophet ﷺ said he wanted of them one word, lā ilāha illā llāh; they rose in alarm saying this. Qatādah: the idolaters wondered that they were called to Allah alone.

قُلْ إِنَّمَا أَنَا بَشَرٌ مِثْلُكُمْ يُوحَىٰ إِلَيَّ أَنَّمَا إِلَٰهُكُمْ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ ۖ فَمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَاءَ رَبِّهِ فَلْيَعْمَلْ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا وَلَا يُشْرِكْ بِعِبَادَةِ رَبِّهِ أَحَدًا

Say: I am only a man like you; it is revealed to me that your god is one god. So whoever hopes for the meeting with his Lord, let him do righteous work and not associate anyone in the worship of his Lord.

18:110 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Both faces of the root in one āyah: your god is one god, wāḥid, and let him associate no one, aḥad, in the worship of his Lord. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: your object of worship is one, with no second and no partner.

فَقَالُوا أَبَشَرًا مِنَّا وَاحِدًا نَتَّبِعُهُ إِنَّا إِذًا لَفِي ضَلَالٍ وَسُعُرٍ

And they said: A man from among us, one alone, shall we follow him? Then we would be in error and madness.

54:24 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The indefinite said of a man, and made an argument against a prophet. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: Thamūd said, denying Ṣāliḥ, the messenger of their Lord: a man from among us, shall we follow him, we the great company and he one?

وَمَا أَمْرُنَا إِلَّا وَاحِدَةٌ كَلَمْحٍ بِالْبَصَرِ

And Our command is but one, like a glance of the eye.

54:50 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The feminine, which never describes Allah; ten of its thirty-one places are one blast, shout, blow, levelling or command. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: Our command, when We will a thing to be, is a single word, be, and it is, with no going back on it.

ذَرْنِي وَمَنْ خَلَقْتُ وَحِيدًا

Leave Me with the one I created alone.

74:11 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Waḥīd, which stands only here, said of a man. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: leave to Me the one I created in his mother’s womb alone, with nothing of wealth or child; and it is mentioned that al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah al-Makhzūmī was meant. Mujāhid, in aṭ-Ṭabarī: and so is all creation. Ibn Kathīr and as-Saʻdī read the word of the man in the same way.

قَالُوا أَجِئْتَنَا لِنَعْبُدَ اللَّهَ وَحْدَهُ وَنَذَرَ مَا كَانَ يَعْبُدُ آبَاؤُنَا ۖ فَأْتِنَا بِمَا تَعِدُنَا إِنْ كُنْتَ مِنَ الصَّادِقِينَ

They said: Have you come to us that we should worship Allah alone and leave what our fathers used to worship? Then bring us what you promise us, if you are of the truthful.

7:70 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The first of the six places waḥdahu stands, and ʻĀd’s answer to Hūd. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: have you come threatening us with punishment, that we should worship Allah alone and leave the gods our fathers worshipped? We will not do it.

وَجَعَلْنَا عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ أَكِنَّةً أَنْ يَفْقَهُوهُ وَفِي آذَانِهِمْ وَقْرًا ۚ وَإِذَا ذَكَرْتَ رَبَّكَ فِي الْقُرْآنِ وَحْدَهُ وَلَّوْا عَلَىٰ أَدْبَارِهِمْ نُفُورًا

And We have placed coverings over their hearts lest they understand it, and heaviness in their ears; and when you mention your Lord alone in the Qurʼan, they turn their backs in aversion.

17:46 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Aṭ-Ṭabarī: when you say lā ilāha illā llāh in the Qurʼan as you recite it, they scatter from you in aversion, too proud to have Allah declared One. He records from Ibn ʻAbbās that those who turn away are the devils, and holds his own reading nearer the plain sense of the verse.

وَإِذَا ذُكِرَ اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ اشْمَأَزَّتْ قُلُوبُ الَّذِينَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْآخِرَةِ ۖ وَإِذَا ذُكِرَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ دُونِهِ إِذَا هُمْ يَسْتَبْشِرُونَ

And when Allah alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter shrink with aversion; and when those besides Him are mentioned, at once they rejoice.

39:45 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Aṭ-Ṭabarī: when Allah is singled out in mention and called on alone, and lā ilāha illā llāh is said, the hearts of those who do not believe in the return recoil; they recoiled from the declaration of Allah’s oneness.

