The 99 Names of God: A Sufi Journey Through the IFS Lens
Welcome.
This is a contemplative journey through the 99 Names of God, not as theology, but as inner remembrance. Rooted in Sufi devotion and seen through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS), each Divine Name becomes a doorway inward.
You won’t just read about God's mercy, power, tenderness, or justice. You’ll sit with how those qualities land inside you: in your ache, in your resistance, in your hope, in your parts.
Each entry includes:
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• A soft, sacred teaching of the Name
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• A parts-based reflection inspired by IFS
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• A gentle invitation to notice what stirs
Some Names will soften you. Some may awaken shame, fear, reverence, or resistance. That is part of the journey. This is not a study. This is a return. Begin where you're called. Let each Name be a whisper into your inner world. Let the Beloved meet you — part by part.
1. Ar-Rahman (ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنُ)
The Most Merciful
Pronounced: ar-Rah-MAAN
Root: ر-ح-م (R-Ḥ-M), which connotes deep womb-like mercy, protection, and tenderness.
Original Invocation (in Arabic Calligraphy):
الرَّحْمَانُ
Sacred Reflection
Ar-Rahman is not mercy as in leniency…
It is not forgiveness as in pardon.
It is mercy as in source. As in origin.
This Name is the womb of all Names — the first breath of love from which the universe unfurled.
It is the unearned, unstoppable, all-encompassing tenderness of God
before you did anything
before you tried
before you failed.
In Sufi cosmology, Ar-Rahman is the Name from which creation was born —
not through might, not through justice,
but through mercy that was already overflowing.
When a part of you cries out in shame, or flinches from your own pain,
Ar-Rahman answers not with correction but with cradle.
He wraps.
He softens.
He says, “I saw your ache before you did.
And I was already pouring mercy over it.”
This is not mercy you earn.
It is mercy that is.
It is the nature of Being.
It is the first thing the Divine said about Himself in the Qur’an.
It is the heat in the breath that made you.
To speak this Name is not to beg for kindness —
It is to remember that kindness is the ground of the world.
Parts Work Invitation:
What part of you feels most unworthy of unconditional love?
Can you let that part imagine being wrapped in the mercy of Ar-Rahman —
not fixed, not judged, just held?
Speak to it softly.
You are not too much.
You are not late.
You are not forgotten.
The mercy that made you… still makes you.
