The Second ProofThe First Stopping‑Place of the Thirty-Second Word
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Had there been in heaven or on earth any deities other than Allah, there surely would have been confusion in both.
There is no god but Allah, He is One, He has no partner; His is the dominion and His is the praise; He grants life and deals death, and is living and dies not; all good is in His hand; He is powerful over all things; and with Him all things have their end.
One night in Ramadan, I said that the above sentence affirming divine unity consists of eleven phrases, and that in each of them is a degree expressing that unity and some good news. But of those degrees I only discussed the meaning and significance of He has no partner, and that was in the manner of an allegorical conversation and imaginary debate that would be accessible to ordinary people. I am now writing down that conversation at the request and desire of my much‑valued brothers who assist me and my friends from the mosque. It is as follows.
Let us suppose one person represents all those things set up as partners to God that all the different varieties of idolators imagine to exist. These idolators are the people of unbelief and misguidance, who worship nature and causes, for example, and assign partners to God. The fictitious person wants to have mastery over one of the beings in the universe, and so claims to be its true owner.
Firstly, that maker of false claims encountered a particle, which is the smallest of those beings, and he spoke to it in the language of naturalism and philosophy saying that he was to be its master and true owner.
But the particle replied to him with the tongue of truth and dominical wisdom, saying: “I perform innumerable duties. Entering many creatures which are all different I do my work in them. And there are, from among countless particles like me, those that move from place to place and work with me. If you have the knowledge and power to employ me in all those duties, and the authority and ability to employ and have at your command all those others as well, and if you are able to be the true owner of and to have total control over the beings of which I become a part in complete order, for example, over red blood‑corpuscles, then you can claim to be master over me and ascribe me to something other than God Almighty. But if you cannot do all these things, be silent! And in the same way that you cannot have mastery over me, you cannot interfere in any way. For there is such complete orderliness in our duties and motion that one who does not have infinite wisdom and all-encompassing knowledge cannot meddle with us. If he did, it would cause chaos. However, a person like you who is thick, impotent, and unseeing, and is in the clutches of blind chance and nature, could not even begin to stretch out a finger to interfere.”
So, just like the materialists, the one making these claims said: “In that case, own yourself. Why do you say you are working on someone else's account?”
To which the particle replied: “If I had a brain like the sun, and all‑embracing knowledge like its light, and all-encompassing power like its heat, and comprehensive senses like the seven colours in its light, and if I had a face that looked to all the places in which I travel and all the beings in which I work, and an eye that looked to them and words that carried authority with them, then perhaps I would indulge in foolishness like you and claim to own myself. Get out! Go away! You won't get anything out of me!”
So, when the representative of those things held to be God's partners despaired of the particle, he hoped to pursue the matter with a red blood‑corpuscle. And coming across one he said to it on behalf of causes and in the language of nature and philosophy: “I am your master and owner.” And the red corpuscle replied to him through the tongue of truth and divine wisdom: I am not alone. If you are able to own all my fellows in the army of blood whose stamp, nature as officials, and order is the same, and if you have subtle wisdom and mighty power enough to own all the cells of the body in which we travel and are employed with perfect wisdom, and if you can demonstrate this to be the case, then perhaps some meaning might be found in your claim. “But someone stupified like yourself cannot be owner with your only support being deaf nature and blind force; indeed, you are unable to interfere in so much as an atom, For the order with which we function is so perfect that only one who sees, hears, knows, and does everything can have authority over us.” And saying: “So, be silent! My duty is so important and the order so perfect that I have no time to answer garbled rubbish such as yours,” it repelled him.
Then, since he was unable to mislead it, the representative left and next came across the little house known as a cell of the body. He said to it in the language of philosophy and nature: “I could not persuade the particle and red corpuscle but perhaps you will be reasonable. Since you have been made of several substances just like a minute house, I am able to make you. You will be my artefact and true property.” The cell responded to him through the tongue of wisdom and truth, saying:
“I am only a minute little thing but I have very important duties and very sensitive relations; I am connected to the body as a whole as well as to all its cells. For example, I perform complex and faultless duties in the veins; and in regard to the arteries, the sensory and motor nerves, the powers of attraction and repulsion and procreation, and the imaginative faculty. If you have the knowledge and power to form, arrange, and employ the whole body and all its blood‑vessels, nerves and faculties, and if you have comprehensive wisdom and penetrating power with which to control all the body's cells, which are like me, as regards qualities and artistry we are brothers, demonstrate it. Only then can you claim to be able to make me. If you cannot, then off with you! “The red corpuscles bring my food, while the white ones combat illnesses which attack me. I have work to do, do not distract me! Anyway, an impotent, lifeless, deaf and blind thing like you cannot in any way interfere with us. For we have such an exact, subtle and faultless order that if the one who has authority over us was not Absolutely Wise, Absolutely Powerful and Absolutely Knowing, our order would be broken and our regularity spoilt.”
