A Letter to a Dear One — Page 20
20 Letter to a Dear One describe it in words. However, for someone who wants to take the first step on this way, the initial stage is to educate himself about the attributes of Allah and to habitually reflect on this subject to utilize all this to pursue knowledge. Our God Allah is the Exquisite Being Who ordered the entire cosmos to commence and to prevail. His power and control is infinite. He is One in Himself. He begets not, nor is He begotten. His Being is not dependent on any support to exist. Nothing is outside His power and control. Nothing can come into being without Him. Everything is dependent on Him to survive. He has given qualities to everything to exist and progress in the universe and has made the universe abide by certain laws. He has the power to negate these qualities or indeed change them. He has the power to defer the execution of His laws in certain circumstances, although He has promised that He does not change His ways—for example, He has the power to give life to the dead but He Commands that He will not do so in order that humanity strives and progresses according to His appointed ways. At times, out of the ordinary, He shows signs to His people, these can be in the form of a vision or a dialogue—with an element of the unseen always present. As the Qur’ ā n declares that when his enemies put Abraham (‘alaihissal ā m) in fire, Allah’s command saved him from trouble. Allah’s blessings brought about a fierce wind or rain to abate the fire. Hunger and thirst is inherently quelled with food and drink. At times, Allah’s kindness to His dear ones is such that He soothes them without any material food and drink, as if they have had a meal. For instance, although all matter is borne out of Divine order yet the naked eye sees matter change from one stage into another. At certain times Allah manifests His Power in a way that matter appears without apparent causes or reasons for a change to take place. Like the incident where the Promised Messiah (‘alaihissal ā m) had blood drops appear on his shirt. That incident was part vision and some effects of this vision were apparent in the form of matter that was lasting and could be later observed.