For fourteen hundred years, nobody on Earth could read Egyptian hieroglyphs. The last people who knew how had died, and the temples were covered in writing no one understood. Then, in September 1822, a young French scholar named Jean-François Champollion is said to have run into his brother's office shouting “I've got it” and fainted.
Al-Fattāḥ is the Opener: the One who opens what is shut, whether a door, a heart, a way forward or a fair judgement between people. Our three greatest openings each left a door still shut.
Start with what we know
Start with something 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 key was the Rosetta Stone, found by French soldiers in Egypt in 1799 and in the British Museum since 1802. It carries one decree from 196 BC in three scripts: hieroglyphs, a later Egyptian script called demotic, and ancient Greek, which scholars could read. Building on work by the English scientist Thomas Young, Champollion used the Greek and his knowledge of Coptic to unlock the hieroglyphs (British Museum). It opened three thousand years of history. But he needed the stone, the Greek and years of work, and other scripts, such as Linear A from Crete and the Indus script, are still locked.
Episode 2
In nature
In the 1960s, archaeologists digging at Masada, the desert fortress above the Dead Sea, found ancient date seeds. Forty years later, in 2005, researchers in Israel soaked one in water and growth hormones and planted it. It sprouted. Carbon dating showed the seed was about 2,000 years old: the oldest seed ever grown into a tree (Sallon and others, Science, 2008). The palm, nicknamed Methuselah, has since produced pollen and helped bring a lost Judean date back. But only a few seeds out of many ever opened, and only with help.
Episode 3
At our best
On 1 July 2023 the European Space Agency launched Euclid, a telescope built to map billions of galaxies across more than a third of the sky. Its goal is to open the greatest mystery in physics: dark matter and dark energy. Together they make up about 95 per cent of the universe but have never been seen directly (ESA). Its first images are breathtaking. Yet Euclid can map where the dark universe is by its pull on light; it cannot tell us what it is. Our best openings reveal the shape of a locked room.
Episode 4
The Break
Hand back the stone with its Greek, the growth hormone and the patient scientist, the telescope that can map but not explain. Every opening we know needs a key someone else made. Al-Fattāḥ is not a better locksmith. He is the One who opens what nothing else can, and whose opening no one can shut. “That which Allah openeth unto mankind of mercy none can withhold it; and that which He withholdeth none can release thereafter. He is the Mighty, the Wise.” (Qur'an 35:2, Pickthall).
For years the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) and his followers had been driven out of Mecca, their homes taken, some of their families killed. In January 630 he returned with ten thousand people. The Arabic name for that day is al-Fatḥ, ‘the Opening’.
There was almost no fighting. He rode in with his head bowed so low, the early historians say, that his beard nearly touched his saddle. He went to the Kaʿbah, the cube-shaped house of prayer at the heart of Mecca, and cleared it of its idols, reciting: “And say: Truth hath come and falsehood hath vanished away. Lo! falsehood is ever bound to vanish.” (17:81, Pickthall).
Then he turned to the people of Mecca, many of whom had fought him for twenty years. They waited to hear what he would do to them. He asked: “What do you think I will do with you?” They said: “Good. You are a noble brother, the son of a noble brother.”
He answered with the words of the prophet Joseph (peace be upon him) to the brothers who had once thrown him into a well: “No blame on you today” (12:92). And he added: “Go, you are free.”
The city opened without a massacre. For Muslims, al-Fattāḥ opened that day not only gates, but hearts.
What each faith says
Read:
Judaism
“The LORD will open unto thee His good treasure the heaven to give the rain of thy land in its season, and to bless all the work of thy hand”
The Hebrew Bible speaks of God opening: the womb of Rachel (Genesis 30:22), the eyes of Hagar to see a well, the heavens to give rain. Moses promises Israel that God will open His good storehouse, the sky.
At the close of Yom Kippur, as the sun sets, the final service is called Neʿilah, ‘the closing of the gates’. Its prayers ask God to open a gate for us as the gate is closing.
The Talmud says God keeps three keys in His own hand, given to no messenger: the keys of rain, of childbirth and of raising the dead (Taanit 2a). And every morning, one of the dawn blessings thanks God for opening the eyes of the blind.
Christianity
“He who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens”
Jesus promised: “Knock, and it will be opened for you” (Matthew 7:7). In the book of Revelation, Christ is described as the one who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shuts.
Christians speak of God opening hearts, as when Lydia, a cloth merchant in Philippi, listened to Paul and “the Lord opened her heart” (Acts 16:14).
In the last week of Advent, Catholic and Anglican choirs sing the ancient ‘O Antiphons’. One calls Christ the Key of David, and the carol made from them asks: “O come, thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home.”
Islam
“Say: Our Lord will bring us all together, then He will judge between us with truth. He is the All-knowing Judge.”
The Qur'an's first chapter is al-Fātiḥah, ‘the Opening’, from the same root. Al-Fattāḥ appears in 34:26, where it also means Judge. It names the One who opens the truth between people and decides fairly. Classical scholars said He opens provision, knowledge, hearts and judgement.
Muslims often begin a new task, a business or a school year with the prayer “O Opener, open for us”. The Qur'an says the keys of the unseen are with God alone (6:59).
Same and different
All three faiths picture God opening what is shut: wombs, eyes, hearts, the sky's storehouse of rain. Judaism prays at Neʿilah for a gate to open as it closes. Christianity speaks of Christ holding the key that opens and no one shuts. Islam names God al-Fattāḥ, the Opener and the Judge who opens the truth between people. They differ on who holds the key in the end, but share the hope that no door is shut for good.
A moment to reflect
What has been opened to you this year that you did not expect?
Is there a door you are waiting for someone else to open, or one you could open for someone?
What would it mean to see a fair judgement as an opening, not a closing?
Watch
TED-Ed on why the Rosetta Stone mattered: the ‘In us’ rung.
BBC Reel on the Judean date palm grown from a 2,000-year-old seed: the ‘In nature’ rung.
ESA's Euclid takes its first deep look into the dark universe: the ‘At our best’ rung.
Do it together
schools / familiesCrack the code
Write a short message in a made-up alphabet, with one sentence also in English as your ‘Rosetta Stone’. Let others crack it. Talk about how much we can open with a key, and what we could never open without one.
schools / faith groupsSee the Stone
Visit the Rosetta Stone in Room 4 of the British Museum (free). Afterwards, read Deuteronomy 28:12, Revelation 3:7 and Qur'an 35:2 and ask: what does it mean to call God the Opener?
families / schoolsThree keys
The Talmud says God keeps three keys no messenger is given: rain, birth and life after death (Taanit 2a). Talk about things in your own life that no one could open on demand, and how it feels to wait for them.
choirs / faith groupsO come, O come
In the last week of Advent, sing ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’ together, including the Key of David verse. Each person names one door they hope will open in the coming year.
Episode 1