Then the one making the claims despaired of it, too. He encountered the body of a human being and said to it, once again as the Naturalists say, in the language of blind nature and aimless philosophy: “You are mine, it is I who made you; or anyway I have a share in you.” The human body answered with the tongue of reality and wisdom and through the eloquence of its order: “If you possess the power and knowledge to have actual control over the bodies of all human beings, who are the same as me and on whose faces are the stamp of power and seal of creation which are the same, and if you have the wealth and jurisdiction to own, from water and air to plants and animals, the treasuries of my sustenance, and if you have infinite power and boundless wisdom with which to employ me with perfect wisdom and cause me to perform my worship, and the power and wisdom to lodge in a narrow, lowly vessel like me immaterial and subtle faculties like the spirit, heart, and intellect, which are extremely vast and exalted and for which I am merely the sheath, then demonstrate all these and afterwards say that you made me. Otherwise, be silent! Moreover, according to the testimony of the perfect order in my body and the indication of the stamp of unity on my face, my Maker is One who is powerful over all things, knows all things, and sees and hears all things. Someone aimless and impotent like you cannot meddle in His art. You cannot interfere in so much as an atom.” The representative of the things imagined to be God's partners could find no way in which to interfere in the body so he went off. Next, he encountered the human race and said to himself “This is a disorganized and unruly group. Perhaps, like Satan interferes in their individual and social actions which they perform through the exercise of their wills, I'll be able to find some way to interfere in the functioning of their bodies and natures. And then, finding some way, I'll be able to exercise control over the body and the body's cell which sent me packing.” So, he said to the human race, once again in the language of deaf nature and aimless philosophy: “You seem to be to be in great confusion. I am your master and owner, or at least I partly own you.” To which the human race answered through the tongue of truth and reality, wisdom and order:
“If you possess the power and wisdom to make the shirt that clothes the whole globe of the earth and is woven and sewn with perfect wisdom from the multicoloured threads of all the hundreds of thousands of animal and plant species, of which we are one, and to make the carpet which is spread over the face of the earth and is woven from the hundreds of thousands of species of animate beings and is created in an extremely fine and ornamented fashion, and to continuously renew and refurbish it, and if you possess comprehensive power and all‑embracing wisdom with which to have free disposal over the globe of the earth of which we are the fruit, and over the universe of which we are the seed, and to send us our vital necessities from all the regions of the cosmos with the balance of wisdom, and if you have the ability to create all those like us who have gone before us and those who will come after us, on whose faces the stamp of power is the same, then, perhaps, you can claim to have mastery over me. But if you cannot, be silent! Do not say that, seeing confusion in my species, you will be able to interfere in some way, because the order is faultless. The conditions you imagine to be confused and disorderly are transcribed with perfect order according to the book of power and divine determining. For the perfect order in animals and plants, which are far inferior to us and are under our supervision, demonstrates that this seeming dis-order in us is but a sort of writing.
Is it at all possible that the one who artistically positions one thread running through a whole carpet should be other than the master designer of the carpet; or that the one who creates a fruit should be other than the creator of the tree that bore it; or that the one who creates the seed should be other than the fashioner of the being that produced the seed? Also your eyes are blind: you do not see the miracles of power on my face, the wonders of creation in my being. If you did see them, you would understand that my Maker is such that nothing at all can withstand Him or be difficult for Him. The stars are as easy for Him as particles. He creates the spring with as much ease as a flower. He is One who includes the index of the vast universe in my being with perfect order. Could a lifeless, impotent, blind and deaf thing like you interfere in any way in the art of such a Being? So, be silent!” And saying: “Off with you! Go away!” he drove him away.
