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99 names of Allah: Difference between revisions
→Some names are not actually beautiful: Adding a point against giving too much weight to one of the most common names of Allah.
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====Some names are not actually beautiful==== | ====Some names are not actually beautiful==== | ||
Some of the names, like "The Harmer", even with apologetic translation by Muslims, doesn't seem to be beautiful. | Some of the names, like "The Harmer", even with apologetic translation by Muslims, doesn't seem to be beautiful. | ||
==== "The Compassionate" (Al-Rahman) does not appear to be a straightforward adjective ==== | |||
As Reynolds (2020) notes one of the most commonly used names as a positive example may not be a straightforward descriptive attribute, but rather simply a common name for God in Arabia at the time. | |||
{{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (pp. 94-96). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|Most tellingly, perhaps, on fifty-six occasions the Qur’an simply names God al-rahman, “the Compassionate.” This would seem to suggest that the Qur’an’s idea of God is deeply intertwined with the concept of mercy. A closer analysis, however, complicates this suggestion in three ways. <br><i>First, the name al-rahman is used for God in a number of verses in which God is not merciful.</i><sup>14</sup> This is the case with Q 19:45, in which Abraham tells his (pagan) father, “I am indeed afraid that a punishment from al-rahman will befall you, and you will become Satan’s accomplice.” This paradoxical use of al-rahman appears again in Q 21:42, where God commands the Prophet: “Say, ‘Who can guard you, day and night, against [the punishment of] al-rahman.”<sup>15</sup><i>Second, in the Qur’an the term al-rahman always appears with the definite article (al) and never as a simple adjective. And third, whereas rahim is used to refer to things other than God (e.g., in Q 9:128 Muhammad is rahim), al-rahman is used only to refer to God.</i><br>Together these things suggest that the Qur’an’s author meant to use al-rahman principally as a proper noun for God. This possibility seems more likely in light of what we know from the evidence left behind on rocks by monotheists who lived in Arabia before Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabian rock inscriptions often refer to God, or God the Father in the Christian Trinity, with a version of the name al-rahman. In South Arabian the name appears as rahmanan.<sup>16</sup>In North Arabia, too, God, or a god, was referred to as “the merciful.” A North Arabian inscription (in a variety of Ancient North Arabian known as Safaitic) includes an appeal to a god who is referred to with a term related to Arabic rahim and rahman.<sup>17</sup> Thus, al-rahman (or other versions of it) seems simply to have been a typical way to refer to God in Arabia.<sup>18</sup>}} | |||
Note: rahmanan mentioned above is al-rahman with the definite article being the 'an' suffix on as in some Southern Arabian languages rather than the 'al' prefix as in contemporary Arabic.<ref>Reynolds, Gabriel Said. ''Allah: God in the Qur'an (p. 254)'''.''''' Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. | |||
Footnote 16: This is not the only name that Arabian monotheists used for God. The French archaeologist Christian Robin has carefully catalogued names for God used by Jews in the South Arabian kingdom of Himyar in the fifth and sixth centuries. In addition to rahmanan (“the Compassionate”; the an at the end of the word is the definite article used in certain South Arabian languages), they used a name close to Arabic allah (ʾlahan) along with rabb (“lord”)—a term closely related to a name used for God in the Qurʾan.. | |||
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====Some names are strange==== | ====Some names are strange==== | ||