ذَٰلِكُم بِأَنَّهُ إِذَا دُعِيَ اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ كَفَرْتُمْ ۖ وَإِن يُشْرَكْ بِهِ تُؤْمِنُوا ۚ فَالْحُكْمُ لِلَّهِ الْعَلِيِّ الْكَبِيرِ

That is because, when Allah alone was invoked, you disbelieved; but when others were associated with Him, you believed. So the judgment belongs to Allah, the Most High, the Great.

40:12 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Shared with Names 36 and 37. Waḥdahu again. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: this punishment is yours, disbelievers, because when Allah alone was called on you denied that godship was His purely, and said, has he made the gods one god, the words of 38:5.

فَلَمَّا رَأَوْا بَأْسَنَا قَالُوا آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَحْدَهُ وَكَفَرْنَا بِمَا كُنَّا بِهِ مُشْرِكِينَ ۝ فَلَمْ يَكُ يَنْفَعُهُمْ إِيمَانُهُمْ لَمَّا رَأَوْا بَأْسَنَا ۖ سُنَّتَ اللَّهِ الَّتِي قَدْ خَلَتْ فِي عِبَادِهِ ۖ وَخَسِرَ هُنَالِكَ الْكَافِرُونَ

And when they saw Our might, they said: We believe in Allah alone, and we disbelieve in what we used to associate with Him. But their faith did not benefit them when they saw Our might — the way of Allah which has gone before among His servants; and there the disbelievers lost.

40:84–85 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Waḥdahu declared when the punishment was seen, and not accepted. Aṭ-Ṭabarī at 40:84: they said, we affirm the oneness of Allah and that there is no god but He, and we deny the gods we used to associate with Him.

قَدْ كَانَتْ لَكُمْ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ فِي إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَالَّذِينَ مَعَهُ إِذْ قَالُوا لِقَوْمِهِمْ إِنَّا بُرَآءُ مِنْكُمْ وَمِمَّا تَعْبُدُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ كَفَرْنَا بِكُمْ وَبَدَا بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمُ الْعَدَاوَةُ وَالْبَغْضَاءُ أَبَدًا حَتَّىٰ تُؤْمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَحْدَهُ

There has already been for you an excellent example in Ibrāhīm and those with him, when they said to their people: We are free of you and of what you worship besides Allah; we have rejected you, and there has arisen between us and you enmity and hatred forever, until you believe in Allah alone.

60:4 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The last of the six places waḥdahu stands: Ibrāhīm and those with him set it as the condition on their people. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: until you believe in Allah alone, declare Him One and single Him out in worship. The portion printed is the first part of the āyah.

Dua

لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدُ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

There is no god but Allah alone, with no partner. His is the dominion, His is the praise, and He has power over all things.

al-Bukhārī 6403; Muslim 2691 · ṣaḥīḥ (muttafaq ʻalayh)

From Abū Hurayrah. Waḥdahu, alone, is this root’s adverb. In the Qurʼan it stands six times, and aṭ-Ṭabarī reads it at 17:46 and 39:45 as the saying lā ilāha illā llāh. Al-Bukhārī 6403 and Muslim 2691 both carry the printed wording, and neither publishes a grade row.

اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ يَا اللَّهُ بِأَنَّكَ الْوَاحِدُ الأَحَدُ الصَّمَدُ الَّذِي لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌ أَنْ تَغْفِرَ لِي ذُنُوبِي إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

O Allah, I ask You, O Allah, since You are the One, the Unique, the Eternal Refuge, who begets not, nor was begotten, and there is none comparable to Him, that You forgive me my sins; truly You are the Much-Forgiving, the Merciful.

an-Nasāʼī 1301 · ṣaḥīḥ (Abū Ghuddah; al-Albānī); isnād ṣaḥīḥ (Darussalam)

From Miḥjan ibn al-Adraʻ: the Prophet ﷺ entered the mosque and found a man who had finished his prayer and was saying the tashahhud, asking with these words; and he said, he has been forgiven, three times. Outside the lists of Names, the one record in the six editions in which al-Wāḥid is said to Allah in a supplication. Abū Dāwūd 985 has the same report from Miḥjan with yā Allāhu l-aḥadu ṣ-ṣamad and without al-wāḥid, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, Muḥammad Muḥyī ad-Dīn ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd and Shuʻayb al-Arnaʼūṭ and isnād ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam.

