The Divine Names section, introduced in version 4.6, is a complete study environment for the ninety-nine names of Allah — al-Asmāʾ al-Ḥusnā — built into Al Islam as part of the Tools section. It is not designed as a simple list of ninety-nine cards that a user scrolls through once. Instead, it has been built as a full environment that combines browsing, calligraphy, linguistic analysis, Qurʾanic referencing, scholarly evidence labelling, guided recitation, and deep customization.
The feature is designed for both normal users and advanced users. A normal user can open the section, browse the ninety-nine in beautiful calligraphic plates, and tap any name to understand what it means. At the same time, a more serious user can study the trilateral root each name is built on, the Arabic morphological pattern that shapes its meaning, the verses it is anchored in, the names it is classically paired against, and the exact level of evidence that stands behind it. The goal is to make the experience immediately meaningful on the surface while keeping a genuine scholarly layer available underneath.
The Divine Names section is available from the Tools section of the app. Once opened, the user is shown a dedicated interface with the section title, a customization control, and the main mode tabs: Names, Recite, and Insights. These modes allow the user to relate to the same ninety-nine names in three different ways instead of being locked into a single reading list.
Three Ways of Working With the Names
The Divine Names section is built around the idea that reading the names, reciting them, and understanding them are three separate activities that deserve three separate environments.
The Names mode is the browsing surface. It presents the ninety-nine in the layout the user prefers, with search, filtering and ordering.
The Recite mode is a guided recitation of all ninety-nine in order, keeping the user’s place across days and weeks.
The Insights mode is the analytical layer, showing the structure of the corpus itself — root families, complementary pairs, thematic distribution, and the evidence behind every name.
The modes are presented as swipeable tabs, and they share the same underlying record. Marking a name as a favourite while browsing and reciting it in the carousel update the same state, so the user’s work is never divided across separate silos.
Names Mode
The Names mode is the primary and most immediate way to explore the ninety-nine. It opens directly on the search field, the filter control, and the corpus itself — there is no dashboard in front of the names, because the names are what the user came for.
Layouts
The Names mode offers four layouts, and the user can switch between them instantly from the filter panel or from customization.
The Plates layout presents the names as large calligraphic cards, two to a row. The Arabic carries the card, with the transliteration and meaning set quietly beneath it and a decorative eight-pointed star medallion behind. This is the default, and it is the layout that makes the section feel like a work of calligraphy rather than a database.
The Grid layout presents compact tiles, three to a row, allowing the user to scan the entire set of ninety-nine names within a couple of screens. This is useful for quickly locating a name whose position is roughly remembered.
The List layout presents one name per row, with the transliteration, meaning, trilateral root, theme chips and evidence badge all visible without opening anything. The Arabic sits on the right of each row. This is the most information-dense view and is well suited to study.
The Reader layout removes the cards entirely and presents a continuous vertical reading of every name and its meaning, separated by fine ornamental rules. This is intended for a user who wants to read the ninety-nine as a single passage rather than browse them as items.
Each layout respects the user's display preferences, so a user who has switched off transliteration or meaning sees a consistently simplified card in every layout.
Ordering
The names can be ordered in six different ways, and the choice persists between sessions.
Traditional presents the names 1 to 99 in the order of the well-known enumeration, which is the order almost everyone learns them in.
A–Z orders the names alphabetically by transliteration while ignoring the definite article. This matters because nearly every name begins with Al-, Ar-, As- or Az-, so a naive alphabetical sort would simply group the names by their article and be useless. In this ordering, Al-Aḥad sorts under A, Aṣ-Ṣabūr under S, and Aẓ-Ẓāhir under Z.
Arabic ا–ي orders the names by the Arabic alphabet, based on the first letter of the root.
By theme groups the names into mercy, sovereignty, knowledge, provision, justice and the other meaning clusters.
By root brings names sharing a trilateral root together so the family resemblance becomes visible. In this ordering Al-Ghaffār and Al-Ghafūr sit next to each other, as do Al-ʿAzīz and Al-Muʿizz.
