CONTRASTS in His Sublime Creation

CONTRASTS IN HIS SUBLIME CREATION: (Note: 6147)

91:1 - SUN: By the Sun and its (glorious) splendour;

91:2 - MOON: By the Moon as it follows the Sun);

91:3 - DAY: By the Day as it shows up (the Sun’s) glory;

91:4 - NIGHT: By the Night as it conceals it; 91:10- And he fails that corrupts it!

91:5 - FIRMAMENT: By the Firmament and its (wonderful) structure;

91:6 - EARTH - By the Earth and its (wide) expanse;

91:7 - SOUL - By the Soul, and the proportion and order given to it;

91:9 - Truly he succeeds that purifies it,

NOTE; 6147 – Six types are taken in three pairs, from Allah’s mighty works in nature, as tokens or evidence of Allah’s providence and the contrasts in His sublime creation, which yet conduce to cosmic harmony (verses 1-6). Then (verses 7-8) the soul of man, with internal order and proportion in its capacities and faculties, as made by Allah, is appealed to as having been endowed with the power of discriminating between right and wrong. Then the conclusion is stated in verses 9-10, that man’s success or failure, prosperity or bankruptcy, would depend upon his keeping that soul pure or his corrupting it.

NOTE;6148 – The first pair is the glorious sun, the source of our light and physical life, and the moon which follows or acts as second to the sun for illuminating our world. The moon, when she is in the sky with the sun, is pale and inconspicuous, in the sun’s absence she shines with reflected light and may metaphorically be called the sun’s vicegerent. So with Revelation and the great Prophets who brought it; and the minor Teachers who derive their light reflected, or perhaps doubly reflected, from the original source.

NOTE; 6149 – The next contrasted pair consists, not of luminaries, but conditions, or periods of time, Day and Night. The Day reveals the sun’s glory and the Night conceals it from our sight. So there may be contrasts in our subjective reception of divine light, but it is there, working all the time, and must reappear in its own good time.

NOTE; 6150 – The next contrasted pair is the wonderful firmament on high, and the earth below our feet, stretching away to our wide horizons. The sky gives us rain, and the earth gives us food. Yet both work together: for the rain is moisture sucked up from the earth, and the food cannot grow without the heat and warmth of the sun. There are many other contrasts under this head; yet they all point to unity.

NOTE; 6152 – Allah makes the soul, and gives it order, proportion, and relative perfection, in order to adapt it for the particular circumstances in which it has to live its life. He breathes into it an understanding of what is sin, impiety, wrongdoing and what is piety and right conduct, in the special circumstances in which it may be placed. This is the precious gift of all to man, the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong. After the six external evidences mentioned in verses 1-6 above, this internal evidence of Allah’s goodness is mentioned as the greatest of all. By these various tokens man should learn that his success, his prosperity, his salvation depends on himself – on his keeping his soul pure as Allah made it; and his failure, his decline, his perdition depends on his soiling his soul by choosing evil.