Folio 6a

…wonder in things is certain; but our failure to perceive and the shortcoming of our understanding prevent us from knowing the wonders of the Creator's craft.

The historians relate that in the first book of the Torah it is written: God Most High created a substance and looked upon that substance with a gaze of awe and majesty. At once the substance melted; boiling with fear of the Creator's awe, it sent up smoke, and a sediment remained on its surface. God, glorified and exalted, created the heavens from that smoke and the earths from its sediment — as He has said: «The heavens and the earth were joined together, and We parted them.» Then, out of His perfect wisdom and kindness, He created the heavens, the earths and all existing things in six days.*1

Some scholars say: «day» in the lexicon means coming-into-being and event; the words «six days» refer to the successive moments of the divine works. For on the day of creation there was neither earth, nor time, nor nights, nor days.*2

The purpose of the «six days» is to teach that one must act deliberately and without haste when beginning affairs and arrangements. When someone is about to begin a task, he should first think and weigh its outcome; if his view and thought settle on a decision, he should set to work; and once he has begun he should not hurry — for in work done in haste there is no lasting and no firmness. God the Exalted is able to create a thousand and one heavens and earths in a single moment; but to teach His servants He said, «I created them in six days».*3

Introduction: On the Strange

The strange is a wondrous thing whose occurrence runs contrary to custom and goes against familiar observation. The cause and occurrence of a strange thing come either from the influences of powerful souls, or from the influences of the celestial bodies and the elemental bodies; and all of it happens by the power and will of God Most High.

Foremost among them are the miracles of the prophets: the moon coming down to the earth and splitting in two, the staff becoming a serpent, the sea rising into the air, the she-camel coming out of the rock.

Next come the like among the saints; for God has granted the souls of His friends such a power of influence that their souls attach themselves to things other than their own bodies, and strange effects appear.