From the Risale-i Nur Collection

FRUITS FROM THE TREE OF LIGHT

(An Anthology of Writings by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi)

The First Word  

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

And from Him do we seek help.

Bismillah, "In the Name of God," is the start of all things good. We too shall start with it. Know, O my soul! Just as this blessed phrase is a mark of Islam, so it is constantly recited by all beings through their tongues of disposition. If you want to know what an inexhaustible strength, what an unending source of bounty is Bismillah, listen to the following story which is in the form of a com­parison. It goes like this:

Someone who makes a journey through the deserts of Arabia has to travel in the name of a tribal chief and enter under his protection, for in this way he may be saved from the assaults of bandits and secure his needs. On his own he will

perish in the face of innumerable enemies and needs. And so, two men went on such a journey and entered the desert. One of them was modest and humble, the other proud and conceited. The humble man assumed the name of a tribal chief, while the proud man did not. The first travelled safely wherever he went. If he encountered ban­dits, he said: "I am travelling in the name of such-and-such tribal leader," and they did not molest him. If he came to some tents, he was treated respectfully due to the name. But the proud man suffered indescribable calamities throughout his journey. He both trembled before everything and begged from everything. He was abased and became an object of scorn.

My proud soul! You are the traveller, and this world is a desert. Your impotence and poverty have no limit, and your enemies and needs are endless. Since it is thus, take the name of the Pre-Eternal Ruler and Post-Eternal Lord of the desert and be saved from begging before the whole uni­verse and trembling before every event.

Yes, this phrase is a treasury so blessed that your infinite impotence and poverty bind you to an infinite power and mercy; it makes your impo­tence and want a most acceptable intercessor at the Court of One All-Powerful and Compassion­ate. The person who acts saying, "In the Name of God," resembles someone who enrolls in the army. He acts in the name of the government; he has fear of no one; he speaks, performs every matter, and withstands everything in the name of the law and the name of the government.

At the beginning we said that all beings say "In the Name of God" through the tongue of disposi­tion. Is that so?

Indeed, it is so. If you were to see that a single person had come and had driven all the inhabi­tants of a town to a place by force and compelled them to work, you would be certain that he had not acted in his own name and through his own power, but was a soldier, acting in the name of the government and relying on the power of the king.

In the same way, all things act in the name of Almighty God, for minute things like seeds and grains bear huge trees on their heads; they raise loads like mountains. That means all trees say "In the Name of God," fill their hands from the treas­ury of Mercy, and offer them to us. All gardens say "In the Name of God," and become cauldrons from the kitchens of Divine Power in which are cooked numerous varieties of different foods. All blessed animals like cows, camels, sheep, and goats, say "In the Name of God," and produce springs of milk from the abundance of Mercy, offering us a most delicate and pure food like the water of life in the name of the Provider. The roots and rootlets, soft as silk, of plants, trees, and grasses say "In the Name of God," and pierce and pass through hard rock and earth. Mentioning the name of God, the name of the Most Merciful, everything becomes subjected to them.

The roots spreading through hard rock and earth and producing fruits as easily as the branches spread through the air and produce fruits, and the delicate green leaves retaining their moisture for months in the face of extreme heat, deal a slap in the mouths of Naturalists and jab a finger in their blind eyes, saying: "Even heat and hardness, in which you most trust, are under a command. For like the Staff of Moses, each of those silken rootlets conforms to the command of And We said, O Moses, strike the rock with your staffs and split the rock. And the delicate leaves fine as cigarette paper recite the verse, O fire be coolness and peace¹ against the heat of the fire, each like the limbs of Abraham (UWP).

Since all things say "In the Name of God," and bearing God's bounties in God's name, give them to us, we too should say "In the Name of God." We should give in the name of God, and take in the name of God. And we should not take from heedless people who neglect to give in God's name.

Question: We give a price to people, who are like tray-bearers. So what price does God want, Who is the true owner?

The Answer: Yes, the price the True Bestower of Bounties wants in return for those valuable bounties and goods is three things: one is remem-

l.Qur'an, 2:60. 2. Qur'an, 21:69.

brance, another is thanks, and the other is reflec­tion. Saying "In the Name of God" at the start is remembrance, and "All praise be to God" at the end is thanks. And perceiving and thinking of those bounties, which are priceless wonders of art, being miracles of power of the Unique and Eter­nally Besought One and gifts of His mercy, is reflection. However foolish it is to kiss the foot of a lowly man who conveys to you the precious gift of a king and not to recognize the gift's owner, it is a thousand times more foolish to praise and love the apparent source of bounties and forget the True Bestower of Bounties.

O my soul! If you do not wish to be foolish in that way, give in God's name, take in God's name, begin in God's name, and act in God's name. And that's the matter in a nutshell!

-n-

The Supplication of Yunus

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

The supplication of Hazrat Yunus ibn Matta (Peace be upon our Prophet and upon him) is a most glorious supplication, a most effective means for obtaining answer to prayer. The gist of the celebrated story of Hazrat Yunus (Peace be upon him) is as follows:

He was cast into the sea and swallowed by a large fish. The sea was stormy, the night turbulent and dark and hope exhausted. But it was in such a state that his suppplication:

There is no god other than You, Glory be unto to You! Indeed, I was among the wrongdoers¹

acted for him as a swift means of salvation. The

mysterious property inherent in his supplication was this:

In that state all causes were suspended, for Haz-rat Yunus needed to save him one whose com­mand should constrain the fish and the sea, the night and the sky. The night, the sea, and the fish were united against him. Only one whose com­mand might subdue all three of these could bring him forth on the strand of salvation. Even if the entirety of creation had become his servants and helpers, it would have been of no avail. For causes have no effect. Since Hazrat Yunus saw with the eye of certainty that there was no refuge other than the Causer of Causes, and unfolded to him was the meaning of Divine oneness within the light of Divine unity, his supplication was able suddenly to subdue the night, the sea, and the fish. Through the light of Divine unity he as able to transform the belly of the fish into a submarine; and the surging sea, that in its awesomeness resembled an erupting volcano, into a peaceable plain, a place of delight and enjoyment. Through the light of unity, he was able to sweep the sky's countenance clear of all clouds, and to set the moon over his head like a lantern. Creation that had been pressing and threatening him from all sides now showed him a friendly face from every direction. Thus he reached the shore of salvation. Beneath the creeping gourd tree he witnessed the grace of his Lord.

Now we are in a situation one hundred times more awesome than that in which Hazrat Yunus (Upon whom be peace) first found himself. Our night is the future. When we look upon our future with the eye of neglect, it is a hundred times darker and more fearful than his night. Our sea is this spinning globe. Each wave of this sea bears on it thousands of corpses, and is thus a thousand times more frightening than his sea. Our fish is the caprice of our soul which strives to shake and destroy the foundation of our eternal life. This fish is a thousand times more maleficent than his fish. For his fish can destroy a hundred-year life­span, whereas ours seeks to destroy a life lasting hundreds of millions of years. This being our true state, we should in imitation of Hazrat Yunus (Upon whom be peace) avert ourselves from all causes and take refuge directly in the Causer of Causes, that is, our Sustainer. We should say:

There is no god but You, Gloi-y be unto You! Indeed I was among the wrongdoers

and understand with full certainty that it is only He who can repel from us the harm of the future, this. world, and caprice of our . souls, united against us because of our neglect and misguid­ance. For the future is subject to His orders, the world to His commands, and our soul to His rule.

-What cause is there other than the Creator of the Heavens and Earth who can know the most subtle and secret thoughts of our heart; who can lighten the future for us by establishing the Here­after; who can save us from the myriad over­whelming waves of the world? No, outside that Necessarily Existent One, there is nothing that can in any way give aid and effect salvation except by His consent and command.

This being the case, considering that as a result of his supplication, the fish became for Hazrat Yunus a vehicle, or a submarine, and the sea, a peaceable plain; and the night became gently lit for him by the moon, so too, we should make the same supplication:

There is no god but You, Glory be unto to You! Indeed I was among the wrongdoers.

With the sentence There is no god but You we draw the gaze of mercy upon our future; with the word Glory be unto to You! we draw it upon our world; and with the phrase Indeed I was among the wrongdoers, we draw it upon our soul. Thus our future is illumined with the light of faith and the moonlike luminosity of the Qur'an, and the awe and terror of the night are transformed into tranquillity and joy. Then too, embarking on the ship of the truth of Islam, fashioned in the dock­yard of the Most Wise Qur'an, we may pass safely over the sea of this earthly abode, where corpses unnumbered are borne on the waves of the years and centuries, of the ceaseless alterna­tion of life and death, down to destruction. Once aboard that ship we may reach the shore of salva­tion and fulfil our life's duty. The tempest and surging of the sea will appear a series of pleasing images on a screen, and instead of inspiring terror

THE SUPPLICATION OF YUNUS ? 19

and dread, will delight, caress and illumine the reflective and the meditative gaze. By virtue of the mystery of the Qur'an, and the effect of that Book of Discernment, our soul will ride no longer us, but instead become our mount. As we ride it, it will be for us a powerful means for the attain­ment of life everlasting.

To Conclude: Man, in accordance with the comprehensive nature of his being, as he suffers and shakes with malaria, so also will he suffer from the shaking and tremors of the earth, and the supreme convulsion of all beings of the Day of Resurrection. As he fears the infinitesimal microbe, he will also fear the shooting star that appears among the heavenly bodies. As he loves his home, he will also love the wide world. As he loves his little garden he will also ardently love infinite and eternal paradise. The object of wor­ship, the Sustainer, refuge, saviour, and goal of man must then of necessity be the One in the palm of whose power all beings lie, to whose command atom and planet both will submit of necessity. Man should then constantly say like Hazrat Yunus (Upon whom be peace):

There is no god but You, Glory be unto to You! Indeed I was among the wrongdoers.

Glory be unto to You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.²

-III-

The Affliction

of Ayyub

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

When he called upon his Sustainer saying: "Verily harm has afflicted me, and You are the Most Merciful of the Mercifid."¹

The supplication of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace), the champion of patience, is both well-tested and effective. Drawing on the verse, we should say in our supplication,

O my Sustainer! Indeed harm has afflicted me, and You are the Most Merciful of the Merciful.

The gist of the well-known story of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace) is as follows:

l.Qur'an, 21:83.    ~~

While afflicted with numerous wounds and sores for a long time, he recalled the great recompense to be had for his sickness, and endured it with utmost patience. But later, when the worms generated by his wounds penetrated to his heart and his tongue, which were the organ for the remembrance and knowledge of God, he feared that his duty of worship would suffer, and so he said in supplication not for the sake of his own comfort, but for the sake of his worship of God:

"O Lord! Harm has afflicted me; my remem­brance of You with my tongue and my worship of You with my heart will suffer." God Almighty then accepted this pure sincere, disinterested and devout supplication in the most miraculous fashion. He granted to Hazrat Ayyub perfect good health and made manifest in him all kinds of com­passion. This Flash contains Five Points.

FIRST POINT: Corresponding to the outer wounds and sicknesses of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace), we have inner sicknesses of the spirit and heart. If our inner being is turned out­ward, and our outer being turned inward, we will apear more wounded and diseased than Hazrat Ayyub. For each sin that we commit and each doubt that enters our mind, inflicts wounds on our heart and our spirit.

The wounds of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace) were of such a nature as to threaten his brief worldly life. But our inner wounds threaten our infinitely long life everlasting. We need the supplication of Hazrat Ayyub thousands of times more than he did himself. Just as the worms that arose from his wounds penetrated to his heart and tongue, so too the wounds that sin inflicts upon us and the temptations and doubts that arise from those wounds will —-may God protect us!— pene­trate bur inner heart, the seat of faith, and thus wound faith. Penetrating too the spiritual joy of the tongue, the proclaimer of faith, they cause it to shun in revulsion the remembrance of God, and reduce it to silence.

Sin, penetrating to the heart, will blacken and darken it until it extinguishes the light of faith. Within each sin is a path leading to unbelief. Unless that sin is swiftly obliterated by seeking God's pardon, it will grow from a worm into a snake that gnaws on the heart.

For example, a man who secretly commits a shameful sin will fear the disgrace that results if others become aware of it. Thus the existence of angels and spirit beings will be hard for him to endure, and he will long to deny it, even on the strength of the slightest indication.

Similarly, one who commits a major sin deserv­ing of the torment of Hell, will desire the non­existence of Hell wholeheartedly, and whenever he hears of the threat of Hell-fire, he will dare to deny it on the strength of a slight indication and doubt, unless he takes up in protection the shield of repentance and seeking forgiveness.

Similarly, one who does not perform the obligatory prayer and fulfil his duty of worship will be affected by distress, just as he would be in case of the neglect of a minor duty toward some petty ruler. His laziness in fulfulling his obliga­tion, despite the repeated commands of the Sove­reign of Pre-Eternity, will distress him greatly, and on account of that distress will desire and say to himslef: "Would that there were no such duty of worship!" In turn, there will arise from this desire a desire to deny God, and bear enmity toward Him. If some doubt concerning the existence of the Divine Being comes to his heart, he will be inclined to embrace it like a conclusive proof. A wide gate to destruction will be opened in front of him. The wretch does not know that although he is delivered by denial from the slight trouble of duty of worship, he has made himself, by that same denial, the target for millions of troubles that are far more awesome. Fleeing from the bite of a gnat, he welcomes the bite of the snake.

There are many other examples, which may be understood with reference to these three, so that the sense of,

Nay but their hearts are stained²

will become apparent.

SECOND. POINT: As was set forth concern­ing the meaning of Divine Determining, known as destiny, in the Twenty-Sixth Word, men have no

right to complain in the case of disasters and illness for the following three reasons:

The First Reason: God Most High has made the garment of the body in which man is clothed a manifestation of His art. He has made man to be a model on which He cuts, trims, alters and changes the garment of the body, thus displaying the mani­festation of various of His Names. Just as the Name of Healer makes it necessary that illness should exist, so too the Name of Provider requires that hunger should exist. And so on...

The Lord of All Dominion has disposal over His dominion as He wishes.

Second Reason: It is by means of disasters and sicknesses that life is refined, perfected, strength­ened and advanced; that it yields results, attains perfection and fulfils it own purpose. Life led monotonously on the mattress of comfort resem­bles not so much the absolute good that is being, as the absolute evil that is non-being; it tends in fact in that direction.

The Third Reason: This worldly realm is the field of testing, the abode of service. It is not the place of pleasure, reward, and requital. Consider­ing, then, that it is the abode of service and place of worship, sicknesses and misfortunes —as long as they do not affect faith and are patiently endured— conform fully to service and worship, and even strengthen it. Since they make each hour's worship equivalent to that of a day, one should offer thanks instead of complaining.

Worship consists in fact of two kinds, positive and negative. What is meant by the positive is obvious. As for negative worship, this is when one afflicted with misfortune or sickness per­ceives his own weakness and helplessness, and turning to his Compassionate Lord, seeks refuge in Him, meditates upon Him, petitions Him, and thus offers a pure form of worship that no hypoc­risy can penetrate. If he endures patiently, thinks of the reward attendant on misfortune and offers thanks, then each hour that he passes will count as a whole day spent in worship. His brief life becomes very long. There are even cases where a single minute is counted as equal to a whole day's worship.  •

I once was extremely anxious because of an awesome illness that struck one of my brothers of the Hereafter, Muhajir Hafiz Ahmad. But then a warning came to my heart: "Congratulate him!" Each minute he spends is counted as a whole day's worship. He was in any event enduring his illness in patience and gratitude.

THIRD POINT: As we have pointed out in one or two of the Words, whenever one thinks of his past life, he will say in his heart or with his tongue either "Ah!" or "Oh!" That is he will either experience regret, or say "Thanks and praise be to God." Regret is inspired by the pains arising from the cessation of former pleasures and separation from them. For the cessation of pleas­ure is a pain in itself. Sometimes a momentary pleasure will cause everlasting pain. To think upon it will be like lancing a wound, causing regret to gush forth.

As for the lasting spiritual pleasure that comes from the cessation of momentary pains experi­enced in the past, it inspires man to say, "Thanks and praise be to God." In addition to this innate tendency of man, if he thinks of the reward that results from misfortune and the requital that awaits him in the Hereafter, if he realizes that his brief life will count as a long life because of mis­fortune —then instead of being merely patient he should be thankful. He should say, "Praise be to God for every state other than unbelief and mis­guidance."

It is commonly said that misfortune is longlast-ing. Indeed it is, but not because it is troublesome and distressing as people customarily imagine, but rather because it yields vital results just like a long life.

FOURTH POINT: As was set forth in the First Station of the Twenty-First Word, the power of patient endurance given to man by God Most High is adequate for every misfortune, unless squandered on mere fancies. But through the predominance of fantasy, man's neglect, and his imagining this transient life to be eternal, he squanders his power of endurance on the past and the future. His endurance is not equal to the misfortunes of the present, and he begins to complain. It is as if —God forbid!— he were complaining of God Most High to men. In a most unjustified and even lunatic fashion, be complains and demonstrates his lack of patience.

If the day that is past held misfortune, the dis­tress is now gone, and only tranquillity remains; the pain is gone and the pleasure in its cessation remains; the trouble is gone, and the reward remains. Hence one should not complain but give thanks for enjoyment. One should not resent mis­fortune, but love it. The transient life of the past comes to be counted as an eternal and blessed life because of misfortune. To think upon past pain with one's fancy and then to waste part of one's patience is lunacy.

As far as days yet to come are concerned, since they have not yet come, to think now of the illness or misfortune to be borne during them and display impatience, is also foolishness. To say to oneself "Tomorrow or the day after I will be hungry and thirsty" and constantly to drink water and eat bread today, is pure madness. Sim­ilarly, to think of misfortunes and sicknesses yet in the future but now non-existent, to suffer them already, to show impatience and to oppress oneself without any compulsion, is such stupid­ity that it no longer deserves pity and compas­sion.

In short, just as gratitude increases Divine bounty, so too complaint increases misfortune, and removes all occasion for compassion.

During World War One, a blessed person in

Erzuram was afflicted with an awesome disease. I went to visit him and he said to me complaining bitterly:

"I have not been able to place my head on the pillow and sleep for a hundred nights." I was much grieved. Suddenly a thought came to me and I said:

"Brother, the hundred difficult days you have spent are now just like one hundred happy days. Do not think of them and complain; rather look at them and be grateful. As for future days, since they have not yet come, place your trust in your Compassionate and Merciful Sustainer. Do not weep before being beaten, do not be afraid of nothing, do not give non-being the colour of being. Think of the present hour; your power of patient endurance is enough for this hour. Do not act like the maddened commander who expects reinforcement on his right wing by an enemy force deserting to join him from his left, and then begins to disperse his forces in the centre to the left and the right, before the enemy has joined him on the right. The enemy then destroys his centre, left weak, with a minimal force. Brother, do not be like him. Mobilize all your strength for this present hour, and think of Divine Mercy, reward in the Hereafter, and how your brief and transient life is being transformed into a long and eternal form. Instead of complaining bitterly, give joyful thanks."

Much relieved, he said, "Praise and thanks be to God, my disease is now a tenth of what it was before."

FIFTH POINT, consisting of three matters.

First Matter: True and harmful misfortune is that which affects religion. One should at all times seek refuge at the Divine Court from mis­fortune in matters of religion and cry out for help. But misfortunes that do not affect religion are not all misfortunes, when properly envisaged. Some of them are warnings from the Most Merciful One. If a shepherd throws a stone at his sheep when they trespass on another's pasture, they understand that the stone is intended as a warning to save them from a perilous action; full of gratitude they turn back. So too there are many apparent misfortunes that are Divine warnings and admonishments, others that constitute the penance of sin; and others again that dissolve man's state of neglect, remind him of his human helplessness and weakness, and thus inspire in him a form of tranquillity. As for the variety of misfortune that is illness, it is not at all a misfortune, as has already been said, but rather a favour from God and a means of purification. According to ascer­tain tradition, it is said that just as a tree drops its ripe fruit when shaken, so .too. do sins fall away through the shaking of fever.

Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace) did not pray in his supplication for the comfort of-his soul, but rather sought cure for the purpose of .worship, when disease was preventing his remem­brances of God with his tongue and his meditation upon God in his heart. We too should make our primary intent, when making that supplication, the healing of the inward and spiritual wounds that arise from sinning.

As far as physical diseases are concerned, we may seek refuge from them when they hinder our worship. But we should seek refuge in a humble and supplicating fashion, not protestingly and plaintively. If we accept God as our Lord and Sus­tainer, then we must accept too all that He gives us in His capacity of Lord. To sigh and complain in a manner implying objection to Divine Deter­mining and Decree is a kind of criticism of Divine Determining, an accusation levelled against God's compassion. The one who criticizes Divine Deter­mining strikes his head against the anvil and breaks it. Whoever accuses God's mercy will inevitably be deprived of it. To use a broken hand to exact revenge will only cause further damage to the hand. So too a man who, afflicted with misfor­tune, responds to it with protesting complaint and anxiety, is only compounding his misfortune.

Second Matter: Physical misfortunes grow when they are seen to be large, and shrink when they are seen to be small. For example, a dream enters one's vision at night. If one pays it attention it swells up and grows; if one does not, it disappears. So too if one attempts to ward off an attacking swarm of bees, they will become more aggressive; whereas if one pays them no attention they will disperse. Thus if one regards physical misfortunes as great and grants them importance, they will grow, and because of anx­iety pass from the body and strike root in the heart. The result will then be an inward affliction on which the outward misfortune fastens to per­petuate itself. But if the anxiety is removed by contentment with the Divine Decree and reliance on God, the physical misfortune will gradually decrease, dry up and vanish, just like a tree whose roots have been severed. I once composed the fol­lowing verses in description of this truth:

Abandon, O wretch, thy lamentation; reliance on God shall be thy refuge!

Lamenting is naught but an increase of woe; woe itself, tlmt is thy dirge!

Find thy way to the author of woe; thy woe shall then be -pleasing as the grem verge!

But if thou findest him not then is the whole ivorld one endless cruel image!

Thou who dost suffer from a worldful of woe —why complain at one pain? Make God thy refuge!

Smile thus in the face of thy woe; woe itself then shall smile, and, smiling, shrink and quite change!

If in single-handed combat one smiles at an awesome enemy, his enmity will be changed to conciliatoriness; his hostility will become a mere joke, will shrink and disappear. If one confronts misfortune with reliance on God the result will be similar.

Third Matter: Each age has particualr charac­teristics. In this age of neglect misfortune has changed its form. In certain ages and for certain persons/misfortune is not in reality misfortune, but rather a Divine favour. Since I consider those afflicted with illness in the present age to be fortu­nate —on condition that their illness does not affect their religion— it does not occur to me to oppose illness and misfortune, nor to take pity on the afflicted. Whenever I encounter some afflicted youth, I find that he is more concerned with his religious duties and the Hereafter than are his peers. From this I deduce that illness does not constitute a misfortune for such people, but rather a bounty from God. It is true that illness causes him distress in his brief, transient and worldly life, but it is beneficial for his eternal life. It is to be regarded as a kind of worship. If he were healthy he would be unable to maintain the state he enjoyed while sick and would fall into dissipation, as a result of the impetuousness of youth and the dissipated nature of the age.

CONCLUSION: God Almighty, in order to display His infinite power and unlimited mercy, has made inherent in man infinite weakness and unlimited want. Further, in order to display the infinite variety of the impress of His Names, He has created man like a machine receptive to pain and pleasure perceived from an infinite variety of

directions. Within that human machine He has placed hundreds of instruments, and for each instrument He has appointed different pains and pleasures, duties and rewards. Simply, all of the Divine Names manifested in the macrocosm that is the world also have manifestations in the microcosm that is man. Beneficial matters like good health, well-being, and pleasures cause man to offer thanks and prompt the human machine to perform its functions in many respects, and thus man becomes like a factory producing thanks.

Similarly, by means of misfortune, illness and pain, and other motion-inducing contingencies, the other cogs of the human machine are set in motion and revolution. The mine of weakness, helplessness, and poverty inherent in human nature is made to work. Not the tongue alone, but each limb is transformed into a tongue, begins to seek refuge and aid. Thus by means of those con­tingencies man becomes like a moving pen com­prising thousands of different pens. He inscribes the appointed course of his existence on the page of his life or the Tablet in the World of Simili­tudes; he puts forth a declaration of the Divine Names; and becomes himself an ode to the glory of God, thus fulfilling the duties of his nature.

The Trust Given to Man

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.^x

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 valuable 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 external and inner 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:

"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 sense of taste contained in the tongue will rise 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 members and limbs to these, and then you will understand that in truth the believer acquires a nature worthy of Paradise and the un-believer 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 overwhelm him and intoxicate him, or turn him into a beast.

The Fifth Profit: Those who have experienced sapiential 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.

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. Amenl", and make petition unto Him.

- V-

Proofs of Resurrection

[The Gate of God's Bestowal of Life and Death; the manifestations of the Names of Ever-Liying and Self-Subsistent, and Giver of Life and Giver of Death.]

Is it at all possible that the One Who restores to life the vast dead, dry earth; and within that restoring to life, demonstrates His power by resur­recting —like the resurrection of man— each of more than three hundred thousand varieties of creatures; and within that resurrection, displays the His all-embracing knowledge through differ­entiating and separating out to an infinite degree beings infinitely mixed up and intermingled; Who, with all His heavenly decrees, turns the gazes of all His servants towards eternal happi­ness by promising the resurrection of man; Who demonstrates the tremendousness of His domini-cality through making all beings unite and stand

shoulder to shoulder and assist one another and be subjugated to one another, and causing them to revolve under His command and will; Who dem­onstrates the great importance He gives to man by creating him as the most comprehensive, the most delicate and precious, the most needy and wanting fruit of the tree of the universe, and by taking him as His addressee, and subjugating all things to him; —is it at all possible that One Who is thus All-Compassionate and Ail-Powerful, One Who is thus All-Wise and All-Knowing, should not bring about the resurrection of the dead; that He should not bring about the Great Gathering or be unable to do so; that He should not raise man to life or be unable to do so; that He should not institute a Supreme Tribunal; that He should not create Para­dise and Hell? God forbid!

Indeed, the Glorious Disposer of this world creates numerous examples, signs, and indications of the Great Gathering and field of resurrection every century, every year, and every day in this narrow and transitory face of the earth.

For instance, we see in the Gathering of spring that within five or six days more than three hundred thousand sorts of animals and plants, great and small, are resurrected. The roots of all trees and plants, and some animals are returned and raised to life identically, while others are created in a form so similar as to be almost identi­cal. And while seeds, which differ very little from one another in regard to their substance, are so intermingled, they spring to life in six days or six weeks perfectly distinct and differentiated, and with perfect order and balance, despite their abun­dance and the speed and ease with which they appear. It is at all possible that anything should be difficult for the One Who does this; that He should not create the heavens and the earth in six days; that He should not raise man to life at the blast of a trumpet? God forbid!

Think of a wonder-working scribe who writes out in one hour on a single page three hundred thousand books the letters of which are either spoilt or erased, most beautifully, all together without error, fault or defect or confusing them. If someone were to say to you: "This scribe will write out again from memory in one minute the book he himself has written and which has fallen into the water," could you then say: "He can't do it and I don't believe it!"?

Or think of a wonder-working king, who, in order to demonstrate his power, or by way of example, or for pleasure, removes mountains or transposes whole lands. You have seen that he has changed the sea into land, and then you have seen that a mighty rock has rolled down into a valley and blocked the way of guests he had invited to a banquet. Should someone say to you: "The king will remove that rock at a mere sign no matter how big it is, or else scatter it!", could you reply: "He can't remove it," or "He won't remove it!"?

Or if someone were to say of a person who had formed a great army in a single day from nothing: "That person will gather together those battalions the soldiers of which have dispersed to rest, and the battalions will become part of his troops," and you were to say: "I don't believe it!", you can under­stand what stupidity your behaviour would be.

If you have understood these three compari­sons, look: the Pre-Eternal Inscriber turns over the white page of winter before our eyes and opens the green page of spring and summer, and writes in the best of forms on the page of the face of the earth the more than three hundred thousand spe­cies of beings with the pen of power and Divine Determining. One within the other, He confuses not one of them. He writes them all together, yet not one is an obstacle to another. They all differ from one another in regard to form and shape, yet He mixes up none of them. He writes nothing wrongly.

So, can it be said of the All-Wise Preserver Who includes in the tiniest seed like a point the programme of the spirit of the largest tree, how can He preserve the spirits of the dead?

Can it be said of the All-Powerful One Who spins the globe of the earth as though it were a stone in a sling, how can He remove or scatter the earth, which is blocking the path of His guests on their way to the Hereafter?

Can it be said of the All-Glorious One Who creates from nothing, anew, the armies of all liv­ing beings, and, with the command of "Be! "and it is,¹ enrolls and situates the particles with perfect order in the battalions of all their bodies, —can it be said of Him, how can He gather together at a single trumpet-blast those mutually-acquainted fundamental particles and essential parts through their entering under the order of the battalion-like bodies?

Furthermore, you can see with your own eyes how many inscriptions He has made in every epoch, every century, of the world, and even in the alternation of night and day, and in the crea­tion and disappearance of the clouds in the sky, all of which resemble the resurrection of spring and are examples, signs and indications of the res­urrection of the dead. You may even travel with your imagination to a thousand years ago and compare with one another the two wings of time, the past and the future: you will see examples of the Great Gathering and samples of the resurrec­tion to the number of centuries and days. So if you still consider unreasonable and deem unlikely bodily resurrection despite observing all these examples and indications, you too may under­stand what lunacy it is! Look! See what the Supreme Decree has to say about the truth we are discussing:

So think on the signs of God's Mercy, how He gives life to the earth after its death; indeed,

He it is Who will give life to the dead, and He is powerful over all things.²

In Short: There is nothing to prevent resurrec­tion; indeed, everything necessitates it. Yes, the tremendous and eternal dominicality of the One Who gives life and death to this mighty earth — the gathering of wonders— as though it were a mere animal and makes it a pleasant cradle, a fine ship, for man and the animals, and makes the sun a lamp supplying light and heat for them in this guest-house, and makes the planets vehicles for the angels — this dominicality, this vast and all-encompassing rule, cannot be founded and rest only on the transient, passing, unstable, insignifi­cant, changing, impermanent, defective, imperfect matters of this world. This means He has another realm, one permanent, stable, unperishing, majes­tic, and worthy of Him. Another, everlasting domain. It is for this that He causes us to labour. It is there that He invites us. And all those with illumined spirits, all the spiritual poles with lumi­nous hearts, all those with illuminated intellects who have penetrated from outer appearances to the truth and have been honoured with proximity to the Divine Presence, all testify that He shall transfer us there. They inform us unanimously that He has prepared reward and punishment for us, and relate that He repeatedly gives most firm promises and most severe warnings.

abasement and degradation. It can in no way be be associated with His Sacred Glory. As for fail­ing to carry out a threat, it arises from either for­giveness or impotence. But unbelief is an absolute crime;³ it cannot be forgiven. And the Absolutely Powerful One is exempt from and beyond all impotence. And although the witnesses and bring-ers of this news all differ as to their ways and paths, they are united in complete unanimity in the basics of this matter. As regards number, they are unanimous. In regard to quality, they have the strength of consensus. As regards position, each is a star of mankind, the hope of a nation, the beloved of a people. As regards importance, they are both experts in this matter, and they are affirming. And two experts in a science or an art are preferable to thousands who are not experts, and in giving news of something, two affirmers are preferable to thousands of deniers. For example, two men who report the appearance of

the new moon of Ramadan invalidate the negations of thousands of deniers.

In Short: In the whole world there can be no truer report, no more well-founded claim, no clearer fact than this. This means that without doubt this world is an arable field, and the Great Gathering a threshing-floor, a harvest, and as for Paradise and Hell, they are each a granary and storehouse.

-VI-

Manifestations of God's Presence

[This consists of a single, brief proof of the pil­lar of belief, belief in God, for which there are numerous decisive proofs and explanations in many places in the Risale-i Nur.]

In Kastamonu a group of high-school students came to me, saying: "Tell us about our Creator, our teachers do not speak of God." And I said to them: "All the sciences you study continuously speak of God and make known the Creator, each with its own particular tongue. Do not listen to your teachers; listen to them.

"For example, a well-equipped pharmacy with life-giving potions and cures in every jar weighed out in precise and wondrous measures doubtless shows an extremely skilful, practised, and wise pharmacist. In the same way, to the extent that it

is bigger and more perfect and better equipped than the pharmacy in the market-place, the phar­macy of the globe of the earth with its living potions and medicaments in the jars which are the four hundred thousand species of plants and animals shows and makes known to eyes that are blind even —by means of the measure or scale of the science of medicine that you study— the All-Wise One of Glory, Who is the Pharmacist of the mighty pharmacy of the earth.

"To take another example, a wondrous factory which weaves thousands of sorts of cloth from a simple material doubtless makes known a manu­facturer and skilful mechanic. In the same way, to whatever extent it is larger and more perfect than the human factory, this travelling dominical machine known as the globe of the earth with its hundreds of thousands of heads in each of which are hundreds of thousands of factories shows and makes known —by means of the measure or scale of the science of engineering which you study— its Manufacturer and Owner.

"And, for example, a depot, store, or shop in which has been brought together and stored up in regular and orderly fashion a thousand and one varieties of provisions undoubtedly makes known a wondrous owner, proprietor, and overseer of provisions and foodstuffs. In just the same way, to whatever degree it is vaster and more perfect than such a store or factory, this foodstore of the Most Merciful One known as the globe of the earth, this

Divine ship, this dominical depot and shop hold­ing goods, equipment, and conserved food, which in one year travels regularly an orbit of twenty-four thousand years, and carrying groups of beings requiring different foods and passing through- the seasons on its journey and filling the spring With thousands of different provisions like a huge waggon, brings them to the wretched ani­mate creatures whose sustenance has been exhausted in winter, —-by means of the measure or scale of the science of economics which you study— this depot of the earth makes known and makes loved its Manager, Organizer, and Owner.

