The Names of
God and theories of His Mightiest or Greatest Name (al-ism al-a`ẓam)
with special reference to the Miṣbāḥ (Luminary) of Tāqī al-Dīn Kaf`amī
(d. 900/1494-5) and to Bābī-Bahā’ī theologies of His Eschatological Name.
Stephen N. Lambden (UC-Merced)
God has numerous personal and associated names and attributes within Abrahamic
(Jewish, Christian, Islamic ) religious scripture and related
exegetical texts. The third word in the Hebrew Bible is the personal Name of
God
אֱלֹהִ֑ים , Elohim
(Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created...), a designation of the
Deity which subsequently occurs around 2,569 times in the Hebrew
Bible. The tetragrammaton (
יְהוָ֥ה , YHWH) first
occurs in in the book of Genesis, linked with Elohim, in Genesis
2:4 ("And the Lord God...") and subsequently about 6822 times. Other
personal Names of God are also found in the Hebrew Bible including
אֱלֹ֣והַּ ,
including Eloah (sing. cf.
pl. Elohim) "God" which occurs most frequently in the book of Job (41 times
e.g. Job 3:4). This latter Hebrew personal Name of God loosely corresponds with the
most important Arabic, Islamic, personal Name of God
الله
, Allah which is found
very frequently in the Qur'an, e.g. "Allah (God) is the Light of the heavens
and of the earth" (Q. 24:35). According to some Islamic traditions it is
Allah which is the al-ism al-a`zam, the Supreme or Greatest Name of God
though there are other Islamic traditions which offer different
identifications. This paper will explore aspects of these different theories
of the Mightiest or Greatest Name of God.
An important
Islamic tradition allegedly relayed from Muhammad by one of the companions
Abu Hurayra (d. c. 58 /678) identifies the ninety-nine al-asma' al-husna
("Most Beautiful Names") of God mentioned in the Qur'an (Q. 7:179). These 99
Names begin with the aforementioned name Allah and end with al-Sabur ("The
Patient", No.99). There are variant lists of these al-asma al-husna and
supplementary lists of Names of God derived from the Qur'an and elsewhere.
One Shi`i Islamic list of 99 Names traced them back to Imam `Ali (d.40/661)
beginning with Allah (God, No. 1) and ends with al-Sha`fi ('The Healer",
No. 99).
Many sometimes weighty expositions of these ninety-nine al-asma'
al-husna have been written by Muslims in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other
languages. The Ottoman historian and bibliographer Khatib Chelebi (or Hajji
Khalifa) (d. 1067/1657) in his massive Kashf al-zunun lists thirty one of
them (see ed. 2008, Vol. 2: 314-7; nos. 7907-7938). Many of the Names of God
central to Babi-Baha'i theology such as al-Quddus ("The Most Holy", No.5),
al-Qayyum ("The Self-Subsisting", No. 64) al-Wahid ("The Unique", No. 67)
and al-Badi` (the Regenerative Cause", No. 95) receive detailed,
often illuminating exposition in many of these learned works composed over a
span of a thousand years or more of Islamic history. The Arabic noun
and Persian loanword Baha', itself meaning (among other things),
"Beauty", is neither found in the Qur'an nor counted among the ninety-nine
`Most Beautiful Names' of God in mainstream Islamic traditions. This paper will provide some historical
background and context for the Baha'i theology identifying the
eschatological Name of God as the word Baha' (= Splendor, Glory, Beauty, etc).
Books
listing and commenting upon the Names of
God and theories about what might constitute God's Mightiest, Greatest
or Supreme Name
are important aspects of the Islamic literary heritage. Some among the pious,
however, considered theorizing and acting relative to the secreted
mystery of God's supreme Name to be illicit. Though there are quite a few
books and treatises on the al-ism al-a`zam (the Mightiest Name of God) in
Islamic languages, the various theories about what might constitute God's
Mightiest eschatological Name have been very little studied. There are very
few academic
papers on this subject.
In this paper attention
will be focused upon a section of the Miṣbāḥ ("Luminary") of the Shi`i
writer Taqi al-Dīn Kaf`ami (d. 900/1494-5) which spells out around sixty
Islamic and other theories as to the
nature and identity of the al-ism al-a`zam or the Supreme Name of God. It
will be demonstrated that many of the traditions registered by al-Kaf`ami have a
bearing upon Babi-Baha'i theologies of the eschatological Name of God. Both
the Bab and Baha'u'llah were influenced by such theories and, in some
cases, commented upon certain of them in some detail.
