The All-Beautiful Names of God.Part4

No matter what their true nature is, the All-Beautiful Names Which God Almighty has taught us in His manifest Book are each a mysterious key for a certain sort of relationship with Him in the heart and the spirit; through these we can traverse our distance from Him, advancing toward nearness to Him, something that we are aware of in our conscience. 

• They are each a mysterious word which gives an answer when uttered. Those who possess these keys and regularly recite these luminous words are not left unanswered even when they attempt to purchase all the worlds, and are not turned back with empty hands when they become customers for the realms beyond.
• Experiencing and knowing the All-Beautiful Names with their own depths is a Divine favor for God’s servants and a pleasure which will enrich their spirits, and in respect of their outer and inner senses or faculties, it is an awareness of “seeing,” knowing, and experiencing Him and of being seen and known by Him.

Those who reach this horizon work for God’s sake, begin every task for God’s sake, and do whatever they do for God’s sake; in the words of Bediüzzaman,

they can make the seconds of their life as fruitful as the years of other people by moving and stopping “for God,” “for God’s sake,” and “for the good pleasure of God.” 

Why should this not be possible, as the servants are His servants, the Names are His Names, it is He Who is called by these Names, and the door to which the servants turn is His door?

Some scholars have asserted that God’s Names are only those Which God and His Messenger have taught us as Divine Names, and it is not acceptable to derive Names from certain Divine Acts or to attribute them to God as being among His All-Beautiful Names. However, it is a fact that many Divine Acts are mentioned in the Qur’an in a way that will lead to different Names.

Moreover, God Almighty has not taught us all of His Names. As our master, upon him be peace and blessings, stated in his prayer that begins with,

 “O God, I am Your servant, and the son of Your male servant, and the son of Your female servant,”

in addition to the All-Beautiful Names Which are mentioned in the Qur’an and certain Prophetic sayings, God has Names Which He mentioned in the previous Divine Books or Which He particularly informed some of His servants about or Which He keeps concealed with Him.

However, we cannot know any of His Names unless He teaches them to us. We can know only the Names Which He has taught us either in the Qur’an or in the Sunna.

Abu Hurayra, may God be pleased with him, narrates 99 Divine Names from the noblest Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings.

Even though these same Names are narrated from the Prophet by Salmanu’l-Farisi, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas, ‘Abdul lah ibn ‘Umar, and Caliph ‘Ali, may God be pleased with them, these narrations have not been authenticated. Some assert that the number 99 was used as a symbol of multiplicity in the hadith related by Abu Hurayra, therefore we cannot say that God’s All-Beautiful Names are restricted to 99.