Editing Az-Zukhruf (section)

===The Most Merciful===
The divine names Allah and Ar-rahman ('the Most-merciful) occur eight times throughout this surah. Patterns show that these names were absent from the earliest revelations and were introduced and most prominently used during the Second Meccan period. After the Second Meccan period, Ar-rahman was subsequently dropped and the term Allah was used with increasing frequency. This pattern emerges because in the earliest of revelations, God was referred to as Muhammad's Lord (Arabic Rabb). The names Allah and Ar-rahman were introduced when Muhammad began to preach publicly, but the names were both problematic as many pagans of the time believed not only in God but in lesser deities such as the three goddesses whom they regarded as his daughters (43:15-19).<ref name=316MAS/> Furthermore, belief in Allah during this time period was not accompanied by any moral demands and it was therefore difficult to convince the pagans that Allah was the only God and that they must obey His command.<ref>Robinson, Neal. Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text. London: SCM Press LTD, 1996. Print. 90-92.</ref>

Additionally, inscriptional evidence has been verified there were monotheists in Palmyra and the Yemen who regarded God as ar-Rahmn but there is no evidence that the name was known in Mecca.<ref>Robinson, Neal. Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text. London: SCM Press LTD, 1996. Print. 92.</ref>