In His Name, be He glorified!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise
And from Him alone do we seek help
Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings, for ever and ever!
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
Firstly: The parable of those who take protectors other than God is that of the spider, who builds [to itself] a house; but truly the flimsiest of houses is the spider's house; — if they but knew Recently, when reading this verse, which has the meaning: the frailest house is the spider's; if only those who associate partners with God knew; that is, if only the unbelieving chiefs of the Quraysh knew … ", I suddenly felt an acute anxiety that the verse's eloquence had not been given its due.
At that moment I opened Zülfikar The Miracles of Muhammad to correct it, and the following lines struck my eye:
“The First Incident: This is well‑known to the degree of consensus in meaning (mânevî tevatür) and concerns the two pigeons coming and waiting at the entrance to the cave of Hira, where God's Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) and Abu Bakr the Veracious hid from the pursuing unbelievers, and the spider veiling the entrance with a thick web, like a curtain holder.
Ubayy b. Khalaf, one of the leaders of the Quraysh whom God's Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) killed with his own hand at the Battle of Badr, looked at the cave, When his companions suggested that they enter;
He replied: ‘Why should we? I see a large spider's web which appears to have been there since before Muhammad was born.’”
I suddenly saw a miracle in the conditional particle if (lau) and an elevated flash of miraculousness, which dispelled my anxiety. It was like this:
The Sura of the Spider (al‑'Ankabūt) was revealed in Mecca. The leaders of the Quraysh had not come to believe in the Prophet (UWBP) and were conspiring to kill him, yet the smallest and weakest of creatures was going to oppose their vicious assaults and defeat them. That is to say, by indicating this, that although the spider's web, its house, is the flimsiest veil, it was going to defeat those powerful chiefs, the verse was saying:
“If they had known they were going to be confounded by the frailest of creatures, they would not have embarked on this conspiracy.”
Just as the verse, This day We shall save you in your body displays an historical miracle with one word, so with the allusion in the words, if they but knew in the Meccan sura above, it displays a flash of miraculousness by indicating the wondrous divine protection in the incident in the cave at Hira and in the predictive prophetic miracle. I saw that to call this sura The Spider and call attention to its insignificant web was completely apt and conclusively rebuffed any doubts or uncertainty concerning the verse, I offered endless thanks to Almighty God, for I had understood that there were flashes of miraculousness in the Qur'an's suras and verses, and even in its words and phrases, and even in its letters.
The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!Your ill brother,Saîd Nursî