Three Categories of Divine Names

God’s mercy is both inclusive and perfect. The act of mercy requires an object of mercy. No one requires mercy until and unless one is wanting. A compassionately merciful person may not be called truly merciful if he or she accomplishes mercy without volition, intention or sincere concern for the one in need. To al-Ghazali, perfect mercy is pouring out benefaction to those in need, and directing it to them, for their care; and inclusive mercy is when it embraces deserving and undeserving alike. The mercy of God is both perfect and inclusive [tammah wa ‘ammah]: perfect inasmuch as it wants to fulfill the needs of those in need and does meet them; and inclusive inasmuch as it embraces both deserving and undeserving, encompassing this world and the next, and includes bare necessities and needs, and special gifts over and above them. So He is utterly and truly merciful.

In short, God is Omniscient as much as He is Omnipresent. He is too exalted to be contained in any one place and too holy to be determined by time; for He created time and place. There is nothing like unto Him in His essence nor is there of His essence in any other besides Him. He changes not as He is far beyond contingencies. He abides through all generations with His glorious attributes, free from all imperfection. Therefore, the examples discussed of the Divine names and the related Qur’anic passages speak for themselves proving that the Qur’anic Deity is absolutely Omniscient and Omnipresent. God is absolutely free, in terms of His Omniscience and Omnipresence, of the limitations which we have seen are ascribed to Him in some biblical passages. Moreover, the Qur’anic representation of God’s attributes of omniscience and omnipresence are abstract in the sense that they are not connected with any physical organs or corporeal qualities. His knowledge and power is felt but not imagined or represented in any way or form in human or material categories.

Names of Actions

The third category of the Divine Beautiful Names, denotes God’s actions towards His creatures. The names of attributes do not need anybody   or   anything   other   than   God   Himself   as   they   describe perfections of God.  On the other hand, the names of acts are distinguished  the  fact  that  they  make  sense  only  in  terms  of  God’s creatures,  and  that  they  have  opposites  that  are  also  divine  names. Examples are Al-Muhyi (the Life-Giver) and Al-Mumit (the Slayer), Al- Mu¢izz (the Honourer) and Al-Mudhil (the One who humbles) etc. So God is Al-Razzaq (the Provider), Al-Bari’ (the Producer), Al-Musawwir (the Fashioner), Al-Khafid (the Abaser) and Al-Rafi¢ (the Exalter), Al- Mujib (the  Answerer  of  prayers),  Al-Wakil (the  Guardian),  Al-Mani’a (the Protector) and Al-Darr (the Punisher) etc.

It is pertinent to reiterate that all of God’s names are derived from the Qur’an and the Hadith; they are tawqifiyyah meaning that they are preconcertedly determined either by a Qur’anic text or an authentic prophetic report. Nothing can be added to them or subtracted from them. The reason being to confess utter dependence upon God regarding the proper knowledge of and about His being. Such sheer dependence upon the revelatory knowledge is in fact a recognition of the impossibility of knowing God except through what He has decided to reveal to us. Another established criterion among all mainstream Muslim scholars is that God possesses all these perfections from eternity. God cannot be characterized by names insinuating that He acquired these perfections, or by blemish or bad names such as poor, cruel, cheat etc. He cannot be given any evil quality or attribute. The scholars also agree that diminutives of God’s names are prohibited as are words alluding to dual meanings such as those conveying praise as well as condemnation. The other established criterion is that God’s absolute transcendence and exalted majesty must be maintained at all costs. All ideas, concepts, imaginations, and even perceptions leading to resemblance, similarity, comparability, corporeality, and anthropo- morphism must be denied of Him.

