Closing pair: Latīf Khabīr
لَطِيفٌ خَبِيرٌ
laṭīfun khabīrun — Gentle, All‑Aware / Subtle, All‑Aware
Both verses close on this pair after describing acts of Allah whose working is not itself seen: rain making the earth green, and the retrieval of a mustard seed's weight hidden in rock, heavens, or earth. The pair names the two capacities the preceding statements presuppose: fine, imperceptible working (laṭīf) and full awareness (khabīr) — knowledge of what is hidden where, as in 31:16, the thing is concealed.
In both occurrences the pair functions as a closing inference introduced by inna, drawing on what the verse has just asserted. In (22:63) the claim is observational: Allah sends down water from the sky and the earth becomes green. The process is gradual and its mechanisms invisible; the visible result (a green earth) points back to an agent whose working is not itself seen. The closing inna Allāha laṭīfun khabīrun fits this: laṭīf names the fine, imperceptible manner of the action, and khabīr the awareness governing it. In (31:16) the claim is stronger and explicitly about scale and concealment: something of the weight of a mustard seed, lodged in a rock, or in the heavens, or in the earth, will be brought forth by Allah. Here laṭīf matches the minuteness of the object and the difficulty of access to it, while khabīr matches the requirement of knowing exactly where such a thing is before bringing it. The verse's three hiding places (rock, heavens, earth) span solid, high, and low, so the pair closes a statement of exhaustive reach. Read together, the two verses show the pair attached to divine action that is real and effective but not directly observable, whether in natural process (22:63) or in retrieval of the hidden (31:16). The closing pair thus converts the preceding description into a characterization of the agent.
Where it occurs
- 22:63 Closes the observation that rain from the sky greens the earth, naming the imperceptible working and awareness behind the visible result.
- 31:16 Closes Luqman's assurance that Allah will bring forth even a mustard seed's weight hidden in rock, heavens, or earth, naming the capacity such retrieval requires.
All Qur'anic expressions