Nature’s ruling in the existence of sensory pains, because it is fixed, while pains of the self are removed because of its swift alteration in forms. None is annihilated from natural pains except through a powerful divine or spiritual inrush that removes the pain of Nature from him if it subsists within him.
The occasion of that inrush may be something sensible or intelligible; it is not restricted. An absent one he loves may arrive, and his absorption in the joy acquired through that arrival effaces him from the hunger and thirst he had felt before seeing the absent one or hearing of his arrival. This is a sensible occasion; the intelligible occasion is known to the knowledgeable.
(Magnifying That by Which an Oath Is Sworn and Restricting Oaths)
The Breath of the All-Merciful thus appeared most fully in divine oaths. For the knowledgeable, this oath magnifies that by which it is sworn, since an oath is sworn only by one having a rank in greatness. Through swearing, God magnified the whole cosmos, existent and nonexistent, since its individuals have no end. He swore by it all in His saying, “I swear by what you see and what you do not see” [al-Haqqa 69:38,39]: the existent absent from sight and the nonexistent. The originated and the beginningless entered this oath.
God knew His greatness within His servants’ hearts, those affirming oneness and those associating, believers and unbelievers. He had sworn to them by originated things and by other than Himself, knowing that it was established among them that an oath is sworn only by something great in the swearer’s estimation. The cosmos therefore necessarily believes
