We will show them Our manifest signs (proofs) in the horizons of the universe and... (Fussilat 41:53)
سَنُرِيهِمْ آيَاتِنَا فِي الْآفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ
We will show them Our manifest signs (proofs) in the horizons of the universe and within their own selves, until it will become manifest to them that it (the Qur’ān) is indeed the truth. (Fussilat 41:53)
The verse gives the glad tidings to the believers who are experiencing hardships and persecution that they will be shown the “manifest signs” of God’s existence and Oneness and the truth of the Qur’ān and Islam that exist both in the universe and in the inner worlds of human beings themselves in a clearer way one after the other, all proclaiming and pointing to the Ultimate Truth. It also promises that the hearts both within and outside of the sacred precincts of Makkah will welcome faith and the believers, that both the truths in their inner worlds and the outer world will be discovered as proofs of the Qur’ān and Islam, that both the Arabian peninsula and many other regions will embrace Islam and will be illuminated with its light, and that the Muhammadan spirit will be prevalent in all the corners of the world. This promise also implies that peaceful and welcoming climes are waiting for them.
With its style and contents this verse opens before us a very wide horizon of reflection and provides us with an observatory to pursue the truth. The signs and proofs of the truth are dealt with in two categories. While the signs and proofs provided by the universe and everything in it as well as all kinds of phenomena and events happening around us are called external proofs, the signs and proofs provided by the inner world of human beings are called the internal proofs.
With this verse in Sūrah Fussilat, which was revealed in Makkah, God Almighty gives the glad tidings that the truth of the Qur’ān and that of the Messengership of our master Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, will be manifest through the proofs provided by the universe and the events in the human realm as well as the human inner world within a short time after the beginning of the Qur’anic revelation. This glad tiding has come true through the developments in both physical, social, and religious sciences and the sciences that focus on different aspects of the human inner world.
The proofs provided by sciences are not restricted to those that have already been discovered. There are still so many matters to be studied by sciences such as anatomy, physiology, psychology, biology, physics, and astrophysics that will be clarified in the future and provide numerous new proofs for the truth of all Islamic beliefs, including especially God’s existence and Unity, the Qur’ān as the Word of God, and our master Muhammad as the Messenger of God. The expression, “We will show,” in the verse means that humanity will continue to see and discover more and more truths and admit that the Qur’ān and the universe describe each other—that the Qur’ān translates the universe while the universe “reads” the Qur’ān.
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