How can nature proclaim
God's existence and unity in the tongues unique to itself?
Every tree in blossom is an ode rhythmic and well-composed,
singing the high and manifest praises of the Creator.
Or it is something with multiple eyes opened to watch,
and cause others to watch the wonders of the Maker’s art
displayed.
Or it has clothed its members in green for their festival
so that its Lord may observe His illustrious works and gifts
upon it,
while itself displays in the display-hall—the earth—
the embellishments of His Mercy before the eyes of mankind,
thereby proclaiming the wisdom in its creation,
in that significant treasuries are stored in it
by the Grace and Generosity of the Sustainer of its fruits:
Glory be to Him, how generous His favoring,
How clear arguments for Him, how manifest are His proofs!
The imagination
sees that angels are clothed in bodies from the (branches of) these trees resembling
thousands of flutes, from these flutes are heard songs of praises of the All-Living
One. The leaves are each a tongue reciting, ‘He, no god but He’.
Say: O God, the Master of the Kingdom, You give kingdom to whomever You wish
and withdraw kingdom from whomever You wish.
All things always utter, O Truth; all of them announce, O All-Living One;
all together they proclaim, God.
Listen to the verse:
Do they not look
at the heaven above them, how We have built it and adorned it? (50:6)
Look to the face of the sky,
where you see a silence in restful serenity;
-
a purposive motion,
-
radiance in majesty, a smile
in adornment,
-
all combined in the orderliness
of creation and the symmetry of art.
-
The brilliance of its candle,
the dazzle of its lamp and the glitter of its stars manifest infinite Sovereignty
for those with insight and sound reasoning.
Look
to the face of the sky where you see a silence in restful serenity ...
The verse
draws the attention to the adorned, beautiful face of the sky, so that, observing
with care, people must notice the silence in the extraordinary calmness and
apparent rest observed there and conclude that the sky has taken that form through
the order and subjugation of an Absolutely Powerful One. If it were otherwise,
that is, if the heavenly bodies were left free to roam at random, with their
enormous size and speed of motion, they would make such a clamor that they would
deafen everybody. They would also cause such a tumult and confusion that the
universe would collapse. If twenty buffalos move all together in the same area,
you can guess what great uproar and confusion they will cause. However, according
to astronomers, among moving stars there are some that are one thousand times
bigger than the earth and move with a speed seventy times greater than a cannon
ball. So, you may understand from the silence of the heavenly bodies in calmness
and rest the extent of the Power of subjugation of the Majestic Maker and the
All-Powerful One of Perfection, and the degree of the submission and obedience
of stars to Him.
A
purposive motion
The verse
also orders us to see the purposive motion on the face of the sky. That extremely
strange and mighty motion takes place in absolute dependence on a purpose which
is extraordinarily subtle and comprehensive. The immensity and order of a factory
whose wheels and machinery turn and toil in wisdom—in a perfect order and for
wise purposes—show to what extent its engineer is learned and skilful. In just
the same way, with the sun in the center and mighty planets revolving around
it in a perfect, subtle order for many wise purposes, the solar system shows
the extent of the All-Powerful One’s Power and Wisdom.
Radiance in majesty and a smile in adornment
There
is on the face of the sky a radiance in such majesty and a smile in such adornment
that it shows the splendid sovereignty and the beautiful art the Majestic Maker
disposes. In the same way as innumerable illuminations used on special occasions
demonstrate the degree of the king’s majesty and how his country is advanced
in civilization, the vast heavens with their majestic glittering stars, show
to attentive eyes the perfection of the Majestic Maker’s sovereignty and the
beauty of His art.
