that thought and state of mind was guidance indicating that the high degree of the Companions’ worship could not be reached. In the mighty social revolution brought about by the lights of the Qur’an when opposites were separated from one another, and evils together with all their darkness, details and all who followed them, and good and perfections together with all their lights and results came face to face – at such a stirring time, all glorifications of God and recitations of His names expressed all the levels of their meanings freshly and newly and in a pristine and unfaded fashion. So too, under the crashing of that mighty revolution all the senses and subtle inner faculties of people were awakened, even senses like those of fancy and imagination, and in an awakened and aware state received the numerous meanings of those recitations and glorifications in accordance with their own perceptions, and absorbed them.

Thus, due to this wisdom, when the Companions, whose senses were awakened and subtle faculties, alert, uttered those blessed words comprising the lights of belief and glorification, they did so in all their meaning and they partook of them with all their senses. However, after that revolution and upheaval, the subtle faculties have gradually sunk into sleep and the senses fallen from that point of realities into heedlessness; like fruits, under the veil of familiarity those blessed words have gradually lost their delicacy and freshness. Simply, as though drying up due to the air of superficiality, only a little freshness remains, and this may be restored to its former state only through drastic surgery of a reflective and reasoning kind. Thus, it is because of this that only in forty years can others reach the virtue and level the Companions attained to in forty minutes.

Third Reason

THIRD REASON: As is proved in the Twelfth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Fifth Words, the comparison of prophethood and sainthood is that of the sun itself and the sun’s image as it appears in mirrors. Thus, however much higher the sphere of prophethood is than that of sainthood, the servants of the sphere of prophethood and the Companions, the stars of that Sun, must be superior to the same degree to the righteous in the sphere of sainthood. The legacy of prophethood and veracity, which is the supreme sainthood, is the Companions’ sainthood; even if a saint attains to this, he still cannot reach the level of the Companions, the first rank. We shall explain three out of the numerous aspects of this third reason.

#### First Aspect

First Aspect: The Companions cannot be reached in interpretation of the law, that is, in deducing its ordinances, that is, in understanding what pleases Almighty God from His Word. This is because that mighty divine revolution revolved around understanding the dominical wishes and divine