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Name 19 of 99
العليم

The All-Knowing

Al-ʻAlīm

The scholar’s desk — a question carried sixty years.

Meaning

From ʻ-l-m, a root for the mark by which a thing is told apart; ʻilm is knowledge. ʻAlīm is the intensive: the One whose knowledge takes in everything — the hidden and the open, what has been and what is to come, and even what would be were it to happen. His knowledge was never learned and is never revised; it does not grow by discovery or thin by forgetting, and not a leaf falls but He knows it. Every creature’s knowing is only what He has taught. The Name often closes a verse beside another Name — the Wise, the Mighty, the All-Hearing — and borders Al-Khabīr, the All-Aware. It asks the servant to live as one who is known, to seek knowledge from Him, and, where his own knowing ends, to leave the choice to His.

Root ʻ-l-m — knowledge; from a root for the mark that tells a thing apart

Qurʼan 2:32, 6:59, 49:16, 6:28 and 65:12 are carried on the Qurʼan page. Computed from the Tanzil text, ʻalīm stands 161 times, 32 of them definite and all of those of Allah; the indefinite is said of creatures at 7:109, 7:112, 10:79, 26:34 and 26:37, of the magicians, at 12:55, of Yūsuf, and at 15:53 and 51:28, of the promised son, and 12:76 says that above every possessor of knowledge is one more knowing. ʻAllāmu l-ghuyūb stands four times (5:109, 5:116, 9:78, 34:48). Ibn Fāris: ʻ-l-m is a single sound root for a mark on a thing by which it is distinguished from others, as ʻalāmah, a sign, and ʻalam, a banner or a mountain. Aṭ-Ṭabarī on 2:32: the angels turn back to Him, yield to Him the knowledge of what they did not know, and disclaim that they or anyone knows anything but what He taught; Ibn Kathīr: they declare Him above anyone’s encompassing any of His knowledge except as He wills, and al-ʻAlīm is the Knower of all things. On 6:59 Ibn Kathīr gives al-Bukhārī 4627, the keys of the unseen are five, with 31:34. On 49:16 aṭ-Ṭabarī: said to the Bedouins who said we believe while faith had not entered their hearts. On 6:28 aṭ-Ṭabarī: were they returned to the world and given respite, they would go back to the denial they practised. On 65:12 aṭ-Ṭabarī: not an atom’s weight in the earth or the heaven escapes Him. The five keys are given as the Prophet’s ﷺ words at al-Bukhārī 4697, and the istikhārah, al-Bukhārī 1166, sets You know against I do not know.

Story

Master Bahram had spent seventy years in study. He had read every book in the great library and written a shelf of his own; students came from distant cities simply to sit at his feet. His eyes had failed in the last year; students read to him now.

Every answer he had found had opened ten new questions. Every horizon he reached only showed him a farther one behind it. He had measured stars he would never visit and traced the roots of words spoken by people long since turned to dust — and still the world brimmed with things no scholar would ever hold: what passes in a stranger’s heart, what tomorrow keeps hidden, the countless small truths that come and go unnoticed by anyone who writes things down.

There was one question he had carried for sixty years — about a line in a manuscript he had seen once as a young man, in a city he could no longer travel to — which he had never been able to settle. Every few years he asked after it. Somebody would write, and it would come to nothing. At the end he mentioned it to no one. It was simply one of the things he was going to have to put down.

A letter came eleven months after he died, from a librarian in that city, answering the question. It was two lines long. His daughter read it twice and could not tell from it whether the answer would have pleased him or not. She folded it into the book where he had kept the query, and the book went to the library with the rest of them.

Poem

A single black ant on a stone that is also black,
crossing it in the middle of a moonless night,
inside a cave no one has ever entered.

No lamp reaches it. No creature’s eye is anywhere near.
By any creature’s reckoning, this is the least witnessed moment
that has ever happened, or ever will.

And it is known.

Not guessed at. Not inferred from other evidence. Not likely.
Known — and not the way you know your own name,
by having learned it once and kept it,
but without ever having had to learn it, in the dark, without needing the light.

This is what “all” means, taken all the way to its edge:
not most things, not the important things,
not the things worth the trouble of attention —
the ant, the stone, the cave, the dark, all of it,
held in the knowing of Al-ʻAlīm,
a knowing that never had to find it
because it was never once without it.

Reflection

Never a Question to Him

The more anyone actually learns, the smaller their share of what can be known turns out to be. This is not a failure of study. It is what study eventually reveals, if you do it long enough and honestly enough.

