Asma-ul-Husna

Asma-ul-Husna presents the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah: each name in Arabic with its pronunciation and meaning in Bengali and English, a search, flash cards for learning them by heart, and a recording of every name — one by one or all in order.

It is a free plugin and comes with Quran CMS.

Who it is for

Every Islamic website, families teaching children, and anyone memorising the names. The page opens with the hadith “Allah has ninety-nine names; whoever preserves them will enter Paradise” (Bukhari 2736, Muslim 2677) and the ayah wa lillahil-asma’ul-husna (Al-A‘raf 7:180) taken from the Quran in your database.

Switching it on

Admin → Plugins, turn Asma-ul-Husna on. The page is at /asmaul-husna, listed on the Islamic tools page (/tools) as 99 names of Allah. The plugin adds Asma-ul-Husna recordings to the admin menu under Plugins.

What the visitor sees

• All names — the 99 names as cards: the number, the name in Arabic, its transliteration and meaning. The small speaker on each card plays the name.
• Search a name or meaning — type Rahman, merciful or a Bengali word; the cards narrow as you type.
• Play all plays every name in order, with a short pause between them; the card being heard is lit up. Stop ends it.
• Flash cards — one name at a time with the meaning hidden, and its number (12 of 99). Show the meaning (or a tap on the card, or the space bar) reveals it; the arrows — or the arrow keys — move to the next or previous name. The shuffle button mixes the order for testing yourself, and the speaker button plays the name on the card.

On Bengali pages the pronunciation and meaning are in Bengali and the numbers in Bengali digits.

Where the sound comes from

Every name can be heard, from the first of these that is available:

1. Your recording — one you uploaded for that name.
2. Quran recitation — for the names that stand as a word of their own in the Quran (39 of them), a reciter saying that word in its ayah (quran.com word-by-word audio).
3. Generated male voice — a man's Arabic voice (a Microsoft neural voice), made once by your server and kept in cache/asmaul-husna/.

A device's own voice is never used, because it may be a woman's voice. If a recording cannot be played (no internet, a file missing at the source), the generated voice is used in its place.

The admin page

Admin → Asma-ul-Husna recordings (under Plugins in the menu):

• At the top, a count of where the sounds come from: Your recording, Quran recitation, Generated male voice and No sound yet, with links to Settings and View the page.
• Upload many at once — a .zip of files named by the name's number: 1.mp3 … 99.mp3, or 01-ar-rahman.mp3. MP3, M4A, OGG and WAV are accepted. They replace the other sources of those names.
• Prepare the generated voices — makes every generated voice now, so no visitor ever waits for one. Make them now may take a minute.
• The list of all 99 names, each with its source badge (and, for Quran recitation, the ayah it comes from), and small buttons to Play, Upload your recording for that one name, Remove your recording, or Make the voice again.

Settings

Admin → Plugins → Asma-ul-Husna → Settings:

The voice used for the generated names is chosen under Settings → Media studio (the voices), where an Azure key can also be given — see Settings.

On the home page

The plugin adds the section type Names of Allah (Asma-ul-Husna plugin) to Appearance → Home page. It shows a few names (3 to 12, six by default) that change every day, with a link to the full page.

Tips

• After switching the plugin on, open the admin page once and press Make them now, so every name plays at once for the first visitor.
• If you have a qari's recording of the names, upload them as one zip; the badges turn to Your recording.
• Flash cards work well for children: put the page on a tablet and let them reveal one meaning at a time.