This is the meaning of the sacred verse:  “But nay!  I swear by the Lord of the Easts and the Wests,"(29) inasmuch as the “Suns” referred to have each their own particular rising and setting place.  And as the commentators of the Qur’an have failed to grasp the symbolic meaning of these “Suns,” they therefore were at pains to interpret the above-quoted verse.  Some of them maintained that owing to the fact that the sun each day rises from a different point, the terms “easts” and “wests” have been mentioned in the plural.  Others have written that by this verse the four seasons of the year are intended, inasmuch as the dawning and setting points of the sun vary with the change of the seasons.  Such is the depth of their understanding!  None the less, they persist in imputing error and folly to those Gems of knowledge, those irreproachable and purest Symbols of wisdom.

In like manner, strive thou to comprehend from these lucid, these powerful, conclusive, and unequivocal statements the meaning of the “cleaving of the heaven”—­one of the signs that must needs herald the coming of the last Hour, the Day of Resurrection.  As He hath said:  “When the heaven shall be cloven asunder."(30) By “heaven” is meant the heaven of divine Revelation, which is elevated with every Manifestation, and rent asunder with every subsequent one.  By “cloven asunder” is meant that the former Dispensation is superseded and annulled.  I swear by God!  That this heaven being cloven asunder is, to the discerning, an act mightier than the cleaving of the skies!  Ponder a while.  That a divine Revelation which for years hath been securely established; beneath whose shadow all who have embraced it have been reared and nurtured; by the light of whose law generations of men have been disciplined; the excellency of whose word men have heard recounted by their fathers; in such wise that human eye hath beheld naught but the pervading influence of its grace, and mortal ear hath heard naught but the resounding majesty of its command—­what act is mightier than that such a Revelation should, by the power of God, be “cloven asunder” and be abolished at the appearance of one soul?  Reflect, is this a mightier act than that which these abject and foolish men have imagined the “cleaving of the heaven” to mean?

Moreover, consider the hardships and the bitterness of the lives of those Revealers of the divine Beauty.  Reflect, how single-handed and alone they faced the world and all its peoples, and promulgated the Law of God!  No matter how severe the persecutions inflicted upon those holy, those precious, and tender Souls, they still remained, in the plenitude of their power, patient, and, despite their ascendancy, they suffered and endured.