Absolute vs. Relative 

It is important to realize that the presence of some of these names and qualities in humanity is neither here nor there. Firstly, because their presence does not make these attributes and qualities of God anthropomorphic or corporeal; and secondly because in God they are perfections and absolute, while in humanity they are imperfect and relative. God is the First and the Everlasting. These attributes are non- corporeal and are first present in Him and then in human beings. So, to describe God utilizing these non-physical attributes and absolute qualities in no way makes Him similar or comparable to man. They are simply expressions which pave the way for man to try to know God as much as human limitations allow. Al-Ghazali rightly observes: “So if God had an attribute or a specifying property, and there were nothing in us corresponding to it or sharing its name – even so much as the sweetness of sugar shares in the pleasure of intercourse – it would be inconceivable that we would ever understand [the attribute or property] at all. For each person only understands himself, and then compares his own attributes with those of God the most-high. Yet His attributes are too exalted to be likened to ours! So, this will be an inadequate knowledge in which imagining and resemblance are preponderant. So it needs to be complemented by the knowledge which denies any likeness, and which rejects any grounds for commensurability, even though the name be shared. Therefore, God is unknowable, as “knowing something is to know its reality and its quiddity, not the names derived from it.”

Consequently, all efforts should be directed towards reflecting upon the creatures of God instead of reflecting upon His essence, for there is no other way that one can comprehend it. “He knows what is before or after or behind them: but they shall comprehend Him not” (20:110). The Prophet pinpointed this fact by encouraging reflection upon God’s creation and not upon God Himself.

In short, the Transcendent God has not the least resemblance to the limited, deficient, and imperfect creatures of His creation. Entirely out of the question is His resemblance to any and all other gods and of course their semi-human nature; deities fashioned by the minds of men, whose lack of knowledge and understanding, and need to supply the deficiencies of their own comprehension, caused such inane inventions. Contrary to this, God enjoys all attributes of perfection appropriate to His Divine Majesty and Exalted Power. Contemplation upon these and His beautiful names is the only recourse to grasp the barest glimpses of His Divine majesty.

Simple and Rational

In the light of what has been discussed so far, we can conclude that the Qur’anic concept of God is straightforward and self-explanatory. It consists of the absolute denial of the existence, authority, rule, sovereignty, and abilities to harm or benefit, of other gods (completely and utterly rejecting their worship and the representation of God in any way or form) whilst simultaneously restoring all these attributes and qualities in God Himself. Accordingly, God’s attributes and qualities are absolute and are never connected with any physical object, body part or organ. For instance, God can speak through inanimate things such as a bush or a tree, as in the case of Moses (28:30) and in fact, “It is not fitting for a man that Allah should speak to him except by inspiration, or from behind a veil, or by sending of a Messenger to reveal, with Allah’s permission, what Allah wills: for He is Most High, Most Wise” (42:51). God does not have a body. Nobody can see Him. Moses’ request for a glimpse of God was answered in the following words: “Allah said: “By no means canst thou see Me; But look upon the Mount; if it abides in its place, then shalt thou see Me.” When his Lord manifested (revealed) Himself to the Mount, He made it as dust, and Moses fell down in a swoon. When he recovered his senses he said: “Glory be to Thee! To Thee I turn in repentance, and I am the first to believe.” (7:143)

The reason being that, “No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision; He is the Subtle, Well-Aware” (6:103). In short, the Qur’an has explained its monotheism in simple, logical, and intelligible terms and categories, elaborated it with additional logical ways, methods and examples, and protected this concept well from possible violations. The Divine transcendence is an intrinsic part of the Qur’anic concept of the Deity. The transcendent God is immanent by dint of His countless absolute attributes expressed through His Beautiful Names and many other signs and manifestations throughout His creation. Moreover, the Qur’an makes special efforts to safeguard against all possible violations, confusions, and ambiguities, the immensely important concept of the Divine Unity, Uniqueness, and Transcendence of God. This original alertness, observes Bishop Cragg, “against all false theologies accompanies the whole elaboration of Muslim religion. It is, as it were, a supreme “Protestantism” in its very genesis, a cry of heart and a mission of will against all that violated the Divine unity or distracted men from the single direction of their love, their loyalty, and their obedience.”

Cragg continues that the “ringing shout of praise that echoes through all Islamic ritual and dogma: Allahu akbar, “Greater is God,” which, grammatically, is a comparative form made all the more striking by its refusal, indeed its inability, to enter any stated comparison. “God is greater” than all that could conceivably be set in any clause after “than.” The idea of framing such a clause is itself unthinkable. Yet the superlative (“God is the greatest”) is not preferred, for this could imply approximate equality and would, as such, be open to ambiguity, as the psalm is which declares: “He is a great king above all gods.” Are we to understand that the gods exist, if only as underlings? Or do we mean that the Lord reigns in utter majesty alone? Islam has no truck with such double possibility of intention. It was not the existence of Allah that Muhammad proclaimed. The tribes knew Him by His name. It was His sole existence, negating all pluralism. God is exalted above all that might – though always impossibly – compare with Him.”

