Number of Names

Bismillah irahman irahim

Alhumdulillahi rabbil 'alameen,

wa as-salatu

wa as-salaamu

'ala sayiddinna al mursaleen,

wa 'ala alihi

wa ashaabahi

ajmaeen.

Ibn Dahiyyah writes in his book devoted to the prophetic names: “Some people said that the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) names are equivalent to Allah’s names (i.e., 99 names) (i.e. Prophet has ninety-nine names, like the Beautiful Names of Allah) "If someone were to search for them, he would find them to be more like three hundred names."” He then goes on to enumerate these names in his book, referring them back to his sources in the Qur’an and in different biographical works. He also mentioned the proper way of pronouncing these names and their meanings.

Imam Abu Bakr Ibn al-'Arabi in his commentary on Tirmidhi (`Aridat al-ahwadhi 10:281) mentions one thousand names, some being mentioned in the Qur'an and hadith while others are found in the ancient books.

G.F. Haddad says: Some of his names came to us in the form of a verb or a verbal noun, and a large number of the scholars including al- Qadi `Iyad and Ibn Dahiyyah include those among the names. This is what the large majority of the scholars, especially those of hadith, have done with regard to Allah's names.

Jalaluddin al-Suyuti said in al-Riyad al-aniqa: al-Nawawi said in his Tahdhib al-asma' wa al-sifat (The emendation of the Names and Attributes):

Most of the Prophet's names mentioned are only attributes, such as the Concluder (al-`aqib), the Gatherer (al-hashir), and the Sealer (al-khatim). To call them "names" is a metaphorical apellation.

The Holy Qur'an actually lists 77 explicitly and 121 in total if you include verbs. Hadith and other ancient literature take the count of names to 333.

Imam al-Jazuli's Da'ail al-Khayrat, for example, contains another 84 and Shaykh Barkat Ali Ludhianvi (rahimullah) in his 5 volume masterpiece Asma al-Nabi al-Karim lists over 1400.

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