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The Eighth Word

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

God, there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsistent.1

Verily, the religion before God is Islam.2

If you want to understand this world, and man's spirit within the world, and the nature and value of religion within man, and how the world is a prison if there is no True Religion, and that without religion man becomes the most miserable of creatures, and that it is O God! and, There is no god but God that solve this world's talisman and deliver the human spirit from darkness, then listen to and consider this comparison:

Long ago, two brothers set off on a long journey. They continued on their way until the road forked. At the fork they saw a serious-looking man and asked him: "Which road is good?" He told them: "On the road to the right one is compelled to comply with the law and order, but within that hardship is security and happiness. However, on the left-hand road there is freedom and no restraint, but within its freedom lies danger and wretchedness. Now, the choice is yours!"

After listening to this, saying, I place my trust in God,3 the brother with a good character took the right road and conformed to the order and regulations. The other brother, who was immoral and a layabout, chose the road to the left just for the lack of restraint. With our imaginations, we shall follow this man in his situation, which was apparently easy but in reality burdensome.

Thus, this man went up hill and down dale until he found himself in a desolate wilderness. He suddenly heard a terrifying sound and saw that a great lion had come out of the forest and was about to attack him. He fled. He came across a waterless well sixty metres deep, and in his fear jumped into it. He fell half-way down it where his hands met a tree. He clung on to it. The tree, which was growing out of the walls of the well, had two roots. Two rats, one white and one black, were attacking and gnawing through them. He looked up and saw that the lion was waiting at the top of the well like a sentry. He looked down and saw a ghastly dragon. It raised its head and drew it close to his foot thirty metres above. Its mouth was as big as the mouth of the well. Then he looked at the well's walls and saw that stinging, poisonous vermin had gathered round him. He looked up at the mouth of the well and saw a fig-tree. But it was not an ordinary tree, it bore the fruit of many different trees, from walnuts to pomegranates.

Thus, through his lack of thought and foolishness, the man did not understand that this was not just some ordinary matter, these things were not here by chance, and that there were mysterious secrets concealed in these strange beings. And he did not grasp that there was someone very powerful directing them. Now, although his heart, spirit, and mind were secretly weeping and wailing at this grievous situation, his evil-commanding soul pretended that it was nothing; it closed its ears to the weeping of his heart and spirit, and deceiving itself, started to eat the tree's fruit as though it was in a garden. But some of the fruit were poisonous and harmful. Almighty God says in a Divine Hadith: "I am according to how my servants think of Me."

Thus, through his foolishness and lack of understanding, this unhappy man thought what he saw to be ordinary and the actual truth. And so that is the way he was treated, and is treated, and will be treated. He neither dies so that he is saved from it, nor does he live - he is in such torment. And so, we shall leave this ill-omened man in his torment and return, so that we may consider the situation of the other brother.

This fortunate and intelligent person went on his way, but he suffered no distress like his brother. For, due to his fine morals, he thought of good things, and imagined good things. Everything was friendly and familiar to him. And he did not suffer any difficulty and hardship like his brother, for he knew the order and followed it. He found it easy. He went on his way freely and in peace and security. Then he came across a garden in which were both lovely flowers and fruits, and, since it was not looked after, rotting and filthy things. His brother had also entered such a garden, but he had noticed and occupied himself with the filthy things and they had turned his stomach, so he had left it and moved on without being able to rest at all. But this man acted according to the rule, 'look on the good side of everything', and had paid no attention to the rotting things. He had benefited a lot from the good things, and taking a good rest, he had left and gone on his way.

Later, also like the first brother, he had entered a vast desert, and had suddenly heard the roar of a lion which was attacking him. He was frightened, but not as much as his brother. For, because of his good thoughts and positive attitude, he thought to himself: "This desert has a ruler, and it is possible that this lion is a servant under the ruler's command," and found consolation. But he still fled until he came across an empty well sixty metres deep. He threw himself into it. Like his brother, his hand clasped a tree half-way down and he remained suspended in the air. He looked and saw two animals gnawing through the tree's two roots. He looked up and saw the lion, and looked down and saw the dragon. Just like his brother he was seeing a most strange situation. He was terrified like him, but his terror was a thousand times less than his brother's. For his good morals had given him good thoughts, and good thoughts show the good side of everything. So, because of this, he thought like this:

"These strange happenings are connected to someone. Also it seems that they are acting in accordance with a command. In which case, these matters contain a talisman. Yes, they are turning at the command of a hidden ruler. Therefore, I am not alone; the hidden ruler is watching me, he is testing me, he is impelling me somewhere for some purpose, and inviting me there. A curiosity arising from this pleasant fear and these agreeable thoughts prompt me to say: I wonder who it is that is testing me, wants to make himself known, and is impelling me for some purpose on this strange road."

Then, love for the owner of the talisman arose out of the desire to know him, and from that love arose the desire to solve the talisman. And from that desire arose the will to acquire good qualities which would please and gratify the talisman's owner. Then he looked at the tree and saw it was a fig-tree, but it was bearing the fruits of thousands of trees. So then all his fear left him, for he understood that for certain the fig-tree was a list, an index, an exhibition. The hidden ruler must have attached samples of the fruits in the garden to the tree through a miracle and with a talisman, and must have adorned the tree in a way that would point to each of the foods he had prepared for his guests. For there is no other way a single tree could produce the fruits of thousands of different trees. Then he began to entreat that he would be inspired with the key to the talisman. He called out:

"O ruler of this place! I have fallen on your fortune and I take refuge with you. I am your servant and I want to please you. I am searching for you." After he had made this supplication, the walls of the well suddenly parted, and a door opened onto a wonderful, pleasant, quiet garden. Indeed, the dragon's mouth was transformed into the door, and both it and the lion took on the forms of two servants; they invited him to enter. The lion even became a docile horse for him.

And so, O my lazy soul! And O my imaginary friend! Come! Let us compare the position of these two brothers, so that we can see how good brings good and evil brings evil. Let us find out.

Look, the unhappy traveller on the left road is all the time trembling with fear waiting to enter the dragon's mouth, while the fortunate one is invited into a blooming, splendid garden full of fruit. And the unfortunate one's heart is being pounded by an awful terror and grievous fear, while the fortunate one is gazing at and observing strange things as a delightful lesson, with a pleasant fear and loving knowledge. Also the miserable one is suffering torments in desolation, despair, and loneliness, while the fortunate one is taking pleasure in hope, longing, and familiarity. Furthermore, the unfortunate one sees himself as a prisoner subject to the attacks of wild beasts, while the fortunate one is an honoured guest who is on friendly terms and enjoying himself with the strange servants of the generous host of whom he is the guest. Also the unhappy one is hastening his torments by indulging in fruits which are apparently delicious but in fact poisonous. For the fruits are samples; there is permission to taste them so as to seek the originals and become customers for them, but there is no permission to devour them like an animal. But the fortunate one tastes them and understands the matter; he postpones eating them and takes pleasure in waiting. Moreover, the unfortunate one is wronging himself. Through his lack of discernment, he is making a truth and a situation which are as clear and bright as daylight into a dark and oppressive fear, into a hellish delusion. He does not deserve pity, nor does he have the right to complain to anyone.

For example, if a person who is at a pleasant banquet in a beautiful garden in summer among his friends makes himself drunk through filthy intoxicants, then imagines himself hungry and naked in the middle of winter among wild animals and starts shouting out and crying, he does not deserve to be pitied; he is wronging himself, and he is insulting his friends by imagining them to be wild beasts. Thus, the unfortunate brother is like this. But the fortunate one sees the truth. And the truth is good. Through perceiving the beauty of the truth, the fortunate brother is being respectful towards the truth's owner. So he deserves his mercy. Thus, the meaning of the Qur'anic decree: "Know that evil is from yourself, and good is from God" becomes clear. If you make a comparison of other differences in the same way, you will understand that the evil-commanding soul of the first brother has prepared a sort of hell for him, while the good intention, good will, good character, and good thoughts of the other have allowed him to receive great bounty and happiness, and a shining virtue and prosperity.

O my soul! And O you who is listening to this story together with my soul! If you do not want to be the unfortunate brother and want to be the fortunate one, listen to the Qur'an, and obey its decrees, and adhere to them, and act according to them.

If you have understood the truths in this comparison, you will be able to make them correspond to the truths of religion, the world, man, and belief in God. I shall say the important ones, then you deduce the finer points yourself.

So, look! Of the two brothers, one is a believing spirit and a righteous heart. The other is an unbelieving spirit and a depraved heart. And of the two roads, the one to the right is the way of the Qur'an and belief in God, while the left one is the road of rebellion and denial. The garden on the road is man's fleeting social life in human society and human civilization where good and evil, and things good and bad and clean and dirty are found side by side. The sensible person is he who acts according to the rule: 'Take what is pleasant and clear, and leave what is distressing and turbid', and goes on his way with tranquillity of heart. As for the desert, it is the earth and this world. And the lion is death and the appointed hour. The well is man's body and the time of his life, while its sixty-metre depth points to the normal life-span of sixty years. And the tree is the period of life and the substance of life. The two animals, one white and one black, are night and day. And the dragon is the road to the Intermediate Realm and pavilion of the Hereafter, whose mouth is the grave. But for the believer, that mouth is a door opening from a prison onto a garden. And as for the poisonous vermin, they are the calamities of this world. But for the believer they are like gentle Divine warnings and favours of the Most Merciful One to prevent him slipping off into the sleep of heedlessness. The fruits on the tree are the bounties of this world which the Absolutely Generous One has made in the form of a list of the bounties of the Hereafter, and both as examples of them, and warnings, and samples inviting customers to the fruits of Paradise. And the tree producing numerous different fruits despite being a single tree is a sign to the seal of the Power of the Eternally Besought One, to the stamp of Divine Dominicality and Sovereignty. For 'to make everything from one thing', that is, to make all plants and fruits from earth, and create all animals from a fluid, and to create all the limbs and organs of animals from a simple food, together with 'making everything one thing', that is, arts like weaving a simple skin and making flesh particular to each animal from the great variety of foods that animals eat is an inimitable stamp and seal peculiar to the Ruler of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity, Who is the Single, Eternally-Besought One. For sure, to make one thing everything, and everything one thing is a sign, a mark peculiar to the Creator of all things and the One Powerful over all things.

And as for the talisman, it is the mystery of the wisdom in creation which is solved through the mystery of belief. And the key is There is no god but God , and, God, there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsistent. And the dragon's mouth being transformed into the door into the garden is a sign that, although for the people of misguidance and rebellion the grave is a door opening, in desolation and oblivion, onto a grave distressing as a dungeon and narrow as a dragon's stomach, for the people of the Qur'an and belief, it is a door which opens from the prison of this world onto the fields of immortality, from the arena of examination onto the gardens of Paradise, and from the hardships of life onto the Mercy of the All-Merciful One. The savage lion turning into a friendly servant and a docile mount is a sign that, although for the people of misguidance, death is a bitter, eternal parting from all their loved ones, and the expulsion from the deceptive paradise of this world and the entry in desolation and loneliness into the dungeon of the grave, for the people of guidance and the Qur'an, it is the means of joining all their old friends and beloved ones who have already departed for the next world, and the means of entering their true homeland and abode of everlasting happiness. It is an invitation to the meadows of Paradise from the prison of this world, and a time to receive the wage bestowed out of the generosity of the Most Merciful and Compassionate One for services rendered to Him, and a discharge from the hardship of the duties of life, and a rest from the drill and instruction of worship and examination.

In Short: Whoever makes this fleeting life his purpose and aim is in fact in Hell even if apparently in Paradise. And whoever is turned in all seriousness towards eternal life receives the happiness of both worlds. However difficult and distressing this world is for him, since he sees it as the waiting-room for Paradise, he endures it and offers thanks in patience...

O God! Appoint us among the people of happiness, safety, the Qur'an, and belief. Amen. O God! Grant peace and blessings to our Master Muhammed, and to his Family and Companions, to the number of all the letters of the Qur'an formed in all its words, represented with the permission of the Most Merciful One in the mirrors of the air waves on the recital of each of those words by all the Qur'an's reciters from its first revelation to the end of time, and have mercy on us and on our parents, and have mercy on all believing men and women to the number of those words, through Your mercy, O Most Merciful of the Merciful. Amen. And all praise be to God, the Sustainer of All the Worlds.

* * *www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.netThe Seventh Word

If you want to understand what valuable, difficulty-resolving talismans are the two parts of the phrase I believe in God and the Last Day , which open both the locked talisman of creation and the door of happiness for the human spirit, and what beneficial and curative two medicines are reliance on your Creator and taking refuge in Him through patience and entreaty, and supplicating your Provider through thanks, and what important, precious, shining tickets for the journey to eternity - and provisions for the Hereafter and lights for the grave - are listening to the Qur'an, obeying its commands, performing the prescribed prayers, and giving up serious sins, then listen and pay attention to this comparison:

One time a soldier fell into a most grievous situation in the field of battle and examination, and the round of profit and loss. It was as follows:

The soldier was wounded with two deep and terrible wounds on his right and left sides and behind him stood a huge lion as though waiting to attack him. And before him stood a gallows which was putting to death and annihilating all those he loved. It was awaiting him too. And besides this, he had a long journey in front of him: he was being exiled. As the unfortunate soldier pondered over his fearsome plight in despair, a kindly person shining with light like Khidr appeared. He said to him: "Do not despair. I shall give you two talismans and teach you them. If you use them properly, the lion will become a docile horse for you, and the gallows will turn into a swing for your pleasure and enjoyment. Also I shall give two medicines. If you follow the instructions, those two suppurating wounds will be transformed into two sweet-scented flowers called the Rose of Muhammed (PBUH). Also, I shall give you a ticket; with it, you will be able to make a year's journey in a day as though flying. If you do not believe me, experiment a bit, so that you can see it is true." The soldier did experiment a bit, and affirmed that it was true. Yes, I, that is, this unfortunate Said, affirm it too. For I experimented and saw it was absolutely true.

Some time later he suddenly saw a sly and debauched-looking man, cunning as the Devil, coming from the left bringing with him much ornamented finery, decorated pictures and fantasies, and many intoxicants. He stopped before the soldier, and said:

"Hey, come on, my friend! Let's go and drink and make merry. We can look at these pictures of beautiful girls, listen to the music, and eat this tasty food." Then he asked him: "What is it you are reciting under your breath?"

"A talisman", came the reply.

"Stop that incomprehensible nonsense! Let's not spoil our present fun!" And he asked a second question: "What is that you have in your hand?"

"Some medicine", the soldier replied.

"Throw it away! You are healthy, there is nothing wrong with you. It is the time of cheer." And he asked: "What is that piece of paper with five marks on it?"

"It is a ticket and a rations card."

"Oh, tear them up!", the man said. "What need do we have of a journey this beautiful spring?" He tried to persuade him with every sort of wile, and the poor soldier was even a bit persuaded. Yes, man can be deceived. I was deceived by just such cunning deceptions.

Suddenly from the right came a voice like thunder. "Beware!", it said. "Do not be deceived! Say to that trickster: 'If you have the means to kill the lion behind me, remove the gallows from before me, repulse the things wounding my right and my left, and prevent the journey in front of me, then come on and do so! Show that you can and let us see it! Then say, come on, let's go and enjoy ourselves. Otherwise be silent!' Speak in the same way as that Khidr-like God-inspired man."

And so, O my soul, which laughed in its youth and now weeps at its laughter! Know that the unfortunate soldier is you, and man. And the lion is the appointed hour. And as for the gallows, it is death, decline, and separation, through which, in the alternation of night and day, all friends bid farewell and are lost. And of the two wounds, one is man's infinite and troublesome impotence, while the other is his grievous and boundless poverty. And the exile and journey is the long journey of examination which passes from the world of spirits through the womb and childhood to old age; through the world and the grave and the intermediate realm, to the resurrection and the Bridge of Sirat. And as for the two talismans, they are belief in Almighty God and the Hereafter.

Indeed, through the second sacred talisman, death takes on the form of a mastered horse and steed to take believing man from the prison of this world to the gardens of Paradise and the presence of the Most Merciful One. It is because of this that the wise, who have seen death's reality, have loved it. They have wanted it before it came. And through the talisman of belief in God, the passage of time, which is decline and separation, death and decease and the gallows, takes on the form of the means to observe and contemplate with perfect pleasure the miracles of the All-Glorious Maker's various, multicoloured, ever-renewed embroideries, the wonders of His power, and the manifestations of His mercy. For sure, on mirrors that reflect the colours of the sun's light being changed and renewed, and the images of the cinema being changed, better, more beautiful scenes are formed.

And as for the two medicines, one is trusting in God and patience, and the other is relying on your Creator's power and having confidence in His wisdom. Is that the case? Indeed it is. What fear can a man have, who, through the certificate of his impotence, relies on a Monarch of the World with the power to command: Be! and it is.1 For in the face of the most awful calamity, he says: Verily, to God do we belong, and verily to Him is our return,2 and places his trust in his Most Compassionate Sustainer. Indeed, a person with knowledge of God takes pleasure from impotence, from fear of God. Yes, there is pleasure in fear. If a twelve-month baby was sufficiently intelligent and it was asked him: "What is most pleasurable and sweetest for you?", he might well say: "To realize my powerlessness and helplessness, and fearing my mother's gentle smack to at the same time take refuge in her tender breast." But the compassion of all mothers is but a flash of the manifestation of Divine Mercy. It is for this reason that the wise have found such pleasure in impotence and fear of God that they have vehemently declared themselves free of their own strength and power, and have taken refuge in God through their powerlessness. They have made powerlessness and fear an intercessor for themselves.

The second medicine is thanks and contentment, and entreaty and supplication, and relying on the mercy of the All-Compassionate Provider. Is that so? Yes, for how can poverty, want and need be painful and burdensome for a guest of an All-Generous and Munificent One Who makes the whole face of the earth a table of bounties and the spring a bunch of flowers, and Who places the flowers on the table and scatters them over it? Poverty and need take on the form of a pleasant appetite. The guest tries to increase his poverty in the same way he does his appetite. It is because of this that the wise have taken pride in want and poverty. But beware, do not misunderstand this! It means to be aware of one's poverty before God and to beseech Him, not to parade poverty before the people and assume the air of a beggar.

And as for the ticket and voucher, it is to perform the religious duties, and foremost the prescribed prayers, and to give up serious sins. Is that so? Yes, it is, for according to the consensus of those who observe and have knowledge of the unseen and those who uncover the mysteries of creation, the provisions, light, and steed for the long and dark road to post-eternity may only be obtained through complying with the commands of the Qur'an and avoiding what it prohibits. Science, philosophy, and art are worth nothing on that road. Their light reaches only as far as the door of the grave.

And so, O my lazy soul! How little and light and easy it is to perform the five daily prayers and give up the seven grievous sins! If you have the faculty of reason and it is not corrupted, understand how important and extensive are their results, fruits, and benefits! Say to the Devil and that man who were encouraging you to vice and dissipation: "If you have the means to kill death, and cause decline and transience to disappear from the world, and remove poverty and impotence from man, and close the door of the grave, then tell us and let us hear it! Otherwise, be silent! The Qur'an reads the universe in the vast mosque of creation. Let us listen to it. Let us be illuminated with that light. Let us act according to its guidance. And let us recite it constantly. Yes, the Qur'an is the word. That is what they say of it. It is the Qur'an which is the truth and comes from the Truth and says the truth and shows the truth and spreads luminous wisdom..."

Oh God! Illuminate our hearts with the light of belief and the Qur'an.

