been made a veil to the disposals of power so that the complaints and anger arising from what are to the superficial view of conscious beings apparently ugliness, badness, disasters, and calamities, should not be directed to the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One, and so that the contact of sacred, pure divine power with apparently vile and filthy things should not offend the dignity of power. The causes cannot create, but have been placed to be the target of unjust complaints and objections and to preserve the dignity, sacredness, and unblemished nature of divine power.
As is explained in the Introduction to the Second Station of the Twenty-Second Word, Azra’il (Upon whom be peace) supplicated Almighty God concerning his duty of seizing the spirits of the dying, saying: “Your servants will be angry with me.” He was told in reply: “I shall place the veil of illness and calamity between your duty and the dying, then they shall fling their arrows of complaint and objection, not at you, but at those veils.”
According to this supplication, Azra’il’s (Upon whom be peace) duty is a veil as other causes are apparent veils, so that the anger and complaints of those who do not see the true, beautiful face of death – beautiful for the people of belief – and do not know the manifestation of mercy on it, are not directed to the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One. Yes, dignity and grandeur require that causes are curtain-holders to the Hand of Power in the mind’s view, while divine unity and glory demand that causes withdraw their hands and have no true effect.
However, since both the outer and inner faces of life are without dirt, defect, or fault, there is nothing to invite complaints and objections; they hold no filth or ugliness contrary to the dignity and sacredness of power. The faces of life, therefore, have been surrendered directly, without veil, to the hand of the life-giving, restoring, resurrecting name of the Ever-Living Self-Subsistent One. Light is the same, and so are existence and the giving of existence. For this reason, creation and the giving of existence look directly without veil to the power of the All-Glorious One. Moreover, since rain is a sort of life and mercy, the time of its precipitation has not been made subject to a regular law, so that at all times of need hands will be raised to the divine court to seek it. If like the rising of the sun, rain had been subject to a law, that vital bounty would not have been sought and asked for at times of need.
THIRD SIGN
It was said in the twenty-ninth property of life that just as the result of the universe is life, so are thanks and worship the result of life, and the cause and ultimate reason for the universe’s creation, and its desired result.