The Day that We roll up the heavens like a scroll rolled up for books [completed].1
No just estimate have they made of God, such as is due to Him: on the Day of Judgement the whole of the earth will be but His handful.2
Had We sent down this Qur’an on a mountain, you would indeed have seen it humble itself and cleave asunder for fear of God.3
And study the Suras which begin al-Hamdulillah, or Tusabbihu, and see the rays of this mighty mystery. Look too at the openings of the Alif. Lam. Mim.’s, the Alif. Lam. Ra.’s, and the Ha. Mim.’s, and understand the Qur’an’s importance in the sight of God.
If you have understood the valuable mystery of this Fourth Principle, you have understood that revelation mostly comes to the prophets by means of an angel, and inspiration is mostly without means. You will have also understood the reason why the greatest saint cannot attain to the level of a prophet. And you will have understood too the Qur’an’s sublimity and its sacred grandeur and the mystery of its elevated miraculousness. So too you will have understood the mystery of the necessity of the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension, that is, that he went to the heavens, to the furthest Lote-tree, to the distance of two bow-lengths, offered supplications to the All-Glorious One, Who is closer to him than his jugular vein, and in the twinkling of an eye returned whence he came. Indeed, just as the Splitting of the Moon was a miracle of his messengership whereby he demonstrated his prophethood to the jinn and mankind, so the Ascension was a miracle of his worship and servitude to God whereby he demonstrated to the spirits and angels that he was God’s Beloved.
O God, grant blessings and peace to him and to his Family as befits Your mercy, and in veneration of him. Amen.
Qur’an, 21:104.
Qur’an, 39:67.
Qur’an, 59:21.