ar-Razzāq

The Provider of all sustenance

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Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 51:58.

Heard together with: ar-Razzāq / al-Muqīt

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

Humans: farming; Haber-Bosch fertiliser. Erisman et al. (Nature Geoscience 2008): 'we live in a world transformed by and highly dependent upon Haber-Bosch nitrogen'; ~48% of people fed by it

But: Needs fossil energy, soil, rain, luck with weather

Episode 2

In nature

Leaf-cutter ants farm a fungus underground ('Shadow of the Sun', BBC Earth)

Episode 3

At our best

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault: 'more than 1.4 million seed samples from 134 institutions' (Crop Trust, 2026). ICARDA rebuilt its Aleppo collection from it (2015-19)

But: It stores seeds; it cannot make one

Episode 4

The Break

Take away storage, harvest, a supply chain, a bad year.

Not a bigger storehouse, but provision that never had to be stored.

Read: Q 51:58; 11:6

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.

Where it shows up

In scripture: Q 51:58; 11:6; 29:60. Genesis 22:14; Psalm 145:15-16; Matthew 6:26
The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture: Moderate. Genesis 22:14 'Adonai-yireh' ('GOD will see' or 'GOD takes care'); Psalm 145:15-16; Psalm 136:25 'Who gives food to all flesh'; Matthew 6:26
In the universe: NASA PACE mission (launched 2024) studies phytoplankton, the base of ocean food webs; NOAA: about half of Earth's oxygen comes from the ocean
In nature: 'Leaf-Cutter Ants', BBC Earth
In people: Food banks; the ICARDA seed rescue
In science: Ecology: food webs; chemistry: nitrogen fixation (Haber-Bosch, 1908 patent)