behold, you [straightway] come forth.
To Him belongs every being that is in the heavens and on earth: all are devoutly obedient to Him.
It is He Who begins [the process of] creation; then repeats it; and for Him it is most easy. To Him belongs the loftiest similitude [we can think of] in the heavens and the earth; for He is Exalted in Might, Full of Wisdom.1
In this Ninth Ray will be expounded a supreme point of these sublime heavenly verses, which demonstrate one of the ‘poles’ of belief; these mighty sacred proofs of the resurrection of the dead will be explained. It is a subtle instance of dominical grace that thirty years ago at the end of his work entitled Muhâkemat (Reasonings), which was written to set out the principles of Qur’anic exegesis, the Old Said wrote: “Second Aim: Two Qur’anic verses alluding to the resurrection of the dead will be expounded and explained. In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” There he stopped and could write no further. Now, praise and thanks be to my Compassionate Creator to the number of signs and indications of the resurrection, that thirty years later He gave me success. Yes, nine or ten years ago, He bestowed the Tenth and Twenty-Ninth Words, two brilliant and powerful proofs expounding the Divine decree of:
So look to the signs of God’s mercy, how He raises to life the earth after its death; He it is who will raise the dead to life, for He is Powerful Over All Things,2
which was the first of the two verses. They silenced the deniers of resurrection. Now, nine or ten years after those two impregnable bastions of belief in the resurrection of the dead, He bestowed with the present treatise a commentary on the second of the above two sublime verses. This Ninth Ray, then, consists of nine elevated ‘Stations’, indicated by the above-mentioned verses, and an important Introduction.
Qur’an, 30:17-27.
Qur’an, 30:50.