Rahman

Almost every chapter of the Qur'an opens with the phrase bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim — in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Rahman is the first of those two mercy-attributes, the vast one, the one that encompasses all creation rather than only the faithful. Used as a personal name it is typically understood as a shortening of Abd al-Rahman, servant of the Merciful, a construction that produced some of Islamic history's most celebrated scholars, including the great fourteenth-century historian and sociologist Ibn Khaldun.

In the twentieth century it anchored the names of two towering figures: the Malaysian film legend P. Ramlee, born Teuku Zakaria bin Teuku Nyak Puteh but remembered by his stage name, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Two syllables, deep open vowels, a warm closing hum that lingers in the mouth. Rahman feels both tender and vast, as though it holds something too large for a single name to contain yet wears that largeness without strain. It pairs naturally with Abdullah, Rahim, or Karim, and carries an easy, sonorous dignity that holds up across languages.