Heard together with: al-Wakīl / al-Kāfī (not on list)
On 21 July 2023 a mission controller at NASA sent Voyager 2 a routine command. It was wrong by two degrees. The spacecraft, nearly 20 billion kilometres away, turned its antenna slightly from Earth and went silent.
For two weeks the most distant working machine of its kind could not hear us. What do you do when something you depend on is out of reach? The Name al-Wakīl, the Trustee, is about the One to whom we can hand our affairs and who never drops the signal.
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
We hand our affairs to other people all the time. A parent chooses a guardian for their children in a will. An older person signs a lasting power of attorney so that someone they trust can manage their money if they no longer can; in England and Wales hundreds of thousands are registered every year with the Office of the Public Guardian. It is an act of trust and love. But every human trustee can fall ill, move away, misjudge, forget or, sadly, be dishonest. That is why the law adds records, checks and supervision. We trust, and we have to watch the people we trust.
Episode 2
In nature
A newly hatched songbird is almost entirely dependent. It cannot feed itself, keep itself warm or escape a predator. Its parents may make hundreds of feeding trips a day. Blue tits can lay up to 16 eggs in a single clutch, timed to the few weeks when caterpillars are most plentiful, and then feed the whole brood from dawn to dusk. The chick opens its mouth and waits, and its whole life rests on the parents coming back. If they are taken by a hawk or a cat, it will almost always die. Nature is full of this kind of trust, given completely to a carer who can disappear.
Episode 3
At our best
NASA's Deep Space Network, with giant dishes in California, Spain and Australia, keeps contact with spacecraft across the solar system. When Voyager 2 lost contact in 2023, the 70-metre dish at Canberra sent the most powerful signal it could, a 'shout', timed to arrive as the craft's position allowed. It worked: on 4 August 2023 data began flowing again. It is a triumph of patience and engineering. But one mis-sent command cut the link for two weeks, and every message took about 18.5 hours to travel each way.
Episode 4
The Break
Take away the trustee who can fall ill or die, the carer who might not come back, the signal that can be lost by two degrees and the message that takes a day to arrive. What is left is not a better guardian but a different kind: One who is never absent, never asleep, never mistaken, and never out of reach. al-Wakīl does not need to be contacted across a distance. “Sufficient for us is God, and how excellent a Trustee He is” (Qur'an 3:173, our rendering).
From the tradition: Prophetic balance: 'Tie it and rely (upon Allah)' (Tirmidhi 2517, graded ḥasan). Ghazālī: the true wakīl is the one to whom affairs are entrusted and who is fully adequate to them.
Psalm 55:23 (Eng 55:22) 'Cast your burden on GOD and you will be sustained'; 1 Peter 5:7 'casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you'. Moderate.
In the universe
Voyager 2 lost and regained (JPL, Aug 2023).
In nature
Migration card (BBC Earth 'Earth's Greatest Animal Migrations', 2026): animals entrusting themselves to a route they cannot see.
In people
'Ḥasbunā Allāh wa niʿma l-wakīl': said, the Qur'an reports, by believers told an army had gathered against them (3:173).
In science
Systems engineering: redundancy and single points of failure.
Living it
Trust after effort: tie the camel, then rely.
Its kind
Act: something done: mercy shown, provision given, a prayer answered.
A man once came to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) with a question about his camel. He had come to see the Prophet (peace be upon him) and was about to leave the animal at the door. Should he tie her up and trust in God, he asked, or leave her loose and trust in God?
The answer was short and has been repeated by Muslims ever since: “Tie her, and trust.” (Tirmidhi 2517, graded ḥasan)
The story is loved because it refuses two easy mistakes. One is to think that trusting God means doing nothing, leaving the camel loose and blaming God if she wanders. The other is to think that tying the rope is all that matters, as if we hold everything in our own hands. The Prophet asked for both: the rope and the trust.
The Qur'an tells a bigger version of the same lesson. When some early Muslims were told that a great army had gathered against them, they did not run away and they did not boast. They said, “Sufficient for us is God, and how excellent a Trustee He is” (3:173). Ibn ʿAbbās reported that the same words were spoken by Abraham (peace be upon him) when he was thrown into the fire (Bukhari 4563). They had done what they could. The rest they handed over.
What each faith says
Judaism
“Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and He will sustain thee”
The Psalms are full of the language of handing over. “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and He will sustain thee” says Psalm 55. The Hebrew idea of bitachon, trust, is close to the Arabic tawakkul. Jewish teachers have long insisted, like the camel story, that trust does not cancel effort: the medieval thinker Baḥya ibn Paquda wrote a whole chapter on trust in his Duties of the Heart, arguing that a person should work with their hands while their heart rests on God.
Many Jews say a short line at night from Psalm 31: “Into Thy hand I commit my spirit.”
Christianity
“casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.”
Jesus (peace be upon him) told his followers not to be anxious about tomorrow, pointing to the birds who are fed and the flowers who are clothed. The first letter of Peter puts the same thought in one line: hand over your worries, because God cares for you.
Christian writers have also warned against using trust as an excuse for idleness. The old monastic motto ora et labora, pray and work, keeps the two together, much as “tie it, and trust” does.
Islam
“And whoever puts his trust in God, He is enough for him. God carries His purpose through; God has set a measure for everything.”
The Qur'an calls God al-Wakīl many times and tells believers to take Him as their Trustee: “Lord of the East and the West; there is no god but He, so take Him as your Trustee” (73:9). Another verse promises: “Whoever puts his trust in God, He is enough for him” (65:3).
al-Ghazālī described the true wakīl as the One to whom matters are entrusted and who is fully adequate to them. People can be wakīl for each other in a small way, as when a friend handles your affairs, but only God is enough for everything.
Same and different
Jews, Christians and Muslims all teach that God can be trusted with what we cannot carry, and all three insist that trust goes with effort, not instead of it. They differ in emphasis and language more than in substance: bitachon, faith in Providence, and tawakkul are close cousins. Christians also speak of trust in Christ in particular, which is distinctive to them.
A moment to reflect
Who do you trust with things that really matter to you? What makes them trustworthy?
Where is the line between doing your part and worrying about everything?
What would it feel like to put something down that you have been carrying alone?
Watch
Watch on YouTube ↗ · plays here on the live site; YouTube without tracking until you press play
NASA explains how its giant dishes keep in touch with spacecraft billions of kilometres away.
Watch on YouTube ↗ · plays here on the live site; YouTube without tracking until you press play
Engineers from JPL talk through the Deep Space Network, the lifeline behind Voyager's rescue.
Do it together
families / schoolsTie it and trust
Give each child a toy boat and a length of string. Practise tying a proper knot to a chair leg. Talk about what you can do (tie the knot) and what you cannot (stop the wind), and read Tirmidhi 2517 together.
faith groups / neighboursThe worry jar
Everyone writes one worry anonymously and puts it in a jar. Read some out, and as a group list one practical step for each and one thing that has to be let go. Close with Psalm 55:23, 1 Peter 5:7 and Qur'an 65:3.
Episode 1
