Al-Ghazali on the Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God

by Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, David Burrell (Translator)

Overview

In this work, here presented in a complete English edition for the first time, the problem of knowing God is confronted in an original and stimulating way. Taking up the Prophet's teaching that 'Ninety-nine Beautiful Names' are truly predicated of God, Ghazali explores the meaning and resonance of each of these divine names, and reveals the functions they perform both in the cosmos and in the soul of the spiritual adept. Although some of the book is rigorously analytical, the author never fails to attract the reader with his profound mystical and ethical insights, which, conveyed in his sincere and straightforward idiom, have made of this book one of the perennial classics of Muslim thought, popular among Muslims to this day.

This volume won a British Book Design and Production Award in 1993.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780946621316
Publisher:	Islamic Texts Society
Publication date:	12/01/1999
Series:	Ghazali series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), theologian, logician, jurist and mystic, was born and died in Tus in Central Asia, but spent much of his life lecturing at Baghdad or leading the life of a wandering dervish. His most celebrated work, Revival of the Religious Sciences, has exercised a profound influence on Muslim intellectual history by exploring the mystical significance of the practices and beliefs of Islamic orthodoxy, earning him the title of Hujjat al Islam, the ‘Proof of Islam’.

Read an Excerpt

As for His saying Allah, it is a name for the true existent, the one who unites the attributes of divinity, is subject of the attributes of lordship, and unique in true existence. For no existent thing other than He may claim to exist of itself, but rather it gains existence from Him: it is perishing insofar as it exists of itself, and exists insofar as it faces Him. For every existing thing is perishing except His face. It is most likely that in indicating this meaning [Allah] is analogous to proper names, so everything which has been said about its derivation and definition is arbitrary and artificial.


   A lesson. You should know that this name is the greatest of the ninety-nine names of God—great and glorious—because it refers to the essence which unites all the attributes of divinity, so that none of them is left out, whereas each of the remaining names only refers to a single attribute: knowledge, power, agency, and the rest. It is also the most specific of the names, since no-one uses it for anyone other than Him, neither literally nor metaphorically, whereas the rest of the names may name things other than He, as in 'the Powerful', 'the Knowing', 'the Merciful', and the rest. So in these two respects it seems that this name is the greatest of these names.


   Implications. It is conceivable that man appropriate something of the meanings of the rest of the names, to the point that the name be used of him—as in 'the Merciful', 'the Knowing', 'the Indulgent', 'the Patient', 'the Grateful', and the rest; although the name is used of him in a way quite different from its use for God—great and glorious. Yet the meaning of this name, Allah, is so specific that it is inconceivable that it be shared, either metaphorically or literally. On account of this specificity the rest of the names are described as names of God—great and glorious—and are defined in relation to Him: it is said that 'the Patient', 'the Grateful', 'the King', and 'the Restorer' are among the names of God—great and glorious, but it is not said that 'Allah' is among the names of the grateful [One] and the patient [One]. That is because 'Allah' [i.e., 'God'], to the extent that it is more indicative of the very being of the meanings of divinity and consequently more specific, is better known and more evident, so that it does not need to be defined by something other than it, but rather the others are defined by relation to it.


   Counsel: Man's share in this name should be for him to become god-like [ta'alluh], by which I mean that his heart and his aspiration be taken up with God—great and glorious, that he not look towards anything other than Him nor pay attention to what is not He, that he neither implore nor fear anyone but Him. How could it be otherwise? For it had already been understood from this name that He is the truly actual Existent, and that everything other than He is ephemeral, perishing and worthless except in relation to Him. [The servant] sees himself first of all as the first of the perishing and worthless, as did the messenger of God—may God's grace and peace be upon him—when he said: 'the truest verse uttered by the Arabs was Labid's saying:


   Surely everything except God is vain,
   And every happiness is doubtless ephemeral.

Table of Contents

Preface
Aim of the Book
Beginning of the Book
Part One
   Chapter One: Explaining the meaning of 'name', 'named' and 'act of naming'
   Chapter Two: Explanation of names close in meaning to one another
   Chapter Three: On the one name which has different meanings
   Chapter Four: On explaining that a man’s perfection and happiness consists in being moulded by the moral qualities of God
Part Two
   Chapter One: On Explaining the Meanings of God's Ninety-Nine Names
      Epilogue to this chapter, and an apology
   Chapter Two: An Explanation of how these many names resolve to the essence with seven attributes, according to the Sunni School
   Chapter Three: An explanation of how all of these attributes resolve to a single essence, according to the school of the Mu'tazilites and the philosophers
Part Three
   Chapter One: Explaining that the names of God are not limited to ninety-nine
   Chapter Two: Explaining the benefits of enumerating ninety-nine names specifically
   Chapter Three: Are the names and attributes applied to God based on divine instruction, or permitted on the basis of reason?
Notes
Index of Divine Names
Index of Persons
Bibliography
General Index

Editorial Reviews

…the series as a whole, [is] a significant contribution to our understanding of this key figure in Islamic intellectual thought.

BRISMES Bulletin - Oliver Leaman