Names of God in Islam - Origin

Origin

According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad is said to have invoked Allah by a number of Names. According to a Sunni hadith, Sahih Muslim:

Abu Hurairah reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: There are ninety-nine names of Allah; he who commits them to memory would get into Paradise. Verily, Allah is Odd (He is one, and it is an odd number) and He loves odd number. And in the narration of Ibn 'Umar (the words are): "He who enumerated them." —Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj Nishapuri, Sahih Muslim

Over time it became custom to recite a list of 99 Names, compiled by al-Walid ibn Muslim as an addendum to the hadith.

Mahmoud Abdel-Razek (2005) compiled an alternative list, endorsing only 69 from the list of al-Walid.

The Qur'an refers to the Names of God as God's "most beautiful Names" (Arabic: al-ʾasmāʾ al-ḥusnā) (see the following sura, Al-A'raf 7:180, Al-Isra 17:110, Ta-Ha 20:8, Al-Hashr 59:24). According to Gerhard Böwering,

They are traditionally enumerated as 99 in number to which is added as the highest Name (al-ism al-ʾaʿẓam), the Supreme Name of God, Allāh. The locus classicus for listing the Divine Names in the literature of Qurʾānic commentary is 17:110, “Call upon God, or call upon The Merciful; whichsoever you call upon, to Him belong the most beautiful Names,” and also 59:22–24 q 59:22-4, which includes a cluster of more than a dozen Divine epithets.

Read more about this topic:  Names Of God In Islam

Famous quotes containing the word origin:

    “The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
    —Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)

    “Someone had literally run to earth
    In an old cellar hole in a byroad
    The origin of all the family there.
    Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
    That now not all the houses left in town
    Made shift to shelter them without the help
    Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
    —Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)