All
combined in the orderliness of creation and the symmetry of art
The verse
says: See the order and balance on the face of the sky and know how powerful
and wise the Creator is. When you see someone turning numerous objects one round
the other in a perfect order and with a special, delicate balance for many wise
purposes, you may guess how wise and powerful and skilful that one is. Likewise,
together with their numberless stars in their awesome size and speed, the vast
heavens in their tremendous immensity have been performing their duties for
billions of years according to an established measure and with a certain, sensitive
balance without transgressing their limits even for a second and causing even
the slightest disorder. This shows to attentive eyes according to what a sensitive
and exact measure their Majestic Maker exercises His Lordship.
Like
similar verses in sura al-Naba’ among others, the verse also points to
the fact that the Majestic Creator has subjugated the sun, moon and other heavenly
bodies.
The
brilliance of its candle, the dazzle of its lamp, and the glitter of its stars
manifest the Infinite Sovereignty for those with insight and sound reasoning.
Almighty
God has hung on the adorned roof of the world a lamp like the sun which gives
heat and light used as a ‘pot’ of light to write the ‘letters’ of the Eternally
Besought-of-All on the lines of day and night on the pages of the seasons. Also,
like the phosphorescent hour-hands of the clocks in tall towers, He has made
the moon in the dome of the heaven the hour-hand of the largest clock of time,
and causing it to move through its mansions according to a perfect measure and
fine calculations, it is as if He leaves to each night another different crescent
and then collects them together to Himself (making it invisible). Furthermore,
He has gilded the beautiful face of the sky with stars glittering and smiling
in that dome. Certainly, all this points to the infinite Sovereignty of His
Lordship and the magnificence of His Divinity, and invites thinking people to
believe in His existence and Unity.
Look at the colorful page of the book of the universe,
and see how the golden pen of the Power has inscribed it!
There has been left no point dark for those
who can see with the eyes of their hearts.
It is as if God
wrote His signs with light.
See, what an astounding miracle of wisdom the universe is!
See, how tremendous a spectacle the space of the universe
is!
Listen to the stars and heed their beautiful sermons,
See what is written in these luminous missives of Wisdom:
They are all delivering together this fruitful discourse:
Each of us is a radiant proof
for the majestic Sovereignty of an All-Powerful One of glory.
We bear witness to the existence of the Maker
and also to His Unity and Power.
We are His subtle miracles gilding the face of the skies,
for the angels to make excursions on.
We are the innumerable discerning eyes of the heavens
directed to Paradise, and overseeing the earth.
We are the exquisite fruits
attached to the heavenly branch of the tree of creation;
and to the twigs of the Milky Way, attached by
the hand of wisdom of the Majestic, All-Gracious Being.
For the inhabitants of the heavens, we are traveling mosques,
revolving houses and exalted homes,
light-diffusing lamps, mighty ships, planes.
We are miracles of the Power of the All-Powerful One of Perfection,
the All-Wise One of Majesty;
each of us is a wonder of His creative art, a rarity of His
Wisdom,
a marvel of His creation, a world of light.
To the man who is truly human,
we present hundreds of thousands of proofs
in hundreds of thousands of tongues;
The eye of the atheist, may it be blind, never sees our faces,
nor do his ears hear our speech; we are signs that speak
the truth.
On us is the same stamp and seal.
We obey our Lord and glorify Him, and mention Him in worship.
We are ecstatic lovers in the widest circle of the Milky
Way,
the circle reciting our Lord’s
Names.
***
Once during my captivity, while watching on a mountain top the awe-inspiring
forms of the pine cedar and juniper trees and the tremendous spectacle they
made, a gentle breeze blew. Since it transformed the scene into a magnificent,
delightful and noisy display of dancing and a rapturous performance of praise
and glorification of God, the enjoyment of watching it changed into watching
for instruction and listening for wisdom. I suddenly recalled these lines of
Ahmed-i Jizri, the original of which are in Kurdish:
- Everyone has hastened from all around to gaze at your beauty; they are
putting on airs due to your beauty.
- In order to express the meanings of the instruction it derived from the
scene, my heart wept as follows:
- Lord, all living creatures appear from everywhere on the earth which is
a work of Your art, to gaze on You.