Al-ʻAlīm is not a larger version of your own knowing. His is the whole of what can be known, all at once, without the delay of learning it — the atom’s weight and the width of the universe, what happened and what will, what you meant and what you only pretended to mean, held in a single, total, unstruggling awareness. And your own knowing is not a second source. When the angels were asked, they said they had no knowledge except what He had taught them — the position of everyone who has known anything since, including the ones who worked it out for themselves. There is no question you have ever carried for sixty years that was ever a question to Him.

This should not discourage the asking. It should relocate where the comfort actually lives. You will die with questions unanswered — everyone does, no matter how long they study or how carefully. A few will be answered anyway, later, by someone who never knew you were asking, arriving after you are no longer there to read them. Most will simply already be known, fully, without delay or gap, by the One who was never waiting on a letter to arrive.

His knowing is not confined to what has happened. The Qurʼan reports what those sent back would do if they were sent back — they would return to the very thing they were forbidden — and it reports this about people who are never sent back at all. The road you did not take is not a blank to Him; it is walked in full, with everything it would have cost you. Which quietly disarms the question that keeps most people awake at three in the morning — not what you failed to learn, but what your life would have been had you chosen the other thing. It is known. It is simply not going to be known by you, and that was never a gap in the record.

So keep studying. And when you reach a fork your studying cannot settle, do what the Prophet ﷺ taught for exactly that moment: lean the choice on His knowledge — You know and I do not know, the istikhārah says — and walk. Keep carrying the sixty-year question if you must. Just do not mistake your growing knowledge for closing the distance; it does not close, and was never going to. What quiets it is different: you are, at every moment, already fully known — in a way you will never manage to know yourself.

You will spend your life approaching the edge of what can be known. You were never outside it to begin with.

Every dark you have ever studied was, to Him, lit the whole time.

Qurʼan

وَعِندَهُ مَفَاتِحُ الْغَيْبِ لَا يَعْلَمُهَا إِلَّا هُوَ ۚ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ ۚ وَمَا تَسْقُطُ مِن وَرَقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعْلَمُهَا وَلَا حَبَّةٍ فِي ظُلُمَاتِ الْأَرْضِ وَلَا رَطْبٍ وَلَا يَابِسٍ إِلَّا فِي كِتَابٍ مُّبِينٍ

With Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them but He. He knows what is in the land and the sea. Not a leaf falls but He knows it, nor a grain in the darknesses of the earth, nor anything moist or dry, but it is in a clear record.

6:59 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Ibn Kathīr opens the verse with al-Bukhārī 4627: the keys of the unseen are five, which the Prophet ﷺ gives in the words of 31:34. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: with Allah are the keys of the unseen, which none knows but He. The verse goes on to the land and the sea, the falling leaf, the grain in the darkness of the earth, and everything moist or dry, all in a clear record.

قَالُوا سُبْحَانَكَ لَا عِلْمَ لَنَا إِلَّا مَا عَلَّمْتَنَا ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ

They said: Glory be to You — we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Truly You are the All-Knowing, the Wise.

2:32 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The angels’ answer when they could not give the names (2:31). Aṭ-Ṭabarī: they turn back to Him, yield to Him the knowledge of what they did not know, and disclaim that they or anyone knows anything but what He taught. Ibn Kathīr: a declaration that no one encompasses any of His knowledge except as He wills; al-ʻAlīm, the Knower of all things, al-Ḥakīm in His creating and His command.

قُلْ أَتُعَلِّمُونَ اللَّهَ بِدِينِكُمْ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ وَاللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ

Say: Would you inform Allah of your religion, when Allah knows whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth? And Allah is Knowing of all things.

49:16 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Aṭ-Ṭabarī: said to the Bedouins who said we believe (49:14) while faith had not yet entered their hearts — would you inform Allah of your obedience to your Lord, when He knows what is in the heavens and in the earth?

بَلْ بَدَا لَهُم مَّا كَانُوا يُخْفُونَ مِن قَبْلُ ۖ وَلَوْ رُدُّوا لَعَادُوا لِمَا نُهُوا عَنْهُ وَإِنَّهُمْ لَكَاذِبُونَ

But no — what they used to conceal has become clear to them. And even if they were sent back, they would return to the very thing they were forbidden; and they are surely liars.

6:28 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Said of those halted before the Fire who wish to be sent back and not deny (6:27). Aṭ-Ṭabarī: if they were returned to the world and given respite, they would go back to the denial and disbelief they practised, and they lie in saying they would not deny. The verse states what would follow a return they only wish for.

لِتَعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ أَحَاطَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عِلْمًا

That you may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah encompasses all things in knowledge.

