al-Baṣīr

The All-Seeing

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Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 22:61.

Heard together with: as-Samīʿ / al-Baṣīr

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

Your eye catches light from violet to red and, on a dark night, can register a single photon. But it needs light, a lens, a line of sight and a moment, and everything it sees has already happened.

Episode 2

In nature

The mantis shrimp has twelve kinds of colour receptor to our three; the owl hunts by starlight. Every creature sees a slice of the world, never the whole of it.

Episode 3

At our best

The Webb telescope's 6.5-metre gold mirror, a million miles out, catches light that left galaxies more than 13 billion years ago. Even it sees only the past, and only what light brings.

Episode 4

The Break

Take away light, organ, distance, delay, direction, surface.

Every seeing we know needs light, an eye and a moment. al-Baṣīr needs none of them.

Read: Q 6:103; 57:4

From the tradition: al-Ghazālī: 'He sees without eyeball or eyelid'. Nahj Sermon 1: 'He sees even when there is none to be looked at'

On screen

In Avatar, 'I see you' is the highest thing one person can say to another. al-Baṣīr saw you before you could say it.

Where it shows up

In scripture: Q 6:103; 57:4; 42:11. Genesis 16:13; Hebrews 4:13
The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture: Moderate. Genesis 16:13 'You Are El-roi… God of Seeing'; Hebrews 4:13
In the universe: NASA JWST deep field: a patch of sky 'the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length' holds thousands of galaxies (11 July 2022)
In nature: 'Highlights: First Images from JWST' (NASA, official)
In people: Hagar in the desert naming 'the God who sees me' (Genesis 16:13)
In science: Optics: light-travel time; we see the Sun as it was about 8 minutes ago