fections that illuminate them, thus causing the heavens to ring out, and who, through the strains of the Qur’an, causes the universe to reverberate, and through his admiration and appreciation, his contemplation and display, and his mentioning of the divine names and affirmation of divine unity, brings land and sea to ecstasy.

Thus, according to the meaning of ‘the cause is like the doer,’ [^18] it is pure truth and sheer wisdom that the being in whose scales shall be found the equivalent of all the good deeds performed by his community, and whose spiritual perfections draw strength from the benedictions of all his community, and who, as a result of the duties he discharged in his messengership, received immaterial recompense and boundless emanations of divine mercy and love, should advance by the stairway of the Ascension as far as Paradise, “the Lote-tree of the farthest limit,”(53:14) the divine throne, and “the distance of two bow-lengths.”(53:9)

[^18]:See, Tirmidhī, ‘Ilm, 14; Abū Ḥanīfa, al-Musnad, i, 151.

Your Second Difficulty

Your Second Difficulty: O you who is listening! This second truth, which you make difficult, is so profound and exalted that the mind can neither rise to it nor draw close to it. It may be seen only with the light of belief. However, the fact that this truth exists may be brought close to the understanding by means of some comparisons. In which case, we shall attempt to do that to some small degree.

Thus, when the universe is considered from the point of view of wisdom, it is seen to bear the meaning of a mighty tree. For just as a tree has branches, leaves, blossom and fruit, so in this lower world, which is one part of the tree of creation, there are elements, which are like its branches; plants and trees, which are like its leaves; animals, which are like its flowers; and man, which is like the fruit.

Furthermore, the divine name of All-Wise requires that a law of that All-Glorious Maker which is in force in trees generally will also be in force in the mighty tree of creation. Since this is so, wisdom requires that the tree of creation also be formed from a seed, and such a seed that contains the essentials and principles of other worlds besides the corporeal world. For the fundamental and original seed of the universe, which comprises thousands of different worlds, cannot be a scrap of desiccated matter.

Since before the tree of the universe there was no tree of the same kind, it is also a requirement of the name of All-Wise that meaning and light, which are a sort of source and seed of it, should be clothed with the garment of a fruit on the tree of the universe. For a seed cannot remain permanently unclothed. And since at the beginning of creation it was not clothed