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THE MAJESTIC MAKER HAS MADE ALL CREATURES IN SUCH FASHION
THAT MOST OF THEM, PARTICULARLY THE ANIMATE ONES,
MANIFEST MOST OF HIS NAMES
In
the Name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate.
There
is nothing that does not glorify
Him with praise.
Everything
has many aspects like windows opened on
Almighty God
According
to the meaning of There is nothing that
does not glorify Him with praise,
everything in the universe has many
aspects like windows opened on Almighty
God. All the truths contained in the
whole of the creation are based on the
Divine Names. Each thing owes its
existence and essential nature to one or
several Names of God. The varieties of
art in things are also based on a Name.
Even the sciences depend on the Divine
Names. For example, philosophy in its
true sense depends on the Name the
All-Wise, medicine on the Name the
All-Healing, and geometry and
engineering are based on the Names the
All-Determining, the All-Proportioning,
and the All-Giving of Exact Measure.
Also, all the human arts and the levels
of human perfections have their sources
in Divine Names. Even, the exacting
saintly scholars have concluded: ‘The
reality of things consists in Divine
Names, and their nature is the
inscription of those realities. It is
possible to see the manifestations of
twenty Divine Names in a single living
creature.’ We will try to make this
subtle and comprehensive truth
understandable by means of a comparison
and analyze it as if sifting it. However
lengthy it seems, it should not bore
you.
When
an extremely skilful sculptor wants to
make pictures and statues of a beautiful
flower and an extremely beautiful woman,
he first determines the general lines.
This determination depends on exact
measures and planning. The measures and
planning are according to the sculptor’s
aim in making the statues and based on
certain knowledge of engineering or
design. Now he is beginning to draw the
outer lines of the eyes, ears, and the
nose, and of the leaves and
seed-producing parts with the pair of
compasses of knowledge and purpose, or
wisdom. We see that all the members or
parts are quite proportionate: they
display the degree of the sculptor’s
art and are in accordance with their
functions in the body. This shows that
the sculptor is really a great artist
and does everything for a purpose and in
its proper place. He also attaches great
importance to the beauty and adornment
of his works, a fact which greatly
contributes to his art. Besides, this
artist is a benevolent one and desires
to see everybody happy. That is why both
the pictures and statues he is making
give the impression of pleasure and
happiness, and therefore suggest that
their artist is a kind and gracious one.
His kindness and graciousness originate
from his love of beings. He also desires
that beings should recognize him and
love him so that they might appeal to
him for help. Of course, this desire
comes from his compassion and his desire
to do people good. This desire has led
him to fill the arms of the statue with
varieties of all things from which
people benefit, and to attach jewels to
the sculpture of the flower. It is his
personal perfections and virtues which
arouse in him compassion and tenderness
for others. He unites in himself beauty
and love, and since all those sublime
feelings of his are pure to the degree
that he becomes happy and exhilarated
only when he sees others happy, he
desires himself to be known by others.
That is why he has made the pictures and
statues, which reflect all his virtues
and laudable qualities.
The
All-Wise Maker has created Paradise and
the world, the heavens and the earth,
animals, jinn
and men, and angels and spirit beings,
through the manifestations of His Names
Similarly,
the All-Wise Maker has created Paradise
and the world, the heavens and the
earth, animals, jinn and men, and angels
and spirit beings, through the
manifestations of His Names. He
determines each according to certain
measures and gives each a certain form.
This displays His Names the
All-Fashioner, the All-Determining and
the Giver of Measure. Fashioning,
determining and giving a measure are
based on Knowledge and Wisdom and
therefore point to the Divine Names the
All-Knowing and the All-Wise. Through
the manifestations of His Names the
All-Munificent and the All-Gracious, He
equips His creatures with
well-proportioned parts and members,
such as eyes, ears and noses, and if
they are flowers, with petals, sepals,
and seed-producing parts, and attaches
to each many complex functions. Also,
through the manifestations of the same
Names, He furnishes and adorns the earth
with minerals, plants and animals, and
Paradise with gardens, palaces and
houses, each of which has a particular
beauty and functions.
The
Creator equips His creatures with
such systems and faculties that it
is as if each were an embodiment of
munificence, grace and adornment
The
All-Wise Creator equips His creatures
with the results of the manifestations
of His Names the All-Munificent and the
All-Gracious, to the extent that it is
as if each were an embodiment of
munificence, grace and adornment. What
leads His Munificence and Graciousness
to that degree of manifestation is His
love of creatures and His desire of
being known by animate beings and loved
by conscious ones. That means the Names
the All-Munificent and All-Gracious
exhibit the Names the All-Loving and the
Recognized or Known One. Also, He adorns
all the creatures with delicious fruits
and the lovely benefits therefrom,
bestowing on them all kinds of bounties.
This points to the Names the Giver of
Bounties and the All-Compassionate, and
shows their manifestations from behind
apparent veils. What leads the One Who
is absolutely independent of the
creation to manifest His Munificence and
Compassion is His desire to show His
Mercy and Affection, which causes
creatures to recite the Names the
All-Merciful and the All-Affectionate.
It is His Essential Beauty and
Perfection which stimulate Him to
manifest His Mercy and Affection, and
exhibit the Names the All-Beautiful
together with the All-Loving and the
All-Com-passionate contained in it.