Oh God! Enrich us with the need of You and do not impoverish us with the lack of need of You. Make us free of our own strength and power, and cause us to take refuge in Your strength and power. And appoint us among those who place their trust in You, and do not entrust us to ourselves. And protect us with Your protection. And have mercy on us and have mercy on all believing men and women. And grant blessings and peace to our Master Muhammed, Your Servant and Prophet, Your Friend and Beloved, the Beauty of Your Dominion and the Sovereign of Your Art, the Essence of Your Favour and the Sun of Your Guidance, the Tongue of Your Proof and the Exemplar of Your Mercy, the Light of Your Creation and the Glory of Your Creatures, the Lamp of Your Unity in the Multiplicity of Your Creatures and the Discloser of the Talisman of Your Beings, the Herald of the Sovereignty of Your Dominicality and the Announcer of those things pleasing to You, the Proclaimer of the Treasuries of Your Names and the Instructor of Your Servants, the Interpreter of Your Signs and the Mirror of the Beauty of Your Dominicality, the Means of witnessing You and bearing witness to You, Your Beloved and Your Prophet whom You sent as a Mercy to All the Worlds, and to all his Family and Companions, and to his brothers among the prophets and messengers, and to Your angels and to the righteous among Your servants. AMEN.

* * *www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.netThe Sixth Word

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Verily God has purchased from the believers their persons and their property that Paradise might be theirs.

If you wish to understand how profitable a trade it is, and how honourable a rank, to sell one's person and property to God, to be His slave and His soldier, then listen to the following comparison.

Once a king entrusted each of two of his subjects with an estate, including all necessary workshops, machinery, horses, weapons and so forth. But since it was a tempestuous and war-ridden age, nothing enjoyed stability; it was destined either to disappear or to change. The king in his infinite mercy sent a most noble lieutenant to the two men and by means of a compassionate decree conveyed the following to them:

"Sell me the property you now hold in trust, so that I may keep it for you. Let it not be destroyed for no purpose. After the wars are over, I will return it to you in a better condition than before. I will regard the trust as your property, and pay you a high price for it. As for the machinery and the tools in the workshop, they will be used in my name and at my workbench. But the price and the fee for their use shall be increased a thousandfold. You will receive all the profit that accrues. You are indigent and resourceless, and unable to provide the cost of these great tasks. So let me assume the provision of all expenses and equipment, and give you all the income and the profit. You shall keep it until the time of demobilization. So see the five ways in which you shall profit! Now if you do not sell me the property, you can see that no one is able to preserve what he possesses, and you too will lose what you now hold. It will go for nothing, and you will lose the high price I offer. The delicate and precious tools and scales, the precious metals waiting to be used, will also lose all value. You will have the trouble and concern of administering and preserving, but at the same time be punished for betraying your trust. So see the five ways in which you may lose! Moreover, if you sell the property to me, you become my soldier and act in my name. Instead of a common prisoner or irregular soldier, you will be the free lieutenant of an exalted monarch."

After they had listened to this gracious decree, the more intelligent of the two men said:

"By all means, I am proud and happy to sell. I offer thanks a thousandfold."

But the other was arrogant, selfish and dissipated; his soul had become as proud as the Pharaoh. As if he was to stay eternally on that estate, he ignored the earthquakes and tumults of this world. He said:

"No! Who is the king? I won't sell my property, nor spoil my enjoyment."

After a short time, the first man reached so high a rank that everyone envied his state. He received the favour of the king, and lived happily in the king's own palace. The other by contrast fell into such a state that everyone pitied him, but also said he deserved it. For as a result of his error, his happiness and property departed, and he suffered punishment and torment.

O soul full of caprices! Look at the face of truth through the telescope of this parable. As for the king, he is the Monarch of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity, your Sustainer and Creator. The estates, machinery, tools and scales are your possessions while in life's fold; your body, spirit and heart within those possessions, and your outward and inward senses such as the eye and the tongue, intelligence and imagination. As for the most noble lieutenant, it is the Noble Messenger of God; and the most wise decree is the Wise Qur'an, which describes the trade we are discussing in this verse:

Verily God has purchased from the believers their persons and property that Paradise might be theirs.

The surging field of battle is the tempestuous surface of the world, which ceaselessly changes, dissolves and reforms and causes every man to think:

"Since everything will leave our hands, will perish and be lost, is there no way in which we can transform it into something eternal and preserve it?"

While engaged in these thoughts, he suddenly hears the heavenly voice of the Qur'an saying: web www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.net "Indeed there is, a beautiful and easy way which contains five profits within itself."

What is that way?

To sell the trust received back to its true owner. Such a sale yields profit fivefold.

The First Profit: Transient property becomes everlasting. For this waning life, when given to the Eternal and Self-Subsistent Lord of Glory and spent for His sake, will be transmuted into eternity. It will yield eternal fruits. The moments of one's life will apparently vanish and rot like kernels and seeds. But then the flowers of blessedness and auspiciousness will open and bloom in the realm of eternity, and each will also present a luminous and reassuring aspect in the Intermediate Realm.

The Second Profit: The high price of Paradise is given in exchange.

The Third Profit: The value of each limb and each sense is increased a thousandfold. The intelligence is, for example, like a tool. If you do not sell it to God Almighty, but rather employ it for the sake of the soul, it will become an ill-omened, noxious and debilitating tool that will burden your weak person with all the sad sorrows of the past and the terrifying fears of the future; it will descend to the rank of an inauspicious and destructive tool. It is for this reason that a sinful man will frequently resort to drunkenness or frivolous pleasure in order to escape the vexations and injuries of his intelligence. But if you sell your intelligence to its True Owner and employ it on His behalf, then the intelligence will become like the key to a talisman, unlocking the infinite treasures of Compassion and the vaults of wisdom that creation contains.

To take another example, the eye is one of the senses, a window through which the spirit looks out on this world. If you do not sell it to God Almighty, but rather employ it on behalf of the soul, by gazing upon a handful of transient, impermanent beauties and scenes, it will sink to the level of being a pander to lust and the concupiscent soul. But if you sell the eye to your All-Seeing Maker, and employ it on His behalf and within limits traced out by Him, then your eye will rise to the rank of a reader of the Great Book of Being, a witness to the miracles of Dominical art, a blessed bee sucking on the blossoms of Mercy in the garden of this globe.

Yet another example is that of the tongue and the sense of taste. If you do not sell it to your Wise Creator, but employ it instead on behalf of the soul and for the sake of the stomach, it sinks and declines to the level of a gatekeeper at the stable of the stomach, a watchman at its factory. But if you sell it to the Generous Provider, the the sense of taste contained in the tongue will raise to the rank of a skilled overseer at the treasuries of Divine compassion, a grateful inspector in the kitchens of God's eternal power.

So look well, O intelligence! See the difference between a tool of destruction and the key to all being! And look carefully, O eye! See the difference between an abominable pander and the learned overseer of the Divine library! And taste well, O tongue! See the difference between a stable doorkeeper or a factory watchman and the superintendent of the treasury of God's mercy!

Compare all other tools and limbs to these, and then you will understand that in truth the believer acquires a nature worthy of Paradise and the unbeliever a nature conforming to Hell. The reason for each of them attaining his respective value is that the believer, by virtue of his faith, uses the trust of his Creator on His behalf and within the limits traced out by Him, whereas the unbeliever betrays the trust and employs it for the sake of the concupiscent soul.

The Fourth Profit: Man is helpless and exposed to numerous misfortunes. He is indigent, and his needs are numerous. He is weak, and the burden of life is most heavy. If he does not rely on the Omnipotent One of Glory, place his trust in Him and confidently submit to Him, his conscience will always be troubled. Fruitless torments, pains and regrets will suffocate him and intoxicate him, or turn him into a beast.

The Fifth Profit: Those who have experienced sapiental knowledge and had unveiled to them the true nature of things, the elect who have witnessed the truth, are all agreed that the exalted reward for all the worship and glorification of God performed by your members and instruments will be given to you at the time of greatest need, in the form of the fruits of Paradise.

If you spurn this trade with its fivefold profit, in addition to being deprived of its profit, you will suffer fivefold loss.

The First Loss: The property and offspring to which you are so attached, the soul and its caprice that you worship, the youth and life with which you are infatuated, all will vanish and be lost; your hands will be empty. But they will leave behind them sin and pain, fastened on your neck like a yoke.

The Second Loss: You will suffer the penalty for betrayal of trust. For you will have wronged your own self by using the most precious tools on the most worthless objects.www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.net

The Third Loss: By casting down all the precious faculties of man to a level much inferior to the animals, you will have insulted and transgressed against God's wisdom.

The Fourth Loss: In your weakness and poverty, you will have placed the heavy burden of life on your weak shoulders, and will constantly groan and lament beneath the blows of transience and separation.

The Fifth Loss: You will have clothed in an ugly form, fit to open the gates of Hell in front of you, the fair gifts of the Compassionate One such as the intelligence, the heart, the eye and the tongue, given to you to make preparation for the foundations of everlasting life and eternal happiness in the hereafter.

Now is it so difficult to sell the trust? Is it so burdensome that many people shun the transaction? By no means! It is not in the least burdensome. For the limits of the permissible are broad, and are quite adequate for man's desire; there is no need to trespass on the forbidden. The duties imposed by God are light and few in number. To be the slave and soldier of God is an indescribably pleasurable honour. One's duty is simply to act and embark on all things in God's name, like a soldier; to take and to give on God's behalf; to move and be still in accordance with His permission and law. If one falls short, then one should seek His forgiveness, say:

"O Lord! Forgive our faults, and accept us as Your slaves. Make us sure holders of Your trust until the time comes when it is taken from us. Amen!", and make petition unto Him.www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.netThe Second Word

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Those who believe in the Unseen. 1

If you want to understand what great happiness and bounty, what great pleasure and ease is to be found in belief in God, listen to this story which is in the form of a comparison:

One time, two men went on a journey for both pleasure and business. One set off in a selfish, inauspicious direction; the other on a godly, propitious way.

Since the selfish man was both conceited, self-centred, and pessimistic, he ended up in what seemed to him to be a most wicked country due to his pessimism. He looked around and everywhere saw the powerless and the unfortunate lamenting in the grasp and at the destruction of fearsome bullying tyrants. He saw the same grievous, painful situation in all the places he travelled. The whole country took on the form of a house of mourning. Apart from becoming drunk, he could find no way of not noticing this grievous and sombre situation. For everyone seemed to him to be an enemy and foreign. And all around he saw horrible corpses and despairing, weeping orphans. His conscience was in a state of torment.

The other man was godly, devout, fair-minded, and with fine morals so that the country he came to was most excellent in his view. This good man saw universal rejoicing in the land he had entered. Everywhere was a joyful festival, a place for the remembrance of God overflowing with rapture and happiness; everyone seemed to him a friend and relation. Throughout the country he saw the festive celebrations of a general discharge from duties accompanied by cries of good wishes and thanks. And he also heard the sound of a drum and band for the enlistment of soldiers with happy calls of "God is Most Great!" and "There is no god but God!" Rather than being grieved at the suffering of both himself and all the people like the first miserable man, this fortunate man was pleased and happy at both his own joy and that of all the inhabitants. Furthermore, he was able to do some profitable trade. He offered thanks to God.

After some while he returned and came across the other man. He understood his condition, and said to him: "You were out of your mind. The ugliness inside you must have been reflected on the outer world so that you imagined laughter to be weeping, and the discharge from duties to be sack and pillage. Come to your senses and purify your heart so that this calamitous veil is raised from your eyes and you can see the truth. For the country of an utterly just, compassionate, beneficent, powerful, order-loving, and kind king could not be in the way you imagined, nor could a country which demonstrated this number of clear signs of progress and achievement." The unhappy man later came to his senses and repented. He said, "Yes, I was crazy through drink. May God be pleased with you, you have saved me from a hellish state."

O my soul! Know that the first man represents an unbeliever, or someone depraved and heedless. In his view the world is a house of universal mourning. All living creature are orphans weeping at the blows of death and separation. Man and the animals are alone and without ties being ripped apart by the talons of the appointed hour. Mighty beings like the mountains and oceans are like horrendous, lifeless corpses. Many grievous, crushing, terrifying delusions like these arise from his unbelief and misguidance, and torment him.

As for the other man, he is a believer. He recognizes and affirms Almighty God. In his view this world is an abode where the Name of the All-Merciful One is constantly recited, a place of instruction for man and the animals, and a field of examination for man and jinn. All animal and human deaths are a demobilization. Those who have completed their duties of life depart from this transient world for another, happy and trouble-free, world so that place may be made for new officials to come and work. The birth of all animals and humans forms their enlistment into the army, their being taken under arms, and the start of their duties. Each living being is a joyful regular soldier, an honest, contented official. And all voices, either glorification of God and the recitation of His Names at the outset of their duties, and the thanks and rejoicing at their ceasing work, or the songs arising from their joy at working. In the view of the believer, all beings are the friendly servants, amicable officials, and agreeable books of his Most Generous Lord and All-Compassionate Owner. Very many more subtle, exalted, pleasurable, and sweet truths like these become manifest and appear from his belief.

That is to say, belief in God bears the seed of what is in effect a Tuba Tree of Paradise, while unbelief conceals the seed of a Zakkum Tree of Hell.

That means that safety and security are only to be found in Islam and belief. In which case, we should continually say, "Praise be to God for the religion of Islam and perfect belief."

* * *www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.netaThe Third Word

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

O you people, worship....

If you want to understand what great profit and happiness lie in worship, and what great loss and ruin lie in vice and dissipation listen to and take heed of the following story which is in the form of a comparison:

One time, two soldiers received orders to proceed to a distant city. They set off and travelled together until the road forked. At the fork was a man who said to them, "The road on the right causes no loss at all, and nine out of ten of those who take it receive a high profit and experience great ease. While the road on the left provides no advantages, and nine out of ten of its travellers make a loss. But they are the same as regards distance. Only there is one difference: those who take the left-hand road, which has no rules and no one in authority, travel without baggage and arms. They feel an apparent lightness and deceptive ease. Whereas those travelling on the right-hand road, which is under military order, are compelled to carry a kit-bag full of nutritious rations four kilos or so in weight and a superb army rifle of about two kilos which will overpower and rout every enemy..."

After the two soldiers had listened to what this instructive man had to say, the fortunate one took the road to the right. He loaded the weight of ten kilos onto his back, but his heart and spirit were saved from thousands of kilos of fear and feeling obliged to others. As for the other, luckless, soldier, he left the army. He did not want to conform to the order, and he went off to the left. He was released from bearing a load of ten kilos, but his heart was constricted by thousands of kilos of indebtedness, and his spirit crushed by innumerable fears. He proceeded on his way both begging from everyone and trembling before every object and every event until he reached his destination. And there he was punished as a mutineer and a deserter.

As for the soldier who loved the order of the army, had guarded his kit-bag and rifle, and taken the right-hand road, he had gone on his way being obliged to no one, fearing no one, and with an easy heart and conscience until he reached the city he was seeking. There he received a reward worthy of an honourable soldier who had carried out his duty well.

And so, O rebellious soul, know that one of those two travellers represents those who submit to the Divine Law, while the other represents the rebellious and those who follow their own desires. The road is the road of life, which comes from the Spirit World, passes through the grave, and carries on to the Hereafter. As for the kit-bag and rifle, they are worship and fear of God. There is an apparent burden in worship, but there is an ease and lightness in its meaning that defies description. For in the prescribed prayers the worshipper declares, "I bear witness that there is no god but God." That is to say, since he is believing and saying, "There is no Creator and Provider other than Him. Harm and benefit are in His hand. He is both All-Wise; He does nothing in vain, and He is All-Compassionate; His bounty and mercy are abundant", he finds the door of a treasury of mercy in everything. And he knocks on it with his supplication. Moreover, he sees that everything is subjugated to the command of his own Sustainer, so he takes refuge in Him. He places his trust in Him and relies on Him, and is fortified against every disaster; his belief gives him complete confidence.

Indeed, like with every true virtue, the source of courage is belief in God, and worship. And like with every iniquity, the source of cowardice is misguidance.

In fact, for a worshipper with a truly illuminated heart, it is possible that even if the globe of the earth became a bomb and exploded, it would not frighten him. He would watch it with pleasurable wonder as a marvel of the Eternally Besoughted One's Power. But when a famous degenerate philosopher with a so-called enlightened mind but no heart saw a comet in the sky, he trembled on the ground, and exclaimed anxiously: "Isn't that comet going to hit the earth?" (On one occasion, America was quaking with fear at such a comet, and many people left their homes in the middle of the night.)

Yes, although man is in need of numberless things, his capital is as nothing, and although he is subject to endless calamities, his power too is as nothing. Simply, the extent of his capital and power is merely as far as his hand can reach. However, his hopes, desires, pains, and tribulations reach as far as the eye and the imagination can stretch. Anyone who is not totally blind can see and understand then what a great profit, happiness, and bounty for the human spirit, which is thus impotent and weak, and needy and wanting, are worship, affirmation of God's Unity, and reliance on God and submission to Him.

It is obvious that a safe way is preferable to a harmful way, even if the possibility of its safety is only one in ten. But on the way of worship, which our matter here, there is a nine out of ten possibility of it leading to a treasury of eternal happiness, as well as it being safe. While it is established by the testimony - which is at the degree of consensus - of innumerable experts and witnesses that besides being without benefit, and the dissolute even confess to this, the way of vice and dissipation ends in eternal misery. And according to the reports of those who have uncovered the mysteries of creation this is absolutely certain.

In Short: Like that of the Hereafter, happiness in this world too lies in worship and being a soldier for Almighty God. In which case, we should constantly say: "Praise be to God for obedience and success", and we should thank Him that we are Muslims...

* * *www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.netThe Fourth Word

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

The prescribed prayers are the pillar of religion.

If you want to understand with the certainty that two plus two equals four just how valuable and important are the prescribed prayers, and with what little expense they are gained, and how crazy and harmful is the person who neglects them, pay attention to the following story which is in the form of a comparison:

One time, a mighty ruler gave each of two of his servants twenty-four gold pieces and sent them to settle on one of his rich, royal farms two months' distance away. "Use this money for your tickets", he commanded them, "and buy whatever is necessary for your house there with it. There is a station one day's distance from the farm. And there is both road-transport, and a railway, and boats, and aeroplanes. They can be benefited from according to your capital."

The two servants set off after receiving these instructions. One of them was fortunate so that he spent a small amount of money on the way to the station. And included in that expense was some business so profitable and pleasing to his master that his capital increased a thousandfold. As for the other servant, since he was luckless and a layabout, he spent twenty-three pieces of gold on the way to the station, wasting it on gambling and amusements. A single gold piece remained. His friend said to him: "Spend this last gold piece on a ticket so that you will not have to walk the long journey and starve. Moreover, our master is generous; perhaps he will take pity on you and forgive you your faults, and put you on an aeroplane as well. Then we shall reach where we are going to live in one day. Otherwise you will be compelled to walk alone and hungry across a desert which takes two months to cross." The most unintelligent person can understand how foolish, harmful, and senseless he would be if out of obstinacy he did not spend that single remaining gold piece on a ticket, which is like the key to a treasury, and instead spent it on vice for passing pleasure. Is that not so?

And so, O you who do not perform the prescribed prayers! And O my own soul, which does not like to pray! The ruler in the comparison is our Sustainer, our Creator. And of the two travelling servants, one represents the devout who perform their prayers with fervour, and the other, the heedless who neglect their prayers. The twenty-four pieces of gold are life in every twenty-four-hour day. And the royal domain is Paradise. As for the station, that is the grave. While the journey is man's passage to the grave, and on to the Resurrection, and the Hereafter. Men cover that long journey to different degrees according to their actions and the strength of their fear of God. Some of the truly devout have crossed a thousand-year distance in a day like lightening. And some have traversed a fifty-thousand-year distance in a day with the speed of imagination. The Qur'an of Mighty Stature alludes to this truth with two of its verses.

The ticket in the comparison represents the prescribed prayers. A single hour a day is sufficient for the five prayers together with taking the ablutions. So what a loss a person makes who spends twenty-three hours on this fleeting worldly life, and fails to spend one hour on the long life of the Hereafter; how he wrongs his own self; how unreasonably he behaves. For would not anyone who considers himself to be reasonable understand how contrary to reason and wisdom such a person's conduct is, and how far from reason he has become, if, thinking it reasonable, he gives half of his property to a lottery in which one thousand people are participating and the possibility of winning is one in a thousand, and does not give one twenty-fourth of it to an eternal treasury where the possibility of winning has been verified at ninety-nine out of a hundred?

