The Ninety-Nine Names · the 91st name
الضَّارّ
Ad-Darr
The One who allows harm
- The rootض ر ر
- From the rootdarra: to harm; darr is affliction, the opposite of benefit
The essay
This is the hardest Name in the list and the enumeration puts it deliberately next to its opposite. The Qur'an's own sentence is careful: if Allah touches you with adversity, there is no remover of it except Him. What it establishes is not that He wills your suffering as suffering, but that harm has no independent power source. There is no rival kingdom of misfortune. Which is why the same verse ends by saying He is over all things competent: the removal is with the same hand.
In the Qur'an
وَإِن يَمۡسَسۡكَ ٱللَّهُ بِضُرّٖ فَلَا كَاشِفَ لَهُۥٓ إِلَّا هُوَۖ وَإِن يَمۡسَسۡكَ بِخَيۡرٖ فَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيۡءٖ قَدِيرٞ
If Allah touches you with harm, none can lift it but He; and if He touches you with good, He is able to do all things.
from the enumeration · the verse carries the meaning
What it asks of you
Take your affliction to the only one who can lift it, which is the same one who permitted it. That is uncomfortable and it is the whole of tawhid.
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