In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.

The Ninety-Nine Names of Allah (Asma’ al-Husna)

This page gathers what Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen sets out in his book Al-Qawa’id al-Muthla about the ninety-nine names: the hadith that promises Paradise to whoever enumerates them, what enumerating them means, where the list of names comes from, and the list itself, with the short meaning his book prints beside each name.

The Hadith of the Ninety-Nine Names

The Prophet ﷺ said, in the book’s printing:

“Verily Allah has ninety-nine Names, one shy of a hundred. Whoever enumerates them will enter Paradise.”

The book’s footnote records that it was collected by al-Bukhari (7392) and Muslim (2677) on the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him). Shaykh Abdur-Rahman ibn Nasir as-Sa’di prints the same hadith in his tafsir, at the end of his explanation of the verse “To Allah belong the most beautiful names” (Surah al-A’raf 7:180): “Allah has ninety-nine names; whoever learns them by heart will enter paradise.”

What does it mean to enumerate them? The Shaykh’s own comment, printed in the book’s footnote, says:

“Enumerating them means to memorize them and know their meanings. This is fulfilled when one worships Allah based on their related meanings and rulings.”

So enumerating is more than counting or memorising a list. It is learning the names with their meanings, and worshipping Allah in line with what those meanings and rulings call for. The Shaykh also explains that the promise in the hadith belongs to this specific group of names:

“Thus, his statement (may Allah raise his rank and grant him peace), «Whoever enumerates them, will enter Paradise» completes the first part of the hadith, referring to the intended ninety-nine Names. It is not a separate statement referring to all of Allah’s Names.”

Where This List Comes From

A reader could easily assume that the Prophet ﷺ himself listed the ninety-nine names one by one. The Shaykh states plainly that he did not:

“Additionally, it has not been authentically established that the Prophet (may Allah raise his rank and grant him peace) specified all of these ninety-nine Names. The hadith which has been reported about this is unauthentic:”

A narration that names them one by one does exist, but Moosaa Richardson’s explanation in the same book shows what the scholars found in its chains: the versions carrying the long list run through one narrator, al-Walid ibn Muslim, and the names in it are classed as mudraj [material inserted into a narration], his own explanation, or his teachers’, added to the hadith rather than spoken by the Prophet ﷺ. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, whose words are quoted there, said:

“The specification of them (the Names of Allah) is not from the speech of the Prophet (may Allah raise his rank and grant him peace), as agreed upon by the scholars of hadith.”

“Al-Walid mentioned them (the names) as the explanation of the hadith by some one of his teachers from the Sham, as is clarified in some of the narrations of his hadith.”

Ibn Hajar’s sentence, quoted on the same page, gives a further reason the two great collections left that narration aside:

“The problem that the two shaykhs (al-Bukhari and Muslim) had with it (the hadith) was not just that it only comes by way of al-Walid, but that he (al-Walid) has narrated it inconsistently, his tadlis, and possibility of additional wordings added to the narration.”

Tadlis, as the book’s footnote explains, is when a narrator leaves out the name of a narrator between him and his shaykh, so the chain looks stronger than it is. With the Prophet’s own list not established, the scholars gathered the names themselves from the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Richardson’s explanation describes that work:

“They gathered ninety-nine, and they kept gathering because they needed a principle by which to extract the Names from the verses that would land them on ninety-nine. Some of the scholars had lengthy, lengthy lists of Allah’s Names that reached up to two hundred names while they were initially trying to gather the ninety-nine mentioned in the hadith. However, their principles led them to gather more. Some of them like Ibn Hazm could not count up to ninety-nine, they only got to eighty-some or seventy-some. So, they differed in the numbers of names they gathered, and they did not have the same number although they all tried to gather ninety-nine.”

That is why the lists of different scholars are not identical: each is a scholar’s careful gathering, not a revealed table. And no gathering reaches the names Allah kept back. The Shaykh closes the point:

“It is not possible for anyone to count or have complete knowledge of the Names that Allah, the Exalted, has kept with Himself as knowledge of the Unseen.”

