The Words | 25. Word | 394
(375-476)

In the category of guidance, the Qur'an's manner of exposition is so moving and tender, and familiar and gentle that it fills the spirit with ardour, the heart with delight, the mind with interest, and the eyes with tears. Of thousands of examples is this verse:

And yet after all this your hearts hardened and became like rocks, or even harder... to the end of the verse.37

As is proved and explained in the discussion of the third verse in the First Station of the Twentieth Word, it says to the Children of Israel: "What has happened to you that although hard rock shed tears from twelve springs like eyes before a miracle like the Staff of Moses (Peace be upon him), you remain indifferent in the face of all his miracles, with your eyes dry and tearless and your hearts hard and without fervour?" Since this meaning of guidance is explained there, we refer you to that Word, and curtail this here.

Of thousands of examples in the category of making understood and silencing in argument, consider only the following two:

If you have doubts about the Qur'an We have revealed to Our servant Muhammad, then produce a Sura similar to it. And call upon all your helpers besides God to bear witness for you, if what you say is true?38

That is, "If you have any doubts, summon all your elders and supporters to help you and testify for you, then compose the like of a single Sura." Since this has been explained and proved in Isharat al-I'jaz, here we shall only point out a brief summary of it. It is as follows:

The Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition says: "O men and jinn! If you have any doubts that the Qur'an is the Word of God and imagine it to be man's word, then come on, here it is, let's see! You bring a book like this Qur'an from someone unlettered, who does not know how to read and write like the one you call Muhammad the Trustworthy, and get him to compose it! If you cannot do this, then he need not be untaught, let him be a famous man of letters and learned. And if you are not able to do this, alright, not on his own, take all the finest works of all your orators and men of eloquence, and indeed of all the literary geniuses of the past and all those of the future, and the assistance of all your gods. Work with all your strength, compose the like of this Qur'an. And if you cannot do this, leave aside the truths of the Qur'an and its many miraculous aspects, which it is not possible to imitate, and compose a work which is its equal in only the eloquence of its word-order!"

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37.Qur'an 2:74
38.Qur'an 2:23

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