The most beautiful names
In Arabic the phrase is al-asma al-husna, usually translated as “the most beautiful names”. It comes from the Quran, which in several verses says that the most beautiful names belong to God and tells believers to call on God by them. The verses do not give a numbered list, and they do not say how many names there are.
The number ninety-nine comes from a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and preserved in the major hadith collections. In the usual wording it says that God has ninety-nine names, one hundred less one, and that whoever “enumerates” or “memorises” them will enter Paradise. The word translated here has been understood in several ways, including learning the names by heart, understanding their meanings and living by them. That range of meanings is part of why discussion has been so varied.
How the names are listed
The saying gives the number but not the names. The familiar lists come from later compilations. One version, associated with a report in the collection of al-Tirmidhi, became especially widespread, but scholars have long noted that the chain of transmission of the added list is regarded as weaker than that of the basic saying, and that other lists exist. Different books therefore give somewhat different sets.
Many Muslim scholars also hold that the number ninety-nine does not mean God has only that many names. On that reading the saying marks a group of names that are especially significant, and further names and attributes appear in the Quran and hadith. This is a common but not universal view, and it is typical of cautious scholarly writing on the subject.
Examples
The names are mostly descriptions of qualities. Familiar ones include ar-Rahman and ar-Rahim, usually rendered as the Compassionate and the Merciful, al-Malik, the Sovereign, as-Salam, the Source of Peace, al-Ghafur, the Forgiving, and al-Hakim, the Wise. Each has an Arabic root, and the translation into English can only approximate it, which is one reason students often learn them in Arabic.
The name Allah itself is treated in some presentations as standing above the count, as the name to which the others are attached, and in others as the first of the ninety-nine. Some traditions describe a further, hidden or “greatest” name, and writers have disagreed about it. These are matters of tradition, and the sources do not settle them.
Use in devotion
The names are used in several ways. In daily life, believers may call on God by a name that fits the moment, such as asking for forgiveness while invoking al-Ghafur. This is a practice of prayer, not of numerical calculation.
In remembrance, called dhikr, they are recited, sometimes in sequence, in groups or in songs, and the count of ninety-nine is why many prayer strings have 99 beads or three groups of 33. The practice of counting on beads is compared with other traditions in the study of prayer beads. Parents often give children names that join the word abd, meaning servant, to a divine name, as in Abd al-Rahman.
In some Sufi circles, writers have composed commentaries on each name, and meditative practices have grown up around them. How far these go varies, and not every community approves of every practice.
Letters and numbers
Because Arabic letters double as numbers in the abjad tradition, each name has a numerical value, and writers in some esoteric traditions have drawn conclusions from these sums. The arithmetic of abjad numerals is simple, and the claims built on top of it are the beliefs of particular groups, not accepted teaching across Islam. They should not be taken as showing that numbers can give access to anything.
Calligraphy and art
The names have been a favourite subject of Islamic calligraphy. They appear on panels, in manuscripts and on tilework, sometimes as a full set of ninety-nine in a grid or around a circle. Since figurative images of God are not part of Islamic practice, writing the names in beautiful script became a way of honouring them. Calligraphers worked in different scripts, from the angular Kufic to the flowing thuluth and later Ottoman styles, and a name could be turned into a mirror image, a circle or a composite shape.
Mosque interiors sometimes show the names around a dome or along a wall, where they work as a reminder to those who pray. Home decoration and printed posters do the same today.
Reading the number carefully
It is natural to wonder why ninety-nine and not one hundred. The saying itself offers a short answer in its phrasing, one hundred less one, and commentators have sometimes pointed to the idea that God is one and loves what is odd. Others suggest that stopping at ninety-nine leaves room for the names beyond the list.
These explanations are traditional commentary. The safest conclusion is that the number is part of a received text and a long devotional practice, and that Muslim scholars themselves treat it with flexibility.