The Secret of God's Most Beautiful Names

‘Because He created us in His image, alone among all the forms in the world, and because not a single Name has come that we do not manifest and have ascribed to us – we contain Him.’ (Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya)

The ‘naming’ of God is one of the essential pillars of the monotheistic traditions, and every Name of God has its own ‘presence’. According to ‘the greatest spiritual master’ Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240), the 99 Names of God in Islamic devotional practice and spiritual teaching are the fundamental way of expressing the full relationship between the human being and the Divine, Unity and multiplicity, transcendence and immanence. The Divine Names are thus the ways in which the One God bestows His beauty and beneficence upon the multiplicity of the created world, and on human beings in particular.

The Secret of God’s Most Beautiful Names presents, for the first time in English, two of the most profound teachings on the 99 Names: Ibn ʿArabī’s Kashf al-maʿnā, depicting each of the Names according to three complementary perspectives; and The Summary, drawn from his Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya. A comprehensive introduction and notes are provided alongside the translation. The critical edition of the Arabic text is also included.

This important classic of Sufi literature is a must-read for all who desire to understand the inner meaning of the Divine Names and Ibn ʿArabī’s teachings.

Pablo Beneito, Professor at the Department of Translation and Interpreting, University of Murcia, Spain, is a well-known translator and commentator on Ibn ʿArabī, and editor of El Azufre Rojo: Revista de Estudios sobre Ibn Arabi.