Ar Rahman Quotes

Some of the toughest ayaat in the Quran have Allah's name "ar-Rahman" in them to make it clear that just because Allah is the Most Merciful, it doesn't mean He's not going to carry out justice.

The definition of Ar-Rahman: The fact that we only take from Allah and He only gives; we never thank but He still gives; we rarely remember Him but He still increases in love for us.

Allah says in Surah Ar-Rahman that every thing in the Heavens and the Earth begs Allah for its needs. The argument can be made that an atheist doesn't ask Allah for anything at all. The answer to that is simple: his throat begs to Allah when it is thirsty, his heart seeks permission from Allah before beating each and every single time, and every blood cell asks Allah's permission before traveling through his veins. There is only one small part of his heart, his free will, that is in disobedience to Allah. And even that part will beg to Allah on Judgment Day.

No regrets. There is no time for that. Regret is boring.

Fabiayyi aalaa irabbikumaa tukadzdzibaan :)

When you do something with a lot of honesty, appetite and commitment, the input reflects in the output.

Like all Arabians, the Jews spoke of God as al-Lah, the high one, and often used the honorific that would become familiar in the Quran, ar-Rahman, the merciful, just as the newly completed Babylonian Talmud used Rahmana. It seemed clear to Muhammad that Jews and Muslims were the common descendants of Abraham, the first hanif: two branches of the same monotheistic family. They were cousins, not strangers. And since the Jews were the original upholders of din Ibrahim, the tradition of Abraham, he took it for granted that he would have not merely their assent, but their enthusiastic support.

people who have made India awesome aren’t all politicians. Most of the people that did this are not from the government. Whether it is entrepreneurs like J.R.D. Tata and N.R. Narayana Murthy, sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar or musicians like A.R. Rahman, people from all walks of life have helped improve our nation. Not just celebrities, but E. Sreedharan, responsible for the Delhi Metro, and Dr Verghese Kurien, who created the Amul revolution, were all ordinary people doing their work extraordinarily well. Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda, two of the most influential figures in India’s history, never held political office. Aim to be one of those people who made India awesome.

Talvin Singh, Thievery Corporation, A.R. Rahman, AmarBaaba Maal, Asian Dub Foundation, Autechre, Badmarsh and Sri, Bjork, Black Star Liner, The Blue Nile, Boards of Canada, The Chemical Brothers, Dead Can Dance, The Fake Portishead, Future Sound of London, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Goldfrapp, Jamyang, Joi, Jeff Buckley, Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham: original movie soundtrack, Nitin Sawhney, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rakesh Chaurasia, Sigur Rós, State of Bengal.

Now AR Rahman app for music lovers

Jika kedua orang saling mencintai karena Allah, pasti yang ketiga adalah ar-Rahman.

Whatever any moment may bring, there is that unconditioned Reality, the Infinitely Compassionate, ar-Rahman, the Infinitely Merciful, the ar-Raheem. (p. 10)

Should the Muslims be victorious all the time, great many pretenders to Faith will enter the fold of Islam, and consequently the clear line of demarcation between true believers and hypocrites will become blurred. Contrarily, if the Muslims were to be defeated all the time, the final objective of the ministry of Prophets will not be effected. It is wise then to combine both success and failure so that sifting between true Muslims and hypocrites could be realized.

Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem Consider the Sun in its radiant brightness. And the Moon as she reflects. Consider the day as it reveals the world and the night as it veils it darkly. Consider the sky and its wondrous structure and the earth and all its expanse. Consider the sky and its wondrous structure and the earth and all its expanse. Consider the human soul and the order and proportion given to it and how it is imbued with moral failings as well as with consciousness of God. Truly, the one who purifies it shall reach a happy state and the one who corrupts it shall truly be lost. [Surah ash-Shams 91:1-10]

Both Ar-Rahim and Ar-Rahman originate from the Arabic word rahm meaning “womb.” This implies that we can only experience the truth of God’s message from the all-embracing womb of His mercy, love, compassion, and grace. Ar-Rahman is seen as the mother of all the divine names, for it is through the all-encompassing womb of God’s Rahman that the universe was manifested into being.

