Nature Or The Creator

Conclusion: Since the universe, with everything in it, exists, and since, according to rational principles, there is no way to explain its existence other than the four paths already mentioned, and since the invalidity and impossibility of the first three paths have each been demonstrated through three clear proofs, the fourth path—the path of Divine Unity—is convincingly proven. The verse

اَفِى اللّٰهِ شَكٌّ فَاطِرِ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَالْاَرْضِ

which indicates this fourth path and is mentioned at the beginning of this treatise, shows undeniably and without doubt, in a convincing manner, the divinity of Wājibul-Wujūd. It points out that everything comes directly into existence through His power, and indicates that the heavens and the earth are under His administration.

O unfortunate man who attributes creation to causes and nature!

Since nature, like all existence, has been artistically created, and since the apparent cause of a thing, like that thing itself, is an artfully created being, and since everything needs many instruments for its existence, there exists an All-Powerful One Who creates both nature and the cause.

And what need could that All-Powerful One have to allow powerless causes to become involved in His acts and creation? Never! He creates both cause and effect and connects them to one another. In order to display His wisdom and His names, He creates an apparent causal connection between cause and effect through order and sequence. In this way, He makes cause and nature a veil for His power, so that people who cannot understand the deeper wisdom behind the apparent defects, harshness, and shortcomings in events may attribute them to cause or nature rather than to Allah. Thus His glory remains preserved and protected.

For example, is it easier for a clockmaker first to make the cogwheels of a clock and then arrange and order them within the clock? Or is it easier for him to place an extraordinary machine inside each of those cogwheels and then leave the construction of the clock to the lifeless hands of that machine, so that it assembles the clock by itself? Is this not beyond the limits of possibility? Come, judge for yourself with your unreasonable mind.

Or take the example of a writer. Is it easier for him to write a book himself with pen, ink, and paper? Or is it easier for him to place within his pen, ink, and paper a writing machine—more artful than the book and requiring greater effort than composing it—made specifically for that one book, and then say to that unconscious machine, “Come then, write that book!” while he himself no longer interferes? Would that not be a hundred times more difficult than writing it by his own hand?

If you say: “Yes, creating a machine that writes a book is a hundred times more difficult than producing the book itself. Yet it does provide a certain ease, because such a machine can reproduce many copies of that same book.”

The answer: In order to constantly renew the infinite manifestations of His names through His infinite power and display them in ever-different forms, Naqqāsh-i Azalī has created His creatures in such a way that no creature— which serves as a letter or book of Rabb-i Samad —is exactly the same as another. Each creature has its own form and unique qualities, so that it may express meanings different from all others.