The Ninety-Nine Names

The list below is Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen’s own gathering, in his order, with the short meaning his book prints beside each name. He introduces it in his own words:

“Since the specification of the Names by the Prophet (may Allah raise his rank and grant him peace) is not authentic, the Salaf differed over them, and thus a number of different opinions were held.

I (ibn al-‘Uthaymin) have gathered the following ninety-nine Names from the Book of Allah, the Exalted, and the Sunnah of His Messenger (may Allah raise his rank and grant him peace):”

From the Book of Allah

1. Allah
2. al-Ahad (the One)
3. al-A’la (the Most High)
4. al-Akram (the Most Generous)
5. al-Ilah (the Worshipped)
6. al-Awwal (the First)
7. al-Akhir (the Last)
8. ath-Thahir (the Knower of all apparent things)
9. al-Batin (the Knower of all hidden things)
10. al-Bari’ (the Commanding Ordainer)
11. al-Barr (the Beneficent One)
12. al-Basir (the All-Seeing)
13. at-Tawwab (the Acceptor of Repentance)
14. al-Jabbar (the Compelling One)
15. al-Hafith (the Preserver)
16. al-Hasib (the Preserver)
17. al-Hafith (the All-Protecting One)
18. al-Hafi (the Gracious One)
19. al-Haqq (the Truth)
20. al-Mubin (the One who clarifies)
21. al-Hakim (the All-Wise)
22. al-Halim (the Gentle One)
23. al-Hamid (the Praiseworthy One)
24. al-Hayy (the Ever-Living)
25. al-Qayyum (the One who establishes and sustains)
26. al-Khabir (the All-Informed One)
27. al-Khaliq (the Creator)
28. al-Khallaq (the Ever-Creating)
29. ar-Ra’uf (the All-Kind)
30. ar-Rahman (the All-Merciful)
31. ar-Rahim (the Ever Merciful)
32. ar-Razzaq (the Ever-Providing)
33. ar-Raqib (the Ever-Watchful)
34. as-Salam (the Flawless One)
35. as-Sami’ (the All-Hearing)
36. ash-Shakir (the Ever-Thankful)
37. ash-Shakur (the Ever-Thankful)
38. ash-Shahid (the Witness)
39. as-Samad (the Eternal One)
40. al-‘Alim (the Knowledgeable One)
41. al-‘Aziz (the All-Mighty)
42. al-‘Athim (the Great One)
43. al-‘Afuww (the Pardoner)
44. al-‘Aliyy (the Lofty One)
45. al-Ghaffar (the Most Forgiving)
46. al-Ghafir (the Ever Forgiving)
47. al-Ghani (the One Free of Needs)
48. al-Fattah (the Deciding Judge)
49. al-Qadir (the Capable One)
50. al-Qahir (the Forceful One)
51. al-Quddus (the Holy One)
52. al-Qadir (the Ever-Capable)
53. al-Qarib (the Close One)
54. al-Qawi (the Strong One)
55. al-Qahhar (the Ever-Dominating One)
56. al-Kabir (the Great One)
57. al-Karim (the Generous One)
58. al-Latif (the Sublime One)
59. al-Mu’min (the Granter of Security)
60. al-Muta’ali (the High and Exalted One)
61. al-Mutakabbir (the Justly Proud)
62. al-Matin (the Powerful)
63. al-Mujib (the Ever Responding One)
64. al-Majid (the Majestic One)
65. al-Muhit (the All-Encompassing One)
66. al-Musawwir (the Bestower of forms and shapes)
67. al-Muqtadir (the All-Capable One)
68. al-Muqit (the Protector)
69. al-Malik (the King)
70. al-Malik (the Sovereign)
71. al-Mawla (the Guardian)
72. al-Muhaymin (the Watchful Witness)
73. an-Nasir (the Ever-Helpful)
74. al-Wahid (the Only One)
75. al-Warith (the Owner who all things return to)
76. al-Wasi’ (the Encompassing One)
77. al-Wadud (the Loving)
78. al-Wakil (the Guardian)
79. al-Wali (the Protector)
80. al-Wahhab (the Ever-Giving)