Both Ar-Rahim and Ar-Rahman originate from the Arabic word rahm meaning “womb.” This implies that we can only experience the truth of God’s message from the all-embracing womb of His mercy, love, compassion, and grace.

When Qur’an focuses our attention to nature, some of its descriptive statements about the state of early universe (Fussilat: 11), movement of mountains and continents (An-Naml: 88), human development in a mother’s womb (Al-Mu’minun: 13-16), non- mingling nature of seas (Ar-Rahman: 19-20), rotation of planets, stars and celestial bodies (Az-Zumar: 5), expansion of the universe (Adh-Dhariat: 47), relative nature of time in the universe (As- Sajdah: 5), shining of moon by reflected sunlight (Al-Furqan: 61) and determination of sex (An-Najm: 45-46) are not contradictory to what we now know through established scientific knowledge.

A song can take you to so many places you have never been, revisit moments from life, channel a particular emotion, the one which makes you feel elated or lively. A verse, a melody, a couplet, an orchestra, a symphony, they become much more than an art piece, it becomes an emotion, a thought to occupy your mind and attribute focused time and attention.

Over a period of time, based on how much mental energy you invest in the act of listening and reacting to music, it will impact your being and identity, the type of person you are, an amalgamation of beliefs, habits, routines, preferences, choices, and of course, playlists.

I have heard Chhaiyya Chhaiyaa on a transistor, on phased out cellphones and ultramodern speakers an old school radio, in rickety buses, in roadside tea stalls, in hospital canteens, even in a police station ...

A train moves high above the river, with the sun setting in distance, a reminder of all that’s passing and to take away the light as much as you can, to start a flicker of imagination and faith. As you are lost in thoughts, it is suddenly night but the memories take over your mind and you are there, in those scenes of the past, while the train still chugs along…

If music is food, Classical Music would definitely be muesli(or oats or cereal or seeds), which may not give you instant gratification, but will definitely make your life better in ways and means that might not be immediately visible to you.

In Arabia - Arabia Desert - at the time of the prophet Muhammad, other prophets also preached: Maslama of the tribe of the Banu Hanifa in the Yamama, the very heart of Arabia; and Hanzala ibn Safwan; and Khalid ibn Sinan. Maslama's God was ar-Rahman, 'the Merciful'; today Muslims pray to Allah, ar-Rahman. Khalid ibn Sinan was sent to the tribe of 'Abs; for a time, he was followed, but then he was lost. Prophets are not always false simply because they are overtaken, and swallowed up, by history. Men of worth have always roamed the desert.

The sanctity of motherhood in Islam cannot be overstated. How do you think Prophets and Messengers came into this world? God could have sent angels, but He chose to send men. Moreover, God could have created them without involving the biological sequence of events we are all familiar with, but that was not the case. To come into this world Prophets and Messengers had to enter through the gate of mercy we call the womb, ar-Ra’him, which lies within the woman. Not only that, but just in case we got confused and thought men were indispensable in this process, God's Word Jesus Christ peace be upon him was brought as a sign. God does not create in vain and among the lessons to be learned from Christ’s birth is the status of motherhood. Women are the gateways of God’s mercy and revelation to this world. The Merciful, ar-Rahman­, is the predominant Divine Attribute of God, which shares the same root letters in Arabic for the womb. The misguided quest to achieve sameness based on masculine standards established by a consumerist culture that rejects the Unseen does not only desacralize motherhood, it is also an active attempt at closing off the gate of mercy to the world. It places an undue burden on the woman who feels the impulse to claim that status, either through biology or adoption, by making her experience guilt for her feelings, and lays out an expectation to ignore them in favor for material pursuits that are euphemistically called achievements and are celebrated by a culture that negates her feminine essence.

There’s one thing you have to remember about Rahman—he’s a doer,’ says Mani Ratnam, the director of Roja, the first feature film AR ever composed for, and whose every film AR has made music for since. ‘A lot of us talk about our plans, but he actually acts. He’ll tell you he wants to do something and, a few months later, he’s actually done it. That’s an incredible thing about him. He doesn’t just talk.

The same, Saira believes, goes for his creativity. ‘He just says it comes from God, which is the truth. I must say he’s God’s gifted child. One song of his made me cry when my mother was on her deathbed. It was a song he sang called “Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo”. I would keep listening to it and keep crying. It was not his composition, but the way he sang it was just out of this world.