"And, for example, let us imagine an army which consists of four hundred thousand nations and each nation requires different provisions, uses different weapons, wears different uniforms, undergoes different drill, and is discharged from its duties differently. If this army and camp has a miracle-working commander who on his own provides all those different nations with all their different provisions, . weapons, uniforms, and equipment without forgetting or confusing any of them, then surely the army and camp show the commander and make him loved appreciatively. In just the same way, the spring camp of the face of the earth in which every spring a newly recruited Divine army of the four hundred thou­sand species of plants and animals are given their varying uniforms, rations, weapons, training, and demobilizations in utterly perfect and regular fashion by a single Commander-in-Chief Who for­gets or confuses not one of them —to whatever extent the spring camp of the face of the earth is vaster and more perfect than that human army, — by means of the measure or scale of the military science that you study— it makes known to the attentive and sensible, its Ruler, Sustainer, Admin­istrator, and Most Holy Commander, causing wonderment and acclaim, and makes Him loved and praised and glorified.

"Another example: millions of electric lights that move and travel through a wondrous city, their fuel and power source never being exhausted, self-evidently make known a wonder­working craftsman and extraordinarily talented electrician who manages the electricity, makes the moving lamps, sets up the power source, and brings the fuel; they cause others to congratulate and applaud him, and to love him. In just the same way, although some of the lamps of the stars in the roof of the palace of the world in the city of the universe —if they are considered in the way that astronomy says— are a thousand times larger than the earth and move seventy times faster than a cannon-ball, they do not spoil their order, nor collide with one another, nor become extin­guished, nor is their fuel exhausted. According to astronomy, which you study, for our sun to con­tinue burning, which is a million times larger than the earth and a million times older and is a lamp and stove in a guest-house of the Most Merciful

One, as much oil as the seas of the earth and as much coal as its mountains or as much logs and wood as ten earths are necessary for it not to be extinguished. And however much greater and more perfect than this example are the electric lamps of the palace of the world in the majestic city of the universe, which point with their fingers of light to an infinite power and sovereignty which illuminates the sun and other lofty stars like it without oil, wood, or coal, not allowing them to be extinguished or to collide with one another, though travelling together at speed, to that degree —by means of the measure of the sci­ence of electricity which you either study or will study— they testify to and make known the Mon­arch, Illuminator, Director, and Maker of the mighty exhibition of the universe; they make Him loved, glorified, and worshipped.

"And, for example, a book in every line of which a whole book is finely written, and in every word of which a sura of the Qur'an is inscribed with a fine pen, which is most meaning­ful and all of whose matters corroborate one another, a wondrous collection showing its writer and author to be extraordinarily skilful and capa­ble, undoubtedly shows its writer and author together with all his perfections and arts are clearly as daylight, and makes him known. It makes him appreciated with phrases like, What wonders God has willed! and, Blessed be God! And just the same is the mighty book of the universe; we see with our eyes a pen at work which writes on the face of the earth, which is a single of its pages, and on the spring, which is a single folio, the three hundred thousand plant and animal species, which are like three hundred thou­sand different books, all together, one within the other, without fault or error, without mixing them up or confusing them, perfectly and with complete order, and sometimes writes an ode in a word like a tree, and the complete index of a book in a point like a seed. However much vaster and more perfect and meaningful than the book in the exam­ple mentioned above is this compendium of the universe and mighty embodied Qur'an of the world, which is infinitely full of meaning and in every word of which are numerous instances of wisdom, to that degree —in accordance with the extensive measure and far-seeing vision of the natural science that you study and the sciences of reading and writing that you have practised at school— it makes known the Inscriber and Author of the book of the universe together with His infinite perfections. Proclaiming God is Most Great!, it makes Him known. Uttering words like Glory be to God!, it describes Him. Uttering praises like All praise be to God!, it makes Him loved.

"Thus, hundreds of other sciences like these make known the Glorious Creator of the universe together with His Names, each through its broad measure or scale, its particular mirror, its far­seeing eyes, and searching gaze; they make known His attributes and perfections.

"It is in order to give instruction in this matter, which is a brilliant and magnificent proof of Divine Unity, that the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition teaches us about our Creator most often with the verses, Sustainer of the Heavens and the Earth, and, He created the Heavens and Earth." I said this to the schoolboys, and they accepted it completely, affirming it by saying: "Endless thanks be to God, for we have received an absolutely true and sacred lesson. May God be pleased with you!" And I said:

"Man is a living machine who is grieved with thousands of different sorrows and receives pleasure in thousands of different ways, and despite his utter impotence has innumerable enemies, physical and spiritual, and despite his infinite poverty, has countless needs, external and inner, and is a wretched creature continuously suffering the blows of death and separation. And yet, through belief and worship, he at once becomes connected to a Monarch so Glorious that he finds a point of support against all his enemies and a source of help for all his needs, and like everyone takes pride at the honour and rank of the lord to whom he is attached, you can compare for yourselves how pleased and grateful and thankful and full of pride man becomes at being connected through belief to an infinitely Powerful and Com­passionate Monarch,  at entering His  service

through worship, and transforming for himself the announcement of the execution of the appointed hour into papers releasing him from duty."

I repeat to the calamity-stricken prisoners what I said to the schoolboys: "One who recognizes Him and obeys Him is fortunate even if he is in prison. While one who forgets Him is wretched and a prisoner even if he lives in a palace." Even, one wronged but fortunate man said to the wretched tyrants who were executing him: "I am not being executed but being demobilized and departing for where I shall find happiness. But I see that you are being condemned to eternal exe­cution and am therefore taking perfect revenge on you." And saying: "There is no god but God!", he happily yielded up his spirit.

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.¹

-VII-

Evidences of God's

Sovereignty

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

So God sets forth parables for men, so that they may bear [them] in mind.¹ * Such are the similitudes which we propound to men that they may reflect.²

One time two men were washing in a pool. Under some extraordinary influence they lost their senses and when they opened their eyes, they saw that it had transported them to a strange land. It was such that with its perfect order it was like a country, or rather a town, or a palace. They looked around themselves in complete bewilder­ment: if it was looked at in one way, a vast world

was apparent; if in another, a well-ordered coun­try; and if in another, a fine town. And if it was looked at in still another way, it was a palace which comprised a truly magnifcent world. Travelling around this strange world, they observed it and saw that creatures of one sort were speaking in a fashion, but they did not understand their language. Neverthless, it was understood from their signs that they were per­forming important works and duties.

One of the two men said to his friend: "This strange world must have someone to regulate it, and this orderly country must have a lord, and this fine town, an owner, and this finely made palace, a master builder. We must try to know him, for it is understood that the one who brought us here was he. If we do not recognize him, who will help us? What can we await from these impotent creat-ues whose language we do not know and who do not heed us? Moreover, surely one who makes a vast world in the form of a country, town, and palace, and fills it from top to bottom with won­derful things, and embellishes it with every sort of adornment, and decks it out with instructive mira­cles wants something from us and from those that come here. We must get to know him and find out what he wants."

The other man said: "I do not believe it, that there is a person such as the one you speak of, and that he governs this whole world on his own."

His friend replied to him: "If we do not recog­nize him and remain indifferent towards him, there is no advantage in it at all, and if it is harm­ful, its harm will be immense. Whereas if we try to recognize him, there is little hardship involved, and if there is benefit, it will be great. Therefore, it is in no way sensible to remain indifferent towards him."

The foolish man said: "I consider all my ease and enjoyment to lie in not thinking of him. Also, I am not going to bother with things that make no sense to me. All these things are the confused objects of chance, they are happening by them­selves. What is it to me?"

His intelligent friend replied: "This obstinacy of yours will push me, and a lot of others, into disaster. It sometimes happens that a whole country is laid waste because of one ill-mannered person."

So the foolish man turned to him and said: "Either prove to me decisively that this large country has a single lord and a single maker, or leave me alone."

His friend replied: "Your obstinacy has reached the degree of lunacy, and you will be the cause of some disaster being visited on us. So I shall show you twelve proofs demonstrating that this world which is like a palace, this country which is like town, has a single maker and that it is only he who runs and administers everything. He is com­pletely free of all deficiency. This maker, who does not appear to us, sees us and everything, and hears our words. All his works are miracles and marvels. All these creatures whom we see but whose tongues we do not understand are his officials."

FIRST PROOF

A hidden hand is working within all these works. For something which has not even an ounce of strength,³ something as small as a seed, is raising a load of thousands of pounds. And something that does not have even a particle of consciousness⁴ is performing extremely wise and purposeful works. That means they are not work­ing by themselves, but that a hidden possessor of power is causing them to work. If they were inde­pendent, it would necessitate all the works which we see everywhere in this land being miracles and everything to be a wonder-working marvel. And that is nonsense.

SECOND PROOF

Come, look carefully at the things which adorn all these plains, fields, and dwellings! There are marks on each telling of that hidden one. Simply, each gives news of Him like a seal or stamp. Look in front of your eyes: what does He make from one ounce of cotton?⁵ See how many rolls of cloth, fine linen, and flowered material have come out of it. See how many sugared delights and round sweets are being made. Jf thousands of people like us were to clothe themselves in them and eat them, they would still be sufficient. And look! He has taken a handful of iron, water, earth, coal, copper, silver, and gold, and made some flesh⁶ out of them. Look at that and see! O foolish one! These works are particular to such a one that all this land together with all its parts is under his miraculous power and is submissive to his every wish.

THIRD PROOF

Come, look at these mobile works of art!⁷ Each has been fashioned in such a way that it is simply a miniature sample of the huge palace. Whatever there is in the palace, it is found in these tiny mobile machines. Is it at all possible that someone other than the palace's maker could come and include the wondrous palace in a tiny machine? Also, is it at all possible that although he hasincluded a whole world in a machine the size of a box,.there could be anything in it that was pur­poseless or could be attributed to chance? That means that however many skilfully fashioned machines you can see, each is like a seal of that hidden one. Rather, each is like a herald or procla­mation. Through their tongues of disposition they are saying: "We are the art of One Who can make this entire world of ours as easily and simply as He created us."

FOURTH PROOF

O my stubborn friend! Come, I shall show you something even stranger. Look! All these works and things in this land have changed and are changing. They do not stop in any one state. Note carefully that each of these lifeless bodies and unfeeling boxes has taken on the form of being absolutely dominant. Quite simply it is as though each rules all the others. Look at this machine next to us;⁸ it is as though issuing commands; all the necessities and substances necessary for its adornment and functioning come hastening to it from distant places. Look over there: that lifeless body⁹ is as though beckoning; it makes the largest bodies serve it and work in its own workplace.

EVIDENCES OF GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY ? 65 Make further analogies in the same way.

Simply, everything subjugates to itself all the beings in this world. If you do not accept the existence of that hidden one, you have to attribute all his skills, arts, and perfections in the stones, earth, animals, and creatures resembling man everywhere in this land to the things themselves. In place of a single wonder-working being, which your mind deems unlikely, you have to accept millions like him, who are both opposed to one' another, and similar, and one within the other, so they do not cause confusion everywhere and the order be spoiled. Whereas if two fingers meddle in a country, they cause confusion. For if there are two headmen in a village, or two governors in a town, or two kings in a country, the result is chaos. So what about an infinite, absolute ruler?

FIFTH PROOF

O my sceptical friend! Come, look carefully at the inscriptions of this vast palace, look at all the adornments of the town, see the ordering of this whole land, and reflect on all the works of art in this world! See! If these inscriptions are not worked by the pen of one hidden who possesses infinite miracles and skills, and are attributed to unconscious causes, to blind chance and deaf Nature, then every stone and every plant in this

land has to be an inscriber so wondrous it can write a thousand books in every letter and include millions of works of art in a single inscription. Because look at the inscription on these stones;^[1] in each are the inscriptions of all the palace, and the laws ordering all the town, and the pro­grammes for organizing the whole country. That means that to make these inscriptions is as won­derful as making the whole country. In which case, all the inscriptions, all the works of art, are proclamations of that hidden one, and seals of his.

Since a letter cannot exist without showing the one who wrote it, and an artistic inscription can­not exist without making known its inscriber, how is it that an inscriber who writes a huge book in a single letter and inscribes a thousand inscriptions in a single inscription, should not be known through his writing and through his inscribing?

SIXTH PROOF

Come, let us go out onto this broad plain.^[2] On it is a high mountain whose summit we shall climb so that we can see all the surrounding coun­try. We shall take with us a good pair of binocu­lars which will bring everything close, for strange things are happening in this strange land. Every hour things are happening that we could not ima­gine. Look! These mountains, plains, and towns are suddenly changing. And how? In such a way that millions of changes are being brought about in a most regulated and orderly fashion one within the other. The most wondrous transforma­tions are being wrought as though millions of var­ious cloths are being woven one within the other. Look! These flowery things which we know and are familiar with are disappearing and others have come in their place" in orderly fashion which resemble them in nature but are different in form. It is quite simply as though this plain and the mountains are each a page, and within them are being written hundreds of thousands of different books. And they are being written faultlessly and without defect.

It is impossible a hundred times over that these matters should have come about on their own. Yes, for these works which are skilfully and care­fully fashioned to an infinite degree to have occurred on their own is impossible a thousand times, for rather than themselves,¹ they show the artist who fashioned them. Moreover, the one who did this displays such miracles that nothing at all could be difficult for him. It is as easy for him to write a thousand books as to write one book. Look all around you; he both puts everything in its proper place with perfect wisdom, and he munificently showers the favours on everyone of which they are worthy, and he draws back and opens general veils and doors so bountifully that everyone's desires are satisfied. And he sets up tables so generously that a feast of bounties is given to all the people and animals of this land; each group and individual is given one particular and suitable for it, even. Is there therefore any­thing more impossible in the world than that among these matters which we see there is any­thing attributable to chance, or that there should be anything purposeless or vain, or that many hands should be interfering in them, or that their maker should not be capable of everything, or that everything should not be subjugated to him? And so, my friend, find a pretext in the face of these if you can!

SEVENTH PROOF

Come, my friend! Now we shall leave these particular matters and turn our attention to the mutual positions of the parts of this wondrous world in the form of a palace. Look! Universal works are being carried out and general revolu­tions are occurring in this world with such order that all the rocks, earth, trees, everything in this palace, observe the universal systems of the world, and conform to them as if each was acting with will; Things which are distant hasten to assistone another. Now look, a strange caravan^[3] has appeared, coming from the Unseen. The mounts in it resemble trees, plants, and mountains. Each bears a tray of provisions on its head. And look, they are bringing the provisions for the various animals awaiting them on this side. And see, the mighty electric lamp^[4] in that dome both furnishes them with light, and cooks all their food so well that the foods to be cooked are all attached to strings^[5] by an unseen hand and held up before it. And on this side, see these wretched, weak, pow­erless little animals; how before their heads are attached two small pumps^[6] full of delicate suste­nance, like two springs; it is enough for those powerless creatures to only press their mouths against them.

In Short: Just as all the things throughout the world look to one another, so they help one another. And just as they see one another, so they co-operate with one another. And just as they per­fect each other's works, so they support one another; standing shoulder to shoulder, they work together. Make analogies with this for everything; they are uncountable. Thus, all these things demonstrate as decisively as two plus two equals four that everything is subjugated to themaker of this wondrous palace, that is, to the owner of this strange world. Everything is like a soldier under his command. Everything turns through his strength. Everything acts through his command. Everything is set in order through his wisdom. Everything helps the others through his munificence. Everything hastens to the assistance of the others through his compassion, that is, they are made to hasten to it. Now, my friend, say something in the face of this if you can!

EIGHTH PROOF

Come, my foolish friend who thinks himself reasonable like my soul! You do not want to recognize the owner of this magnificent palace! But everything shows him, points to him, testifies to him. How can you deny the testimony of all these things? You have therefore to deny the palace as well, and say: "There is no world, no country." Deny yourself, too, and disappear! Or else come to your senses and listen to me! Now, look, there are uniform elements and minerals inside the palace and encompassing the land.^[7] Simply, everything appearing in the country is made of those elements. That means, whoever those things belong to, everything that is made of them is also his. Whoever the field belongs to, the crops are his too. And whoever the sea belongs to, the things within it are also his.

And look, these textiles, these decorated woven materials, are being made out of a single sub­stance. It is self-evidently the same person who brings the substance, prepares it, and makes it into string. For such a work would not permit the participation of others. In which case, all the woven, skilfully made things are particular to him.

