The Sixteenth Flash

Since human knowledge cannot determine the exact time of its descent, people regard it as a special gift from the treasury of mercy and offer sincere gratitude.

From this point of view, the verse mentioned counts the time of the descent of rain among the Mughayyabāt-i KhamsaThe Five Matters of the Unseen; five matters mentioned in the Qur’an (31:34) whose complete knowledge belongs to Allah alone: the Hour of Judgment, the sending of rain, what is in the wombs, what a person will earn tomorrow, and where a person will die..

Observing the preliminary signs of rain by means of instruments in observatories and determining an estimated time is not knowledge of the unseen, the ghaybThe unseen; that which is hidden from human perception and knowledge.; it is only the observation of certain signs at the moment when the rain is emerging from the world of the unseen and approaching the visible world.

Just as some extremely hidden events are perceived only when they occur or are very near—through a kind of presentiment—so too this is not knowledge of the unseen, but the perception of something that already exists or is on the verge of occurring.

I myself sometimes experience, due to a certain sensitivity in my nerves, the coming of rain as much as twenty-four hours beforehand. This means that rain has certain preliminary signs and causes.

Those signs manifest, for example, in a certain humidity, which then announces the coming of rain. In this way, when something leaves the unseen but has not yet fully entered the visible, human knowledge may acquire some awareness of it through such signs.

However, knowing the exact time at which rain descends—so long as it has not yet entered the visible realm and the particular Divine will has not yet brought it forth as a concrete manifestation of mercy—belongs solely to Allām al-GhuyūbAllah, the Knower of all that is unseen and hidden..

As for the second matter:

That it is possible, by means of X-rays, to determine whether the child in the mother’s womb is male or female is not contrary to the inner meaning of the verse:

وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِى اْلاَرْحَامِAnd He knows what is in the wombs. — The Qur’an 31:34.

For the verse does not refer merely to maleness or femaleness, but also to the particular disposition of that child, to the beginnings of his life’s destiny that will determine his future position, and even to the most wondrous stamp of samadiyyahAllah’s attribute of absolute self-sufficiency, upon whom all creation depends. manifested in his face. To know the child in this way belongs solely to Allām al-GhuyūbAllah, the Knower of all that is unseen and hidden., the All-Knower of the Unseen.

Even if a hundred thousand X-ray-like inventions of the human mind were to unite, they still could not penetrate the true, unique face of that child—a face that distinguishes him from all other human beings. How, then, could they discover the spiritual face of his disposition, which is even more wondrous than his outward appearance?

At the beginning we said that existence, life, and mercy are the most important realities in this universe and occupy the highest rank. For this reason, the comprehensive reality of life, with all its refinements and subtleties, is directly connected with the particular Divine will and the particular Divine mercy. The reason is as follows: