18:1 Praise belongs to God who sent down the Book to His servant and placed no crookedness therein.
Praise belongs to God. He praised Himself by Himself since He knew the incapacity of creatures to reach His praise. The majestic Lord, the perfectly powerful, the fount of bounteous bestowal, the one worthy of His own laudation, the one who gives thanks for His own giving-He Himself praises Himself and He Himself lauds Himself, for He Himself recognizes His exaltedness and He Himself knows His tremendousness and all-compellingness. He is exalted through His own majesty, holy through His own perfection, magnificent through His own magnificence. How will water and dust ever reach His description? How can that which was not, then came to be, know His measure? How can the attributes of newly arrived things match His attributes? That which was not, then came to be, is not. How can the recognition of That which is come from that which is not?
The Exalted Lord brought the creatures into existence with His bounty and generosity. He clothed them in the garment of creation, nurtured them and preserved them from trials, accepted their obedience with all its shortcoming, and concealed their iniquity and disloyalty in the curtain of bounty. He gave them the success of obedience and He adorned their hearts with faith and recognition. Since He knew that the servants were incapable of discharging gratitude for these blessings, He uncovered His bounty and generosity, made the tongue of gentleness a deputy for the indigent and incapable, and praised Himself. He said “Praise belongs to God. In the road of love taking friends as deputies is a stipulation of friendship. He said, “All those blessings that I gave I gave without you and I apportioned without you. Just as I apportioned without you, so also I praised without you. By virtue of friendship I acted as your deputy so as to complete My beautiful-doing and beneficence toward you.”
Who sent down the Book to His servant. Who is an allusion. Sent down the Book to His servant is an expression. Allusions are the portion of the spirits, and expressions are the portion of the [bodily] semblances. The spirits, on hearing who, were elated and came into revelry. The semblances, on hearing sent down the Book to His servant, began to struggle and took to the road of seeking.
This verse is both a specification of Muṣ?afā, the Seal of the Prophets, and a declaration of the greatness of the Qur'an, the speech of the All-Merciful. As for Muṣ?afā, he is the security of the earth and the adornment of heaven; as for the Qur'an, it is a reminder for the hearts of the faithful and an intimacy for the spirits of the recognizers. Muṣ?afā is the guard of the Shariah's road and the title-page of the Haqiqah. The Qur'an is provision for the hearts and clarification for the spirits. Muṣ?afā is the whole of perfection and the totality of beauty. The Qur'an is a book from the Majestic Presence to the servants, a book in which there are both good news and warning. It gives this good news to the friends: