the Most Beautiful Names, for the Qur’an abounds in them, and they form one of the loftiest branches of Qur’anic knowledge—indeed, they are the very first objective of the Qur’an itself.
For instance, Allah speaks of Himself as the Lord, the Living, the Sustainer; as the King, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise; the Almighty, the All-Merciful; the Most Holy, the Source of Peace; the Praiseworthy, the Most Glorious. Allah alone possesses every meaning of lordship (rubūbiyyah) for which He alone deserves to be worshipped; all qualities of perfection are His, all praise is His, every favour is His, and every act of beneficence is His. No one shares with Allah any aspect of this lordship: “Nothing is like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing” (ash-Shūrā 42:11). Neither human nor angel resembles Him; rather, all are servants sustained by their Lord through every form of lordship, overwhelmed and humbled before His majesty and greatness. Hence none of them may be taken as a rival or a partner to Allah in worship or divinity (ulūhiyyah).
By His lordship He nurtures everyone—angels, prophets, and all others—by creating, providing, governing, giving life, and causing death. In gratitude they dedicate all acts of worship exclusively to Him, venerating Him alone, taking no guardian or intercessor besides Him. His divinity is His right over His servants by virtue of His lordship. He is the King who owns every sense of sovereignty, the perfect King whose command is absolute; all creatures are His subjects, slaves beneath the sway of His creational, prescriptive, and retributive rulings (1).
He is the All-Knowing of everything; nothing in the earth or the heaven is hidden from Him. His knowledge encompasses what is inward and outward, hidden and manifest, the necessary, the impossible, and the possible; what came before and what will come after; the higher and lower realms; the universals and the particulars; what creatures know and what they do not know: “They encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He wills. His Footstool extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation does not tire Him; and He is the Most High, the Most Great” (al-Baqarah 2:255).
He is the All-Wise, whose perfect wisdom permeates everything He decrees, ordains, and creates; nothing He legislates lies outside His wisdom—no created entity and no legal ruling. He is the Almighty, possessing every aspect of might in its most complete form: the might of power, the might of self-sufficiency, and the might of subjugation and dominance. All creatures, by contrast, stand in utmost humility, abject poverty, and total need of their Lord.
And He is the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful, possessing every facet of mercy: His mercy has encompassed all things, and no creature is deprived of His benevolence for the blink of an eye. His mercy reaches wherever His knowledge reaches.