Post Ramadan Biblical And Qur’anic Divine Names: Past And Future – OpEd
Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen said: “The names of Allah are not limited to a certain number…With regard to the Hadith words of Prophet Muhammad: “Allah has ninety-nine names, one hundred less one. Whoever learns them will enter Paradise,” this does not mean that Allah does not have any names apart from these, rather it means that whoever learns these (particular) ninety-nine of His names will enter Paradise.”
The reason that the One and Only God has so many names is that God is multifaceted; and believers in each of the three Abrahamic religions must respect the names of the two other religions.
In the days of Prophet Abraham, the religions of the Near East and India had hundreds of different gods, with hundreds of names for their different gods, but for those religions that trace their prophets back to Prophet Abraham, and his two sons Prophet Ishmael and Prophet Isaac, the many names of God simply describe different appellations, aspects and attributes of the one God’s multifaceted personality.
Yet one of the One God’s ‘names’, is a very special, unique, personal name for each of the three Abrahamic religions; all the the other ‘names’ are appellations or titles that refer to one of One God’s many attributes (creator, ruler, redeemer etc.) or God’s character traits (merciful, just, forgiving etc.). Muslims know that the Qur’an states: “To Allah belong the best names, so invoke Him by them” (7:180)
Thus to say that God is a King, a Judge, or a Savior describes one of many ways God acts and relates. To say that God is a Creator, a Lover or the Compassionate One is to describe one of many character or personality traits of the one and only God.
Ibn Al-Qayyim writes: The attribute of generosity is an attribute of God who gives and does not take, feeds and is not fed. The most beloved creatures to Allah are those who take on his characteristics. Indeed, Allah is noble and loves nobility from his servants, he is knowledgeable and loves the scholars, he is powerful and loves courage, and he is beautiful and loves beauty. (al-Wābil al-Ṣayyib 1/34)
Thus only one of the many appellations of the One universal creator of space and time are special to Christianity, Islam and Judaism as its Divine personal name that is always in the believer’s heart and soul.
In English the word God is not the name of the one and only God. It is the generic term for any and every deity, similar to the West Semitic root word EL as it is found in Sumerian and Akkadian, Ellil-Enlil, in Hittite and Hurrian as Ellel, in Hebrew El-Elohim in Arabic as Al-Ilahi, the God or Allat, a pre Islamic Goddess, one of three daughters of Al-Ilah worshiped in Palmyra as Allat and referred to by Herodotus as Alilat, and worshiped as Allatu by North African Carthaginians.
However, the name Jesus for Christians, Allah for Muslims and YHVH for Jews, differs from all the other names that are just philosophical terms for various universal aspects or roles of God. This Divine name has a very intimate special meaning for each of the three religious communities of believers that is lacking in all the other names. This personal name is connected to the covenant the One God YHVH made with Moses (Exodus 3:13-15), with Jesus (Matthew 3:16-17), and with Muhammad (Qur’an 33:7)
Jewish tradition reports that there are 70 different names for the One God; and Islamic tradition reports that there are 99 different names for God because for both Judaism and Islam God’s consciousness and personality is complex and the Divine attributes are manifold. God is interactive and responsive; creative and loving. God is a bodiless, and thus genderless, person with limitless personality and creativeness, who inspires self-conscious, kind and loving persons to be even more.
YHVH like LOVE is both a noun and a verb and the verb is more important than the noun we often talk about. A noun is stable and fixed. A verb is dynamic and interactive. God is interactive and responsive; creative and loving. Exodus 3:11 states: “But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He (God) said, “But I will be with you…” God is not just a noun “I am” God is a verb “I will be with you” God is with you. God is interactive and responsive; creative and loving.
Yet, because all the many names of God call upon the same One God, it is not surprising that some of the 99 beautiful names of God in Muslim tradition, also appear in Jewish tradition, which sometimes refers to the 70 names of God (Midrash Shir HaShirim and Midrash Otiot Rabbi Akiba).
Since Arabic and Hebrew are brother languages; in some cases the names even sound alike:
Although in every generation there could have been many individuals who worshipped the One God, who was indeed the God of all humans; yet for more than 40 generations only the Jewish People maintained an ongoing monotheistic community.
This is why all the Biblical prophets connect the generic name of God Elohim to the only religious community in Biblical days who worshipped the One God: Elohei Yisrael- the God of Israel, or Elohei-God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So Ezra, the most narrowly focused of prophets, uses both Elah Yisrael-God of Israel (Ezra 5:1) and Elah Sh’maya V’Arah- God of Heaven and Earth (Ezra 5:11).
Christians personalized the name of God by connecting it with the name of a very special person, whose message and passion inspired them to transform their lives. The Qur’an, true to its universalizing perspective uses the generic name Allah; but with the intense resonance that Allah became personalized in the Muslim community’s experience. For Muslims the the generic name and the very special name is the same name.
The words El, Elah, Elohei and Elohim are all pre Abrahamic West Semitic generic terms for a God or for many Gods. In these various forms they appear almost 3,000 times in the Hebrew Bible.
But for Jews, the most important name of the one God, the name that God himself reveals to Moses at the burning bush, is YHVH: which appears more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible.
