whereas the revelation of the Qur’an was like the sun’s full emergence in the heavens.
Hence the text continues, “and He manifested Himself from the mountains of Paran,” for through the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—Allah’s light and guidance shone across the entire East and West to a degree far surpassing what had appeared with the two previous scriptures, just as the sun’s radiance envelops the horizons once it rises high above the earth. For this reason Allah described the Prophet as “a radiant lamp” (sirāj munīr, 33:46), while He called the sun “a blazing lamp” (sirāj wahhāj, 78:13).

Now, created beings stand in greater need of the radiant lamp than of the blazing lamp, for the latter is required only at certain times—and, as has been said, people may even be harmed by it on occasion—whereas the radiant lamp is indispensable at every moment and in every place, night and day, in private and in public.

The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said: “The earth was rolled up before me, eastward and westward, and the dominion of my community will reach as far as it was rolled up for me.”