الخالق
al-Khāliq
Topic
A divine name meaning the Creator, the One who brings things into being from nothing and gives each its measure.
What it means
Al-Khāliq, the Creator, is one of the names of God. The Quran uses it in the verse, “He is God, the Creator, the Maker, the Fashioner” (59:24), and says, “God is the Creator of all things” (13:16). The root kh-l-q carries the sense of bringing into existence and of giving a measure or proportion, and the same verb is used for the creation of the heavens and the earth. Muslims use the name to affirm that everything other than God was created and depends on Him. For that reason the Quran presents worship of anything created as a mistake about what is real, and it asks its hearers to look at the creation as a sign of its Creator.
Often misunderstood as
The name is often translated “the Creator” as though it meant a first cause that then withdraws; the Quran presents God as continually sustaining what He created.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 31, listed as AL KHĀLIQ. The definition is restated here.