Al-Qadir

The root. Al-Qadir comes from q-d-r, a root spanning power, capacity, and measure at once — qadar is a measured amount or a decree, and qudra is the power to bring about exactly what is intended, no more and no less. The root ties ability to precision: not raw force, but power exact enough to hit precisely what it aims at.

What it means here. Al-Qadir is read as the one able to bring about whatever He wills, with nothing standing outside His capacity to act — no obstacle He cannot remove and no scale, from the smallest to the largest, His power does not reach. It stands beside Al-Muqtadir, met next, and the two are usually distinguished by intensity rather than kind: Al-Qadir names the possession of power as a settled fact, while Al-Muqtadir names that power exercised with a dominance that overcomes resistance.

Where it is met. Al-Qadir is spoken directly of Allah in Surah Al-An'am, "Say, He is the [one] Able to send upon you affliction from above you or from beneath your feet" — power framed there as capable of striking from any direction a person could imagine escaping toward. The related intensive form qadeer, "All-Capable," is one of the most frequent closing words in the Quran, appearing roughly fifty times, almost always as the last word of a verse describing what Allah has done or could do.