For the sage every tree is a reflection of the tree of Paradise, every mountain a symbol of transcendence, the water of every flowing stream a symbol of Divine Mercy, the wind a mark of the Spirit.

Since in Islam the revelation came in the form of a sacred book, many Muslim sages have looked upon nature as a book of God, as did many of their Jewish and Christian counterparts.

 

The cosmos is in fact God's first and primordial revelation. There is an eternal and archetypal Quran, which is the archetype of both the book revealed to the Prophet of Islam as the Quran and the cosmos, which many Sufis in fact call the cosmic Quran. In the same way that each letter, word, and sentence of the Quran revealed in Arabic comes from God and conveys a message from Him, each phenomenon of nature is also a sign from Heaven.

 

In fact, in the Quran both the phenomena of nature and the verses of the Quran are called ayat, or symbols and signs, each conveying a meaning beyond itself. Every ayah, besides its outward meaning, has a symbolic and inward significance.

 

Every cosmic phenomenon is both a fact and a symbol of a noumenon. In a profound sense modern science, being concerned with phenomena only as facts and not as symbols of noumena, is like religious literalism in the interpretation of scripture. Sufism has always rejected both kinds of literalism and has provided over the centuries both esoteric interpretations of the Quran and the most profound "philosophy of nature" based on esoteric commentary upon the cosmic book.

 

This "philosophy of nature" is of the utmost significance in this day and age when, because of sheer outwardness and literalism in both science and much of religion, we human beings have become destroyers of nature rather than its protectors and channels of grace. The inner meaning of the cosmic book has become hidden from us.

 

Sufis contemplate nature, seeing in its forms, life, and rhythms spiritual realities that are of the greatest importance not only in themselves but also for us as wayfarers on the path to spiritual perfection.

 

For the sage every tree is a reflection of the tree of Paradise, every mountain a symbol of transcendence, the water of every flowing stream a symbol of Divine Mercy, the wind a mark of the Spirit. The eagle flying above symbolizes the human spirit perfected through spiritual practice flying to the Divine Throne, and the fish swimming in the deep is the symbol of the soul immersing itself in the ocean of Infinitude.

 

The universe is constituted of theophanies; the cosmos is a set of symbols to be contemplated and a means to reach the Symbolized, a book to be read and understood in both its outward and inward meanings.

 

Once one has read the cosmic book, one can set it aside and stand before the Author of the Book of Existence. One of the meanings of the Quranic reference to the scrolls being rolled up at the end of time is precisely the end to the reading of the book of nature for the Sufi who, having passed beyond the cosmos, experiences death to the world and resurrection in the Spirit, that is, his or her own eschaton.

 

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The Garden of Truth by Seyyed Hossein Nasr

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