The Resurrection

Just as sunlight testifies to the existence of the sun, so too the exquisitely beautiful, artistic, radiant, and adorned beings spread throughout the universe proclaim the splendor and subtlety of an incomparable, immaterial, and hidden beauty.^[1] This flawless and sacred beauty indicates that within each of Allah’s Names lie countless hidden treasures.

Indeed, just as the Possessor of such an exalted, peerless, and hidden beauty desires to behold its manifestations and degrees in all created beings—especially in conscious creatures who long for Him and serve as mirrors to the manifestations of His Names—so too does He desire to see how those manifestations are perceived by them. Thus, He beholds His own beauty in two ways: directly, by witnessing it Himself in the countless mirrors of creation; and indirectly, by beholding it through the perceptions of yearning spectators and astonished admirers. In other words, He wills both to behold His beauty and to have others behold it.

Indeed, to behold and to be beheld require the existence of yearning spectators and astonished admirers. And since Allah’s beauty is eternal, it also requires the perpetual existence of these yearning spectators. For the Possessor of an everlasting beauty cannot be satisfied with transient admirers. When a spectator, inevitably moving toward death, believes that his existence will end forever, his love turns into hostility, his admiration into contempt, and his reverence into mockery. Just as the selfish human being is hostile toward what he does not know, he is likewise opposed to what he cannot attain. Thus, although such beauty deserves infinite love, boundless admiration, and passionate longing, the unbeliever harbors within himself hostility, hatred, and denial toward it. This reveals why the unbeliever adopts an attitude of enmity toward Allah.

Although this infinite generosity and liberality, this peerless beauty, and this flawless perfection require grateful, yearning, and eternally living admirers, we see in this worldly abode that everyone departs swiftly, never to return. Their appetite is awakened, yet they taste only a small portion of the blessings of this generosity before leaving without truly enjoying them. They depart before becoming fully satisfied with that beauty and perfection, for they behold no more than a faint ray—perhaps only a shadow—of it. This means that they are journeying to another abode where they will behold that beauty and perfection forever.

In short, just as this universe, together with all its creatures, constitutes an undeniable proof of the existence of Sāni-i Dhu’l-JalālAllah, Who creates with perfect artistry and Whose greatness and majesty are boundless., so too do His attributes and sacred Names constitute a proof of the existence of the Hereafter. They not only point to it, but also make it necessary.