each such attribute He possesses the fullest and greatest measure. For every one of His attributes, He deserves the most perfect praise and commendation—how much more so for all His holy attributes together! To Him belongs praise for His essence, His attributes, and His actions, for His actions are either acts of bounty and kindness or acts of justice and wisdom, for which He deserves perfect praise. To Him belongs praise for His creation, His revealed law, His decrees, His legislative rulings, and His judgments of recompense in this world and the Hereafter. Neither thought can encompass nor pens enumerate the particulars of His praise and all that He is praised for1.

26 - The Ever-Living2: (The Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting Sustainer)

He—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—said: “The Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting Sustainer: He is perfect in life and subsists by Himself.

He sustains the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth, overseeing their affairs, their provision, and every aspect of their condition. The Ever-Living encompasses all attributes of His essence, and the Self-Subsisting Sustainer encompasses all attributes of His actions3. It is supremely fitting that these two names be joined together, as Allah has joined them in several places in His Book, such as His saying:

‘Allah—there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting Sustainer.’ 4

This is because these two names encompass all attributes of perfection. The Ever-Living is the One whose life is perfect, which entails all the attributes of Allah’s essence, such as knowledge, might, power, will, greatness, supreme majesty, and His other holy attributes of essence.

The Self-Subsisting Sustainer is perfect in His self-subsistence and His sustaining of all others. He subsists by Himself, His attributes are sublime, and He has no need of any of His creatures, while the earth, the heavens, and all the creatures within them subsist through Him,