al-Ḥakīm

The All-Wise

Begin the series ↓

Say it: al-Ḥakīm. A recording by our own reciter is on its way.

Heard together with: al-ʿAzīz al-Ḥakīm

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

Human wisdom grows with age and experience; it is slow and patchy

But: Learned by error; partial

Episode 2

In nature

The slime mould Physarum rebuilt a network close to Tokyo's rail map (Tero et al., Science 2010); bees build hexagons, the most efficient way to divide a plane into equal cells (Hales's honeycomb theorem, 1999)

Episode 3

At our best

AlphaFold predicted structures for about 200 million proteins (EMBL-EBI, 2022)

But: Learned from known structures; predicts, does not understand purpose

Episode 4

The Break

Take away trial and error, learning, hindsight.

Not a cleverer design, but wisdom that never had to learn by mistakes.

Read: Q 2:32; 59:24; 57:1; 38:27; 3:191

From the tradition: Classical definition of ḥikma: putting each thing in its proper place. Proverbs 3:19 'GOD founded the earth by wisdom'

On screen

Yoda took 900 years to grow wise. al-Ḥakīm never had a first year.

Where it shows up

In scripture: Q 2:32; 38:27; 67:3; 2:269. Proverbs 3:19
The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture: Moderate. Proverbs 3:19; Romans 16:27 'the only wise God'
In the universe: NASA habitable zone; fine-tuning as reflection only
In nature: Honeybees: 'The Waggle Dance' (BBC Earth)
In people: Elders and mentors
In science: Mathematics: Hales's honeycomb theorem; biology: network optimisation in slime moulds