transformed and illuminated the spiritual shape of the universe. This being so, comprising the very fullest degree of that relationship, the Ascension was indeed worthy of him and suitable for him.
Second Principle
Second Principle
What was the reality of the Ascension?
The Answer: It consisted of the journeying of Muhammad’s (UWBP) person through the degrees of perfection; that is, through the various names and titles Almighty God makes manifest in the disposition of creatures. By showing that special servant of His all the works of His dominicality which He displays in the spheres, creation, and regulation within the sovereignty of His dominicality, and in the levels of the heavens within those spheres – each of which is the pivot of a seat of dominicality and centre for the disposal of power – God Almighty made that servant both embrace all human perfections, and display all the divine manifestations, and view all the levels of the universe. He made him the herald of the sovereignty of dominicality and the proclaimer of those things pleasing to God, and the solver of the talisman of the universe. And to do this, He mounted him on Buraq, caused him to flash through the heavens like lightning traversing all its levels, observe divine dominicality from mansion to mansion like the moon, and from sphere to sphere, and showing him each of the prophets, his brothers, whose abodes are in the heavens of those spheres, He raised him to the station of “a distance of two bow-lengths”(53:9) and displayed to him His oneness and His Word and the vision of Himself. [^2]
[^2]:See, al-Ṭabarī, Jāmi‘ al-Bayān, xv, 6; al-Aḥādīth al-Mukhtāra, vi, 258-9; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, iii, 109-18.
This exalted truth may be examined through the telescope of two comparisons.
First Comparison
First Comparison: As is explained in the Twenty-Fourth Word, a king has different titles in the different spheres and offices of his government, different qualities and attributes in the classes of his subjects, and different names and marks in the degrees of his sovereignty. For example, he is wise judge in the judiciary, sovereign in the civil service, commander-in-chief in the army, caliph in the learned establishment, and so on; it is the same with the rest of his names and titles. In each sphere he has a seat or chair which represents a throne. The single king may be able to have a thousand names