Is anything perfectly clean?

الْقُدُّوسُ

al-Quddūs · The Utterly Pure and Holy

Fill a glass with water from the tap and hold it up to the window. It looks perfectly clear. Is it perfectly clean?

Not quite. Even the cleanest tap water has tiny things in it that you cannot see. There are little bits of minerals from the rocks it ran through, and a few bubbles of air. They are good for you, but they are there.

Now look at a snowflake on a dark glove, before it melts. It is beautiful. Six arms, like a tiny star.

A snowflake begins high up in a cloud, as a speck of dust. Water freezes onto it, and the ice grows into six arms. As it falls, it tumbles through warm air and cold air, wet air and dry air. Each change makes the arms grow a different way. That is why no two snowflakes are exactly the same.

But if you look through a microscope, you will see something else. Every snowflake has little bumps and wonky bits. A dent here. A broken tip there. Every one is lovely, and not one is perfect.

The same is true of everything. The shiniest apple has a tiny mark somewhere. The best football player sometimes misses. The kindest person sometimes gets cross. Even the Sun has dark spots on it.

Muslims believe there is One who is not like this at all. His Name is al-Quddūs. It means the Utterly Pure and Holy. Not just very clean, like a washed plate. Not just very good, like your best day. Al-Quddūs means there is nothing wrong in Him at all. No mark, no dent, no mistake.

That is one reason Muslims never draw pictures of God. Any picture would be of something, and every something has marks and limits. Al-Quddūs is not like anything we could draw.

When Muslims go into a mosque, they take off their shoes and wash first. Many Jews and Christians take off their shoes, or wash, or cover their heads before they pray too. It is a way of saying: this is a special, holy moment.

In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Isaiah (peace be upon him) heard angels calling to each other. They said: “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory.” Jews still say these words in their prayers today, standing on tiptoe. Christians sing them in church too, in a hymn called the Sanctus.

So next time it snows, catch a snowflake on your sleeve. Look at its six arms. Notice how beautiful it is, and how it is not quite perfect. Then think of the One who is.

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