Hadith

مَن قَالَ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدُ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ فِي يَوْمٍ مِّائَةَ مَرَّةٍ كَانَتْ لَهُ عَدْلَ عَشْرِ رِقَابٍ

Whoever says: there is no god but Allah alone, with no partner — His is the dominion, His is the praise, and He has power over all things — a hundred times in a day, it is for him the equivalent of freeing ten slaves.

al-Bukhārī 6403; Muslim 2691 · ṣaḥīḥ (muttafaq ʻalayh)

From Abū Hurayrah, the report around the supplication on the Duʻāʼ page: said a hundred times in a day, it is the equal of freeing ten slaves, a hundred good deeds are written for him and a hundred bad deeds erased, and it is a guard for him from Shayṭān that day until evening. Both collections carry the printed wording.

أَيَعْجِزُ أَحَدُكُمْ أَنْ يَقْرَأَ ثُلُثَ الْقُرْآنِ فِي لَيْلَةٍ فَشَقَّ ذَلِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ وَقَالُوا أَيُّنَا يُطِيقُ ذَلِكَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ فَقَالَ اللَّهُ الْوَاحِدُ الصَّمَدُ ثُلُثُ الْقُرْآنِ

Is any of you unable to recite a third of the Qurʼan in a night? That weighed on them, and they said: Which of us could manage that, Messenger of Allah? He said: Allah, the One, the Eternal Refuge, is a third of the Qurʼan.

al-Bukhārī 5015 · ṣaḥīḥ

From Abū Saʻīd al-Khudrī. Allāhu l-wāḥidu ṣ-ṣamad stands here for Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, with al-wāḥid where its first āyah has aḥad. Outside the lists, al-wāḥid is said of Allah in five records of the six editions, and four use these words for the sūrah: this, Abū Dāwūd 1423, at-Tirmidhī 2896 and Ibn Mājah 3789; the fifth is the supplication on the Duʻāʼ page. Al-Bukhārī adds that the report is mursal from Ibrāhīm and musnad from aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Mashriqī. Names 67 and 68 carry al-Bukhārī 5013, a different report of the sūrah’s weight.

لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ أَعَزَّ جُنْدَهُ وَنَصَرَ عَبْدَهُ وَغَلَبَ الأَحْزَابَ وَحْدَهُ فَلاَ شَىْءَ بَعْدَهُ

There is no god but Allah alone; He made His army mighty, gave victory to His servant, and overcame the Confederates alone; and there is nothing after Him.

al-Bukhārī 4114; Muslim 2724 · ṣaḥīḥ (muttafaq ʻalayh)

From Abū Hurayrah: what the Prophet ﷺ used to say. Waḥdahu twice, of His being god and of His overcoming the Confederates. Al-Bukhārī 4114 and Muslim 2724 carry the same wording, both from Qutaybah from al-Layth.

إِنَّكَ تَقْدَمُ عَلَى قَوْمٍ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ فَلْيَكُنْ أَوَّلَ مَا تَدْعُوهُمْ إِلَى أَنْ يُوَحِّدُوا اللَّهَ تَعَالَى

You are coming to a people of the People of the Book, so let the first thing you call them to be that they declare Allah One.

al-Bukhārī 7372 · ṣaḥīḥ

From Ibn ʻAbbās: the Prophet’s ﷺ charge to Muʻādh when he sent him towards Yemen. Yuwaḥḥidū, to declare one, is the verb of this root. Name 81 carries the same charge as al-Bukhārī 1496, by another chain, where the first call is that they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muḥammad ﷺ is the Messenger of Allah.

Study Notes

Verified — directly attested

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CARRIED ON THIS PAGE: twenty āyāt. Carried before: 12:39, shared with Name 15; 13:16 and 38:65. Appended in this pass: the other three places the Name-form stands, 14:48, 39:4 and 40:16, identical to Name 15 and linked both ways; 40:12, identical to Names 36 and 37 and linked; and, carried at no Name before, 2:163, 16:51, 37:4, 38:5 and 18:110 (the indefinite said of Allah), 54:24 (the indefinite said of a man), 54:50 (the feminine, one command), 74:11 (waḥīd), and 7:70, 17:46, 39:45, 40:84–85 and 60:4, which with 40:12 are every place waḥdahu stands. The distinct verse count moves from 546 to 559.

NAMED HERE BUT NOT CARRIED ON THIS PAGE: 112:1 and 112:4, carried at Name 67 and Name 68.

