"The Most Beautiful Names of God"
This is not a Mevlevi compilation of Divine Names (as in the "Awrâd-i Sharîf"). Rather, it is a contemporary selection of Names in the Qur'ân, as well as Names derived from, or related to, other words in the sacred text. This book is different than the usual ones on the Names of God in Islam, since it is intended to be a devotional manual for chanting the praises of God (may He be exalted), aloud or in silence. It contains 338 entries, in various combinations, rather than just the traditional ninety-nine. The entries are written in the devotional vocative form: 'Yâ `azîz!' Yâ raHmân!' 'Yâ salâm!' God is thus addressed directly in Arabic: O Almighty! O Merciful! O Source of Peace!
This book first took form about 1990 and was based on the traditional list of ninety-nine Names of God. In later versions, it was extended to other single Names plus combinations of dual and multiple Names, until it was finalized in 1996. After that, it languished on several of my computers, with a printed-out copy in a box in the closet--because it had outdated (and non-transferable) MacIntosh system fonts: an outdated Arabic font (post-script, from the early 1980's) and an outdated bit-mapped transliteration font that I had designed many years ago. Then, in September 2010, I succeeded in converting the outdated Arabic font into a contemporary Unicode font, and the book was rescued--and reformatted and corrected.
