The Hundred Names of God

Les Cents Noms de Déu (The Hundred Names of God) is a work by Ramon Llull written in 1288, which presents a series of one hundred poems of praise to God, based on one hundred attributes or divine virtues. This work, designed to be recited during hours of prayer, is a work of piety and devotion.
According to existing manuscripts, the poems were distributed according to Christian liturgical hours. However, at the same time, Llull confronts the Islamic theme of the hundred names of God (al-asmā’al-ḥusnā), an objective that is clearly expressed in the prologue of the work.
Llull’s methodology is unique in the medieval panorama: instead of simply denigrating or refuting the Islamic theme of the hundred names of God or contrasting it with Christian auctoritates, Llull adopts Islamic literary forms in a very particular way.
For example, in his work “Llibre d’amic e amat”, which is part of the “Romanç d’Evast e Blaquerna”, he declares that he follows the model of the Sufis. In the fourth chapter of the “Llibre del gentil i dels tres savis”, he puts in the mouth of a Saracen certain doctrinal principles of Islam that come directly from the Arab tradition, although they belong to a more popular current than that which establishes the five pillars of Islam.
The Hundred Names of God is not simply an exercise in Christian piety, but also an attempt at interreligious dialogue, an effort to understand and address the traditions and literary forms of Islam from a Christian perspective. As such, the work provides a fascinating insight into the mind of Ramon Llull, one of the most original and provocative thinkers of his time.