Moreover, the spirit, the heart, and the mind find great ease in prayer. And it is not trying for the body. Furthermore, with the right intention, all the other acts of someone who performs the prescribed prayers become like worship. He can make over the whole capital of his life to the Hereafter in this way. He can make his transient life permanent in one respect...

* * *www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.netThe Fifth Word

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Indeed, God is with those who fear Him and those who do good.

If you want to see what a truly human duty and what a natural, appropriate result of man's creation it is to perform the prescribed prayers and not to commit serious sins, listen to and take heed of the following comparison:

Once, at a time of general mobilization, two soldiers found themselves together in a regiment. One was well-trained and conscientious, the other, a raw recruit and self-centred. The conscientious soldier concentrated on training and the war, and did not give a thought to rations and provisions, for he knew that it was the State's duty to feed and equip him, treat him if he was ill, and even to put the food in his mouth if the need arose. He knew that his basic duty was to train and fight. But he would also attend to some of the rations and equipment as part of his work. He would boil up the saucepans, wash up the mess-tins, and bring them. If it was then asked him: "What are you doing?", he would reply: "I am doing fatigue duty for the State." He would not say: "I am working for my living."

The raw recruit, however, was fond of his stomach and paid no attention to training and the war. "That is the State's business. What is it to me?", he would say. He thought constantly of his livelihood, and pursuing it would leave the regiment and go to the market to do shopping. One day his well-trained friend said to him:

"Your basic duty is training and fighting, brother. You were brought here for that. Trust in the king; he will not let you go hungry. That is his duty. Anyway, you are powerless and wanting; you cannot feed yourself everywhere. And this is a time of mobilization and war; he will tell you that you are mutinous and will punish you. Yes, there are two duties which concern us. One is the king's duty: sometimes we do his fatigue duties and he feeds us for it. The other is our duty: that is training and fighting, and sometimes the king helps us with it."

Of course you will understand in what danger the layabout soldier would be if he did not pay attention to the striving, well-trained one.

And so, O my lazy soul! That turbulent place of war is this stormy worldly life. And the army divided into regiments, human society. And the regiment in the comparison is the community of Islam in this century. One of the two soldiers is a devout Muslim who knows the obligations of his religion and performs them, and struggles with Satan and his own soul in order to give up serious misdoings and not to commit sins. While the other is a degenerate wrongdoer who is so immersed in the struggle for livelihood that he casts aspersions on the True Provider, abandons his religious obligations , and commits any sins that come his way as he makes his living. As for the training and instruction, it is foremost the prescribed prayers and worship. And the war is the struggle against the soul and its desires, and against the satans among jinn and men, to deliver them from sin and bad morals, and save the heart and spirit from eternal perdition. And the first of the two duties is to give life and sustain it, while the other is to worship and beseech the Giver and Sustainer of life. It is to trust in Him and rely on Him.

Indeed, whoever made and bestowed life, which is a most brilliant miracle of the Eternally Besoughted One's art and a wonder of Dominical wisdom, is the one who maintains and perpetuates it through sustenance. It cannot be another. Do you want proof? The most impotent and stupid animals are the best nourished; like fish, and worms in fruit. And it is the most helpless and delicate creatures who have the choicest food; like infants and the young of all species.

For sure, it is enough to compare fish with foxes, newly born animals with wild beasts, and trees with animals in order to understand that licit food is obtained not through power and will, but through impotence and helplessness. That is to say, someone who gives up performing the prescribed prayers because of the struggle for livelihood resembles the soldier who abandoned his training and trench and went and begged in the market. But to seek ones rations from the kitchens of the All-Generous Provider's mercy after performing the prayers, and to go oneself so as not to be a burden on others is fine and manly. It too is a sort of worship.

Furthermore, man's nature and spiritual faculties show that he is created for worship. For in respect of the power and actions necessary for the life of this world, he cannot compete with the most inferior sparrow. While in respect of knowledge and need, and worship and supplication, which are necessary for spiritual life and the life of the Hereafter, he is like the monarch and commander of the animals.

And so, O my soul! If you make the life of this world the aim of your life and work constantly for that, you will become like the lowest sparrow. But if you make the life of the Hereafter your aim and end, and make this life the means of it and its tillage, and strive in accordance with it, then you will be like a mighty commander of the animals, and a petted and suppliant servant of Almighty God, and His honoured and respected guest.

Those are the two ways open to you! You can choose whichever you wish... So ask for guidance and success from the Most Compassionate of the Compassionate...

* * *The Twenty-Third Flash

On Nature

[First written as the Sixteenth Note of the Seventeenth Flash, this part of the Risale-i Nur was later designated as the Twenty-Third Flash because of its importance. This treatise puts naturalistic atheism to death with no chance of reanimation, and totally shatters the foundation stones of unbelief.]

A Reminder

This treatise explains through Nine Impossibilities, themselves comprising at least ninety impossibilities, just how unreasonable, crude and superstitious is the reality of the way taken by those Naturalists who are atheists. Since these impossibilities have been explained in part in other sections of the Risale-i Nur, and to cut short the discussion here, some steps in the arguments have been skipped. It suddenly comes to mind, then, how is it that those famous and supposedly brilliant philosophers accepted such a blantantly obvious superstition, and continue to pursue that way. Well, the fact is they could not see its reality. And I am ready to explain in detail and prove through clear and decisive arguments to whoever doubts it that these crude, repugnant and unreasonable impossibilities are the necessary and unavoidable result of their way; in fact, the very gist of their creed.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Their prophets said: “Is there any doubt about God, Creator of the heavens and the earth?”

By declaring through the use of a rhetorical question that there cannot and should not be any doubt about God Almighty, this verse clearly demonstrates the Divine existence and Unity.

A point to be mentioned before our discussion:

When I went to Ankara in 1922, the morale of the people of belief was extremely high as a result of the victory of the army of Islam over the Greeks. But I saw that an abominable current of atheism was treacherously trying to subvert, poison and destroy their minds. “O God!” I said, “this monster is going to harm the fundamentals of belief.” At that point, since the above-mentioned verse makes self-evidently plain God’s existence and Unity, I sought assistance from it and wrote a treatise in Arabic consisting of a proof taken from the All-Wise Qur’an that was powerful enough to disperse and destroy that atheistic current. I had it printed in Ankara at the Yeni Gün Press. But, alas, those who knew Arabic were few and those who considered it seriously were rare. Also, its argument was in an extremely concise and abbreviated form. As a result, the treatise did not have the effect it should have done and sadly, that current of atheism both swelled and gained strength. Now, I feel compelled to explain a part of the proof in Turkish. Since certain parts of it have been fully explained in other sections of the Risale-i Nur, it will be written in summary form here. Those numerous proofs in part unite in this proof; so each may be seen as an element of this proof.

Introduction

O man! You should be aware that there are certain phrases which are commonly used and imply unbelief. The believers also use them, but without realizing their implications. We shall explain three of the most important of them.

The First: “Causes create this.”

The Second: “It forms itself; it comes into existence and later ceases to exist.”

The Third: “It is natural; Nature necessitates and creates it.”

Indeed, since beings exist and this cannot be denied, and since each being comes into existence in a wise and artistic fashion, and since each is not outside time but is being continuously renewed, then, O falsifier of the truth, you are bound to say either that the causes in the world create beings, for example, this animal; that is to say, it comes into existence through the coming together of causes, or that it forms itself, or that its coming into existence is a requirement and necessary effect of Nature, or that it is created through the power of One All-Powerful and All-Glorious. Since reason can find no way apart from these four, if the first three are definitely proved to be impossible, invalid and absurd, the way of Divine Unity, which is the fourth way, will necessarily and self-evidently and without doubt or suspicion, be proved true.

THE FIRST WAY This to imagine that the formation and existence of things, creatures, occurs through the coming together of the causes in the universe. We shall mention only three of its numerous impossibilities.

First Impossibility

Imagine there is a pharmacy in which there are hundreds of jars and phials filled with quite different substances. A living potion and a living remedy are required from those medicaments. So we go to the pharmacy and see that they are to be found there in abundance, yet in great variety. We examine each of the potions and see that the ingredients have been taken in varying but precise amounts from each of the jars and phials, one ounce from this, three from that, seven from the next, and so on. If one ounce too much or too little had been taken, the potion would not have been living and would not have displayed its special quality. Next, we study the living remedy. Again, the ingredients have been taken from the jars in a particular measure so that if even the most minute amount too much or too little had been taken, the remedy would have lost its special property.

Now, although the jars number more than fifty, the ingredients have been taken from each according to measures and amounts that are all different. Is it in any way possible or probable that the phials and jars should have been knocked over by a strange coincidence or sudden gust of wind and that only the precise, though different, amounts that had been taken from each of them should have been spilt, and then arranged themselves and come together to form the remedy? Is there anything more superstitious, impossible and absurd than this? If an ass could speak, it would say: “I cannot accept this idea!”, and would gallop off!

Similarly, each living being may be likened to the living potion in the comparison, and each plant to a living remedy. For they are composed of matter that has been taken in most precise measure from truly numerous and truly various substances. If these are attributed to causes and the elements and it is claimed, “Causes created these,” it is unreasonable, impossible and absurd a hundred times over, just as it was to claim that the potion in the pharmacy came into existence through the phials being knocked over; by accident.

I n S h o r t : The vital substances in this vast pharmacy of the universe, which are measured on the scales of Divine Determining and Decree of the All-Wise and Pre-Eternal One, can only come into existence through a boundless wisdom, infinite knowledge and all-encompassing will. The unfortunate person who declares that they are the work of blind, deaf and innumerable elements and causes and natures, which stream like floods; and the foolish, delirious person who claims that that wondrous remedy poured itself out when the phials were knocked over and formed itself, are certainly unreasonable and nonsensical. Indeed, such denial and unbelief is a senseless absurdity.

Second Impossibility

If everything is not attributed to the All-Powerful and All-Glorious One, Who is the Single One of Unity, but is attributed to causes, it necessitates that many of the elements and causes present in the universe intervene in the being of every animate creature. Whereas that different and mutually opposing and conflicting causes should come together of their own accord in complete order, with the finest balance and in perfect concord in the being of a tiny creature, like a fly, is such an obvious impossibility that anyone with even an iota of consciousness would say: “This is impossible; it could not be!”

The tiny body of a fly is connected with most of the elements and causes in the universe; indeed, it is a summary of them. If it is not attributed to the Pre-Eternal and All-Powerful One, it is necessary for those material causes to be themselves present in the immediate vicinity of the fly; rather, for them all to enter into its tiny body; and even for them to enter each of the cells of its eyes, which are minute samples of its body. For if a cause is of a material nature, it is necessary for it to be present in the immediate vicinity of, and inside, its effect. And this necessitates accepting that the constituents and elements of the universe are physically present inside that minute cell, a place too small even for the tip of its antenna, and that they work there in harmony like a master.

A way such as this, then, shames even the most foolish of the Sophists.

Third Impossibility

It is an established rule that, “If a being has unity, it can only have issued from a single being, from one hand.” Particularly if it displays a comprehensive life within a perfect order and sensitive balance, it demonstrates self-evidently that it did not issue from numerous hands, which are the cause of conflict and confusion, but that it issued from a single hand that is All-Powerful and All-Wise. Therefore, to attribute a well-ordered and well-balanced being which has unity such as that to the jumbled hands of innumerable, lifeless, ignorant, aggressive, unconscious, chaotic, blind and deaf natural causes, the blindness and deafness of which increase with their coming together and intermingling among the ways of numberless possibilities, is as unreasonable as accepting innumerable impossibilities all at once. If we leave this impossibility aside and assume that material causes have effects, these effects can only occur through direct contact and touch. However, the contact of natural causes is with the exteriors of living beings. And yet we see that the interiors of such beings, where the hands of material causes can neither reach nor touch, are ten times more delicate, well-ordered and perfect as regards art than their exteriors. Therefore, although tiny animate creatures, on which the hands and organs of material causes can in no way be situated, indeed they cannot touch the creatures’ exteriors all at once even, are more strange and wonderful as regards their art and creation than the largest creatures, to attribute them to those lifeless, unknowing, crude, distant, vast, conflicting, deaf and blind causes can result only from a deafness and blindness compounded to the number of animate beings.

THE SECOND WAY This is expressed by the phrase “It forms itself.” It too involves many impossibilities and is absurd and impossible in many aspects. We shall explain three examples of these impossibilities.

First Impossibility

O you obstinate denier! Your egotism has made you so stupid that somehow you decide to accept a hundred impossibilities all at once. For you yourself are a being and not some simple substance that is inanimate and unchanging. You are like an extremely well-ordered machine that is constantly being renewed and a wonderful palace that is undergoing continuous change. Particles are working unceasingly in your body. Your body has a connection and mutual relations with the universe, in particular with regard to sustenance and the perpetuation of the species, and the particles that work within it are careful not to spoil that relationship nor to break the connection. In this cautious manner they set about their work, as though taking the whole universe into account. Seeing your relationships within it, they take up their positions accordingly. And you benefit with your external and inner senses in accordance with the wonderful positions that they take.

If you do not accept that the particles in your body are tiny officials in motion in accordance with the law of the Pre-Eternal and All-Powerful One, or that they are an army, or the nibs of the pen of Divine Determining, with each particle as the nib of a pen, or that they are points inscribed by the pen of Power with each particle being a point, then in every particle working in your eye there would have to be an eye such as could see every limb and part of your body as well as the entire universe, with which you are connected. In addition to this, you would have to ascribe to each particle an intelligence equivalent to that of a hundred geniuses, sufficient to know and recognize all your past and your future, and your forbears and descendents, the origins of all the elements of your being, and the sources of all your sustenance.

To attribute the knowledge and consciousness of a thousand Plato’s to a single particle of one such as you who does not possess even a particle’s worth of intelligence in matters of this kind is a crazy superstition a thousand times over!

Second Impossibility

Your being resembles a thousand-domed wondrous palace in which the stones stand together in suspension and without support. Indeed, your being is a thousand times more wonderful than such a palace, for the palace of your being is being renewed continuously in perfect order. Leaving aside your truly wonderful spirit, heart and other subtle faculties, each member of your body resembles a single-domed part of the palace. Like the stones of a dome, the particles stand together in perfect balance and order demonstrating the eye and the tongue, for example, each to be a wondrous building, extraordinary work of art, and miracle of power.

If these particles were not each officials dependent on the command of the master architect of the universe, then each particle would have to be both absolutely dominant over all the other particles in the body and absolutely subordinate to each of them; and both equal to each and, with regard to its dominant position, opposed; and both the origin and source of most of the attributes that pertain only to the Necessarily Existent One, and extremely restricted; and both in absolute form, and in the form of a perfectly ordered individual artefact that could only, through the mystery of unity, be the work of the Single One of Unity.

Anyone with even a particle of consciousness would understand what an obvious impossibility this is; to attribute such an artefact to those particles.

Third Impossibility

If your being is not “written’ by the pen of the Pre-Eternal and All-Powerful One, Who is the Single One of Unity, and is instead “printed’ by Nature and causes, there would have to be printing-blocks in Nature not only to the number of cells in your body, but to the number of their thousands of combinations, which are arranged in concentric circles. Because, for example, if this book which we hold in our hand is written, a single pen may write it relying on the knowledge of its writer. If, on the other hand, it is not written and is not attributed to its writer’s pen, and if it is said that it exists of its own accord or it is ascribed to Nature, then, as a printed book, it would be necessary for there to be a different iron pen of each letter so that it could be printed. In a printing-press there have to be pieces of type to the number of letters in the alphabet so the letters in the book come into existence by means of them; pens to the number of those letters being necessary in place of a single pen.

As may be seen, sometimes a whole page is written in a single large letter from among those letters with a small pen in fine script, in which case a thousand pens would be necessary for one letter. Rather, if it took the form of your body, with all its components one within the other in concentric circles, there would have to be printing-blocks in each circle, for each component, to the number of the combinations that they form.

Now, see, if you claim this, which involves a hundred impossibilities, to be possible, then again if they are not attributed to a single pen, for those well-ordered, artistic pieces of type, faultless printing-blocks and iron pens to be made, further pens, printing-blocks and letters to the same number as themselves would be necessary. And they too would have to have been made; and they too would have to have been well-ordered and artistically fashioned. And so on. It would carry on in succession ad infinitum.

There, you too understand! This way of thinking is such that it involves impossibilites and superstitions to the number of particles in your body. O denier of God! See this, and quit this way of misguidance!

THE THIRD WAY “ Nature necessitates it; Nature makes it.” This statement contains many impossibilities. We shall mention three of them by way of examples.

First Impossibility

If the art and creativity, which are discerning and wise, to be seen in beings and particularly in animate beings are not attributed to the pen of Divine Determining and Power of the Pre-Eternal Sun, and instead are attributed to Nature and force, which are blind, deaf and unthinking, it becomes necessary that Nature either should have present in everything machines and printing-presses for their creation, or should include in everything power and wisdom enough to create and administer the universe. The reason for this is as follows:

The sun’s manifestations and reflections appear in all small fragments of glass and droplets on the face of the earth. If those miniature, reflected imaginary suns are not ascribed to the sun in the sky, it is necessary to accept the external existence of an actual sun in every tiny fragment of glass smaller than a match-head, which possesses the sun’s qualities and which, though small in size, bears profound meaning; and therefore to accept actual suns to the number of pieces of glass.

In exactly the same way, if beings and animate creatures are not attributed directly to the manifestation of the Pre-Eternal Sun’s Names, it becomes necessary to accept that in each being, and especially animate beings, there lies a nature, a force, or quite simply a god that will sustain an infinite power and will, and knowledge and wisdom. Such an idea is the most absurd and superstitious of all the impossibilities in the universe. It demonstrates that a man who attributes the art of the Creator of the universe to imaginary, insignificant, unconscious Nature is without a doubt less conscious of the truth than an animal.

Second Impossibility

If beings, which are most well-ordered and well-measured, wise and artistically fashioned, are not ascribed to One Who is infinitely powerful and wise and instead are attributed to Nature, it becomes necessary for there to be present in every bit of soil as many factories and printing-presses as there are in Europe so that each bit of soil can be the means for the growth and formation of innumerable flowers and fruits, of which it is the place of origin and workshop. The seeds of flowers are sown in turn in a bowl of soil, which performs the duty of a flower-pot for them. An ability is apparent in the bowl of soil that will give shapes and forms which differ greatly from one another to all the flowers sown in it. If that ability is not attributed to the All-Glorious and All-Powerful One, such a situation could not occur without there being in the bowlful of soil immaterial, different and natural machines for each flower.

This is because the matter of which seeds, like sperm and eggs for example, consist is the same. That is, they consist of an orderless, formless, paste-like mixture of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. Together with this, since air, water, heat and light also are each simple, unconscious and flow against everything in floods, the fact that the all-different forms of those flowers emerge from the soil in a most well-ordered and artistic fashion self-evidently and necessarily requires that there are present in the soil in the bowl immaterial, miniature printing-presses and factories to the number of presses and factories in Europe so that they could weave this great number of living fabrics and thousands of various embroidered textiles.

Thus, you can see how far the unbelieving thought of the Naturalists has deviated from the realm of reason. And although brainless pretenders who imagine Nature to be creator claim to be “men of science and reason,” see just how distant from reason and science is their thought, so that they have taken a superstition that is in no way possible, that is impossible, as a way for themselves. See this and laugh at them!

I f y o u a s k : If such extraordinary impossibilities and insurmountable difficulties occur when beings are attributed to Nature, how are those difficulties removed when they are attributed to the Single and Eternally Besought One? And how is the difficult impossibility transformed into that easy necessity?

T h e A n s w e r : We saw in the First Impossibility that the manifestation of the sun’s reflection displays its radiance and effect through miniature imaginary suns with complete ease and lack of trouble in everything from the minutest inanimate particle to the surface of the vastest ocean. If each particle’s relationship with the sun is severed, it then becomes necessary to accept that the external existence of an actual sun could subsist, with a difficulty at the level of impossibility, in each of those minute particles.

