What is the greatest name of Allah?

There was an incident which took place in the time of the Prophet , in which he heard one of his companions make a supplication. After hearing it, he said that this supplication contained the greatest name of Allah, with which if a person calls on Allah, He answers his prayer; and with which if he makes requests to Allah, Allah gives him what he requests. The scholars in looking at this hadith, and other hadiths that speak about the greatest name of Allah - have differed as to which name in fact is the greatest name of Allah. The opinion held by a number of scholars, among them being Ibn al Qayyim and others is that Allah, the name what is referred to as Jallallaah, is in fact the greatest name of Allah itself.

To support this point, they brought certain evidences. Why did they choose this as opposed to other names like al Hayy (chosen by Ibn Tamiyyah, meaning the all-living)? The various narrations by the Prophet  concerning the greatest name were found to be the verses from the Quran and also different duas that other people had made. When we bring them all together, we do find that the name common to all of them is ‘Allah’. It may be in the form of Allahuma which means ‘Ya Allah’, which is calling out to Allah, or the actual word ‘Allah’ itself.

‘Allah’ is the most mentioned name of Allah in the Qur’an. All of the other Divine names are in meaning in the term Allah. It is the only name that has been applied to God and no one else. Other names of Allah are attributed to it, but the name Allah is not attributed to other names. In the verse in the Quran in which Allah chooses two names to represent Himself, He said,

“Call on Allah or call on The Most Merciful”[1]

In this case, He has mentioned two names – of which the first mention is of the name ‘Allah’. There is a linguistic uniqueness in the term Allah. In that you can find the term Allah when used with the particle of address in Arabic. The name Allah has been given a special place of honor in that the universal declaration of faith “La ilaha illallah”, “There is no God worthy of worship but Allah”, the name Allah becomes the one used in the universal declaration.

It is the name by which all of the other names become descriptive terms, and are used to describe Allah. The name Allah is not used to describe other names. So it is the most fundamental name of Allah. We said that in terms of its meaning, it is the most comprehensive. In that the meanings of all of the other names are found within the name Allah, whereas each and every other name has particular aspect of Allah’s attributes that they focus on. They do not necessarily include other attributes, sometimes they may include more than one attribute but they are not comprehensive in the sense of including all other attributes. That can only be said about the name Allah.

References:

[1] Quran 17: 110