65:12 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The close of the verse on the seven heavens and the like of them of the earth. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: know that Allah encompasses in knowledge everything He created; not an atom’s weight in the earth or in the heaven escapes Him, nor anything smaller or greater, and He encompasses your deeds and counts them against you.

Dua

رَبَّنَا تَقَبَّلْ مِنَّا ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ

Our Lord, accept this from us — truly You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.

Qurʼan 2:127

Ibrāhīm and Ismāʻīl’s prayer as they raised the foundations of the House, closing on the Name beside As-Samīʻ; the same pairing closes the command to seek refuge at 41:36.

أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ السَّمِيعِ الْعَلِيمِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ مِنْ هَمْزِهِ وَنَفْخِهِ وَنَفْثِهِ

I seek refuge in Allah, the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing, from the accursed Shayṭān — from his prodding, his blowing and his spitting.

at-Tirmidhī 242 · ṣaḥīḥ (al-Albānī; Aḥmad Shākir); isnād ḥasan (Darussalam)

From Abū Saʻīd al-Khudrī: what the Prophet ﷺ said on standing for prayer at night, after the opening glorification. It names the Name itself. At-Tirmidhī calls it the best-known report on the matter, and adds that its chain has been criticised: Yaḥyā ibn Saʻīd spoke against ʻAlī ibn ʻAlī ar-Rifāʻī, and Aḥmad said the ḥadīth is not sound. Abū Dāwūd 775 carries it too, noting that it is said to come from ʻAlī ibn ʻAlī from al-Ḥasan without the Companion, the error being Jaʻfar’s; there Shuʻayb al-Arnaʼūṭ grades it ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrih. The graders divide, and it is not presented as settled.

اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْتَخِيرُكَ بِعِلْمِكَ وَأَسْتَقْدِرُكَ بِقُدْرَتِكَ وَأَسْأَلُكَ مِنْ فَضْلِكَ الْعَظِيمِ فَإِنَّكَ تَقْدِرُ وَلَا أَقْدِرُ وَتَعْلَمُ وَلَا أَعْلَمُ وَأَنْتَ عَلَّامُ الْغُيُوبِ

O Allah, I seek Your guidance by Your knowledge, and I seek Your decree by Your power, and I ask You of Your immense bounty — for You have power and I have none, and You know and I do not know, and You are the Knower of all that is hidden.

al-Bukhārī 1166 · ṣaḥīḥ

From Jābir ibn ʻAbdillāh: the Prophet ﷺ taught the istikhārah in all matters as he taught a sūrah of the Qurʼan. It asks by His knowledge, calls Him ʻallāmu l-ghuyūb, the Knower of all hidden things, and sets You know against I do not know. Al-Bukhārī gives it again at 6382 and 7390.

اللَّهُمَّ بِعِلْمِكَ الْغَيْبَ وَقُدْرَتِكَ عَلَى الْخَلْقِ أَحْيِنِي مَا عَلِمْتَ الْحَيَاةَ خَيْرًا لِي وَتَوَفَّنِي إِذَا عَلِمْتَ الْوَفَاةَ خَيْرًا لِي

O Allah, by Your knowledge of the unseen and Your power over creation, keep me alive so long as You know life to be better for me, and take me in death when You know death to be better for me.

an-Nasāʼī 1305 · ṣaḥīḥ (al-Albānī; Abū Ghuddah); isnād ḥasan (Darussalam)

From as-Sāʼib, father of ʻAṭāʼ: ʻAmmār ibn Yāsir kept a prayer brief and said he had used in it supplications he heard from the Prophet ﷺ; this is their opening. It asks by His knowledge of the unseen to live while He knows life to be better and to die when He knows death to be better, where al-Bukhārī 5671 and Muslim 2680a, at Name 61, say so long as life is better for me. An-Nasāʼī 1306 gives it from ʻAmmār by another route, through Qays ibn ʻUbād, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī and Abū Ghuddah and ḥasan by Darussalam. The long supplication goes on to ask for fear of Him in private and in public, and for the sight of His face.

