Al Baari

The root has two lives in Arabic: bringing something about clear of anything before it, and being free of a fault. Barāʾa, the word that opens the ninth surah, is a clearing of obligation. A person recovering from illness uses the same letters, and so does somebody declaring they have no part in a thing.

In the Qur’an this name sits in the middle of the three that name creating, in one ayah of Sūrat al-Ḥashr — after al-Khāliq, before al-Muṣawwir. What was brought into being was brought whole, which is a strange and steadying thing to remember about yourself on a day you feel like a draft.