elements, each beautiful, each made in a specific way with a certain place to exist and food to nourish that existence. Finally, He created Adam, man, the most exalted of His creations, pressing the light of Nur Muhammad on his forehead, announcing that human beings would know what even the angels would not know.

This Sufi description and explanation of creation is an emblem for the awakening of human consciousness, an injunction to eliminate the darkness of unknowing and a static consciousness which does not know what it knows. We can choose deliberate ignorance if we do not respond to the light stirring within our heart, we can choose not to know God and His truth, we can accept the limbo defined by misery, despair and hopelessness; or we can examine our heart with the light of Nur Muhammad, the light of prophecy, plenitude and creation, we can let that sixth level of wisdom and consciousness, the qutbiyyat which is quintessentially the human level of wisdom, take root and flower. We designate our own condition, we are not compelled, we are free to make what we want of this radiant gift of light, we can have a life that is blissful devotion, a search for perfection and the penetration of mystery. If we do not follow a path of light, the sombre

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