It would be a folly to ignore the fundamentals and wrangle about the allegorical...

It would be a folly to ignore the fundamentals and wrangle about the allegorical, for none knows their hidden meanings, except God.[^6] In what follows, a brief account is given of the Qur'anic teaching with regard to the religio‑philosophical problems mentioned above.

Ultimate Beauty: God and His Attributes The Ultimate Being or Reality is God.[^7] God, as described by the Qur'an for the understanding of man, is the sole self‑subsisting, all‑pervading, eternal, and Absolute Reality.[^8] He is the first and the last, the seen and the unseen.[^9] He is transcendent in the sense that He in His full glory cannot be known or experienced by us finite beings‑­beings that can know only what can be experienced through the senses or otherwise and what is inherent in the nature of thought or is implied by it.

No vision can grasp Him. He is above all comprehension.[^10] He is transcendent also because He is beyond the limitations of time, space, and sense‑content. He was before time, space, and the world of sense came into existence. He is also immanent both in the souls (anfus) and the spatio‑temporal order (afaq). Of the exact nature of God we can know nothing.

But, in order that we may apprehend what we cannot comprehend, He uses similitudes from our expe­rience.[^11] He “is the light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is as if there were a niche and within it a lamp, the lamp enclosed in glass; the glass as if it were a brilliant star lit from a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil is well‑nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it: light upon light !”[^12].

Likewise for our understanding, He describes through revelation His attributes by similitude from what is loft­iest in the heavens and the earth[^13] and in our own experience[^14] (our highest ideals).

This He does in a language and an idiom which the people addressed to may easily understand.[^15] These attributes are many and are connoted by His names,[^16] but they can all be summarized under a few essential heads: Life,[^17] Eternity,[^18] Unity,[^19] Power,[^20] Truth,[^21] Beauty,[^22] Justice,[^23] Love,[^24] and Goodness.[^25] As compared to the essence of God, these attributes are only finite approaches, symbols or pointers to Reality and serve as the ultimate human ideals, but though signs and symbols, they are not arbitrary symbols.

God has Himself implanted them in our being.