According to Islamic tradition, God has at least ninety-nine names. In Ninety-Nine, Amira Mittermaier presents ninety-nine short chapters based on her fieldwork and interviews with over one hundred Egyptians about who God is to them. In Egypt’s turbulent twenty-first century—the Egyptian uprising, a military coup, a pandemic, a climate crisis, wars across the region—God is talked about endlessly yet remains elusive. Ninety-Nine follows Allah into different spaces and conversations without ever claiming to get the full picture. We meet a Cairo beggar, an enigmatic dervish, a queer agnostic, and a Salafi housewife. We meet a depressed God, a cute God, a God who has stopped caring, a loving God, and a God who is a bully. We learn about divine interventions, big and small, and about daily struggles, even fights, with God. An intimate mosaic of Allah, Ninety-Nine celebrates the multiplicity inherent to the Islamic tradition and offers insight into how present-day Muslims grapple with big theological questions amidst their busy lives.
