The Ninety-Nine Names · the 21st name
الْبَاسِط
Al-Basit
The Extender
- The rootب س ط
- From the rootbasata: to spread out, to open the hand flat, to expand
The essay
The open palm. He expands: the provision widens, the chest opens, the road runs. The Book warns in the same breath against reading the expansion as approval and the constriction as punishment, since He gives abundantly to people He is not pleased with, and withholds from people He loves. The two Names are a pair and must be held as a pair, or each one alone becomes a superstition.
In the Qur'an
وَٱللَّهُ يَقۡبِضُ وَيَبۡصُۜطُ وَإِلَيۡهِ تُرۡجَعُونَ
And it is Allah who withholds and who gives in abundance, and to Him you are returned.
from the enumeration · the verse carries the meaning
What it asks of you
On the wide days, give some of it away while it is still wide. That is what the open hand is for.
Read beside it