Hadith

مَفَاتِيحُ الْغَيْبِ خَمْسٌ لَا يَعْلَمُهَا إِلَّا اللَّهُ لَا يَعْلَمُ مَا فِي غَدٍ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَا تَغِيضُ الْأَرْحَامُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَتَى يَأْتِي الْمَطَرُ أَحَدٌ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَلَا تَدْرِي نَفْسٌ بِأَيِّ أَرْضٍ تَمُوتُ وَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَتَى تَقُومُ السَّاعَةُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ

The keys of the unseen are five, which none knows but Allah: none knows what is in tomorrow but Allah; none knows what the wombs fall short of but Allah; none knows when the rain will come but Allah; no soul knows in what land it will die; and none knows when the Hour will come but Allah.

al-Bukhārī 4697 · ṣaḥīḥ

From Ibn ʻUmar. Al-Bukhārī gives the report through ʻAbdullāh ibn Dīnār again at 1039, with the singular key, what is in the wombs, what a soul will earn tomorrow, and no mention of the Hour, and at 7379 with the clauses in another order; at 4627, through Sālim, the five are given in the words of 31:34. What the wombs fall short of is the wording of 13:8.

Study Notes

Verified — directly attested

ShowHide the Study Notes (1,419 words)

CARRIED ON THIS PAGE: FIVE ayat. 6:59, with Ibn Kathīr and aṭ-Ṭabarī, carried at this Name only; 2:32, SHARED WITH NAME 46, with aṭ-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr; 49:16, with aṭ-Ṭabarī; 6:28, SHARED WITH NAME 59, with aṭ-Ṭabarī; and, ADDED, 65:12, the closing clause, with aṭ-Ṭabarī — the other two at this Name only (corrected in build 150). It is appended, sub-items 0 to 3 keep their positions, and the distinct Qurʼan-page verse count in Notes on This Edition moves from 349 to 350.

NAMED HERE BUT NOT CARRIED ON THIS PAGE: 31:34, carried at Name 31; 34:26, carried at Name 18; 12:76, carried at Name 23 and Name 58; 2:31, 6:27, 49:14, 13:8, 41:36, 7:109, 7:112, 10:79, 26:34, 26:37, 15:53, 51:28, 5:109, 5:116, 9:78 and 34:48, all carried at NO Name’s Qurʼan page; 12:55, carried at Name 38; 2:127, carried at NO Name, standing on this Name’s supplication page and on Name 26’s.

CORRECTED ON THE RECORD, THE COUNTS: the entry gave none beyond calling the Name among the most frequent; computed from the Tanzil text, ʻalīm stands 161 times, 32 definite and all of Allah, the indefinite said of creatures at seven verses; ʻallāmu l-ghuyūb four times.

CORRECTED, THE ROOT: the gloss had glossBasis desc; Ibn Fāris, read on the islamweb transcription, gives the root as a distinguishing mark, and the gloss now follows him with glossBasis ref, with a senseNote.

CORRECTED, THE DESC: its promise that trust in the Name frees the believer from fear of being misunderstood or wronged is removed, as are its no whisper escapes His perception, which belongs to hearing, and the note about the Opener; it now gives the root, the scope of His knowledge including what would be, the neighbouring Name 31, and what the Name asks.

THE REF: its reading of 2:32 as every knower’s knowledge being on loan had no source; the ref now gives the counts, Ibn Fāris, aṭ-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr. The numbering remark on the istikhārah is removed from the ref: al-Bukhārī 1166 is sunnah.com’s number, confirmed there; other editions number it 1162, and the earlier claim of 1109 could not be confirmed.

CORRECTED, THE QURʼAN NOTES: 6:59’s note pointed to the poem, a production remark; 2:32’s and 49:16’s carried unsourced readings, 49:16’s calling the verse a form of speech the Name makes structurally impossible; all now give the commentators. FOUR duʻāʼ.

ADDED FIRST: Qurʼan 2:127, SHARED WITH NAME 26, with reciprocal SHARED_LOCI entries, the Name itself in a prayer; and at-Tirmidhī 242, the refuge in Allah the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing, with at-Tirmidhī’s report of criticism of its chain, Abū Dāwūd 775’s remark and Shuʻayb al-Arnaʼūṭ’s grade there, SHARED WITH NAME 26 (corrected in build 150). al-Bukhārī 1166, the istikhārah, SHARED WITH NAME 69 exactly and WITH NAMES 71 AND 72 as other portions (Name 69 named in build 150), with source and grade unchanged and identical at all four; it moves from sub-item 0 to 2, and SHARED_LOCI is remapped. Its note carried the numbering discussion and process remarks, now removed. an-Nasāʼī 1305, carried at this Name only, CORRECTED: a Prophetic duʻāʼ, it had no grade key and its note said ḥasan per Darussalam; the dataset records ṣaḥīḥ from al-Albānī and isnād ḥasan from Darussalam, now the grade; the chain and chapter recital are removed from the note, and an-Nasāʼī 1306, by another route, is added. ONE tracked ḥadīth, SHARED WITH NAME 76.

