Guarded or Preserved Tablet. Occurs only once in Qur'án, 85:21–22: "It is a glorious Qur'án written on the preserved table." (The plural of lawḥ, alvaḥ, occurs in Qur'án 7:142 concerning the tables of the law, of Moses). Nicholson, Commentary on the Mathnawí, I, 85, says "the heavenly Lawḥ-i-Maḥfúz on which all things are recorded from eternity to everlasting." BW V, 491 says this "denotes the Knowledge of God and of His Manifestation." |