Folio 5b

…is loosened. Yet at every time and every moment their eyes are looking upon the wonders of the craft of the King whose help is sought. A true proof of the truth of these words is this: look with the eye of insight upon these lofty bodies, deepen your thought, and examine them closely.*1

God Most High has said: «The sky We built with might, and We are surely its expanders. And the earth We spread out; how excellent are We who spread it!» (al-Dhariyat 51:47–48)

The breadth and firmness of the heavenly bodies, which the mind cannot encompass; their being a divine edifice preserved from change and corruption «until the decree reaches its term». The world — its lands, seas and airs — is, beside the heavens, like a ring cast into a wide desert.

Then, with such breadth, perfection, strength and firmness, their turning in various revolutions: some turn like a millstone, some like a water-wheel, some like a sword-belt; some are swift in their course and motion, some slow, yet all turn ceaselessly and never stop to rest for a moment. And that an edifice of such great majesty stands without pillars.

And also the stars and the differences in their colours; the sun and the moon, and the shifting of their places of rising and setting; the changing of the seasons through the motion of the sun — now spring, now summer, now autumn, now winter; the light of the moon and the dark patch on its face, which no one to this day has been able to explain.

If one looked with the eye that takes heed upon these divine works that have been described, minds and imaginations would be bewildered. Then look at what lies between earth and sky: the winds, clouds, snows and rains; the thunder, lightning and floods; their play with the clouds; the lifting from the earth into the air of clouds that carry the water of the sea and weights beyond telling.*2

How some of the clouds are driven along, some are wrung out, and in some the cloud is broken into pieces and the sky opened; how the rain drips onto the face of the earth in a known measure, and its excess gathers in the caves and hollows beneath the mountains, so that rivers and springs flow all year round without ceasing.

Then look at the face of the earth: it is the shelter and dwelling place of the kinds of animals — rivers, seas, minerals, plants. And look beneath the earth: it is the place and shelter of springs, and the dwelling and place of return of the dead. All…*3*4