Rabbi Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, founder of the school of “Prophetic Kabbalah”, was born in Zaragoza, in Aragon Spain, in 1240. In his book Sefer Mafeah HaShemot, Rabbi Abulafia states that in the future “all 3 (Abrahamic) religions will know the supreme Name; as (Prophet Zefaniah 3:9) said, ‘For then I will turn to the (3 Abrahamic) people, a pure language; that they may all call upon the (same) Name of the Lord (in Peace’).

The Qur’an contains 99 names (attributes) of the one God while the Torah contains one very unique personal name of God; plus dozens of names that are character traits or attributes.
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For thousands of years the religions of the Near East, India and China worshipped hundreds of gods, and had hundreds of names for their gods; including several miracle working humans who lived and died among their fellow humans, and were then in retrospect elevated into deities like: Asklepios. Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama and Tin-Hau.

Who was Tin-Hau? She was a young woman who for more than a dozen years had many dream visions of sinking fishing ships that she was able to rescue. Not long after her death at age 28, her story was inscribed on the walls of a sanctuary in Hangchiow, China (in 1228); and she was deified 50 years later by the Mongol emperor Kublai Kahn. So she became a goddess.

But for those religions that trace their prophets back to Prophet Abraham, and his two Prophet sons Ishmael and Isaac, the many names of God simply describe different aspects or attributes of the one God’s multifaceted personality.

God’s names are appellations: titles and descriptions. Thus to say that God is a King or Judge describes one of many ways God acts. To say that God is the Compassionate One is to describe one of many character or personality traits of the one God. Ibn Al-Qayyim writes: The attribute of generosity is an attribute of God who feeds and is not fed. The most beloved creatures to Allah are those who take on his characteristics. Indeed, Allah is noble and loves nobility from his servants, he is knowledgeable and loves the scholars, he is powerful and loves courage, and he is beautiful and loves beauty. (al-Wābil al-Ṣayyib 1/34)

While each of the many ‘names’ for the one God is only one of the many appellations of the one universal creator of space and time; both Islam and Judaism also have one special Divine name that is always in the believer’s heart and soul.

Because the Qur’an is filled with beautiful Arabic poetry, it is not surprising that the Qur’an is also filled with 99 names of God.

Because the Jewish tradition reaches back more than thirty five centuries; it is not surprising that Jews have focused on many additional names for the one and only God over those many centuries.

Yet, because all the many names of God call upon the same One God, it is also not surprising that many of the 99 beautiful names of God in Muslim tradition also appear in Jewish tradition, which sometimes refers to the 70 names of God (found in Midrash Shir HaShirim and Midrash Otiot Rabbi Akiba).

Since Islam and Judaism are very close yet uniquely different religions, there are also several Jewish names for God’s attributes that are not found among the 99 names that appear in the Quran. One rabbinic name for God is Shekinah. This Hebrew word is very close in meaning to the Arabic word Sakinah. Both words are feminine gender, but only Jews think of Shekinah as the feminine side of the one and only God. I have written elsewhere about the Sakina-Shekenah connection.

For Jews the most important name of the one God, the name that God himself revealed to Moses at the burning bush, is YHVH: which appears more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible.

In Exodus 3:13-15, Moses said to........

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