offering him immaterial gifts. In exactly the same way, all the species of living beings in the universe, together with all their individual members, are in every respect miraculous, wonderful machines, which -like conscious beings, men, and jinn and angels, applaud and salute their Maker verbally- through the tongues of their beings and lives applaud and salute their craftsman, the All-Glorious Maker, Who makes Himself known through the profound and subtle manifestations of His all- comprehending knowledge, which sees the relationship of everything with everything else, and knows all the things necessary for the life of each and conveys them to it at the right time. Greeting Him, the beings declare: “Salutations to God!” They worshipfully offer the price of their lives directly to their Creator, Who knows all creatures together with all their states. On the night of the Ascension, in the name of all living creatures, Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace) said “Salutations to God!” instead of the greeting of peace in the presence of the Necessarily Existent One, and offered the salutations, gifts, and greetings of all those species of living beings.

Yes, just as with its order and balance, an ordinary regular machine undoubtedly shows a painstaking, skilful craftsman; so each of the numberless living machines which fill the universe displays a thousand and one miracles of knowledge. Whatever the comparison between the light of the sun and the feeble glow of the fire-fly, that is the comparison of the former and the brilliance with which, through the manifestations of knowledge, the living beings testify to the necessary existence of their eternal Maker and Craftsman, and His fitness to be worshipped.

#### The Second Sacred Word from the Ascension

The Second Sacred Word from the Ascension is “blessings” (al-mubārakāt). Since according to Hadiths, the ritual prayers are the believer’s ascension [^43] and receive the manifestation of the supreme Ascension; and since the traveller found in every world his Creator, the One Knowing of the Unseen, through His attribute of knowledge; accompanying the traveller, we shall enter the broad world of blessed things and “blessings,” which make those who behold them declare: “How great are God’s blessings!” Like the traveller, we shall behold that world of “blessed beings” and foremost the innocent, blessed infants of beings with spirits, and the seeds of animate creatures, which are the tiny containers of the programmes of their lives, and through studying them shall attempt to know our Creator with ‘the knowledge of certainty,’ through the miraculous, subtle manifestations of His sacred attribute of knowledge.

[^43]:Bukhārī, Ṣalāt, 39; Musnad, ii, 34, 36, 67, 129. (With the meaning of “The one who performs the prayers converses with his Sustainer.”)

Yes, with our own eyes we see that through the knowledge of an All-Wise