Most recited orders the names by how often the user has recited each one, placing the most-returned-to first.
Search
Search in the Divine Names section is deliberately generous, because users arrive with very different fragments of memory.
A name can be found by its English meaning, by its Arabic script, by either form of its transliteration, by its trilateral root in Arabic letters or in Latin letters, by the underlying meaning of that root, by its Urdu rendering, or by its number in the enumeration.
Typing rahman finds Ar-Raḥmān. So does الرحمن, and so does mercy. Typing 1 goes directly to the first name, and typing 55 goes directly to the fifty-fifth. Typing gh-f-r or غفر returns both Al-Ghaffār and Al-Ghafūr, because they share that root.
Diacritics are handled automatically. A user who cannot type Aṣ-Ṣamad with its correct marks can simply type samad and reach it. The definite article is optional in every case, so ghaffar works exactly as well as al-ghaffar.
When a search term is entered, results are ranked by relevance rather than by number. An exact name match always appears above an incidental mention of the same word inside another name's explanation, so searching for rahim returns Ar-Raḥīm first even though mercy is discussed on many other pages.
If nothing matches, the section explains what search can reach rather than simply reporting an empty result, so the user learns that meanings, roots and numbers are all valid ways in.
Filters
The filter panel opens from the control beside the search field and stays out of the way until it is asked for. The number of active filters is shown on the control itself, so a narrowed list is never mistaken for the full corpus.
The Aspect filter narrows the names by the classical division into names of majesty (jalāl), beauty (jamāl) and perfection (kamāl). The panel makes clear that this grouping is an interpretive study aid rather than a scriptural category.
The Evidence filter narrows the names by the level of scholarly evidence behind each one. This is explained in detail below, and it is one of the most distinctive controls in the section.
The Theme filter narrows the names by meaning cluster: mercy and compassion, forgiveness and pardon, sovereignty and dominion, power and might, knowledge and awareness, creation and origination, provision and generosity, justice and judgement, majesty and glory, guidance and light, protection and trust, eternity and oneness, and life, death and resurrection. A user preparing for a supplication can bring up the names of mercy in a single tap; a user in hardship can bring up the names of provision.
The Favourites filter narrows the list to names the user has saved.
Filters compose with one another and with search, and every filter selection persists between sessions. A summary line beneath the controls always states how many names are being shown out of the ninety-nine, and a Reset control clears everything at once.
Evidence and Transparency
This is the part of the Divine Names section that has no equivalent elsewhere, and it deserves a full explanation.
The ḥadīth stating that Allah has ninety-nine names, and that whoever enumerates them enters Paradise, is recorded by both al-Bukhārī and Muslim and is not in question. The specific list of ninety-nine that circulates almost everywhere, however, comes through the narration of al-Walīd b. Muslim recorded by at-Tirmidhī. A number of scholars — including Ibn Ḥajar and an-Nawawī — held that the enumeration itself is mudraj, meaning an insertion by a narrator rather than the Prophet's ﷺ own words. Ibn Mājah transmits a partly different list, and al-Bayhaqī, Ibn Ḥazm and others compiled enumerations of their own drawn from the Qurʾān. The names of Allah are also not limited to ninety-nine: the Prophet ﷺ supplicated with every name Allah has named Himself with, revealed in His Book, taught to any of His creation, or kept hidden in the knowledge of the unseen.
Presenting ninety-nine equally weighted entries hides all of this from the reader. The Divine Names section therefore labels every single name with the level of evidence behind it.
A name marked Qurʾānic — verbatim appears in the Qurʾān in exactly that form, as a name of Allah. Ar-Raḥmān, Al-Malik, Al-ʿAzīz, Al-Ḥayy and Aṣ-Ṣamad are examples. This is the strongest footing a name can have.
