What are the 99 names of Allah?

What the hadith actually says

The narration is authentic and appears in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, from Abu Hurayrah رضي الله عنه:

"Allah has ninety-nine names, one hundred less one; whoever takes them to heart enters Paradise, and He is Odd and loves the odd."— Sahih al-Bukhari 7392, Sahih Muslim 2677, from Abu Hurayrah

Two things follow from the wording itself. First, the number is tied to a promise — whoever takes them to heart — not to a boundary. Second, the hadith does not say "Allah has only ninety-nine names."

Why the number is not a limit

Shaykh al-Albani makes the point directly: the hadith does not mean Allah has no other names. It means these ninety-nine are the ones whose ihsa' carries the promise of Paradise. He notes that other authentic narrations show the Prophet ﷺ supplicating Allah "by every name with which You have named Yourself, or revealed in Your Book, or taught to any of Your creation, or kept hidden in the unseen with You" — and a category of names kept hidden from all creation cannot be counted at all.

The same reasoning appears in the well-known du'a of Ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه, which the scholars cite as proof that the names exceed ninety-nine:

"I ask You by every name that is Yours, by which You have named Yourself, or sent down in Your Book, or taught to one of Your creation, or kept exclusively in the unseen knowledge with You…"— Musnad Ahmad, from Ibn Mas'ud

Al-Albani also dismisses the claim that the lines on a person's palm encode the number ninety-nine. He calls it something not worth paying attention to, since the names are more than ninety-nine to begin with.

What "taking them to heart" means

This is where the question usually matters most, because the reward is attached to ihsa' (taking them to heart), and the scholars explain it in more than one way.

Shaykh Nasir al-'Aql explains that ihsa' is not reciting a list. It means:

• Believing in them — affirming that these names belong to Allah.
• Being moved by their meanings — so that the heart is filled with reverence, love, hope and fear of Allah.
• Clinging to Allah through them — turning to Him by them in supplication and in life.

He adds that a hypocrite can memorise the list as a recitation without understanding anything of its meaning, which shows the reward cannot be about mere counting. The verse commanding us to call upon Allah by them —

"To Allah belong the most beautiful names, so call upon Him by them" (Qur'an 7:180)

is the key: the names are meant to be used, not just listed.

Al-Albani agrees that the ninety-nine whose ihsa' is promised are difficult to pin down precisely, and that no scholar can determine them with certainty.

The famous list is not from the Prophet ﷺ

The list most people have seen — al-Rahman, al-Rahim, al-Malik, al-Quddus, and so on through al-Sabur — comes through al-Tirmidhi, and the scholars of hadith have examined it closely.

The weight of hadith criticism holds that the list was inserted into the hadith by a narrator, not spoken by the Prophet ﷺ. Al-Tirmidhi himself graded the narration gharib (strange), and noted that most transmissions of the hadith from Abu Hurayrah do not mention the names at all. Ibn Taymiyyah states plainly that the version listing names such as al-Barr, al-Tawwab, al-Muntaqim, al-'Afuww and al-Ra'uf is not the Prophet's ﷺ speech, but was added by al-Walid ibn Muslim from Sa'id ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz or one of his teachers — which is why no major collection besides al-Tirmidhi transmits it.

This is why the list varies between narrations. Some versions have al-Mughith and al-Qarib; others have al-Raqib; others al-Hannan and al-Mannan. Muhammad Taqi al-Din al-Hilali, working from these variants, added al-Mughith and al-Qarib to the standard list and arrived at one hundred and three names — and he notes that the names are not confined to ninety-nine or a hundred and three in any case.

Names whose status is disputed

Because the list is not authentic, scholars differ over individual names on it. Two examples:

• Al-Muntaqim (the Avenger) — Ibn Taymiyyah holds it is not among the names authentically established from the Prophet ﷺ; it appears in the Qur'an only in a restricted form, as in "We will surely take vengeance on the criminals" (Qur'an 32:22). Ibn 'Uthaymin, who also holds the list was inserted, excluded it from his own enumeration.
• Al-Darr (the Afflicter) and al-Sabur (the Most Patient) — IslamWeb notes there is no explicit text from the Qur'an or authentic Sunnah establishing either as a name, though both are established as descriptions of Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said, "No one is more patient over the harm he hears than Allah…" (agreed upon), and the Qur'an speaks of Allah touching a person with harm (Qur'an 6:17) — but a confirmed attribute does not automatically yield a confirmed name.

Ibn al-Qayyim, in Bada'i' al-Fawa'id, adds an important rule about names like al-Darr, al-Mani' and al-Muntaqim: they are paired names that are not used alone. One says "the Giver, the Withholder," "the Benefiter, the Afflicter," "the Pardoner, the Avenger" — because the perfection lies in the pairing. Praising Allah by mere withholding or vengeance alone is not permissible.

Key takeaways

• The ninety-nine is a promise, not a limit: the hadith attaches Paradise to taking ninety-nine names to heart; it does not say Allah has only ninety-nine.
• Allah's names cannot be counted: authentic narrations speak of names He has kept hidden in the unseen, which no created being can enumerate.
• The famous list is not the Prophet's ﷺ words: the weight of hadith scholarship holds it was inserted by a narrator, which is why the versions differ.
• Taking them to heart means more than memorising: it is believing in them, being moved by their meanings, and calling upon Allah by them.
• Individual names must be established by text: a confirmed attribute does not automatically make a confirmed name, and paired names like al-Darr are not used alone.

Further reading

• Ibn 'Uthaymin, al-Qawa'id al-Muthla fi Sifat Allah wa Asma'ihi al-Husna
• Ibn al-Qayyim, Bada'i' al-Fawa'id
• Muhammad Taqi al-Din al-Hilali, Sabil al-Rashad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad

And Allah knows best.