And look! Every sort of these woven, manufac­tured goods .is found in every part of the country; they have spread with all their fellows, and are being made and woven together and one within the other, in the same way, at the same instant. That means they are the work of the same person and the same act through a single command, otherwise their correspondence and conformity at the same instant, in the same fashion, of the same sort, would be impossible. In which case, each of these skilfully fashioned things is like a proclama­tion of that hidden one which points to him. As if each sort of flowered material, each ingenious machine, each sweet mouthful, is a stamp of that miracle-displaying person; a stamp of his, a mark, a decoration; each says through the tongue of dis­position: "Whosever work of art I am, the boxes and shops where I am found are also his prop­erty." Every inscription says: "Whoever wove me also wove the roll of cloth of which I am a part." Every sweet mouthful says: "Whoever makes me and cooks me, the cauldron in which I am is also his." And every machine says: "Whoever made me, also makes all those like me who have spread throughout the land, and the one who raises us in every part of it, is also he. That means he is also the country's owner. In which case, whoever the owner of this country and palace is, he may be our owner too."

For example, in order to be the true owner of a single cartridge-belt or even a button belonging to the government, one also has to own all the facto­ries in which they are made. If a bragging irregu­lar soldier claims otherwise, he will be told: "They are government property." And they will be taken from him, and he will be punished.

In Short: Just as the elements in this coun­try all surround and encompass it, and their owner can only be .one who owns the whole country, in the same way, since the works of art that are spread throughout it resemble one another and dis­play, a single stamp, they show that they are the art of a single person who governs everything.

And so, my friend! There is a sign of oneness, a stamp of unity, in this country, that is, this mag­nificent palace. For while being the same, certain things are all-encompassing. And while being numerous, some display a unity or similarity, since they resemble one another and are found everywhere. As for unity, it shows One of Unity.

That means that its maker, owner, lord, and fash­ioner has to be one and the same. In addition, look carefully at this: from behind the veil of the unseen a thickish string has appeared.^[8] Now look, now thousands of strings have hung down from it. And see the tips of the strings: a diamond, a deco­ration, a favour, a gift has been attached to each. Suitable presents are being given to everyone. Do you know what a lunatic action it is not to recog­nize or thank the one who stretches out from behind the strange veil of the unseen such won­drous favours and gifts. Because if you do not recognize him, you will be compelled to say: "These strings are making the diamonds and other gifts on their tips themselves and offering them." Then you have to attribute to each string the meaning of a king. Whereas before our eyes an unseen hand is making the strings too, and attach­ing the gifts to them. That means, everything in this palace points to that miracle-displaying one rather than themselves. If you do not recognize him, through denying them, you fall a hundred times lower than an animal.

NINTH PROOF

Come, my unreasoning friend! You do not recognize this palace's owner, and you do not want to recognize him because you deem his exis­tence unlikely. You deviate into denial becauseyou cannot comprehend with your narrow brain his wondrous arts and acts. Whereas the true unlikelihood, real difficulties, hardships, and awe­some trouble lies in not recognizing him. For if we recognize him, this whole palace, this world, becomes as easy, as trouble-free, as a single thing; it becomes the means to the abundance and plenty around us. If we do not recognize him and he does not exist, then everything becomes as diffi­cult as this whole palace, because everything is as skilfully made as the palace. Then neither the abundance nor the plenty would remain. Indeed, not one of these things which we see would pass to anyone's hand, let alone our's. Look at just the jar of conserve attached to this string.^[9] If it had not emerged from his hidden, miracle-displaying kitchen, we could not have bought it-for a hun­dred liras, although we buy it now for forty para.

Yes, all unlikelihood, difficulty, trouble, ardu-ousness, indeed, impossibility, lies in not recognizing him. For a tree is given life from one root, through one law, in one centre, and the for­mation of thousands of fruits is as easy as one fruit. But if the fruits were tied to different centres and roots, and different laws, each fruit would be as difficult to produce as the tree. And if the equipping of an entire army is in one centre, through one law, and from one factory, in regardto quantity it is as easy as equipping a single sol­dier. While if each soldier is equipped from all different places, then to equip one soldier there would have to be as many factories as for the entire army.

Just like these two examples, if, in this well-ordered palace, this fine town, this advanced country, this magnificent world, the creation of all things is attributed to a single being, it becomes so easy, so light, it is the reason for the infinite abundance, availability, and munificence we see. Otherwise everything would become so expen­sive, so difficult, that if the whole world was given to someone, they could not obtain them.

TENTH PROOF

Come, my friend, who has come a little to his senses! We have been here fifteen days^[10] now. If we do not know the regulations of this world and do not recognize its king, we shall deserve pun­ishment. We have no excuse, because for fifteen days, as though given a respite, they did not interfere with us. Of course we have not just been left to our own devices. We cannot wander around among these . delicate, well-balanced, subtle, skilfully made and instructive creatures like an animal and spoil them; they would not permit us to harm them. The penalties of this country's august king are bound to be awesome.

You can understand how powerful and majestic he is from the way he orders this huge world as though it was a palace, and makes it revolve like a machine. He administers this large country like a house, missing nothing. See, like filling a con­tainer and emptying it, he continuously fills this palace, this country, this town, with perfect order, and empties it with perfect wisdom. Like spread­ing out a table then clearing it away, varieties of foods are brought in turn and given to eat in the form of a great variety of tables^[11] being laid out by an unseen hand in every part of his vast coun­try, and then being cleared away. The unseen hand clears away one, then brings another in its place. You see this too, and if you use your head, you will understand that within that awesome majesty is an infinitely munificent liberality.

And see, just as all these things testify to that unseen one's sovereignty and unity, so too these revolutions and changes which pass on in succes­sion like caravans and are opened and closed from behind that true veil, testify to his continuance and permanence. For the causes of things disap­pear along with them. Whereas the things which we attribute to them, which follow on after them, are repeated. That means those works are not theirs, but the. works of one who does not perish. It is understood from the the bubbles on the sur­face of a river disappearing and the bubbles which succeed them sparkling in the same way that what makes them sparkle is a constant and elevated possessor of light. Similarly, the speedy changing of things and the things that follow on after them assuming the same colours shows that they are the manifestations, inscriptions, mirrors, and works of art of one who is perpetual, undy­ing, and single.

ELEVENTH PROOF

Come, my friend! Now I shall show you a decisive proof as powerful as the ten previous ones. We shall board a boat,^[12] and sail to a penin­sula, far away. For the key to this riddle-filled world will be there. Moreover, everyone is look­ing to that peninsula and awaiting something from it; they are receiving orders from there. See, we are going there. Now we have arrived and have alighted on the peninsula. There is a vast gathering, a great concourse, as though all the important people of the country have gathered there. Look carefully, this great community has a leader. Come, we shall draw closer; we mustbecome acquainted with him. Look! What bril­liant decorations he has, more than a thousand of them.^[13] How powerfully he speaks! How pleasant is his conversation! In these two weeks I have learnt a little of what he says. You learn them from me. See, he is speaking of this country's miracle-displaying king. He is saying that the glo­rious king sent him to us. And he is displaying such wonders that they leave no doubt that he is his special envoy. Look carefully, it is not only the creatures on this peninsula that are listening to what he says; he is making the whole country hear in wondrous fashion. For near and far every­one is trying to listen to the speech here. It is not only humans that are listening, it is animals too. Look, even the mountains are listening to the commands he brought so that they are stirring in their places, and the trees, too, move to the place that he indicates. He brings forth water from wherever he wishes. He even makes his fingers like a Spring of Kawthar, and gives to drink from them. Look, at his sign, an important lamp^[14] in the dome of this palace splits into two. Thatmeans this country together with all its beings recognizes that he is an official and envoy. They heed and obey him, as though knowing that he is the most eminent and true interpreter of an unseen displayer of miracles, and the herald of his dominicality, the discloser of his talisman, and a trustworthy envoy delivering his com­mands. All those with intelligence around him declare: "Yes, that is right!" about everything he says, and affirm it. Indeed, through submitting to his signs and commands, the mountains and trees in this country and the huge light^[15] that illumi­nates it, say: "Yes, yes, everything you say is true!"

My foolish friend! Could there be any contra­diction or deception concerning the miracle-displaying king about whom this most luminous, magnificent, and serious being, who bears a thou­sand decorations particular to the king's own treasury, is speaking with all his strength, con­firmed by all the country's notables, and con­cerning the king's attributes which he mentions, and the commands which he relays? If there is anything contrary to the truth in these things, it will be necessary to deny this palace, these lamps, this community, both their reality and their exis­tence. If you can, raise any objections against these; but you will see that they will be smashed by the power of the proof, and flung back at you.

TWELFTH PROOF

Come, my brother, who has come to his senses a little! I shall show you a further proof of the strength of all the eleven preceeding proofs. See this luminous Decree,²^ which descends from above and which everyone looks on in rapt atten­tion out of either wonder or veneration. The one with the thousand decorations has stopped by it and is explaining its meaning to everyone. The styles of the Decree so shine they attract every­one's appreciative gaze, and it speaks of matters so important and serious that everyone is com­pelled to give ear to them. For it describes all the qualities, acts, commands, and attributes of the one who governs this whole land, who made this palace, and exhibits these wonders. Just as there is a mighty stamp on the Decree as a whole, look! there is an inimitable seal on every line and every sentence, and, moreover, the meanings, truths, commands, and instances of wisdom it states are seen to be in a style particular to him, thus bear­ing the meaning of a stamp.

In Short: The Supreme Decree shows the Supreme Being as clearly as the sun, so that any­one who is not blind can see it.

My friend! If you have come to your senses,

25. The luminous Decree refers to the Qur'an, and the seal on it, to its miraculousness.

this is enough for now. If you have something to say, say it.

In reply, the obstinate man said: "I can only say this in the face of these proofs of yours: All praise be to God for I have come to believe. And I believe in a way bright as the sun and clear as daylight that this country has a single King of Perfection, this world, a Single Glorious Owner, this palace, a Single Beauteous Maker. May God be pleased with you, for you have saved me from my former obstinacy and foolishness. Each of the proofs you showed was sufficient to demonstrate the truth. But because with each successive proof, clearer, pleasanter, more agreeable, more lumi­nous, finer levels of knowledge, veils in acqain-tanceship, and windows of love were opened and revealed, I waited and listened."

Our story in the form of a comparison alluding to the mighty truth of Divine Unity and belief in God has now reached its conclusion.

Success and Guidance are from God alone.

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Belief in the Hereafter

In this section, we will summarize one hun­dredth part of the consequences of belief in the Hereafter, and the benefits accruing from it for felicity both in this world and the Hereafter. As for the benefits pertaining to life in the Hereafter, the clarifications given in the Qur'an of Miracu­lous Exposition leave no need for further explana­tion. We will therfore leave discussion of them to the Qur'an, and assign tff the Risale-i Nur the explanation of those benefits that pertain to happi­ness in this world. In a brief summary, we will set forth three or four of the hundreds of conse­quences of belief in the Hereafter for man's indi­vidual and social life.

The First: in contrast to other living beings, man is attached to the world as much as he is attached to his own household, and at the behest

of his nature, he cultivates serious relations with his fellow humans, just as he does with his own kith and kin. Just as he desires a temporary state of apparent permanence in this world, so too he desires a real permanence in an eternal realm with an ardour that borders on love. Just as he seeks to satisfy the need of his stomach for food, so too he is obliged by his nature to struggle to provide his intelligence, heart and spirit, each like a hungry stomach, with a form of food and nurture that is as wide as this world, and even extends as far as eternity. He has such desires and demands that nothing short of eternal bliss can satisfy him. As indicated in the Tenth Word, I once asked my imagination in my childhood: "Do you wish to be given a life lasting one million years and enjoy rule over the world, but afterwards to be cast into annihilation and nothingness? Or do you wish for a life that shall be eternal, but ordinary and trou­blesome?" I saw that it desired the secondhand sighed at the thought of the first. I said: "I wish for eternity, even if it be spent in Hell."

So if, then, the pleasures of this world cannot satisfy the imaginative faculty, which is a servant of the essence of man, then that most comprehen­sive essence is bound by its nature to seek a link with eternity.

While man is thus at the mercy of his mfinite wishes and hopes, and his capital is naught but an infinitesimal and partial will, joined to absolute indigence, belief in the Hereafter is so powerful, effective and rich a treasury for him, such a source of happiness and pleasure, such a succour and refuge, and such a means of consolation for the unending sorrows of the world, that if he were to spend his whole life in acquiring this fruit and benefit he would not have paid too high a price.

The second fruit of belief in the Hereafter, a benefit pertaining to individual life: This conse­quence of belief, already explained in the third Topic and in a footnote to A Guide For Youth, is of the utmost importance.

The most important anxiety facing every man in every age is the manner is which he, like his relatives and friends, will enter the place of execu­tion that is the graveyard. Wretched man, who is ready to sacrifice himself for even a single friend, imagines that thousands, or even millions or bil­lions, of his friends have been parted from him for eternity and sent to their execution, and this notion causes him a pain worse than the torment of Hell. While he is enmeshed in these thoughts, belief in the Hereafter comes, opens his eyes and lifts up the veil. "Look!" it says, and, looking with faith, he experiences a spiritual pleasure —a fore­taste of the pleasures of Paradise— and beholds his friends delivered from eternal death and decay, awaiting him joyfully in a luminous world. We curtail our discussion of this matter here, since it is adequately explained with various proofs else­where in the Risale-i Nur._:

The third benefit of belief in the Hereafter, also pertaining individual life: The superiority and high rank man enjoys with respect to other living beings is by virtue of his lofty qualities, comprehensive faculties, numerous modes of wor­ship and extensive areas of life and activity. Now man can acquire virtues such as aspiration, love, brotherliness and true humanity only in the measure and amount permitted by the brief present, caught between the past and the future, which are both non-existent, dead, and dark.

For example, man loves and wishes to serve the father, brother, wife, people and homeland that he did not know in the past and will not know in the future. It is very rare that he is able to show com­plete devotion and sincerity, and hence his virtues and accomplishments will correspondingly suffer. It is when man is about to fall from the rank of the highest among the animals to that of the low­est, when he is about to become the most wretched and inferior of them with respect to intelligence, that belief in.the Hereafter comes to his aid. It transforms his present time, narrow like the tomb, into a broad and expansive time that embraces both past and future, and displays to him a sphere of existence as vast as the world, or rather one that extends from pre-eternity to post-eternity. Knowing that his father will still be in a paternal relationship with him, even while in the Abode of Bliss and the Realm of Spirits; knowing that his brother will cherish fraternal feelings for him unto eternity; and knowing that his wife will be his best companion, even while in Paradise— knowing all this, he will love, respect, aid and cherish them. He will not make of the services he performs to strengthen his relations in that great and vast sphere of life, tools for the worthless concerns of this world, or the instruments of petty purposes and profit. Being thus guided to true devotion and proper sincerity, his moral accom­plishments and virtues will correspondingly in­crease and his humanity advance (according to the degree at which each man finds himself). The result will be that man, whose pleasures in life are less than those of a sparrow, becomes exalted above all of the animals, and becomes the select and fortunate guest in all of the universe and the most beloved and favoured slave of the universe's Owner. We will curtail here discussion of this consequence of belief in the Hereafter, since it too has been discussed with adequate proofs else­where in the Risale-i Nur.

The fourth benefit of belief in the Hereafter, one pertaining to the social life of man: the

following is a summary of the discussion of this consequence of belief contained in the Ninth Ray of the Risale-i Nur. It is only by virtue of belief in the Hereafter that children, who make up one fourth of humanity, can live in a truly human fashion and bear within them the potentialities of humanity. Otherwise, in order to forget and oblit­erate themselves and the painful anxieties to which they are subject, they will live an idle and childish life with their toys. For the death of chil­dren like himself all around him will leave such an effect on the sensitive mind of the child, on his poor heart that cherishes such hopes for the future and on his defenceless spirit, that his very life and intelligence will appear to the hapless child as an instrument of torment and torture. It is then that the lesson of belief in the Hereafter will enable him to feel joy and relief instead of the thoughts from which he wished to hide behind his toys, and he will say: "My brother or friend has now died, and become like a bird in Paradise. Thus he has more enjoyment and amusement than us. My mother too has died, but she has gone to God's mercy; she will again embrace me and love me in Paradise, and I will see my kind mother again." Saying this, he wil be able to live in a manner befitting humanity.

The aged, who make up another fourth of humanity can find consolation in the face of the impending extinction of their lives, their burial beneath the soil and the closing to them of their beautiful and well-loved world, only in belief in the Hereafter and in no other source. Were it not for this consolation, those compassionate and ven­erable fathers, those self-sacrificing and solicitous mothers, would suffer such disturbance of the soul and tumult of the heart that the world would become a desperate prison for them and life, a tortuous pain. But belief in the Hereafter tells them: "Do not fret. You have an eternal youth that is yet to come. A luminous and infinite life awaits you. You will be joyously reunited with the chil­dren and relatives you have lost. All of the good deeds you have performed have been kept for you; you will be rewarded for them." Belief in the Hereafter thus gives them such consolation and relief that if each of them is weighed down sud­denly by hundredfold dotage he will still not despair.

As for the young who make up one third of humanity, their passsions are in tumult and their tempestuous minds are often unquiet. If they lose belief in the Hereafter and fail to remember the torment of Hell, the property and honour of respectable people, the tranquillity and dignity of the weak and the old, all this will be endangered in the life of society. Sometimes a youth will destroy the happiness of a household for the sake of a minute of pleasure, and then suffer four or five years in prison for his crime, descending to the level of a wild beast.

If belief in the Hereafter comes to his aid, he will swiftly come to his senses. He will say to himself: "It is true that the spies of the govern­ment cannot see me and that I can hide from them, but the angels of that Glorious Monarch whose jail is Hell-fire see me and record all my evil deeds. I have: not been left to my own devices; rather I am a traveller entrusted with a certain mission   and duty. Moreover, I too willbecome old and weak like others." He will begin to feel compasión and respect for those he wished unjustly to attack. Since this matter too is set forth with various proofs elsewhere in the Risale-i Nur, we curtail our discussion of it here.

Another important segment of humanity is made up of the sick and the oppressed, of those like us who are poor, and who have suffered mis­fortune and been sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour.^[16] Were belief in the Hereafter not to come to their aid, the death that appears to them through the constant reminder of sickness, the arrogant treachery of the oppresssor upon whom they are unable to avenge themselves and from whom they are unable to protect their honour, the painful despair that comes from fruitlessly losing one's property.and offspring in great misfortunes, the gloomy affliction that arises from suffering the torment of five or ten years of prison for the sake of one or two minutes or hours of pleasure — all of this would of a certainty turn the world into a prison for those wretches, and life into a tortuous pain. But if belief in the Hereafter comes to their aid, they will breathe a deep sigh of relief; their affliction, despair, anxiety and desire for revenge will disappear either partialy or totally, in accordance with their degree of belief.

I can even say that if belief in the Hereafterhad not come to the aid of myself and some of my brothers, to tolerate for a single day this unjust imprisonment and appalling misfortune would have affected us as much as death itself and inclined us to resignation from life. But thanks be to God without limit that although I have suffered the pain endured in this misfortune by many of my brothers who are as dear to me a my own self; although I have suffered regret for thousands of copies of the Risale-i Nur and my precious gilded and ornamented books, weeping as they were destroyed; although in the past I could never swal­low the least insult or offence —- I can swear to you that the light and strength of belief in the Hereafter has endowed me with such patience and endurance, with such consolation and fortitude, indeed with such an ardent desire to win through struggle a still greater reward in this trial and test, that I consider myself to be in a fine and benefi­cial school that deserves the title of Josephian School.^[17] Were it not for occasional sickness and the nuisances arising from old age, I would work harder still on my teaching, with utter tranquillity of heart. This was a digression inspired by the present theme; may it be forgiven.

Now, the small world and even small Paradise of each person is his household. If belief in the Hereafter does not predominate in the happiness of that household, the members of the family will suffer painful anxieties and torment in accordance with their degree of affection, love and attach­ment. The Paradise will be turned into Hell. Or it may happen that man will seek to deaden his mind by recourse to transient pleasure and dissi­pation. Like the ostrich, who upon seeing the hunter is unable to flee and fly away, and hence buries his head in the sand to avoid being seen, he too will bury his head in neglect so that death, destruction and separation shall not see him. In lunatic fashion, he will seek a temporary remedy through the deadening of his senses. For a mother will constantly tremble on seeing her offspring, for whom she has sacrificed herself, exposed to danger. Similarly, children, unable to save their fathers and brothers from the misfortunes that always arise, continuously experience sorrow and fear. Thus family life that is thought to be happy may soon lose its happiness in the tumultuous and unstable conditions of the life of this world. The relationships and affinities of this brief life may fail to produce true devotion, genuine sincerity and disinterested love and willingness to serve, and thus noble characteristics decrease or even disappear.

But if belief in the Hereafter enters that house­hold, it will suddenly illumine it, and noble char­acteristics such as sincere respect, love, tender­ness, devotion and forebearance will prosper, for the relations and affinities, the love and affection, existing between the members of the household will no longer be measured by the brief life of this world, but rather by their continuance in the Here­after in a state of eternal bliss. Then the true hap­piness of humanity will begin to unfold in that household. Since this matter too has been set forth elsewhere in the Risale-i Nur with adequate proofs, we will curtail our discussion of it here.

Each city is similarly like a household for its inhabitants. If belief in the Hereafter does not pre­vail among the members of that vast household, the place of qualities which are the foundations of good character, such as sincerity, devotion, virtue, honour, self-sacrifice, contentment with God's decree, and desire for reward in the Hereafter, will be taken by evil qualities such a opportunism, par­tiality, wiliness, selfishness, hypocrisy, cunning, bribery, and deceit. Behind the mask of apparent tranquillity and humanity, the reality of anarchy and savagery will reign, and the life of the city will be poisoned. Children will become idle, young men will take to drunkenness, the strong will embrark on oppression, and the old will be left weeping.

Each country may in the same fashion be com­pared to a household: the fatherland is like a household populated by the family that is the nation. If belief in the Hereafter reigns in these great households, sincere respect, earnest compas­sion, disinterested love and helpfulness, pure ser­vice and intercourse, virtue and generosity without hypocrisy, greatness and loftiness without egoism, will begin to unfold in the land.

Belief in the Hereafter will say to the child: "There is Paradise; abandon your idleness," and impart seriousness to the child through the lesson of the Qur'an.

It will tell the young man: "There is Paradise; abandon your drunkenness," and bring him to his senses.

It will tell the oppressor: "Intense torment awaits you, and you will be beaten," and cause him to bow his head in submission to justice.

It will say to the aged: "Bliss in the Hereafter, and a new and eternal youth, more exalted and permanent than all the joys you have lost, await you; so strive to acquire these benefits," and thus turn their tears into laughter.

Belief in the Hereafter exercises an analogous bénéficient effect on all other classses, great or small, and illumines each member of them. The ears of sociologists and moralists who concern themselves with social life should now be ringing! If one deduces the remainder of the many thousand of benefits that are to be had from belief in the Hereafter from the five or six examples we have alluded to, then it will be still more clearly estab­lished that the cause of happiness in both worlds and both lives is this belief and nothing else.

Since the feeble doubts that occur to man with respect to the corporeality of resurrection have received powerful answers in the Twenty-Eighth Word and other sections of the Risale-i Nur, here we will make only the following brief reference to the subject.

The most comprehensive mirror of the Divine Names lies in corporeality, and the most complex and active locus of the Divine purpose inherent in the creation of the universe lies in corporeality. The most varied and multifarious of God's dominical bounties are to be found in corporeality; and the most numerous seeds of man's prayer and thanks to his Creator, expressed with the tongue of need, have also been sown in corporeality. Then too, the most varied seeds of the inner and spiri­tual worlds have been placed in corporeality.

It is because these and hundreds of similar uni­versal truths have been concentrated in corporeal­ity that the Wise Creator has, with swift and awe­some activity, clothed unceasing caravans of beings in bodies, in order to multiply corporeality on the face of the earth and make it manifest the above-mentioned truths. He despatches these cara­vans to this place of exhibition and then dismisses them, sending others in their place. He keeps the workshop of the universe in unceasing operation. Raising corporeal crops, He turns the land into a nursery of saplings for the Hereafter and for Para­dise. The fact that He brings forth most ingenious foods and precious gifts in infinite variety and manifold delicious form in order to satisfy the cor­poreal stomach of man, and to answer actively the prayer for sustenance which the stomach utters and to which He hearkens most earnestly — this fact shows, in the most obvious and indubitable form, that in the Hereafter the most plentiful and varied of pleasures shall be corporeal, and the most important and most desired and familiar of bounties shall also be corporeal.

Is it at all probable or even possible that one All-Powerful and All-Merciful, Omniscient and Generous should accept the prayer for sustenance uttered by the stomach and gratify it with an in­finite variety of miraculous and material food, thus answering its prayer consistently, intention­ally and deliberately —is it at all possible that having done this, He should not accept the univer­sal prayer of the generic stomach of humanity — the supreme result of creation, the Divine viceger­ent on earth, the chosen servant and worshipper of the Creator— for the continued bestowal in the Hereafter of those universal and exalted corporeal pleasures which man constantly desires and seeks out in accordance with his essential nature? Or that this prayer should not receive practical answer with the corporeal resurrection, or that man should not be eternally gratified? It would be like hearing the sound of a fly, and failing to hear the roar of thunder. It would be like paying the utmost attention to the equipment of an ordinary footsoldier, and neglecting completely a whole army. This is excluded and impossible to the hundredth degree. Yes,

There will be there all that the souls could desire, all that the eyes could delight in.^[18]

According to the unmistakable explicit sense of this verse, man will experience and taste, in a fashion appropriate to Paradise, the corporeal pleasures to which he is most accustomed and a specimen of which he has already received in this world. The reward for the sincere pronouncement of thanks and for the particular mode of worship engaged in by organs such as. the tongue, the eye and the ear, will be given in the form of pleasures suited to each organ. The Qur'an of Muraculous Exposition expounds corporeal pleasures in so explicit a fashion that it is impossible to refuse the outward sense by extracting other meanings.

The fruits and results of belief in the Hereafter show then that just as the nature and needs of the stomach, one of man's organs, demonstrate deci­sively the existence of food, so too the true nature of man, his perfection, natural needs and eternal desires, as well as the truths and potentialities inherent within him, which require the above-mentioned benefits and results of belief in the Hereafter — all of these indicate the Hereafter, Paradise and eternal corporeal pleasure, and bear witness to their future realization in still more decisive fashion. Then also the essential perfec­tions of the universe and its meaningful creational signs, and all of the truths connected with the aforementioned truths inherent in man— these demonstrate and bear witness to the exis­tence of the Hereafter, its future realization, the coming of resurrection, and the opening of the gates of Paradise and Hell. All of this has been established with numerous proofs and in so bril­liant a fashion as to leave no doubts in various sections of the Risale-i Nur, particularly in the Tenth, Twenty-Eighth and Twenty-Ninth Words, the Ninth Ray, and the Treatise on Supplication. We will leave discussion of the matter to those sections, and cut the long story short.

As for the declarations of the Qur'an concern­ing Hell, they are so clear and manifest as to leave no need for further clarification. There are, however, one or two feeble doubts which need to be refuted by two or three points. We will leave a detailed exposition of these points to other parts of the Risale-i Nur and set forth here only the briefest of summaries.

First Point: The thought of Hell, with the fear that it implies, does not negate the pleasures of the fruits of the belief just mentioned. For the infinite dominical mercy says to fearful man: "Come, enter by the gate of repentance." Then the existence of Hell will serve not to frighten you, but rather to communicate to you in full the pleasures of Paradise and to give you joy by see­ing yourself and innumerable other creatures, whose rights have been denied, avenged on your oppressors. If you sink in misguidance and are unable to emerge from it, still the existence of Hell is a thousand times better for you than eter­nal annihilation. Indeed, it is even a form of mercy towards the unbeliever. For men, as well as animals that produce young, gain joy through the joy and happiness of their relatives, offspring and friends, and thus become partially happy. O atheist! This being the case, because of your mis­guidance, you will either fall prey to eternal anni­hilation or enter Hell. Now as for annihilation, which is absolute evil, all your relatives and fam­ily whom you love, of whose joys you partake and who give you some share of happiness, will be annihilated together with you, and this will cause your spirit, your heart and your whole being to burn more intensely than will Hell-fire, For if there is no Hell, there is also no Paradise, and everything will fall prey to annihilation by virtue of your unbelief. But if you enter Hell, you will still remain in the sphere of being, and those whom you love and your relatives will either be blessed in Paradise, or at least partake of some degree of mercy by remaining within the sphere of being. In short, from every aspect of the matter, you ought to maintain the existence of Hell. To be against Hell means to be in favour of annihilation, in favour of the effacement of the blessedness of innumerable friends.

As for Hell, it is a most awesome and majestic region of the sphere of being, which is absolute good, and it fulfils the function of the wisely and

justly administered prison of the All-Wise Posses­sor of Glory. It has numerous functions in addi­tion to being a prison, and serves the world of eternity in various ways: it is, for example, the majestic dwelling place of many living creatures, such as the angels of Hell.

Second Point: The existence of Hell and its intense torment in no way contradicts the infinite mercy, the true justice and the balanced and per­fect wisdom of God. Indeed, it is precisely His mercy, justice and wisdom that require the exis­tence of Hell. For to punish the oppressor who tramples on the rights of a thousand innocent men, and to kill a savage beast that tears apart a hundred meek animals, is a form of mercy for oppressed beings, one exercised in all justice. By contrast, to forgive the oppressor and let the savage beast roam free would mean showing mercy to the criminal and mercilessness to hun­dreds of hapless creatures. So too, the unbeliever who enters the prison of Hell has, by virtue of his unbelief, transgressed against the rights of the Divine Names through his denial of them; he has transgressed against the rights of those beings who bear witness to the Names by his rejection of them; he has transgressed against the rights of those creatures who proclaim God's glory by his spurning their duty and function; and he has also transgressed against the rights of the whole cos­mos, by denying its function of reflecting and mirroring, by way of worship, the manifestation

of Divine dorainicality, which is the purpose of creation, and the cause of all being and its preser­vation. All this constitutes so grave a crime and offence that there can be no possibility of forgive­ness; and the sinner deserves the threat contained in the verse:

God forgives not [the sin] joining other gods with Him.⁴

Not to cast him into Hell-fire would be a mis­placed act of mercy to him, and multiple and in­finite mercilessness to those countless plaintiffs whose rights have been outraged. Those plaintiffs not only demand the existence of Hell, but also require that it should be most majestic and utterly awesome.

If some arrogant rebel oppresses the people and insults the dignity of a majestic judge by telling him, "You cannot put me in jail or make a prison for me," even if there is not a jail in that city, the judge will have one constructed for that shameless criminal and have him cast into it. So too, the absolute unbeliever insults the supreme majesty of God with his unbelief, challenges His ineffable power with his denial, and offends His perfect dominicality with his transgression. Even if Hell had not been created for various functions and numerous providential purposes, it would become incumbent on God's dignity and majesty to create Hell for such unbelievers and to cast them into it.

The very nature of unbelief in itself conveys an idea of the existence of Hell. In the same way that if the nature of faith were to take on external form, it would assume the shape of a miniature Paradise, together with all of its pleasures, thus implicity declaring the existence of Paradise, so too unbelief (and especially absolute unbelief), hypocrisy and apostasy contain within themselves such dark and awesome pains and inner torments that were they to take on outward form, they would become a private Hell for the apostate, thus implicitly declaring the existence of Hell. Just as the minute truths and realities sown in the seed­bed that is the world grow to maturity in the Hereafter, so too the poisonous seed of unbelief is the herald of the infernal tree of Zaqqum. "I am the substance from which Zaqqum is fashioned," it says, "and my fruit is a specimen of the tree of Zaqqum, destined for that luckless individual who bears me in his heart."

If unbelief constitutes transgression against innumerable rights it follows that it is a crime of infinite porportions, and that it is deserving of a punishment of similarly infinite proportions. If man's sense of justice is able to accept and regard as being in the public interest the penalty of fif­teen years' (or close to eight million minutes') imprisonment for a murder that takes but a min­ute, then it is in full conformity with justice that a minute of absolute unbelief, which is equivalent to one thousand murders, should be punished witha torment lasting almost eight billion minutes. Similarly, one who spends one year of his life in unbelief, will be deserving of a torment lasting almost two trillion, eight hundred and eighty bil­lion minutes, and the sense of God's words

They will dwell therein for ever^[19]

will be made manifest in him.

The miraculous explanations of Paradise and Hell contained in the Wise Qur'an, and the proofs of the existence of Paradise and Hell to be found in the Risale-i Nur, which is a commentary upon the Qur'an and derived from it, leave no need for further clarification.

They reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth, saying, "O our Sustainer! Indeed You have not created this in vain; Glory he unto You; and protect us from the torment of the Fire!"^[20] * O our Sustainer! Avert from us the torment of Hell; indeed its torment is a grie­vous affliction, and evil it is as a resting-place and abode.¹

The content of numerous verses such as the above, the frequent use by the Most Noble Mes­senger (Upon whom be peace and blessings) and all the prophets and people of the truth of phrases such as: Protect its from the Fire; deliver us from the Fire; save us from the Fire, in their prayers and their repetiton of the plea "Preserve us from Hell" because of certainty based on visible revela­tion — all of this shows that the greatest concern of man is to escape the torment of Hell. Hell is an imperious, majestic and awesome truth for all beings; some, the people of witnessing, uncover­ing and realization, observe it directly, and others perceive only its traces and shadows, and awe­struck by these, cry out "Deliver us!"

Yes, the opposition and interaction throughout the cosmos of good and evil, pleasure and pain, heat and cold, beauty and ugliness, guidance and misguidance, is inspired by great and wise pur­pose. Were there no evil, good could not be known. Were there no pain, pleasure could not be perceived. Were there no darkness, light would have no value. Degrees of heat can be established only by reference to cold. By means of ugliness, the essence of beauty, as well as its thousand degrees, comes into being. So too without Hell, many of the pleasures of Paradise would remain unknown, and in general it can be said that every­thing is made known by its opposite, and that from one truth, numerous truths blossom forth and emerge.

Now all of the complex phenomena that exist must depart from the transient realm for the realm of eternity. Things such as good, pleasure, light, beauty and faith are directed by their nature to Paradise, and harmful substances such as evil, pain,   darkness,   ugliness   and   unbelief   are discharged into Hell. The torrents that ceaselessly pour forth from all beings flow into these two pools, and come to rest there. We will curtail our discussion of this matter here, referring the reader to the points made at the end of the Twenty-Ninth Word.

O fellow pupils of mine in this Josephian school! An easy way to escape from the awesome and eternal prison of Hell is now made available to us. We may make use of our imprisonment in this world by seeking forgiveness for our past sins (being in any event compelled to refrain from committing new sins), by performing our funda­mental religious duties, by turning every hour of our life in prison into a day spent in worship, and thus come to save ourselves from eternal impris­onment and enter Paradise. If we squander this opportunity, we will weep both in this world and in the Hereafter; and the verse:

He has lost this world and the Hereafter*

will be like a blow descending upon us.

While these lines were being written the Festi­val of Sacrifice arrived, and it occurred to me, with absolute certainty, that the utterance of "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar" by one fifth of humanity; the proclamation of "God is Most Great!" by three hundred million people; the re-echoing of this sacred phrase —God is Most Great!— by the vast earth, in a manner pro­portionate to its size, as if to convey the cry to its companions, the planets traversing the heavens; the proclamation "God is Most Great!" at Arafat, on the day of the Festival, by more than twenty thousand pilgrims; the utterance and propagation of this great phrase —God is Most Great!— by the Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be peace and blessings), together with his Family and Com­panions, thirteen hundred years ago —it occurred to me that these manifold declarations of "God is Most Great!" are like an echo of the universal manifestation of the Divine dominicality that is proclaimed under the title of Sustainer of the Earth and Sustainer of All the Worlds, like a cos­mic response of worship and servitude to that manifestation.

It then occurred to me that this sacred phrase might have some connection with the topic we are discussing. Suddenly it crossed my mind that all the sacred phrases that are called "permanent good deeds," headed by God is Most Great! and including, Glory be to God! and All praise be to God! and There is no god but God! do indeed contain an indication of our topic and its realiza­tion. For example, one part of the meaning of God is Most Great! is that God's power and knowledge are greater than and exalted above everything. Nothing can leave the sphere of His knowledge, and nothing can escape or be deliv­ered from the grasp of His power. He is greater, too, than the greatest things that we fear, and greater than the resurrection he brings about, the salvation from annihilation he bestows upon us, and the eternal felicity with which he endows us. He is greater than every wondrous and incompre­hensible object or act, for according to the explicit meaning of the verse,

Your creation and your resurrection is but as a single soul,⁹

the gathering and resurrection of the whole human race is as easy for His power as the creation of a single soul. It is on account of this truth that when faced with great misfortunes and afflictions people repeat, as if it were a proverb, "God is Most Great! God is Most Great!" thus gaining consola­tion, fortitude and support.

In the Ninth Word it was shown that this phrase, together with its two companions is like the seed and the essence of the five daily prayers, which in turn are like an index of all the forms of worship. These three phrases occur within the prayers and in the recitations that follow them in order to emphasize and strengthen the sense of the prayers. They are, too, like powerful and convinc­ing answers given to the questions that arise in man as a result of the wonderment, pleasure and awe that he experiences from the numerous remarkable, beautiful and great phenomena that he beholds in the cosmos and induce those three states within him.

We explained, too, at the end of the Sixteenth Word, that just as on festive occasions an ordi­nary infantryman will enter the presence of a king together with a marshal, but grant him the respect due to his rank at all other times, so too during the Hajj, everyone becomes to some degree like the saints, and begins to know God by His titles of Sustainer of the Earth and Sustainer of All the Worlds. As those degrees of majesty begin to reveal themselves to his heart, he answers all the repeated and fervent questions that overwhelm his spirit simply by repeating "God is Most Great!"

At the end of the Thirteenth Flash, it was also explained that the decisive answer to be given to the most threatening stratagems of the Devil so as to cut them at the root is God is Most Great! so too the phrase All praise be to God! is a brief but convincing answer to any question about the Hereafter, and a pointer to resurrection. For it tells us:

"I have no meaning if there is no Hereafter. I convey this sense, that 'from whomever and to whomever praise and thanks have gone forth, from pre-eternity to post-eternity, all of it in real­ity belongs to Him.' The foremost of all bounties, that which makes of them true bounties and saves all conscious beings from the innumerable catas­trophes of annihilation, can therefore be none other than eternal felicity. It is also eternal felicity which corresponds to my general sense."

Now every believer says "All praise be to God! All praise be to God!" in obedience to sacred law, at least one hundred and fifty times a day. The phrase has the sense of an extensive, indeed infinite expression of thanks and praise, from pre-eternity to post-etemity, and is therefore like a price paid in advance, a fee offered in expectation, for eternal felicity and Paradise. It cannot in any way be restricted to the brief bounties of this world, which are stained and polluted with tran­sient pain. Rather thanks and praise are offered for them only insofar as they anticipate and are a bridge to eternal bounties.

As for the sacred phrase Glory be to God!, it means to proclaim God Almighty free from and exalted above the possession of a partner, defect, shortcoming, injustice, powerlessness-, merciless­ness, need, craftiness, and indeed all failings con­trary to His Glory, Beauty, and Perfection. Thus it points to eternal felicity, the Hereafter and Para­dise, because it is these that demonstrate the splendour of His Glory, Beauty, and perfect Sove­reignty: As already proven, if there was no eternal bliss, God's Sovereignty, Perfection, Glory, Beauty, and Compassion would be disfigured by the stain of defect and lack.

These three sacred phrases, together with other blessed phrases such as In the Name of God and There is no god but God are each like the core of one of the pillars of faith; they are the concen­trated form both of the pillars of faith and of the truths of the Qur'an, and thus resemble the con­centrated foods that have been invented in our time.

They are the seeds of the prayers, and of the Qur'an and appear like brilliants at the start of some of its Suras, and are also the true sources and foundation of the Risale-i Nur, many inspired sections of which begin with the proclamation of God's Glory, and are the seeds of its truths.

They are also the litanies prescribed by the Muhammadan Path (Upon its master be peace and blessings) in accordance with this sainthood, wor­ship and servitude of the Messenger, for recitation after the five daily prayers in a vast circle of remembrance that embraces more than one hun­dred thousand believers, repeating "Glory be to God!" "All praise be to God!" and "God is Most Great!" thirty-three times, while passing prayer-beads through their fingers.

You will now be able to understand of a cer­tainty how valuable and meritorious it is to repeat after the prayers thirty-three times each, those three blessed phrases which are the essence and substance of the Qur'an, of faith, and of the prayers, to repeat them, moreover, in so glorious a circle of remembrance.

In the same way that the First Topic that intro­duced this part of the Risale-i Nur provided a fine lesson concerning the prayers, its conclusion, without any thought or intention on my part, has

110 ? FRUITS FROM THE TREE OF LIGHT

come to be a valuable lesson concerning the reci­tations that follow the prayers.

Praise be to God for His bounties.

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

%       H^:

-IX-

The Necessity of Prayer

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

For such prayers are enjoined on believers at stated times.¹

One time, a man great in age, physique, and rank said to me: "The prayers are fine, but to per­form them every single day five times is a lot. Since they never end, it becomes wearying."

A long time after the man said these words, I listened to my soul and I heard it say exactly the same things. I looked at it and saw that with the ear of laziness, it was receiving the same lesson from Satan. Then I understood that those words were as though said in the name of all evil-commanding   souls,   or  else  they   had been prompted. So I said: "Since my soul commands to evil, one who does not reform his own soul can­not reform others. In which case, I shall begin with my own soul."

I said: O soul! Listen to Five Warnings in re­sponse to those words which you uttered in com­pounded ignorance, on the couch of idleness, in the slumber of heedlessness.

FIRST WARNING

O my wretched soul! Is your life eternal, I won­der? Have you any incontrovertible document showing that you will live to next year, or even to tomorrow? What causes you boredom is that you fancy you shall live for ever. You complain as though you will remain in this world to enjoy yourself eternally. If you had understood that your life is brief and that it is departing fruitlessly, it surely would not cause boredom, but excite a real eagerness and agreeable pleasure to spend one hour out of the twenty-four on a fine, agreeable, easy, and merciful act of service which is a means of gaining the true happiness of eternal life.

SECOND WARNING

O my stomach-worshipping soul! Every day you eat bread, drink water, and breathe air; do they cause you boredom? They do not, because since the need is repeated, it is not boredom they cause, but pleasure. In which case, the five daily prayers should not cause you boredom, for they attract the needs of your companions in the house

of my body, the sustenance of my heart, the water of life of my spirit, and the air of my subtle facul­ties. Yes, it is by knocking through supplication on the door of One All-Compassionate and Munif­icent that sustenance and strength may be obtained for a heart afflicted with infinite griefs and sor­rows and captivated by infinite pleasures and hopes. And it is by turning towards the spring of mercy of an Eternal Beloved through the five daily prayers that the water of life may be imbibed by a spirit connected with most beings, which swiftly depart from this transitory world crying out at separation. And being most needy for air in the sorrowful, crushing, distressing, transient, dark, and suffocating conditions of this world, it is only through the window of the prayers that the conscious inner sense and luminous subtle faculty can breathe, which by its nature desires eternal life and was created for eternity and is a mirror of the Pre-Eternal and Post-Eternal One and is infinitely delicate and subtle.

THIRD WARNING

O my impatient soul! Is it at all sensible to think today of past hardships of worship, difficul­ties of the prayers, and troubles of misfortune, and be distressed, and to imagine the future duties of worship, service of the prayers, and sorrows of disaster, and display impatience? In being thus impatient you resemble a foolish commander, who, although the enemy's right flank joined his right flank and became fresh forces for him, sent a significant force to the right flank, and weak­ened the centre. Then, while there were no enemy soldiers on the left flank, he sent a large force there, and gave them the order to fire. No forces remained at the centre, and the enemy understood this, and attacked it and routed him.

Yes, you resemble this, for the troubles of yes­terday have today been transformed into mercy; the pain has gone while the pleasure remains. The difficulty has been turned into blessings, and the hardship into reward. In which case, you should not feel wearied at it, but make a serious effort to continue with a new eagerness and fresh enthu­siasm. As for future days, they have not yet arrived, and to think of them now and feel bored and wearied is a lunacy like thinking today of future hunger and thirst, and starting- to shout and cry out. Since the truth is this, if you are reason­able, you will think of only today in connection with worship, and say: "I am spending one hour of it on an agreeable, pleasant, and elevated act of service, the reward for which is high and whose trouble is little." Then your bitter dispiritedness will be transformed into sweet endeavour.

My impatient soul! You are charged with being patient in three respects. One is patience in wor­ship. Another is patience in refraining from sin. And a third is patience in the face of disaster. If you are intelligent, take as your guide the truth apparent in the comparison in this Third Warning. Say in manly fashion: "O Most Patient One!", and shoulder the three sorts of patience. If you do not squander on the wrong way the forces of patience Almighty God has given you, they should be enough to withstand every difficulty and misfor­tune. So hold out with those forces!

FOURTH WARNING

O my foolish soul! Is this duty of worship with­out result, and is its recompense little that it causes you weariness? Whereas if someone was to give you a little money, or to intimidate you, he could make you work till evening, and you would work without slacking. So is it that the prescribed prayers are without result, which in this guest­house of the world are sustenance and wealth for your impotent and weak heart, and in your grave, which will be a certain dwelling-place for you, sustenance and light, and at the Resurrection, when you will anyway be judged, a document and patent, and on the Bridge of Sirat, over which you are bound to pass, a light and a mount? And are their recompense little? Someone promises you a present worth a hundred dollars, and makes you work for a hundred days. You trust the man who may go back on his word and work without slack­ing. So if One for Whom the breaking of a prom­ise is impossible, promises you recompense like Paradise and a gift like eternal happiness, and employs you for a very short time in a very agree­able duty, if you do not perform that service, or you act accusingly towards His promise or slight His gift by performing it unwillingly like someone forced to work, or by being bored, or by working in half-hearted fashion, you will deserve a severe reprimand and awesome punishment. Have you not thought of this? Although you serve without flagging in the heaviest work in this world out of fear of imprisonment, does the fear of an eternal incarceration like Hell not fill you with enthusiasm for a truly light and agreeable act of service?

FIFTH WARNING

O my world-worshipping soul! Does your lax-ness in worship and remissness in the prescribed prayers arise from the multiplicity of your worldly occupations, or because you cannot find time due to the struggle for livelihood? Were you created only for this world that you spend all your time on it? You know that in regard to your abilities you are superior to all the animals but in regard to procuring the necessities of worldly life you can­not even compete with a sparrow. So why can you not understand that your basic duty is not to labour like an animal, but to strive for a true, per­petual life, like a true human being. In addition, the things you call worldly occupations mostly do not concern you, and are trivial matters which you confuse and meddle in officiously. You neglect the essential things and pass your time in acquir­ing inessential information as though you were going to live for a thousand years. For example, you squander your precious time on worthless things like learning what the rings around Saturn are like, and how many chickens there are in

America. As though you were becoming an expert in astronomy or statistics...

If you say: "What keeps me from the prayers and worship and causes me to be lax is not unnecessary things like that, but essential mat­ters like earning a livelihood," then my answer is this: if you work for a daily wage of one hundred kurush, and someone comes to you and says: "Come and dig here for ten minutes, and you will find a brilliant and an emerald worth a hundred liras." If you reply: "No, I won't come, because ten kurush will be cut from my wage and my sub­sistence will be less," of course you understand what a foolish pretext it would be. In just the same way, you work in this orchard for your live­lihood. If you abandon the obligatory prayers, all the fruits of your effort will be restricted to only a worldly, unimportant, and unproductive liveli­hood. But if you spend the rest periods on the prayers, which allow your spirit to relax and your heart to take a breather, then you will discover two mines which are an important source, both for a productive worldly livelihood, and your live­lihood and provisions for the Hereafter.

First Mine: Through a sound intention, you will receive a share of the praises and glorifica­tions offered by all the plants and trees, whether flowering or fruit-bearing, that you grow in the garden.^[21]

Second Mine: Whatever is eaten of the gar­den's produce, whether by animals or man, cattle or flies, buyers or thieves, it will become like almsgiving from you. But on condition you work in the name of the True Provider and within the bounds of what He permits, and see yourself as a distribution official giving His property to His creatures.

So see what a great loss is made by one who abandons the prescribed prayers. What significant wealth he loses, and he is deprived of those two results and mines which would otherwise cause him to work eagerly and ensure his morale was strong; he becomes bankrupt. Even, as he grows old, he will grow weary of gardening and lose interest in it, saying, "What is it to me? I am any­way leaving this world, why should Tput up with this much difficulty?" He will sink into idleness. But the first man says: "I shall work even harder at both worship and licit activities in order to send more abundant light to my grave and procure more provisions for my life in the Hereafter."

In Short: O my soul! Know that yesterday has left you and as for tomorrow, you have nothing to prove that it will be yours. In which case, know that your true life is the present day. So throw at least one of its hours into a mosque or prayer-mat, a coffer for the Hereafter like a reserve fund, set up for the true future. And know that for you and for everyone each new day is the door to a new world. If you do not perform the prayers, your

world that day will depart dark and wretched, and will testify against you in the World of Simili­tudes. For everyone, every day, has a private world out of this world, and its nature is depen­dent on the person's heart and actions. Like a splendid palace reflected in a mirror takes on the colour of the mirror, if it is black, it appears black, and if it is red, it appears red. Also it takes on the qualities of the mirror; if the mirror is smooth, it shows the palace to be beautiful, and if it is not, it shows it to be ugly. As it shows the most delicate things to be coarse, so you alter the shape of your own world "with your heart, mind, actions, and wishes. You may make it testify either for you or against you. If you perform the five daily prayers, and through them you are turned towards that world's Glorious Maker, all of a sudden your world, which looks to you, is lit up. Quite simply as though the prayers are an electric lamp and your intention to perform them touches the switch, they disperse the world's darkness and show the changes and movements within the confused wretchedness of worldly chaos to be a wise and purposeful order and a meaningful writing of Divine power. They scatter one light of the light-filled verse,

God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth³

over your heart, and your world on that day is illuminated through the light's reflection. It will cause it to testify in your favour through its lumi­nosity.

