Twenty‑Fourth Window
There is no Allah but He, everything will perish save His countenance, His is the command and to Him shall you return.
Death is a proof of dominicality as much as life is a proof of it; it is a tuly powerful proof of divine unity. As indicated by the verse, Who creates death and life, death is not non‑existence, annihilation, non-being, an authorless extinction; rather, as is shown in the First Letter, it is a being discharged from service by an All-Wise Author, a change of residence, an exchange of bodies, a rest from duty, a being freed from the prison of the body; it is a purposeful, orderly work of wisdom.
Indeed, just as the living face of the earth and the well fashioned, living creatures upon it testify to the necessary existence and unity of an All‑Wise Maker, so too with their deaths do those living beings bear witness to the eternity and unity of an Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One. It is proved and elucidated in the Twenty-Second Word that death is an extremely powerful proof of divine unity and eternity, so we refer the discussion to that Word and here only explain one important point. It is as follows:
Both with their existences living beings point to the existence of a Necessarily Existent One, and with their deaths they testify to the eternity and unity of an Ever‑Living Eternal One. For example, as a single living creature, the face of the earth points to its Maker with its order and circumstances; so too it points to Him when it dies. That is, when winter conceals the earth’s face with its white shroud, it turns men’s gazes away from itself – their gaze moves to the past behind the corpse of that departing spring – and it shows them a far wider scene.
That is to say, the past springs of the earth, which were all miracles of power, inform them that new living springtime creatures of the earth will appear, and since they all testify to the existence of those future wonders of divine power, each a living earth, they testify brilliantly and powerfully and on a vast scale to the necessary existence, unity, everlastingness, and eternity of an All‑Glorious Maker, an All-Powerful One of Perfection, a Self-Subsistent Enduring One, and Eternal Sun; they demonstrate such brilliant proofs that whether one wants to or not they make one declare: I believe in Allah, the One, the Unique!
In Short: According to the meaning of the verse, And gives life to the earth after its death, just as this living earth testifies to the Maker with the spring, so with its death it turns man’s gaze to the miracles of divine power lined up on the two wings of time, the past and the future; it points to thousands of springs in place of one spring; it alludes to thousands of miracles of power in place of one miracle. And each of those springs testifies more certainly than this present spring, for the springs that have departed for the past have gone together with their apparent causes, and after them others like them have come in their places.
This means that apparent causes are nothing: only that an All‑Powerful One of Glory creates the springs, and tying them to causes with His wisdom shows that He has sent them. As for the living faces of the earth lined up in future time, they testify still more brilliantly. For they will be made anew from nothing, from non-being, and sent; they will be put on the earth, made to do their duty, then be sent away.
O heedless one deviated into nature and drowning in its swamp! How can something which does not possess hands wise and powerful enough to reach all the past and all the future interfere in the life of the earth? Can your total nonentities of chance and nature interfere in it? If you want to be saved, say: “At the very most, nature is a notebook of divine power, and as for chance, it is a veil to hidden divine wisdom that conceals our ignorance.” Approach the truth!