- Among Allah’s 99 “beautiful names” is makr. Allah is the best makr there is. He is known literally as the great Deceiver. Although they will never match the deceptions of Allah, Muslims are nontheless encouraged to use Taqiyya and Kitman to use lies if it will further the cause of Islam
First of all, the list of which names go into the 99 “beautiful names” is not entirely agreed on; I usually use al-Ghazali’s list; I don’t recall
al-makr there but it’s been a while.
Secondly, I think the term “deceiver” needs to be clarified. First of all, God “deceives” us in the same sense as the Hindu term
maya, which literally means magic, like a conjuror’s show that we would take children too. Allah is called this because of the playful and creative nature of the universe He created; I think orthodox Christians would agree with this too (especially Christians like Chesterton). Creation is viewed as a mask (when viewed in a negative sense) and a veil (when viewed in a revelatory sense) over the Face of God; and “verily everything is perishing except His Face”.
A second sense in which God is a “deceiver” refers to the the hidden nature of revealed truths, which are never despoiled by being scattered among unbelievers. It is for this reason that Christ taught in parables, and that Christianity had (and, I would argue, still has) a
disciplinum arcanum - as Our Lord said, you should not cast pearls before swine. Many of these doctrines in Christianity were simply never discussed around the profane (such as the Eucharist, which came to be referred to simply as the Mysteries), though they were certainly known to the pagans and heretics (well enough that the Koran itself forcefully teaches the divine nature of the Eucharist in
surah “The Banquet” [3], in one of the last five verses of that
surah). Other Catholic doctrines simply cannot be understood except by those who are already illumined by sanctifying grace - especially teachings concerning the sacraments, soteriology and mystical theology. Just look at how these teachings are misunderstood by secularists, Protestants, and others outside the Church and you will see why I consider these doctrines to be esoteric by their nature.
Islam also has its esoterism - al-Tawwasuf - which is a mystical theology that cannot really be understood in the legalistic terms in which Islam is exoterically formulated, but rather only by those who are themselves sufis (including all Christians, since we possess sanctifying grace through the sacraments, rather than through the extraordinary means of mystical experience). So it is correct to speak of Allah (even of the Islamic understanding of Allah) as
al-makr.