In Exodus 3:13-15, Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’—what should I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh”.
Ehyeh is the verb “to be” future tense singular and means I will/could/might/may be/become Who I may/could/will/might be/become i.e. Ehyeh is The God of Potentialities, The God of Possibilities, The Living God of Becoming and Transforming, the One who can liberate Israel from bondage in Egypt.
Unfortunately, the Greek and Latin translations of this verse were influenced by the Greek philosophical idea that God was similar to a permanent ideal form (like an equilateral triangle) or an unmoved mover, and is not like a living personality.
Since they thought God must be a static unchanging being. they mistranslated “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh’ as ‘I am who I am’ rather than its plain meaning of ‘I can be whatever I should be to redeem you” i.e. God Almighty
The Torah continues, “And God said, “You must say this to the Israelites, “I am” (the usual false translation for God’s self revealed name) has sent me to you.'” God also said to Moses, “You must say this to the Israelites, Ehyeh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation.’ (Exodus 3:13-15)
When Jews speak of God in the third person, God’s name is YHVH– “the One who causes being and becoming, the One who brings potentials into existence.”
This name (YHVH) was spoken publicly from the time of Moses and throughout the 3½ centuries of the 1st Temple of Prophet Solomon. But during the period of the 2nd Temple it was pronounced as Adonai (Lord) because of the feeling that God’s actual Holy name was too holy to utter audibly.
In later centuries even the substitution was considered too holy to utter; and the custom among pious Jews until this day is not to use any name for God at all (except in prayer); but to say HaShem–the name (of God) when speaking about God. Thus, while Christians and Muslims love to voice their special personal name for God, Jews avoid voicing God’s name (YHVH) even in prayer.
YHVH itself replaced a much older name of God: El Shaddai. Exodus (6:2-3) relates: God also said to Moses, “I am YHVH. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name YHVH I did not make myself fully known to them.”
In the whole Hebrew Bible the full appellation ‘El Shaddai’ is used only in connection with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Shaddai by itself also appears 31 times in the ancient book of Prophet Job, who was considered by some rabbis to be a non-Jewish Prophet, and in a few other poetic passages.
In the Greek translation of the Torah, El Shaddai was erroneously translated Pantokrator, all powerful or omnipotent, instead of ‘The God who is sufficient”. The Greek philosophical idea of omnipotence leads to the false contradiction between God’s power and human free will. But God is indeed, more than sufficient. God is and will always be YHVH, the God who enables human hopes of future possibilities of improvement to become realized.
El Shaddai can also be translated as the Nourishing or Nursing God because in Hebrew Shaddaim means female breasts. This feminine image may help many women today replace the ancient image of God as an old man with a long white beard; with something more representative of God’s classical attribute of loving concern for His children.
Ludwig Monti, an Italian Monk, points out that for Christians, “the term “Father” used by Jesus seems to be the most appropriate way to define God and to address him. “The Gospels testify that Jesus himself calls God frequently in his own native Aramaic language: “Abba” (Mark 14:36), beloved Dad. The well known Lord’s Prayer (cf. Matthew 6.9-13; Luke 11.2-4) opens with “Father” (Luke 11.2) or “Our Father” (Matthew 6.9). Paul, when writing to Christians coming from paganism, states: “You did not receive a spirit of slaves to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of children, through which we cry: ‘Abba, Father!'” (Romans 8:15).
Monti adds that “According to John 1:18 God is a Father who knows his children and is attentive to their needs, ready to answer their questions for good things (cf. Matthew 7: 9-11): if God thinks of the birds in the sky, even more so Abba will think of his human children, who thus need not worry (cf. Matthew 6: 25-34). Abba is a Father who loves his son even in his sin, without demanding any reciprocity from him (cf. Luke 15: 11-32). Abba is a Father who makes no distinction between good and evil children, but makes his sun shine and makes it rain on everyone on earth (cf. Matthew 5:45).
Prayer addressed to the Father “should be in secret” (Matthew 6:6), and without too many words:”when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7)”
The use of the intimate family term Father to address God does occur infrequently in the Bible: “You are our Father…” (Isaiah 63:16), or “O Lord, You are our Father. We are your clay, and you are our potter” (Isaiah 64:8), and the prayer of David in I Chronicles 29:10, “Blessed be you O Lord, God of Israel, our Father for ever and ever.” and twice in the Book of Psalms: 68:5 -“Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” and 89:26 “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.” was in the centuries after Prophet Jesus, resonated more frequently by the rabbis in the Talmud using the plural ‘we’ as is preferred in almost all Jewish liturgy, as: “Our Father who art in heaven” (Berachot v. 1; Yoma viii. 9; Soṭah ix, 15; and Avot v. 20).
Professor Julian Bond points out that ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ (John 1:1) is a description of God as the ‘Word’ (‘logos’) which is particularly striking as, in the Hebrew Scriptures, God speaks the Word. Here, through ingenious thinking and word-connections, the ‘Word’ becomes God. John’s Gospel is very keen on Jesus’ words, he refers to his ‘word/words’ in many confrontational situations. Throughout almost all of the New Testament, the ‘word’ refers to the divine message/revelation, the words of Jesus or of God. Only once, in Revelation, does ‘John’ again refer to Jesus as the Word- ‘He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God (Revelation 19:13).’
