Al 'Aleem
The All-Knowing One
The Knowledgeable, the Omniscient One, the Knower.
Allah is Al-Aleem, the One whose knowledge is comprehensive and extends to all that is seen and unseen, apparent and hidden, present and future, near and far. His knowledge precedes, and He is aware of things before they happen. He knows every detail, and nothing goes unnoticed or unrecorded. He is not only aware of our outward actions but knows the state of our hearts when we make them. Nothing is kept a secret from Him.
Mentions of Al 'Aleem
From the Quran & Hadith
From the root ʿayn-lam-mim (ع ل م), which carries the classical Arabic connotations of knowing, being cognizant, certain, and aware; being thoroughly informed; gathering information and finding out; having intuitive knowledge; being firmly rooted in knowledge; knowing the smallest details; and being wise, acting according to knowledge. From this root comes ʿilm, knowledge itself. Al-Aleem is the grandeur form: the Knower whose knowing has no edge.
The most knowing, most often paired
Al-Aleem appears more than 150 times in the Quran, one of the most frequent of all the Names, and it is very often mentioned in pairs. The most common pairing by far is with Al-Hakeem, the All-Wise, followed by Al-Waasi (the Vast), Al-Azeez, Al-Qadeer, and Al-Khabeer (the All-Aware). The pairing pattern itself teaches: knowledge in Allah's Names rarely stands alone, because knowing without wisdom, power, or awareness is not perfection. In Him, they are one.
Knowledge and wisdom
'Knowledge is power' is a saying that experience quietly refutes. We all know intellectual people who still make wrong decisions: led astray by desires, blinded by bias, tunnel-visioned. The issue is that the saying downplays the applying of knowledge, and that applying is what wisdom is. A wise person reads and then maps what was read onto everyday life; a knowledgeable person knows what to say, but more importantly, when to say it. Allah is both: Al-Aleem and Al-Hakeem, the All-Knowing who is All-Wise. He knows what to do, when to do it, with them, and with whom. Two things follow for the believer. First, peace: we put complete trust in Allah's plan, because He makes no mistakes. When calamity strikes, when we do not get the job, when we lose something we treasured, we trust that Allah knows best; often the greatest pain later becomes our greatest strength, and the benefit lies on the day of judgment if nowhere nearer. Second, direction: people give too much weight to finding 'the secret', the one thing that will transform their life for the better. It does not exist, and much of what is sold promises otherwise. Seek knowledge, ask Al-Aleem for wisdom to apply it, and have the courage to act; then it is not for nothing.
What is human knowledge?
Our knowledge comes through experience and failure. We learn by iterating, we write books so as not to forget, we pass learning down generation to generation, revising and building on what came before. Allah's knowledge is nothing like this. As the tafsir scholars note, His knowledge is comprehensive where man's is partial: nothing unknown is derived from anything; everything simply is, because He is the Creator and the source of everything. His knowledge extends to the infinite possibilities of all things that could have happened. When Allah taught Adam the names of all things and presented them before the angels, the angels responded: 'Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You who is the Knowing, the Wise' (Quran 2:32). That sentence is the ceiling of every created intellect, angel or human: no knowledge except what He taught.
Wa ʿindahu mafātiḥu-l-ghaybi lā yaʿlamuhā illā hū. Wa yaʿlamu mā fi-l-barri wa-l-baḥr. Wa mā tasquṭu min waraqatin illā yaʿlamuhā wa lā ḥabbatin fī dhulumāti-l-arḍi wa lā raṭbin wa lā yābisin illā fī kitābin mubīn.
“And with Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them except Him. And He knows what is on the land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls but that He knows it. And no grain is there within the darknesses of the earth and no moist or dry thing but that it is written in a clear record.”
Qālū subḥānaka lā ʿilma lanā illā mā ʿallamtanā, innaka anta-l-ʿAlīmu-l-Ḥakīm.
“They said, Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You who is the Knowing, the Wise.”
Qad faraḍa-llāhu lakum taḥillata aymānikum, wa-llāhu mawlākum, wa huwa-l-ʿAlīmu-l-Ḥakīm.
“Allah has already ordained for you the dissolution of your oaths. And Allah is your protector, and He is the Knowing, the Wise.”
Qāla ʿilmuhā ʿinda rabbī fī kitāb, lā yaḍillu rabbī wa lā yansā.
“Moses said, The knowledge thereof is with my Lord in a record. My Lord neither errs nor forgets.”
Zayd ibn Thabit (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that he heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: 'May Allah brighten a man who hears a tradition from us, gets it by heart and passes it on to others. Many a bearer of knowledge conveys it to one who is more versed than he is, and many a bearer of knowledge is not versed in it.'
Zirr bin Hubaish said: I went to Safwan bin Assal al-Muradi and he said: What brought you here? I said: I am seeking knowledge. He said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: 'There is no one who goes out of his house in order to seek knowledge, but the angels lower their wings in approval of his action.'
As a person grows older, he begins to think of himself as knowledgeable. But stop and think of the vastness of what there is to know, and we realize we know nothing: we know nothing in the grand scheme of things. It is a humbling experience to really ponder how much we think we know. Letting any amount of superiority sink its way into your mind will just impede the way to further growth. A child learns the most because a child is naturally curious; everything is new, open, and genuinely wanting to understand how everything works. Why abandon something further if you feel you already know the outcome? And we do not know what we do not know. So we ask Al-Aleem for forgiveness for things in our hearts we know we did wrong, and for what we are not even aware of. We ask Him to increase our capacity to learn, to house our shortcomings, and to make us among students with great Islamic knowledge. He is intimately aware of your state before you describe it; this is not a reason to stay silent, it is the reason speaking to Him is safe.
Rabbi zidnī ʿilmā
My Lord, increase me in knowledge.
- Sunan Abi Dawud 3660
- Sunan Ibn Majah 226
- Quran 2:30-32
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