al-Ḥaqq

The Truth; the Real

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Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 22:6.

Heard together with: al-Ḥaqq / al-Mubīn (24:25)

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

Reverse ladder: every created thing has a borrowed reality. Human claims to truth are revised (science corrects itself; courts overturn verdicts).

But: Our knowledge of what is real depends on senses, instruments and time.

Episode 2

In nature

Animals live by true signals and are fooled by false ones (mimicry: hoverflies wearing wasp colours).

Episode 3

At our best

Since 20 May 2019 the SI fixes seven defining constants as exact numbers (e.g. c = 299,792,458 m/s; h = 6.626 070 15 × 10⁻³⁴ J s).

But: We fixed the numbers by agreement; we did not make the constants. We describe what is; we do not make it so.

Episode 4

The Break

Take away being caused, being revisable, depending on an observer, ceasing.

Not the truest thing we have found, but the Real that every true thing borrows from.

Read: 22:6; 22:62; 24:25.

From the tradition: Prophetic: 'You are the Truth, and Your promise is the truth' (tahajjud prayer, Bukhari 1120). Labīd's verse 'Everything except Allah is perishable (bāṭil)' called 'the truest words said by a poet' (Bukhari 3841, 6489). Ghazālī: al-Ḥaqq is what exists by itself, all else exists by Him.

On screen

The Matrix asks whether the world is real. al-Ḥaqq answers a deeper question: what makes anything real at all.

Where it shows up

In scripture: Q 10:32; 22:6; 22:62; 24:25; Jer 10:10; Deut 32:4.
The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture: Jeremiah 10:10 'the ETERNAL is truly God, a living God'; Deut 32:4 'a faithful God, never false'; John 14:6 (Christian claim about Christ; state it as theirs). Strong.
In the universe: ESA Planck's measured contents of the universe (4.9% ordinary matter): most of what is real is not what we see.
In nature: : 'What Actually Expands in an Expanding Universe?' (Veritasium) as a 'what is real?' explainer.
In people: Wrongful convictions overturned on new evidence: human truth-finding is honest but revisable.
In science: Physics: the defining constants (c, h, e, k, N_A); the 2019 SI redefinition (kilogram now defined via h).