CORRECTED ON THE RECORD, THE SOURCE: it was cited as al-Bukhārī 1039, but its Arabic was a blend — 1039 reads miftāḥ in the singular, has what is in the wombs and what a soul will earn tomorrow, and does not mention the Hour. The quoted wording, with what the wombs fall short of and the Hour, is al-Bukhārī 4697, which is now quoted exactly, without the colon it had, and cited; Name 76’s source, ref and Study Note are changed identically, and its quoted opening clause matches 4697. The note, which called the report a scholar’s whole horizon, now gives the variants at 1039, 7379 and 4627.

MEDS 19: the tradition and the old prayer become the Prophet ﷺ and the istikhārah.

POEMS 19: no eye, human or otherwise, and the most unwitnessed moment, could deny His seeing, and now speak of creatures; known the way you know your own name likened His knowing to a creature’s learned knowing, which the reflection itself denies, and now says it is not that way; a knowing that never had to look twice spoke of knowing as looking and now speaks of never having been without it.

CH 19: truths seen by no eye at all and unrecorded contradicted 6:59’s clear record; they are now unnoticed by anyone who writes things down.

OPEN: al-Bukhārī 3401 and 4725, al-Khiḍr’s likeness of the sparrow’s beak and the sea, were considered for the ḥadīth page; no commentator’s explanation of the word naqaṣa was read in this pass, so it is not added.

AUDIT: the ref’s citation of al-Bukhārī 4697 no longer opens a sentence with a capitalised collection name, which the ref-prose linker matches only in lower case. 6:28 is also carried at Name 59, which reads it for the verb of return, and the two are linked in SHARED_LOCI. AFTER THE CHAT-END AUDIT OF 81–85: the grade field of an-Nasāʼī 1305 now gives every grader in the dataset’s rows, each attributed to its record (the grade survey). AFTER THE 1–40 HYGIENE READING: the named line segment for 2:127 said it stands on this Name’s supplication page and at Name 26, which the named line cannot read; it now says carried at NO Name, standing on this Name’s supplication page and on Name 26’s, since the duʻāʼ layer is not counted. The root was recounted on the pointed Tanzil text, and it is the book’s largest: 1,432 candidates, 578 struck as other words and read by class, of which the preposition ʻalā with a pronoun is 391 and laʻalla with a pronoun 112, leaving 854 words of this root. ʻAlīm stands 161 times with 32 definite, as this entry says, and the thirty-two were read one by one in their verses and every one of them is of Allah. ʻAllāmu l-ghuyūb stands four times at 5:109 and 5:116 and 9:78 and 34:48. One claim was found incomplete and is widened rather than narrowed: the entry listed the indefinite said of the magicians at 7:109, 7:112, 26:34 and 26:37, and the word standing before every one of the 129 indefinite occurrences shows a fifth, 10:79, where Pharaoh says bring me every learned magician, the same demand the other two sūrahs give. The ref now carries 10:79 and the named line carries it with them, since a verse number written into a ref joins this line; it is carried at NO Name, so the segment’s claim stands. AFTER THE ḤADĪTH READING: al-Bukhārī 3401 and 4725, the two recensions of the report of Mūsā and al-Khiḍr, were read at the sparrow. They differ in the very word the item above turns on. At 3401, through Sufyān from ʻAmr ibn Dīnār from Saʻīd ibn Jubayr from Ibn ʻAbbās from Ubayy ibn Kaʻb, al-Khiḍr says: O Mūsā, my knowledge and your knowledge have not diminished of the knowledge of Allah except as much as this sparrow has diminished of the sea with its beak — the verb standing twice, once of the two knowledges and once of the bird. At 4725, by the same chain through al-Ḥumaydī, he says: my knowledge and your knowledge are not, beside the knowledge of Allah, except as much as this sparrow has diminished of this sea — the verb once only, of the bird, with no verb said of the knowledges and no mention of the beak. So the wording that makes knowledge itself the thing diminished belongs to 3401 and not to 4725. The item stands otherwise as it was: no commentator’s explanation of the word was read, and neither record is added to the page.

IN BUILD 150, FROM THE PHASE 2 READING: the carried line above is corrected in place, 6:28 standing at Name 59 as well, linked, as the audit record above says; so is the duʻāʼ record, at-Tirmidhī 242 standing on Name 26’s supplication page too, with the same Arabic, English, source and grade, linked. The share line for al-Bukhārī 1166 names Name 69, which carries the istikhārah exactly, source and grade identical at all four Names. The note on an-Nasāʼī 1305 gives an-Nasāʼī 1306 its third grader, Abū Ghuddah, ṣaḥīḥ.

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