Similarly, if each being is ascribed directly to the Single and Eternally Besought One, everything necessary for each being can be conveyed to it through a connection and manifestation with an ease and facility that is at the level of necessity. If the connection is severed and each being reverts from its position as an official to being without duties, and is left to Nature and its own devices, it then becomes necessary to suppose that, with a hundred thousand difficulties and obstacles that reach the degree of impossibility, blind Nature possesses within it a power and wisdom with which to create and administer the universe so that it might bring into existence the wonderful machine of the being of an animate creature like a fly, which is a tiny index of the universe. This is impossible not just once but thousands of times over.

I n S h o r t : Just as it is impossible and precluded for the Necessarily Existent One to have any partner or like in respect of His Essence, so too is the interference of others in His dominicality and in His creation of beings impossible and precluded.

As for the difficulties involved in the Second Impossibility, as is proved in many parts of the Risale-i Nur, if all things are attributed to the Single One of Unity, all things become as easy and trouble-free as a single thing. Whereas if they are attributed to causes and Nature, a single thing becomes as difficult as all things. This has been demonstrated with numerous, decisive proofs and a summary of one of them is as follows.

If a man is connected to a king through being a soldier or an official, by reason of the strength of that connection, he may perform duties far exceeding his own individual strength. He may, on occasion, capture another king in the name of his own king. For he himself does not carry the equipment and sources of strength necessary to carry out the duties and work he performs, nor is he compelled to do so. By reason of the connection, the king’s treasuries, and the army, which is behind him and is his point of support, carry his equipment and sources of strength. That is to say, the duties he performs may be as grand as the business of a king, and as tremendous as the actions of an army.

Indeed, through being an official, an ant destroyed Pharaoh’s palace. Through the connection, a fly killed Nimrod off. And through the connection, the seed of a pine the size of a grain of wheat produces all the parts of a huge pine-tree.

Were the connection to be severed and the man discharged from his duties as an official, he would be compelled to carry the equipment and sources of strength necessary for his work himself. He would then only be able to perform duties in accordance with the sources of strength and ammunition that he was able to carry. Should he be required in this situation to carry out his duties with the extreme ease of the first situation, it would be necessary to load on his back the sources of an army’s strength and the arsenals and munitions factories of a king. Even clowns who invent stories and superstitions to make people laugh would be ashamed at this fanciful idea.

I n S h o r t : To attribute all beings to the Necessarily Existent One is so easy as to be necessary. While to attribute their creation to Nature is so difficult as to be impossible and outside the realm of reason.

Third Impossibility

The following two comparisons, which are included in other parts of the Risale-i Nur, explain this impossibility.

A wild savage entered a palace which had been built in an empty desert, and completed and adorned with all the fruits of civilization. He cast an eye over its interior and saw thousands of well-ordered and artistically fashioned objects. Because of his boorishness and lack of intelligence, he said: “No one from outside had a hand in this, one of the objects from inside must have made this palace together with all of its contents,” and started to investigate. However, whatever he looked at, even his untaught intelligence could not fathom out how it had made those things.

Later, he saw a notebook in which had been written the plan and programme of the palace’s construction, an index of its contents and the rules of its administration. For sure, the notebook too, which was without hand, eye, or implement, like the rest of the objects in the palace, was completely lacking the ability to construct and decorate the palace. But, since he saw that, in comparison with all the other things, the notebook was related to the whole palace by reason of its including all its theoretical laws, he was obliged to say: “There, it is this notebook that has organized, ordered and adorned this palace, and has fashioned all these objects and set them in their places.” He transformed his uncouthness into ludicrous jabber.

Thus, exactly like this comparison, a boor who subscribed to Naturalist thought, which denies God, entered the palace of the universe, which is infinitely more well-ordered, more perfect and everywhere full of miraculous instances of wisdom than the palace in the comparison. Not thinking that it was the work of art of the Necessarily Existent One, Who is outside the sphere of contingency, and shunning that idea, he saw a collection of the laws of Divine practice and an index of dominical art, which are like a slate for writing and erasing of Divine Determining in the sphere of contingency, and like a constantly changing notebook for the laws of the functioning of Divine power, and are extremely mistakenly and erroneously given the name “Nature’, and he said:

“These things require a cause and nothing else appears to have the relationship with everything like this notebook has. It is true that reason will in no way accept that this unseeing, unconscious and powerless notebook could carry out this creation, which is the work of an absolute dominicality and requires infinite power. But since I do not recognize the Eternal Maker, the most plausible explanation is to say the notebook made it, and makes it, so I shall say that.” To which we reply:

O you mistaken unfortunate! Your foolishness exceeds anything imaginable! Lift your head out of the swamp of Nature and look beyond yourself! See an All-Glorious Maker to Whom all beings from particles to planets testify with their different tongues and Whom they indicate with their fingers! Behold the manifestation of the Pre-Eternal Inscriber, Who fashions the palace and Who writes its programme in the notebook! Study His decree, listen to the Qur’an! Be delivered from your delirious raving!

Second Comparison: A rustic bumpkin entered the bounds of a splendid palace and saw there the uniform actions of an extremely orderly army carrying out its drill. He observed a battalion, a regiment and a division stand to attention, stand at ease and march, and open fire when commanded as though they were a single private. Since his rude, uncultured mind could not comprehend, so denied, that a commander had been given command by the country’s laws and by royal decree, he imagined that the soldiers were attached to one another with strings. He thought of what wonderful string it must be, and was amazed.

Later, he continued on his way till he came upon a magnificent mosque like Aya Sophia. He entered it at the time of Friday prayer and watched the congregation of Muslims rising, bowing, prostrating and sitting at the sound of man’s voice. Since he did not understand the Shari’a, which consists of a collection of immaterial, revealed laws, nor the immaterial rules proceeding from the Lawgiver’s command, he fancied the congregation to be bound to one another by physical string, and that this wonderful string had subjected them and was making them move like puppets. And, coming up with this idea, which is so ridiculous as to make the most ignorant roar with laughter, he went on his way.

Exactly like this comparison, an atheist who subscribed to materialist thought, which is denial and pure brutishness, entered the universe, which is a splendid barracks of the Monarch of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity for His innumerable forces, and a well-ordered mosque of that Pre-Eternal All-Worshipped One. He imagined the immaterial laws of the ordering of the universe, which proceed from the Pre-Eternal Monarch’s wisdom, each to have material and physical existence; and supposed the theoretical laws of the sovereignty of dominicality, and the rules and ordinances of the Greater Shari’a, the Shari’a of Creation, which are immaterial and exist only as knowledge, each to have external, material and physical existence. But to set up in place of Divine power those laws, which proceed from the Divine attributes of knowledge and speech and only exist as knowledge, and to attribute creation to them; then to attach the name “Nature’ to them, and to deem force, which is merely a manifestation of dominical power, to be an independent almighty possessor of power, is a thousand times more low-fallen ignorance than the ignorance in the comparison.

I n S h o r t : The imaginary and insubstantial thing that Naturalists call Nature, if it has an external reality, can at the very most be work of art; it cannot be the Artist. It is an embroidery, and cannot be the Embroiderer. It is a set of decrees; it cannot be the Issuer of the decrees. It is a body of the laws of creation, and cannot be the Lawgiver. It is but a created screen to the dignity of God, and cannot be the Creator. It is passive and created, and cannot be a Creative Maker. It is a law, not a power, and cannot possess power. It is the recipient, and cannot be the source.

T o C o n c l u d e : Since beings exist, and as was stated at the beginning of this treatise, reason cannot think of a way to explain the existence of beings apart from the four mentioned, three of which were each decisively proved through three clear Impossibilities to be invalid and absurd, then necessarily and self-evidently the way of Divine Unity, which is the fourth way, is proved in a conclusive manner. The fourth way, in accordance with the verse quoted at the beginning:

Is there any doubt about God, Creator of the heavens and the earth?

demonstrates clearly so that there can be no doubt or hesitation the Divinity of the Necessarily Existent One, and that all things issue directly from the hand of His power, and that the heavens and the earth are under His sway.

O you unfortunate worshipper of causes and Nature! Since the nature of each thing, like all things, is created, for it is full of art and is being constantly renewed, and, like the effect, the apparent cause of each thing is also created; and since for each thing to exist there is need for much equipment and many tools; there must exist a Possessor of Absolute Power Who creates the nature and brings the cause into existence. And that Absolutely Powerful One is in no need of impotent intermediaries to share in His dominicality and creation. God forbid! He creates cause and effect together directly. And in order to demonstrate His wisdom and the manifestation of His Names, by establishing an apparent causal relationship and connection through order and sequence, He makes causes and Nature a veil to the hand of His power so that the apparent faults, severities and defects in things should be ascribed to them, and in this way His dignity be preserved.

Is it easier for a watch-maker to make the cog-wheels of a clock, and then arrange them and put them in order to form the clock? Or is it easier for him to make a wonderful machine in each of the cog-wheels, and then leave the making of the clock to the lifeless hands of those machines? Is that not beyond the bounds of possibility? Come on, you judge with your unfair reason, and say!

And is it easier for a scribe to collect ink, pen and paper, and then using them proceed to write out a book himself? Or is it easier for him to create in the paper, pen and ink a writing-machine that requires more art and trouble than the book, and can be used only for that book, and then say to the unconscious machine: “Come on, you write it!”, and himself not interfere? Is that not a hundred times more difficult than writing it himself?

I f y o u s a y : Yes, it is a hundred times more difficult to create a machine that writes a book rather than writing it out oneself. But is it not in a way easier, because the machine is the means for producing numerous copies of the same book?

T h e A n s w e r : Through His limitless power, the Pre-Eternal Inscriber continuously renews the infinite manifestations of His Names so as to display them in ever-differing ways. And through this constant renewal, He creates the identities and special features in things in such a manner that no missive of the Eternally Besought One or dominical book can be the same as any other book. In any case, each will have different features in order to express different meanings.

If you have eyes, look at the human face: you will see that from the time of Adam until today, indeed, until post-eternity, together with the conformity of their essential organs, each face has a distinguishing mark in relation to all the other faces; this is a definite fact. Therefore, each face may be thought of as a different book. Only, for the artwork to be set out, different writing-sets, arrangements, and compositions are required. And in order to both collect and situate the materials, and to include everything necessary for the existence of each, a completely different workshop will be required.

Now, knowing it to be impossible, we thought of Nature as a printing-press. But apart from the composition and printing, which concern the printing-press, that is, setting up the type in a specific order, the substances that form an animate being’s body, the creation of which is a hundred times more difficult than that of the composition and ordering, must be created in specific proportions and particular order, brought from the furthest corners of the cosmos, and placed in the hands of the printing-press. But in order to do all these things, there is still need for the power and will of the Absolutely Powerful One, Who creates the printing-press. That is to say, this hypothesis of the printing-press is a totally meaningless superstition.

Thus, like these comparisons of the clock and the book, the All-Glorious Maker, Who is powerful over all things, has created causes, and so too does He create the effects. Through His wisdom, He ties the effect to the cause. Through His will, He has determined a manifestation of the Greater Shari’a, the Shari’a of Creation, which consists of the Divine laws concerning the ordering of all motion in the universe, and determined the nature of beings, which is only to be a mirror to that manifestation in things, and to be a reflection of it. And through His power, He has created the face of that nature which has received external existence, and has created things on that nature, and has mixed them one with the other.

Is it easier to accept this fact, which is the conclusion of innumerable most rational proofs—in fact, is one not compelled to accept it?—or is it easier to get the physical beings that you call causes and Nature, which are lifeless, unconscious, created, fashioned and simple, to provide the numberless tools and equipment necessary for the existence of each thing and to carry out those matters, which are performed wisely and discerningly? Is that not utterly beyond the bounds of possibility? We leave it to you to decide, with your unreasonable mind!

The unbelieving Nature-worshipper replied: “Since you are asking me to be fair and reasonable, I have to confess that the mistaken way I have followed up to now is both a compounded impossibility, and extremely harmful and ugly. Anyone with even a grain of consciousness would understand from your analyses above that to attribute the act of creation to causes and Nature is precluded and impossible. And that to attribute all things directly to the Necessarily Existent One is imperative and necessary. I say: “ALL PRAISE BE TO GOD FOR BELIEF,’ and I believe in Him. Only, I do have one doubt:

“I believe that Almighty God is the Creator, but what harm does it do to the sovereignty of His dominicality if some minor causes have a hand in the creation of insignificant matters and thereby gain for themselves a little praise and acclaim? Does it diminish His sovereignty in some way?”

T h e A n s w e r : As we have conclusively proved in other parts of the Risale-i Nur, the mark of rulership is that it rejects interference. The most insignficant ruler or official will not tolerate the interference of his own son, even, within the sphere of his rule. The fact that, despite being Caliph, certain devout Sultans had their innocent sons murdered on the unfounded apprehension that the sons would interfere in their rule demonstrates how fundamental is this “law of the rejection of interference’ in rulership. And the “law of prevention of participation,’ which the independence intrinsic to rulership necessitates, has shown its strength in the history of mankind through extraordinary upheavals whenever there have been two governors in a town or two kings in a country.

Thus, if the sense of rulership and sovereignty, which is a mere shadow in human beings, who are impotent and in need of assistance, rejects interference to this degree, prevents the intervention of others, does not accept participation in its sovereignty, and seeks to preserve the independence of its position so jealously, then, if you can, compare this with an All-Glorious One Whose absolute sovereignty is at the degree of dominicality, Whose absolute rulership at the degree of Divinity, absolute independence at the degree of Oneness, and absolute lack of need at the degree of absolute power, and understand what a necessary requirement and inevitable necessity of that rulership is this rejection of interference, prevention of participation, and repulsion of partners.

Concerning the second part of your doubt, you said: “If some of the worship of some insignificant beings is directed towards certain causes, what deficiency does this cause to the worship of all beings, from particles to planets, which is directed towards the Necessarily Existent One, the Absolute Object of All Worship?”

T h e A n s w e r : The All-Wise Creator of the universe made the universe like a tree with conscious beings as its most perfect fruit, and among conscious beings He made man its most comprehensive fruit. And man’s most important fruit, indeed the result of his creation, the aim of his nature, and the fruit of his life are his thanks and worship. Would that Absolute Sovereign and Independent Ruler, that Single One of Unity, Who creates the universe in order to make Himself known and loved, give away to others man, the fruit of the whole universe, and man’s thanks and worship, his most elevated fruit? Totally contrary to His wisdom, would He make vain and futile the result of creation and fruit of the universe? God forbid! Would He be content to give away the worship of creatures to others in a way that would deny His wisdom and His dominicality? And although He demonstrates through His actions that He wishes to make Himself known and loved to an unlimited degree, would he cause His most perfect creatures to forget Him by handing over to causes their thanks and gratitude, love and worship, and cause them to deny the exalted purposes in the universe?

O friend who has given up the worship of Nature! Now it is for you to say! To which he replied:

“All praise be to God, these two doubts of mine have now been resolved. And your two proofs concerning Divine Unity which demonstrate that the only True Object of Worship is He, and that nothing other than He is worthy of worship are so brilliant and powerful that to deny them would require as much arrogance as to deny the sun and the day.”

Conclusion

The person who gave up atheistic Naturalism and came to believe said: “All praise be to God, I no longer have any doubts, but there are still a few questions about which I am curious.”

FIRST QUESTION

“We hear many lazy people and those who neglect the five daily prayers ask: “What need has God Almighty of our worship that in the Qur’an He severely and insistently reproves those who give up worship and threatens them with such a fearsome punishment as Hell? How is it in keeping with the style of the Qur’an, which is moderate, mild and fair, to demonstrate the ultimate severity towards an insignificant, minor fault?”

T h e A n s w e r : God Almighty has no need of your worship, nor indeed of anything else. Rather, it is you who needs to worship, for in truth you are sick. And as we have proved in many parts of the Risale-i Nur, worship is a sort of remedy for your spiritual wounds. If someone who is ill responds to a compassionate doctor who insists on his taking medicines that are beneficial for his condition by saying: “What need do you have of it that you are insisting in this way?”, you can understand how absurd it would be.

As for the severe threats and fearsome punishments in the Qur’an concerning the giving up of worship, they may be likened to a king, who, in order to protect his subject’ rights, inflicts a severe punishment on an ordinary man in accordance with the degree that his crime infringes those rights.

In the same way, the man who gives up worship and ritual prayer is violating in a significant manner the rights of beings, who are like the subjects of the Monarch of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity, and is in fact acting unjustly towards them. For the perfections of beings are manifested through the glorification and worship performed by that aspect of them which is directed towards their Maker. The one who abandons worship does not and cannot see this worship. Indeed, he denies it. Furthermore, beings occupy an exalted position by reason of their worship and glorification, and each is a missive of the Eternally Besought One, and a mirror to the Names of its Sustainer. Since he reduces them from their high positions and considers them to be unimportant, lifeless, aimless, and without duties, he is insulting them, and denying and transgressing their perfections.

Indeed, everyone sees the world in his own mirror. God Almighty created man as a measure and scale for the universe. And from the world He gave a particular world to each person. This world He colours for him in accordance with his sincere beliefs. For example, a despairing, lamenting, weeping person sees beings as weeping and in despair, while a cheerful, optimistic, merry person sees the universe as joyful and smiling. A reflective man given to solemn worship and glorification discovers and sees to a degree the certain, truly existent worship and glorification of beings, while a person who abandons worship through either neglect or denial sees beings in a manner totally contrary and opposed to the reality of their perfections, thus transgressing their rights.

Furthermore, since the one who gives up prayer does not own himself, he wrongs his own soul, which is a slave of its True Owner. His Owner delivers awesome threats in order to protect His slave’s rights from his evil-commanding soul. Also, since he has given up worship, which is the result of his creation and the aim of his nature, it is like an act of aggression against Divine wisdom and dominical will, and he therefore receives punishment.

I n S h o r t : The abandoner of worship both wrongs his own soul, which is the slave and totally owned property of Almighty God, and wrongs and transgresses the rights of the perfections of the universe. Certainly, just as unbelief is an insult to beings, so is the abandonment of worship a denial of the universe’s perfections. And since it is an act of aggression against Divine wisdom, it is deserving of awesome threats, and severe punishment.

Thus, it is to express this deservedness and the above facts that the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition chooses in a miraculous way that severe style, which, in complete conformity with the principles of eloquence, corresponds to the requirements of the situation.

SECOND QUESTION

The person who had given up Naturalism and come to believe next asked:

“It is indeed a vast truth that each being is dependent on Divine will and dominical power in every aspect; in all of its functions, qualities and actions. And by reason of this vastness, our narrow minds cannot comprehend it. However, the infinite abundance that we see around us, and the boundless ease in the creation and formation of things, and the infinite ease and facility in the way of unity, which was established through your proofs above, and the infinite ease that verses of the Qur’an like the following clearly demonstrate and expound,

Your creation and resurrection is as a single soul,

and,

The matter of the Hour shall be but as the twinkling of the eye, or even closer

show this mighty truth to be a matter that is most acceptable and rational. What is the wisdom and secret of this ease?”

T h e A n s w e r : This matter was elucidated in a most clear, decisive and convincing fashion in the explanation of,

And He is powerful over all things,

which forms the Tenth Phrase of the Twentieth Letter. In particular, it was demonstrated even more clearly in the Addendum to that Letter that when attributed to the Single Maker, all beings become as easy as a single being. If they are not attributed to that Single One of Unity, the creation of a single creature becomes as difficult as that of all beings, and a seed as problematical as a tree. When they are ascribed to their True Maker, the universe becomes as easy and trouble-free as a tree, a tree as easy as a seed, Paradise as easy as the spring, and the spring as easy as a flower. We shall now point out briefly one or two evidences that have been explained in detail in other parts of the Risale-i Nur out of the hundreds which explain the underlying reasons for and instances of wisdom in the conspicuous, boundless abundance and profusion of beings, the ease of the great number of individuals in each species, and the fact that well-ordered, artistically fashioned and valuable beings come into existence with immense speed and ease.