CORRECTED ON THE RECORD, THE COUNT: computed from the Tanzil text and read verse by verse. A sweep for wāw or alif, then ḥāʼ and dāl, returns 202 words; 49 are look-alikes (al-ḥamd 28, al-ḥadīth and aḥādīth 11, al-ḥadīd 3, aḥmad, aḥdatha, ilḥād, jaḥadū, ḥafadah, ḥadāʼiq and tuḥaddithūnahum once each), and the root is 153. THE NAME-FORM AL-WĀḤID STANDS SIX TIMES, EVERY ONE OF ALLAH AND EVERY ONE FOLLOWED BY AL-QAHHĀR, and al-qahhār stands nowhere else; the old note’s pairing claim was true. THE INDEFINITE WĀḤID STANDS 24 TIMES: SIXTEEN OF ALLAH, AND ALL SIXTEEN DESCRIBE ILĀH, GOD (2:163, 4:171, 5:73, 6:19, 14:52, 16:22, 16:51, 18:110, 21:108, 22:34, 29:46, 37:4, 41:6, 2:133, 9:31, 38:5), NONE OF THEM CARRIED ANYWHERE IN THE BOOK BEFORE; eight of creatures or things (2:61, 4:11, 4:12, 12:67, 13:4, 24:2, 25:14, 54:24). THE FEMININE WĀḤIDAH STANDS 31 TIMES AND NEVER OF ALLAH; ten are one blast, shout, blow, levelling or command (36:29, 36:49, 36:53, 38:15, 54:31, 37:19, 79:13, 69:13, 69:14, 54:50). WAḤDAHU STANDS SIX TIMES, ALL OF ALLAH: refused or recoiled from at 7:70, 17:46, 39:45 and 40:12, declared when the punishment was seen at 40:84 and not accepted at 40:85, and Ibrāhīm’s condition on his people at 60:4; aṭ-Ṭabarī reads it at 17:46 and 39:45 as the saying lā ilāha illā llāh. WAḤĪD stands once, 74:11, of a man. AḤAD AND IḤDĀ STAND 85 TIMES AND ONLY 112:1 IS OF ALLAH; the bare word means anyone or no one, in denial, prohibition, question or condition, 48 times, seven of them denying Him a partner (18:26, 18:38, 18:42, 18:110, 72:2, 72:18, 72:20) and 112:4 denying Him an equal; it means one, affirmed, four times (4:43, 5:6, 9:6, 12:4); with a pronoun or as iḥdā it means one of, 32 times. THE SIX ḤADĪTH EDITIONS, SWEPT FOR AL-WĀḤID, return 357 words, almost all the narrator ʻAbd al-Wāḥid or a thing counted one. Outside the lists at at-Tirmidhī 3507 and Ibn Mājah 3861 the word is said of Allah in five records: four use Allāhu l-wāḥidu ṣ-ṣamad for Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (al-Bukhārī 5015, Abū Dāwūd 1423, at-Tirmidhī 2896, Ibn Mājah 3789) and one is a supplication (an-Nasāʼī 1301). IN ALL SEVEN RECORDS AṢ-ṢAMAD STANDS WITH IT, AND AL-QAHHĀR IN NONE; the word al-qahhār stands in the six editions only in the list at at-Tirmidhī 3507. FOUND / CORRECTED / REMOVED, AS UNVERIFIED: THE OLD STUDY NOTE SAID 12:39 WAS CARRIED AT THIS NAME ONLY, AND NAME 15 CARRIES IT; its claim that neither page duplicates the other falls with it, and the note is rewritten. THE DESC SAID AL-AḤAD REFUSES ANY DIVISION WITHIN HIM AND AL-WĀḤID ANY SECOND BESIDE HIM; no source read makes that distinction. Ibn Fāris gives w-ḥ-d one origin and makes aḥad a branch of it; aṭ-Ṭabarī at 112:1 records grammarians reading aḥad there as wāḥid; and the first reading of His oneness that aṭ-Ṭabarī records at 2:163 names being undivided, like the part that cannot be divided, among the senses it denies of Him. Struck as unattributed, not as false, and the senseNote now calls the distinction the book’s. Also struck as unattributed: the number one said of Him denies rather than measures, and all multiplicity points back to His singular reality; aṭ-Ṭabarī at 2:163 is given in their place. The ref carried Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6403 and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2691 against house form; rebuilt on the count. The 12:39 note rested on the story for this Name; the 13:16 note said the Name follows a question that is inside the same āyah; the 38:65 note carried a reading of the Prophet’s ﷺ office with no source; all three now give the commentators. The Duʻāʼ note said the field had been left empty; rewritten.

