The Establishment of the Specification of Allah's Beautiful Names in the Shari'ah

Question:
Is it established in the pure Shari'ah that the number of Allah's Beautiful Names is specified? Can they be mentioned? And what is the Greatest Name of Allah?

Answer:
Allah the Exalted said: (And to Allah belong the best names, so invoke Him by them) [Al-A'raf: 180], and He the Exalted said: (To Him belong the best names) [Ta-Ha: 8]. The number of Allah's Beautiful Names is known only to Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He), and there is no enumeration of them in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, but it is possible to enumerate those that have been mentioned in the Book and the Sunnah. Many of them have been collected by some scholars in treatises, and some have composed them in poetry; such as Ibn al-Qayyim in *al-Nuniyyah*, and Shaykh Husayn ibn 'Ali al-'Ali al-Shaykh in his poem *al-Qawl al-Asna fi Nazm al-Asma' al-Husna*, which is printed and circulated. As for the Greatest Name of Allah; it has been reported that it is in these two verses: (Allah! There is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer) [Al-Baqarah: 255] and His saying the Exalted: (Alif, Lam, Meem. Allah! There is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer) [Al-Imran: 1-2], and it has also been reported that it is in a third verse, which is His saying the Exalted in Surat Ta-Ha: (And the faces will bow down before the Ever-Living, the Sustainer) [Ta-Ha: 111]. Ibn Kathir mentioned this in his *Tafsir* (3).