Yet one can see the ‘Word’ as a personification of the Ruach HaKodesh Holy Spirit manifestation which is later accepted by the Qur’an in a strictly unitarian usage reflected in the Qur’an’s description of Jesus as the Word of God – 3.39, 45, and 4.171.” Indeed, this is the unique claim of Christianity “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24, spoken by Jesus) – This is a fully propositional naming, ‘God is spirit’. This describing and reflecting on the Divine is a New Testament characteristic.
Word and Spirit also appear in the Qur’an 2:253 “. . . To Jesus the son of Mary We gave clear (Signs), and strengthened him with the holy spirit.” and Qur’an 4:171 “…Christ (Messiah) Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His messengers. Say not ‘Trinity’…” Thus for Muslims, Jesus is more than just an ordinary human messenger of the One God; he is a Word and a Spirit, but definitely not a Divine Son of God part of a Trinitarian God.
But if Prophet Moses is the only prophet that God spoke to directly: “And [We sent] messengers about whom We have related [their stories] to you before, and messengers about whom We have not related to you. And Allah spoke to Moses with [direct] speech.” (4:164); and Prophet Muhammad is the only prophet who is called the seal/last of the prophets: “Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men, but [is] the Messenger of Allah and the seal/last of the prophets. And ever is Allah, of all things Knowing.” (33:40), then non-Christians could see Prophet Jesus as the prophet nearest to God in a mystically merged way: “that all of them (believers) may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:121).
One of the most insightful names of the 99 names of Allah in Islamic tradition is Al Shakur— “The Appreciative One.” There are several verses of the Qur’an which speak of God as “appreciative”:
If anyone willingly does what is good, God is appreciative and cognizant. (Quran 2:158) Why would God punish you if you are grateful and faithful, since God is most appreciative, most cognizant? (Quran 4:147)
As God will pay them their due and more, from the bounty divine, for God is most forgiving, most appreciative. (Quran 35:30) And for anyone who brings about good, We will add goodness to it, for God is forgiving, appreciative. (Quran 42:23) If you advance God a good loan, God will multiply it for you, and forgive you; for God is most appreciative, most clement. (Quran 64:17)
This is truly, truly amazing. The Lord God; Originator of the heavens and the earth; Creator of all that exists, Giver of Life, the Most Powerful of all things, the King of all kings – is al Shakur, or “the appreciative One.”
One name of God that few Christians, Muslims and Jews know or use today, is a name that I believe will become more important in the future as Christians, Jews and Muslims learn more about each other’s religions. This name, El Ro’ee, only appears twice in the Hebrew Bible and, as far as I know, is not used at all in the Talmud or any other Jewish literature.
Abraham’s wife Hagar’s name for God is El-Ro’ee. El Ro’ee means A Self-reflecting God or A God Who Sees (literally mirrors) Me. “Then she (Hagar) called the name of YHVH, who spoke to her, ‘El Ro’ee’, ‘You are a God who sees me’; for she said, ‘Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?’ Therefore the well was called Beer-laHai-roee; the well of the Living One (Al-Hayy) who sees me.”
(Genesis 16:13-14)
Neither Sarah nor Hagar/Ha-jar are mentioned by name in the Qur’an, but the story of Ha-jar’s exile from Abraham’s home is traditionally understood to be referred to in a line from Ibrāhīm’s prayer in the Qur’an (14:37): “I have settled some of my family in a barren valley near your Sacred House.”
Muslim tradition relates that when Hā-jar ran out of water, and Ismā’īl, an infant at that time, began to die; Hā-jar panicked and ran between two nearby hills, Al-Safa and Al-Marwah repeatedly searching for water. After her seventh run, Ismā’īl hit the ground with his heel and caused a miraculous well to spring out of the ground called Zamzum Well. It is located a few meters from the Kaaba in Mecca.
Islamic tradition has ascribed two possible reasons for Ha-jar’s name. One is that she was inclined hajara / to distance herself from evil. The second reason is that like her husband Abraham, she was a migrant /muhajirah. Haajar whose grave is in the Ka’bah and whose sa’i is part of the Hajj, reminds us, by her very name, not to forget the plight of those who leave their homes to find security somewhere safe.
Perhaps this previously unique Torah name of God, El Ro’ee or Hai Ro’ee; which are Hagar’s names for God, meaning A Self-reflecting God or A God Who Sees Me, and the name for the well ‘Beer-laHai-ro’ee’ the well of the Self-reflecting God; can help bring Christians, Jews and Muslims to see themselves in the eyes of each other better, and thus come closer together in the future. As al-Nawawi narrated Islamic scholars agreed that the names of Allah are not limited to this number (99).
So this female formulated, introspective, very old from the time of Prophet Abraham/very new from the present name, El-Ro’ee, which means A Self-reflecting God or A God Who Sees (literally mirrors) Me. can be an excellent example of the power of just one of the many names of the One God to make all of us better lovers of the One God, and the many nations and religions that the One God has fashioned.
