The Third Degree of the Luminous VerseFor Us Allah Suffices
At a time I found my attachment to the world broken due to the pressures of my exile and sickness and the wrongs I suffered, and belief was informing me that I was destined for an eternal world, an everlasting land, and perpetual happiness, I gave up sighing “ah! ah!” and said “oh! oh!” But this goal of the imagination, aim of the spirit, and result of creation could only be achieved through the infinite power of One Absolutely Omnipotent Who knows the motion, rest, acts and states of all creatures, and records them, and takes insignificant and absolutely impotent human beings as His friends and addressees, giving them a rank over all creatures. Thinking of this and His attaching infinite importance to them and bestowing infinite grace on them, that is, pondering over the activity of such a power and the importance of human beings despite their apparent insignificance, I wanted an explanation that would increase my belief and satisfy my mind.
I again had recourse to the verse. It commanded me: “Note carefully the us of For us Allah suffices and see who is saying this together with you verbally and through the tongue of disposition.”
So I looked and I at once saw that innumerable birds and miniature birds and flying creatures, and countless animals and small living creatures, and uncountable plants and growing things, and infinite numbers of trees and bushes, like me, were reciting through the tongue of disposition the meaning of For us Allah suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs!, and were calling it to mind. For the One Who has disposal over them and guarantees all the necessities of their lives is such that He creates before our eyes and particularly in the spring in great abundance and with great ease and speed and extensiveness, without error, defect, or confusion, from eggs, droplets of fluid, seeds and grains which resemble each other and whose matter is the same, the adorned, balanced, and regular hundred thousand species of birds, the hundred thousand sorts of animals, the hundred thousand varieties of plants, and the hundred thousand kinds of trees, which, all with their distinguishing characteristics, are different to each other. With all this intermingling, resemblance, and closeness, He demonstrates to us His unity and oneness within the immensity and majesty of His power. I understood then that it was impossible for there to be any interference or partnership in that act of dominicality and disposal of creative power, which displayed such innumerable miracles.
I noted next the ‘I’ in the For us Allah suffices, that is, I considered myself, and I saw that among the animals, He had created me miraculously from my origin, a drop of fluid, had opened my ear, attached my eye, and had placed in my head a brain, and in my breast a heart, and in my mouth a tongue containing hundreds of scales and measures with which I might weigh up and know all the gifts of that Most Merciful One stored up in the treasuries of mercy. He had inscribed on these, thousands of instruments for unlocking and understanding the treasures of the infinite manifestations of His most beautiful names, and given instructions to the number of smells, tastes, and colours for the assistance of those instruments.
He had moreover included with perfect order in this body the numerous sensitive feelings and senses, and subtle, non‑physical faculties and inner senses. He had created with perfect art all the systems and members and faculties necessary for human life so that He might allow me to experience and understand all the varieties of His bounties, and make known to me the countless different manifestations of His names.
Like the bodies of all believers, He had made this poor body of mine, which appears so insignificant, a fine calendar and diary of the universe; an illuminated summary of the macrocosm; a miniature sample of the world; a clear miracle of His handicraft; a desirous seeker after every sort of His bounty, and the means of enjoying them; and a list and index, like a model garden, of the gifts and flowers of mercy; and the understanding recipient of His divine pronouncements. He also had given me life, to expand and increase in my existence, which is the greatest bounty. For through life, the bounty of my existence may expand to the extent of the Manifest World.
He had also bestowed humanity on me, through which the bounty of existence may unfold in the physical and spiritual realms, opening up the way to benefiting – through the senses particular to human beings – from those broad spreads of bounties.
He had also bestowed Islam on me, through which the bounty of existence may expand to the extent of the Manifest World and World of the Unseen.
He had also given me certain, realized belief, by virtue of which the bounty of existence may encompass this world and the hereafter.
He had also given me the knowledge and love of Allah the Most High within belief. Through this He bestowed a rank through the bounty of existence at which one may stretch out the hands to reap benefits, through praise and laudation, at all the levels from the sphere of contingency to the Necessary World and realm of the divine names.
He had also given me in particular knowledge of the Qur’an and the wisdom of belief, through which bounty He had bestowed on me a superiority over many creatures. He had also given me comprehensive abilities like the above‑mentioned whereby I might be a complete mirror to His oneness and Eternal Besoughtedness, and respond with universal worship to His universal, sacred dominicality.
And as unanimously confirmed by all the holy scriptures and books He had revealed to human beings by means of the prophets, and attested by all the prophets, saints, and purified ones, He buys from me my existence, life, and self – as stated by verses of the Qur’an – which are gifts and in trust to me, so that they will not be lost and go for nothing. He has repeatedly and categorically promised that He will preserve them in order to return them, and that as the price He will give eternal happiness and Paradise. This I understood with the knowledge of certainty and believed with utter conviction.
Thus, I was taught by the verse For us Allah suffices that my Sustainer, the Glorious and Munificent One, opens up through His name of Opener the forms of the hundreds of thousands of varieties of animals and plants from limited, similar droplets and seeds, with the uttermost ease, speed, and perfection, and as we mentioned before, gives human beings this astonishing importance, making them the chief pivot of the works of His dominicality; so too He will create the resurrection of the dead and Paradise and will bestow eternal happiness as easily and definitely as He will create next spring. Had it had been possible, I would have declared through the tongues of all creatures, but since it was not possible, I declared by intention and through thought and imagination: For us Allah suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs! And so I want to repeat it through all eternity.