al-Laṭīf

The Subtle and Gentle, who reaches the finest of things

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Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 6:103.

Heard together with: al-Laṭīf / al-Khabīr

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 fingertips can feel ridges just 13 billionths of a metre high (Skedung and others, 2013). But touch needs contact.

Episode 2

In nature

A male silk moth can respond to a single molecule of scent, carried on the wind from far away (Sakurai and others, 2014).

Episode 3

At our best

In 2009 scientists in Zurich imaged the bonds inside a single molecule. It took ultra-high vacuum, near absolute zero, and a molecule held perfectly still.

Episode 4

The Break

Take away contact, the probe, the vacuum, the stillness. al-Laṭīf is not a finer instrument, but subtlety that reaches the smallest thing, and kindness that arrives unseen. Joseph (peace be upon him), looking back on his whole life, said: “My Lord is subtle in what He wills” (Qur'an 12:100).

Read: Q 6:103; 67:14; 12:100

From the tradition: al-Ghazālī: knows the subtleties and conveys benefit by gentle means. The ladder serves sense 1; the Break turns to sense 2 (Joseph (peace be upon him), 12:100)

On screen

Ant-Man has to shrink to reach the small. al-Laṭīf reaches the smallest thing without becoming anything.

Where it shows up

In scripture: Q 6:103; 12:100; 31:16; 67:14. 1 Kings 19:12
The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture: Weak. 1 Kings 19:12 'a soft murmuring sound' ('a still, small voice')
In the universe: Neutrinos: tens of billions from the Sun pass through each square centimetre of you every second
In nature: Spider-web time-lapse (BBC Earth)
In people: Joseph (peace be upon him)'s story: kindness that worked through betrayal and prison (12:100)
In science: Physics: the subatomic; chemistry: bond lengths of 0.14 nm