Faida Jalila fi Qawaid al-Asma al-Husna
- Author died
- 751 AH
- Editions
- Ghirās
Fā'ida Jalīla fī Qawā'id al-Asmā' al-Ḥusnā (A Tremendous Benefit Regarding the Principles of the Most Beautiful Names) is a theological treatise on the rules governing the Divine Names and Attributes by the Hanbali theologian and jurist Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (691–751 AH / 1292–1350 CE) .
Origin and Scope
The treatise was originally composed by Ibn al-Qayyim as an extensive thematic section within his encyclopedic work Badā'i' al-Fawā'id . In it, he systematically deduces and establishes universal theological guidelines and interpretive principles (qawā'id) grounded in the Quran and the Sunnah to elucidate the understanding of God's Names and Attributes and guard against theological deviations . Ibn al-Qayyim concludes the section by stating that it consists of twenty distinct benefits appended to the introductory rule classifying the categories of divine descriptions .
Key Principles and Contents
The treatise begins by dividing what is predicated or ascribed to God into distinct categories:
- Expressions referring purely to the Divine Essence (such as al-Dhāt, al-Mawjūd, and al-Shay').
- Attributive descriptions denoting inherent meanings (ṣifāt maʿnawiyya), such as al-ʿAlīm (the All-Knowing), al-Qadīr (the All-Powerful), and al-Samīʿ (the All-Hearing).
- Names referring to Divine Actions, such as al-Khāliq (the Creator) and al-Rāziq (the Sustainer).
- Expressions of pure transcendence (tanzīh), which necessarily imply affirmative perfection rather than mere nonexistence, such as al-Quddūs (the Holy) and al-Salām (the Source of Peace).
- Names that encompass multiple perfection attributes simultaneously rather than an isolated meaning, such as al-Majīd (the Glorious), al-ʿAẓīm (the Magnificent), and al-Ṣamad (the Eternal Refuge) .
- Composite perfections arising from the conjunction of two paired Divine Names in Quranic phrasing (such as al-Ghaniyy al-Ḥamīd or al-ʿAzīz al-Ḥakīm), where their pairing imparts an additional degree of praise beyond what each name denotes individually .
The text also formulates several fundamental rules:
- Broadness of Divine Reporting: The scope of informational attribution or reporting (bāb al-ikhbār) concerning God is broader than the specific domain of His Most Beautiful Names and Attributes; terms permissible in general reporting (such as al-Mawjūd or al-Qā'im bi-nafsihi) cannot be taken as proper Divine Names .
- Divisible Qualities: Actions or attributes that can denote both perfection and deficiency (such as willing, making, or acting) cannot be turned into absolute, unconditioned Divine Names (such as al-Ṣāniʿ); instead, God is described only with their perfect forms .
- Restricted Verbs: Reporting a restricted or contextualized divine action in scriptural texts does not justify deriving an absolute, unconditioned Divine Name from it .
- Negative Attributes: Scriptural negations (ṣifāt al-salb), such as slumber not overtaking Him, serve to affirm corresponding absolute perfections rather than mere absence .
Reception and Publication
Ibn al-Qayyim's principles were heavily cited by subsequent scholars; notably, the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Saffarini incorporated large sections of these rules verbatim into his doctrinal commentary Lawami' al-Anwar al-Bahiyya .
In modern scholarship, the section was extracted from Badā'i' al-Fawā'id and published as an independent monograph edited by Abd al-Razzaq al-Badr in 1415 AH / 1994 CE . The critical edition was established by collating three manuscript copies—two preserved at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University and a third private manuscript—alongside earlier printed editions and al-Saffārīnī's quotations .
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