Creator hopefully and beseechingly that in the future his vast community and the righteous members of it would reflect Islam, which represents the Divine greeting, and that all his community would greet each other: “Peace be upon you!” “And peace be upon you!,” which, between believers, is a universal mark of Islam.

Gabriel (Peace be upon him), who took part in the conversation, said that night at the Divine command: “I testify that there is no god but God, and I testify that Muhammad is God’s Messenger,” giving the happy news that all the Umma would testify in that way until the Last Day. Recalling this sacred exchange, the meanings of the words gain in brilliance an dcomprehensiveness.

A strange state of mind that assisted in the unfolding of the above truth

One time while in a dark exile, on a dark night, and in a dark state of heedlessness, the mighty universe of the present appeared to my imagination as a lifeless, spiritless, dead, empty, desolate, ghastly corpse. The past, too, appeared to be dead, empty, deceased, and dreadful; that boundless space and limitless time took on the form of a dark wilderness. I had recourse to the prayers in order to be saved from my state of mind. When I said: “Salutations” in the tashahhud, the universe suddenly sprang to life. It was resurrected taking on a living, luminous form, and became a shining mirror of the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One. I saw that with all its living parts, it was continuously offering the salutations of their lives and their vital gifts to the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One; I understood this with ‘the knowledge of certainty,’ even with ‘absolute certainty.’

Then, when I declared: “Peace be upon you, O Prophet!,” that limitless vacant time was transformed under the leadership of God’s Noble Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) from being a desolate wilderness into a familiar place of recreation filled with living spirits.

S e c o n d Q u e s t i o n : The comparison at the end of the tashahhud: “O God! Grant blessings to Muhammad and to the Family of Muhammad, as You granted blessings to Abraham and to