Of Seas and Metaphors

Iffat Mirza, Raynes Park

Over the last couple of years of my life I’ve come to two personal realisations. Firstly, that metaphors, I think, make life worth living. The second is that the existence of the sea is incredibly cathartic for me.

Metaphors allow our inability to explain certain emotions, thoughts, or ideas to become so simple to comprehend with a slight manipulation of language – perhaps a touch of magic even. I have to say, the most beautiful metaphor I have come across is that which can be found in chapter 31 verse 28 of the Holy Qur’an:

“And if all the trees that are in the earth were pens, and the ocean were ink, with seven oceans swelling it thereafter, the words of Allah would not be exhausted. Surely, Allah is Mighty, Wise.”

The most magnificent image of blackened oceans drying up as the bounties of God are futilely listed on an endless scroll fills my head upon reading these words and there is indeed so much wisdom in these words which make the existence of God a most beautiful reality. In the FiveVolume Commentary of the Holy Qur’an this verse is explained as:

It purports to say that disbelievers are overawed into attributing Divine powers to a big object of nature, or a great man, while the great universe of which God is the sole Architect is an inexhaustible storehouse of unfathomable mysteries, infinitely larger in number than the wonderful things that meet the eye.

To focus on the words ‘an inexhaustible storehouse of unfathomable mysteries, infinitely larger in number’ just goes to show how little we humans know. This may perhaps at first seem intimidating or daunting – the idea that there is so much out there that we do not know and perhaps never will. It always amazes me that there has been so much research into space and our universe (perhaps a contemplation for another time), yet such little of our miniscule planet has been discovered. The oceans being just one example of ‘unfathomable mysteries.’ And though, as the Holy Qur’an attests, an ocean’s worth of ink will run out if we were to try and list the proofs of God’s existence with it, we can know God through it, and the other ‘unfathomable mysteries’ for which human intellect will always be insufficient.

This brings me to my second realisation – that the sea is incredibly cathartic. There is something so human about the way the sea ebbs and flows endlessly, day and night. The way it becomes tumultuous and calm within minutes. The way it refuses to be silenced as the waves crash on the shores. Or perhaps, there is nothing human about this, and there is something very unhuman about how we also ebb and flow endlessly, have the same rollercoaster of emotions, and indeed, how we also have not remained silent in our existence. There is an inherent beauty to our collective and historical existence along with the sea. And, indeed, as there is so much about the sea that we do not know, there is so much of ourselves we also do not know. Endlessly, from fathoms deep within us, waves crash to our surface at any given moment.

But this oneness we can feel with the sea, a oneness that stems from not knowing, suddenly allows ‘not knowing’ to become a comfort. It suddenly becomes okay that there is so much about the world that I do not know and so much about myself that I do not know. And to know that I was created by the same Hands that created the endless oceans allows me to feel comfort in this. Why would the Hands that created the vast seas and oceans, so full of life and purpose beyond our infinite imagination, create humans and human emotion as anything but complex? To know that through experiencing this world and experiencing myself I can attempt to know the Creator is indeed a comfort beyond words.

Indeed, when the waves of such heightened human experiences crash against the walls of our heart, what greater beauty is there than to think the waves that hide the secrets of God’s creation are also crashing against the rocks on shores across the world? In this moment, the Quranic verse telling us of God’s magnificence is present within our own beings.