What does “la tudrikuhul absar” mean (Qur’an 6:103)?
“La tudrikuhul absar” opens verse 103 of Surah Al-An‘am, and the full verse reads: “No vision can grasp him, yet he grasps all vision; he is the Subtle, the All-Aware.” In Arabic it is written لَّا تُدْرِكُهُ الْأَبْصَارُ وَهُوَ يُدْرِكُ الْأَبْصَارَ وَهُوَ اللَّطِيفُ الْخَبِيرُ. Word by word: “lā” is the negative particle; “tudriku” is from the root d-r-k, which carries catching up with a thing and closing around it, so it says more than looking at something; “hu” refers to God; and “al-abṣār” is the plural of baṣar, eyesight. The spelling people usually type, “la tudrikuhul”, stops in the middle of a word: the “hul” at its end is “hu” run together with the “al-” that begins al-abṣār.
The verse is built on repeating one verb. What is denied of eyesight in the first half is affirmed of God in the second, “wa huwa yudriku l-abṣār”, and he grasps all vision. That symmetry puts the limit on the one who looks, which is why idrāk is usually rendered as grasping or encompassing where a plainer verb would say seeing.
The passage around it is about description. It answers people who had assigned partners to God and invented children for him, closing with “Glory be to him, and far exalted is he above what they ascribe.” (6:100), then “Originator of the heavens and the earth” (6:101), then “Such is God, your Lord.” and “There is no god but he, the Creator of all things” (6:102). Verse 103 seals that description, and 6:104 turns to the human side: “Clear insights have come to you from your Lord.” The word there for insights, baṣāʾir, comes from the same root as the abṣār of the verse before it, and what follows is “Whoever sees, it is for their own good; whoever is blind, it is to their own loss.”
“Al-Laṭīf al-Khabīr” closes the verse and names how God stays present to what cannot see him. Laṭīf, from the root l-ṭ-f, describes something fine enough to pass through the senses, and in everyday Arabic it also carries gentleness in how a person is dealt with. Khabīr is knowledge of the inside of a thing. The two names keep company elsewhere: “Does the one who created not know? And he is the Subtle, the All-Aware.” (67:14); “God is subtle, all-aware.” at the close of Luqman’s counsel about a mustard seed hidden in a rock (31:16); and “God is truly subtle, all-aware.” after the sign of rain and the earth turning green (22:63). The nearness those names describe is the one stated in “closer to him than his jugular vein” (50:16).
Whether the verse denies that God is ever seen, or denies that sight can ever encompass him, is answered in more than one way, and the shape of that difference is worth knowing. One reading takes the negation as absolute, standing for this life and the next alike. Another holds that idrāk means encompassing, so the verse rules out the grasp while sight in the hereafter remains, and it reads the promise of Al-Qiyamah in that light: “faces will be radiant” (75:22), “gazing upon their Lord” (75:23). The request of Musa in 7:143 sits inside the same discussion, where he asks “show yourself to me, that I may look upon you” and receives “You will never see me.”, and that reply is understood by some as belonging to this world and by others as absolute. Both readings keep the ground of “Nothing is like him, and he is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.” (42:11) and “And there is none comparable to him.” (112:4). This is a question of creed with a long history behind it, so for a position you mean to hold as your own, ask a knowledgeable local scholar.
📖 Source: Qur’an 6:100–104; 67:14; 31:16; 22:63; 50:16; 75:22–23; 7:143; 42:11; 112:4
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