Sūrat Ṭāhā
Section 3 of 18 · Surah Studies · Mufti Abdul Rahman Mangera
A Name of the Prophet
What, then, does Ṭāhā mean? It is plainly among the ḥurūf muqaṭṭaʿāt, being the letters ṭāʾ and hāʾ. But what follows immediately after it bears upon the question:
طه مَآ أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ ٱلْقُرْءَانَ لِتَشْقَىٰٓ إِلَّا تَذْكِرَةً لِّمَن يَخْشَىٰ تَنزِيلًا مِّمَّنْ خَلَقَ ٱلْأَرْضَ وَٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ ٱلْعُلَى
“Tā-Hā We did not reveal the Qur’ān to you to (make you) face hardship rather to remind him who has the fear (of Allah), it being a revelation from the One Who created the earth, and high heavens.” (20:1–4)
It says: We did not send this Qur'an upon you for you to be disturbed, for you to be grieved. The strong opinion, accordingly, is that Ṭāhā is in fact a name of the Prophet (peace be upon him), just as Yāsīn is. Yāsīn and Ṭāhā are both names of the Prophet (peace be upon him), and Allah is here addressing him by another of his names.
The name Muhammad itself is mentioned very few times in the Qur'an — there is a Sūrah of Muhammad to come — and for the most part he is addressed by adjectives, by characteristics, by attributes. This bespeaks a many-sided personality: one who bears so many names and so many attributes is thereby shown to be everything.