Al Quddus

Purity here is a matter of being set apart — clean of any flaw, and other than everything else. From the same letters Arabic makes taqdīs, the declaring of something holy, and the phrase the Qur’an uses for the holy land, al-arḍ al-muqaddasa: not land that is better soil, land that has been marked off.

The written form appears twice in the whole text, and both times inside a run of names: once in Sūrat al-Ḥashr beside al-Malik and as-Salām, once at the head of Sūrat al-Jumuʿa beside al-Malik and al-ʿAzīz. Both times it is second in the line, straight after the King. It is a name that asks nothing of you; it is simply true, whether or not you are having a good week.