which are various jewels and has decorated it with harmonious adornments which look to the elevated inscriptions of all the palace and their relation to the stones. If the common man, who had no share in any of the jewels and adornment of the palace, were to enter it, destroy the elevated inscriptions in the valuable stones and put it into a form, an order, similar to that of an ordinary house in accordance with his childish desires and tack on a few beads pleasing to his juvenile view, and then say, “Look! I have greater skill and wealth and more precious adornments than the builder of the palace;” in comparison, it would be the art of a crazy, raving forger.

Third Light

THIRD LIGHT

The Third Light consists of three Gleams.

First Gleam

FIRST GLEAM: An important aspect of the Qur’an of Miraculous Expositions’s miraculous inimitability was explained in the Thirteenth Word. It has been included here so that it might take its place among the other aspects of miraculousness, its brothers. It is as follows: if you want to see and appreciate how, like shining stars, all the Qur’an’s verses scatter the darkness of unbelief by spreading the light of miraculousness and guidance, imagine yourself in the age of ignorance and desert of savagery where everything was enveloped in lifeless veils of nature, under the darkness of ignorance and heedlessness. Then suddenly from the elevated tongue of the Qur’an, you hear verses like:

Whatever is in the heavens extols and glorifies God, for He is the Mighty, the Wise.(57:1; 59:1; 61:1) ∗ Whatever is in the heavens and earth extols and glorifies God, the Sovereign, the Most Holy One, the Mighty, the Wise.(62:1)

See how those dead or sleeping creatures of the world spring to life in the minds of those listening at the sound of “extols and glorifies,” how they awake, spring up, and mention God’s names! And at the sound of,

The seven heavens and the earth and all within them extol and glorify Him,(17:44)

the stars in those black skies, each a lifeless piece of fire, and the wretched creatures on the face of the earth present the following view to those listening: the sky appears as a mouth and the stars as wisdom-displaying words and truth-uttering lights. The earth appears as a head, the land and sea as tongues, and all the animals and plants as words of glorification. Otherwise you will not appreciate the subtleties of the pleasure at looking from this time to that. For if you look at each verse as having scattered its light since