ADDED: an-Nasāʼī 1301, the supplication with al-wāḥidu l-aḥadu ṣ-ṣamad, with every grader the dataset gives, and Abū Dāwūd 985 named as the same report without al-wāḥid; al-Bukhārī 5015, Allāhu l-wāḥidu ṣ-ṣamad a third of the Qurʼan; al-Bukhārī 4114 with Muslim 2724, waḥdahu twice; al-Bukhārī 7372, yuwaḥḥidū, with Name 81’s al-Bukhārī 1496 named as the same charge by another chain. MEDS 66 closed on the same unattributed distinction and quoted 31:13 with words the āyah does not have; its close now quotes Name 67’s own English of 112:1 and 112:4, and 31:13 reads association is a great wrong. POEMS 66 made three claims physics does not bear: a spoon of THOUSANDS of crystals (a few cubic centimetres of steel with grains a few tens of micrometres across holds on the order of a hundred million, so millions is the safe word); grain boundaries as THE EXACT PLACES metal fails (many fatigue and cleavage cracks run through grains; intergranular failure belongs to heat, time and corrosion); and a single crystal with no edge WHERE A BREAK COULD START (single crystals cleave). The three lines are narrowed. CH 66 was read and not changed.

READ: the Tanzil text for the root, every return in its verse. Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs, IN HIS OWN TEXT on islamweb (book 124): w-ḥ-d at vol. 6 pp. 90–91, one origin, al-infirād, wāḥid qabīlatihi when none among them is like him, al-wāḥid al-munfarid; a-ḥ-d at vol. 1 p. 67, a branch whose origin is the wāw. Aṭ-Ṭabarī at 2:163, 7:70, 12:39, 13:16, 16:51, 17:46, 18:110, 37:4, 38:5, 38:65, 39:4, 39:45, 40:12, 40:84, 54:24, 54:50, 60:4, 74:11 and 112:1; as-Saʻdī at 14:48, 39:4 and 40:16; Ibn Kathīr and as-Saʻdī at 74:11; Ibn ʻĀshūr at 112:1; through the tafsir dataset. Letter by letter with their grade rows: al-Bukhārī 4114, 5015, 6403 and 7372; Muslim 2691 and 2724; Abū Dāwūd 985 and 1423; at-Tirmidhī 2896 and 3507; an-Nasāʼī 1301; Ibn Mājah 3789 and 3861; all six editions swept for al-wāḥid, for al-qahhār and for the verb yuwaḥḥid.

NOT READ: ar-Rāghib, Lisān al-ʻArab, al-Azharī (seen only as quoted, and not used); al-Ghazālī’s al-Maqṣad al-Asnā.

OPEN: Name 67’s desc and ref say classical scholars commonly divide al-Wāḥid and al-Aḥad as refusing a second and refusing parts; nothing read this pass supports that, and it is left for Name 67’s own pass. At 74:11 aṭ-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr and as-Saʻdī read waḥīd of the man; no commentator was read giving it to Allah, and none is named. DUAS 14 and 15 carry, from outside the six editions, the night supplication in which al-Wāḥid stands with al-Qahhār; it is not on this page. The dhikr with waḥdahu at al-Bukhārī 7 and the verb at Muslim 16a, 23b, 832 and 1218a were seen in the sweep and not taken.

COHERENCE: 14:48, 39:4 and 40:16 are carried here and at Name 15 with the same Arabic and English, linked both ways; 40:12 here and at Names 36 and 37, linked both ways; 12:39 keeps its link to Name 15. Four other Study Notes named a verse appended here and are repaired in the same build: Name 2 (2:163, now carried at Name 66), Name 3 and Name 84 (40:16, now at Names 15 and 66), and Name 15 (its five at this Name only, now two, the other three shared with Name 66).

AUDIT AFTER NAME 70: the open item on Name 67’s desc was closed at Name 67’s pass, which struck the division between al-Wāḥid and al-Aḥad as unattributed and gave al-Baghawī at 112:1, who says there is no difference between them.

AFTER NAME 84: 40:16 is carried at Name 84 too, with the same Arabic and English, linked exactly. AFTER THE CHAT-END AUDIT OF 1–99: the quotations of 31:13 and 33:4 in the meditation, which are carried at no Name, are given the English the book would carry, without quotation marks; the note to al-Bukhārī 7372, where the charge to Muʻādh is set beside al-Bukhārī 1496 at Name 81, takes the mark on Muḥammad ﷺ; the item left for Name 67 is closed: its own pass found no scholar drawing the division and one denying it.

IN BUILD 185, FROM THE PHASE 2 READING: 12:39 is linked to Name 15 as the same text, as its three fellows are; Ibn ʻĀshūr at 112:1 is read at the pin: aḥad is a name meaning wāḥid, its hamzah from the wāw.

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Al-Aḥad

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