Principle Thirty: Faith in the Most Beautiful Names rests on three pillars: believing in the name itself, believing in the meaning it conveys, and believing in the effects that proceed from it.

This lofty rule applies exclusively to the Names of the Lord, exalted is He. The Quran contains more than eighty of these Most Beautiful Names, repeated across many verses in the form most suited to each context, as was noted earlier.

The principle benefits you with every one of His Names that pertain to creation and command, reward and punishment. Thus you must believe that He is All-Knowing—possessed of boundless knowledge that encompasses everything; that He is All-Powerful—endowed with tremendous might and able to do all things; and that He is Most Merciful—possessed of a vast mercy that has embraced every single thing. These three elements are inseparable: the name points to the attribute, and the attribute points to its practical effect. Whoever rejects any one of these three has not completed his faith in the Lord’s Names and attributes, which form the very foundation of tawḥīd (monotheism).

Let this single example suffice, for all of the Divine Names follow the same pattern.