Explanation to the Beautiful and Perfect Names of Allah by Shaykh Abu `Abdu-r-Rahman Nasir as-Sa`di

From the most noble and lofty stations of cognisance is to know the Lord, the Glorious, through His beauty. This is the knowledge possessed by the elite of this creation. All of them know Him through an Attribute from amongst His Attributes but those amongst them who have the most complete cognisance are those who know Him through His perfection, magnificence and beauty. There is nothing comparable to Him in any of His Attributes, if you were to assume that the whole of creation was in its most exquisite form, and you were to try and compare their collective outward and inward beauty to the beauty of the Lord, the Glorious, the comparison would be more ineffectual than a faint torch being held against the blazing disk of the sun.

This treatise has been extracted from the opening words of Shaykh Nasir as-Sa’di may Allah have mercy upon him, to his Tafsir of the Quran, Taysir al-Karim al-Rahman, in which he succinctly and beautifully explains those Names of Allїh that occur in the Quran. After each explanation the translator has added some verses of the Quran showing the usage of the particular Name in question. It should also be noted that the author, may Allah have mercy upon him, has only mentioned those Names that occur in the Quran and these come to a total of eighty-nine in his view.

Additional Names mentioned in the Qur’an have been added from the work of ibn Uthaymin, Qawa’idu-l-Muthla fi Sifati-Allahi wa Asma’_’_Ύhi-l-Husnї, bringing the total to one hundred and three.

Before proceeding to the treatise some general principles with regards to the Names of Allah, the Mighty and Magnificent are presented.