One day Hazrat Ali, karam Allahu wajhahu asked, “Oh Muhammad, both my parents shall be my ransom, pray tell me what the Lord Almighty created before all other beings of creation?”
This was his blissful reply:
Verily, before your Lord made any other thing, He created from His own Light the light of your Prophet {S}, and that Light rested haithu mashaAllah, where Allah willed it to rest. And at that time there existed aught else not the Preserved Tablets, not the Pen, not Heaven nor Hell, not the Angelic Host, not the heavens nor the earth; there was no sun, no moon, no star, no jinn nor man nor angel–none was as yet created, only this Light.
Then Allah – glorified be He – by divine decree willed the Creation to be. He therefore divided this Light into four parts.
From the first part He created the Pen, from the second the Tablets, from the third the Divine Throne.
Now it has become known that when the Lord had created the Tablets and the Pen, the Pen had on it one hundred nodes, the distance between two nodes being that of two years wayfaring.
The Lord then commanded the Pen to write, and the Pen asked,
“Oh Lord, what shall I write?”
The Lord said,
“Write: la ilaha illAllah, Muhammadan Rasulullah.”
Thereupon the Pen exclaimed, “Oh, what a beautiful, great name is that of Muhammad that it is to mentioned in one with Thy hallowed Name, oh Lord.”
The Lord then said, “Oh Pen, mind your manners!
This name is the name of My Beloved, from his Light I have created the Throne and the Pen and the Tablets; you, too, are created from his Light. Had it not been for him, I would not have created a single thing.”
When Allah Almighty had spoken these words, the Pen split in two from awe of the Lord, and the place from which its speech issued became blocked, so that to this very day its nib remains cloven in two and clogged up, so it does not write, which is the sign of this great divine secret.
Therefore, let no one fail in veneration and honoring of the Holy Prophet {S}, or become lax in following his shining example, or contravene the noble custom he has taught us.
Then again the Lord commanded the Pen to write. “What shall I write, oh Lord?” asked the Pen.
The Lord of the Worlds then said, “Write that which will be until the Day of Judgment!”
Said the Pen, “Oh Lord, with what shall I begin?”
Said the Lord, “With these words you shall commence: Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim.”
In perfect respect and deference, the Pen then set out to write these words upon the Tablets, and it completed writing them in seven hundred years.
When the Pen had written these words, the Almighty spoke and said,
“It has taken you seven hundred years to write three of My Names; the Name of My Majesty, My Mercy and My Compassion. These blessed words I have made as a present to the nation of My Beloved Muhammad {s}. By My Majesty I pledge that whenever any servant from this nation pronounces the words of the Bismillah with a pure intention, I will write seven hundred years of countless reward for this servant, and seven hundred years of sins I will erase.”

Please forward this reply of mine to our esteemed brother in the e-mail uk address concerning my humble contribution on the Muhammadan Light, the nur of our beloved Prophet-salla’Llahu alaihi wa sallam- the beloved of Allah, the noblest of creation. My humble reply is the following:

‘Al-hamdulillah, may Allah reward you immensely for your sincere appreciation of my writing on the topic.. Concerning my self, I am a humble student of Islamic thought in Malaysiai, especially a student of Sunni discourse; I have been defending this position for about three decades or more. When I wrote that essay I was living in a village in Pasir Mas, Kelantan, Malaysia; what prompted me to write, inspite of me being so ill-equipped to discuss the matter, was the attacks levelled against our traditional scholars of Islam in the Malay World, some of whose writings have been cited in the essay; they were accused as being superstitious, unacademic, backward, understanding the religion in a way full of reprehensible innovations, possibly bordering on kufr and shirk.They have been accused of spreading falsehoods and debased ideas of the religion, among which is their notion of the Muhammadan Light . For that reason, among others, I composed that modest essay for clearing the good name of our Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah scholars in the Malay Word and elsewehe.It was also to defend that notion in the traditional spiritual discourse of this sacred community of ours.May Allah reward you immensely, brother, and also reward us and our friends and supporters..I hope that Allah will make us meet one day so that our flagging spirit in such times as this will be revived and strengthened; believers are supposed to support each other. Assalamu ‘alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.’

Muhammad ‘Uthman El-Muhammady 4th Jamadul-Akhir 1430 H/29-05-09 ISTAC KL

What an excellent article you have written Subhanallah on the Prophetic Nur very well researched and very academic May Allah Bless you for your great authoritative work. Please tell me about yourself and what made you compose this article. I simply have one question is it a matter that one should definitely believe in or can there be a difference of opinion on this subject.

Walykum Aslaam

Javaid Ali