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The
seven heavens and the earth and
all in them glorify Him. There is
nothing that does not glorify Him.
(17:44)
Innumerable
instances of wisdom attached to
heavenly objects and earthly
things
According to the
meaning of the verses above, the
Majestic Maker has attached to the
heavenly bodies so many instances of
wisdom and meanings that, as if to
express His Majesty and Grace, He
has adorned the heavens with suns,
moons, and stars. He has also
attached to the creatures in the
atmosphere such instances of wisdom
and meanings that it is as if He was
making the atmosphere speak in words
like lightnings, thunder, and drops
of rain. He also teaches His perfect
Wisdom and the beauty of His Mercy.
Also, just as He
makes the earth speak in its
meaningful words like plants and
animals and thereby shows the
perfection of His Art to the whole
of the universe, so too, by making
plants and trees speak in their
words of leaves, flowers, and
fruits, He again demonstrates the
perfection of His Art and the beauty
of His Mercy; and by making flowers
and fruits speak in words of seeds
and pollen, He teaches the
subtleties of His Art and the
perfection of His Lordship to
conscious beings.
Among these
countless words of glorification, we
shall consider the manner in which a
flower or an ear of wheat expresses
its glorification and we shall find
out how it bears witness.
Each plant and
tree demonstrates its Maker in
numerous tongues in such a way that
it amazes careful observers, and
causes them to utter, ‘All glory
be to God! How excellently it bears
witness!’
Indeed, the
glorifications of each plant at the
time of its blossoming and growing
ears or spikes-the time when it
speaks in smiles-are beautiful like
itself and evident. For the order or
system displaying the wisdom or
purposiveness expressed in the
speaking of all flowers and in the
tongues of well-formed spikes or
ears and in the words of
well-proportioned seeds and
well-made grains, is in a certain
measure which visibly points to
knowledge. The measure is in the
design of an art which shows skill.
The design of the art is in an
adornment which demonstrates grace
and munificence. The adornment is in
agreeable fragrances which show
mercy and benevolence. These
meaningful states of things one
within the other form such a tongue
of testimony that they both define
their Majestic Maker with His Names
and describe Him with His Attributes
and exemplify the manifestations of
His Names and express His being
loved and recognized.
So, hearing such
a testimony as this from a single
flower, if you are able to give ear
to the voices of all flowers in all
the gardens of the Lord on the face
of the earth and hear how powerfully
they announce the necessary
existence and Unity of the Majestic
Maker, will you still have any
questions and doubts and
hesitations?
Now come and look
at a tree carefully! With its leaves
appearing in spring all regularly
and its flowers opening all
proportionately and its fruits
growing and ripening in wisdom and
mercy and itself dancing with the
blowing of breezes, consider its
fine expressiveness. Then consider
the exact balance in the wise order
illustrated with the words of fruits
smiling with a manifestation of
mercy and in the tongue of blossoms
smiling with a joy of grace and the
leaves becoming green with a hand of
munificence. Also, consider the
delicate arts and designs in the
balance showing justice and exact
measure, and the various beautiful
sweet smells showing mercy and
benevolence in skillfully-made
designs and ornaments, and the seeds
and stones that are each a miracle
of Power in sweet tastes. All this
demonstrates in an extremely
manifest way the necessary existence
and Unity of an All-Wise Maker,
All-Munificent, All-Compassion-ate,
All-Benevolent, Bestower of
Bounties, All-Beautifying, One
Making Excellent, and the beauty of
His Mercy and the perfection of His
Lordship. If you can hear all
together the tongues of the
dispositions of all trees on the
earth, you will see what beautiful
gems there are in the treasury of
Whatever is in the heavens and the
earth glorifies God.
Glory
be to Him in Whose hand is the
dominion of all things.
(36:83) There is nothing
but its treasuries are with Us
and We send it not down but with
a known, determined measure. We
loose the winds as fertilizers
drivers of clouds to make an
electric current between them
and send down from the sky
blessed water and provide you
with it; you are not the ones
who store it. (15:21-2)
The wisdom and
art displayed by universal elements
Just as a perfect
wisdom and grace and beauty of art
are apparent in particulars, results
and details, so also the universal
elements, which seem to be in
confusion and are fancied to be
random and coincidental, take up
positions dictated by wisdom and
art. Thus, as is pointed out by its
other wise services, light radiates
so as to show and expose to view the
creatures of God on the earth by the
leave of the Lord. This means light
is employed by an All-Wise Maker Who
makes visible by it His unique arts
in the exhibitions in the market of
the world.
Now consider the
winds: as is pointed to by the other
benefits they provide, and the
functions they perform wisely and
generously, they hasten to carry out
extremely numerous and important
duties. This means that that
movement of theirs in waves is a
being employed, a being dispatched,
a being utilized by an All-Wise
Maker. That movement is a speedy
endeavoring to carry out the orders
of the Lord.
Now consider
springs, streams, and rivers! Their
welling up out of the earth and out
of mountains is not by chance. For
as is testified to by their benefits
and uses, the results of Divine
Mercy, and as is demonstrated by
their being stored up in mountains
according to a measure of need, and
by their being sent according to a
measure of wisdom, they are
subjugated and stored up by an
All-Wise Lord, and they well up in
ardent obedience to His commands.