Next the one making these claims went and addressed the broad carpet covering the face of the earth and the lavishly decorated and embroidered shirt clothing it on behalf of causes and in the language of nature and philosophy, claiming: “I can have control over you and be your owner, or at least have a share in you.“
So the shirt, the carpet, said to him on behalf of truth and reality and through the tongue of wisdom: “If you have the power and art to weave and create all the well‑ordered and purposeful shirts and carpets, whose embroideries are all different, which have clothed the earth to the number of years and centuries, then have been removed in an orderly fashion and strung on the line of past time, and will clothe the earth again, carpets and shirts whose programmes and forms have been drawn and specified in the sphere of divine determin- ing, and which will be attached to the ribbon of future time, and if you have two wise and powerful hands with which to reach from the creation of the world to its destruction, indeed, from pre-eternity to post-eternity, and if you have the wisdom and ability to create every one of all my threads and to repair and renew them with perfect order and wisdom, and if you are able to hold in your hand and create the globe, which is our model and is wearing us, making us its veil and outer garment, then you can claim to have mastery over me. If you cannot, then away with you! There is no place for you here! Moreover, there is on us such a stamp of unity and seal of oneness that one who does not have the whole universe within the grasp of his power, and who cannot see at one time all things with all their functions, and cannot do innumerable things at the same time, who is not all-present and all-seeing everywhere, who is not unconfined by space, and who does not possess infinite wisdom, knowledge, and power, such a one cannot own us, neither could he interfere.”
So the representative went off, saying: “Perhaps I will be able to persuade the globe of the earth and find something going for me there.” So he went and said to the globe, once again on behalf of causes and in the language of nature: “Since you travel in such an aimless manner, you demonstrate that you have no owner. In which case, you can be mine.”
To which the earth replied in a thunderous voice, in the name of truth and with the tongue of reality: “Do not talk such utter nonsense! How could I be just aimless and without an owner? Have you found my garments or even the tiniest point or thread in them to be in disarray, without order, and have you seen them to be without wisdom, purpose and art that you tell me I am ownerless and aimless? If you can really own my vast orbit round which I travel in one year, a distance that should take approximately twenty‑five thousand years, where I perform my duty of service with perfect balance and wisdom, and own the ten planets, which are my brothers and are charged with duties like myself, together with the space through which they travel, and if you have infinite wisdom and power with which to create and position the sun, which is our leader and to which we are bound and attached by a compassionate attraction, and to fasten me and the other planets to it like stones in a sling, and to employ us and cause us to revolve with perfect order and wisdom, then you can claim to have mastery over me. But if you cannot, get out! Go to Hell! I've got work to do, my duty to perform. Moreover, our magnificent order, awesome movement, and purposeful subjugation demonstrate that our Master is such that all beings from minute particles to the stars and galaxies are obedient and subjugated to him like soldiers under orders. He is an All-Wise Possessor of Glory, a Possessor of Absolute Sovereignty who arrays the sun with planets as easily as He arrays and ornaments a tree with its fruit.”
Since the claimer could find nothing for himself on the earth, he went off and said to himself about the sun: “This a huge great thing. Perhaps I'll be able to find a hole in it and open up a way in; then maybe I'll be able to subjugate it as well as the earth.” So he said to the sun, as the fire‑worshippers speak, in the name of idolatry and in the language of the philosophy that is the mouthpiece of the Devil: “You are a ruler, you own yourself; you dispose of matters freely, as you wish.”
But the sun replied to him in the name of truth and through the tongue of reality and divine wisdom, saying: “God forbid! A hundred thousand times, God forbid! I am a subservient official. I am a candelabrum in my Lord's guesthouse. I am not the true owner of a fly, or even of a fly's wing. For in the fly's being there are immaterial jewels and antique works of art, like eyes and ears, such as are not in my shop. They are outside the sphere of my power,” thus reprimanding him.
So the one making the claims changed his approach and said with the tongue of devilish philosophy: “Since you do not own yourself, you are a servant; I claim you on behalf of causes.”
To which the sun replied, speaking for truth and reality and with the tongue of worship: “I can only belong to one who is able to create all the lofty stars, which are my fellows, to place them in the heavens with faultless wisdom, make them revolve with utter magnificence and to adorn them with exquisite finery.”
