A gold box the size of a microwave, called MOXIE, rides on NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars. Between 2021 and 2023 it pulled carbon dioxide out of the thin Martian air and turned it into breathable oxygen. It was the first time anything had been made for life on another world. In total it made 122 grams: about what a small dog breathes in ten hours (NASA).
Al-Muqīt is the Nourisher: the One who gives every creature the food, air and strength it needs, in its measure and at its time. The word also carries the sense of Keeper, the One who holds everything in His care. Our greatest efforts to nourish are small next to the daily feeding of a planet.
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 mother's milk is one of the most remarkable foods there is. It changes from feed to feed, from morning to night, and as the baby grows. In 2012 researchers in Israel found something remarkable. When a breastfed baby falls ill, the number of infection-fighting white blood cells in the mother's milk can rise sharply within days. It falls again as the baby recovers (Riskin and others, Pediatric Research, 2012). It is nourishment that listens. But it depends on the mother's own food, sleep and health; not every mother can breastfeed; and it can feed only one or two children, for a season.
Episode 2
In nature
Roughly half of the oxygen made on Earth each year comes from the ocean, most of it from phytoplankton: tiny drifting plants and bacteria, many too small to see (NOAA). With every breath you take, some of the air was made by creatures in the sea. They also form the base of almost every ocean food chain, from krill to blue whales. But they depend on sunlight, the right temperature and nutrients welling up from the deep. Marine heatwaves can make them crash. They nourish the world without knowing it, and only while conditions allow.
Episode 3
At our best
MOXIE worked better than its designers hoped. It ran 16 times, in all seasons, making up to 12 grams of oxygen an hour at 98 per cent purity (NASA). Engineers see it as the first step towards making rocket fuel and breathing air for astronauts. It is one of our proudest acts of provision. Yet our best attempt to nourish life on another world fed the equivalent of a dog for an afternoon. To keep one astronaut alive on Mars, a future machine would have to be hundreds of times larger, built and powered from Earth.
Episode 4
The Break
Line up the season of milk, the warm water the plankton need, the gold box on Mars and the dog's ten hours of air. Every nourishing we know is small, local and dependent. Al-Muqīt feeds every creature, in every place, at every moment, and keeps it in His care. “He placed therein firm hills rising above it, and blessed it and measured therein its sustenance in four Days, alike for (all) who ask.” (Qur'an 41:10, Pickthall).
From the tradition: Classical: al-Muqīt supplies each creature its nourishment, of body and of heart. Psalm 145:15 'You give them their food when it is due'
Watch and listen
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
A hungry traveller came to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) in Medina. The Prophet sent word to his own households, but there was nothing to give except water. So he asked his companions: “Who will host this man tonight?” A man of the Anṣār, the people of Medina, said: “I will.”
He took the guest home and asked his wife: “Is there anything?” She said: “Only enough food for the children.” They made a plan. She settled the children to sleep without supper. When the meal was served, she got up as if to fix the lamp, and put it out. In the dark, the husband and wife moved their hands and mouths as if they were eating, so that the guest would not feel he was taking their food. The guest ate his fill. The couple went to bed hungry.
In the morning the man went to the Prophet. He said: “God was delighted by what you two did with your guest last night.” And this verse was revealed: “Those who entered the city and the faith before them love those who flee unto them for refuge, and find in their breasts no need for that which hath been given them, but prefer (the fugitives) above themselves though poverty become their lot. And whoso is saved from his own avarice - such are they who are successful.” (59:9, Pickthall (1930); Bukhari 3798).
The couple could not feed the whole city. They fed one person, at the cost of their own supper. But they understood something about al-Muqīt: the food was never really theirs, so it was never really lost.
What each faith says
Read:
Judaism
“Who giveth food to all flesh, for His mercy endureth for ever.”
Psalm 136, sung at Passover and on Sabbath mornings, lists God's great deeds, each followed by the refrain ‘for His mercy endureth for ever’. Near the end comes a simple line: He gives food to all flesh.
In the wilderness, Israel was fed with manna each morning. The Torah says it taught them “that man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3). Grace after meals thanks God who nourishes and sustains all.
Christianity
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Jesus quoted Deuteronomy, “Man shall not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4), and, in John's Gospel, called himself the bread of life. Christians see in the Eucharist, the shared bread and wine called Holy Communion, the Mass or the Lord's Supper in different churches, a sign of being nourished by God.
Christian charities and churches across the UK run breakfast clubs, soup kitchens and food banks, acting out the belief that God feeds through human hands.
Islam
“Whoso interveneth in a good cause will have the reward thereof, and whoso interveneth in an evil cause will bear the consequence thereof. Allah overseeth all things.”
Al-Muqīt appears once as a Name, in Qur'an 4:85. Translators give it two meanings: the Nourisher, who supplies each creature its food (qūt, daily sustenance), and the Keeper, who holds all things in His power and care. Both are right, and both belong together.
Classical scholars said al-Muqīt nourishes bodies with food and hearts with knowledge and faith. The Qur'an says God measured out the earth's nourishment when He made it (41:10).
Same and different
All three faiths thank God for food, all three remember that people do not live by bread alone, and all three ask believers to feed the hungry. Judaism remembers manna and blesses God after meals. Christianity sees Christ as the bread of life and shares bread at the Eucharist. Islam calls God al-Muqīt, Nourisher and Keeper, and honours the Anṣārī couple who went hungry for a guest. They differ in what the deepest nourishment is; they agree on the One who gives it.
A moment to reflect
Who nourished you when you were too small to feed yourself?
What nourishes you that is not food?
Is there someone you could quietly feed this week?
Watch
NASA JPL's ‘Crazy Engineering’ on making oxygen on Mars with MOXIE: the hook and ‘At our best’ rung.
Reuters on NASA's first oxygen made on Mars.
Do it together
schools / faith groupsBreakfast club
Support or start a breakfast club at a local school, or donate cereals, bread and fruit to one. Read Psalm 136:25 and Qur'an 59:9 with the volunteers.
familiesThe dark supper
Tell the story of the lamp that went out. Then plan a ‘guest first’ meal: invite someone, let them choose, and serve them first. Talk afterwards about how it felt.
families / faith groupsFor His mercy endureth
Read Psalm 136, sung at Passover and on Sabbath mornings, as call and response: one voice reads each line, everyone answers ‘for His mercy endureth for ever’. Then add your own lines about who has fed you.
schools / neighboursBread of life
Bake one loaf together and share it with people you would not usually eat with. Read John 6:35 and Deuteronomy 8:3, and talk about what nourishes us besides food.
Episode 1
