Magnificence of the Creator in birds

Describing the wonderful creation of the peacock

[About the wonderful creation of birds :] Allāh has provided wonderful creations including the living, the lifeless, the stationary, and the moving. He has established such clear proofs for His delicate creative power…

They have different kinds of wings, and various characteristics. They are controlled by the rein of (Allāh’s) authority. They flutter with their wings in the expanse of the vast firmament and the open atmosphere. He…

He has set them in different colours by his delicate might and exquisite creative power. Among them are those which are tinted with one hue and there is no other hue except the one in which they have been dyed. There are…

[About the Peacock :] The most amazing among them in its creation is the peacock, which Allāh has created in the most symmetrical dimensions, and arranged its hues in the best arrangement with wings whose ends are…

I am telling you all this from observation, unlike he who narrates on the basis of weak authority, as for example, the belief of some people that it fecundates the female by a tear which flows from its eyes and when it…

If you likened them to anything growing on land, you would say that it is a bouquet of flowers collected during every spring. If you likened them to cloths, they would be like printed apparels or amazing variegated…

The peacock walks with vanity and pride, and throws open its tail and wings and laughs admiring the handsomeness of its dress and the hues of its necklace of gems. But when it casts its glance at its legs it cries loudly…

There is hardly a hue from which it has not taken a bit and improved it further by regular polish, lustre, silken brightness and brilliance. It is therefore like scattered blossoms which have not been seasoned by the…

How can sharpness of intellect describe such a creation, or faculty of mind, or the utterances of describers manage to tell of it. Even its smallest parts have made it impossible for the imagination to pick them out or…

Glorified is Allāh who has disabled intellects from describing the creation which He placed openly before the eyes and which they see bounded, shaped, arranged and coloured. He also disabled tongues from briefly…

[The magnificence of the Creator in great and small creation :] Glorified is Allāh who has assigned feet to small ants and gnats and also to those above them, the serpents and the elephants. He has made it obligatory…

[A part of the same sermon Describing Paradise :] If you cast your mind’s eye at what is described to you about Paradise, your heart would begin to hate the delicacies of this world that have been displayed here, namely…

They are a people whom honour has always followed till they were made to settle in the house of eternal abode, and they obtained rest from the movement of journeying. O listerner! If you busy yourself in advancing…

Allāh may, by His mercy, include us and you too among those who strive with their hearts for the abodes of the virtuous.

[Note explaining some of the wonderful and obscure portions of this sermon :] as-Sayyid ar-Raḍī says: In Amīr al-mu’minīn’s words “ya’urru bimalāqiḥihi”, “al-arr” implies “copulation”, e.g. When it is said “arra’r-rajulu…