Beware, do not say: "What are my prayers in comparison with the reality of the prayers?", because like he seed of a date-palm describes the full-grown tree, your prayers des­cribe your tree. The difference is only in the sum­mary and details; like the prayers of a great saint, the prayers of ordinary people like you or me, even if they are not aware of it, have a share of that light. There is a mystery in this truth, even if the conscious mind does not perceive it... but the unfolding and illumination differs according to the degrees of those performing them. However many stages and degrees there are from the seed of a date-palm to the mature tree, the degrees of the prayers and their stages may be even more numer­ous. But the essence of that luminous truth is present in each degree.

O God! Grant blessings and peace to the one who said: "The five daily prayers are the pil­lar of religion," and to all his Family and Companions.

-X -

The Transience of Life

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

And what are the goods of this world but the goods of deception?¹

[A slap for the heedless and a warning lesson]

O my wretched soul sunk in heedlessness, which sees this life as sweet, has forgotten the Hereafter, and seeks only this world! Do you know what you resemble? An ostrich! It sees the hunter, but cannot fly, so sticks it head in the sand so the hunter will not see it. Its bulky body remains in the open, and the hunter sees it. Only, its eyes are closed in the sand and it cannot see him. O my soul, consider the following compari­son, and see it!

Restricting one's view to this world transforms a great pleasure into a grievous pain. For example, there are two men in this village, that is, in Barla. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of the friends of one of them have gone to Istanbul, where they are liv­ing in fine fashion. Only one has remained here, and he too will go there. For this reason, the man longs for Istanbul and thinks of it; he wants to join his friends. When he is told to go there, he is overjoyed and goes happily. As for the second man, ninety-nine of his friends have departed from here. But some have perished, and some have been put in places where they neither see nor are seen. He imagines that they have departed and disappeared in utter misery. This wretched man becomes friendly with a single guest .in place of all of them, and wants to find consolation. Through him he wants to forget that grievous pain of separation.

O my soul! Foremost God's Beloved, and all your friends, are beyond the grave. The one or two who remain will also depart for there. So do not be frightened of death, anxious at the grave, and avert your head. Look manfully at the grave, and listen to what it seeks. Laugh in death's face like a man, and see what it wants. Beware, do not be heedless and resemble the second man.

O my soul! Do not say, "The times have changed, this age is different, everyone is plunged into this world and worships this life. Everyone is drunk with the struggle for livelihood." For death

does not change. Separation is not transformed into permanence and does not become different. Man's impotence and poverty does not change, it increases. Man's journey is not cut, it becomes faster.

Also, do not say, "I am like everyone else." For everyone befriends you only as far as the grave. And the consolation of being together with others in disaster has no meaning beyond the grave. And do not suppose yourself to be free and indepen­dent. For if you look at this guest-house of the world with the eye of wisdom, you will see that nothing at all is without order and without pur­pose. How can you remain outside the order and be without purpose? Events in the world like earthquakes are not the playthings of chance. For example, you see that the extremely well-ordered and finely embroidered shirts, one over the other and one within the other, which are clothed on the earth from the species of animals and plants, are adorned and decked out from top to bottom with purposes and instances of wisdom, and you know that the earth revolves and is turned like an ecstatic Mevlevi in perfect order within most exalted aims. How is it then, as an atheist pub­lished, they suppose the death-tainted events of the earth, like the earthquake,^[22] which resembles the earth's shaking off itself the weight of certain forms of heedlessness of which it disapproves from mankind, and especially from the believers,

to be without purpose and the result of chance? How is it that they show the grievous losses of all those stricken to be without recompense and to have gone for nothing, and cast them into a fear­some despair? They are both making a great error and perpetrating a great wrong. Indeed, such events, occur at the command of One All-Wise and All-Compassionate, in order to transform the transient property of the believers into the equiva­lent of alms, and make it permanent. And they are atonement for the sins arising from ingratitude for bounties. Just as a day will come when this subju­gated earth will see the works of man which adorn its face to be tainted by the attributing of partners to God and not being the cause of thanks, and it will find them ugly. At the Creator's com­mand, it will wipe them off its entire face and cleanse it. At God's command, it will pour those who attribute partners to God into Hell, and say to those who offer thanks: "Come and enter Paradise!"

- XI -

The Requirements of Belief

In His Name, be He glorified.

[An extract from a letter written to some students of the Risale-i Nur at Istanbul Univer­sity.]

At the end of The Staff of Moses, there is the answer I gave to the question of one of our broth­ers, Küçük Ali, small in name but great in spirit. Read it, for some critics said to him, in an effort to belittle the Risale-I Nur, "Everyone knows God; the common man believes in God just like the saint." They wished in this way to present the exalted, valuable, and most essential discussions contained in the Risale-i Nur as superfluous. Now top in Istanbul, with a still more destructive inten-

tion, some hypocrites of anarchist persuasion, who have fallen prey to utter unbelief, wish cunningly to deprive everyone of the truths of the faith that are contained in the Risale-i Nur and are as essen­tial to man as bread and water. They say: "Every nation and every individual knows God; we have no great need for new instruction in this matter."

To know God, however, means to have certain belief in His dominicality encompassing all beings, and in all things, particular and universal, from the atoms to the stars, being in the grasp of His power, action, and will; it means believing in the truths of the sacred words, "There is no god but God," and assenting to them with one's heart.

For simply to say, "God exists," and then to divide His kingdom among causes and Nature and attribute it to them; to recognize causes as sources of authority, as if —God forbid— they were part­ners to God; to fail to perceive His will and knowledge as present with all things; to refuse to recognize His strict commands, and to reject His attributes, and the messengers and prophets He has sent — this has nothing to do with the reality of belief in God. Rather the person who does all this, and says "God exists," does so only in order to find some relief from the torment he suffers in the world after his unbelief has made it a hell for him. Not to deny is one thing; to believe is some­thing completely different.

No being endowed with consciousness, in the whole universe, can indeed deny the All-Glorious

THE REQUIREMENTS OF BELIEF ? 127

Creator to Whom every particle of existence bears witness. Or if he does make such a denial, he will be rebuffed by all of creation, and hence become silent and diffident.

But believing in Him is, as the Qur'an of Mighty Stature informs us, to assent in one's heart to the Creator with all of His attributes and Names, supported by the testimony of the whole universe; to recognize the messengers He has sent and the commands He has promulgated; and to make sincere repentance and feel genuine regret for every sin and act of disobedience. Conversely, to commit every kind of sin, and then never to seek pardon for it or concern oneself with it, is a sure sign of the absence of any element of faith.

Thus my spritual offspring, an important event has become the occasion for a brief exposition of a long and complex matter.

Àn Illuminating Proof of Divine Unity

After my return from captivity, I was living together with my nephew Abdurrahman in a villa on the hill at Çamlıca in Istanbul. From the point of view of worldly life, my situation could have been thought to be the most happy for people like us. For I had been saved from being a prisoner-of-war and in the Darii'l-Hikmet we were being suc­cessful in propagating knowledge in the most ele­vated way suitably to my profession, the learned profession. The honour and esteem afforded me was far greater than my due. I was living in Çam­lıca, the most beautiful place in Istanbul. Every­thing was perfect for me. I was together with the late Abdurrahman, my nephew, who was extremely intelligent and self-sacrificing, and was both my student, and servant, and scribe, and spir­

itual son. But then, knowing myself to be more fortunate than anyone else in the world, I looked in the mirror and I saw grey hairs in my hair and beard.

Suddenly, the spiritual awakening I had experi­enced in the mosque in Kosturma while in captiv­ity recommenced. As a result, I began to study the circumstances and causes to which I felt geniune attachment and which I supposed were the means to happiness in this world. But whichever of them I studied, I saw that it was rotten; it was not worth the attachment; it was deceptive. Around that time, I suffered an unexpected and unimagin­able act of disloyalty and unfaithfulness at the hands of a friend whom I had supposed to be most loyal. I felt disgust at the world. I said to myself: "Have I been altogether deceived? I see that many people look with envy at our situation, which in reality should be pitied. Are all these people crazy, or is it me that has gone crazy so that I see all these worldly people as such?"

Anyway, as a result of this severe awakening caused me by old age, first of all I saw the transi-toriness of all the ephemeral things to which I was attached. And I looked at myself, and I saw myself to be utterly impotent. So then my spirit declared, which desires immortality and was addicted to ephemeral beings imagining them to be immortal: "Since I am a transient being with regard to my body, what good can come of these ephemeral things? Since I am powerless, what can

I await from these powerless things? What I need is one who is Eternal and Enduring, one who is Pre-Eternal and All-Powerful, who will provide a remedy for my ills." And I began to search.

Then, before everything, I had recourse to the learning I had studied of old, I began to search for a consolation, a hope. But unfortunately, up to that time I had filled my mind with the sciences of philosophy as well as the Islamic sciences, and quite in error, had imagined those philosophical sciences to be the source of progress and means of illumination. However, those philosophical matters had greatly dirtied my spirit and been an obstacle to my spiritual development. Suddenly, through Almighty God's mercy and munificence, the sacred wisdom of the All-Wise Qur'an came to my assistance. As is explained in many parts of the Risale-i Nur, it washed away and cleansed the dirt of those philosophical matters.

For instance, the spiritual darknesses arising from science and philosophy plunged my spirit into the universe. Whichever way I looked seek­ing a light, I could find no light in those matters, I could not breathe. And so it continued until the instruction in Divine Unity given by the phrase "There is no god but He" from the All-Wise Qur'an dispersed all those layers of darkness with its brilliant light, and I could breathe with ease. But relying on what they had learnt from the peo­ple of misguidance and philosophers, my soul and Satan attacked my reason and my heart. All thanks be to God, the ensuing debate with my soul resulted in the victory of my heart. Those exchanges have been described in part in many parts of the Risale-i Nur. And so, deeming them to be sufficient, here I shall explain only one proof out of thousands in order to show one thou­sandth part of that victory of the heart. In this way it may also cleanse the spirits of certain eld­erly people which have been dirtied in their youth, and their hearts sickened and souls spoilt, by matters which though called Western philo­sophy or the sciences of civilization, are in part misguidance and in part trivia. And through Divine Unity, they may be saved from evil of Satan and the soul. It is as follows:

My soul said in the name, of science and philo­sophy: "According to the nature of things, the beings in the universe intervene in other beings. Everything looks to a cause. The fruit has to be sought from the tree and seed from the soil. So what does it mean to seek the tiniest and least insignificant thing from God and to beseech Him for it?"

Through the light of the Qur'an, the meaning of Divine Unity then unfolded in the following way: like the greatest thing, the tiniest and most partic­ular proceeds directly from the power of the Creator of the whole universe and emerges from His treasury. It cannot occur in any other way. As for causes, they are merely a veil. For in regard to art and creation, sometimes the creatures we suppose to be the smallest and least important are greater than the largest creatures. Even if a fly is not of greater art than a chicken, it is not of lesser art. In which case, no difference should be made between great and small. Either all should be divided between material causes, or all should be attributed at once to a single Being. And just as the former is impossible, the latter is necessary and imperative.

For if beings are attributed to a single Being, that is to a Pre-Eternal Ail-Powerful One, since His knowledge, the existence of which certain by reason of the order and wisdom in all beings, encompasses everything; and since the measure of all things is determined in His knowledge; and since observedly beings which are infinitely full of art continuously come into existence from noth­ing with infinite ease; and since in accordance with innumerable powerful evidences that All-Knowing All-Powerful One is able to create any­thing whatever through the command of 'Be! and it is' as simply as striking a match, and as is explained in many parts of the Risale-i Nur and proved particularly in the Twentieth Letter and at the end of the Twenty-Third Flash, He possesses unlimited power — since this is the case, the extraordinary ease and facility which we observe arises from that all-encompassing knowledge and vast power.

For example, if a special solution is applied to a book written in invisible ink, that huge book sud­denly demonstrates its existence visibly and makes itself read. In just the same way, the partic­ular form and appointed measure of everything is determined in the all-encompassing knowledge of the Pre-Eternal AU-Powerful One. Through the command of 'Be!' and it is and with that limitless power of His and penetrating will, like spreading the solution on the writing, the Absolutely All-Powerful One applies a manifestation of: His power to the being which exists as knowledge and with utter ease and facility gives it external exis­tence; He displays and makes read the embroid­eries of His wisdom.

If all things are not all together attributed to that Pre-Eternal AU-Powerful One, the One Knowing of All Things, then as well as having to gather together in a particular measure from most of the varieties of beings in the world the body of the tiniest thing like a fly, the particles which work in that tiny fly's body will have to know the mysteries of the fly's creation and its perfect art in all its minutest details. For as all the intelligent agree, natural causes and physical causes cannot create out of nothing. In which case, if they do create, they will gather the being together. And since they will gather it together, whatever ani­mate being it is, there are within it samples of most of the elements and most of the varieties of beings, for living creatures are quite simply like a seed or essence of the universe, it will of course be necessary for them to gather together a seedfrom the whole tree and an animate being from the whole face of the earth sifting them through a fine sieve and measuring them with the most sen­sitive balance. And since natural causes are ignor­ant and lifeless, and have no knowledge with which to determine a plan, index, model, or pro­gramme according to which they can smelt and pour the particles which enter the - immaterial mould of the being in question, so they do hot dis­perse and spoil its order, it is clear how far it is from possibility and reason to suppose that, with­out mould or measure, they can make the particles of the elements which flow like floods remain one on the other in the form of an orderly mass with­out dispersing, for everything has a single form and measure amid possibilities without calculation or count. For sure, everyone who does not suffer from blindness in his heart will see it. Yes, as a consequence of this truth, according to the mean­ing of the verse,

Those on whom you call besides God cannot create [even] a fly, if they all met together for the purpose^[23]'^[24]

if all material causes were to gather together and if they possessed will, they could could not gather together the being of a single fly and its systems and organs with their particular balance. And

even if they could gather them together, they could not make them remain in the specified measure of the being. And even if they could make them remain thus, they could not make those minute particles, which are constantly being renewed and coming into existence and working, work regularly and in order. In which case, self-evidently, causes cannot claim ownership of things. That is to say, their True Ower is some­one else.

Indeed, their True Owner is such that, accord­ing to the verse,

Your creation and your resurrection is as a single soul,³

He raises to life all the living beings on the face of the earth as easily as He raises to life a single fly. He creates the spring as easily as He creates a single flower. For He is no need of gathering things together. Since He is the owner of the com­mand of 'Be!' and it is; and since every spring He creates from nothing the innumerable⁷attributes, states, and forms of the innumerable beings of spring together with the elements of their physical beings; and since He determines the plan, model, index, and programme of everything in His knowledge; and since all minute particles are in motion within the sphere of His knowledge and power, He therefore creates everything with infi­nite ease as though striking a match. Nothing at

all confuses its motion so much as an iota. Minute particles are like a regular, well-ordered army in the same way that the planets are an obedient army.

Since they are in motion relying on that pre-eternal power, and function in accordance with the principles of that pre-eternal knowledge, those works come into existence in accordance with the power. They therefore cannot be deemed insignifi­cant by considering their unimportant personali­ties. For through the strength of being connected to that power, a fly can kill off a Nimrod, and an ant can destroy the Pharaoh's palace, and the min­ute seed of the pine bears on its shoulder the bur­den of the pine-tree as tall as a mountain. We have proved this truth in numerous places in the Risale-i Nur: just as through his enrolment in the army and being connected to the king, an ordinary soldier can take another king prisoner, exceeding his own capacity a hundred thousand times, so too, through being connected to pre-eternal power, all things can manifest miracles of art exceeding the capacity of natural causes hundreds of thou­sands of times.

In short, the fact that the existence of all things is with both infinite art and infinite ease shows that they are the works of a Pre-Eternal All-Powerful One possessing all-encompassing knowledge. Oth­erwise, it would not be coming into existence with a hundred thousand difficulties, but leaving the bounds of possibility and entering those of impos­sibility, nothing at all could come into existence, indeed, their coming into existence would be impossible and precluded.

And so, through this most subtle, powerful, profound, and clear proof, my soul, which had been a temporary student of Satan and the spokes­man for the people rjf misguidance and the philo­sophers, was silenced, and, all praise be to God, came to believe completely. It said:

Yes, what I need is a Creator and Sustainer Who possesses the power to know the least thoughts of my heart and my most secret wishes; and like He will answer the most hidden needs of my spirit, will transform the mighty earth into the Hereafter in order to give me eternal happiness, and will remove this world and put the Hereafter in its place; and will create the heavens as He creates a fly; and as He fastens the sun as an eye in the face of the sky, can situate a particle in the pupil of my eye. For one who cannot create a fly cannot intervene in the thoughts of my heart and cannot hear the pleas of my spirit. One who can­not create the heavens, cannot give me eternal happiness. In which case, my Sustainer is He Who both purifies my heart's thoughts, and like He fills and empties the skies with clouds in an hour, will transform this world into the Hereafter, make Paradise, and open its doors to me, bidding me to enter.