AR, as it happens, speaks Telugu fluently. ‘He worked on a lot of Telugu films with Raj–Koti,’ says Fathima. ‘He picked the language up there.’ ‘That’s what I used to speak in whenever I got angry in the studio,’ AR says with a giggle. ‘I know all the bad words in Telugu. Not bad words exactly, but more like the threats. How to say, “I’ll kill you” and stuff like that. It sounds so much better in Telugu than in Tamil . . .

Kadri was one of the first to introduce the Western saxophone to Carnatic music. It took him nearly twenty years to really master that very complex instrument and finally do so. The man claims that when he met AR, he played him some thirty different Carnatic melodies on his saxophone.1 But AR wasn’t satisfied with any of them. Finally, Kadri played a melody known as Kalyanavasantham, a derived scale which did not possess all seven notes in the ascending scale, and AR exclaimed, ‘That’s it!

He took the trophy and the mic and said, ‘Uhm,’ and then laughed, almost as if he were at a loss for words. When the presenters insisted though, he looked to the audience and thanked his crew again, Danny Boyle especially, the people of Mumbai and the optimism that he believed was the essence of the film. ‘All my life,’ he said, finally looking like he was starting to choke up, ‘I had a choice of hate and love. I chose love. And I’m here. God bless.’ Truer words he could not have spoken. At every point in his life he had faced this crucial choice. When his father died. When he had to start working before he was even a teenager. When he had to drop out of school. When he had to grow up faster than any child could have reasonably been expected to; when he had to become the man of the house at eleven, had to take care of his family. When he felt creatively stifled during his days as a sessions player and wondered if this was all his life was going to be about. When he felt his music wasn’t being appreciated widely or truly enough before Roja. When it seemed he was all alone, with no one to turn to. When he became famous. He could have chosen to be bitter, prideful or sad at every stage. But he didn’t. If not for his music, then simply for his capacity to choose light over dark, A.R. Rahman deserves every bit of adulation he got that day and ever since. His speech done, AR lowered his mic, as if not trusting himself to keep his composure for much longer, and walked off the stage.

Mani Ratnam is by no stretch of the imagination an expressive person. He does not show much emotion, except in his stories. But that does not mean he doesn’t feel it in real life. ‘I was stunned that day,’ he says, some twenty-five years later. ‘I could not believe what I was hearing. The music he played for me that day, it was fabulous.’ AR thought, at the time, that Mani Ratnam hated his music. ‘I didn’t think he would ever come back,’ he says.2 But a few days later, the director got in touch with AR and told him that he’d like to sign him on for his next film—as music director. ‘I love a lot of stuff,’ he said. ‘Let’s meet and I’ll tell you what will work for me.’3 It was a decision that would end up altering the course of AR’s life, as well as Tamil, Indian and world music and cinema.

To this day, Raja makes music, good music, and is still a respected artist. A lot of people still prefer Raja’s songs when sitting at home with a cup of coffee on a rainy day even now. And ‘Rahman sir or Raja sir?’ is still a divisive—if not polarizing—question.

I have a three-year policy,’ AR said during a highly publicized public conversation with none other than Bharat Bala in 2017. ‘After three years of doing something, I get bored. I want to do something else, something new. It applies to all aspects of my life.’ He paused for a second and then quickly added, ‘Not to my family, of course. I’m not bored of them. But everything else . . .’ People he worked with during his band days, during his time in advertising, second this. Even then, AR used to be obsessed with changing something or other—about himself, about his life. He would change his hairstyle, his equipment. He loved doing that. Not just for himself, but because he seemed to realize innately that frequent change is what jolts people, gives them a reason to refocus on him. Do something for too long and not only do you get bored of doing it, but people get bored watching you do it too—however good you are.