A name marked Qurʾānic — derived is one where the Qurʾān ascribes the action or the quality to Allah through a verb or a phrase, and the name is the noun formed from it. Al-Qābiḍ and Al-Bāsiṭ come from Allah constricts and expands (2:245). Al-Muʿizz and Al-Mudhill come from You honour whom You will and humble whom You will (3:26). Scholars differ on whether a name may be established this way, since the divine names are generally held to be tawqīfī — fixed by revelation rather than derived by inference.
A name marked Ḥadīth enumeration is not found in the Qurʾān in that form and reaches us through the Tirmidhī list. Al-ʿAdl, Al-Khāfiḍ, Al-Wājid, Al-Mājid, Al-Māniʿ, Al-Muqaddim, Ar-Rashīd and Aṣ-Ṣabūr fall into this group.
The label appears as a small badge on cards and in lists, expands into a full explanation on each name's own page, and can be used as a filter so a user can isolate exactly the group they want to study. It is deliberately never styled as a warning or an error. A name attested through ḥadīth is not a defective name, and marking it in red would turn a point of scholarship into something that looks like a fault.
The section also corrects one point that is widely misreported elsewhere. The phrase al-Ḥalīm ar-Rashīd does appear in the Qurʾān, but as words spoken sarcastically by the people of Shuʿayb ﷺ about him — not as a description of Allah. The page for Ar-Rashīd states this plainly.
The Insights mode presents the full distribution across all ninety-nine names and lists, by name, every entry that is not found in the Qurʾān in its given form.
Opening a Name
Tapping any name opens a full page rather than a short definition. The page begins with a large calligraphy plate showing the name in Thuluth — the script traditionally used for exactly this purpose — set over an eight-pointed medallion, with the transliteration beneath it. Tapping the plate copies the name and its explanation for sharing elsewhere.
Beneath the plate, the page is divided into clearly labelled sections.
The Meaning section gives the primary rendering, followed by the alternative renderings, because English rarely has a single word that carries an Arabic divine name completely. Al-Jabbār, for example, is given as The Compeller who Restores, and also as The Irresistible, The Restorer of what is broken, and The One whose will is carried out. The Urdu meaning can also be shown here. The header of the section carries the vocative form used when calling upon Allah by that name, such as Yā Jabbār.
The Language section is where the section's depth becomes most obvious, and it is described in its own part below.
The What it discloses section explains what the name reveals about Allah, in plain and careful prose.
The Servant's share section explains how a believer relates to the name, or where permitted reflects it, in practice. Classical works call this ḥaẓẓ al-ʿabd, and it is what turns the ninety-nine from information into something that changes conduct. For Al-Ghaffār it is the covering of other people's faults; for Al-Jabbār it is going deliberately to what is broken in someone's life and putting it back in place; for Al-Mutakabbir it is the recognition that the only correct response to the name is its opposite.
The Evidence section shows the name's provenance badge and the full explanation of what that level of evidence means.
The In the Qurʾān section lists every place the name occurs, with the Arabic fragment of the verse and a plain English rendering of that fragment, alongside the reference. Each reference is tappable and opens that verse in the app's Quran reader, as described below.
The In the ḥadīth section appears for names whose explanation draws on a specific narration, and cites it by collection and number with a note on what it contributes. These references are tappable too and open the narration in the app's Hadith library.
The Counterpart section appears for names that are classically paired, and is described below.
The Classification section shows the name's aspect with its meaning, and its theme chips.
The Names that illuminate this one section lists related names, each tappable, with their Arabic and meaning.
The Your record section shows how many times the user has recited that name. It appears only once there is something to show, rather than sitting on every page as a row of zeroes.
The name page is swipeable. Moving to the next name, or tapping through to a related name, slides across the corpus rather than stacking screens, so a user who reads through twenty names does not then have to press back twenty times.
Reading the Source
Every scripture reference in the Divine Names section is a link into the rest of the app.
