M6:1070 — صنع حق با جمله اجزای جهان / چون دم و حرفست از افسون‌گران

Translation: God's making (creation) with all parts of the world Is like the breath and word of enchanters. Meaning: This verse suggests that God's act of creation throughout the cosmos is inherently His way of speaking, much like the words of enchanters carry direct, potent effects.

This verse, unequivocally, presents one of the deepest insights into the nature of God's action in the cosmos. Rumi offers a profound formula for understanding how divine creation unfolds and how it should be perceived. He states that ṣunʿ-i ḥaqq—God's making or craftsmanship in all parts of the world—is nothing but His “breath and word” (dam-o ḥarf). This speech, however, is not speech in the conventional, linguistic sense, uttered from lips; rather, it is a real and efficacious utterance, akin to the words of enchanters and magicians, which, when spoken, immediately produce a tangible effect in the world.

To be clearer, God's creation is His very discourse. When the sun in spring (the zodiacal sign of Aries) “tells” the plants to “be green,” this is not a verbal command but the very act of making them green. When water “tells” the seeds to “sprout,” it is the act of sprouting them. Just as pressing an elevator button instigates the command “go up,” God's action in the world functions similarly. Every movement, every growth, every transformation in the universe is as if God, through His making and creation, “tells it to be, and it is.” The entire cosmos, as the poet famously puts it, is “The whole world is the sound of His melody / Who has heard such a long sound?” This is the continuous, ceaseless sermon of God, flowing through the fabric of existence.

The concept of “enchanters” (afsun-garān) is also remarkably insightful here. An enchanter, through their word, actualizes a reality; their word is not merely descriptive of a state but is itself the cause of that state. This, no doubt, bears a close resemblance to the theory of “performative utterances” in the philosophy of language, advocated by figures such as Austin and Searle; with the crucial distinction that here it is on a cosmic and divine scale. God’s utterance is not for imparting information, but for bringing things into being.

One must remember Rumi's unique perspective on apparent causes and effects in nature, such as athar-o sabab (effect and reason). He posits that these are merely “divine habits” (ʿādat-i ilāhī) and “cover-ups” (rū-pūsh) for God's true action. That is to say, when we observe water extinguishing fire, this is merely the appearance and an ongoing divine habit; the actual act of extinguishing is a direct divine فعل (action). Hence, “God’s attraction, with effects and causes / Speaks a hundred hidden words without letter or lip.” Through these very apparent causes and effects, which are themselves but veils, God speaks countless wordless messages. This understanding is beyond the grasp of the “imitating intellect” (ʿaql-i muqallid); one must have the ear of the soul and lift the veils of habit to hear the silent, wordless melody of God in all parts of His creation. This perspective envisions the world not as a collection of blind causes, but as the continuous sermon of a God who is in perpetual state of active being.

Key takeaways

• God's creation is His very speech; every event in the cosmos is a divine “creative command.”
• God's speech is real and efficacious, not merely linguistic or conventional.
• Divine action, like an enchanter's word, has a direct, unmediated effect in the world, actualizing reality.
• Natural causes and effects are in essence “divine habits” and “veils” over God's true action.
• Grasping this truth requires an inner ear and transcends the capacity of the “imitating intellect.”