What is funny though is how, with time, people seem to have forgotten that it was this period that really made Rahman what he is. The man is Tamil and Tamil music was how he started out, and some of his best songs are in Tamil. On 8 July 2017, AR performed at Wembley Stadium in London, a concert titled Netru, Indru, Naalai (Tamil for ‘yesterday, today, tomorrow’). Soon after the concert, Twitter went berserk with a number of fans who’d attended the concert taking to social media to attack the composer, accusing him of playing ‘too many Tamil songs’. Some claimed that they’d walked out of the show in protest. AR addressed the issue politely and diplomatically. He reasoned that he had ‘tried his best’, was grateful to his fans and loved them for all they’d given him. As for the walking out bit, he said that some people always tend to leave the venue before he finishes a concert. He said there would always be pockets in the seats, here and there, by the time he got to the end of a show. His actual response though was quite brilliant. For his next set of concerts in Canada, AR cleverly released two posters for two different shows—one of which would be Tamil songs only and the other Hindi songs only. That one move said more than all his statements to the media.

AR confesses that 1989 was a turning point in his life. ‘I had my studio at last,’ he says. ‘The only problem was that the room was an empty shell. I would sit in it and look around at the empty space and wonder if I could ever afford to buy any equipment to fill it.’1 Kareema Begum took yet another bold decision at that point. She sold all the gold jewellery she had saved for the marriage of her two younger daughters, Fathima and Ishrath. ‘We had to take loans too,’ recalls Fathima. ‘But Amma was very firm about it. I used to go with her to get a loan for the generator and so on.’ With all this money his mother managed to raise, AR got his first Fostex 16-track mixer-recorder. ‘Sitting in the music studio that night and staring at my new recorder, I felt like a king,’ says AR. ‘The new me was born . . .’2

Be happy you have a dad at all, I always tell them,’ he says. ‘You have a dad who goes away, but always comes back. My dad went away and he never came back.

AR’s view on the matter is simple: ‘You have to do the very best you can in everything you do. You can’t become careless at one point and think it doesn’t matter if you do half-hearted work or that no one will catch you for it. They may not, but that’s not the point. You know you didn’t do your best there. And that carelessness will seep into everything you do if you aren’t mindful of it.

On the day Roja released, Rahman’s younger sister Fathima was sitting in a theatre in Chennai with her friends, all set to watch the movie. The opening credits rolled, the film began and the first song—‘Chinna Chinna Aasai’ as you might guess—played with the movie’s heroine singing the song, scaling Chalakudy’s waterfall and playing in the verdant fields of the South Indian countryside. The song was already a hit and by the intermission, Fathima heard a very drunk man sitting in a seat behind her say, ‘Evano semayaa paattu pottu vachchurukaan da.’ (Whoever did the music for this has done a great job.) ‘That’s when I knew,’ she says with a laugh. ‘That’s when I knew my brother had got it right. I was so proud.

They’ll say, “Come forward, sir, smile, sir, oh sorry, wrong camera, sir,’ AR says with a laugh. ‘We’re like digital food for them . . . Gotta get the likes on Instagram and Facebook . . .’ He adds, ‘But I put it up in KM [Conservatory] that you’ll be fined if you take selfies. You can’t drink, you can’t smoke and you can’t take selfies with the principal.’ He grins. ‘No selfies is the last rule. I didn’t want to be rude and put it up front. It had to build up to that.

The official change of name and faith occurred only days before the release of Roja. In fact, in the title sequences of even the final edit of the movie, AR was credited under his old name. ‘Literally just before the release,’ remembers Trilok Nair, ‘we got a call from Amma saying his name in the movie had to be changed. It was a pretty big request to make so late in the day, but she was particular about it. She said it really, really mattered to her personally. In fact, she would’ve rather not had his name appear at all, than not have his new name appear on the credits.’ So Trilok Nair called up Mani Ratnam and asked if he could make the change AR’s mother was asking for. Eventually, Mani Ratnam agreed. ‘If it means so much to this boy,’ he said, ‘I’ll get it done.

Jayalalithaa [then chief minister of Tamil Nadu] sent me an email saying, “I always knew you were going to get this,”’ AR remembers. He adds, ‘I always wondered when I was younger: when is an Indian actually going to win an Oscar? I really wanted that. I never thought I wanted to win an Oscar. I wanted India to win an Oscar. I never thought I would be one of the persons to win it for my country. I just wanted us to get that global recognition for the Indian film industry.’ Sharada Trilok sums it up best: ‘He won us an Oscar, man. He actually won us a damn Oscar.

All his daughters witnessed Islam, embraced it, and emigrated to Madinah.