Where a cited collection is not installed, Insights lists it and opens the standard resource picker so it can be downloaded in place. Tapping a Qurʾanic reference such as 2:255 on a name's page opens that verse directly in the Quran reader, with the user's own translations, tafsir and text settings already applied. Tapping a narration such as Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2736 opens that hadith in the Hadith library, with its chapter, grading and narrator visible. From there the user can carry on reading, save the verse or narration to a collection, or return to the name they came from.
This matters because a claim about a divine name is only as good as the verse or narration behind it. Rather than asking the reader to take the explanation on trust, or to go and look the reference up by hand in another section, the section connects the two directly. The names become an entry point into the Qurʾān and the hadith collections instead of a closed list.
The founding ḥadīth is treated the same way. In both the Insights mode and the customization screen it is presented with all four of its places — the two placements in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and the narration in Jāmiʿ at-Tirmidhī that carries the enumeration itself — each one tappable. A reader who is told the list has been discussed by scholars can go and read the narration being discussed.
References are resolved against the content actually installed on the device. If a hadith collection has not been downloaded, its citation still appears in full, with the collection name and number, so it can be found in a printed copy — only the link is withheld, and a short note explains why. A reference never appears as a link that leads nowhere.
The Language Layer
One of the major strengths of the Divine Names section is that it does not stop at English translation, because English translation on its own quietly destroys some of the most important distinctions in the list.
Al-Ghaffār and Al-Ghafūr come from a single root and translate into English almost identically. Presented only as The Forgiver and The All-Forgiving, they look like editorial duplication, and a reader is left wondering why the list repeats itself. They are not duplicates. They differ by morphological pattern, and the pattern is the meaning. The faʿʿāl pattern is the intensive of repetition — forgiveness given again and again to the same servant returning with the same sin. The faʿūl pattern is the intensive of extent — forgiveness that covers however much there is to cover. One answers the servant who keeps relapsing; the other answers the servant crushed by the size of a single sin.
For this reason, every name in the section carries its trilateral root in Arabic and in Latin letters, the meaning of that bare root before it is built into a name, the morphological pattern the name is formed on, and an explanation of what that pattern does to the meaning.
This produces details that a translation-only presentation cannot reach. Al-Jabbār shares its root with the setting of a fractured bone, and with algebra — so the name means both the One whose decree is irresistible and the One who mends what is shattered. Ash-Shakūr comes from a root the Arabs used of an animal that grows strong on very little fodder, which is precisely the sense of returning much for little. Al-Muqsiṭ is built on a root that means to act unjustly in one form and to act justly in another, so the name literally contains the undoing of its opposite. Al-Ghaffār comes from the word for a war helmet, so forgiveness in this root is not overlooking but covering. Al-Laṭīf carries both subtlety of knowledge and subtlety of kindness in one word, which is why no single English rendering of it is satisfactory.
Where a root is shared by more than one name, the page also lists the other names built on it, each tappable, so the family can be studied together.
Complementary Pairs
Several of the ninety-nine names are meaningless, or actively misleading, when read alone. The Divine Names section treats these as pairs rather than as separate list entries.
Al-Qābiḍ and Al-Bāsiṭ — the One who constricts and the One who expands — are stated together in a single Qurʾanic clause. Studying either without the other produces a theology that cannot survive a difficult year.
Aḍ-Ḍārr and An-Nāfiʿ are the clearest case. The classical instruction is that Aḍ-Ḍārr is never recited alone, and the Qurʾān never mentions harm without benefit alongside it.
Al-Muʿizz and Al-Mudhill are both established by one verse which closes by describing the entire arrangement as good.
Al-Awwal, Al-Ākhir, Aẓ-Ẓāhir and Al-Bāṭin form a single sentence in Sūrat al-Ḥadīd and lose their force when separated.
Where a pairing exists, each name's page shows its counterpart with a note explaining why the two belong together, and the counterpart can be opened with a single tap. The Insights mode lists every pair in the corpus.
