The Twenty-fifth Word

Treatise on the Qur’an’s miraculousness

THIRD RAY: The Qur’an cannot be compared with other words and speeches. This is because speech is of different categories, and in regard to superiority, power, beauty, and fineness, has four sources: the speaker, the person addressed, the purpose, and the occasion on which it is spoken. Its source is not only the occasion, as some literary people have wrongly supposed. So do not consider only the speech itself. Since speech derives its strength and beauty from these four sources, from the answers given to the questions “Who spoke it? To whom did he speak it? Why did he speak it? On what occasion did he speak it?”, if the Qur’an’s sources are studied carefully, the degree of its eloquence, superiority, and beauty will be under stood. Since speech is first considered according to the speaker, if it is in the form of command and prohibition it contains a will and power proportional to the speaker’s rank. Then it may be irresistible and have an effect like electricity, increasing in superiority and power.

• From suras Hud and Fussilat, respectively:

“O earth, swallow up your water, o sky, cease (your rain)!” (11:44) He said to them (the heaven and the earth): “Come both of you, willingly or unwillingly.” They said: “We have come in willing obedience.” (41:11)

That means: “O heaven and earth, come willingly or unwillingly, and submit yourselves to My Wisdom and Power. Come out of non-existence and appear as places where My works of Art will be exhibited.” They answered: “We come in perfect obedience. We will carry out, by Your leave and Power, all duties You have assigned us.”

Consider the sublimity and force of those compelling commands bearing an irresistible power and will, and imagine how absurd and wishful our commands toward inanimate objects would be: “O earth, stop! O heaven, rend asunder! O world, destroy yourself!” Can such commands be compared with His? How can our wishes and insensible commands be compared with the compelling commands of a supreme ruler having all of rulership’s essential qualities?

The difference between a supreme commander’s compelling command to march to a mighty, obedient army, and that of an ordinary private is as great as the difference between the commander and the private. Consider the force and superiority of the commands in: When He wills a thing to be, He but says to it “Be!” and it is (36:82), and When We said to the angels: “Prostrate before Adam!” (2:34) with human orders, and see whether the difference between them is not like that between a firefly and the sun.

Consider how masters describe their work while doing it, how artists explain their artistry while working, and how benefactors discuss their goodness while doing it. We see how effective their combined actions and words and the affect of their words when they say that they have done that in a certain way and for a certain purpose, and in the way it must be done. For example:

• From Sura Qaf:

Do they not observe the sky above them, how We have built and adorned it, and that there are no rifts in it?. And the earth—We have spread out, and set therein firm mountains, and caused to grow thereon every lovely pair of vegetation. (All this is ea means of) insight and reminder for every servant willing to turn to Him in contrition. And We send down from the sky blessed water whereby We cause to grow gardens and grain to harvest, and tall and stately date palms with ranged clusters as a provision for the servants. And We revive with it a dead land: even so will the dead be raised and come forth (from their graves). (50:6-11)

The descriptions which shine in the constellation of this sura like starry fruits of Paradise introduce, with perfect eloquence, many proofs of the Resurrection derived from the observable part of the universe, which is in action. By concluding with even so will the dead be raised and come forth (from their graves), they silence those whom the sura says deny the Resurrection at its beginning. How different this is from the people’s discussion of happenings with which they have little concern. The difference is greater than that between real and plastic flowers. I will interpret these verses very briefly.

The sura begins with the unbelievers’ denial of the Resurrection. To convince them of its truth, the sura asks: “Don’t you see in how magnificent and orderly a fashion We have built the sky and how We have adorned it with the sun, the moon, and stars, with no rifts therein? Do you not see how We have spread the earth out for you, and how wisely We have furnished it? Having fixed mountains thereon, We protect it against the oceans’ invasion. Do you not see how We have created on it all kinds of multicolored and beautiful pairs of vegetation and pasturage and then embellished the earth with them? Do you not see how We send blessed water abundantly from the sky and cause to grow with it gardens, orchards, grains and lofty trees like date palms bearing delicious fruits, with which We provide Our servants? Do you not see that I also revive the dead soil with that water and bring about thousands of instances of resurrection? In the same way that I cause vegetation to grow on the dead earth through My Power, you will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment, when the earth will die and you will rise out of it alive!” How exalted is the eloquence displayed in these verses that prove the Resurrection, how superior to the words humans use to prove a claim!

From the beginning of this treatise up to here, I have left secret many of the Qur’an’s rights for the sake of objective reasoning and verification to convince unbelievers of the Qur’an’s miraculousness. I have brought that “sun” in among candles and drawn comparisons. Now, I will briefly point out its incomparable rank in the name of truth.

When compared with the Qur’an, all other words are like tiny reflections of stars in a glass in comparison with the stars themselves. In fact, how far are the meanings that human minds picture in the mirrors of their thoughts and feelings, from the Qur’an’s words, each of which describes an unchanging truth! How great is the distance between the Qur’an’s angel like, life-giving words, the Word of the All-Majestic Creator of the sun and moon, which also diffuses the lights of guidance, and the stinging words originated by bewitching souls and affected manners that incite desire! When compared with the Qur’an, our words are like stinging insects in comparison with angels and other luminous spirit beings. This is not a mere assertion; rather, as is apparent in our discussions in The Words written so far, it is a conclusion based on evidence.

How far are our words, full of fancies and fantasies, from the Qur’an’s words and phrases. This eternal Divine address, which originated from the All Merciful’s Supreme Throne, came in consideration of humanity as an independent being superior to all other creatures, and is founded upon God’s Knowledge, Power, and Will. Each word and statement is the source of a pearl of guidance and of the truths of belief, as well as the mine of an Islamic principle. How great is the distance between our vain, fanciful, futile words and those of the Qur’an.

Like a blessed tree under which the universe lies, the Qur’an has produced the leaves of all Islamic spiritual values and moral perfections, public symbols and rules, principles and commandments. It has burst into blossoms of saints and purified scholars, and yielded fruits of all perfections, Divine truths and the truths concerning the Divine laws of creation and the operation of the universe. The pits or stones in those fruits have grown into “fruit-bearing trees” as principles of conduct and programs of practical life.

Every person and land has benefited from the gems of truth exhibited by the wise Qur’an for almost fourteen centuries in the market of the universe. During that time, neither too much familiarity nor the abundance of its truths, neither time’s passage nor the great changes and upheavals in human life, have made people indifferent to its invaluable truths and fine, authentic styles. Nor have these things damaged or devalued them, or extinguished its beauty and freshness. This is miraculous by itself.

If someone were to arrange some Qur’anic truths into a book of his own and claim to have brought about a book similar to the Qur’an, it would be like the following: Suppose a master-builder built a magnificent palace of various jewels, all laid in a symmetrical manner, and embellished it proportionally to each jewel’s position and the palace’s general design. Then imagine that an ordinary builder, knowing nothing of the palace’s jewels, design, and embellishments, were to enter it and destroy the master-builder’s work to make it look like an ordinary building. Suppose this person hangs some beads on it to satisfy certain childish fancies, and then says: “Look! I am more skillful than the original builder and have more wealth and more valuable adornments.” Could anyone take such an absurd claim seriously?

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi