—may Allah be pleased with him—that the Prophet, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, said: “No servant is ever afflicted by anxiety or sorrow and then says, ‘O Allah, I am Your servant, the son of Your male servant and Your female servant. My forelock is in Your hand; Your judgment concerning me is unfailingly executed, and Your decree concerning me is just. I ask You by every name that belongs to You—by which You have named Yourself, which You have revealed in Your Book, which You have taught to any of Your creation, or which You have kept exclusively to Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen with You—to make the Quran the springtime of my heart, the light of my breast, the dispeller of my sorrow, and the remover of my anxiety,’ without Allah removing his anxiety and sorrow and replacing them with joy.”1

Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “He thus divided Allah’s names into three categories:

One category consists of names by which He named Himself and which He disclosed to whomever He willed among His angels or others, but did not reveal in His Book.

Another consists of names that He revealed in His Book and by which He made Himself known to His servants.

The third consists of names that He kept exclusively to Himself in His knowledge of the unseen and disclosed to none of His creation. Hence the words, ‘which You have kept exclusively to Yourself,’ meaning: You alone possess knowledge of it.”2

This makes it clear that Allah’s names are not confined to this specific number. Rather, more than this are found in the Quran and Sunnah. The hadith indicates only the merit of enumerating this number of Allah’s names.

One point that should be noted here is that no authentic hadith has been reported from the Prophet, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, enumerating and listing these names. As for the sequential listing of these names reported in the Sunan of al-Tirmidhī, the Sunan of Ibn Mājah, and other works following the hadith of Abū Hurayrah