A beetle the size of your fingernail, Onthophagus taurus, has been measured pulling 1,141 times its own body weight. For a person, that would be like dragging six double-decker buses.
We love strength: the weightlifter, the rescue crew, the force that holds atoms together. al-Qawiyy, the All-Strong, is not the top of that list. It is the reason there is a list at all.
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
The heaviest deadlift on record was lifted by the Icelandic strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson in May 2020: 501 kilograms, about the weight of a grand piano and a half. It took years of training, a huge diet and perfect timing, and he held it for a moment. Human muscle at full effort tires within seconds, because the fuel inside each fibre runs down faster than blood can bring more. Strength also fades with age: most adults lose muscle mass steadily from their thirties onwards. Even our strongest strength is brief, fuelled from outside, and on loan.
Episode 2
In nature
In 2010 the biologists Rob Knell and Leigh Simmons tested the horned dung beetle Onthophagus taurus and found males could resist a pull of about 1,141 times their own body mass. It is often called the strongest animal on Earth for its size. That strength has a purpose: shoving rivals out of narrow tunnels under cowpats. It is useless for flying, swimming or anything else. Every strength in nature is shaped like this, for one task and one place, and each beetle lives only a season or so.
Episode 3
At our best
Physics knows four fundamental forces. CERN calls the strong force “the strongest of all four”: it binds quarks into protons and neutrons and holds the nucleus of every atom together against the push of electric charge. Without it there would be no atoms, no stars and no us. Yet the strong force works only across distances about the size of an atomic nucleus. Gravity, the weakest, reaches across the whole universe. Every force we know has a range, a carrier and a law it must obey.
Episode 4
The Break
Take away the body, the fuel, the training, the range, the law above it and the tiredness that always comes. Strength in creation is always strength for something, from somewhere, until something. al-Qawiyy's strength has no source outside Him and no edge where it stops. The beetle, the athlete and the strong force do not compete with Him; they borrow from Him. “God is All-Strong, Almighty” (Qur'an 22:74, our rendering).
From the tradition: 'Lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh', 'a treasure of Paradise' (Bukhari 7386, ). Ashʿarī: every created strength is created by Him at each moment.
On screen
Superman's strength comes from a yellow sun and fails near kryptonite. al-Qawiyy's strength comes from nothing outside Him.
The Companion Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī remembered a journey with the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Whenever the group climbed a hill, they shouted “Allāhu akbar”, God is greater, as loudly as they could.
The Prophet turned to them. Go easy on yourselves, he said. You are not calling on someone deaf or far away. You are calling on One who hears everything and sees everything, and He is with you.
Then he came over to Abū Mūsā, who was quietly repeating a phrase under his breath: lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh, “there is no power and no strength except through God”. The Prophet told him that these words are one of the treasures of Paradise. (Bukhari 6384)
The two halves of the story belong together. Shouting was not needed, because God is not distant. And the quiet sentence was precious because it is true: every bit of strength in the walkers' legs, in the camels, in the wind on the hill, came from al-Qawiyy. Muslims still say the phrase when a task feels too heavy, as a way of putting their own strength in its place.
What each faith says
Judaism
“Lift up your eyes on high, And see: who hath created these? He that bringeth out their host by number, He calleth them all by name; By the greatness of His might, and for that He is strong in power, Not one faileth.”
The Hebrew Bible often describes God as gibbor, mighty, and pictures that might in the night sky. Isaiah asks the reader to look up and count the stars, because the One who made them calls each by name, “by the greatness of His might”, and not one is missing.
The same chapter turns that power towards the weak: God “giveth power to the faint” (Isaiah 40:29). In Jewish prayer, the second blessing of the daily Amidah is called Gevurot, Powers, and praises God who “supports the falling and heals the sick”.
Christianity
“He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Christians call God Almighty in their creeds, and the New Testament encourages believers to “be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10).
The apostle Paul adds a turn that many Christians treasure. Writing about a weakness he had begged to be rid of, he reports God's answer: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” For Christians, God's strength is often seen most clearly where human strength runs out.
al-Qawiyy appears in the Qur'an many times, often with al-ʿAzīz, the Almighty. A verse about people who set up rivals to God says that one day they will see “that all strength belongs to God” (2:165). God is also “the Provider, the Lord of Strength, the Firm” (51:58), linking al-Qawiyy with al-Matīn.
Muslim theologians were careful not to picture God as a bigger version of physical force. The Ashʿarī school taught that every created strength is created by God moment by moment; the phrase lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh says the same in a sentence.
Same and different
All three traditions call God mighty and all three link that might with care for the weak. Judaism and Islam keep the focus on God's power over creation; Christianity adds the belief that God's power was shown in the weakness of the cross, which is distinctive to Christian faith.
A moment to reflect
What kind of strength do you admire most in other people?
Have you ever been helped most by someone who was not obviously strong?
If every strength is borrowed, how should we use ours?
Watch
Watch on YouTube ↗ · plays here on the live site; YouTube without tracking until you press play
Attenborough narrates the dung beetle's remarkable life, the creature behind this page's ladder.
Watch on YouTube ↗ · plays here on the live site; YouTube without tracking until you press play
A clear explainer of the strong nuclear force, the strongest of physics' four forces.
Do it together
schools / familiesBeetle maths
Weigh a child's school bag and multiply by 1,141. Look up what weighs that much (buses, whales, lorries). Then talk about why the beetle can do it and we cannot, and what our own strengths are for.
neighbours / faith groupsStrength in service
Invite someone from a local lifeboat, fire or first-aid team to talk about the strength their work needs and where they find it. Read Isaiah 40:29 and Qur'an 2:165 together afterwards.
Episode 1
