The 99 Names of Allah

The 99 names — al-Asma ul-Husna, 'the most beautiful names' — are the names by which Allah describes Himself in the Quran and the Sunnah, such as Ar-Rahman (the Most Compassionate), Al-'Alim (the All-Knowing) and Al-Ghafur (the Most Forgiving). The Quran instructs believers to call on Allah by them: 'And to Allah belong the best names, so invoke Him by them' (7:180).

From a hadith in Bukhari 2736 and Muslim 2677: 'Allah has ninety-nine names, one hundred less one; whoever enumerates them will enter Paradise.' The specific list of 99 names is given in a narration in Tirmidhi 3507, and it is that enumeration these pages follow.

No. Many are stated in the Quran directly — Ar-Rahman, Al-Malik, Al-Quddus and the rest of the sequence in 59:22-24, for example — while others come from the enumeration reported in the hadith. Scholars have also differed over the exact list, since the hadith affirms the number without every version fixing the same names. On these pages a Quranic reference is shown only where the name genuinely appears in the Quran.

Classical scholars understood ihsa ('enumerating') as more than counting: to know the names, understand their meanings, and live by what they require — calling on Allah by them and letting them shape how a person acts. Memorizing the list is the beginning of that, not the whole of it.