Now consider all
the varieties of stones and jewels
and minerals in the earth! The
purposes and the benefits connected
to them and their being prepared and
arranged appropriately to the needs
and necessities of human and animal
life show that their decorativeness
and beneficial properties are by the
decoration, arrangement,
organization, and fashioning of an
All-Wise Maker.
Now consider the
flowers and fruits! Their smiles,
tastes, beauties, embroideries, and
scents are each like an invitation
and menu on the table of an
All-Munificent Maker, a
Compassionate Bestower of Bounties;
they are given as various
invitations and menus to each
species of beings through their
different colors, scents and tastes.
Now consider the
birds! A certain indication that
their twittering and chirruping is
an All-Wise Maker’s enabling them
to vocalize is the amazing way in
which they communicate their
feelings to one another with those
sounds, and express their
intentions.
Now consider the
clouds! A certain indication that
the pattering of the rain is not a
meaningless sound and that the
crashing of thunder and lightning is
not a futile noise is that such
strange atmospheric events as those
are made to happen in vast space and
that drops of rain are milked out of
them with which to feed the living
creatures on the earth so needy and
longing for them. All show that that
pattering and crashing are most
meaningful and full of purposive
wisdom. For at the command of an
All-Munificent Lord, the rain calls
out to those longing for it: ‘Good
news for you! I am coming!’
Now look at the
sky and consider carefully only the
moon out of innumerable bodies in
it! The important instances of
wisdom attached to it in connection
with the earth demonstrate that its
motion is by the command of an
All-Powerful and Wise One.
Thus, the
universal elements we have mentioned
from the light to the moon open in
large measure a most broad window.
They proclaim and show the Unity of
a Necessarily Existent One, and the
perfection of His Power, and
grandeur of His Sovereignty.
The truth
contained in this Window occurred to
me on one occasion in verse as
follows:
The
radiance of light is through
Your illuminating and making
things known through it;
The
succession of ages like
waves is through Your dispatching
and employing them.
Glory be
to You, how mighty is Your
rule!
The
gushing out and flowing
forth of rivers is through
Your storing them up and
subjugating them.
The
formation and decoration of
stones is through Your
arranging and fashioning
them.
Glory be
to You, how unique and
splendid is Your Wisdom!
The smiling
of flowers is through Your
adorning and beautifying them.
The
emergence of fruits in splendor
is
through Your bestowal and favoring.
Glory be to
You, how beautiful is Your
Art!
The singing
of birds is through Your
making them speak and
communicate with one another.
The hymning
of rain is through Your
sending it down, Your
bestowal.
Glory be to
You, how vast is Your Mercy!
The motion
of moons is through Your
determining, Your arrangement,
Your directing, Your
illuminating.
Glory be to
You, how brilliant Your
proofs, how clear Your
evidences!
The
sun runs its course to its place
destined, that is the determining
of the All-Mighty, the All-Knowing.
(36:38)
The sun, the lamp
of the universe, constitutes a
window onto the existence and Unity
of the Maker of the universe, which
is as brilliant and radiant as the
sun itself. Indeed, despite their
great differences with regard to
size, position, and speed, the
twelve planets including the earth,
known as the solar system,
move-revolve-with perfect order and
wisdom and perfect balance without
even a second’s confusion, and are
bound to the sun through a Divine
law known as gravity, that is, they
follow their leader. This
demonstrates on a large scale the
grandeur of Divine Power and the
Unity of the Lord. For you may
compare how tremendous a Power and
Wisdom are engaged in having those
lifeless bodies, those vast,
unconscious masses, rotate as they
do, and in employing them with
infinitely perfect order and balance
in various ways and over varying
distances and in varying motions. If
chance were to interfere in this
vast and complex event to the
slightest degree, it would cause an
explosion so great as it would
scatter the universe. If it were to
stop the motion of one of them for a
minute, it would cause it to leave
its orbit and collide with another
planet. You can imagine how awesome
would be the collusion of bodies
thousands of times bigger than the
earth.
Referring to the
All-Encompassing Knowledge of God
the wonders of the solar system,
that is, the twelve planets, which
are the followers and fruits of the
sun, we shall only consider the
earth, our planet, which is here
before our eyes. We see that this
planet of ours is made to travel on
a long journey around the sun by a
command of the Lord to carry out a
most important duty-as is described
in The Third Letter-in a way to
demonstrate the grandeur of the Lord’s
imperial Power and Majesty and the
loftiness of Divine Sovereignty and
the perfection of His Mercy and
Wisdom. Like a ship under the
command of the Lord, it has been
filled with God’s wonderful
creatures and made like a moving
place of recreation for His
conscious servants. The moon has
been ‘attached’ to it with
precise reckoning for mighty
instances of wisdom, like being an
hour-hand telling the time, and
given various mansions through which
to journey. Thus, these aspects of
this blessed planet of ours prove
the necessary existence of an
All-Powerful One and His Unity with
a testimony as strong as the earth
itself. You can make an analogy with
the rest of the solar system from
this.
Furthermore, the
sun is made to turn on its own axis
like a spinning-wheel, in order to
wind into a ball the immaterial
threads called gravity and tie the
planets with them and set them in
order. The sun is also impelled
together with its planets at a huge
speed towards, according to one
theory, the constellation Lyra or
the ‘sun of suns’. This most
certainly occurs by the Power and at
the command of the All-Majestic One,
the Monarch of Eternity. It is as if
He makes the solar system perform a
maneuver like an army composed of
His soldiers under orders, and so
demonstrates the majesty of His
Lordship.
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