looking in accordance with the programme of the geography that does not read the Qur’an, saw that the earth was travelling seventy times faster than a cannon-ball, covering a twenty-thousand-year distance in one year in an orbit in the midst of the infinite void. It had taken upon itself myriad species of wretched, helpless living beings. He realized that if it confused its way even for a minute, or if a stray star collided with it, it would disintegrate, pouring all those wretched creatures into nothingness and non-existence. Perceiving the awesome calamity of the currents of

Not those who have received Your anger, nor those who have gone astray,25

and the suffocating darkness of

Or [the unbelievers’ state] is like the depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean,26

he exclaimed: “Alas! What have we done? Why did we board this terrible ship? Is there any way of being saved from it?” Then smashing the spectacles of blind philosophy, he joined the current of “Those whom You have blessed.”27

Suddenly the wisdom of the Qur’an came to his assistance. Giving to his reason a telescope which shows reality, it told him to look through it. He looked and saw the Name of Sustainer of the Heavens and Earth28 rising like a sun in the constellation of

It is He who has made the earth subservient to you, so traverse you its tracts, and eat of its sustenance.29

The Sustainer had made the earth an orderly, safe ship, and filled it with living beings together with their sustenance, causing it to journey around the sun in the seas of the universe for numerous benefits and instances of wisdom, bringing the produce of the seasons to those who wished for sustenance. Two angels called