The Essence of Islam – Volume II — Page 142
142. Essence of Islām II world in three hundred and sixty-five forms and creates heat by its rays and causes cold by their diversion and rules over bodies and their matter and their shapes. The earth proclaims that it is a body divided into a thousand countries, that it produces vegetation of diverse types, that it prepares various types of minerals inside it and that it accepts heavenly effects like a woman. The fire proclaims that it is something that burns and possesses the quality of combustion and is a substitute for the sun in the dark. Thus everything in the earth praises itself. . . . . All these things proclaim their praise and are veiled in the screen of their characteristics and have drawn away from the Source of Grace and, without the intervention of such things as are free from these veils, no design of the. Fountainhead of Grace can establish a relationship with them inasmuch as the veil steps in between. The Wisdom of God Almighty, therefore, demanded that to be the primary manifestation of His designs, there should be a form of creation which should not be veiled by self, but should possess a form which, contrary to other things, should by its nature be free from intervening self and should serve God Almighty as His limbs, and its numbers should correspond to the designs of God Almighty which are related to the whole of creation. That unusual creation should possess a nature like a transparent mirror and should be ever present before God Almighty. It should have two directions. One direction should be that of uniqueness and transcendence and, being imperceptible and free from veils, it should be different from the other forms of creation and should resemble closely by way of reflection the Being of God Almighty and should not be veiled by self. The other direction should be that of being created, on account of which they should have a