Mercy The Stamp of Creation - Dr.Umar Faruq Abd-Allah- Nawawi Foundation

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The explicit link between the Arabic words Islam, literally “entering into peace,” and salam, “peace” or “perfect peace,” has been frequently highlighted of late. It is mainly because of this etymological connection that many Muslims and others advance the claim that Islam is a religion of peace, just as Christianity is customarily called a religion of love. Certainly, in terms of their creed and the historical record, Muslims are no less justified in equating Islam with peace than Christians are in identifying their faith with love. From a theological perspective, however, it would be more precise to describe Islam as the religion of mercy. Islamic revelation designates the Prophet Muhammad as “the prophet of mercy,” and Islam’s scriptural sources stress that mercy—above other divine attributions—is God’s hallmark in creation and constitutes his primary relation to the world from its inception through eternity, in this world and the next. Islam enjoins its followers to be merciful to themselves, to others, and the whole of creation, teaching a karma-like law of universal reciprocity by which God shows mercy to the merciful and withholds it from those who hold it back from others.
The Prophet Muhammad said: “People who show mercy to others will be shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Be merciful to those on earth, and he who is in heaven will be merciful to you.”1 Because these words epitomize Islam’s fundamental ethos, it was called “the Tradition of Primacy” and, for generations of Classical Muslim teachers, constituted the first text that many of them handed down to their students and required them to commit to memory with a full chain of transmitters going back to the Prophet Muhammad.2
God: The All-Merciful I n Arabic, God is called by many names, but his primary and most beautiful name, embracing all others, is Allah (God, the true God). Allah is a derivative of the same Semitic root as the Biblical Elohîm (God) and ha-Elôh (the true God) of Moses and the Hebrew prophets or the Aramaic Al¥h¥ (God, the true God) of Jesus and John the Baptist. The formula “In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Mercy-Giving” (bismi-Llahi ‘r-Rahmani ‘r Rahim), occurs one hundred and fourteen times in the Qur’an––Islam’s holy book––at the beginning of all but one chapter and twice in another. The phrase is central to Islamic ritual. In Islam, the All-Merciful (ar-Rahman) and the Mercy-Giving (ar-Rahim) may be said to be the greatest names of God after Allah. Of all his names, they are most descriptive of his relation to the world and emphasize his will in salvation history and throughout eternity to benefit creation and ultimately bring about the triumph of supreme good over evil.