Next the claimer said to himself: “The stars are a great multitude, and they seem to be all scattered and in disorder. Perhaps I will be able to gain something out of them on behalf of my clients.” So he went in among them and said to them on behalf of causes and those things ascribed to God as partners, in the language of rebellious philosophy and as the Sabean star‑worshippers said: “Since you are so scattered, you are all under the jurisdiction of different rulers.” To which one star replied, speaking for all the others: “Just how stunned, brainless, stupid and blind you are not to see and understand the stamp of unity and seal of oneness on us, and not to recognize our lofty order and regularity and the laws of our worship. You imagine us to be without order. But we are the works of art and servants of a Single and Unique One who holds in the grasp of His power the heavens, which are our seas, the cosmos, which is our tree, and infinite space, which is where we make our excursions. We are electric illuminations and resplendent witnesses displaying the perfection of His dominicality. We are radiant proofs proclaiming the sovereignty of His dominicality. With all our different sorts, we are luminous servants in the domain of His sovereignty which give light and display the majesty of that sovereignty in the lofty dwellings and in the lowly ones, in the dwellings of this world, the Intermediate World and the hereafter.
Indeed, each of us is a miracle of the Single and Unique One's power, a well‑ordered fruit of the tree of creation, an illuminated proof of unity; each of us is a dwelling place, aeroplane and mosque for the angels, and a lamp and sun for the lofty worlds, and a witness to the sovereignty of dominicality; and each of us is an ornament, palace, and flower of space, and a shining fish in the heavenly seas, and a beautiful eye in the face of the sky. Furthermore, throughout us as a whole there is a silence within tranquillity, a motion within wisdom, an adornment within majesty, a beauty of creation within order, and a perfection of art within symmetry. And although we are thus and proclaim our Glorious Maker and His unity, oneness, eternal besoughtedness, and His attributes of beauty, glory and perfection to the whole universe with innumerable tongues, you still accuse us utterly pure, clean, obedient and subservient servants of being confused, disorderly, and without duties, and even of being without an owner. You therefore deserve a truly punishing slap.” And one star, like the stone hurled at Satan, delivered such a mighty slap at the claimer's face that it flung him from the stars to the very pit of Hell. And it cast nature, which was together with him, into the valleys of delusion, and chance into the chasm of non‑existence, and those things ascribed to God as partners into the darkness of impossibility, and the philosophy that is hostile to religion down to the lowest of the low. All the stars recited this sacred decree together with that star: Had there been in heaven or earth any deities other than Allah, there surely would have been confusion in both. And they proclaimed: “There is nothing, from a fly's wing to the lamps in the heavens, nothing, even the size of a fly's wing, in which those things ascribed to God as partners could interfere.”
Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All‑Knowing, All-Wise!
Allah! Grant blessings and peace to our master Muhammad, the Lamp of Your Unity in the multiplicity of Your creatures, and the Herald of Your Oneness in the exhibition of Your creation, and to all his Family and Companions.
A Short Addendum to the First Stopping‑Place
Listen to the verse: Do they not look at the sky above them? How We have made it and adorned it, and there are no flaws in it?
Then look at the face of the heavens, you see how it is silent in its tranquillity; how it is in motion with wisdom, how it is radiant with majesty, how it smiles with its adornment. An unending and infinite sovereignty is proclaimed to those who think by the order in its creation, by the symmetry in its art, by its shining lamps, its brilliant lanterns, its glittering stars.
Do they not look at the sky above them? How We have made it and adorned it, and there are no flaws in it?...
The following explains the above passage, Then look at the face of the heavens, how it is silent in its tranquillity, which in turn is an explanation of the verse quoted. The verse directs an attentive gaze to the beautifully adorned face of the heavens so that the one beholding it may become aware of the silence there which is within a vast tranquillity, and so that he may understand that it is thus through the command and subjugation of One Possessing Absolute Power. For if they had been independent and unrestrained, those huge globes, all in close proximity to each other, those infinite, awesome heavenly bodies, would have caused such an uproar with their enormously swift revolutions that they would have deafened the cosmos. And there would have been such confusion in that tumultuous commotion that it would have scattered the universe. It is well‑known what a commotion and uproar it causes if twenty water-buffalo work on top of each other. Whereas, we know that there are among the stars some which are thousands of times larger than the earth and which revolve at a speed seventy times faster than that of a cannon-ball.
So the degree of power and subjugation of the Glorious Maker and All‑Powerful One of Perfection may be understood from this, together with the degree of obedience and submission to Him of the stars.
