The 99 Names · Name 86 of 99 · Act
الْمُقْسِطُThe Equitable, who gives each their due
Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 3:18.
Heard together with: al-ʿAdl / al-Muqsiṭ
In 2003 two capuchin monkeys in a lab at Emory University were each paid for a simple task. One got a cucumber slice, the other a grape. When the first monkey saw its neighbour's grape, it threw its cucumber back at the researcher.
Even monkeys know when something is unfair. al-Muqsiṭ, the Equitable, names the One who gives every soul exactly its due.
Then take away everything it needs. What is left is not a bigger version of us. It is the Name.
Episode 1On top of the Old Bailey in London stands a gilded statue of Lady Justice by F. W. Pomeroy, holding a sword and a pair of scales. Unusually, she is not blindfolded. The court explains that her impartiality is meant to be part of who she is. It is a fine ideal. But real human justice has to work with missing evidence, human bias and witnesses who misremember, which is why there are appeals, retrials and reviews. Even our fairest courts are doing their best with partial knowledge.
Episode 2In the 2003 study published in Nature, Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal trained brown capuchin monkeys to swap a small token for food. When both received cucumber, they were content. When one saw its partner get a grape for the same work, it often refused its cucumber or threw it away. It suggests that a sense of fairness runs deep in social animals. But notice whose fairness it is: the monkey protests when it gets less. It rarely protests when it gets more.
Episode 3Since 2019 the kilogram has been defined not by a lump of metal in Paris but by a constant of nature, the Planck constant, measured with instruments such as the Kibble balance, which weighs mass against electromagnetic force. In 2017 the NIST-4 Kibble balance measured the Planck constant to within 13 parts per billion. It is one of the fairest scales humans have ever built. But even it carries an uncertainty, and it can weigh only what can be put on it.
Episode 4Take away bias, missing evidence, self-interest and the uncertainty in the last decimal place. Every scale we know is fair only as far as it can see. al-Muqsiṭ weighs what no scale can reach: intentions, hidden kindnesses, wrongs done in secret, down to the smallest grain. The Qur'an promises this as a comfort to the wronged: “We shall set up scales of justice for the Day of Resurrection, and no soul will be wronged in the least; even the weight of a mustard seed, We will bring it out” (Qur'an 21:47, our rendering).
From the tradition: Muslim 2577 (qudsi): 'I have forbidden oppression for Myself' (API 6572). Ps 9:9 'judges the world with righteousness'.
On screen
Thanos's balance is arithmetic: half of everyone. al-Muqsiṭ's justice is personal: each one's due, to an atom's weight.
The Companion al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr told this story from the pulpit when he was grown up.
When he was a boy, his father gave him a gift. His mother, ʿAmra bint Rawāḥa, said she would not accept it unless the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was asked to witness it. So his father went to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: I have given a gift to my son by ʿAmra, and she has told me to ask you to be a witness.
The Prophet asked him: have you given the same to all your children?
No, said the father.
Then the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: fear God, and be fair between your children. (Bukhari 2587)
The father went home and took the gift back.
The story is loved because it brings justice down to a family kitchen. It was not a court case or a crime. It was a father's kindness to one child that would have been unfair to the others. The Prophet would not lend his name to it. Muslims are taught that God's justice, al-Muqsiṭ, is meant to show up in the smallest everyday choices: who gets what, and who is left out.
“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
Leviticus 19:35-36 · JPS 1917
The Torah demands honest scales: “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights... shall ye have.” Weights and measures were a matter of holiness, not just business.
The Psalms promise that God “will judge the world in righteousness, He will minister judgment to the peoples with equity” (Psalm 9:9). The prophet Amos condemned those who cheated the poor with false scales (Amos 8:5).
“For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.”
Matthew 7:2 · WEB
Jesus (peace be upon him) warned that the measure we use for others will be used for us. Christians believe God judges with perfect fairness and also with mercy.
Christian charities such as Christian Aid and CAFOD were among the groups that founded the UK's Fairtrade Foundation in 1992, drawing on Christian teaching about justice for the poor.
“Whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it.”
Qur'an 99:7 · our rendering
The Qur'an does not use al-Muqsiṭ as a Name of God word for word, but it says God loves the muqsiṭīn, those who act justly (5:42), and that He is “upholding justice” (3:18). It ties the scales of the sky to the scales of the market: “He raised the heaven and set the balance, so that you do not transgress in the balance” (55:7-8).
A hadith promises that the just will be seated on pulpits of light at the right hand of the Most Merciful (Muslim 1827), and a hadith qudsi says: “I have forbidden injustice for Myself, and made it forbidden among you” (Muslim 2577).
Leviticus' just weights, Matthew's measure and the Qur'an's balance all tie God's justice to honest dealing between people. All three teach that God sees what courts cannot. They describe the place of mercy in judgement in their own ways, Christians especially through Christ.
A moment to reflect
Frans de Waal's famous clip of the capuchin monkeys and the grape.
NIST explains how the kilogram is now measured with a Kibble balance.
Give a group a bag of mixed sweets and ask them to share it fairly. Talk about what 'fair' means: equal, by need, by effort? Read the story of al-Nuʿmān and Leviticus 19:35-36.
Run a fair-trade stall after Friday prayers, a Sabbath kiddush or Sunday service, and share where the products come from. Invite all three communities to take part.
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
bipm.org; hadith-api eng-muslim 6572; motionpictures.org
