cause him to accept what they teach. As an example, I shall recount briefly the situations I beheld on a journey of the imagination, which were in fact reality. Those wishing for a more detailed account may look at the end of Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybi (The Ratifying Stamp of the Unseen Collection).
When on that journey of the imagination I looked at the animal kingdom through the eyes of materialist philosophy and the people of misguidance and heedlessness, the innumerable needs of animals and their terrible hunger together with their weakness and impotence appeared to me as most piteous and grievous. I cried out. Then I saw through the telescope of Qur’anic wisdom and belief that the Divine Name of All-Merciful had risen in the sign of Provider like a shining sun; it gilded with the light of its mercy that hungry, wretched animal world.
Then I saw within the animal world another grievous world which was swathed in darkness and would make anyone feel pity and in which young were struggling in their need and powerlessness. I was sorry I had looked through the eyes of the people of misguidance. Suddenly, belief gave me other spectacles and I saw the Name of All-Compassionate rise in the sign of clemency; it transformed and lit up that pitiful world in joyous and beautiful fashion, changing my tears of complaint and sorrow into tears of joy and thanks.
Then the world of humanity appeared to me as though on a cinema screen. I looked through the telescope of the people of misguidance and saw that world to be so dark and terrifying that I cried out from the depths of my heart. “Alas!” I cried. For they had desires and hopes that stretched to eternity, thoughts and imaginings that embraced the universe, the earnest desire for everlasting happiness and Paradise, an innate capacity and powers on which no limit had been placed and which were free, yet despite their innumerable needs and their weakness and impotence they were exposed to the attacks of innumerable enemies and the blows of innumerable calamities. Under the perpetual threat of death, they lived out their brief and tumultuous lives in wretched circumstances. Ever looking to the grave, which for the misguided is the door to everlasting darkness, they suffered the continuous blows of death and separation, the most painful state for the heart and conscience. I saw that singly and in groups they were being thrown into that black well.
On seeing the world of humanity in this darkness I was about to cry out with my heart, spirit, and mind, and all my subtle inner faculties, indeed all the particles of my being, when the light and power of belief proceeding from the Qur’an smashed those spectacles of misguidance, giving me insight. I saw the Divine Name of All-Just rising like the sun in