Allah – The Most commonly used name for One and Only God, The Creator, Cherisher and Sustainer of all.
“Indeed, I am Allah. There is no God except Me, so worship Me and establish prayer for My remembrance.”
(Holy Quran 20.14)
“The most beautiful names belong to Allah:Invoke Him by them.”
(Holy Quran 7:180)
To worship Allah and remember Him, it is important to know His beautiful names and attributes.
Let’s do Bismillah – In the name of Allah.
Let’s try to learn those beautiful names, so that we can beseech Him through them, cherishing the amazing faith which we will gain by knowing Allah through His beautiful attributes.
Abu Huraira (r.a) reported: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), said, “Allah has ninety-nine names and whoever preserves them will enter Paradise.”
Muttafaqun Alayhi (agreed upon).
Before starting to learn to glorify the beautiful attributes of Allah swt, let’s address one prevailing and confusing question about the name – Allah that why Allah is addressed as He and not she or it?
This issue comes into the scene when we don’t know the rules of Arabic language. In Arabic language everything is either addressed in a masculine gender or in a feminine gender, there is no “it” for gender neutral entities, so everything is addressed in masculine gender even if it is not meant so, like Qalam is Qalamun and it is masculine gender, had it been a feminine gender, there would have been an addition of ta’marbuta. Though, we know Qalam is addressed as masculine gender but in reality it is not a masculine entity. Arabic is different from English to have a neutral gender rule, even in French everything addressed is either masculine or in feminine and things by default are addressed as masculine, for it to be feminine an additional alphabet is bound to be added. So, linguistically we understand that Allah is neither male nor female and is above of such genders, Allah is addressed as He because of linguistics. Allah is Unique and is not like any of His creation as is mentioned by Him in Surah Ikhlas, chapter 112.