For example, if the command of a hundred soldiers is given to one officer, it is a hundred times easier than if the command of one soldier is given to a hundred officers. And if to equip an army it is assigned to one headquarters, one law, one factory and the command of one king, it quite simply becomes as easy as equipping a single soldier. In the same way, if to equip one soldier it is referred to numerous headquarters, numerous factories and numerous commanders, it becomes as difficult as equipping an army. Because in order to equip a single soldier, it would require as many factories as are necessary for a whole army.

Again, since by reason of the mystery of unity, the vital necessities of a tree are provided through one root, one centre and according to one law, it produces thousands of fruits as easily as a single fruit. This is plain to see. If unity changes to multiplicity, and all the necessities vital for each fruit are provided from different places, to produce each fruit becomes as difficult as to produce the tree. And to produce a single seed, even, which is a sample and index of the tree, becomes as difficult as the tree. Because all the necessities vital for the tree’s life are necessary for the seed.

Thus, there are hundreds of examples like these which show that it is easier for thousands of beings to come into existence through unity than for a single being to come into existence through multiplicity and ascribing partners to God. Since this truth has been proved with absolute certainty in other parts of the Risale-i Nur, we refer you to those and here only explain a most important reason for this ease and facility from the point of view of Divine knowledge, Divine Determining, and dominical power. It is as follows:

You are a being. If you attribute yourself to the Pre-Eternal All-Powerful One, He creates you at a command through His infinite power out of nothing in an instant, like striking a match. If you do not do this and rather attribute yourself to physical causes and nature, then since you are a well-ordered summary, fruit, and miniature index and list of the universe, in order to make you, it would be necessary to sift with a fine sieve the universe and its elements, and to gather in precise measure from all the corners of the universe the substances of which your body is composed. For physical causes only gather and join together. It is confirmed by people of reason that they cannot create out of nothing what is not present in them. Since this is the case, they would be compelled to collect together the body of a tiny animate being from every corner of the cosmos.

Now understand what ease there is in unity, Divine Unity, and what difficulties lie in misguidance and attributing partners to God!

Secondly, there is an infinite ease also with regard to Divine knowledge. It is thus: Divine Determining is an aspect of Divine knowledge; it determines a measure for each being, which is like its particular and immaterial mould. And that determined measure is like a plan or model for the existence of each thing. When Divine power creates, it does so with extreme ease on that determined measure. If the thing is not attributed to the All-Powerful One of Glory, Who possesses all-embracing, infinite and pre-eternal knowledge, as was described above, not only thousands of difficulties appear, but hundreds of impossibilities. For if it was not for the determined measure which exists in Divine knowledge, thousands of material moulds with external existences would have to be employed in the body of even a tiny animate being.

So, understand one reason for the infinite ease in unity and the endless difficulties in misguidance and ascribing partners to God. And realize what a veracious, correct, and exalted truth is stated by the verse,

The matter of the Hour shall be but as the twinkling of the eye, or even closer.

THIRD QUESTION

The former enemy and now rightly-guided friend then asked: “Philosophers, who have made many advances these days, claim that nothing is created out of nothing, and nothing is annihilated and goes to nothing; there is only compostion and decomposition, and this makes the factory of the universe run. Is this correct?”

T h e A n s w e r : Since the most advanced philosophers who did not consider beings in the light of the Qur’an saw the formation and existence of beings by means of Nature and causes—in the manner proved above—to be so difficult as to be impossible, they diverged into two groups.

One group became Sophists; abdicating reason, which is exclusive to human beings, and falling lower than mindless beasts, they found it easier to deny the universe’s existence, and even their own existence, than to follow the way of misguidance, which claims that causes and Nature have the power to create. They therefore denied both themselves and the universe and descended into absolute ignorance.

The second group saw that in misguidance, according to which causes and Nature are creator, the creation of a fly or a seed, even, entails innumerable difficulties and requires a power unacceptable to reason. They were therefore compelled to deny the act of creation and to say: “Nothing can exist out of nothing.” And seeing total annihiliation also to be impossible, they declared: “What exists cannot go to nothing.” They fancied an imaginary situation in which combining and decomposition, gathering and dispersion, occur through the motion of particles and the winds of chance.

Now, see! Those who consider themselves to be the most intelligent are the most profoundly ignorant and stupid. And understand just how ludicrous, debased, and ignorant misguidance makes man, and take a lesson!

Indeed, a Pre-Eternal Power created the heavens and the earth in six days, every year creates four hundred thousand species simultaneously on the face of the earth, and in six weeks every spring constructs a living world more full of art and wisdom than the world itself. Thus, it is more foolish and ignorant than the Sophists, the first group above, to deny the act of creation and deem it unlikely that, like a chemical that when applied shows up invisible writing, Pre-Eternal Power should give external existence to beings, which, though externally non-existent, exist as knowledge, and whose plans and measures are determined in the realm of a Pre-Eternal Knowledge.

These unfortunates are absolutely impotent and have nothing at their disposal apart from the faculty of will. And although they are inflated like Pharaohs, they can neither annihilate anything nor create anything from nothing, even a minute particle. And so, although nothing comes into existence out of nothing at the hand of causes and Nature on which they rely, out of their stupidity they say: “Nothing comes from non-being, and nothing goes to non-being.” And they even extend this absurd and erroneous principle to the Absolutely All-Powerful One.

Indeed, the All-Powerful One of Glory has two ways of creating:

The First is through origination and invention. That is, He brings a being into existence out of nothing, out of non-existence, and creates everything necessary for it, also out of nothing, and places those necessities in its hand.

The Second is through composition, through art. That is, He forms certain beings out of the elements of the universe in order to demonstrate subtle instances of wisdom, like displaying the perfections of His wisdom and the manifestations of many of His Names. Through the law of Providing, he sends particles and matter, which are dependent on His command, to these beings and employs the particles in them.

Yes, the Absolutely All-Powerful One creates in two ways: He both originates, and He composes. To annihilate what exists and to make exist what does not exist is most simple and easy for Him. It is one of His constant and universal laws. The man, therefore, who says: “He cannot give existence to what does not exist” in the face of a power that in one spring makes exist out of nothing the forms and attributes of three hundred thousand animate creatures, and, besides their particles, all their conditions and states, such a man should himself be obliterated!

The person who gave up Nature and embraced the truth said: “Praise and thanks be to God Almighty to the number of particles in existence for I have attained to complete belief. I have been saved from delusion and misguidance. Not one of my doubts remains.

“ALL PRAISE BE TO GOD FOR THE RELIGION OF ISLAM, AND COMPLETE AND PERFECT BELIEF!”

All glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.

* * *The Thirty-Third Word

This Word consists of Thirty-Three Windows While being the Thirty-Third Letter, this is also the Thirty-Third Word.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

We shall show them Our signs in the furthest horizons and in themselves, so that it will become clear to them that this [Qur'an] is indeed the Truth. Is it not enough that your Sustainer witnesses all things?1

Question: We would like a concise explanation of the ways man and the universe, that is, the microcosm and the macrocosm, point to the necessary existence and Unity of God and His Dominical attributes and functions, which the two parts of the above verse denote. For the unbelievers have gone too far, they are saying: "For how long shall we say: 'And He is powerful over all things', and have to raise our hands?"

Answer: The thirty-three Words that have been written form thirty-three drops from the ocean of this verse and from the seas of truth which flow from it. If you look at them, you will find your answer. What we say now is only a sort of hint to the sprinkling of a single drop from the ocean.

For example, if a wonderworker wants to build a mighty palace, he first of all sets the foundations in a wise and regular fashion, and plans them in a way suitable to their future purpose and results. Then he skilfully divides them into sections and apartments. Next, he orders and arranges the apartments, and decorates them with tapestries, then illuminates them with electric lights. Then, in order to renew his ingenious works and favours in that magnificent and adorned palace, he makes fresh creations and new changes and transformations in every level of it. And then he installs a telephone in each apartment connected to his own abode, and opens up a window from each, so that his may be seen.

In just the same way, And God's is the highest similitude,2 the Peerless Creator, Who is named with a thousand and one sacred Names such as All-Glorious Maker, All-Wise Sovereign, All-Just Arbiter, willed the creation of the palace of the universe and tree of the cosmos, which forms the macrocosm. He set the foundations of the palace, the tree in six days through the principles of wisdom and laws of His pre-eternal knowledge, then He divided and formed it into the higher and lower levels and branches through the principles of Divine Determining and Decree. Next, He adorned everything, each world in an appropriate manner, like the heavens with the stars and the earth with flowers. Then He manifested and made luminous His Names within the arena of those universal laws and general principles. And then in a special way sent to the assistance of individuals crying out at the constraint of those universal laws His Names of Most Merciful and All-Compassionate. That is to say, within those universal and general principles He has special favours, special succour, special manifestations, so that everything may seek help from Him and look to Him at every time for every need. Then from every apartment, every level, every world, every realm of being, every individual, from everything, He opened up windows which would show Himself, that is, make known His existence and Unity. He left a telephone in every heart.

For now we shall not attempt to discuss those innumerable windows, which is anyway beyond our power. Referring them to the all-encompassing knowledge of God, we shall only point out in a concise and brief manner Thirty-Three Windows-since it corresponds to the blessed number of the tesbihat following the prescribed prayers, and for a more detailed explanation of this, which forms the Thirty-Third Letter and Thirty-Third Word and consists of gleams from verses of the Qur'an, we refer readers to the rest of the Words.

First Window

If we look, we see that all things and especially living creatures have numerous different needs and numerous different wants. And those wants and needs are given them at the appropriate time, in unexpected ways, from places they do not know and their hands cannot reach; succour comes to them. But the power of these needy beings is not sufficient for even the smallest of those endless things they wish for; they cannot meet their needs. Consider yourself. Of how many things are you in need that your hands cannot reach, like your external and inner senses and their needs? Compare all other living creatures with yourself. See, just as singly they testify to the Necessary Existence and indicate to His Unity, so too in their totality do they show to the reason a Necessarily Existent One behind the veil of the Unseen, a Single One of Unity, among titles of Most Generous, All-Compassionate, Nurturer, and Disposer.

And so, O ignorant unbeliever and dissolute heedless one! With what can you explain this wise, percipient, compassionate activity? Deaf Nature? Blind force? Senseless chance? Can you explain it through impotent, lifeless causes?

Second Window

While in their existence and individuality, things are in a hesitant, bewildered, and shapeless form among innumerable possible ways, they are suddenly given a most well-ordered and wise aspect of individuality. For example, each human being has on his face characteristics which differentiate him from all his fellow humans, and it is equipped with utter wisdom with external and inner senses. This proves that the face is a most brilliant stamp of Divine Oneness. And just as each face testifies to the existence of an All-Wise Maker and points to His existence, so too the stamp which all faces display in their totality shows to the mind's eye that all things are a seal peculiar to their Creator.

O denier! To what workshop can you refer these stamps which can in no way be imitated, and the stamp of Eternal Besoughtedness which is on the totality?

Third Window

The army of all the various species of animals and plants on the face of the earth consists of four hundred thousand different groups.3 Their being managed and raised with perfect balance and order through their sustenance, papers, weapons, uniforms, instructions, and demobilizations, which are all different with nothing being forgotten and none of them being confused, is a stamp of the Single One of Unity as brilliant as the sun which can in no way be doubted. Who other than One possessing boundless power, all-encompassing knowledge, and infinite wisdom could interfere in this administration, which is wondrous to the utmost degree. For if one who cannot administer and raise all together these species and nations, which are one within the other, interferes with one of them, he will throw the lot into disorder. Whereas according to the meaning of,

So turn your vision again, do you see any flaw?4

there is no sign of confusion. That means not so much as a finger can interfere.

Fourth Window

This is the acceptability of the supplications offered through the tongue of latent ability by all seeds, and through the tongue of innate need by all animals, and through the tongue of exigency by the desperate.

Indeed, just as each of these innumerable supplications is observedly accepted and responded to, so too in a large measure do they in their entirety self-evidently indicate to and point to an All - Compassionate and Generous Creator, the Answerer of Prayer.

Fifth Window

We see that things and particularly living beings come into existence of a sudden, instantaneously. But, while things which appear suddenly out of a simple substance should be simple, formless, and without art, they are created with an art and beauty needing much skill, they are decorated with painstaking embroideries needing much time, and adorned with wonderful arts needing many tools. Thus, just as each of these instantaneous, wondrous arts and beautiful combinations indicates to the necessary existence of an All-Wise Creator and the Unity of His Dominicality, so too in their totality do they show in most brilliant fashion an infinitely Powerful, infinitely Wise Necessarily Existent One.

So now, O stupefied denier! Come on, with what can you explain this? With Nature, which is unconscious, impotent, and ignorant like you? Or do you want to make an infinite mistake and call that All-Holy Maker 'Nature', and on the pretext of naming Him that, attribute the miracles of His Power to it and perpetrate an impossibility compounded a thousand times over?

Sixth Window

In the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of night and day and the boats which travel through the seas for the benefit of men, and in what God sends down from the sky as rain and with it raises to life the earth after its death and raises in it every sort of living being, and in the circulating of the winds and the clouds subjugated between the heavens and the earth, are signs for a people who thinks.5

Just as this verse points out the Divine existence and Unity, so too is it a most large window displaying a Greatest Name.

The gist of the verse is this: all the worlds in the higher and lower levels of the universe show with all-different tongues a single result, that is, the Dominicality of a single All-Wise Maker. It is as follows: just as in the heavens - and astronomy even admits to it - extremely well-ordered movements for extremely extensive results show the existence, Unity, and perfect Dominicality of an All-Powerful One of Glory, so too on the earth - and geography even testifies to it and acknowledges it - most orderly changes, like in the seasons, for most extensive benefits show the existence and Unity and perfect Dominicality of the same All-Powerful One of Glory.

Also, just as, being given their sustenance with perfect mercy, and being clothed in different forms with perfect wisdom, and being decked out with all sorts of senses through perfect Dominicality, each of all the animals on the land and in the sea again testifies to the existence of the All-Powerful One of Glory and indicates to His Unity, so too in their totality do they show on a vast scale the tremendousness of His Godhead and the perfection of His Dominicality. And so also, just as each of the well-ordered plants in gardens, and the finely adorned flowers which the plants display, and the well-proportioned fruits which the flowers display, and the embellished embroideries which the fruits display, testifies to the existence of the All-Wise Maker and points to His Unity, so too in their totality do they show most brilliantly the beauty of His Mercy and the perfection of His Dominicality.

Also, just as the drops of rain sent from the clouds in the sky charged with duties for important instances of wisdom and aims and necessary benefits and results again demonstrate to the number of their drops the the necessary existence and Unity and perfect Dominicality of the All-Wise Maker, so too do all the mountains on the earth and the storing-up in them of minerals with all their different properties for numerous different benefits show with the strength and firmness of a mountain the existence and Unity of the All-Wise Maker and the perfection of His Dominicality.

Also, just as, being adorned with numerous varieties of well-ordered flowers, the small hills in the plains and among the mountains each testifies to the necessary existence of an All-Wise Maker and points to His Unity, and all together show the majesty of His Sovereignty and the Perfection of His Dominicality, so too, do the great variety of the orderly shapes of all the leaves of the grasses and trees, and all their different stages and states and well-balanced and ecstatic movements again show the necessary existence and Unity and perfect Dominicality of the All-Wise Maker.

Also, just as the regular development at the time of their growth of each of all living bodies, and each being equipped with all sorts of organs and their being directed consciously towards numerous different fruits again testify to the necessary existence of the All-Wise Maker and indicate to His Unity, and in their totality show on a truly vast scale His all-encompassing Power, and all-embracing wisdom, and the beauty of His art, and the perfection of His Dominicality, so too souls and spirits being situated in all animal bodies, and their being armed in most orderly fashion with numerous sorts of systems and faculties, and their being sent on numerous different duties with perfect wisdom testify to the number of animals rather to the number of their faculties, to the necessary existence of the All-Wise Maker and point to His Unity, so too in their totality do they show most brilliantly the beauty of His Mercy and the perfection of His Dominicality.

Also, just as the inspirations from the Unseen imparted to all hearts, which make known to man every sort of science and knowledge and truth and teach the animals how to procure their needs, make known the existence of an All-Compassionate Sustainer and point to His Dominicality, so too do their external and inner senses, which like rays gathering immaterial flowers from the garden of the universe are each a key to a different world, demonstrate as clearly as the sun the necessary existence, Unity, Oneness, and perfect Dominicality of the All-Wise Maker, the All-Knowing Creator, the Most Compassionate Creator, the All-Generous Provider.

Thus, from the twelve windows, the twelve aspects, mentioned here a vast window opens which displays with a twelve-coloured light of truth the Oneness, Unity, and perfect Dominicality of Almighty God.

And so, O unhappy denier! With what can you close this window which is as broad as the globe of the earth, indeed, as its yearly orbit? And with what can you extinguish this source of light which shines like the sun? Behind which veil of heedlessness can you hide it?

Seventh Window

The perfect order of the works of art scattered over the face of the universe, and their perfect proportion and balance, and the perfection of their adornment, and the ease in their creation, and their resembling one another, and their exhibiting a single nature demonstrate on a vast scale the necessary existence and perfect Power and Unity of an All-Wise Maker.

And so too, just as the creation of innumerable, different, well-ordered complex beings from inanimate and simple elements again testifies, to the number of those composite beings, to the All-Wise Maker's necessary existence and points to His Unity, so also in their totality do they demonstrate in most brilliant fashion His Unity and the perfection of His Power.

And so too does the utmost distinguishing and differentiating of beings as they are renewed while being assembled and dissolved - that is, during what is called the composition of beings - amid the utmost degree of intermingling and confusion, for example the distinguishing of the shoots and growth of seeds and roots without confusing them in any way although they are all mixed up, and the mixed-up substances entering trees being separated to the leaves, flowers, and fruits, and the nutrients which enter the body in mixed-up form being differentiated and separated out with perfect wisdom and perfect balance for the cells of the body, again demonstrate the necessary existence and perfect Power and Unity of the Absolutely Wise One, the Absolutely Knowing One, the Absolutely Powerful One.

And so too does the making of the world of minute particles into a boundless, broad arable field and every instant sowing and harvesting it and obtaining the fresh crops of different universes from it, and those inanimate, impotent, ignorant particles being made to perform innumerable orderly duties most consciously, wisely, and capably again show the necessary existence of the All-Powerful One of Glory and Maker of Perfection, and His perfect Power and the grandeur of His Dominicality and His Unity and the perfection of His Dominicality.

Thus a large window is opened onto knowledge of God through these four ways, and they display the All-Wise Maker to the mind on a large scale.

And now you unhappy heedless one! If you do not want to see Him and learn of Him in this way, divest yourself of your reason, become an animal, and thus be saved!

Eighth Window

The testimony of all the prophets (Upon whom be peace), who are those with luminous spirits among mankind, relying on their manifest and evident miracles, and the testimony of all the saints, who with their luminous hearts are the spiritual poles, relying on their illuminations and wonder-working, and testimony of all the purified scholars, who possess luminous minds, relying on their researches and verifications, to the necessary existence, Unity, and perfect Dominicality of the Single One of Unity, the Necessary Existent, the Creator of All Things form a truly vast and luminous window.

Oh you unfortunate denier! In whom do you place your trust so that you do not heed these? Or by closing your eyes in the daytime do you imagine the world to be plunged into night?

Ninth Window

The universal worship in the cosmos self-evidently demonstrates an Absolute Object of Worship. Indeed, the perfect obedience and worship of all angels and spirit beings, which is established by the testimony of those who have penetrated to the spirit world and the inner dimension of things and have met with the angels and spirit beings, and of all living beings self-evidently performing their duties in perfect order and in a worshipful manner, and of all inanimate things self-evidently carrying out their duties with perfect submission and in a worshipful manner all demonstrate the necessary existence and Unity of a True Object of Worship.

