A woman named Khawlah sat in the corner of a small room in Medina, fourteen centuries ago. She had come to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) to complain about the way her husband had treated her. ʿĀʾishah, the Prophet's wife, was in the same room. She later said she could not hear what Khawlah was saying.
But God heard. The next revelation began: “Allah hath heard the saying of her that disputeth with thee (Muhammad) concerning her husband, and complaineth unto Allah. And Allah heareth your colloquy. Lo! Allah is Hearer, Knower.” (58:1, Pickthall). As-Samīʿ is the All-Hearing. The best hearing we know runs from the human ear to an instrument that hears space itself. None of them catches what He hears.
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
A healthy young ear can hear sounds from about 20 to 20,000 vibrations a second. At the quietest sound we can detect, the eardrum moves less than the width of a single atom (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University). It is an astonishingly sensitive instrument. But it hears only a narrow band. As we age, we lose the high notes first; most people over fifty can no longer hear the top of that range. Noise drowns out whispers. And we cannot hear through walls, across a city, or into someone's silent thoughts.
Episode 2
In nature
The greater wax moth is a small grey insect that lives in beehives. It has the highest-pitched hearing of any animal ever measured: up to 300,000 vibrations a second, fifteen times higher than ours (Moir and others, Biology Letters, 2013). It probably evolved to hear the calls of hunting bats. It is a marvel of nature's ears. But it hears only what matters for its own survival, only close by, and it cannot understand any of it. Every ear in nature is tuned to one creature's needs.
Episode 3
At our best
On 14 September 2015, the LIGO detectors in the United States picked up a faint tremor in space itself. It was made by gravitational waves from two black holes that had collided 1.3 billion years ago. To catch it, laser beams in tunnels four kilometres long measured a change in length about a ten-thousandth of the width of a proton (LIGO Caltech). It won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Yet LIGO needs one of the largest vacuum systems on Earth, two or more sites working together, and it can only hear the most violent events in the universe.
Episode 4
The Break
Without the narrow band, the ageing ear, the noise, the four-kilometre tunnel and the cosmic crash it takes to make a sound loud enough, what hearing is left? Every hearing we know needs something to carry the sound and something loud enough to catch. As-Samīʿ hears without ears and without distance: the whisper in the corner, the prayer no one speaks aloud. “Allah hath heard the saying of her that disputeth with thee (Muhammad) concerning her husband, and complaineth unto Allah. And Allah heareth your colloquy. Lo! Allah is Hearer, Knower.” (Qur'an 58:1, Pickthall).
From the tradition: ʿĀʾisha: 'Praise be to Allah Whose hearing encompasses all voices'. Bukhari 7386: 'You are not calling a deaf or an absent one'. Al-Ghazālī: 'hears without earholes or ears'; he perceives 'the creeping of the black ant upon the rugged rock in a dark night'
Watch and listen
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
Khawlah bint Thaʿlabah's husband, Aws, had said to her in anger an old Arabian formula that meant she was to him like his mother's back. In pre-Islamic custom, those words left a wife neither divorced nor properly married: stuck, unable to remarry and without rights. She was older, they had children together, and she was frightened.
She came to the Prophet and pleaded with him. He had received no revelation on the matter yet. She kept pleading, turning her complaint to God. ʿĀʾishah, who was in the same room, said: “Blessed is the One whose hearing takes in every voice. Khawlah was speaking to the Prophet, and part of what she said was hidden from me” (Ibn Mājah 188; Nasāʾī 3460).
Then the opening verses of the chapter called al-Mujādilah, ‘The Woman Who Pleaded’, were revealed. They abolished the custom and set out what a husband who said such words must do to make amends. A whole chapter of the Qur'an is named after one woman's quiet complaint.
Years later, it is said, ʿUmar, then ruler of the Muslims, was stopped in the street by an old woman who gave him a long lecture on his duties. He stood and listened patiently. When someone asked why, he said: “This is the woman whose complaint God heard from above the seven heavens. Shall I not listen to her?”
What each faith says
Read:
Judaism
“He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?”
The Hebrew Bible's first great silent prayer is Hannah's. She prayed for a child in the sanctuary at Shiloh, moving her lips without making a sound, and the priest Eli thought she was drunk. God heard her. The rabbis concluded from her that prayer may be whispered, because God hears the heart (Talmud, Berakhot 31a). The central Jewish prayer, the Amidah, is still said quietly.
The Psalms ask a simple question about the One who made the ear.
The best-known Jewish prayer begins with hearing: Shema Yisrael, ‘Hear, O Israel’, said morning and night. And the Amidah's own blessing for prayer ends: ‘Blessed are You, LORD, who hears prayer.’
Christianity
“This is the boldness which we have towards him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us.”
Jesus taught his followers not to pray to be seen by others. Instead they should go into a room, shut the door and pray in secret, because the Father hears in secret.
The first letter of John speaks of confidence in prayer: God listens. Christians believe God hears every prayer, even when the answer is not the one asked for.
Quakers take this furthest. A Quaker meeting for worship is held mostly in silence, with people waiting together until someone feels moved to speak.
Islam
“He said: Fear not. Lo! I am with you twain, Hearing and Seeing.”
As-Samīʿ appears about 45 times in the Qur'an. It is often paired with al-Baṣīr, the All-Seeing, or al-ʿAlīm, the All-Knowing. Al-Ghazālī said God hears “without ears”, and perceives even “the creeping of a black ant on a hard rock on a dark night”.
When his companions once shouted their prayers aloud on a journey, the Prophet told them: “Go easy on yourselves. You are not calling on someone deaf or absent. You are calling on One who hears and is near” (Bukhari 7386). And God told Moses and Aaron (peace be upon them), afraid to face Pharaoh: “He said: Fear not. Lo! I am with you twain, Hearing and Seeing.” (20:46, Pickthall).
Same and different
Jews, Christians and Muslims all pray quietly, sometimes silently, because all three believe God hears what no one else can. Hannah's whispered prayer, Jesus' ‘pray in secret’ and the Prophet's ‘you are not calling someone deaf’ say the same thing. The faiths differ in their forms of prayer and in whom they pray through, but on this Name, that every voice is heard, they agree almost word for word.
A moment to reflect
Is there something you would only ever say in a whisper, or not at all?
Who in your community is speaking and not being heard?
What would change if you really believed every word you say is heard?
Watch
TED-Ed on the science of hearing: the ‘In us’ rung.
Veritasium on how LIGO detects gravitational waves: the ‘At our best’ rung.
The US National Institutes of Health follow the journey of sound to the brain.
Do it together
families / schoolsThe listening walk
Walk for ten minutes in silence and write down every sound you hear. Compare lists. Then talk about the sounds no one caught, and what it means to say God hears everything.
faith groups / neighboursThe quiet complaint
Set up a ‘listening hour’ where anyone can come and be heard without being interrupted or advised. Begin by reading Qur'an 58:1, 1 Samuel 1:13 and Matthew 6:6.
families / faith groupsHannah's way
Hannah prayed with her lips moving and no sound, and the rabbis learned from her that God hears a whisper (Berakhot 31a). Try a minute of silent wishes or prayers together, then talk about what you could only ever say that quietly.
neighbours / faith groupsAn hour of Quaker quiet
Most Quaker meetings welcome visitors to Sunday worship, which is held largely in silence. Go together, sit for the hour, and afterwards share what you heard when nobody was speaking.
Episode 1
