The 99 Names of Allah

INTRODUCTION

Belief in the existence of God is part of the inbuilt knowledge of man, in harmony with his most basic nature. Even before we were created in our present states, acknowledgement of this was carved into our nature.

Allah is absolute and so too are His qualities. While created beings may have a claim to many of these attributes, the reality of our limited selves and our properties in contrast to His infiniteness (in Being and qualities) means that the similarity ends in the names. We may have knowledge, for example, and Allah also is the Knowing, but our knowledge is so restricted and bound by quantity, detail, time, dimension and memory that there can be no comparison with the absolute knowledge that is Allah's. His attributes, then, have been mentioned to us merely to give us a glimpse of His limitless vastness and completeness; no mind can ever fully comprehend infinity. The bottom line in understanding the Being of Allah is, therefore, "there is nothing like unto Him" (42:11).

This booklet is a very brief attempt to present before those who wish to know God, a concise guide to these most beautiful Names. They have been compiled in the light of what God has said of Himself in the Qur'an and what His beloved Messenger, who knew Him best said of Him in the Ahadith. Still, it is humbling to bear in mind that Allah is One so boundless in Self and Qualities that even the vast oceans could not do justice to Him.