In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Say: “If the ocean were ink [wherewith to write out] the words of my Sustainer, sooner would the ocean be exhausted than would the words of my Sustainer, even if we added another ocean like it, for its aid.¹

[This mighty verse is a vast, elevated, broad ocean. One would have to write a large volume in order to describe all its jewels. So postponing those precious jewels to another time, for now I shall explain a few rays of a subtle point in order to recall those truths. Appearing faintly to me, they struck my attention a few days ago during the tesbihat, recited following the five daily prayers, which is an important time for me. I did not write them down at that time and they gradually grew fainter. So in order to hunt down a manifestation of those points before they are lost altogether, I shall say a few words as though encircling them.]

F i r s t W o r d : In respect of being a Divine attribute like Knowledge and Power, pre-eternal Speech is also infinite. Certainly, if the seas were ink for something infinite, they would never be able to complete them.

S e c o n d W o r d : The clearest and most powerful thing that makes understood someone’s existence, is his speech. To hear someone’s speech proves his existence as clearly as a thousand proofs, indeed, as clearly as seeing him. Thus through its allusive meaning, this verse says:

“If the seas were ink to the extent of Divine Speech, which demonstrates the All-Glorious Sustainer’s existence, and the trees were pens, and they were to write His Speech, they would never come to the end of them. That is to say, just as any speech points to the existence of the one who spoke it to its own extent at the degree of witnessing, so too the extent that the above speech points to and tells of the One Who spoke it—the Single and Eternally Besought One—is beyond measure, so that if all the seas were ink they would still be insufficient for writing it.”

T h i r d W o r d : In accordance with the wisdom of establishing, verifying, and convincing of a truth, in teaching the truths of belief to all classes of men, the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition apparently repeats the same truth. This verse is in effect an answer to the entirely unjustifiable attacks of the Jewish scholars, who were the learned People of the Book of that time, on the Noble Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace) concerning this, in the face of his being unlettered and not learned. It is as follows:

The verse says: “The repetition in different and miraculous ways for numerous instances of wisdom, like verification and persuasion, of a truth containing numerous benefits and results, and, in order to establish them in the hearts of the mass of people in particular, the repetition of matters like the pillars of belief comprising thousands of truths each of which has the value of thousands, does not arise from restricted speech or intellectual deficiency or lack of capital. Indeed, the Qur’an is taken from the endless, infinite pre-eternal treasury of Divine Speech, and being turned to the Manifest World on account of the World of the Unseen, speaks with man and the jinn, spirits, and the angels, resounding in the ears of every individual. If the seas were ink, sentient beings scribes, plants pens, and particles the pens’ nibs for counting the words of pre-eternal Speech, the source of the Qur’an, they would still never come to the end of them. For they are finite, while Divine Speech is infinite.”

F o u r t h W o r d : It is clear that the issuing of speech from something unexpected increases the speech’s importance, making itself heeded. Especially the speech-like voices of large bodies like the clouds and the atmosphere, they make everyone listen to them. The sounds of a gramophone the size of a mountain would attract attention even more. And the heavenly voice of the Qur’an, which takes the levels of the heavens as gramophone records, pours forth to make the head of the globe of the earth listen to it. Also through the power of the radio, the molecules of air are like the receivers and transmitters of its letters. Alluding to the fact that the air molecules each become like mirrors, tongues, needle points, and ears to the All-Wise Qur’an’s letters, and indicating how important, valuable, significant, and living are those letters, the allusive meaning of the verse says: “The Qur’an, which is Divine Speech, is so living and valuable that if all the seas were to become ink, and the angels scribes, and minute particles points, and plants and hairs pens to the number of the ears that listen to it and hear it, and to the number of the sacred words that enter those ears, they could still never come to the end of them.”

No, they could never come to the end of them, because if Almighty God multiplies man’s weak and lifeless speech millions of times in the air, for sure each word of the Peerless Sovereign of the Heavens and Earth’s speech, which looks to the earth and the heavens and addresses all conscious beings in the earth and heavens, will comprise words to the numbers of particles of air.

F i f t h W o r d : This consists of Two Letters.

The First Letter: Just as the Divine attribute of Speech has words, so also does Power have embodied words and Knowledge too has wise words of Divine Determining; these consist of all beings. Living beings, and small creatures in particular, are each dominical words which point to the Pre-Eternal Speaker in a way more powerful than speech. And if the seas were ink they could never come to the end of them. That is, the verse looks to this meaning too in allusive fashion.

The Second Letter: All the inspiration received by angels and men, and even by animals, are a sort of Divine Speech. The words of this speech are certainly infinite. It means that the verse is telling us how numerous and infinite are the inspirations and words of Divine command which the innumerable cohorts of Absolute Sovereignty continually receive.

The knowledge is with God alone. * None knows the Unseen save God.

FOOTNOTE

1. Qur’an, 18:109.