Episode 1In us
the farthest humans have travelled, about 400,000 km (Apollo 13, 1970)
But: Needs a rocket; returns
The 99 Names · Name 45 of 99 · Capacity
الْوَاسِعُal-Wāsiʿ
The All-Encompassing, boundless in mercy and knowledge
Say it: al-Wāsiʿ. A recording by our own reciter is on its way.
Heard together with: al-Wāsiʿ al-ʿAlīm
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
Episode 2In nature
Arctic tern: more than 70,000 km a year; 'three trips to the moon and back' in a lifetime (Egevang et al., PNAS 2010)
Episode 3At our best
Voyager 1 one light-day (~25.9 billion km) on 18 Nov 2026; observable universe radius ~46.5 billion ly
But: One seventeen-trillionth of the radius
Episode 4The Break
Take away distance, travel, edges, 'too far for mercy'.
Not bigger than the universe, but the universe within reach of His mercy.
From the tradition: classical readings are vastness of generosity, mercy and knowledge, not physical size. 1 Kings 8:27 'Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You'
On screen
The Space Stone lets you jump across the universe. al-Wāsiʿ means there is nowhere to jump to that is outside His mercy.
Where it shows up
- In scripture
- Q 2:115; 2:255; 7:156. 1 Kings 8:27
- The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture
- Moderate. 1 Kings 8:27; rabbinic ha-Maqom
- In the universe
- NASA Voyager 1 one light-day
- In nature
- Migration: 'Earth's Greatest Animal Migrations' (BBC Earth, 2026)
- In people
- Sending help across the world after disasters
- In science
- Cosmology: observable universe vs whole universe ('unknown')
Watch and listen
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
Sources for this page
science.nasa.gov Night Sky Notes; Wikipedia Infinity Stones; sefaria.org 1 Kgs 8:27