Al-Qabid
Al-Qabid is the Withholder — the One who narrows provision, holds back, and takes the soul, always by wisdom rather than by whim.
Name 20 of 99
الْقَابِضُ
Al-Qabid
The Withholder
- In Arabic
- الْقَابِضُ
- Transliteration
- Al-Qabid
- Position in the list
- Name 20 of 99
Al-Qabid — The Withholder
What the name means
Qabd is to grasp and to close the hand. It covers restricting sustenance, withholding a request, and taking a life at its appointed time. The Quran states it as a verb, paired with its opposite: Allah withholds and He extends.
The pairing is the point. Neither name is read alone, because a hand that only closed would not be mercy and a hand that only opened would not be wisdom.
Where Al-Qabid comes from
Al-Qabid does not appear in the Quran as a standalone name. It reaches the famous list of ninety-nine through the narration of at-Tirmidhi, and its meaning is established by the Quran in other words — through verbs and related forms rather than the name itself. Scholars accepted such names on that basis; this page marks the distinction rather than hiding it.
How reliable is the list of ninety-nine?
That Allah has ninety-nine names is established in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, and both are agreed upon. The specific enumeration — this list of ninety-nine — comes from a narration in Jami' at-Tirmidhi that at-Tirmidhi himself called gharib, and which many hadith scholars grade weak; several held that a narrator compiled the names by searching the Quran and Sunnah. Classical scholars including al-Khattabi, Ibn Hazm, al-Qurtubi and al-Ghazali compiled lists of their own that differ from it. None of this touches the names themselves, every one of which is established elsewhere; it means the count of exactly these ninety-nine is a scholarly arrangement rather than a revealed roster, and Allah's names are not limited to them.
Questions about Al-Qabid
Al-Qabid (الْقَابِضُ) means "The Withholder". Like every one of the ninety-nine names, it describes an attribute of Allah rather than serving as a label — the names are how the Quran teaches who Allah is.
Not as a standalone name. Al-Qabid reaches the list of ninety-nine through at-Tirmidhi's narration, while its meaning is established in the Quran through verbs and related forms. This page says so plainly rather than attaching a verse that does not contain it.
Address Allah with "Ya" before the name — "Ya Qabid" — and ask for what that attribute gives. The Quran instructs it directly: "To Allah belong the most beautiful names, so call upon Him by them" (7:180).
It is number 20 in the well-known list. The order comes from the narration of at-Tirmidhi and is a scholarly arrangement, so numbering can differ slightly between printed lists — the names themselves do not.