Second Comparison: For example, on the four walls of this house are four full-length mir­rors. However much the house is depicted together with the other three mirrors in all the mirrors, each holds the things in itself in accordance with its own make-up and colour; it reflects a similitude of the house that is particular to itself. Now, two men enter the house. One of them looks at one of the mirrors and says: "Everything is within it." When he hears of the other mirrors and the images in them, he applies what he hears to a tiny corner of the one mirror whose contents are shadows twice over, and whose reality has shrunk and has changed. He also says: "I see it thus, in which case reality is thus." The other man says to him, "Yes, you see it like that and what you see is true. But in actuality and reality the true form of reality is not like that. There are other mirrors besides the one you looked at; they are not the shadow of shadows and as tiny as you saw."

Thus, each of the divine names requires a differ­ent mirror. And, since Merciful and Provider, for example, are real and fundamental, they require beings worthy of them who are needy for sustenance and compassion. Just as All-Merciful requires real beings with spirits needy for sustenance in a real world, so too, All-Compassionate requires a para­dise which is thus real. To maintain that only the names of Existent, Necessarily Existent, and Single One of Unity are real and that the other names aremere shadows within them, is a sort of njustice towards those other names.

It is due to this mystery that the great highway is surely the highway of the Companions, the Purified Ones, the Imams of the Prophet's Family, and the great interpreters of the law and founders of the four schools of law, who possessed greater sainthood and were directly the first class of the Qur'an's students.

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise?

O our Sustainer! Do not cause our hearts to swerve now that You have guided us, and bestow mercy on us from You; for You are the Bestower of Gifts.^[9]

0 God! Grant blessings to the one whom You sent as a Mercy to all the worlds, and to all his Family and Companions.

Every day in [new] splendour does He [shine]!^[10] * Indeed, your Sustainer is Doer of what He will.^[11]

Question: What is the reason for the aston­ishing unceasing activity in the universe? What is the wisdom in it? Why do these fleeting beings not stop, but are continuously changed and renewed?

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[9]Qur'an,3:8.

10.Qur'an,55:29.

[11]Qur'an, 11:107.