and,

But you will not except as God wills,(76:30)

to,

And the heavens rolled up in His right hand,(39:67)

that is, to His holding all the heavens within His grip; from the flowers, and grapes, and dates of the earth described in,

And We produce therein gardens of date-palms and vines,(36:34)

to the strange truth expressed by,

When the earth is shaken to its utmost convulsion;(99:1)

from the state of the skies in,

Then He directed [His will] towards the skies and they were smoke,(41:11)

to their being rent with smoke and the stars falling and being scattered in infinite space; from the world’s being opened for test and examination, to its closing; from the grave, the first dwelling of the hereafter, and then from the Intermediate Realm, the resurrection, and the Bridge, to eternal happiness; from the events of the past, and the creation of the body of Adam and the dispute of his two sons, to the Flood, and the drowning of the people of Pharaoh, and the major events of most of the prophets; and from the pre-eternal circumstance alluded to by,

Am I not your Sustainer?(7:172)

to the post-eternal occurrence expressed by,

Some faces that day will beam in brightness ∗ Looking towards their Sustainer;(75:22-23)

all these fundamental, important subjects are explained in a way befitting the All-Glorious One Who administers the whole universe as though it were a palace, and opens and closes this world and the hereafter like two rooms, and regulates the earth as if it were a garden and the heavens as though they were a roof adorned with lamps, and beholds the past and the future as though they were two pages present in His sight like a single night and day, and looks on pre-eternity and post-eternity as though they were yesterday and tomorrow, like the two sides of a chain of events are joined together and touching in present time. Just as a master builder speaks of two houses he has constructed and arranged, and makes out the programme and list and index of the matters involved; so the Qur’an is fitting for the One Who makes the universe and arranges it, and writes out and displays the list and index and – if one may say so – the programme of