62 These were the very words and utterances used by the pagan Arabs living
in the days of Muhammad to dispute with and pronounce judgement against
Him. They said: “Those who believed in Muhammad dwelt in our midst and
associated with us day and night. When did they die and when were they
raised again to life?” Hearken unto that which was revealed in reply: “If
ever thou dost marvel, marvellous surely is their saying, ‘What! When we
have become dust and mouldering bones, shall we be restored in a new
creation?’”(40) And in another passage: “And if thou shouldst say, ‘After
death ye shall surely be raised again’, the infidels will certainly
exclaim, ‘This is naught but palpable sorcery.’”(41) Thus did they mock
and deride Him, for they had read in their Books and heard from their
divines the terms “life” and “death”, and understood them as this
elemental life and physical death, and hence when they found not that
which their vain imaginings and their false and wicked minds had
conceived, they hoisted the banners of discord and the standards of
sedition and kindled the flame of war. God, however, quenched it through
the power of His might, as thou seest again in this day with these
infidels and evil-doers.

63 At this hour, when the sweet savours of attraction have wafted over Me
from the everlasting city, when transports of yearning have seized Me from
the land of splendours at the dawning of the Daystar of the worlds above
the horizon of ‘Iráq, and the sweet melodies of Ḥijáz have brought to Mine
ears the mysteries of separation, I have purposed to relate unto thine
eminence a portion of that which the Mystic Dove hath warbled in the
midmost heart of Paradise as to the true meaning of life and death, though
the task be impossible. For were I to interpret these words for thee as it
hath been inscribed in the Guarded Tablets, all the books and pages of the
world could not contain it, nor could the souls of men bear its weight. I