Asma ul-Husna: The 99 Names of Allah

إِنَّ لِلَّهِ تِسْعَةً وَتِسْعِينَ اسْمًا، مِائَةً إِلَّا وَاحِدًا، مَنْ أَحْصَاهَا دَخَلَ الْجَنَّةَ

“Indeed, Allah has ninety-nine Names, one hundred less one. Whoever enumerates them will enter Paradise.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 2736 and 7392 · Sahih Muslim 2677

Recite · The Dial

Say It in Your Heart

Press play. Choose the voice you want to follow, a man's or a woman's. Ninety-nine Names, one every second and a half, about two and a half minutes in all. The needle lands on each Name as it is spoken. Say it in your heart as it lands. Do not race it. The pause after each Name is part of the practice.

The meter at the top counts down from ninety-nine as you go. It is a picture of a promise, and the promise is older than any study: “Those who believe and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah. Truly, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” Surah ar-Ra'd 13:28. Dhikr means remembrance. This is dhikr with a map.

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The Names · What They Are

What Asma ul-Husna Means

Asma ul-Husna means the Most Beautiful Names. The phrase is Allah's own. He uses it four times in the Quran, and each time He attaches it to Himself. “And to Allah belong the Most Beautiful Names, so call upon Him by them” (al-A'raf 7:180). “Call upon Allah or call upon ar-Rahman. Whichever you call, to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names” (al-Isra 17:110). “Allah, there is no god but He. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names” (Ta-Ha 20:8). And the close of Surah al-Hashr, where He names Himself more than a dozen times in three verses and then seals it: “To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names” (al-Hashr 59:22 to 24).

A Name of Allah is a word He chose to tell you Who He is. I did not choose it. No scholar chose it. That is why the scholars of creed hold that His Names are tawqifi, fixed by revelation. We take them from the Quran and from what the Prophet ﷺ taught, and we add nothing. The same verse that commands us to call Him by His Names warns against those who deviate concerning them (7:180). Imam al-Ghazali's treatise on the Names, al-Maqsad al-Asna, stands on this ground: you describe the One who made you in the words He gave you.

Each Name is also an attribute, a sifa. Ar-Rahman tells you He has mercy. Al-Alim tells you He knows. Al-Qahhar tells you nothing stands against Him. Al-Latif tells you He is subtle and kind in ways you will never trace. The Names are the only description of God that God Himself signed.

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The Reason · Why They Matter

Why the Names Matter

You cannot love what you do not know. You cannot fear it rightly either. A man who only knows that God exists has a fact. A man who knows that God is al-Ghaffar, the One who forgives again and again, has a door. Knowledge of the Names is knowledge of Him, and every act of worship rests on it. That is the first reason.

The second is that He told us to use them. “Call upon Him by them” is a command (7:180). Dua means supplication, the asking that the Prophet ﷺ called the marrow of worship. When you ask for provision, you call ar-Razzaq. When you ask for a way out, you call al-Fattah. When you have sinned and you know it, you call at-Tawwab, the One who turns back to the one who turns. The Names make dua precise. A vague prayer comes from a vague idea of God.

The third is the promise. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Allah has ninety-nine Names, one hundred less one. Whoever enumerates them will enter Paradise.” Sahih al-Bukhari 2736 and 7392, Sahih Muslim 2677. Read it again. Paradise, tied to ninety-nine words and what you do with them.

The fourth is the heart. The verse above is a promise too: hearts find rest in His remembrance. Rest in Him. The Names are the most direct remembrance there is, because each one is Him describing Himself to you.

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The Word · Ahsaha

What Enumerate Asks of You

The word in the hadith is ahsaha. The usual translation is “memorize” or “enumerate”. The scholars read more in it. Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, in Fath al-Bari, his commentary on al-Bukhari, gathers the explanations, and al-Khattabi's is the one most repeat: to count the Names, to memorize them, to understand their meanings, to believe them, and to act by what each one requires of you. Four stations, not one.

1. Count them and memorize them. This is what the dial is for. Hear them in order, every day, until your tongue knows the road.
2. Understand each one. Ar-Rahman and ar-Rahim share a root and differ in reach. Al-Ghafur, al-Ghaffar and al-Afuww all forgive, and do not forgive in the same way. The glossary below gives you the first layer of meaning. The Quran gives you the rest.
3. Believe them as true of Him now, in your situation, today. Al-Hasib is the Reckoner. If you believe it, you stop keeping your own ledger of who owes you.
4. Act by their requirement. Al-Ghazali calls this takhalluq: a servant who knows that his Lord is as-Sabur, the Patient, learns patience. He knows that his Lord is al-Karim, the Generous, and his hand opens. He knows al-Adl, the Just, and he stops cheating in small things. The Names remain His alone. The manners come to the servant who knows them.

Memorizing is the first station, and the video is built for it. The other three are the work of a life.

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The Number · Ninety-Nine

On the Number

The hadith gives the number. The list most Muslims learn, the one on this page and in the video, comes from a narration in Jami at-Tirmidhi (3507). At-Tirmidhi himself marked that narration gharib, meaning its chain is unusual, and, as Ibn Hajar records in Fath al-Bari, many scholars of hadith held that the list of Names inside it was supplied by one of the narrators rather than spoken by the Prophet ﷺ. Other narrations, such as the one in Sunan Ibn Majah, give a list that differs in places. So the number is sound, and the famous list is a scholar's enumeration drawn from the Quran and the sunnah. It is a good list. It is not the only one.

The Names are also not limited to ninety-nine. In the dua of distress taught by the Prophet ﷺ and reported in Musnad Ahmad from Ibn Mas'ud, the servant calls on Allah “by every Name that is Yours, by which You named Yourself, or revealed in Your Book, or taught to any of Your creation, or kept to Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen.” Ninety-nine is the number with a promise attached. His Names themselves have no ceiling.

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The Practice · Thirty-Three Days

How to Use This Page

1. Play the recitation once a day for thirty-three days. Same time, same place. After Fajr is the best hour I know.
2. Take three Names a day from the glossary, in order. Read the Arabic, read the meaning, then find the Name in the Quran. The search on this site will take you to the verses.
3. Ask three questions of each Name. What does it tell me about Him? Where have I seen it in my own life? What does it require of me today?
4. Use one in your next dua, by name, in sujud, the prostration. Ask al-Fattah for the opening. Ask ar-Razzaq for the provision. Ask al-Wadud, the Loving, for your marriage.
5. On day thirty-three, start again. You will find you know them. Then the real work begins.

Learn the Names. Call Him by them. Then live like a man who knows Who he is dealing with.

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The Ninety-Nine

A Glossary of His Majesty

وَلِلَّهِ ٱلْأَسْمَآءُ ٱلْحُسْنَىٰ فَٱدْعُوهُ بِهَا

"And to Allah belong the Most Beautiful Names, so call upon Him by them."

Surah al-A'raf · 7:180