I never told them anything except what You ordered me to say: “Worship Allah—my Lord and your Lord!” And I was witness over them as long as I remained among them. But when You took me,1 You were the Witness over them—and You are a Witness over all things.
Linguistically, ra-qa-ba (the three letter root of Raqeeb) means to be erect in order to care for something. A marqab is a high place that the watcher stands on to observe what is beneath him. And from this comes ar-raqaba, which is the neck, because it is erect, and one must be upright when he is observing. And from this root comes ar-Raqeeb. Imam Al-Ghazali, may God have mercy on him, states that the All-Observant 'is one who knows and protects...
What has always intrigued me most about this powerful passage is the question: why does Jesus AS provide such a long response to a question that he knows very well that Allah SWT already knows the answer to? Surely Jesus AS didn't doubt that Allah SWT knew that he was innocent of the claims made against him that he called his followers to his own worship, so couldn't he simply answer with : 'No I did not'?