الأول
al-Awwal
Topic
A divine name: the First, before whom there is nothing.
What it means
Al-Awwal means “the First”. It is a name of God and teaches that He has no beginning and that nothing existed before Him. It is usually recited together with al-Ākhir, the Last, and Faruqi lists it among the divine names in his word list. The Quran pairs it with three other names: He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things (57:3). Believers think of this name when they reflect that creation had a beginning and God did not. The pairing with al-Ākhir includes the whole of time.
Often misunderstood as
That the name says only that God came first among many beings, when it says that He has no beginning and every other thing depends on Him.
What the sources say
The verse (57:3) is the Quranic source for the name, and Muslim theologians used it in arguments that the world has a Creator who is not a part of it.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 24, listed as AL AWWAL. The definition is restated here.