It is this notion of the absolute transcendence of God that has been reflected in Islamic art, language, and indeed so many other aspects of Islamic civilization and culture. Islam is, and always has been, unceasingly on guard, constantly on high alert against any corporeality, anthropomorphism or any form of comparability, injecting the divine with the non-divine. Unlike Christian art, Islamic art has always avoided sensory images, anthropomorphic depictions or corporeal portrayals of God in all times and places. No mosque has ever contained any object, depiction or statue even remotely connected with divinity. Students of religious art are amazed to see mosques devoid of any decorative pictures, depictions or iconography, aside from lace-like Qur’anic verses and abstract arabesques adorning walls and ceilings. The latter are in-themselves simply motifs, designs made of stylized stalk, leaf and flower, deliberately denaturalized and symmetrically repeated to dispel any suggestion of the creaturely natural being a vehicle of expression for the divine. Al-Faruqi writes that all the “arts in Islam developed in fulfillment of divine transcendence acting as supreme principle of esthetics...”

Islamic God Talk

The same strict precautions have been taken with regards to the Islamic language. Islamic theological discourse (God-talk) revolves strictly around Qur’anic terminology, despite the existence of, and in fact serving as an interface between, the tremendous geographical, linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversities that span the Muslim world. This is the objective of the Qur’anic dicta, “We (God) have revealed it as an Arabic Qur’an” (12:2; 20:113). So, any God-talk by Muslims is predominantly scriptural or Qur’an-talk, utilizing Arabic categories, terms, literary forms and expressions peculiar to the Qur’an. Muslims have always avoided the use of phrases such as father and son regarding the God-man relationship. Hence, phrases such as “God the Father”, “Mother of God”, “Son of God”, “Crucified God” or “Sons of God” or their equivalent etc., will not be found in Islamic literature. They are utterly banished from the Islamic lexicon, and religious vocabulary, to eliminate and prevent the rise of any consciousness that could lead to pernicious confusion and difficulty with regard to the essence of God, as occurred with regard to Judaic and Christian conceptions of the Divine. The Qur’anic transcendental axiom is uncompromising in separating the divine realm from the non-divine creaturely one. For the sake of analogy, God stands on one side of the boundary, alone and unique, whilst everything other than He stands on the other, dividing the transcendent from the natural.  This is the necessary criterion of Muslim God talk and a presupposition of God’s axiological ultimacy. On the other hand, however, terms such as ‘Lord’, ‘Master’, the ‘Most Merciful’, the ‘Compassionate’, are frequently used to denote God, while phrases such as “servant” (‘abd), “mankind” (al-nas), “human being” (al-insan), “creation” (khalq) etc., are used to denote man and creation.

Responsibility vs. Privilege

Al-tawhid, with all its multiplex emphasis, is not meant merely to exalt God and chant His glories. It is also not meant to claim special privity with God, enjoy special privileges in His name or assert superiority over His creatures. None of these elements are implied in the Qur’anic understanding of monotheism. It is a responsibility rather than a privilege. It is meant to create the proper response in man, the response that is essential to encourage man to work towards transforming the human society of time and space in accordance with divine moral rules. The unity of God leads to the unity of His creation. No superiority is granted based upon origin, ethnicity, color, creed or financial or social status. The basic human rights of dignity, freedom, equality and justice are universally granted to all human beings because of their humanity. A right relationship with God is the sole guarantee of a just and right relationship between men. A loving connection between man and his God will assure a morally equipped caring human society. On the hand, any wrong understanding of who God is or a wrong relationship with Him will cause imbalance in man to man relationships. The Islamic transcendental monotheism if understood properly and applied in spirit, can warranty an ethically balanced and caring human society. It is grounded in human responsibility, socio-political and economic accountability and universal justice.