Fourth Glow: The conciseness of the Qur'an that express general laws in simple events.

Fourth Glow: The Qur’an’s conciseness is so comprehensive and wonderful that when studied carefully it becomes apparent that sometimes, through some simple detail or particular event, it compassionately shows to simple, ordinary minds most extensive, lengthy, universal rules and general laws, like showing an ocean in a ewer. We shall point out only two examples of this out of thousands.

First Example: This is the three verses expounded in detail in the First Station of the Twentieth Word, which describe under the name of ‘the teaching of the Names’ to the person of Adam, the teaching of all the sciences and branches of knowledge with which the sons of Adam have been inspired. Through the angels prostrating before Adam and Satan not prostrating, they state that most beings from fish to angels are subjugated to human kind, just as harmful creatures from snakes to Satan do not obey man and are hostile to him. And through the people of Moses (Peace be upon him) slaughtering a cow, they state that the concept of cow-worship -which was taken from the worship of cows in Egypt and showed its effect in ‘the event of the calf’- was slaughtered by Moses’ knife. And through water gushing forth from the rock and springs flowing out and spreading, they also state that the rock layer which is under the soil layer acts as the source of both water springs and the soil.

Second Example: This is the whole and the parts of the story of Moses (Peace be upon him), which is frequently repeated in the Qur’an, and each of the repetitions of which is shown as the tip of a universal rule, with each repetition stating the rule in question. For example:

O Haman! Build me a lofty palace.¹

Pharaoh is commanding his minister: “Build me a high tower so that I can take a look at the heavens and observe them. I wonder if there is a God who governs in the skies like Moses claims, who can be seen from their disposition?” Thus, through the word ‘palace’ and this minor incident, it states a strange rule dominant in the traditions of the Egyptian Pharaohs, who, because they lived in the desert with no mountains, wanted mountains, and because they did not recognize the Creator, were worshippers of nature and claimed godhead; and worshipping fame, through displaying the works of their dominion perpetuated their name and constructed the famous mountain-like pyramids; and agreed to magic and metempsychosis, and had their corpses mummified and preserved in their mountain-like tombs.

And, for example:

This day We shall save you in your body.²

By saying to Pharaoh, who is drowning: “Today I am going to save your body which will drown,” it is expressing a death-tainted, exemplary rule of the Pharaohs’ lives, which was, as a consequence of the idea of metempsychosis and mummifying the bodies of all of them, to take them from the past and send them to be viewed by the generations of the future. And this present century a body was discovered which was the very body of Pharaoh, thrown up on the seashore where he drowned. The verse thus states a miraculous sign of the Unseen, that the body was to be borne on the waves of the centuries and cast up from the sea of time onto the shore of this century.

And, for example:

They slaughtered your sons and let your women-folk live.³

With an event in the time of a Pharaoh, the slaughtering of the sons of the Children of Israel and the sparing of their women and daughters, it mentions the numerous massacres which the Jewish nation has suffered every age, and the role their women and girls have played in dissolute human life.

And you will indeed find them, of all people, most greedy of life.⁴* And you see many of them racing each other in sin and rancour, and their eating of things forbidden. Evil indeed are the things they do.⁵* But they [ever] strive to do mischief on earth. And Allah loves not those who do mischief.⁶* And We gave [clear] warning to the Children of Israel in the Book, that twice they would do mischief on the earth.⁷* And do no evil nor mischief on the earth.⁸

These two statements of the Qur’an directed at the Jews, comprise the two fearsome general rules, that that nation hatches plots in human social life with their trickery, which shake human society. They say that just as it was that nation which made labour contest with capital; and through usury and compounded interest, made the poor clash with the rich, and caused the banks to be founded, and amassed wealth through wiles and fraud; so it was again that nation who, in order to take their revenge on the victors and governments under which they always suffered deprivation and oppression, were involved in every sort of corrupting covert organization and had a finger in every sort of revolution.

And, for example:

Then seek ye for death⁹

That is, “If what you say is true, seek death, but you won’t seek it!” Thus, through a minor incident in a small gathering in the presence of the Prophet (PBUH), it points out that the Jewish nation, which is most famous among the nations of mankind for its greed for life and fear of death, will not, according to its tongue of disposition, seek death till Doomsday, and will not give up its greed for life.

And, for example:

Thus they were stamped with humiliation and indigence.¹⁰

With this, it describes generally that nation’s future destiny. It is because of these fearsome rules governing the destiny and character of this nation that the Qur’an acts so severely against them. It deals them awesomely punishing slaps. From these examples draw analogies with the other stories and passages about Moses (Peace be upon him) and the Children of Israel. Now, there are very many flashes of miraculousness like the flash in this Fourth Glow behind the simple words and specific subjects of the Qur’an. A hint is enough for the wise.

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1. Qur’an, 40:36.
2. Qur’an, 10:92.
3. Qur’an, 2:49; 14:6.
4. Qur’an, 2:96.
5. Qur’an, 5:62.
6. Qur’an, 5:64.
7. Qur’an, 17:4.
8. Qur’an, 2:60.
9. Qur’an, 2:94.
10. Qur’an, 2:61.

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Fifth Glow: The comprehensiveness of the Qur'an that gathers all supreme qualities either with its content or style without any confusion.