Majesty, he then prostrated himself, and God created from his prostration a pillar of light,      transparent as glass, the outside of which is seen from the inside, and the inside from the      outside. In this Muhammad worshipped before God a million times, with the character of      faith, with the revelation of the hidden of the hidden, before the beginning of creation." 1

However one may interpret the unusual imagery in this description, the point is clear that Muhammad is the unique spiritual being who takes precedence over all creation as a pure emanation of the light of God.

Another group of sayings stress Muhammad's perfect union with God. It is in this sense that some read Qur. 4. 82, "Who obeys the Messenger obeys God. Muhammad himself said, Who sees me has seen God" Elsewhere Muhammad hinted at his experience of union, saying, "I have a time with God in which no archangel or prophet has a share." Likewise, when Muhammad's forces were being defeated at the battle of Badr, he picked up a handful of dust and flung it at the Meccan pagans, somehow turning the tide of battle into victory by this act. In the Qur'an (8.17), God said of this event, "you did not throw when you threw; We threw!" Some Sufis loved to see a reference to Muhammad's union with the divine in Qur'an 64.6, where the Meccan Pagans say, “’Shall a mortal lead us?' Thus they were unbelievers." The implication is that they were wrong in seeing Muhammad as a mere mortal. These sayings are admittedly enigmatic in their suggestiveness, and do not spell out precisely and boldly the divine aspect of Muhammad. Still, it is interesting to see how the great Sufi Rabi'ah experienced this. She found that she spent all her time thinking of God, and not Muhammad. One night the Prophet appeared to her in a dream, and asked her, "Do you love me?" Rabi'ah replied, "Forgive me, but the love of God has kept me busy from loving you." Muhammad answered her, "Whosoever loves God loves me." These are only a few of the indications of Muhammad's union with God, but for the Sufis, this divine aspect was clearly uppermost.

Finally, the universal nature of Muhammad's mission is a testimony to his extraordinary qualities. The Qur'an is quite explicit on this point. Muhammad is "a mercy for creation" (21.107) and "a bringer of good tidings for all people" (34.28). Muhammad is also known as the seal of the prophets" (Qur'an 33.40) whose message supersedes all previous dispensations of truth. Muhammad said, "I shall be pre-eminent among the descendants of Adam on the day of resurrection, the first from whom the grave will be cleft open, the first intercessor and the first whose intercession will be accepted."2 Here is an anecdote that reveals how Muhammad disclosed his status to his followers, at a

1 Sahl al-Tustari, in Daylami's Kitab 'Atf-al Alif, ed. J. Vadet, Cairo, 1962, p. 34, modified by the translation of Herhard Boewering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam, Berlin, 1980, pp. 149-50.

2 Mishkat al-Masabih, trans. Robson, p. 1230.