Shaikh `Abd al-Qadir Jilani, (Hijri. 561) in his book Sirr-ul-Asrar wa Mazhar-ul-Anwar (pp. 12-14 of the Lahore edition) said: “Know that since ALLAH first created the soul of Muhammad (Peace and blessings of ALLAH be upon him) from the light of His beauty, as He said: I created Muhammad (Peace and blessings of ALLAH be upon him) from the light of My Face, and as the Prophet said: The first thing ALLAH created is My soul, and the first thing ALLAH created is the Pen, and the first thing ALLAH created is the Intellect — what is meant by all this is one and the same thing, and that is the Haqiqa-Muhammadiyya (The Reality of the Prophet). However, he was named as light because he is completely purified from darkness, as ALLAH said: There has come to you from ALLAH a Light and a manifest Book, also named an intellect because it is the cause for the transmission of knowledge, and the pen is its medium in the world of letters. The Muhammadan soul (“al-ruh al-Muhammadiyya”) Peace and blessings of ALLAH be upon him is therefore the quintessence of all created things and the first of them and their origin, as the Prophet (on whom be peace) said: I am from ALLAH and the believers are from me, and ALLAH created all souls from me in the spiritual world and He did so in the best form. It is the name of the totality of mankind in that primordial world, and after its creation by four thousand years, ALLAH created the Throne from the light of Muhammad (Peace and blessings of ALLAH be upon him) himself, and from it the rest of the creation” (Tosun Bayrak. “The Secret of Secrets and the Manifestation of Light”, Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1994).
Fasih Muhammad ibn Ahmad, in Hijri 1052, cites it as an evidence in Mutali al-Masarrat (pp. 210-221 of the Matba`a al-Taziyya edition) and says: “These narrations indicate his primacy and priority over all the other creations, and also the fact that he is their cause (of creation).”
Further, Dirimi also confirms that, “All of creation was made of the substance of Muhammad (Peace and Blessings of ALLAH be upon him)”.
Haqqi Isma`il, (Hijri 1137) cites it as evidence in his Tafsir entitled Ruh al-Bayan and says: “Know, O person of understanding, that the first thing ALLAH created is the light of your Prophet (on whom be peace), and he is the cause for the existence of everything that was brought into existence and the mercy from ALLAH upon all creatures, and without him the higher and the lower worlds would not have been created” – (Yusuf al-Nabahani mentions it in his Jawahir al-Bahar, p. 1125).
Ibn al-Hajj al-Abdari (Hijri. 736) in his book al-Madkhal (2:34 of the Dar al-kitab al-`arabi in Beirut (ed.)) cites it from al-Khatib Abu al-Rabi` Muhammad ibn al-Layth’s book Shifa’ al-Sudur in which the latter says:
“The first thing ALLAH created is the light of Prophet Muhammad (on whom be peace), and that light came and prostrated before ALLAH. ALLAH divided it into four parts and of them, He created the Pen, the Throne, the Tablet, and then similarly He subdivided the fourth part into parts and created the rest of creation. Therefore, the light of the Throne is from the light of
RSS