creates with no contact or hindrance, in order to express the absolute ease in His creating, the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition decrees that He does this through a mere command.

To Conclude: Some verses proclaim the extremely fine art and infinite perfection of wisdom in beings, especially at the start of their creation. While others describe the extreme ease and speed and infinite compliance and lack of difficulty in the recreation and return of things in particular.

Third Ray

THIRD RAY

O my soul full of doubts and evil suggestions and exceeding its bounds! You say that verses like,

There is not a moving thing, but He has grasp of its forelock,(11:56)

and,

In Whose hand is the dominion of all things,(36:83)

and,

And We are closer to him than his jugular vein,(50:16)

show that God is infinitely close to us. And yet, the verses,

And to Him shall you return.(36:83)

and,

The angels ascend to Him in a day the measure of which is fifty thousand years,(70:4)

and, the Hadith which says: “God is beyond seventy thousand veils,” [^4] and truths like the Prophet’s (UWBP) Ascension show that we are infinitely distant from Him. I would like an explanation that will bring this profound mystery closer to the understanding.

[^4]:See, al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn, i, 101; Abū Ya’lā, al-Musnad, xiii, 520; al-Ṭabarānī, al-Mu‘jam al-Awsaṭ, vi, 278; viii, 382; al-Rūyānī, al-Musnad, ii, 212; Ibn Abī ‘Āṣim, al-Sunna, ii, 367.

The Answer: Then listen to the following:

Firstly: At the end of the First Ray we said that with regard to its unrestricted light and immaterial reflection, the sun is closer to you than the pupil of your eye, which is the window of your spirit and its mirror, yet you are extremely distant from it, for you are restricted and imprisoned in materiality. You can make contact with it only through some of its reflections and shadows, and meet with it through some of its minor, particular manifestations, and draw close to its colours, which are like a category of attribute, and to its rays and manifestations, which are like a class of its names. If you want to approach the sun’s essential level and meet with the