He has favoured us with the human state so that we delight in the boundless gifts of both the spiritual and material worlds, through instruments such as the intellect and the heart.
He has conveyed Islam to us so that we derive light from the boundless treasuries of the Unseen and Manifest Realms.
He has guided us to faith so that we are illumined by the innumerable lights and gifts of this world and the hereafter. This cosmos is like a palace fitted out and adorned by the Divine quality of mercy with innumerable antiques and valuable items, which then gives to man’s hands the keys to open all the chests and chambers in that palace, as well as bestowing on man’s nature all the needs and senses that will enable him to make use of them.
This mercy that embraces this world and the hereafter, and indeed all things, is without doubt a manifestation of oneness within unity.
Just as the light of the sun is a parable of unity, through its comprehending all things that face it, every bright and transparent object that receives the reflection of the light, heat, and seven colours of the sun, is also a parable and a symbol of oneness. Hence, whoever sees its all-embracing light will conclude that the sun of this earth is one and unique. Witnessing the warm and luminous reflection of the sun in all bright objects, and even in drops of water, he will say that the oneness of the sun, or the sun itself, is present with its attributes close to all things; it is at the mirrorlike heart of all things.
So too the encompassing of all things by the extensive mercy of the Merciful One of Beauty, like a light, demonstrates the unity of that Merciful One and that He in no way has any partner. Similarly, the fact that under the veil of that all-embracing mercy the lights of most of the Merciful One’s Names and a sort of manifestation of His essence are found in everything, and especially in all living beings, and in man in particular, and the fact that this gives each individual a comprehensiveness arising from life which causes him to look to and be related to the whole universe, proves the oneness of the Merciful One and that He is present with all things and does all things in all things.
Yes, the Merciful One shows the splendour of His glory in the whole of the cosmos and all over the earth through the unity and comprehensiveness of His mercy. With the manifestation of His oneness, He gathers together in every member of all animate species, and particularly man, specimens of all His bounties, orders the tools and instruments of animate beings, and proclaims the special solicitude of His beauty to each individual, this without shattering the wholeness of the universe. As for man, it