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CHAHARf- MAQALA. COSMOGRAPHY
SECTION II.
c (.
f The Royal Mind (may 'God exalt if!) should deign to know
that all existing beings fal} necessarily into pne of two categories.
(Such being is either self-existent, or it exists through some other.
Th'at Being whic'h is self-existent is called "the Necessarily Existent?
which is God most High and most Holy' who existeth by virtue
of Himself, and who, therefore, hath always existed, since He
awaiteth none other and who ;
(t) will always exist, since He subsisteth
by Himself, not by another. But that existence whose
being is "
through another is called Contingent Being" and t^his
is such as we are, since our is. being from the seed, arid the seed
is from the blood, and the blood is from food, and food is from the
water, the earth^and the sun, whose existence is in turn derived
from something else,; and all these are such as yesterday were
not, and to-morrow will not be. And on profound reflection [it
appeareth that] this causal nexus reacheth upwards to a Cause
which deriveth not its being from another, but existeth necessarily
in itself; which is the Creator of all, from* Whom all derive their
existence and subsistence. So He is the Creator of all these
things, and all come into being through Him and subsist through
Him. And a little reflection on this matter will make it clear
that all Phenomena consist of Being tinctured with Not-being,
while He is Being characterized by a continuance reaching from
Eternity past to Eternity to come. And since the origin o_f all
creatures lies in Not-rbeing, they must inevitably return again to
nothing, and the most clear-sighted amongst the human race
have said, "Everything shalt return unto its Origin" more
especially in this world of Growth and Decay. Therefore we,
who are contingent in our being, have our origin in Not-being ;
while He, wl?o existeth necessarily, is in His Essencp Being, even
as He (glorious is His Praise and high His Splendour) saith in the
Perspicuous Word and Firm Hand-hold, " A l^ things perish save
His Countenance^" ,
Now you must know that this world, which' lies in the, hollow
of the Heaven of the Moon 2 and within the circle of this first
'
Sphere, is called " the World o'f' Growth and Decay."
And you
must thus conceive it, that within the concavity of the Heaven of
the Moon lies the Fire, surrounded by the Heaven of the Moon ;
and that within the Sphere of the Fire is the Air, surrounded by
the Fire; and within the Air is the Water, surrounded by t*he Air,
while within the Water is the Earth, with the Water* round about
it. And in the middle of the earth is an imaginary point, from
t
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1
Qur\fn, xxviii, 88. ,
2 This is the lowest or innermost of the nine celestial spheres which environ the
earth. Concerning the Muslim Cosmogony, see V\eter'\ci'sMakrokosmos, pp. 1 78 et seqq.