the Most Beautiful Names and sublime attributes of Allah, glory be to Him. For every perfection in created beings is an effect of His perfection; every perfection established for a created being is more fittingly attributed to the Creator; and every imperfection from which a created being is free is even more fittingly denied of the Creator. This holds according to the approach and terminology of every school.

Thus, one says, “The perfection of an effect derives from the perfection of its cause,” while another says, “The perfection of what is made and created derives from the perfection of its Maker and Creator.”

In the hadith narrated by Ahmad in al-Musnad and by Ibn Hibbān in his Sahīh, Ibn Masʿūd reports that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“No servant is afflicted by worry or sorrow and says, ‘O Allah, I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant. My forelock is in Your hand. Your judgment concerning me takes effect, and Your decree concerning me is just. I ask You by every name belonging to You with which You have named Yourself, or which You have revealed in Your Book, or taught to any of Your creation, or kept exclusively with Yourself in Your knowledge of the unseen, to make the Quran the springtime of my heart, the light of my breast, the dispeller of my sorrow, and the remover of my worry and distress,’ without Allah removing his worry and sorrow and replacing them with joy. They asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, should we not learn these words?’ He replied, ‘Yes indeed. Whoever hears them should learn them.’”

In this hadith, he states that Allah has names which He has kept exclusively with Himself in His knowledge of the unseen. Allah’s names encompass His attributes; they are not mere proper names. Rather, His names—such as the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, the Most Merciful, the All-Wise, and others—each indicate meanings of His attributes that the other names do not indicate, while all share in denoting His Essence. And if there are names of His whose knowledge He has reserved for Himself, and names He has made known exclusively to