Ar Rahmaan

The root is the one Arabic builds its word for the womb from — raḥim, shelter given to something before it can ask for shelter or even know to want it. In the Qur’an this name almost never stands on its own: ar-Raḥīm follows it in 118 of the 159 ayat carrying its written form, and 113 of those are the line that opens a surah — every surah in the Book except the ninth.

Away from the openings it gathers most thickly in Sūrat Maryam, which carries it thirteen times, more than any other surah. So mercy is what is said first, before anything else is said at all, and then said again in the very next word. Nothing in the Book is introduced without it.