The 99 Names · Name 74 of 99 · Capacity
الْآخِرُThe Last, who remains after all
Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 57:3.
Heard together with: al-Awwal / al-Ākhir / aẓ-Ẓāhir / al-Bāṭin
High in the White Mountains of California grows a bristlecone pine called Methuselah. It sprouted more than 4,800 years ago, before the Great Pyramid was finished. Its exact location is kept secret to protect it.
Even it will die one day. al-Ākhir, the Last, is the One who remains when everything else has come to its end.
Then take away everything it needs. What is left is not a bigger version of us. It is the Name.
Episode 1Every human story has a last page. On the Isle of Man, Ned Maddrell died in 1974; he was widely remembered as the last person to have grown up speaking Manx as a first language. Today the language has been revived, and children learn it at school, but his own voice ended with him. Each of us has a last word, a last day, a last breath. We try to outlast ourselves through children, books, buildings and names on stones. Our legacies are real, and they too have an end.
Episode 2The Great Basin bristlecone pine is one of the oldest living things on Earth. The tree known as Methuselah was dated by counting its rings at more than 4,800 years old. Bristlecones survive by growing very slowly in harsh, dry mountains, letting parts of themselves die back so that a thin strip of living bark keeps the rest alive. They are astonishing survivors. But they are not for ever. Fire, drought or a changing climate will eventually end even the oldest tree. Nature knows long lives, never endless ones.
Episode 3Physicists at Super-Kamiokande in Japan watch 50,000 tonnes of ultra-pure water deep underground, waiting to see a single proton decay. They have never seen one. In 2020 they reported that the proton's lifetime, for the most studied type of decay, must be more than 2.4 × 10³⁴ years: about a million million million million times the age of the universe. The proton may be the longest-lasting thing we know. Whether even it lasts for ever is an open question in physics.
Episode 4Take away decay, ending, a last moment, and the question of what comes after. Everything we know is waiting for its last page, even the proton. al-Ākhir is not the last survivor in a long race. He is not inside the race at all. The Prophet prayed before sleep: You are the Last, and there is nothing after You (Muslim 2713). “He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He has knowledge of all things” (Qur'an 57:3, our rendering).
From the tradition: Muslim 2713a 'Thou art the Last and there is naught after Thee'; Psalm 102:27–28 'They shall perish, but You shall endure… Your years never end'.
On screen
In Asimov's story a creature survives the end and becomes the beginning. al-Awwal and al-Ākhir are one Name-pair: He was First without being made.
Living it
End well; the last word is His.
When the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) died in Medina in 632, the news spread through the city like a shock. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, one of the strongest of the Companions, could not accept it. He stood in the mosque and said, by God, the Messenger of God has not died.
Abū Bakr had been away at his home on the edge of the city. He came, went in to where the Prophet (peace be upon him) lay, uncovered his face and kissed him. You were good in life and in death, he said.
Then he went out to the people. He told ʿUmar to sit down, praised God, and said: whoever worshipped Muhammad (peace be upon him), Muhammad has died. But whoever worshipped God, God is Ever-Living and does not die.
He recited a verse: “Muhammad (peace be upon him) is only a messenger; messengers have passed away before him. If he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels?” (Qur'an 3:144). People said it was as though they had never heard the verse until that moment. (Bukhari 3668)
At the hardest hour, the first friend of the Prophet (peace be upon him) pointed past the one they loved most, to the One who remains.
“Thus saith the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer the LORD of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last, And beside Me there is no God.”
Isaiah 44:6 · JPS 1917
Isaiah gives God's own words: “I am the first, and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God.” Psalm 102 contrasts the heavens and the earth, which will wear out like clothes, with God: “Thou art the selfsame, and Thy years shall have no end.”
The hymn Adon Olam, sung in many synagogues, says that after all things come to an end, God alone will reign.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Revelation 22:13 · WEB
The Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, uses the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Christians read this as said by God and also by Christ, in line with their belief in his divinity, which Jews and Muslims do not share. Many Christian prayers end with “world without end”.
“Everyone on it will pass away.”
Qur'an 55:26 · our rendering
al-Ākhir is paired with al-Awwal in the Qur'an's great verse of four Names (57:3). Another passage says: “Everyone on it will pass away, and there will remain the Face of your Lord, full of majesty and generosity” (55:26-27).
The Prophet's bedtime prayer names all four: You are the First, with nothing before You; the Last, with nothing after You; the Manifest, with nothing above You; the Hidden, with nothing beyond You (Muslim 2713).
Isaiah's “first and last”, Revelation's “Alpha and Omega” and the Qur'an's al-Awwal and al-Ākhir use almost the same words. All three faiths say God alone remains. Christians apply the title to Christ as well, which Jews and Muslims do not.
A moment to reflect
Kurzgesagt imagines the far future of the universe, to the last things that could ever happen.
Brian Cox on entropy and the long, slow end of the stars.
Find the oldest tree, building or gravestone in your area. Guess how old it is, then find out. Talk about what lasts and what does not, and read Psalm 102:26-28.
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
arxiv.org/abs/2010.16098; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question