Absolute beauty is loved because of
itself and the One with absolute beauty
loves Himself. Therefore it is both
beauty and love. So is perfection. It is
loved because of itself, not because of
anything else. Therefore it is both
lover and beloved.
Since
a beauty of infinite perfection and a
perfection of infinite beauty are loved
to the infinite degree, certainly they
wish to manifest themselves in mirrors
according to the capacity of those
mirrors. The Essential Beauty and
Perfection of the Majestic Maker, the
All-Wise One of Beauty, the All-Powerful
One of Perfection, desire to show mercy
and affection and therefore impel the
Names, the All-Merciful and the
All-Caring to manifest themselves. Since
the desire to show mercy and affection
is associated with compassion and
bountifulness, it urges the Names the
All-Compassionate and the Giver of
Bounties to be manifested. Compassion
and bountifulness require and cause the
Names the All-Loving and the Recognized
to manifest themselves. Being loved and
recognized incite the manifestations of
grace and munificence and cause
creatures to demonstrate the Names the
All-Gracious One and the Munificent One.
Grace and munificence incite the Names
the All-Decorating and the
All-Illuminating and show their acts
through the beauty and illumination in
creatures. Decoration and illumination
require the manifestations of the Names
the Maker and the Benevolent and
demonstrate them through the beautiful
countenances of creatures. Making and
benevolence are based on knowledge and
wisdom and show the Names the
All-Knowing and the All-Wise through the
harmonious and purposeful organization
of creatures. Demanding the acts of
organizing, fashioning and forming,
knowledge and wisdom demonstrate the
Names the Fashioner and the Giver of
Measure through the general forms of
creatures.
There
are many layers of loveliness in the
creation of things
In
short, the Majestic Maker has made all
creatures in such fashion that most of
them, particularly the animate ones,
manifest most of the Divine Names. It is
as if He has clothed each of His
creatures in twenty different garments
one over the other and inscribed several
of His Names on each of them. For
example, as is pointed out in the
comparison above, there are many layers
of loveliness in the apparent creation
of a single beautiful flower and a
single beautiful member of the fair sex.
You may compare vast and universal
bodies with these two particular
examples.
This comprises their general
forms and appearances, and
recites, O Fashioner, O Giver of
Measure, O Determiner, O
Organizer!
This is their form and
appearance including all the
members of their bodies, and
manifests many Names like the
All-Knowing and the All-Wise.
This comprises the forms of
beauty and adornment particular
to each of the members of their
bodies, on which are inscribed
many Names like the Maker and
the One Who Creates Subtly.
This is the detail of ornament,
beauty and elegance which are
given to those creatures (the
flower and the woman) as if in
the embodied form of grace and
munificence, and therefore
recites O Gracious One, O
Munificent One!, and many other
Names.
The delicious fruits attached to
that flower and the lovely
children and laudable virtues
given to that woman as gifts,
manifest Names like the
All-Loving, the
All-Compassionate and the Giver
of Bounties.
This layer of bountifulness and
benevolence recites O
All-Merciful, O All-Caring! and
several other Names.
The
bounties given to them and the results
attached to their existence demonstrate
such gleams of beauty and grace that
they deserve pure gratitude and love ‘kneaded’
with true eagerness and tenderness. This
layer manifests Names such as the
All-Beautiful One of Perfection and the
Perfect One of Beauty.
If
a single flower and a beautiful woman
manifest so many Names through their
outward forms, you may compare how many
Names of universal manifestation all
flowers and animate beings and vast and
universal bodies demonstrate. You may
also understand how many sacred,
enlightening Names of God like the
All-Living, the Self-Subsistent and the
Giver of Life, a man manifests through
his spirit, heart, reason and his life
and all other senses and faculties.
Every
thing and/or being is a different mirror
to
God’s Beauty, Perfection, Mercy, and
Love
Paradise
is a flower. The community of houris is
a flower. The face of the earth is a
flower. The season of spring is a
flower. The heaven is also a flower and
the stars are its gilded embroideries.
The sun is another flower and the seven
colors in its light are its dyes. The
cosmos is a beautiful, macro-human
being, while a man is a normo-universe.
The company of houris, the community of
spirit beings, the assembly of angels,
the tribe of jinn, and humankind, have
each been fashioned, organized, and
created as if they were beautiful
individuals. As they manifest the Names
of the All-Majestic Being both
collectively and individually, they are
each a different mirror to His Beauty,
Perfection, Mercy, and Love. They are
each a different and true witness of His
Infinite Beauty, Perfection, Mercy, and
Love, and a different sign of them. All
those boundless kinds of perfections are
only possible in the sphere of Divine
Unity and Singleness. Perfections
imagined outside this sphere are not
true.
Now
understand that the realties of things
are based on the Divine Names or rather
those realities are the manifestations
of those Names and all things mention
their Maker in numerous tongues. Also,
know one of the meanings of There is
nothing that does not glorify Him with
praise, and say, Glory be to Him Who is
veiled through the intensity of His
manifestation, and understand the reason
why He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise,
and He is the All-Forgiving, the
All-Compassionate, and He is the
All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, and the
like phrases, repeated at the end of
verses in the Quran.
If
you are unable to see clearly the Names
manifested on a flower, ponder over
Paradise or look at spring attentively
or examine the face of the earth. You
can clearly read the Names inscribed in
those huge flowers of Mercy and see the
manifestations of the Names
distinctively.
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