The Six Concise Indications of the Sublimity of the Qur’ān

the traveller entrusted to The Book of Light. Yet he still looked closely at ‘A Few Points’ indicating the sublime nature of the Qur’ān in a concise manner.

[Six Concise Indications of the Sublimity of the Qur’ān]

The first point: Just as the Qur’ān is a miracle of Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) with all its miracles and spiritual realities indicating its truth, so too is Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) with all of his miracles, proofs of prophethood and sciential perfections, a miracle of the Qur’ān, and a conclusive proof that it is the Speech of Allāh.

The second point: The Qur’ān caused a revolution in this world - in the selves, moreover the hearts, moreover the spirits, moreover the intellects of people, and moreover within their personal lives, moreover their social lives, and moreover their political lives. It directed this revolution and made it lasting. Its six-thousand, six hundred and sixty-six verses have been recited at every minute for fourteen centuries, in perfect reverence and in the languages of at least more than one-hundred million people. It provides people’s spiritual training, chastens their lower-selves, and purifies their hearts. Upon spirits, it bestows mystical unveilings (kashf) and spiritual ascension. Upon intellects, it confers soundness and light, and to life it gives life, and happiness. There is no doubt then that a book like this is nonpareil; it has no peers, it is wondrous, extraordinary, and a miracle.

The third point: Since that age, and continuing right up until our own day, the Qur’ān has continued to manifest its eloquence, even depreciating the value of the famous poems known as ‘The Seven Suspended’ (al-Mu‘allaqātu’s-Sab‘ah) that were authored by renowned poets, and written in gold, 

suspended upon the wall of the Ka‘ba. This to the extent that the daughter of the famous poet Labīd removed her own father’s poem from the wall of the Ka‘ba saying ‘these have no value left them, against these verses.’

Moreover, when a bedouin poet heard the verse فَاصْدَعْ بِمَا تُؤْمَرُ (a) being recited, he threw himself to the ground in prostration. ‘Have you become Muslim?’ people said to him. He said ‘No, but I prostrated because of the eloquence of this verse’.

Moreover, thousands of the ingenious imāms, and expert poets, such as ‘Abdu’l-Qādiri’l-Jurjāni, as-Sakkākī, and az-Zamakhsharī, subtle masters of the science of rhetoric, have agreed by consensus that the rhetoric of the Qur’ān is beyond any human capacity and cannot be overtaken.

Moreover, since that time the Qur’ān has continually challenged the disdainful and the egotistical poets and rhetoricians, and made their blood boil, hurting their pride and inviting them to raise objections to its claims, saying ‘Either you bring a single chapter like it, or be content with destruction and humiliation in this world and the next. The obstinate poets of that time chose the long road of war in which their property and indeed their very spirits were exposed to danger - for they were unable to produce a single chapter like it. They refused the challenge, the short way, despite the Qur’ān’s proclamation of the challenge. Taking that short way was in fact impossible, as their choice proved.

There are millions of Arabic books available that have been written since that time by lovers of the Qur’ān in the spirit of yearning,

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a 'So proclaim openly that which you have been commanded’ (Qur’ān, al-Hijr, 15:94) 

in which they attempt to imitate its style. Others have been written on the initiative of its enemies in order to refute and criticise it. The books in our hands can never attain to the level of the Qur’ān, even though they have developed as the result of the accumulation of differing ideas. If even the most normal of men was to listen to it, he would indubitably say ‘This Qur’ān does not resemble any of those other books, and it is not on the same level as them. Its level is then either beneath them all, or above them all.’ No one in this world, no disbeliever, and not even a stupid person could possibly say that it is beneath all of them, in which case its rhetorical (balāgha) level must be higher than all of them.

In actual fact one of them recited the noble verse سَبَّحَ لِلهِ مَا فِي السَّمَوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ (a) and said ‘I do not see the inimitable eloquence that it is claimed is contained in this verse’. ‘Return, in your imagination,’ it was said to him, ‘to that age, and listen to it there, as this traveller has done’.

He thus imagined himself there, before the revelation of the Qur’ān. He saw that all that existed in the world was in a wretched, gloomy, dull, inanimate, unconscious state - without [feeling or] purpose, in endless and boundless empty space, and in an unstable, transient world of no permanence. Yet as he listened to this verse in the language of the Qur’ān, he was suddenly able to see that this noble verse had thrown back the veil that had been over the universe and the face of the earth, and had illuminated that face.

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a 'All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allāh’ (Qur’ān, al-Hadīd, 57:1) 

He observed that this beginninglessly eternal (azalī) utterance, this eternal (sarmadī) decree, gives a lesson to all conscious beings standing in formation in the ranks of history, making clear that this universe is like a great mosque comprising of the entirety of creations, foremost amongst them being the heavens and the earth, in divine remembrance, glorification, and vigorous work, longingly, energetically, and in a state of deep happiness and contentment.

That man now tasted the rhetorical (balāgha) status of this verse, and drew analogous conclusions about its other verses. He understood one of the thousands of wisdom contained in the serenely fluent and peacefully harmonious rhetoric of the Qur’ān’s perpetuation of the sublimity of its perfectly revered sultanate for fourteen unbroken centuries - spread over half of the earth and a fifth of humanity.

The fourth point: The Qur’ān manifests real, genuine sweetness. For much repetition of even the sweetest of things causes boredom - yet not for the reciter of the Qur’ān. Rather, reciting it repeatedly increases its sweetness, for anyone but he whose heart and taste has become corrupted. This has been accepted by everyone since ancient times, until it has become as good as proverbial.

The Qur’ān has likewise manifested freshness, youthfulness, vigour (shabābah) and unique singularity (gharābah), having maintained its freshness to the extent that it is being revealed right now, despite the fact that it has lived for fourteen centuries, and is easily accessible to all. Every age sees [it in its youth, and every age feels] that it is as if the Qur’ān is addressing themselves in particular. Despite the fact that every group of scholars carries it