which necessitates innumerable impossibilities and is a delusion; while it proves to the people of guidance that in relation to the power of the universe’s Creator particles and the stars are equal, may His glory be exalted, for there is no god but He; God is Most Great!
Before giving a translation of this Arabic piece from the point of view of the truly vast question of Divine power, and a brief meaning of it, I shall disclose a truth which was imparted to me. It was like this:
The existence of Divine power is more certain than the existence of the universe. Indeed, singly and all together creatures are the embodied words of power; they demonstrate its existence with ‘the vision of certainty.’ They testify to their number to the Absolutely Powerful One, the One qualified by it. There is no need to prove that power with further proofs. But because it is one of the most important bases of faith, and the most necessary means to understanding the Qur’anic truths, and as claimed by the verse,
Your creation and your resurrection is but as a single soul,1
and because not everyone has found the way to it through the use of reason, some people have remained bewildered and uncomprehending before power and others have denied it, and it is therefore necessary to prove an awesome truth concerning it.
As for the above-mentioned basis, foundation, means, assertion, and truth, it is the meaning of the above verse. That is to say: “Men and jinn! The creation of all of you and your being resurrected and raised to life at the resurrection is as easy for My power as the creation of a single individual!” Divine power creates the spring as easily as it creates a single flower. For that power, there is no difference between particular and universal, small and large, many and few. It spins planets as easily as it spins particles.
In nine ‘Steps’, the above Arabic passage expounds a most conclusive, cogent proof of this awesome question. Very briefly, its meaning is as follows. The basis of the steps is indicated by this:
For He is powerful over all things with absolute, all-encompassing power, necessary and intrinsic to His Most Pure and Holy Essence; it is impossible that the opposite of His power should intervene in it, for it has no degrees; equal before it are particles and stars, particulars and universals, the part and the whole, the seed and the tree, the world and man.
Qur’an, 31:28.