Two psychologists pooled 206 lie-detection studies in 2006, covering nearly 25,000 people. Each person had tried to tell whether someone was lying. On average, they got it right 54 per cent of the time (Bond and DePaulo, 2006). Tossing a coin would score 50.
We think we can read each other. Mostly we cannot. Al-Khabīr is the All-Aware: the One who knows not just what happens, but what is inside it: the hidden motive, the unspoken worry, the real reason. Every way we have of seeing inside things stops somewhere.
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
Bond and DePaulo found that even police officers, judges and customs officers, people whose jobs depend on spotting lies, did little better than everyone else. We read faces, tone and body language all day, and get them wrong all the time: we mistake shyness for coldness, nerves for guilt, politeness for agreement. Good doctors, teachers and counsellors learn to notice what is not being said, and it is a precious skill. But even the most perceptive person sees only the outside of another mind, and guesses at the rest.
Episode 2
In nature
Sharks can sense the faint electric fields that every living animal gives off when its muscles move. Tiny jelly-filled pores on a shark's snout are called the ampullae of Lorenzini. They can detect a field of just a few billionths of a volt across a centimetre, enough to find a flatfish buried under sand (Kalmijn, 1971). It is a kind of sight through walls. But it only works at close range, about a metre or less. It detects a heartbeat, not a heart: a shark can sense that something is alive, never what it is thinking.
Episode 3
At our best
In 2017 a team of physicists announced a large hidden space inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, at least 30 metres long. They had found it without moving a single stone. They did it by counting muons, particles made when cosmic rays hit the upper atmosphere. Muons pass through rock, and solid stone absorbs a few more of them than empty space does (Morishima and others, Nature, 2017). It is one of the most ingenious ways ever invented of seeing inside. But it took months of counting, and it showed only density. It could not say why the builders left the space.
Episode 4
The Break
Put away the guessing from outside, the range of a metre, the months of counting, the gap between density and meaning. Every way of knowing we have sees the surface, the signal or the shape. None sees the intention itself. Al-Khabīr knows from within: the motive behind the act, the thought before it is spoken. “Should He not know what He created? And He is the Subtile, the Aware.” (Qur'an 67:14, Pickthall).
Usāmah ibn Zayd was very young, and very dear to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him); people called him ‘the beloved son of the beloved’. In one of the early campaigns, Usāmah and another man chased an enemy fighter. When they caught up with him, the man said: “There is no god but God.”
Usāmah thought he was only saying it to save his life, and killed him.
When the Prophet heard, he was deeply troubled. “He said ‘There is no god but God’, and you killed him?” Usāmah explained: “Messenger of God, he only said it out of fear of the sword.” The Prophet answered: “Did you split open his heart, so that you could know whether he meant it or not?” He kept repeating it, until Usāmah said he wished he had only become a Muslim that day, so as not to have done it (Muslim 96).
Muslim scholars made this one of the foundations of how they treat people: we judge by what is outward, and leave what is inward to God. No human being can see into another's heart. Only al-Khabīr can. That is a reason never to presume to know what someone else truly believes.
What each faith says
Read:
Judaism
“for it is not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”
When the prophet Samuel went to find Israel's next king, he was impressed by the tallest, most handsome of Jesse's sons. God told him: do not look at his appearance. The chosen one was the youngest, David, out in the fields with the sheep.
On Yom Kippur, Jews confess sins “known and unknown” to One who knows the secrets of every heart. Psalm 139 says God understands our thoughts from far away.
The rabbis turned this into a rule for daily life: judge every person favourably (Yehoshua ben Perachiah, Pirkei Avot 1:6). Give them the benefit of the doubt, because only God sees the whole of them.
Christianity
“You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts.”
Jesus told those who were proud of how they looked to others: “God knows your hearts.” Paul warned Christians not to judge one another's motives, because only the Lord will “reveal the counsels of the hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5).
For Christians this is both a warning against hypocrisy and a comfort: God understands what we could never explain.
Jesuits and many other Christians end the day with the Examen, a short prayer taught by Ignatius of Loyola. It is a slow look back over the day, asking God to show what was really going on inside.
Islam
“We verily created man and We know what his soul whispereth to him, and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.”
Al-Khabīr appears about 45 times in the Qur'an, often with al-Laṭīf, the Subtle, or al-Ḥakīm, the Wise. Classical scholars said al-ʿAlīm is knowledge of all things, and al-Khabīr is knowledge of their inner reality and hidden workings: nothing is concealed from Him.
The Qur'an says God is closer to each person than their own jugular vein, and knows what the soul whispers to itself.
Same and different
All three faiths say God looks on the heart and knows what people hide, even from themselves. All three draw the same practical lesson: do not presume to judge another person's inner life. 1 Samuel 16:7, Luke 16:15 and the hadith ‘did you open his heart?’ say almost the same thing. They differ in other matters, but on this Name they agree closely: we see the outside; God sees within.
A moment to reflect
When has someone completely misread you? How did it feel?
Is there something you keep hidden that you would be relieved to know is understood?
How would you treat people differently if you remembered you cannot see their hearts?
Watch
Deep Look on how sharks and rays use electricity to find hidden prey: the ‘In nature’ rung.
TED-Ed on the language of lying, and why we are poor at spotting it: the ‘In us’ rung.
Do it together
schools / familiesInside the box
Put a few objects in closed boxes and let people try to work out what is inside by shaking, weighing and listening, but not opening. Compare with the muon scan of the pyramid. Then talk about how much harder it is to know what is inside a person.
faith groups / neighboursAssume the best
For a week, each time you catch yourself guessing someone's bad motive, think of two kinder explanations instead. Share what you noticed. Read 1 Samuel 16:7, Pirkei Avot 1:6 (‘judge every person favourably’) and Qur'an 49:12.
familiesThe Examen at bedtime
Borrow the Examen, the evening prayer of Ignatius of Loyola, in a simple form. At bedtime, each person names one moment today they felt good and one they felt uneasy, and wonders out loud what was really going on underneath.
Episode 1