Secondly, the phrase: How it is in motion with wisdom, The verse commands us to look at the motion on the face of the heavens, which is with wisdom and purpose. Indeed, that mighty, wondrous motion occurs within a precise and comprehensive wisdom. For example, a craftsman who operates a factory's machinery with wisdom and purpose demonstrates the degree of his skill and craftsmanship in proportion to the order and grandeur of the factory. Similarly, when we look at it in this way, the degree of power and wisdom of the All‑Powerful One of Glory become apparent to us through His making the mighty sun as a factory, and its planets, those awesome, immense globes, like the factory's machinery, and His spinning and revolving them like stones in a sling.
Thirdly, How it is radiant with majesty, how it smiles with its adornment It has this meaning: the radiant majesty and smiling adornment on the face of the heavens are such that they demonstrate the sublimity of the Glorious Maker's sovereignty and exquisiteness of His artistry. As the myriad electric lamps hung about on festival days demonstrate the degree of the king's majesty and achievement in material progress, the vast heavens, too, with their majestic and adorned stars demonstrate to attentive gazes the sublime sovereignty and exquisite artistry of the Glorious Maker.
Fourthly, By the order in its creation, by the symmetry in its art This phrase says the following: look at the order of the creatures on the face of the heavens and see their symmetry and precise balance, then understand just how powerful and wise is their Maker. Indeed, the vast heavens demonstrate the degree of power and wisdom of the One who transforms various and tiny creatures or animals, thus preparing them for their duties, and who impels each of them on a determined way by means of its particular balance, and the degree of their obedience and subjugation to Him. Similarly, the vast heavens demonstrate to attentive gazes through their awesome vastness and innumerable stars, and the stars, through their imposing hugeness and speedy revolutions and the fact that they do not exceed their bounds by an iota, even for a second, or neglect their duties for a tenth of a second, the exceedingly fine and particular balance with which the Glorious Maker carries out His dominicality.
Fifthly, An unending and infinite sovereignty is proclaimed to those who think by its shining lamps, its brilliant lanterns, its glittering stars This phrase states clearly what is alluded to in the above verse, and in many similar to it, which mention the subjugation of the sun, moon, and stars. That is to say, to attach the heat and light‑giving lamp of the sun to the embellished ceiling of the skies, and to make it the ink-pot for writing the missives of the Eternally Besought One in lines of day and night on the pages of summer and winter; and to make the moon, like the hour-hands which shines on the large clocks on minarets and towers, an hour-hand of time's mighty clock on the dome of the heavens, and to make it move through its mansions with precise balance and perfect measure in the form of many varying crescents so that it leaves one crescent one night and then later returns to collect it; and to adorn the beautiful face of the sky with stars that twinkle and smile in the dome of the heavens, all these are signs of the unlimited sovereignty of a sustaining dominicality. They are indications of a majestic divinity which makes Itself known to conscious creatures. They invite those who think to believe and to affirm divine unity.
Look upon the coloured page of the book of the universe;
See what forms the golden pen of power has traced.
No dark point remains for the gaze of the heart's eye;
It is as if God as inscribed His signs with light.
Look! What a miracle of wisdom is the amazing universe!
Look! What a wondrous spectacle is the vastness of space!
Then listen to the stars, listen to their harmonious address!
See what wisdom has emblazed on the decree of its light.
Altogether they start to speak with the tongue of truth, They address the majesty of the All‑Powerful, All-Glorious One's sovereignty:
We are each of us light‑scattering proofs of the existence of our Maker,
We are witnesses both to His unity and His power,
We are subtle miracles
gilding the face of the skies for the angels to gaze upon.
We are the innumerable attentive eyes of the heavens
which watch the earth, which study Paradise.
We are the innumerable exquisite fruits
which the hand of wisdom of the All‑Glorious and Beauteous One has fastened
To the celestial portion of the tree of creation, to all the branches of the Milky Way.
For the inhabitants of the heavens, we are each of us a travelling mosque,
a spinning house, a lofty home,
Each is an illumining lamp, a mighty ship,
an aeroplane.
We are each of us a miracle of power, a wonder of creative art
Created by the Powerful One of Perfection, the All‑Wise One of Glory;
A rarity of His wisdom, a marvel of His creation, a world of light.
We demonstrated to mankind innumerable proofs,
We made them hear with these innumerable tongues of ours;
But their accursed unseeing, unbelieving eyes did not see our faces,
They did not hear our words.
And we are signs that speak the truth:
Our stamp is one, our seal is one,
We are mastered by our Sustainer;
We glorify Him through our subjugation;
We recite His names; We are each of us in ecstasy, A member of the mighty circle of the Milky Way.