nterference or partnership in that act of dominicality and disposal of creative power, which displayed such innumerable miracles.

I noted next the ‘I’ in the For us God suffices, that is, I considered myself, and I saw that among the animals, He had created me miraculously from my origin, a drop of fluid, had opened my ear, attached my eye, and had placed in my head a brain, and in my breast a heart, and in my mouth a tongue containing hundreds of scales and measures with which I might weigh up and know all the gifts of that Most Merciful One stored up in the treasuries of mercy. He had inscribed on these, thousands of instruments for unlocking and understanding the treasures of the infinite manifestations of His Most Beautiful Names, and given instructions to the number of smells, tastes, and colours for the assistance of those instruments.

He had moreover included with perfect order in this body the numerous sensitive feelings and senses, and subtle, non-physical faculties and inner senses. He had created with perfect art all the systems and members and faculties necessary for human life so that He might allow me to experience and understand all the varieties of His bounties, and make known to me the countless different manifestations of His Names. Like the bodies of all believers, He had made this poor body of mine, which appears so insignificant, a fine calendar and diary of the universe; an illuminated summary of the macrocosm; a miniature sample of the world; a clear miracle of His handicraft; a desirous seeker after every sort of His bounty, and the means to them; and a list and index, like a model garden, of the gifts and flowers of mercy; and the understanding recipient of His Divine pronouncements. He also had given me life, to expand and increase in my existence, which is the greatest bounty. For through life, the bounty of my existence may expand to the extent of the Manifest World.

He had also bestowed humanity on me, through which the bounty of existence may unfold in the physical and spiritual realms, opening up the way to benefiting —through the senses particular to man— from those broad spreads of bounties.

He had also bestowed Islam on me, through which the bounty of existence may expand to the extent of the Manifest World and World of the Unseen.