<P> The word basmala was derived from a slightly unusual procedure, in which the first four pronounced consonants of the phrase bismi - llāhi...were used as a quadriliteral consonantal root: b-s-m-l (ب س م ل). This abstract consonantal root was used to derive the noun basmala and its related verb forms, meaning "to recite the basmala". Other oft - repeated phrases in Islam given their own names include "Allāhu Akbar" (الله أكبر, called the Takbir and usually translated as "God is (the) Greatest" or "God is Great") and the phrase beginning "A ` ūdhu billāhi ..." called the Ta'awwudh . The method of coining a quadriliteral name from the consonants of a phrase is paralleled by the name Hamdala for Alhamdulillah . </P> <P> Recitation of the Basmala is known as tasmiyya (تسمية). </P> <P> According to Lane, ar - raḥmān has the more intensive meaning, taken to include as objects of "sympathy" both the believer and the unbeliever, and may therefore be rendered as "the Compassionate"; ar - raḥīm, on the other hand, is taken to include as objects the believer in particular, may be rendered as "the Merciful" (considered as expressive of a constant attribute). </P> <P> In the Qur'an, the Basmala is usually numbered as the first verse of the first sura, but, according to the view adopted by Al - Tabari, it precedes the first verse . Apart from the ninth sura ("At - Tawba"), it occurs at the beginning of each subsequent sura of the Qur'an and is usually not numbered as a verse except at its first appearance at the start of the first sura . The Basmala occurs as part of a sura's text in verse 30 of the 27th sura ("An - Naml"), where it prefaces a letter from Sulayman to Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba . </P>

In the name of god the merciful and the compassionate