Recite Mode
The Recite mode is a guided recitation of the ninety-nine names in order. The verb used in the ḥadīth is aḥṣā, which means to enumerate and take full account of rather than simply to recite quickly, and this mode is built to be walked rather than raced.
It is presented as a carousel. One name is held in the centre, filling the card, with the names either side of it visible at the edges of the screen. Nothing ever cuts from one name to the next: as the user swipes, the name leaving turns away from them, shrinks and sinks, while the name arriving rises from below, straightens and settles into place. The motion is continuous and reversible — a half-swipe returns, a full swipe carries through — so moving through the names feels like turning something physical rather than paging through a list.
The card in the centre is the counting surface. The user recites the name and taps anywhere on it to count; a dedicated button would place attention on a control rather than on the name. Completing a name turns the carousel forward with exactly the same motion a swipe produces, so counting and browsing feel like one gesture rather than two mechanisms.
The number of repetitions per name is configurable from one up to thirty-three, and repetitions appear as pips beneath the meaning, each springing into place as it is counted rather than simply appearing.
A slim progress bar across the top shows the position through the ninety-nine alongside today's recitation count. Completing a full pass is acknowledged and the count of completed rounds is kept.
The user's position is preserved. Closing the app at the sixty-first name and returning a week later resumes at the sixty-first name. Transport controls allow the user to step back or forward, restart the round, or open the current name's full page without losing their place.
For hands-free use, an automatic advance option moves through the names on a timer, with the interval fully adjustable. An option to keep the screen awake prevents the display from sleeping mid-recitation, and haptic feedback can be set to light, medium, strong, or switched off entirely.
Insights Mode
The Insights mode is the analytical layer of the section. It is designed for users who want to understand the structure of the ninety-nine rather than only read them.
The mode opens with the founding ḥadīth and its grading, followed by the full note on the status of the enumeration.
The Evidence panel shows how the ninety-nine names divide across the three levels of provenance, as proportional bars, and lists by name every entry that is not found in the Qurʾān in its given form. Each is tappable, and each of the founding ḥadīth's four placements opens the narration itself.
The Majesty and beauty panel shows the balance between names of majesty, beauty and perfection, with a clear statement that this division is a classical study aid rather than a scriptural category.
The Corpus panel reports the total number of Qurʾanic anchors across the section, how many surahs are cited, how many root families exist, how many complementary pairs, and how many names carry more than one theme.
The Root families panel is one of the most valuable parts of the section. It groups every set of names sharing a trilateral root, showing each member alongside its morphological pattern and its evidence level, with the meaning of the root beneath. This is the panel that makes the difference between Al-Ghaffār and Al-Ghafūr, or between Al-Ḥayy and Al-Muḥyī, immediately visible — and it is not something a list-shaped presentation can ever surface.
The Complementary pairs panel lists every pairing in the corpus, with both halves tappable.
The Themes and Morphological patterns panels show how the names distribute across meaning clusters and across Arabic word forms, with an explanation of what the major patterns do to a meaning.
The Your record panel shows today’s recitations, the lifetime total, the current day streak and the number of favourites. Like the panel on a name’s page, it appears only once there is something in it.
Favourites and Personal Record
Any name can be marked as a favourite from a card, from a list row, or from the name's own page. Favourites can be filtered to in a single tap, either from the filter panel or from the overview tile.
Alongside favourites, the section keeps a recitation count for every name. It is shown on the name’s own page, drives the most-recited ordering, and feeds the record panel in Insights.
Customization
The Divine Names section includes a dedicated customization screen, opened from the control in the section header. Following the same approach as Prayer Times and the Qibla Finder, every behaviour is adjustable, and every default has been chosen so that most users never need to change anything.
Opening Mode
The Start in setting controls which of the three modes the section opens to. A user who mostly reads may prefer Names; a user with a daily recitation habit may prefer Recite.
Gallery
The Layout setting chooses between Plates, Grid, List and Reader. The Default order setting chooses between the six orderings described earlier.
