THE SCIENCE OF LETTERS · LESSON 5 OF 5 · 12 MIN
The Beautiful Names and the Beads
The ninety-nine names of God, the lists and their differences, the Greatest Name, the misbaḥa and its counts, and the names in the letter-sciences.
"To God belong the Most Beautiful Names, so call on Him by them," says the Qur'an (7:180). The Beautiful Names — al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā — are the titles by which God is known: the Merciful, the Compassionate, the King, the Holy, the Peace, the Faithful, the Guardian … They are prayed, sung and counted on beads across the Muslim world, and in the letter-sciences they are the most powerful words there are.