And so too the true knowledge of the knowing, which bears the power of consensus, and the fruitful thanks of all those who offer thanks, and the radiant glorification of all those who recite God's Names, and the praises, which increase bounty, of all those recite God's praises, and all the demonstrative proofs and descriptions of Divine Unity of all those who acknowledge it, and the true love and passion of all lovers of God, and the true will and desires of those who seek Him, and the earnest searching and penitence of all those who turn to Him demonstrate the necessary existence and perfect Dominicality and Unity of that Pre-Eternal All-Worshipped One, The One Who is Known, Mentioned, Thanked, Praised, One, Beloved, Desired, and Sought.

And so too all the acceptable worship of perfected human beings and the spiritual radiance and supplications, visions and illuminations resulting from their acceptable worship again demonstrate the necessary existence and Unity and perfect Dominicality of that Eternal Being, the Enduring Object of Worship. Thus, these three aspects open up a broad, light-giving window onto Divine Unity.

Tenth Window

And He sends down water from the sky and brings forth with it fruits for your sustenance; and He has made subject to you the ships, that they sail through the sea by His command; and He has made the rivers subject to you; * And He has made subject to you the sun and the moon, both diligently pursuing their courses; and He has made subject to you the night and the day. * And He gives you of all that you ask Him. But if you count God's bounties, you will never be able to number them.6

The mutual assistance and solidarity of beings in the universe and the fact that they respond to one another show that all creatures are trained by a single Instructor, are organized by a single Director, are under the jurisdiction of a single Disposer, are the servants of a single Lord. For through an all-embracing law of mutual assistance, the sun cooks the necessities for the lives of living beings on the earth through a Dominical command, and the moon acts as a calendar, and light, air, water, and sustenance hasten to the assistance of living beings, and plants hasten to the assistance of animals, and animals hasten to the assistance of human beings, and the members of the body hasten to assist one another, and particles of food even hasten to the assistance of the cells of the body. This most wise and generous mutual assistance of these beings, and their responding to one another's needs and their supporting and strengthening one another under a law of generosity, a law of compassion, a law of mercy show clearly and self-evidently that they are the servants, officials, and creatures of a sole, unique Single One of Unity, a Peerless Eternally Besought One, an Absolutely Powerful, Absolutely Knowing, Absolutely Compassionate, Absolutely Generous Necessarily Existent One.

And so, O wretched bankrupt philosophy! What do you say to this mighty window? Can your chance interfere in this?

Eleventh Window

For indeed in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest.7

Through knowing a single Creator, all spirits and hearts are delivered from the distress and confusion arising from misguidance, and from the spiritual pains arising from distress. They are saved by attributing all beings to a single Maker. They find assurance through the remembrance of a single God. For, as is proved decisively in the Twenty-Second Word, if all beings are not attributed to a single being, it becomes necessary to ascribe a single thing to innumerable causes, and then the existence of a single thing becomes as difficult as all beings. For if attributed to God, innumerable things are ascribed to a single being, and if they are not attributed to Him, it becomes necessary to attribute everything to innumerable causes. Then a single fruit becomes as difficult as the universe, indeed, more difficult. For just as if the management of one soldier is given to a hundred different people, a hundred difficulties arise, and if a hundred soldiers are given to the direction of one officer, they are as easy to manage as a single soldier, so too the coinciding of numerous different causes in the creation of a single thing is difficult to the hundredth degree. And if the creation of numerous things is given to a single being, it becomes easy to the hundredth degree.

Thus, it is only recognizing the Unity of the Creator and knowledge of God that delivers man from the boundless distress arising from the curiosity and desire to search for the truth inherent in his nature. Since there are endless difficulties and pains in unbelief and associating partners with God, that way is certainly impossible and contains no truth. While since suitably to the ease, multiplicity, and fine art in the creation of beings, there is a boundless ease in affirming Divine Unity, that way is surely necessary and the truth.

And so O you miserable people of misguidance! See how dark and full of pain is the way of misguidance! What is it that makes you take it? And see how easy and pleasant is the way of belief and affirming Divine Unity! Take that way and be delivered!

Twelfth Window

Glorify the Name of your Sustainer, the All-Highest, * Who has created, and given order and proportion, * And Who has determined [the nature of all things] and guided [them towards their fulfilment].8

According to the meaning of this verse, all things, and especially living creatures, have been given a form and well-ordered proportions in accordance with wisdom as though they have emerged from a mould. And there are intricate extremities in those measured proportions for benefits and various uses. And the form of their clothes and their proportions, which they change throughout the periods of their lives, are each immaterial and well-ordered and measured, and are composed of the appointed events of their lives again in a fashion suitable to wisdom and benefits. This shows clearly that those innumerable creatures, whose forms and proportions have been planned in the sphere of determining of an All-Powerful One of Glory, an All-Wise One of Perfection, and who have been given forms fashioned in the workshop of Divine Power, point to that Being's necessary existence and testify to His Unity and perfect Power with endless tongues. Look at your own body and its members and the fruits of its intricate and complex places! See the perfect Power within the perfect wisdom!

Thirteenth Window

According to the meaning of:

And there is nothing but extols His limitless glory and praise,9

everything recalls and declares to be holy its Creator through its own particular tongue. Indeed, the glorifications which all beings utter through the tongues of utterance and disposition demonstrate the existence of a single Most Holy Being. The testimony of innate disposition may not be rejected. Especially if the evidence it presents has many aspects, it may not induce doubt. Look! Each of the well-ordered forms of these beings, which comprise endless testimony through the manner of their creation and bear witness in innumerable ways through the tongue of disposition and look to a single centre like concentric circles, is a tongue. And their well-proportioned and balanced assemblages are each testifying tongues. And their perfect lives are each glorifying tongues. Thus, as is proved in the Twenty-Fourth Word, their glorifications, benedictions, and testifying to a single Most Holy Being through all these tongues demonstrate a Necessarily Existent One as light shows the sun, and point to the perfection of His Godhead.

Fourteenth Window

Say: who is it in whose hands is the governance of all things?10 * And there is nothing but its treasuries are with Us.11 * There is not a moving creature but He has grasp of its forelock.12 * Indeed my Sustainer watches over and records all things.13

According to the meaning of these verses, all things are in need of a single All-Glorious Creator in everything, in every matter and circumstance. Indeed, we look at the beings in the universe and we see that there is the manifestation of an absolute force within an absolute weakness. And the traces of an absolute power are apparent within an absolute impotence. Like, for example, the wonderful states and stages plants display when the life-force awakens in their seeds and roots. And there is the manifestation of an absolute wealth within an absolute poverty and dryness. Like the poverty of trees and the soil in winter and their glittering wealth and riches in the spring. And the sprinklings of an absolute life are apparent within an absolute lifelessness. Like the transformation of the elements into living matter.

Also, there is the manifestation of an all-encompassing consciousness with an absolute ignorance. Like everything, from minute particles to the stars, acting consciously and conforming to the order of the universe and to the demands of wisdom and the things benefiting life. Thus, this power within impotence, and strength within weakness, and wealth and riches within poverty, and life and consciousness within lifelessness and ignorance necessarily and self-evidently open windows on every side onto the necessary existence and Unity of One Possessing Absolute Power and Absolute Strength, a Possessor of Absolute Riches, an Absolutely Knowing, All-Living and Self-Sufficient One. In their totality they point to a luminous highway on a vast scale.

And so, O you heedless one who has fallen into the swamp of Nature! If you do not quit Nature and recognize Divine Power, you have to accept that in everything, in every minute particle even, reside an infinite force and power, a boundless wisdom and skill, and the ability to see, know, and administer most other beings.

Fifteenth Window

According to the meaning of the verse:

Who has created everything in the best way,14

everything is cut out according to its innate abilities with perfect measure and order, and put together with the finest art, in the shortest way, the best form, the lightest manner, and most practicable shape. Look at the clothes of birds, for example, and the easy way they ruffle up their feathers and all the time use them. Also, things are given bodies and dressed in forms in a wise manner with no waste and nothing in vain; they testify to their number to the necessary existence of an All-Wise Maker and point to that Possessor of Absolute Power and Knowledge.

Sixteenth Window

The order and ordering in the creation and disposal of creatures, which are renewed season by season on the earth, show clearly a universal wisdom. Since an attribute cannot be without the one it qualifies, this universal wisdom necessarily shows an All-Wise One. And the wonderful adornment within the veil of wisdom, self-evidently shows a perfect beneficence. And that perfect beneficence necessarily points to a gracious, All-Generous Creator. And the all-encompassing benevolence and bestowal within the veil of beneficence show self-evidently an all-embracing mercy. And that all-embracing mercy shows necessarily an All-Merciful and All-Compassionate One. And the sustenance and foods of all living creatures above the veil of mercy, all perfectly appropriate for their needs, show clearly a sustaining Providence and a compassionate Dominicality. And that sustaining and administering necessarily point to an All-Generous Provider.

Yes, each of the creatures on the face of the earth, thus raised with perfect wisdom, adorned with perfect beneficence, bestowed upon with perfect mercy, and nurtured with perfect compassion, testifies to the necessary existence of an All-Wise, Munificent, Compassionate, Providing Maker, and points to His Unity.

So also look at and consider all together the universal wisdom which is apparent on the face of the earth as a whole and is to be seen in its totality and shows clearly purpose and will; and the perfect beneficence embracing all creatures, which comprises the wisdom; and the all-encompassing mercy, which comprises the beneficence and wisdom and includes all the beings of the earth; and the most generous sustaining and nurturing, which comprises the mercy and wisdom and beneficence and embraces all living creatures. Just as the seven colours form light, and the light, which illuminates the face of the earth, shows without doubt the sun, so too that beneficence within wisdom, and mercy within beneficence, and sustaining and nurturing within mercy show brilliantly on a large scale and at a high degree the Unity and perfect Dominicality of an utterly Wise, Generous, Compassionate, Providing Necessarily Existent One.

And so, O you stupefied and heedless denier! With what can you explain this wise, generous, compassionate, providential sustaining, this strange, wonderful, miraculous state of affairs which is before your eyes? With chance and coincidence, which are aimless like you? With force, which is blind like your heart? With Nature, which is deaf like your head? With causes which are impotent, lifeless, and ignorant like you? Or do you want to give the name of 'Nature', which is utterly impotent, ignorant, deaf, blind, contingent, and wretched, to the All-Glorious One, Who is utterly holy, pure, exalted, and free of all defect and absolutely Powerful, Knowing, Hearing, and Seeing, and thus perpetrate an infinite error? So with what force can you extinguish this truth brilliant as the sun? Under which veil of heedlessness can you conceal it?

Seventeenth Window

Indeed in the heavens and earth are signs for those who believe.15

If we observe the face of the earth in the summer, we see that an absolute munificence and generosity, which necessitates confusion and disarrangement, is to be seen within a total harmony and order. Look at all the plants which adorn the face of the earth!

And the utter speed in the creation of things, which necessitates imbalance and disorder, is apparent within a perfect equilibrium. Look at all the fruits which decorate the face of the earth!

And an absolute multiplicity, which necessitates unimportance, indeed, ugliness, is apparent within a perfect beauty of art. Look at all the flowers which gild the face of the earth!

And the absolute ease in the creation of things, which necessitates lack of art and simplicity, is to be seen within an infinite art and skill and attention. Look carefully at all seeds, which are like the tiny containers and programmes of the members of plants and trees and the small cases containing their life-histories!

And the great distances, which necessitate difference and diversity, appear within an correspondence and conformity. Look at all the varieties of cereal grains sown in every part of the earth!

And the total intermingling, which necessitates confusion and muddle, is on the contrary to be seen within a perfect differentiation and separation. Consider the perfect differentiation of seeds when they sprout, despite being cast into the earth all mixed-up together and all resembling one another with regard to their substance, and the various substances which enter trees being separated out perfectly for the leaves, flowers, and fruits, and the foods which enter the stomach all mixed-up together being separated out perfectly according to the various members and cells. See the perfect power within the perfect wisdom!

And the great abundance and infinite profusion, which necessitate unimportance and worthlessness, are to be seen as most valuable and expensive in regard to the creatures and art on the face of the earth. Within these innumerable wonders of art, consider only the varieties of mulberry, those sweets of Divine Power, on the table of the All-Merciful One on the face of the earth! See them within the perfect mercy, the perfect art!

And so, just as the day shows the light, and the light the sun, the great value together with the utter profusion; and the boundless intermingling and intermixing together with the utmost differentiation and separation within the utter profusion; and the great distance together with the utmost conformity and resemblance within the limitless differentiation and separation; and the infinite ease and facility together with the infinite care in the making within the utmost resemblance; and the absolute speed and rapidity together with the total equilibrium and balance and lack of waste within the most beautiful making; and the infinite abundance and multiplicity together with the highest degree of beauty of art within utter lack of waste; and the utmost munificence together with absolute order within the highest degree of beauty of art, all testify to the necessary existence, perfect power, beautiful Dominicality, and Unity and Oneness of an All-Powerful One of Glory, an All-Wise One of Perfection, an All-Compassionate and Beauteous One. They demonstrate the meaning of the verse:

His are the Most Beautiful Names.16

So now, O you wretched, ignorant, heedless, obstinate, idle one! With what can you interpret this mighty truth? With what can you explain this infinitely miraculous and wonderful state of affairs? To what can you attribute these truly extraordinary arts? What veil of heedlessness can you draw across this window as broad as the earth and so close it? Where is your chance and coincidence, your unconscious companion on which you rely and call 'Nature', your friend and support in misguidance? It is totally impossible for chance and coincidence to interfere in these matters, isn't it? And to attribute to 'Nature' one thousandth of them is impossible a thousand times over, isn't it?

Or does lifeless, impotent Nature have immaterial machines and printing presses within each single thing, made from each, and to the number of each?

Eighteenth Window

Do they not consider the government of the heavens and the earth? 17

Consider this comparison which is explained in the Twenty-Second Word: A fine, well-ordered, well-crafted work like a palace self-evidently points to a well-ordered act. That is to say, a building indicates to the act of building. And a fine, well-ordered act necessarily points to a proficient agent, a skilful master, a builder. And the titles of proficient master and builder point self-evidently to a perfect attribute, that is, to a faculty for the craft. And that perfect attribute and that perfect faculty for the craft self-evidently indicate to the existence of a perfect innate ability. And a perfect innate ability indicate to the existence of an exalted spirit and elevated essence.

In just the same way, the ever-renewed works which fill the face of the earth, indeed the universe, show clearly acts of the utmost perfection. And these acts, which are in the sphere of total order and wisdom, point clearly to an agent whose titles and Names are perfect. For it is clearly obvious that well-ordered, wise acts cannot be without the one who performs them. And titles of the utmost perfection point to the utterly perfect attributes of that agent. For just as according to the rules of grammar, the active particle is formed from the infinitive [that is, what is called 'the root' in Arabic grammar], so also the source and roots of nouns, names and titles are attributes. And attributes at the utmost degree of perfection point indubitably to utterly perfect essential qualities. And those perfect essential qualities - which we are unable to describe - point most certainly to an essence which is at the utmost peak of perfection.

Thus, since in every part of the world all the works of art and creatures are each a perfect work, each testifies to an act, and that act testifies to a Name, and that Name to an attribute, and that attribute to a quality, and that quality to the Essence. Thus, just as to the number of creatures they each testify to the necessary existence of the All-Glorious Maker and indicate to His Oneness, so too altogether they form an ascension in Divine knowledge as strong as the chains of beings. They form a proof of reality in continuous sequence into which doubt can in no way enter.

So now, O wretched, heedless denier! With what can you smash this proof which is as strong as the chain of the universe? With what can you close this latticed window with its innumerable spaces which show rays of truth to the number of these creatures? Which veil of heedlessness can you draw over it?

Nineteenth Window

According to the meaning of the verse:

The seven heavens and the earth and all within them extol His limitless glory,and there is nothing but it extols His limitless glory and praise,18

the All-Glorious Maker has attached so many meanings and instances of wisdom to the heavenly bodies it is as if, in order to express His Glory and Beauty, He has adorned the heavens with the words of the suns, moons and stars. And to the beings in the atmosphere also He has attached instances of wisdom and meanings and aims, as if to make it speak through the words of the thunder, lightening, and drops of rain, and give instruction in the perfection of His wisdom and beauty of His mercy.

And just as He causes the head of the earth to speak with its meaningful words known as animals and plants and displays the perfections of His art to the universe, so too He makes speak the plants and trees, each a word of that head, through the words of their leaves, flowers, and fruits and again proclaims the perfection of His art and beauty of His mercy. And their flowers and fruits, too, He makes speak, through the words of their seeds, and gives instruction to the aware and conscious in the subtleties of His art and the perfection of His Dominicality. And so, out of these innumerable words of glorification, we shall lend our ears and listen to the manner of expression of only a single shoot and a single flower, and learn in what way they testify.

Indeed, all plants and all trees describe their Maker with numerous tongues in such a way that they leave those who study them in amazement, causing them to exclaim: "Glory be to God! How wonderfully they bear witness to Him!"

Yes, the glorification of all plants at the time their flowers open, and the moment they produce new shoots, and when they offer their smiling words is as beautiful and clear as themselves. For the order demonstrating wisdom through the beautiful mouth of each flower and the tongue of its well-ordered shoots and the words of its well-measured seeds is observedly within a balance which demonstrates knowledge. And the balance is within an embroidery of art which demonstrates skill and craft. And the embroidery of art is within an adornment which demonstrates favour and munificence. And the adornment is within subtle scents which demonstrate mercy and bestowal. And these meaningful qualities one within the other form such a tongue of testimony that it both describes the All-Beauteous Maker through His Names, and portrays Him through His attributes, and expounds the manifestation of His Names, and expresses His making Himself loved and known.

And so, if you hear such testimony from a single flower, when you listen to all the flowers in the Dominical gardens on the face of the earth and hear with what elevated strength they proclaim the necessary existence and Unity of the All-Glorious Maker, will your doubts and suspicions and heedlessness be able to persist? If they do persist, should it be said of you that you are a conscious human being?

Come, now look carefully at a tree! See its delicate mouth within the orderly emergence of the leaves in spring, and the blossoms opening in a measured manner, and the fruits swelling with wisdom and mercy and dancing at the blowing of the breeze in the hands of the branches like innocent children. See the just balance within the wise order expressed through the tongue of the leaves becoming green at a generous hand, through that of the flowers smiling with the joy of a favour received, and through the words of the fruits laughing through a manifestation of mercy. See the careful arts and embroideries within the balance demonstrating justice; and the mercy within the skilful embroideries and adornment; and the differing sweet tastes and delightful scents, which indicate to mercy and bestowal; and the seeds, each of which is a miracle of Power within the agreeable tastes: all these point in most clear fashion to the necessary existence and Unity of an All-Wise, Generous, Compassionate, Beneficent, Bountiful Maker, a Bestower of Beauty and Favours, to the beauty of His mercy and perfection of His Dominicality. Thus, if you can listen at the same time to the tongues of disposition of all the trees on the earth, you will see and understand what exquisite jewels are to be found in the treasury of the verse:

All that is in the heavens and on the earth extols God's limitless glory.19

And so, O you unhappy heedless one who supposes himself to be free through his ingratitude! If the All-Generous One of Beauty, Who makes Himself known to you and loved by you through these innumerable tongues had not wanted you to know Him, He would have silenced them. Since they have not been silenced, they should be heeded. You cannot be saved by closing your ears in heedlessness. For the universe does not fall silent at you stopping up your ears, the beings within it will not be silent, the witnesses to Divine Unity will not hold their tongues. And for sure, they will condemn you...

Twentieth Window20

So glory be to Him in Whose hands is the dominion of all things.21 * And there is nothing but its treasuries are with Us; but We only send it down in a measure defined. * And We send forth the winds to fertilize [the plants], and We send down rain from the skies providing you with water therewith, and you are not the keepers of its stores.22

Just as perfect wisdom and beauty of art are apparent in particulars and results and in details, so too do the universal elements and large creatures take up their positions in accordance with wisdom and art, despite their apparently being mixed up together by chance without order. Thus, as its other wise duties show, light shines in order to proclaim and make known the Divine creatures on the face of the earth, with the permission of its Sustainer. This means that light is employed by a Wise Maker; by means of it, He makes manifest His antique works of art in the exhibitions of the market of this world.