- From above and below they emerge like heralds, and cry out.
- In pleasure at the beauty of Your inscriptions, those herald-like trees
are dancing.
- Filled with delight at the perfection of Your art, they too are joyful
and sing sweet melodies.
- It is as if the sweetness of their melodies fills them with renewed joy
and makes them sway coyly.
- At last they have started dancing and are seeking ecstasy.
- Through the work of Divine Mercy all living creatures receive instruction
in the glorification and prayer particular to each.
- After receiving instruction, each of the trees stands on a high rock and
raises its head toward the Divine Throne.
- Each like Shahbaz-i Kalender,1 stretches out hundreds of hands to the
Divine Court and takes up an imposing position of worship.
- They are making their twigs curl like love-locks dancing, and they arouse
in those who are watching them fine ardor and exalted pleasures.
- As if their feelings were stirred up, they are singing touching love songs
at a high pitch.
- From it a meaning such as this comes to mind: They recall the weeping
caused by the pain of the fading of metaphorical love—human love for the opposite
sex—and deeply touching sighs.
- They make heard the melancholy songs that lovers sing at the grave of
their beloveds.
- They seem to have a duty of making the eternal tunes and sorrowful voices
heard by the dead who no longer hear worldly voices and words.
- The spirit understands from this that things respond with glorification
to the manifestation of the Majestic Maker’s Names; they perform a graceful
chant.
- The heart derives the meaning of Divine Unity from these trees each like
an embodied verse from the exalted, miraculous composition. There is so wonderful
an order, art, and wisdom in their creation, that if all the ‘natural causes’
in existence had the power and authority to do whatever they wished, and they
gathered together in co-operation, they could not imitate them.
- The soul on seeing them has the impression that the earth is revolving
in a clamorous tumult of separation and seeks an enduring pleasure. It has
received the meaning: ‘You will find it in abandoning adoration of the world.’
- The mind discerns from such chanting of trees and animals and the cheering
of plants and air, a most meaningful order of creation, inscriptions of wisdom,
and treasury of secret truths. It concludes that everything glorifies the
All-Majestic Maker in various ways.
- The desirous soul receives such pleasure from the murmuring air and whispering
leaves that, forgetting mundane pleasures, which are the basis of its life,
wants to realize self-annihilation in this pleasure of truth.
- The imagination beholds the scene as if their appointed angels were embodied
in these trees from each of whose branches hang many flutes. It is as though
the Eternal Mon-arch has clothed the angels in the trees for a magnificent
parade to the sounds of thou-sands of flutes. Thus the trees show themselves
to be not insentient, unconscious bodies but most conscious and meaningful.
- The tunes produced through the flutes are pure and touching as if issuing
from an elevated heavenly orchestra. The mind does not hear from them the
sorrowful wails of separation that all lovers, including primarily Mawlana
Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, hear, but the grateful thanks offered to the Ever-Living,
Self-Subsistent One for His Mercy, and praises for His sustaining.
- Since the trees have all become bodies, with all their leaves being tongues,
at the touch of the breeze, each tree is repeating with its thousands of tongues
the recitation of ‘He! He!’ As the glorification and praise of their lives
they proclaim their Maker to be Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent.
- Not only the trees but all things together form a universal circle to
proclaim God’s Unity saying, ‘There is no deity but God,’ and perform their
duties.
- In the tongue of disposition they frequently declare ‘O God!’ and ask
the necessities of their lives from Him, from the treasury of Mercy. And through
the tongue of being favored with life, all of them together continuously recite
His Name, ‘O Ever-Living One!’
- Ever-Living, O Self-Subsistent One! For the sake of Your Names, the Ever-Living
and Self-Subsistent, endow this wretched heart (of mine) with life, and show
this confused mind the right direction. Amen.
1 Shahbaz-i Kalender was a famous hero who through the guidance of ‘Abd al-Qa-dir
al-Jilani took refuge at the Divine Court and attained to the degree of sainthood.
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