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Are al-Qaim and al-ʿAllam among God's established names?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Firstly: The names of Allah are tawqeefiyyah, meaning they cannot be grasped by intellect, and one must adhere strictly to what has been revealed in the Quran and Sunnah, neither adding to them nor subtracting from them.

Secondly: The beautiful names of Allah are numerous and not limited to ninety-nine. The Prophetic hadith (Indeed, Allah has ninety-nine names; whoever enumerates them will enter Paradise) means that whoever enumerates this number of His names will enter Paradise, not that His names are restricted to this number.

Thirdly: Many scholars have strived to trace the established beautiful names of Allah from the Quran and Sunnah, without being confined to a specific number.

Fourthly: There has been disagreement among scholars regarding the counting, enumeration, and establishment of the beautiful names. This disagreement is not problematic as long as the name is derived from the Quran or sound Sunnah, because the counting is a matter of ijtihad (independent reasoning), and there is no text that specifies the ninety-nine names or limits Allah's names.

Fifthly: Some scholars considered the names (Al-Qa'im) and (Al-'Allam) among the beautiful names of Allah. (Al-Qa'im) is mentioned in the Quran, such as in His saying: {Then is He who stands over every soul by what it has earned?} [Quran 13:33]. And (Al-'Allam) is mentioned, as in His saying: {Knower of the unseen} [Quran 5:109].

Sixthly: The meaning of (Al-Qa'im) is the Preserver, the Provider, the Knower, and the Rewarder of souls, and it is close in meaning to (Al-Qayyum), which is an intensification of Al-Qa'im. The meaning of (Al-'Allam) is an intensification of (Al-'Alim) or (Al-'Aleem), and there is no issue with having multiple names derived from a single attribute.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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