Scattered Pearls — Page 52
51 i 25. As I stated at the commencement of this talk, my present talk is entitled Durri-i-Manthur-i. e. scattered and apparently unconnected pearls in regard to the personality, the mind, the character, and sayings of the Promised. Messiah. Therfore, no special arrangement of the subject matter is to be looked for in my treatment of it. It would be seen, however, that in nature Allah has invested even apparently unarranged objects with an extraordinary and most impressive measure of beauty with a potent appeal for the human eye. At night the stars in the sky appear to be sprinkled profusely all over the heavens, without any plan that we can see. But they invest the night skies with a beauty of such indefinable charm as to hold us spell bound. Similarly the Holy Quran describes the pages on attendance on the believers in paradise as "pearls scattered all round" i. e. they would be going in and out, around the believers, in a sort of seeming confusion and profusion of movement, as if handfuls of pearls had been sprinkled over the gathering. The Maker of human nature indeed very well understands the appeal of beauty for the human eye, this being the reason why the objects of nature, whether those which seem to be arranged on some pattern, or those which appear to be unarranged, present scenes of beauty of which the deep effect is such that it can be most potently felt, but hardly described in words. And it is also usual with Allah that sometimes He captures the soul of his creatures with a glimpse of His Majesty (Jalaal), while at other times He does so by vouchsafing to them a view of. His indefinable Beauty (Jamaal). Accordingly, among His. Apostles, and among the successors to His Apostles, both these factors, the appeal of majesty and of beauty, are found to be present, often in a most delicate blend. Moses was a Prophet characterised by majesty and awe, while. Jesus, his last successor, was characterised by beauty and gentleness of manner. Silmlarly the Holy Prophet