sura - form, shape

tasawwur - imagination, fancy, fantasy, idea

musawwir - former, shaper, fashioner, creator; painter, photographer

Qur'an:


He it is who has created for you all that is on earth, and has applied His design to the heavens and fashioned them into seven heavens; and He alone has full knowledge of everything.  (2:29)



Shaykh Tosun:

• The perfect artist who gives everything the most unique and beautiful form is al-Musawwir.
• He shapes without using a model.
• Everything is an expression of His infinite beneficence and wisdom
• The Creator (Al-Khaliq), Maker of Perfect Harmony (Al-Bari'), and The Shaper of Unique Beauty (Al-Musawwir) form the creative attributes.
• An artists says he "creates" beauty.  An engineer "invents" a flying machine.  They think they do it themselves.  They forget someone else created the brush or the tools for their creation.  They ultimately ignore the "source."
• Without eyes, hands, etc, we could not make anything.
• He simply says "Kun" "Be!" and a whole universe becomes.
• "Allah's treasure is between two letters, "K" and "N" 
  
• `Abd al-Musawwir is the maker of things in accordance with the beauty manifest in all that Allah has created, because no beauty is possible in opposition to the beauty created by Allah or outside of it.
• If a woman who cannot have a child and believes that Allah is the only Creator fasts for seven days, reciting at each fast-break (iftar) ya Khaliq, ya Bari', ya Musawwir 21 times over a glass of water, and then if she breaks fast by drinking this water, it is to be hoped that she may have a child.

Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely
is made for the eye of one who sees.
-- Rumi:  Mathnawi I:2383

Al-Ghaffar

Arabic:

ghafara - to forgive, grant, pardon

ghafr - pardon, forgiveness

ghafur - readily inclined to pardon, much-forgiving

Astaghfir Allah (I ask God's forgiveness)

Qur'an:

And He alone is truly forgiving, all embracing in His love, in sublime almightiness enthroned, a sovereign doer of whatever He wills. Al-Buruj 85:14-16

Hadith:

The Prophet said: a man committed 99 murders and then wanted to repent. He asked a knowledgeable person if he could repent. This person said 'no' so he killed him as well. He hasked another wise person who said it is possible to repent. The wise man told him to leave the area he was in and move to a place where people worshipped Allah. So he started out on his journey and died halfway to his destination. Angels of punishment said he hadn't performed one good deed in his life. An angel came to them in the form of a man and told them to measure the distance between the two places. There is a hadith which says "Allah ordered the earth close to his destination to come closer to him and ordered the other part of the earth to become distant. Then they measured and they found that he was closer to his destination by a span and was forgiven."

The Messenger of Allah said:  "A man sinned greatly against himself, and when death came to him he charged his sons, saying:  When I have died, burn me, then crush me and scatter my ashes into the sea, for, by Allah, if my Lord takes possession of me, He will punish me in a manner in which He has punished no one else.  So they did that to him.  Then He (God) said to the earth:  Produce what you have taken --- and there he was!  And He said to him:  What induced you to do what you did?  He said:  Being afraid of You, O my Lord"  and because of that Allah forgave him."

Shaykh Tosun:

• "Allah exposes that which is good and beautiful and hides that which is ugly.  Sin is ugly.  Repentance is the realization of an ugliness which is offensive to others as well as oneself..."
• Allah is the one who accepts repentance and forgives.
• If we disrupt the harmony within us and around us, we must seek forgiveness and ask Allah al-Ghaffar to forgive us.
• Sinner is like a person fallen into a sewer.  Unless he is insane, not realizing what he has done, he will rush to wash and cleanse himself.
• Repentance is between a person and Allah...it need not even be pronounced.  Allah knows what is in the hearts.
• "`Abd al-Ghaffar is one who is given the quality of forgiving a fault, of covering and hiding a fault from others, of having the compassion of not seeing a fault as a fault.  Such a person acts this way in cases and toward people whom Allah the Forgiver has forgiven.  The Messenger of Allah says, "Whoever forgives and hides the wrongdoing of another, Allah will forgive him and hide his sins on the Day of Judgment."
• "If a person has compassion in his heart for the human foibles he sees around him, and recites ya Ghaffar 100 times after the communal prayers on Fridays, Allah my forgive his faults of the previous week."
• "When anger flares up in one's heart, if one remembers and recites ya Ghaffar, it may subside."

Al-Qahhar

Arabic:

qahara - to subject, subjugate, conquer, vanquish, defeat, to subdue, overpower, overwhelm

qahr - vanquishing, subdual, subjection, compulsion

quhrah - compulsion, coercion, constraint, force

qahri - compelling, compulsory, mandatory

Qahhar - Subduer

Qur'an:
In the Qur'an, while Yusuf (a.s.) was held captive in the egyptian prison, he said to the other prisoners:

My fellow prisoners: Which is more reasonable: belief in the existence of numerous divine lords, each of them different from the other -- or in the One God, who holds absolute sway over all that exists?  Yusuf 12:39

"He has subdued all beings by death, so none is safe from Him, not even an angel who enjoys a special status with Him, nor a prophet, nor a messenger. Allah will make even the angel of death, `Azrael, taste of death; so, when his soul is taken out, the angel of death will say, "By Your Honour do I swear that had I known the taste of death to be like this, I would never have taken away anyone's soul at all!" It is to such a meaning that the word qahr, upon the taking of the souls of all beings, conveys as implied in the verse saying, "To whom does the kingdom belong this day? To Allah, the One, the Subduer (of all)" (Qura'n, 40:16)."



Shaykh Tosun:

• He is the Ever-Dominating One
• He surrounds creation inside and out
• Nothing can escape Him.
• Balances this name with Al-Latif (delicate loving finesse)
• He has created the means of faith sincerity, justice, compassion, generosity, wisdom, and other beautiful characteristics which the light of al-Latif shines.
  
• "He has created the causes of rebellion, denial, arrogance, ignorance, tyranny, and hypocrisy, upon which darkness of His terror is reflected"
• "`Abd al-Qahhar is the one who is given the power to obliterate tyranny.  The greatest tyranny that people suffer is from our evil commanding ego, and `Abd al-Qahhar is able to enslave that tyrant.  None can influence nor overcome him.  Such a person becomes all-powerful to execute that which is right."
• "If a person with a sincere wish in his heart to free himself from the domination of his ego and from the overwhelming worldy ambition remembers and recites ya Qahhar as often as he can, he may become able to control his ego."