"Unto God belong the Most Beautiful Names; so call Him by them, and leave those who deviate with regard to His Names. They shall be recompensed for that which they used to do."
Quran, 7:180
I'm still working my way through Surah 7, and focusing on passages that I find fascinating or insightful or moving. This passage relates to the Names of God, which I've discussed previously in an unrelated fashion; I was commenting upon the fact that I found the Names of God written on paper plates and attached to the walls of a dirt floor school on Pemba more moving than the ones in gold in the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
In the Study Quran Nasr notes: "God's Names are described as the Most Beautiful (al-husna), a word also related to goodness and virtue, and are said to be beautiful to the ear as well as the heart. On the basis of a widely reported hadith (see 59:24c), God is traditionally said to have ninety-nine Beautiful Names. While the list of those Names varies slightly in different reports, and several lists contain more than ninety-nine, the Names attributed to God in Islamic tradition are sanctified by the Islamic scripture in that they are based upon or derived from the many terms used to describe Him in the Quran, including those repeated frequently throughout the text such as Compassionate, Merciful, Sovereign, Holy, One, Hearer, Seer, Knower, and Powerful. In some cases a particular Name of God does not appear in the Quran, but is recognized as a Divine Name on the basis of related Divine actions described in the text."
"That God has many Names is not considered to compromise His Onesness or to indicate that He has parts of qualities that would compromise His Oneness; rather, the Names are considered to represent Attributes or Qualities of His undifferentiated Essence, which are differentiated through the Self-manifistation of the Essence and then preceived in the mind of the one who is calling Him by them. They also reveal different attributes of God, some pertaining to His Essence, and others to the different ways in which He relates to His creation. Nonetheless, each Name is understood to possess Divine Presence or Quality, for as al-Tabrisi notes there are no empty titles for God. In fact, in Islamic metaphysics, the whole of the cosmos is considered to be in reality nothing but reflections or theopanies of the Divine Names and Qualities."
"Goid's Names have also been commonly divided into those of Beauty (jamal), such as Compassionate, Merciful, Gentle, Kind, and Pardoner, and those of Majesty (jalal), such as Judge, Compeller, Reckoner, and Possessor of Vengeance. Along those same lines, the Names have been also divided into those that could be manifested in human beings (Kind, Generous) and those that belong to God alone (Sovereign, Sublime, Holy). In the Islamic world, human beings are allowed to have as their names those Divine Names that represent qualities that can be manifested in human beings, such as the Karim (Generous), but not those that belong to God alone, such as Quddus (Holy). There are also names belonging to both categories to both categories, such as Ali, which can also be used as human names."
Quran, 7:180
I'm still working my way through Surah 7, and focusing on passages that I find fascinating or insightful or moving. This passage relates to the Names of God, which I've discussed previously in an unrelated fashion; I was commenting upon the fact that I found the Names of God written on paper plates and attached to the walls of a dirt floor school on Pemba more moving than the ones in gold in the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
In the Study Quran Nasr notes: "God's Names are described as the Most Beautiful (al-husna), a word also related to goodness and virtue, and are said to be beautiful to the ear as well as the heart. On the basis of a widely reported hadith (see 59:24c), God is traditionally said to have ninety-nine Beautiful Names. While the list of those Names varies slightly in different reports, and several lists contain more than ninety-nine, the Names attributed to God in Islamic tradition are sanctified by the Islamic scripture in that they are based upon or derived from the many terms used to describe Him in the Quran, including those repeated frequently throughout the text such as Compassionate, Merciful, Sovereign, Holy, One, Hearer, Seer, Knower, and Powerful. In some cases a particular Name of God does not appear in the Quran, but is recognized as a Divine Name on the basis of related Divine actions described in the text."
"That God has many Names is not considered to compromise His Onesness or to indicate that He has parts of qualities that would compromise His Oneness; rather, the Names are considered to represent Attributes or Qualities of His undifferentiated Essence, which are differentiated through the Self-manifistation of the Essence and then preceived in the mind of the one who is calling Him by them. They also reveal different attributes of God, some pertaining to His Essence, and others to the different ways in which He relates to His creation. Nonetheless, each Name is understood to possess Divine Presence or Quality, for as al-Tabrisi notes there are no empty titles for God. In fact, in Islamic metaphysics, the whole of the cosmos is considered to be in reality nothing but reflections or theopanies of the Divine Names and Qualities."
"Goid's Names have also been commonly divided into those of Beauty (jamal), such as Compassionate, Merciful, Gentle, Kind, and Pardoner, and those of Majesty (jalal), such as Judge, Compeller, Reckoner, and Possessor of Vengeance. Along those same lines, the Names have been also divided into those that could be manifested in human beings (Kind, Generous) and those that belong to God alone (Sovereign, Sublime, Holy). In the Islamic world, human beings are allowed to have as their names those Divine Names that represent qualities that can be manifested in human beings, such as the Karim (Generous), but not those that belong to God alone, such as Quddus (Holy). There are also names belonging to both categories to both categories, such as Ali, which can also be used as human names."
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