A001
Surah: 070 - Ayah: 001
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70:1
Proof 1: If you study verses (70:1-4), you will see that it is the angels and the spirits that ascend towards Almighty God, Who is the Lord of ladders (i.e. ranks). In these verses, on the one hand there is the mention of maarij, plural of miraj, and on the other, there is the the indication that these ladders, i.e. spiritual ranks, are ascended only by the angels and souls.
See verses (70:1-9) and first of all, let us take the word maraj (pl. of miraj), which means staircases and ranks, and God is called “Dhil-marij, which means the Lord of rank. This is so because in order to reach His court of closeness men and angels has to traverse many ranks (Qamusu’l-Quraan). According to this verse, on the one hand there is a single day and on the other there are fifty thousand years. By the allusion of stairways it becomes certain that by the fifty thousand years are meantfifty thousand ranks and veils without passing through which, no human being or angle can reach the special presence of God. But the Quraanic wisdom says that one day of God has gathered the fifty thousand years and encompassed them within itself and that day of God (70:4) is the imam of the time, as according to the principle of tawil the six Natiqs are the six days of God and the seventh day is Qaimul-qiyamat. You are aware of the fact that God, by His perfect power unfolds and enfolds distances and vastness of time and space (22:104; 36:12;39:67). Just as He counts all things by making them one. That is, God counts all people and things in the sense that He enfolds them in His hand and keeps them by uniting them in the number one (19:94; 72:28)
Stone is solid and remains in the same state, namely, there is no progress in it. Also there is great narrowness in the existence of tree and animal. Therefore, the grand workshop of the acts of the Sustainer cannot be contained in such creatures. It is because of this, that the human being is granted great vastness so that, he may not only have room for the manifestations and acts of His attributive name “Rabb” (Sustainer), but also for those of His other attributive names. Thus it is only man who, in reality, is the field of the actions of all the names of God. Now think for a while about the vastness of man that, where he is soul and intellect, his ascension and progression extends over such ladders of God, in traversing the distance of which it takes the time of fifty thousand years (70:1-4). It may mean that between an absolute infidel and a Messenger Prophet, there are fifty thousand ranks of humanity. If this is true, then illness and health between these grades may be with respect to their rank. That is, in the lowest rank there may be infidels and hypocrites, who are absolutely ill (2:20) and on the highest rank, Prophets and awliya', who are entirely free from the disease of ignorance, for they have the sound heart (26:89; 37:84). Among the rest of the ranks, illness increases towards the lower ranks and health increases towards the higher ranks. For, without this law, there cannot be any ranks (6:132; 12:76; 43:32).
Mi'raj means a ladder or a series of steps or stairs, the occasion of the Holy Prophet’s vision of the Divine light in the higher world. Its plural is ma'arij, as mentioned in verse (70:1-4): "A questioner questioned the (spiritual) chastisement about to fall on the unbelievers, which none can avert, from Allah, the Lord of the ladders and to Whom the angels and the (supreme) spirit ascend in a day whose measure is fifty thousand years."
Wisdom 1. One must always remember that every great secret of God has a veil of some kind. Here too, there is a great secret behind the veil.
Wisdom 2. Chastisement in reality occurs on the path of spirituality (19:71), but God the Merciful, averts it from the mu’mins, as is alluded in this verse.
Wisdom 3. The questioner had asked for spiritual progress. He was a mu’min. But as has been mentioned earlier in this article, God kept it in a veil according to the exigency of wisdom.
Wisdom 4. The Prophets and the Imams are the living ladders of God. Each of them has the rank of the Supreme Soul and by the command of God, makes the souls of mu’mins angels and enables them to ascend to the exalted court of God.
Wisdom 5. Although this spiritual journey by worldly reckoning is fifty thousand years long, the way in which the light of mu’mins runs before them and on their right hands, the distance is traversed in a short time (57:12; 66:8).
This verse has been referred 7 times.