A Bedouin came into the mosque in Medina while the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions were there. He prayed two units of prayer, then raised his hands and said loudly: “O God, have mercy on me and on Muhammad, and do not have mercy on anyone else with us.”
Perhaps he meant it as devotion: he loved the Prophet and wanted to be close to him. But the Prophet turned and said to him: “You have narrowed something wide” (laqad taḥajjarta wāsiʿan). The word he used means fencing something in with stones (Bukhari 6010).
In another report of the same day, the same man relieved himself in a corner of the mosque, and the companions jumped up to stop him. The Prophet told them to leave him until he had finished, and then to pour a bucket of water over the place. “You were sent to make things easy, not to make them hard” (Bukhari 6128).
The two moments belong together. The man had tried to fence in God's mercy. The Prophet's answer was to show him that mercy, wide enough to include a Bedouin who did not yet know the manners of a mosque. Al-Wāsiʿ does not fit inside anyone's walls.
Judaism
“But will God in very truth dwell on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have builded!”
1 Kings 8:27 · JPS 1917
When King Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem, his prayer began by admitting that no building could contain God. The rabbis later called God ha-Maqom, ‘the Place’, and explained: He is the place of the world, but the world is not His place (Genesis Rabbah 68:9).
Jewish mourners are comforted with the words: “May the Place (ha-Maqom) comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” The God who contains all places is near to the grieving.
The Torah keeps widening the circle too. The Talmud counts that it warns about the treatment of the stranger thirty-six times, some say forty-six, more than almost any other commandment (Bava Metzia 59b).
Christianity
“may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know Christ's love which surpasses knowledge”
Ephesians 3:18-19 · WEB
Paul prayed that Christians might grasp the width, length, height and depth of the love of Christ, a love that, he said, goes beyond knowledge. Christians speak of God's love as wider than any boundary of race, class or nation.
The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) was Jesus' answer to the question ‘who is my neighbour?’: wider than you thought.
Frederick William Faber, a Catholic priest in Victorian London, wrote the hymn still sung in many churches: “There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea.”
Islam
“The devil promiseth you destitution and enjoineth on you lewdness. But Allah promiseth you forgiveness from Himself with bounty. Allah is All-Embracing, All-knowing.”
Qur'an 2:268 · Pickthall (1930)
Al-Wāsiʿ appears nine times in the Qur'an, almost always paired with al-ʿAlīm, the All-Knowing, and in verses about mercy, forgiveness and generosity. When Satan threatens people with poverty, the Qur'an answers that God promises forgiveness and bounty, “The devil promiseth you destitution and enjoineth on you lewdness. But Allah promiseth you forgiveness from Himself with bounty. Allah is All-Embracing, All-knowing.” (2:268, Pickthall).
Āyat al-Kursī, the Verse of the Throne, says His Kursī, His Seat, extends over the heavens and the earth (2:255). Scholars warned against reading the Name as physical size: its classical meanings are vastness of generosity, mercy and knowledge. The angels pray: “Those who bear the Throne, and all who are round about it, hymn the praises of their Lord and believe in Him and ask forgiveness for those who believe (saying): Our Lord! Thou comprehendest all things in mercy and knowledge, therefor forgive those who repent and follow Thy way. Ward off from them the punishment of hell.” (40:7, Pickthall).
Same and different
All three faiths say that no place can contain God, and all three turn that into a lesson about the width of His love or mercy. Solomon's ‘the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee’, Paul's ‘width and length and height and depth’ and the Prophet's ‘you have fenced in something vast’ say it in three voices. All three warn against shrinking God to our own group. Christianity speaks of that vastness above all in Christ's love; Judaism calls God ha-Maqom; Islam names Him al-Wāsiʿ and pairs it with knowledge.
faith groups / neighboursWiden the circleAt your next gathering, invite one person or group you would not usually include. Read Bukhari 6010 and Luke 10:25-37 together, and talk about who else your circle might be missing.
schools / familiesTern mapOn a world map, trace the Arctic tern's route from the Farne Islands in Northumberland to Antarctica and back. Work out how many times a tern's lifetime flying would go round the Earth. Then talk about the difference between a vast distance and a vast mercy.
faith groups / neighboursThirty-six timesThe Talmud counts thirty-six warnings in the Torah about how to treat the stranger (Bava Metzia 59b). As a group, list thirty-six small ways your street, school or congregation could make a newcomer feel at home, and pick three to do this month.
choirs / faith groupsA wideness in God's mercySing or read Faber's hymn ‘There's a wideness in God's mercy’ by the sea, a river or a big open space. Talk about who you find hardest to include in your own idea of mercy.
Episode 1
