For this reason, the particular names in the two versions transmitted from him differ: one narration includes names in place of those mentioned in the other. Those who compiled them would sometimes mention one name and sometimes another. They and others believed either that the Most Beautiful Names whose enumeration leads to Paradise were not a fixed set—rather, whoever enumerates ninety-nine of Allah’s names will enter Paradise—or that, even if they were a fixed set, two names with the same meaning could substitute for one another, such as al-Ahad (the One and Only) and al-Wāhid (the One).
Thus, the narration of Hishām ibn ‘Ammār from al-Walīd ibn Muslim, from him, as transmitted by ‘Uthmān ibn Sa‘īd, has “al-Ahad” in place of “al-Wāhid,” and “al-Mu‘tī (the Giver)” in place of “al-Mughnī (the Enricher),” the latter two being close in meaning. Al-Walīd lists these names after narrating the hadith from Khulayd ibn Da‘laj, from Qatādah, from Ibn Sīrīn, from Abū Hurayrah.
Hishām then said: “Al-Walīd also narrated to us, saying that Sa‘īd ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz had narrated the same to him. He said, ‘All of them are in the Quran: “He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity” …’” The list follows the one given by al-Tirmidhī, but al-Tirmidhī narrated it through Safwān ibn Sālih, from al-Walīd, from Shu‘ayb. Ibn Abī ‘Āsim also narrated it, and his list differs from al-Tirmidhī’s in some places.
All this makes clear that these names are material appended to and interpolated into the hadith from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in some transmission routes; they are not his words. For this reason, “others” compiled a different list, deriving the names from the Quran. Among them were Sufyān ibn ‘Uyaynah, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and others, as I mentioned in my discussion of this subject long ago. All this implies that, in their view, these names admit of substitution;