What Appears on a Card
Six independent toggles control the card itself: the Number, the Transliteration, the Meaning, the Root, the Theme chips, and the Evidence badge. A user who wants pure calligraphy can switch off everything except the Arabic; a user studying the language can switch the root on so it appears on every card.
Arabic
The Calligraphy size slider scales the Arabic from 70% to 180%, affecting plates, the name pages, the recitation face and the Qurʾanic fragments together.
The Thuluth for large plates toggle chooses whether large calligraphy uses the Thuluth script traditionally associated with the divine names, or the Qurʾanic face used elsewhere in the app.
Name Detail
Five toggles control which sections appear on a name's page: The language, Qurʾanic anchors, The servant's share, Related names and the Urdu meaning. A user who wants a short, focused page can reduce it to the plate and the meaning; a user studying seriously can leave everything on.
The Swipe between names toggle controls whether horizontal swiping moves through the corpus on the detail page.
The Name of the day toggle controls whether the daily name card appears at the top of the Names mode.
Recitation
The Repetitions per name slider sets how many times each name is recited before advancing, from one to thirty-three.
The Advance automatically toggle enables hands-free enumeration, with a second slider controlling the interval between names.
The Keep the screen on toggle prevents the display sleeping during a recitation.
The Haptic feedback setting offers off, light, medium and strong.
About and Reset
The customization screen also carries the founding ḥadīth, its four placements as tappable references, and the full note on the enumeration, so the scholarly context is available without leaving settings.
A Reset control at the top of the screen restores all preferences to their defaults while preserving the user's position in the enumeration.
Offline Use and Privacy
The Divine Names section works completely offline from the moment the app is installed. It requires no download, no account, and no internet connection at any point. The names, their meanings, roots, explanations and Qurʾanic references are all available immediately.
The user’s favourites and recitation counts are stored on the device and are never required to leave it. In keeping with our privacy-first approach, we do not track which names a user marks, studies or recites — that is a statement about a person's practice, not about the feature.
Overall Design Philosophy
The Divine Names section has been designed as a complete system rather than as a single list screen. It combines devotional use, calligraphy, Arabic linguistics, Qurʾanic referencing, scholarly transparency and considered motion design.
The feature is intentionally layered. The first layer is simple and immediate: open the section, browse the ninety-nine in beautiful plates, tap one to learn what it means. The second layer is for study: search by meaning or by root, filter by theme, read the explanation and the servant's share, follow the Qurʾanic anchors straight into the Quran reader, and move between related and paired names. The third layer is for those who want to understand the corpus itself: root families, morphological patterns, thematic distribution, and the exact level of evidence standing behind each of the ninety-nine.
It is also deliberately connected rather than self-contained. Every verse and every narration the section cites is a link into the Quran reader or the Hadith library, so the names are not a closed list but a way into the rest of the app — and into the sources themselves.
The transparency layer is what we consider most important. It is easy to present ninety-nine names as ninety-nine equal facts, and it is common. We have chosen instead to show the reader precisely what rests on the Qurʾān, what is derived from it, and what reaches us through the ḥadīth enumeration — including the scholarly discussion around the enumeration itself. This is the same principle that leads the Qibla Finder to display magnetic interference and the spread between calculation models rather than a single confident number. Users deserve to see the strength of what they are being shown.
The result is a section that serves the person who simply wants to read the names, the person reciting them in order as an act of worship, and the person who wants to know exactly where each one comes from — without any of them getting in the way of the others. Nothing is present that does not earn its place.
Related
- Quran — where a name's Qur'anic anchors open, with your own translations and tafsir applied
- Hadith Library — where a name's cited narrations open, with grading and narrator visible
- History — each name you open is recorded, and feeds the divine-names figures in your Dashboard
- Collections — saving a verse or narration reached from a name
- Text Customization — the section also carries its own calligraphy and card controls, described above
- Search — finding a verse the wider way, by sound or meaning as well as reference