Intermediate Realm, the resurrection, and the Bridge, to eternal happiness; from the events of the past, and the creation of the body of Adam and the dispute of his two sons, to the Flood, and the drowning of the people of Pharaoh, and the major events of most of the prophets; and from the pre-eternal circumstance alluded to by,
Am I not your Sustainer? 1
to the post-eternal occurrence expressed by,
Some faces that day will beam in brightness * Looking towards their Sustainer;2
all these fundamental, important subjects are explained in a way befitting the All-Glorious One Who administers the whole universe as though it was a palace, and opens and closes this world and the hereafter like two rooms, and regulates the earth as if it was a garden and the heavens as though they were a roof adorned with lamps, and beholds the past and the future as though they were two pages present in His sight like a single night and day, and looks on pre-eternity and post-eternity as though they were yesterday and tomorrow, in a form in which the two sides of a chain of events are joined together and touching in present time. Just as a master builder speaks of two houses he has constructed and arranged, and makes out the programme and list and index of the matters involved, so the Qur’an is fitting for the One Who makes the universe and arranges it, and writes out and displays the list and index and –if one may say so– the programme of the matters concerned with it. There is no sign of any artificiality or false display. And just as there is no trace of imitation or hint of any fraud, like speaking on behalf of someone else or supposing itself to be in someone else’s place and speaking, so too with all its seriousness, all its purity, all its sincerity, the Qur’an’s pure, shining, brilliant exposition declares: “I am the word and exposition of the Creator of the world,” just as the light of day declares: “I came from the sun.”
Indeed, apart from the Maker Who adorns this world with antique arts and fills its with delicious bounties and scatters bountifully over the face of the world together with these wonders of His art so many valuable gifts, and setting them in orderly lines spreads them out over the face of the earth, apart from this Bestower of Bounties, who else could the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition be fitting for – the Qur’an which fills the world with this clamour of salutation and acclaim, this resounding praise and thanks, and transforms the earth into a place for the recitation of God’s Names, a mosque, and place for gazing on the Divine works of art? Whose speech could it be apart from His? Who can claim ownership of it apart from Him?
Qur’an, 7:172.
Qur’an, 75:22-3.