Parmenides 

I saw but One through all heavens starry spaces gleaming 
I saw but One through all sea billows wildly streaming 
I beheld a waste of worlds, a Sea 
I saw a thousand dreams, yet One amid all dreaming. 

Rumi

Heaven attains the One and becomes clear,
Earth attains the One and becomes tranquil,
Spirits attain the One and become divine,
Valleys attain the One and become full,
All things attain the One and come to life,
Rulers attain the One and become the standard for the world. 

Lao Tzu

On the way of the cross, our faces, like yours, can at last become radiant and a source of blessing. 
You have impressed the memory of your face in our hearts as a pledge of your return, when you will recognize each of us at first glance.

Pope Francis

In the Name of God, the utterly Merciful, the especially Merciful. The proem of Parmenides and the Qurʾān are seldom read side by side, yet each opens with a revealed vision in which reality itself speaks. Parmenides is seized in a chariot of light, borne through the gate where Night and Day embrace; the Qurʾān likewise unfolds in a night made luminous—Laylat al‑Qadr—when “the angels and the Spirit descend by the permission of their Lord with every command” (Q 97:4). Both beginnings insist that what follows is not opinion but disclosure: a gift that overturns the sleep of customary sight and binds the listener to the truth of God.

The first revelation each delivers is the primacy of Light. Parmenides rides with “the maidens of the Sun” who wheel on fiery axes toward the house of the goddess; the Qurʾān answers with the verse of Light: “Allāh is the Light of the heavens and the earth … Light upon Light; God guides to Hu’s Light whom Hu wills” (Q 24:35). In both visions illumination is not a metaphor but an ontological fact: Light is that by which all else is seen and without which nothing truly is. The journey to the goddess and the guidance of the divine Lamp describe one motion—the soul drawn out of twilight toward an unsetting radiance.

From that radiance each text proclaims unity. The goddess commands Parmenides to hold fast to the way “that is, for Being is and non‑Being is not.” The Qurʾān echoes with the thunder of tawḥīd: “Say: Hu is Allāh, One … and there is none comparable unto Hu” (Q 112:1–4). Where the poet hears an ontological axiom, the Prophet ﷺ hears a theological creed, yet the affirmation is identical in force: multiplicity may appear, but beneath it stands an indivisible Reality that tolerates no rival.

With unity comes the exposure of every counterfeit. Parmenides’ goddess dismisses the way “where nothing truly is” as “utterly unlearnable”; the Qurʾān marks idols as shadows without substance: “The likeness of those who disbelieve is that of a mirage in a desert … until, when he comes to it, he finds nothing” (Q 24:39). Non‑Being in the Greek poem and shirk in the Arabic revelation meet in a single verdict: to attach the heart to what lacks true being is to chase a glimmer that vanishes at the touch.

Yet truth is not only metaphysical, it is epistemic certainty. Parmenides is told his heart must be “unshaken by the proof of my speech”; the Qurʾān affirms, “The truth is from your Lord, so do not be of those who doubt” (Q 2:147). Christ, confirming the same firmness, declares, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Mt 24:35). Revelation therefore stands as the criterion by which wavering thought is steadied, and each tradition binds knowledge to a divine utterance that secures the knower against the flux of opinion.

Because it secures, it also directs. The fiery track in the proem is no aimless ride; it is “the well‑marked road of the goddess.” Likewise the Qurʾān beseeches: “Guide us to the straight path” (Q 1:6), and Christ seals the consonance: “Enter by the narrow gate … the way is hard that leads to life” (Mt 7:13‑14). The path is singular, narrow not by exclusionary spite but by the precision of truth; it cuts across the wastes of doxa and desire toward the One who alone is.

Thus, read together, the Sungate of Elea and the Night of Power at Mecca proclaim a single hymn: God is Light, One, and True; false lights fade before Hu; certainty and guidance flow only from Hu’s word. The voices of Parmenides, Muḥammad ﷺ, and Jesus —peace upon them all—are not rivals but harmonies, each attesting in its own idiom that the human heart rests only when it turns toward the unfailing Reality. May every seeker who hears these converging revelations be led from the gate of dusk into the daylight that knows no setting, for “with God is the journey’s end” (Q 24:42).

“You are young (…) and therefore naturally regard the opinions of men; the time will come when Love will have a firmer hold of you.”