Now consider the winds! According to the testimony of their other wise, generous benefits and duties, they are hastening to extremely numerous and important tasks. It means that that movement in waves is a being employed, a being despatched, a being utilized by an All-Wise Maker; it is a working expeditiously to carry out speedily the commands of its Sustainer.

Now consider the springs, the streams, and the rivers! Their welling-up out of the ground and out of mountains is not by chance. For it is demonstrated by the testimony of their benefits and fruits, the works of Divine Mercy, and by the statement of their being stored up in mountains with the balance of wisdom in proportion to need, that they are subjugated and stored up by an All-Wise Sustainer, and that their flowing forth is their conforming exuberantly to His command.

Now consider all the varieties of stones and jewels and minerals in the earth! Their decorations and beneficial properties, the wise benefits connected to them, and their being prepared in a manner appropriate to human and animal needs and vital necessities all show that they are made in that way through the decoration, arrangement, planning, and forming of an All-Wise Maker.

Now consider the flowers and fruits! Their smiles, tastes, beauties, embroideries, and scents are each like an invitation to and menu for the table of a Most Munificent Maker, an All-Compassionate Bestower of Bounties; they are given as various menus and invitations to each species of beings through their different colours, scents, and tastes.

Now consider the birds! A certain indication that their twittering and chirruping is an All-Wise Maker's causing them to speak is the astonishing way in which they express their feelings to one another with those sounds, and state their intentions.

Now consider the clouds! A definite indication that the pattering of the rain is not a meaningless sound and that the crashing of thunder and lightening is not a futile din is that those strange beings are created in empty space. Also drops of rain like the water of life are milked from the clouds, suckling the living creatures on the earth so needy and longing for them. These facts show that the pattering and crashing are most meaningful and full of wisdom. For at the command of a Most Generous Sustainer, the rain calls out to those longing for it: "Good news! We are coming!" They express this meaning.

Now look at the sky and consider carefully only the moon out of all the innumerable bodies in it! That its motion is at the command of an All-Powerful and Wise One is demonstrated by the important instances of wisdom connected to it and concerning the earth. Since we have explained these in other places in the Risale-i Nur, we cut this short here.

Thus, the universal elements we have enumerated from the light to the moon open in large measure a most broad window. They proclaim and show the Unity of a Necessarily Existent One, and the perfection of His Power, and grandeur of His sovereignty.

And so O heedless one! If you are able to silence this voice like the crashing of thunder and extinguish this light brilliant as the sun, forget God! Otherwise come to your senses! Say, All Glory be unto You! And,

The seven heavens and the earth and all within them extol His limitless glory! 23

Twenty-First Window

And the sun runs its course to a place appointed, that is the determining of the Almighty, the All-Knowing.24

The universe's lamp, the sun, forms a window onto the existence and Unity of the universe's Maker that is as brilliant and luminous as the sun itself. Indeed, despite their great differences with regard to size, position, and speed, the twelve planets including our globe known as the solar system are in motion and revolve with perfect order and wisdom and perfect balance without a second's confusion, and are bound to the sun through a Divine law known as gravity, that is, they follow their leader as though in prayer. This demonstrates on a vast scale the tremendousness of Divine Power and the Unity of their Sustainer. Those lifeless bodies, those vast unconscious masses, are rotated and employed within the utmost order and wise balance, in various forms and over varying distances and in varying motions, proving the degree of the power and the wisdom; you compare for yourself. If chance were to interfere the tiniest amount in this vast and complex matter, it would cause an explosion so great it would scatter the universe. If it were to arrest the motion of one of them for a minute, it would cause it to leave its orbit and open the possibility of its colliding with another planet. You can understand how awesome would be the collision of bodies thousands of times larger than the earth.

Now we shall refer to the all-encompassing knowledge of God the wonders of the solar system, that is, the twelve planets which are the sun's followers and fruits, and consider only our own planet, the earth, which is here before our eyes. We see that our planet is made to travel on a long journey around the sun by a Dominical command as a most important duty - as is described in the Third Letter - in a way that demonstrates the grandeur of Dominical majesty and the loftiness of the sovereignty of the Godhead and the perfection of His Mercy and Wisdom. It has been given the form of a Dominical ship filled with the wonders of Divine art and of a travelling dwelling like an exhibition, for God's conscious servants to gaze on. And the moon has been attached to it with precise reckoning for mighty instances of wisdom, like being an hour-hand for telling the time. The moon too has been given various mansions through which to journey. Thus, these aspects of this blessed planet of ours prove the necessary existence and Unity of a Possessor of Absolute Power with a testimony as powerful as the globe of the earth itself. You can make an analogy with the rest of the solar system from this.

Furthermore, the sun is made to turn on its own axis like a spinning-wheel, in order to wind into a ball the immaterial threads called gravity and tie the planets with them and set them in order. So too is it impelled together with its planets at a speed of cutting five hours' distance a second towards, according to one estimate, the Constellation of Hercules, or towards the 'Sun of Suns'. This most certainly occurs through the power and at the command of the All-Glorious One, the Monarch of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity. It is as though He makes the solar system perform these manoeuvres like a platoon of soldiers under orders, and so demonstrates the majesty of His Dominicality.

And so, O you astronomers! What chance can interfere in these matters? The hands of what causes can reach them? What force can draw close to this? Come on, you say! Would an All-Glorious Monarch such as this display impotence and permit others to have a role in his sovereignty? Would He give to other hands living creatures in particular, which are the fruit, result, aim, and essence of the universe? Would He permit another to interfere? And especially man, would He leave him to his own devices, the most comprehensive of those fruits, the most perfect of the results, His vicegerent on earth, and mirror-like guest? Would He refer him to Nature and chance and reduce the majesty of His sovereignty to nothing? Reduce to nothing His perfect wisdom?

Twenty-Second Window

Have We not made the earth a cradle, * And the mountains as pegs, * And created you as pairs? 25 * So behold the signs of God's Mercy, how He raises to life the earth after its death.26

The globe of the earth is a head with a hundred thousand mouths. In each mouth are a hundred thousand tongues. On each tongue are a hundred thousand proofs, each one of which testifies in numerous ways to the necessary existence, Unity, sacred attributes, and Most Beautiful Names of an All-Glorious One.

Indeed, we consider the first creation of the earth and we see that rock was created from matter in a fluid state, and that soil was created from rock. If that matter had remained fluid, it would not have been habitable, and if after becoming rock, the fluid had become hard as iron, it would not have suitable for use. So what gave it its state was surely the wisdom of an All-Wise Maker Who saw the needs of the earth's inhabitants. Then the layer of soil was thrown over the pegs of mountains so that the earthquakes arising from internal upheavals could breathe through the mountains and they would not cause the earth to be shaken out of its motion and duties, and so that the mountains would preserve the earth from the encroachment of the sea, and each would be storehouse for the vital necessities of living beings, and would purify the air from noxious gases so allowing living beings to breathe, and so that they would accumulate and hold water reserves, and would be a source and mine for the minerals necessary for living creatures.

Thus, this situation testifies most clearly and powerfully to the necessary existence and Unity of a Possessor of Absolute Power, an All-Wise and Compassionate One.

Oh geographers! With what can you explain this? What chance could make this Dominical ship full of these wonderful creatures into an exhibition of marvels, and spin it at a speed of covering the distance of twenty-four thousand years in one year while not allowing a single of the objects arranged on the face of it to fall off?

Consider also the strange arts on the face of the earth. How wisely the elements are employed in their functions! How well they attend to the guests of the Most Merciful One on the earth through the command of an All-Wise and Powerful One, and hasten to serve them!

Also look at these embroidered lines within strange and wondrous arts on face of the earth, multicolored and full of strange wisdom! See how the brooks and streams, seas and rivers, mountains and hills have each been made as dwellings and means of transport suitable for His various creatures and servants. See how then with perfect wisdom and order He has filled them with hundreds of thousands of varieties of plants and animals, and given them life and made them rejoice, and how regularly minute by minute He discharges the creatures and empties those dwellings with death, and then again in orderly fashion refills them in the form of 'resurrection after death'. This testifies with hundreds of thousands of tongues to the necessary existence and Unity of an All-Powerful One of Glory, an All-Wise One of Perfection.

In Short: The earth, the face of which is an exhibition of marvels of art, a display of wonders of creation, a place of passage for the caravans of beings, and a mosque and dwelling for the ranks of worshippers, is like the heart of all the universe; it thus displays the light of Divine Unity to the same degree as the universe.

And so, O geographer! If the head of the earth has a hundred thousand mouths and with the hundred thousand tongues in each it makes known God, and still you do not recognize Him and plunge your head in the swamp of Nature, then ponder over the greatness of your fault! Know what a grievous punishment it makes you deserve! Come to your senses and extract your head from the swamp! Say, I believe in God in Whose hand is the sovereignty of all things.

Twenty-Third Window

Who creates death and life.27

Life is the most luminous, the most beautiful of the miracles of Dominical Power. It is the most powerful and most brilliant of the proofs of Divine Unity. It is the most comprehensive and most shining of the mirrors displaying the manifestations of the Eternally Besought One. Yes, on its own, life makes known a Living and Self-Subsistent One together with all his Names and acts. For life is a light, a medicament, like a potion blended from numerous attributes. Just as the seven colours are combined in light, and various drugs are blended together in a medicament, so also life is a reality made of numerous attributes. Some of the attributes in its reality expand by means of the senses; they unfold, and are differentiated. However the greater part make themselves perceived in the form of the emotions; they make themselves known by welling up out of life.

Furthermore, life comprises sustenance, mercy, grace, and wisdom, which are dominant in the planning and administration of the universe. It is as if life fastens them on behind it and draws them into the place it enters. For example, when life enters a body, the Name of All-Wise is also manifest; it makes its home well and orders it with wisdom. In the same way, the Name of All-Generous is manifest, and it organizes and decorates its dwelling according to its needs. At the same time, the manifestation of the Name of All-Compassionate is apparent; it bestows all sorts of bounties for the continuance and perfection of life. And again at the same time, the manifestation of the Name of Provider appears; it produces the sustenance, material and immaterial, necessary for the perpetuation and unfolding of the life, and in part stores them up within its body. That is to say, life is like a point of focus; various attributes enter one another, indeed, they become one and the same. It is as if in its entirety life is both knowledge, and at the same time power, and at the same time wisdom and mercy, and so on... Thus, with regard to this comprehensive essence, life is a mirror of the Eternally Besought One reflecting the essential Dominical attributes. It is due to this mystery that the Necessarily Existent One, Who is the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One, creates life in great abundance and plenitude, and scatters it far and wide and broadcasts it, and gathers everything around life and makes it serve it. For life's duty is great. Yes, it is not easy to be the mirror of the Eternally Besought One, it is not some petty duty.

Thus, the sudden and continuous coming into existence from nothing of these countless, numberless lives which we all the time see before our eyes - and of spirits, which are the origins and essences of lives - their being sent, demonstrate the necessary existence, sacred attributes, and Most Beautiful Names of a Necessarily Existent and Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One as clearly as rays show the existence of the sun. Just as someone who does not recognize and accept the existence of the sun is compelled to deny the light which fills the day, so also one who does not recognize the Sun of Divine Oneness, Who is Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent and the Giver of Life and Death, has to deny the existence of the living creatures which fill the earth and even the past and the future; he has to fall a hundred times lower than an animal, to fall from the level of life to become something utterly ignorant and lifeless.

Twenty-Fourth Window

There is no God but He, everything will perish save His countenance, His is the command and to Him shall you return.28

Death is a proof of Dominicality as much as life is a proof of it; it is a most powerful proof of Divine Unity. As the verse,

Who creates death and life29

indicates, death is not non-existence, annihilation, non-being, an authorless extinction, rather, as is shown in the First Letter, it is a being discharged from service by an All-Wise Author, a change of residence, an exchange of bodies, a rest from duty, a being freed from the prison of the body; it is a wise and orderly work of wisdom. Indeed, just as the living face of the earth and the well-fashioned and living creatures upon it testify to the necessary existence and Unity of an All-Wise Maker, so too with their deaths do those living beings bear witness to the Eternity and Unity of an Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One. Since it is proved and elucidated in the Twenty-Second Word that death is an extremely powerful proof of Divine Unity and Eternity, we refer the discussion to that Word and here only explain one important point. It is as follows:

Just as with their existence, living beings point to the existence of a Necessarily Existent One, so too with their deaths do those living beings testify to the eternity and Unity of an Ever-Living Eternal One. For example, the face of the earth, which is a single living creature, points to its Maker with its order and circumstances, and so too does it point to Him when it dies. That is, when winter conceals the earth's face with its white shroud, it turns the gazes of men away from itself - the gaze moves to the past behind the corpse of that departing spring - and it shows it a far wider scene. That is to say, all the past springs of the earth, which were each a miracle of power, make it understood that new living springtime creatures of the earth will come, and since they each testify to the existence of those future wonders of Divine Power, each a living earth, they testify brilliantly and powerfully and on a vast scale to the necessary existence, Unity, everlastingness, and eternity of an All-Glorious Maker, an All-Powerful One of Perfection, an Ever-Living Eternal One; they demonstrate such brilliant proofs that whether one wants to or not they make one declare: "I believe in God, the One, the Unique!"

In Short: According to the meaning of the verse,

And gives life to the earth after its death,30

just as this living earth testifies to the Maker with the spring, so too with its death it turns the gaze to the miracles of Divine Power lined up on the two wings of time, the past and the future; it indicates to thousands of miracles of Power in place of one miracle. And each of those springs testifies more certainly than this present spring. For those which have departed towards the past have gone together with their apparent causes, and after them others like them have come in their places. This means that apparent causes are nothing. Only, an All-Powerful One of Glory creates the springs, and tying them to causes shows that He has sent them. And as for the faces of the earth lined up in future time, they testify more brilliantly. For they will be made anew from nothing, from non-being, and sent; they will be put on the earth, made to do their duty, and then sent away.

And so, O heedless one deviated into Nature and drowning in its swamp! How can something which does not possess hands wise and powerful enough to reach all the past and all the future interfere in the life of the earth? Can your total nonentity of Nature interfere in it? If you want to be saved, say: "At the very most, Nature is a notebook of Divine Power. And as for chance, it is a veil to hidden Divine wisdom which conceals our ignorance." Draw close to the truth!

Twenty-Fifth Window

Like one struck points to the striker, and a finely fashioned work of art necessitates the artist, and an offspring requires a parent, and an under surface demands a top surface, and so on... like all these qualities known as relative matters which are not absolute and cannot exist without each other, contingency too, which is apparent in particulars in the universe as well as in it as a whole, points to necessity. And the state of being acted upon which is to be seen in all of them points to an act, and the createdness apparent in all of them points to creativity, and the multiplicity and composition to be seen in all demand unity. And necessity, an act, creativity, and unity clearly and necessarily require one who is not contingent, acted upon, numerous, compounded, and created, but bears the attributes of being necessary, an agent, one, and a creator. In which case, all contingency, states of being acted upon, createdness, multiplicity and composition testify to the Necessarily Existent One, the One Who acts as He wills, the Creator of All Things, the Single One of Unity.

In Short: Just as necessity is apparent from contingency, the act from the state of being acted upon, and unity from multiplicity, and the existence of the former indicate the latter with certainty, in the same way, qualities like createdness and having all their needs provided for which are to be seen in beings clearly point to the existence of attributes like Making and Providing. And in turn the existence of these attributes point necessarily and self-evidently to the existence of an All-Compassionate Maker Who is a Creator and a Provider. That is to say, each being testifies to the hundreds of the Necessarily Existent One's Most Beautiful Names with the tongues of the hundreds of attributes of this sort which they bear. If this testimony is not admitted, it becomes necessary to deny all the attributes of this sort pertaining to beings...

Twenty-Sixth Window31

The ever-renewed instances of beauty and fairness passing over the faces of the beings in the universe show that they are shadows of a sort of the manifestations of an Eternal Beauteous One. Yes, bubbles sparkling on the surface of a river and then disappearing, and other bubbles coming after them and sparkling like those that preceded them shows that they are mirrors to the rays of a perpetual sun. In the same way, the flashes of beauty which sparkle on the travelling beings in the river of flowing time point to an Eternal Beauteous One and are signs of Him of a sort.

Also, the ardent love in the heart of the universe points to an Undying Beloved. For sure, as is indicated by the fact that something which is not found in the tree itself will not be present in authentic form in its fruit, the ardent love of God present in human kind, the responsive fruit of the tree of the universe, shows that a true love and passion is to be found in all the universe, but in other forms. In which case, this true love and passion in the heart of the universe points to a Pre-Eternal Beloved. Moreover, all the attractions and magnetic forces which appear in numerous forms in the heart of the universe, show to aware hearts that they are thus through the attraction of a drawing truth.

Also, according to the consensus of the saints and those who uncover the mysteries of creation, who are the most sensitive and luminous of creatures, relying on their illuminations and witnessing, they have received the manifestation of a Beauteous One of Glory and through their illuminations have perceived that All-Glorious One of Beauty making Himself known to them and loved by them. Their unanimously telling of this again testifies with certainty to a Necessarily Existent One, to the existence of a Beauteous One of Glory, and to His making Himself known to man.

Also, the pen of beautifying and adorning which works on beings and on the face of the universe points clearly to the beauty of the Names of the pen's Owner. Thus, the beauty on the face of the universe, and the love in its heart, and the attraction in its breast, and the uncovering and witnessing in its eye, and the beauty and adornment on it as a whole, open up a most subtle and luminous window. It displays to aware minds and hearts a Beauteous One of Glory, an Undying Beloved, an Eternal Worshipped One all of Whose Names are beautiful.

And so, O heedless one who flounders amid suffocating doubts in the darkness of matter and obscurity of delusion! Come to your senses! Rise to a state worthy of humanity! Look through these four openings, see the beauty of Unity, gain perfect belief, and become a true man!...

Twenty-Seventh Window

God is the Creator of all things, and of all things He is the Guardian and Disposer.32

We look at things which appear to be causes and effects in the universe and we see that the most elevated cause possesses insufficient power for the most ordinary effect. This means that causes are a veil, and something else makes the effects. To take only a small example out of innumerable creatures let us consider the faculty of memory, which is situated in man's head in a space as tiny as a mustard seed: we see that it is like a book so comprehensive - indeed, like a library - that within it is written without confusion the entire story of a person's life.

What cause can be shown for this miracle of power? The grey matter of the brain? The simple unconscious particles of its cells? The winds of chance and coincidence? But that miracle of art can only be the work of an All-Wise Maker Who, in order to inform man that all the actions he has performed have been recorded and will be recalled at the time of accounting, writes out a small ledger from the great book of man's deeds to be published at the Resurrection, and gives it to the hand of his mind. Thus, as they are comparable to man's faculty of memory, make an analogy with all eggs, seeds, and grains, and then compare other effects to these small and comprehensive miracles. Because whichever effect and work of art you look at, it contains such wonderful art that it is not its common, simple cause, but if all causes were to gather, they would declare their impotence before it.

For example, suppose the sun, which is imagined to be a large cause, to possess will and consciousness; if it is said to it: "Are you able to make a fly?", of course it would reply: "Through my Creator's bounty, there is plenty of light, heat, and colours in my shop, but such things in the fly's being as eyes, ears, and life are neither in my shop, nor are they within my power."

Furthermore, the wonderful art and adornment in effects dismiss causes, and indicating the Necessarily Existent One, the Causer of Causes, in accordance with the verse,

And to Him goes back every affair,33

hand over matters to Him. In the same way, the results, purposes, and benefits attached to effects demonstrate self-evidently that they are the works of an All-Generous Sustainer, an All-Wise and Compassionate One, beyond the veil of causes. For unconscious causes certainly cannot think of some aim and work for it. And yet we see that each creature which comes into existence does so following not one, but many aims, benefits, and instances of wisdom. That means an All-Wise and Generous Sustainer makes those things and sends them. He makes those benefits the aim of their existence.

