73 Preface نَحنُ جَعَلناها تَذكِرَةً وَمَتاعًا لِلمُقوينَYusuf AliWe have made it a memorial (of Our handiwork),1 and an article of comfort and convenience for the denizens of deserts.2Fire is a fit memorial of God’s handiwork in nature. It is also an emblem of man’s earliest civilisation. It can stand as a symbol of physical comfort and convenience to man, of the source of spiritual light, and also of the warning to Evil about its destruction. In the same way the sower’s seed has a symbolical meaning in the preaching of the Message: see 48:29, and n. 4917: and the Rain and the Streams of water have a symbolical meaning: see notes 2404-5 to 18:60.Cf. 20:10, and n. 2541, where the mystic meaning of the Fire which Moses saw in the desert is explained. Even ordinarily, a fire in a desert is a sign of human habitation; by following it you may get human society and human comfort. A fire, or light, or beacon in many places directs a traveller on the way. Lighthouses at sea and beacons in modern aerodromes serve the same purpose for mariners and airmen. Another parable about fire will be found in 2:17-18, and n. 38.