In 2015, with war tearing through Aleppo, a team of plant scientists did something no one had done before. They asked for their seeds back from a vault dug into a frozen mountain in the Arctic. The seeds they had stored there, wheat, barley, lentils and chickpeas bred over ten thousand years, were flown out and planted again in Lebanon and Morocco.
ar-Razzāq is the Provider: the One who gives every living thing its sustenance. Human beings have become very good at feeding ourselves. This episode looks at three of our greatest food systems, and at the one thing none of them can do.
Start with what we know
Then take away everything it needs. What is left is not a bigger version of us. It is the Name.
Episode 1
In us
In 1909 the German chemist Fritz Haber worked out how to pull nitrogen out of the air and turn it into ammonia; Carl Bosch then scaled it up for factories. Nitrogen fertiliser made by the Haber-Bosch process now helps grow the food of roughly half the people on Earth (Erisman and others, Nature Geoscience, 2008). It may be the most important invention most people have never heard of. But it runs on enormous amounts of natural gas, uses about one to two per cent of the world's energy, and the run-off pollutes rivers and seas. And it can only feed a seed that already exists.
Episode 2
In nature
Ants were farming long before we were. Leafcutter ants in Central and South America carry pieces of leaf underground, not to eat but to feed a fungus garden, which in turn feeds the colony. Their ancestors began this about 50 million years ago, and a single nest can hold millions of workers tending their crop. It is agriculture without a single human. But the ants can only farm what the forest grows, their fungus can be wiped out by a parasite mould, and when the queen dies, the whole colony slowly ends.
Episode 3
At our best
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, cut 120 metres into a mountain on a Norwegian island near the North Pole, holds more than 1.3 million seed samples from almost every country, kept at minus 18 °C as a backup for the world's food (Crop Trust). When the ICARDA gene bank in Aleppo had to be abandoned, Svalbard's copies let it rebuild its collection. It is perhaps the most hopeful building on the planet. But it can store a seed; it cannot make one. Everything inside it was first given by a plant.
Episode 4
The Break
Take away the natural gas, the fungus garden, the frozen mountain, the farmers who saved the seed. Every food system we know stores, multiplies or moves provision that was first given. ar-Razzāq is not a bigger farmer; He is the One from whom every seed, every sunbeam and every mouthful first comes. “There is no creature on the earth whose provision is not with God; He knows where it lives and where it rests” (Qur'an 11:6, our rendering).
From the tradition: Tirmidhi 2344: if you relied on Allah as you should, He would provide as He provides for birds, which go out hungry and return full. Matthew 6:26 'Your heavenly Father feeds them'
On screen
In Interstellar the crops fail and we go looking for another planet. ar-Razzāq is why there was a harvest to lose.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) told the story of Hagar (peace be upon her). Abraham (peace be upon him) brought her and their baby son Ishmael (peace be upon him) to a dry valley where Mecca now stands. There was no one there and no water. He left them with a bag of dates and a skin of water, and turned to go.
Hagar followed him. “Abraham (peace be upon him), are you leaving us in this valley, where there is no one and nothing?” He did not answer. At last she asked: “Did God command you to do this?” He said yes. She said: “Then He will not let us be lost.”
When the water ran out, the baby began to cry with thirst. Hagar climbed the nearest hill, Ṣafā, to look for help. She saw no one. She ran down across the valley and up the other hill, Marwah. Nothing. Seven times she ran between the two.
Then she heard a sound. At the place where the baby lay, water was welling up from the ground. She built a little wall of sand around it and cupped the water in her hands. That spring is Zamzam (Bukhari 3364).
Every year, millions of pilgrims walk between Ṣafā and Marwah seven times, remembering her. The story holds both halves of trust: she ran with all her strength, and the water came from somewhere she could never have dug.
What each faith says
Judaism
“The eyes of all wait for Thee, and Thou givest them their food in due season. Thou openest Thy hand, and satisfiest every living thing with favour.”
Three times a day, Jews say Ashrei, a prayer built around Psalm 145, which includes the verse below. Tradition says that anyone who says it daily, meaning it, is assured of a share in the world to come, because it praises God for feeding every living thing.
The first blessing of grace after meals praises God who “feeds the whole world in His goodness”. The story of manna in the wilderness, bread that came each morning and could not be hoarded, taught Israel to trust for one day at a time.
Christianity
“See the birds of the sky, that they don't sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you of much more value than they?”
Jesus (peace be upon him) taught his followers to pray, “Give us today our daily bread”, and pointed to the birds as a sign of God's care. Christians understand this not as a reason to stop working, but as a reason to stop worrying.
Many Christians say grace before meals, and churches across Britain run food banks and community kitchens as a way of sharing the provision they believe comes from God.
Islam
“God is the Provider, the Lord of strength, the Firm.”
ar-Razzāq appears in the Qur'an as “the Provider, the Lord of strength, the Firm” (51:58). Rizq, provision, means far more than food: it includes health, knowledge, friendship, guidance and time. Muslim scholars warned against reading this Name as a promise of wealth; it is a promise that nothing living is forgotten.
The Prophet said: “If you relied on God as He should be relied on, He would provide for you as He provides for the birds: they go out hungry in the morning and come back full in the evening” (Tirmidhi 2344). The birds still fly out to look.
Same and different
All three faiths thank God before or after eating, point to the birds as a sign of His care, and teach that trusting God goes together with working and sharing. Judaism remembers manna and blesses God who feeds the world. Christianity prays for daily bread and sees Christ as the bread of life. Islam calls God ar-Razzāq and treats rizq as every kind of provision, from food to faith. They differ on some of what provision ultimately points to, but agree that no living thing is forgotten.
A moment to reflect
What did you eat today, and how many people and creatures were part of getting it to you?
How do you hold together working hard and trusting that provision comes from beyond you?
Who near you is going without, and what could you share?
Watch
Watch on YouTube ↗ · plays here on the live site; YouTube without tracking until you press play
A virtual tour inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault: the ‘At our best’ rung.
Watch on YouTube ↗ · plays here on the live site; YouTube without tracking until you press play
PBS Eons on how ants became farmers 50 million years before us: the ‘In nature’ rung.
Watch on YouTube ↗ · plays here on the live site; YouTube without tracking until you press play
TED-Ed on the Haber-Bosch reaction that feeds half the world: the ‘In us’ rung.
Do it together
neighbours / schoolsSeed library
Start a seed swap shelf in a library, school or place of worship. Save seeds from tomatoes, beans or sunflowers and share them. Talk about Svalbard, and about the One a seed comes from.
faith groups / familiesFood bank shift
Volunteer together for a shift at a local food bank or community kitchen. Before or after, read Psalm 145:15-16, Matthew 6:26 and Qur'an 11:6.
Episode 1