From the Sunnah

1. al-Jamil (the Beautiful One)
2. al-Jawwad (the Bestower of Goodness)
3. al-Hakam (the Ruler)
4. al-Hayyi (the Shy One)
5. ar-Rabb (the Lord)
6. ar-Rafiq (the Gentle One)
7. as-Subbuh (the Justly Glorified One)
8. as-Sayyid (the Master)
9. ash-Shafi (the Healer)
10. at-Tayyib (the Pure One)
11. al-Qabidh (the One who seizes)
12. al-Basit (the One who grants increases)
13. al-Muqaddim (the One who brings things forth)
14. al-Mu’akhkhir (the One who delays things wisely)
15. al-Muhsin (the One who does things perfectly)
16. al-Mu’ti (the Giver)
17. al-Mannan (the Ever-Bestowing)
18. al-Witr (the One who is similar to none)

The Shaykh concludes the list in his own words:

“This is what we have chosen based on our research – eighty-one Names from the Book of Allah, the Exalted, and eighteen from the Sunnah of the Messenger (may Allah raise his rank and grant him peace).”

One thing about the count should be said openly. The Shaykh’s words above give eighty-one names from the Book of Allah, and that is his count. In this English printing, the list as printed names eighty: one line repeats a name with another name’s meaning beside it, and the numbering skips a number, so one name was lost when this edition was printed. The list on this page follows the book as printed, with that repeated name set right to the name its meaning belongs to, and no name has been added to make up the count.

One Name He Includes With a Doubt

His honesty about his own list goes further. Of al-Hafi (no. 18 in the first list), the name Ibrahim uses of his Lord in Surah Maryam (19:47), he says:

“However, there remains some doubt about including al-Hafi, as it is only found in a restricted sense in His Statement, quoting Ibrahim:

«Verily, He is Hafi (Gracious) to me.»”

The name is kept in the list, and the doubt is kept beside it, exactly as he left them. He then closes the whole list with this humility:

“What we have listed here is based on our knowledge and understanding, while above each possessor of knowledge is someone more knowledgeable. Above all of them is the Knower of all hidden and apparent things, the One who knows everything.”

Why Some Well-Known Descriptions Are Not in the List

A reader may wonder why famous descriptions, like Lord of all the worlds, or Knower of the unseen and the seen, are not counted among the ninety-nine. The Shaykh answers this himself, in a comment the book prints as a footnote. Descriptions of that shape are mudaf [a possessive construction, where one word is joined to another, like “Lord of” a thing], and he did not count them:

“And we have not mentioned any Names that come in the texts as mudaf (an Arabic construction that shows possession), like Rabb al-‘Alamin (the Lord of all the worlds), ‘Alim al-Ghaybi wash-Shahadah (the Knower of all hidden and apparent things), and Badi’ as-Samawati wal-Ardh (the Originating Creator of the Heavens and the Earth). There are many examples of this. It was not clear to us that they were intended (from the hadith), and knowledge (of what is most correct) is only with Allah, the Exalted.”

His Names Are Not Limited to This Number

These ninety-nine are one specific group of His names that He revealed and attached a promise to. They are not all of His names: He has names He kept with Himself in the knowledge of the unseen, which no one can count, as the Shaykh’s closing line in the origin section above states. The principles the scholars lay down about the names and attributes as a whole, and how they are affirmed, are set out on Names and Attributes of Allah (Asma wa Sifat). This page gathers only the hadith, its meaning, and Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen’s list, in his own words where he is quoted.

References

Al-Qawa’id al-Muthla (The Exemplary Principles Concerning the Beautiful Names and Attributes of Allah): Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen; TROID, translated and explained by Moosaa Richardson, 1431 AH (printed pp. 41-48).

Tafsir as-Sa’di, Vol. 3 (Juz 7-9): Shaykh Abdur-Rahman ibn Nasir as-Sa’di; IIPH, English Edition 1, 2018, translated by Nasiruddin al-Khattab (printed p. 331).

In quotations, the divine name is written “Allah” throughout. One of the books prints it with the long spelling, “Allaah” or “Allāh”; the spelling is standardised here, and nothing else in the wording is changed.

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