Allah The Exalted — Page 22
Your Lord is All a h, Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods and then settled Himself on the Throne. This means that having created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them and having manifested His attrib- utes of resemblance, He then addressed Himself to His station of transcendence and aloneness, in order to dem- onstrate His attributes of transcendence which station is beyond of beyond and is farthest away from creation. That station which is the highest is called the Throne. The explanation of this is that in the beginning all crea- tion was nonexistent and God Almighty manifested Himself at a station which was beyond of beyond and is named the Throne, that is a station which is higher than and above all the worlds. There was nothing except His Being. Then He created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. When creation came into being, He hid Himself and desired that He should be known through His creation. It must be remembered that Divine attributes never fall into permanent disuse. Except God, no one enjoys eternal personal existence, but the permanence of species too is requisite. No Divine attribute falls into permanent disuse, but there is temporary disuse. As the attribute of creation and the attribute of destruction are inconsistent with each other, therefore, when the attribute of destruction comes into full operation, the attribute of creation falls into dis- use for a period. In short, in the beginning it was the time of the operation of the Divine attribute of Singleness and we cannot say how often this period repeated itself, ex- cept that it is eternal and without limit. In any case, the attribute of Singleness has priority in time over other