ash-Shahīd

The Witness to all things

Begin the series ↓

Say it: ash-Shahīd. A recording by our own reciter is on its way.

Heard together with: ash-Shahīd / ar-Raqīb

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

Eyewitness memory is reconstructive and can be altered by later information (Loftus's research)

But: Forgets, adds, misremembers

Episode 2

In nature

Weak link: animal memory of places and events (scrub jays)

Episode 3

At our best

Records that 'witness': Antarctic ice cores preserve about 800,000 years of air (EPICA); the CMB is light from when the universe was 380,000 years old (ESA Planck)

But: Records degrade; we read them partially

Episode 4

The Break

Take away presence at a place, memory, a record that decays.

Not a better memory, but witnessing that was never absent.

Read: Q 4:79; 4:166; 22:17; 41:53

From the tradition: Classical: ash-Shahīd is present to everything, nothing absent from Him. Genesis 31:50 'it is God who will be witness between you and me'

On screen

In Rashomon every witness tells it differently. ash-Shahīd's witness is the one account no one forgot.

Where it shows up

In scripture: Q 4:166; 41:53; 58:6. Genesis 31:50
The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture: Strong. Genesis 31:50
In the universe: ESA Planck: the oldest light
In nature: Frozen Planet II: ice
In people: Witnesses who told the truth at cost
In science: Glaciology: ice cores; astronomy: light-travel time records the past

Living it

Be a truthful witness, (4:135)

Its kind

Capacity: a quality we know a little of: hearing, knowing, seeing.

In the Qur'an: 4:79; 4:166; 22:17

Sources for this page

api.quran.com; sefaria.org Gen 31:50