a tiny library in man’s brain which is at the same time very large, and in other mirrors, physical and non-physical, in which they are reflected, the numerous forms of all living creatures and all things, and the notebooks of the duties they perform in accordance with their essential natures, and the pages of their deeds pertaining to the glorifications they perform towards the Divine Names through the tongues of their beings; it inscribes them in these, and records and preserves them. Then, when the time comes —every spring, which is a flower of Divine power— they display to us all those immaterial inscriptions in physical form, proclaim to the universe with millions of tongues within that supreme flower, and with the strength of millions of examples, evidences, and samples, the wondrous truth of resurrection expressed in the verse:
When the pages are spread out.1
It proves most cogently that foremost man, and all living beings and all things, were created not to topple over into nothingness, to fall into non-existence, to be annihilated, but to win immortality through progressing, and permanence through being purified, and to take up the eternal duties required by their innate capacities.
Yes, we observe every spring that the innumerable plants which die in the doomsday of the autumn, and all the trees, roots, seeds, and grains in the resurrection of the spring recite the verse When the pages are spread out. Expounding each in its own tongue one meaning of the verse, one facet of it, with examples of the duties it performed in previous years, they all testify to that vast preservation. They display in everything the four vast truths of the verse,
He is the First, and the Last, the Evident, and the Inward,2
and instruct us with the ease and certainty of the spring.
The manifestations of these four Names occur in all things from the most particular to the most universal. For example, through manifesting the Name of First, a seed, the source of a tree, is a precise programme of it and a small receptacle containing the faultless systems of the tree’s creation and all the conditions of its formation, thus proving the vastness of Divine preservation.
Then, together with the tree’s seeds, its fruit manifests the Name of Last; they are coffers containing the indexes of all the duties the tree has performed in accordance with its nature and the principles of its second life, thus testifying at a maximum level to Divine preservation.
Qur’an, 81:10.
Qur’an, 57:3.