For example, it is going to rain. It is obvious how distant the causes that apparently result in rain are from thinking of animals and having pity and compassion on them. That means it is sent to their assistance through the wisdom of a Compassionate Creator Who creates the animals and guarantees their sustenance. Rain is even called 'mercy'. Because, since it comprises numerous works of mercy and benefits, it is as if mercy has become embodied as rain, has been formed into drops, and arrives in that way.

Furthermore, all the finely adorned plants which smile at creatures and the embellishments and displays in animals self-evidently point to the necessary existence and Unity of an All-Glorious One behind the veil of the Unseen; One Who wants to make Himself known and loved through these beautifully adorned fine arts. That is to say, this adornment in things and these displays and embellishment indicate of a certainty to the attributes of making known and making loved. While the attributes of making known and making loved self-evidently testify to the necessary existence and Unity of an All-Powerful Maker Who is Loving and Known.

In Short: Since causes are extremely commonplace and impotent and the effects attributed to them are most valuable and full of art, this dismisses causes. And the aims and benefits of effects also discharge ignorant and lifeless causes, and hand them over to an All-Wise Maker. Also, the adornment and skill on the face of effects indicates a Wise Maker Who wants to make His power known to conscious beings and desires to make Himself loved.

Oh wretched worshipper of causes! With what can you explain these important truths? How can you deceive yourself? If you have sense, rend the veil of causes and declare: "He is One, He has no partners!" Be saved from innumerable delusions!

Twenty-Eighth Window

And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the variations in your tongues and in your colours; verily in that are signs for those who know.34

We look at the universe, and we see that a wisdom and ordering embrace everything from the cells of the body to the totality of the world.

We look at the cells of the body, and we see that through the command and according to the law of one who considers what is beneficial for the body and administers it, there is a significant management in those miniscule cells. Just as a sort of sustenance is stored up in the stomach in the form of fat and expended at the time of need, so too in those tiny cells there is a regulation and storing up.

We look at plants, and a most wise planning and nurturing is apparent.

We look at animals, and we see a rearing and nurturing which is generous to the utmost degree.

We look at the mighty elements of the universe, and we see a majestic government and illumination for momentous aims.

We look at the universe as a whole, and we see a perfect ordering for exalted instances of wisdom and elevated aims, as though it was a country, a city, or a palace.

As is described and proved in the First Stopping Place of the Thirty-Second Word, from minute particles to the stars, not the tiniest place is left for associating partners to God. All are in effect so interrelated that one who cannot subjugate all the stars and hold them in his hand, cannot make a particle heed his claims to be its lord and sustainer. It is necessary to own all the stars in order to be the true sustainer of a particle.

Furthermore, as is described and proved in the Second Stopping Place of the Thirty-Second Word, one not capable of creating and arranging the heavens cannot make the individual features on the human face. That is to say, one who is not Sustainer of all the heavens cannot make the distinguishing features on a single human face.

Thus, this is a window as large as the universe, which, if looked through, the following verses will also appear to the mind's eye, written on the pages of the universe in large letters:

God is the Creator of all things, and of all things He is the Guardian and Disposer * His are the keys of the heavens and the earth.35

And so, he who does not see these has either no mind or no heart. Or he is an animal in human form!

Twenty-Ninth Window

And there is not a thing but extols His limitless glory and praise.36

One spring I was setting out on a journey, a stranger, and deep in contemplation. While skirting a hill, a brilliant yellow buttercup struck my eye. It immediately brought to mind the same species of buttercup I had seen long before in my native land and in other countries. This meaning was imparted to my heart: whosesoever this flower is the seal of, the stamp of, the signature of, the impress of, all the flowers of that species throughout the earth are surely His seals, His stamps. After this notion of the seal, the following thought occurred to me: just as a seal stamped on a letter denotes the letter's owner, in the same way, this flower is a seal showing the Most Merciful One. And this hillock which is inscribed with the impresses of these species and written with the lines of these plants so full of meaning, is the letter of this flower's Maker. And this hill too is a seal. This plateau and plain has taken on the form of a letter of the Most Merciful One.

After this thought, the following fact came to mind: like a seal, everything ascribes all things to its own Creator. It proves each is the letter of its own Scribe. Thus, everything forms a window onto Divine Unity that is such that each thing gives all things to a Single One of Unity. That is to say, there is an impress so wonderful, an art so miraculous in each thing, and especially in each living being, that the one who makes it and inscribes it so meaningfully can make all things, and the one who makes all things is certainly Him. That is to say, one who cannot make all things cannot create a single thing.

And so, O heedless one! Look at the face of the universe! See the pages of beings one within the other like letters of the Eternally Besought One, each letter stamped with innumerable seals of Divine Unity! Who can deny the testimony of all these seals? What power can silence them? Whichever of them you listen to with the ear of the heart, you will hear it declaring: "I testify that there is no god but God!"

Thirtieth Window

If there were in the heavens and the earth other gods besides God, there surely would have been confusion in both.37 * Everything will perish save His countenance; His is the command, and to Him shall you return.38

This is the Window of all the scholars of theology, based on contingency and createdness, and their highway for proving the Necessarily Existent One. For all the details, we refer you to the scholars' great books like Sharhu'l-Mavâqif and Sharhu'l-Maqâsid, and here only demonstrate one or two rays which occur to the spirit from the effulgence of the Qur'an and this Window. It is as follows:

It is the requirement of dominion and rulership not to accept rivals; they reject partnership; they repudiate interference. It is because of this that if there are two headmen in one village, they will destroy its tranquillity and order. Or if there are two chief officials in one district, or two governors in one province, they will cause chaos. Or if there are two kings in a country, they will cause complete and stormy confusion. Since a pale shadow and petty example of dominion and rulership in impotent human beings needy for assistance does not accept the interference of rivals, opponents, or peers, then you may compare how fully a rulership which is in the form of absolute sovereignty and a dominion at the degree of Dominicality will carry out that law of the rejection of interference in One Possessing Absolute Power. That is to say, the most definite and constant necessity of Godhead and Dominicality are unity and singleness. The clear proof and certain testimony to this are the perfect order and beautiful harmony in the universe. There is such an order from the wing of a fly to the lamps in the heavens that the intellect prostrates before it in wonder and appreciation, declaring: "Glory be to God! What wonders God has willed! How great are God's blessings!" Had there been an iota of space for partners to God, and had there been interference, as the verse,

If there were in the heavens and the earth other gods besides God, there would have been confusion in both39

indicates, the order would have been destroyed, the form changed, and signs of disorder would have appeared. But as the verses,

So turn your vision again: do you see any flaw? * Then turn your vision a second time; your vision will come back to you in a state dazzled and truly defeated 40

state and point out, however much the human gaze tries to find faults, it can find none anywhere, and returns worn out to its dwelling, the eye, and says to the fault-finding mind who sent it: "I am worn out for nothing; there are no faults." This shows that the order and regularity are most perfect. That is to say, the order in the universe is a definitive witness to Divine Unity.

Come now, let us consider 'createdness'. The scholars of theology stated:

"The world is subject to change. And everything which is subject to change is created. Every created thing has a creator, a maker. In which case, the universe has a pre-eternal creator."

And we say, yes, the universe is created. For we see that every century, rather, every year and every season one universe, one world, goes, and another comes. This means that there is an All-Powerful One of Glory Who, creating the universe anew, creates a universe every year, indeed, every season, and every day, and shows it to the aware and conscious. Then He takes it back and puts another in its place. He attaches one universe behind the other like the links of a chain, and hangs them on the string of time. For sure, the universes which appear from nothing and disappear before our eyes every spring, each a new universe the same as this world, are miracles of the power of the Omnipotent One Who creates them. The One Who continuously creates and changes the worlds within the world most definitely created this world too. And He made this world and the face of the earth a guest-house for those great visitors.

Now let us come to the discussion of 'contingency'. The scholars of theology said:

"Contingency is equal in regard to both existence and non-existence." That is, if existence and non-existence are both equally possible, one who will specify, prefer, and create is necessary. For contingent beings cannot create one another in uninterrupted and never-ending chains of cause and effect. Neither can one create another, and that the next, in the form of causation. In which case there is a Necessarily Existent One Who creates them. They rendered null and void the never-ending causal sequences with the famous twelve categorical proofs called 'the ladder argument', and demonstrated causality to be impossible. They cut the chains of causes and proved the existence of the Necessarily Existent One.

And we say this: it is more certain and easier to demonstrate a stamp peculiar to the Creator of All Things on everything than causes being cut at the extremities of the world with the proofs refuting causality. Through the effulgence of the Qur'an, all the Windows and all the Words are based on this principle. Nevertheless, the point of contingency possesses an infinite breadth. It demonstrates the existence of the Necessarily Existent One in innumerable respects. It is not restricted to the way of the scholars of theology - cutting the chains of causes, which in truth is a mighty and broad highway. It opens rather a path to knowledge of the Necessarily Existent One by ways beyond count. It is as follows:

We see that in its existence, its attributes, and its lifetime, while hesitant among innumerable possibilities, that is, among truly numerous ways and aspects, each thing follows a well-ordered way in regard to its being in innumerable respects. Its attributes also are given it in a particular way. And all the attributes and states which it changes throughout its life are specified in the same fashion. This means it is impelled on a wise way amid innumerable ways through the will of one who specifies, the choice of one who chooses, and the creation of a wise creator. He clothes it with well-ordered attributes and states. Then it is taken out of isolation and made part of a compound body, and the possibilities increase, for they may be found in that body in thousands of ways. Whereas among those fruitless possibilities, it is given a particular, fruitful state, whereby important results and benefits are obtained from that body, and it is made to carry out important functions. Then the body is made a component of another body. Again the possibilities increase, for it could exist in thousands of ways. Thus, it is given one state among those thousands of ways. And through that state it is made to perform important functions; and so on. It progressively demonstrates more certainly the necessary existence of an All-Wise Planner. It makes known that it is being impelled by the command of an All-Knowing Commander. Body within body, each has a function, a well-ordered duty, in all the compounds that one within the other themselves become components of larger compounds, and has a relationship particular to each - in the same way that a soldier has a function and well-ordered duty in his squad, his company, his battalion, his regiment, his division, and his army, and a relationship particular to each of these sections, one within the other. Just as a cell from the pupil of your eye has a duty in your eye and a relationship with it. And has wise functions and duties in your head as a whole and a relationship with it. If it confuses these the tiniest jot, the health and organization of the body will be spoilt. It has particular functions with regard to each of the veins, the sensory and motor nerves, and even the body as a whole, and wise relations with them. That specified state has been given it within thousands of possibilities through the wisdom of an All-Wise Maker.

In just the same way, each of the creatures in the universe testifies to the Necessarily Existent One through the particular being, the wise form, the beneficial attributes given it among numerous possibilities. And so too when they enter compounds, those creatures proclaim their Maker with a different tongue in each compound. Step by step till the greatest compound, through their relations, functions, and duties, they testify to the necessary existence, choice, and will of their All-Wise Maker. Because the one who situates a thing in all the compounds while preserving its wise relations, must be the Creator of all the compounds. That is to say, it is as though one single thing testifies to Him with thousands of tongues. And so, from the point of view of contingency, the testimony to the existence of the Necessarily Existent One is as numerous, not as the number of beings in the universe, but as the attributes of beings and the compounds they form.

And so, O heedless one! One who does not hear this testimony, these voices which fill the universe, must be dead and unreasoning, is that not so? Come on, you say...

Thirty-First Window

We have created man in the best of forms.41 * And in the earth there are signs for those who are certain * And in your own selves; will you not then not see?42

This Window is the Window of man, and it is concerned with man's self. For more elaborate discussions of it in this respect, we refer you to the detailed books of the thousands of learned and scholarly saints, and here only indicate a few principles we have received from the effulgence of the Qur'an. It is like this:

As is explained in the Eleventh Word, "Man is a missive so comprehensive that through man's self, Almighty God makes perceived to him all His Names." For the details we refer you to the other Words, and here only demonstrate three Points.

FIRST POINT

Man is a mirror to the Divine Names in three aspects.

The First Aspect: just as the darkness of the night shows up light, so too through his weakness and impotence, his poverty and need, his defects and faults, man makes known the power, strength, riches, and mercy of an All-Powerful One of Glory, and so on... he acts as a mirror to numerous Divine attributes in this way. Even, through searching for a point of support in his infinite impotence and boundless weakness in the face of his innumerable enemies, his conscience perpetually looks to the Necessarily Existent One. And since he is compelled in his utter poverty and endless need to seek for a point of assistance in the face of his innumerable aims, his conscience in that respect all the time leans on the Court of an All-Compassionate One of Riches and opens its hands in supplication to Him. That is to say, in regard to this point of support and point of assistance in the conscience, two small windows are opened onto the Court of Mercy of the All-Powerful and All-Compassionate One which may all the time be looked through.

The Second Aspect of being mirror-like is this: through particulars like his partial knowledge, power, senses of sight and hearing, ownership and sovereignty, which are sorts of samples given to him, man acts as a mirror to the knowledge, power, sight, hearing, and sovereignty of Dominicality of the Master of the Universe; he understands them and makes them known. For example, he says: "Just as I make this house and know how to make it, and I see it and own it and administer it, so also the mighty palace of the universe has a Maker. That Maker knows it, sees it, makes it, administers it." And so on..

The Third Aspect of being mirror-like: man acts as a mirror to the Divine Names the imprint of which are upon him. There are more than seventy Names the impresses of which are apparent in man's comprehensive nature. These have been described to a degree at the start of the Third Stopping Place of the Thirty-Second Word. For example, from his creation, man shows the Names of Maker and Creator, from his 'Most Excellent of Patterns', the Names of Most Merciful and All-Compassionate, and from the fine way he is nurtured and raised, the Names of All-Generous and Granter of Favours, and so on; he shows the differing impresses of different Names through all his members and faculties, all his organs and substances, all his subtle senses and faculties, all his feelings and emotions. That is to say, just as among the Names there is a Greatest Name, so too among the impresses of those Names there is a greatest impress, and that is man.

O you man who considers himself to be a true man! Read yourself! Otherwise it is possible you will a man who is either animal-like or inanimate!

SECOND POINT

This points to an important mystery of Divine Oneness. It is like this:

The relationship between man's spirit and his body is such that it causes all his members and parts to assist one another. That is, man's spirit is a commanding law from among the laws pertaining to creation - the manifestation of Divine Will - which has been clothed in external existence, and is a subtle Dominical faculty. Thus, in administering the parts of the body, and hearing their immaterial voices, and seeing their needs, they do not form obstacles to one another, nor do they confuse the spirit. Near and far are the same in relation to the spirit. They do not veil one another. If the spirit wishes, it can bring the majority to the assistance of one. If it wishes, it can know, perceive, and administer through each part of the body. Even, if it acquires great luminosity, it may see and hear through all the parts.

In the same way, And God's is highest similitude,43 since the spirit, a commanding law of Almighty God's, displays this ability in the body and members of man, who is the microcosm, for sure, the boundless acts, the innumerable voices, the endless supplications, the uncountable matters in the universe, which is the macrocosm, will present no difficulty to the all-embracing Will and absolute Power of the Necessarily Existent One. They will not form obstacles to one another. They will not occupy that All-Glorious Creator, nor confuse Him. He sees them all simultaneously, and hears all the voices simultaneously. Close and distant are the same for Him. If He wishes, He sends all to the assistance of one. He can see everything and hear their voices through everything. He knows everything through everything, and so on...

THIRD POINT

Life has a most important nature and significant function, but since it has been discussed in detail in the Window on Life [the Twenty-Third Window] and in the Eighth Phrase of the Twentieth Letter, we refer you to those, and here only make the following reminder.

The impresses in life, which, intermingled, boil up in the form of emotions, point to numerous Names and essential Divine qualities. They act as mirrors reflecting the essential qualities of the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One in most brilliant fashion. But this is not the time to explain this mystery to those who do not recognize God or do not yet fully affirm Him, and so we here close this door...

Thirty-Second Window

It is He Who has sent His Prophet with Guidance and the Religion of Truth to make it prevail over all religion, and God is sufficient as witness.44 * Say: Oh men! I am sent unto you all as the Prophet of God, to Whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, there is no God but He; it is He Who gives life and death.45

This is the Window of the Prophet Muhammed (Upon whom be blessings and peace), the Sun of the skies of prophethood, indeed, the Sun of suns. Since it has been proved in the Thirty-First Word, the Treatise on the Ascension, in the Nineteenth Word, the Treatise on the Prophethood of Muhammed (Upon whom be blessings and peace), and in Nineteen Signs of the Nineteenth Letter, how luminous and evident is this most brilliant, most large, and most light-giving window, we shall think of those two Words, and that Letter and its Nineteenth Sign, and refer the word to them. For now we just say this:

Muhammed (Peace and blessings be upon him), the living, articulate proof of Divine Unity, demonstrated and proclaimed Divine Unity throughout his life with the two wings of prophethood and sainthood, that is, with a strength that comprised the consensus of all the prophets who had preceded him and the unanimity of the saints and purified scholars who came after him. And he opened a window onto knowledge of God as broad and brilliant and luminous as the World of Islam. Millions of purified and veracious scholars like Imam Ghazzali, Imam-i Rabbani, Muhyiddin al-Arabi, and Abdulkadir Geylani look through that Window, and show it also to others. Is there a veil that can obscure a Window such as this? And can the person who accusingly does not look through this Window be said to possess reason? Come on, you say!

Thirty-Third Window

Praise be to God, Who has revealed to His servant the Book, and has allowed no crookedness therein.46 * Alif. Lam. Ra. A Book which We have revealed to you, in order that you might lead mankind out of darkness into light.47

Think of all the Windows we have mentioned as being a few drops from the ocean of the Qur'an, then you will be able to compare how many lights of Divine Unity like the water of life there are in the Qur'an. But even if the Qur'an, the source and origin and fountain of all those Windows, is considered in an extremely brief and most simple manner, it still forms a most brilliant, luminous, comprehensive Window. To see how certain and shining and luminous this Window is, we refer you to the Treatise on the Miraculousness of the Qur'an, the Twenty-Fifth Word, and to the Eighteenth Sign of the Nineteenth Letter. And beseeching the Merciful Throne of the All-Glorious One, Who sent us the Qur'an, we say:

Oh our Sustainer! Do not take us to task if we forget or unwittingly do wrong!48 * Oh our Sustainer! Let not our hearts deviate now after You have guided us!49 * Oh our Sustainer! Accept this from us; indeed You are the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing!50 * And turn unto us; for You are the Oft-Returning, Most Compassionate.51

* * * www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.net

Note

God willing, this Thirty-Third Letter of Thirty-Three Windows will bring to belief those without belief, strengthen the belief of those whose belief is weak, make certain the belief of those whose belief is strong but imitative, give greater breadth to the belief of those whose belief is certain, lead to progress in knowledge of God - the basis and means of all true perfection - for those whose belief has breadth, and open up more brilliant vistas for them. You cannot say, therefore, that "One window is enough for me." Because if your reason is satisfied, your heart wants its share as well, and so also does your spirit want its share. The imagination too will want its share of that light. As a consequence, the other Windows are also necessary, for each contains different benefits.

In the Treatise on the Ascension of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH), it was primarily the believer who was being addressed, while the atheist was in the position of listener. But in this treatise, it is the denier who is addressed, while it is the believer in the position of listener. This must be taken into consideration when looking at it.

Unfortunately, due to an important reason, this letter was written with extreme speed and has also remained in the state of the first draft. There will certainly therefore be some irregularities and defects in the way it is expressed, which are due to me. I request of my brothers then that they look at it with tolerance, and correct it if they are able, and pray for my forgiveness.

Peace be on those who follow Guidance, and may those who follow their own desires be censured. www.nur.gen.tr www.saidnur.com www.nurpenceresi.com.tr www.fgulen.com.tr www.herkul.org www.3dmekanlar.com www.nurris.com www.bediuzzaman.net Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.52

Oh God, grant blessings and peace to the one whom You sent as a Mercy to All the Worlds, and to his Family and Companions, and grant them peace. Amen.

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