And so, my elderly brothers who as a result of misfortune, like my soul, have spent part of their lives on lightless Western materialist philosophy and science! Understand from the sacred decree of "There is no god but He" perpetually uttered by tongue of the Qur'an, just how powerful and true and unshakeable and undamagable and unchang­ing, sacred a pillar of belief it is, and how it dis­perses all spiritual darkness and cures all spiritual wounds!

It is as though my including this .long story among the doors of hope of my old age was invol­untary. I did not want to include it, indeed, I held back because I thought it would be tedious. But I may say that I felt compelled to write it. Anyway, to return to the main topic.

In consequence of grey hairs appearing in my hair and beard and of a loyal friend's unfaithful­ness, I felt a disgust at the pleasures of Istanbul's worldly life which was so glittering and superfi­cially agreeable and gilded. My soul searched for spiritual pleasures in place of the pleasures with which it was infatuated. It wanted a light, a solace, in this old age, which in the view of the heedless is cold, burdensome, and disagreeable. All praise be to God and a hundred thousand thanks, just as I found true, lasting, and sweet pleasures of belief in "There is no god but He" and in the light of Divine Unity in place of all those false, disagreea­ble, fleeting worldly pleasures, so through the light of Divine Unity, I saw old age which in the view of the heedless is cold and burdensome to be most light, and warm, and luminous.

0 elderly men and women! Since you have belief and since you pray and offer supplications which illuminate and increase belief, you can regard your old age as eternal youth. For through it you can gain eternal youth. The old age which in truth is cold, burdensome, ugly, dark, and full of pain is the old age of the people of misguid­ance, indeed, their youth as well. It is they who should weep with sighs and regrets. While you, respected believing elderly people, should joyfully offer thanks saying: "All praise and thanks be to God for every situation!"

-xm-

The Enemies of Aspiration

Question: What is the reason for our falling into the pit of apathy?

The Answer: Life consists of activity and motion, and eagerness and enthusiasm are the mount which you ride through your life. When your aspiration is seated on this mount and emerges into life's arena of combat, the first determined enemy it encounters is despair. Despair will attempt to break its morale, so wield the sword of,

Do not despair^[25]

against that enemy. Then the tyrannical force of personal ambition will attack, seeking to usurp the place of disinterested service to God. It will strike a blow at the head of aspiration, and throw it down from its mount. Send the truth of:

THE ENEMIES OF ASPIRATION ? 141

Be for God^[26]

against this enemy. Then haste will emerge, urg­ing you to leap over the succession of intertwined causes, and cause the foot of your aspiration to slip. Make of,

Be patient, vie with each other in patience, and strengthen each other^[27]

a shield against this enemy. Next you will be con­fronted by individualism and self-centredness, something which defeats the wishes of man; for he is by nature a social being and bound both to observe the rights of his fellow-beings and to seek the fulfilment of his own rights among them. Send out to combat against it that champion of high aspiration,

The best of men is the one most useful to his fellowsA

Then adherence to mere routine, taking advan­tage of the laziness of others, will attack and seek to paralyze aspiration. Make the impregnable fortress of,

Upon God, and none other, let them place their trust, whoever so wills^[28]

a shelter for your aspiration. Next comes the treacherous foe of abandoning tasks to others, a habit arising from weakness and lack of self­

confidence; taking your aspiration by the hand, it will invite it to sit and be rested. Send out the luminous truth of,

The one who has gone stray cannot harm you once you are guided arighft

against this enemy, so that its hand will be unable to reach the skirt of your aspiration. Then comes the irreligious enemy that would interfere with the performance of God's work; he will seek to strike aspiration in the face, and to pluck out is eye. Send against it the long-labouring and conscien­tious truth of,

Be steadfast, as you have been commanded.¹ * And conspire not against your master

so that he is brought up short. Next comes the mother of all trouble, the source of all.evil, which is the desire for ease and tranquillity. It tries to bind aspiration and cast it into the dungeon of lowliness. Send against that bewitching but heart­less enemy, the champion of lofty fame that is,

Man possesses nothing naught save that which he strives.^[29]

For it is in toil that true tranquillity is to be found, for the ease of man, an unquiet being by nature, is to be found only in striving and struggle.

*  ^  %

An Appreciation of the Book

Received with many grateful thanks are the copies of the July-August 'The Nur Magazine' and 'Fruits From the Tree of Light,' the latter of which is very well translated in appropriate and beautiful English and the selections from the Risale-i Nur well chosen. Only a genuine saint whose heart is iUuminated with the light of Faith could write like this, the passages have great beauty and spiritual depth and their eloquence is capable of moving the heart of any reader except those with a heart as hardened as stone. Some passages are strongly reminiscent of the writings and preaching of the great Sufi saint, Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani.

It is my humble opinion that Bediuzzaman Said Nursi alone of all the leaders for Islamic regenera­tion of this century, can rank with the great Mus­lim saints of the past. From what I have read about his life and his writings, his spritual stature appears superior over all other of his contempo­rary leaders for Islamic revival in the Arab world

and Indo-Pakistan sub-continent, however sincere, earnest and valuable their intentions and efforts. He combines in his venerable person all the quali­ties of a true saint, mujaddid and mujahid at once. Thus the legacy of his selfless life and works can­not be restricted to Turkey or the Turks, but must become common property shared by Muslims eve­rywhere throughout the world.

The great strength of Bediuzzaman was his knowledge of his limitations and realistic assess­ment of the plight in which Muslims now find themselves. Unlike other contemporary leaders for Islamic revival, he did not formulate grandiose plans for a "universal Islamic political, economic and social order" which had no chance of being implemented in the foreseeable future at a time when the majority of so-called "Muslim?" rulers persecute Believers ruthlessly, and as a result of the social corruption, the imposition of an alien atheistic educational system, and the mass-media from whose harmful effects it is impossible for parents to protect their innocent and defenceless children, there does not exist today a single Islamic state, community, society, or even a totally Islamic family group anywhere. When the majority of Muslim youth have ceased to practise Islam and enthusiastically, blindly and uncritically embrace Westernism, it is meaningless to talk of the "Muslim world," the "Muslim Bloc," or "Mus­lim Unity."

Bediuzzaman had the wisdom and foresight to

AN APPRECIATION OF THE BOOK O 145

realize that to enter the arena of active politics in such an atmosphere as this would be futile and fruitless. He realized that the mere capturing of political power would not suffice to bring about an Islamic renaissance. He knew that political rev­olution, which can speedily be nullified by a counter-coup d'etat, and thus result only in more violence, anarchy and oppression, was not the Way. He had the wisdom to avoid a rigid, inflexi­ble, centralized organization, for the latter can eas­ily be banned by the dictator in power, its leaders jailed, executed or assassinated, its offices sealed and its literature proscribed and that is the end of it. By establishing the fruits of his works and preachings on the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Turks, this movement could not be banned nor could the propagation of its teachings be stopped even by the most oppressive despotism.

The methods of the Nursi movement are thus superbly adapted to working among the people in varied walks of life under the despotism and tyranny which has become the fact of almost all the "Muslim" countries today. In constrast to other Islamic movements elsewhere it has proved its ability to flourish in a hostile environment. It is no exaggeration to claim that whatever Islamic faith remains in Turkey is due to the tireless and the selfless efforts of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.

He realized that the most crucial necessity of modern man was a moral and spritual outlook on life, and that what Muslim youth need above all

else is conversion from the materialistic to a spiri­tual outlook on life. The Risale-i Nur is devoted to this end and compared with other contemporary Islamic movements which have either been suppressed by those in power, become inactive or ineffective, it has achieved, by the help and grace of Almighty God, impressive success. _:

MARYAM JAMEELAH

Lahore, Pakistan September, 1975.

*     *     s£

Who was

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and what is the Risale-i Nur?

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was born in eastern Turkey in 1877 and died in 1960 at the age of eighty-three after a life of exemplary struggle and self-sacrifice in the cause of Islam. He was a scholar of the highest standing having studied not only all the traditional religious sci­ences but also modern science and had earned the name Bediuzzaman, Wonder of the Age, in his youth as a result of his outstanding ability and learning.

Bediuzzaman's life-time spanned the final decades of the Caliphate and Ottoman Empire, its collapse and dis­memberment after the First World War, and, after its formation in 1923, the first thirty-seven years of the Republic, of which the years up to 1950 are famous for the government's repressive anti-Islamic and anti-religious policies.

Until the years following the First World War, Bediuzzaman's struggles in the cause of Islam had been active and in the public domain. He had not only taught many students and had engaged in debate and discus­sion with leading scholars from all over the Islamic world, but he had also commanded and led in person a volunteer regiment against the invading Russians in

148 ? WHAT IS THE RISALE-I NUR?

eastern Turkey in 1914 for nearly two years until taken prisoner. Furthermore, up to that time he had sought to further the interests of Islam by actively engaging in public life. However, the years that saw the transition from empire to republic also saw the transition from the 'Old Said' to the 'New Said'. The 'New Said^? was char­acterized by his withdrawal from public life and concen­tration on study, prayer and thought, for what was required now was a struggle of a different sort.

Although he had paid no part in it, and in fact had strongly advised its leaders to abandon their uprising against the government, during the events in eastern Turkey of 1925, Bediuzzaman was sent into exile in western Anatolia. Following this, for the next twenty-five years, and to a lesser extent for the last ten years of his life, he suffered nothing but exile, imprisonment, harassment and persecution by the authorities. But these years of exile and isolation saw the writing of the Risale-i Nur, the Treatise of Light, and its dissemination throughout Turkey. To quote Bediuzzaman himself, "Now I see clearly that most of my life has been directed in such a way, outside,my own free-will, abil­ity, comprehension and foresight, that it might produce these treatises to serve the cause of the Qur'an. It is as if all my life as a scholar has been spent in preliminaries to these writings, which demonstrate the miraculousness of the Qur'an."

Bediuzzaman understood an essential cause of the decline of the Islamic world to be the weakening of its very foundations, that is, a weakening of belief in the basic tenets of the Islamic faith. This, together with the unprecedented attacks on those foundations in the 19th and 20th centuries carried out by materialists, atheists and others in the name of science and progress, led him to realize that the urgent and overriding need was to strengthen, and even to save, belief. What was needed was to expend all efforts to reconstruct the edifice of Islam from its foundations, belief, and to answer at that level those attacks with a 'non-physical jihad' or 'jihad of the word.'

Thus, in his exile, Bediuzzaman wrote a body of work, the Risale-i Nur, that would explain and expound the basic tenets of belief, the truths of the Qur'an, to modern man. His method was to analyse both belief and unbelief and to demonstrate, through clearly reasoned arguments that not only is it possible, by following the method of the Qur'an, to prove rationally all the truths of belief, such as God's existence and unity, prophet-hood, and bodily resurrection, but also that these truths are the only- rational explanation of existence, man and the universe.

Bediuzzaman thus demonstrated in the form of easily understood stories, comparisons, explanations, and rea­soned proofs that, rather than the truths of religion being incompatible with the findings of modern science, the materialist interpretation of those findings is irra­tional and absurd. Indeed, Bediuzzaman proved in the Risale-i Nur that science's breathtaking discoveries of the universe's functioning corroborate and reinforce the truths of religion.

The importance of the Risale-i Nur cannot be over­estimated, for through it Bediuzzaman Said Nursi played a major role in preserving and revitalizing the Islamic faith in Turkey in the very darkest days of her history. And indeed its role has continued to increase in impor­tance to the present day. But further to this, the Risale-i Nur is uniquely fitted to address not only all Muslims but indeed all mankind for several reasons. Firstly it is written in accordance with modern man's mentality, a mentality that, whether Muslim or not, has been deeply imbued by materialist philosophy: it specifically answers all the questions, doubts and confusions that this causes. It answers too all the 'why's' that mark the questioning mind of modern man.

Also, it explains the most profound matters of belief, which formerly only advanced scholars studied in detail, in such a way that everyone, even those to whom the subject is new, may understand and gain something without it causing any difficulties or harm.

A further reason is that in explaining the true nature and purpose of man and the universe, the Risale-i Nur shows that true happiness is only to be found in belief and knowledge of God, both in this world and the here­after. And it also points out the grievous pain and unhappiness that unbelief causes man's spirit and con­science, which generally the misguided attempt to block out through heedlessness and escapism, so that anyone with any sense may take refuge in belief.

TO CONCLUDE:

The Holy Qur'an addresses the intellect as well as man's other inner faculties. It directs man to consider the universe and its functioning in order to learn its true nature and purposes as the creation and thus to learn the attributes of its Single Creator and his own duties as a creature. This, then, is the method that Bediuzzaman employed in the Risale-i Nur. He explained the true nature of the universe as signs of its Creator and demon­strated through clear arguments that when it is read as such all the fundamentals of belief may be proved rationally.

When this method is followed, a person attains a true belief that will be sound and firm enough to withstand any doubts that may arise in the face of the subtle attacks of Materialism, Naturalism and atheism, or the materialist approach to scientific advances. For all sci­entific and technological advances are merely the uncovering of the workings of the cosmos. When the cosmos is seen to be a vast and infinitely complex and meaningful unified book describing its Single Author, rather than causing doubt and bewilderment, all these discoveries and advances reinforce belief, they deepen and expand it.

Man's most fundamental need is the need for relig­ion, the need to recognize and worship Almighty God with all His Most Beautiful Names and attributes, and to obey His laws; those manifest in the universe and those revealed through His prophets. In explaining the message of the Qur'an, Almighty God's final Revealed Book, brought and perfectly expounded by His final Prophet, Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace), and Islam, the complete and perfected religion for mankind, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi demonstrated in the Risale-i Nur that there is no contradiction or dichot­omy between science and religion; rather, true progress and happiness for mankind can, and will, only be achieved in this way, the way of the Qur'an.

Sozler Publications

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[1]This alludes to man, the fruit of the tree of creation, and to the fruit which bears its tree's prgramme and index. For whatever the pen of power has written in the great book of the universe, it has written its summary in man's nature. And whatever the pen of Divine Determining has written in a tree the size of a mountain, it has also included it in its fruit the size of a finger nail.

[2]This indicates the face of the earth in the spring and summer. For the groups of hundreds of thousands of different creatures are created one within the other and written there. They are changed without fault or error and with perfect order. Thou­sands of tables of the Most Merciful One are laid out, then removed and replaced by fresh ones. All the trees as though bear trays, all the gardens are like cauldrons.

[3]These are the caravans of plants and trees, which bear the sustenance of all the animals.

[4]The mighty electric lamp indicates the sun.

[5]And the string, and the food attached to it, are the slender branches of trees and their delicious fruits.

[6]And the two small pumps allude to the breasts of mothers.

[7]As for the elements and minerals, these indicate the ele­ments of air, water, light, and earth, which have numerous well-ordered duties; they hasten to the assistance of all needy beings with dominical leave, enter everywhere and bring help at the Divine command, and raise all the things necessary for life and suckle living creatures, and are the source of the weaving and inscribing of the Divine artefacts, and are their progenitors and cradles.

[8]The thickish string alludes.to fruit-bearing trees, the thou­sands of strings, to their branches, and the diamonds, decora­tions, favours, and gifts, to the varieties of blossoms and fruits.

[9]The jar of conserve indicates the gifts of Divine mercy like melons, water melons, pomegranates, and coconuts, which are the conserves of Divine power, and like tins of milk.

[10]Fifteen days indicates the age of fifteen, the age of discre­tion.

[11]The tables indicate the face of the earth in summer, during which hundreds of tables of the Most Merciful emerge fresh and different from the kitchens of Mercy. Every garden is a cauldron, every tree, a tray-bearer.

[12] The ship indicates history, and the peninsula, the Era of Bliss or Age of the Prophet(PBUH). Through casting off the dress of this low civilization on its dark shore, entering the seas of time, boarding the ship of history and alighting at the Arabian Peninsula and Era of Bliss, and visiting the Glory of the World (PBUH) at his duties, we know that he is a proof of Divine Unity so brilliant that he illuminates the entire globe and the two faces of the past and the future, and disperses the darkness of unbelief and misguidance.

[13]The thousand decorations are the miracles of Muhammad (PBUH), which according to those who have investigated them, reach nearly a thousand.

[14]The important lamp is the moon, which split into two halves at his indication. That is, as Mawlana Jami said: '•"With the pen of his finger, that unlettered one who knew no writing, wrote an alif on the page of the skies and made one forty, two fifties." That is, before it split, the moon resembled mini, the value of which is forty; and after splitting it became two cres­cents, and resembled two mm's, the value of which is fifty.

[15]The huge light is the sun; when it reappeared on the earth's revolving backwards, Imam AM (May God be pleased with him), who had been unable to perform the prayers since the Prophet (PBUH) was sleeping in his arms, due to this miracle, was able to perform the prayers on time.

[16]At the time these lines were written in 1944, Bediuzzaman was imprisoned, in Denizli, awaiting trial on various false charges. [Tr.]

[17]An allusion to the beneficial imprisonment of Joseph (Upon whom be peace) after the false accusation made by the wife of the Pharaoh. [Tr.]

[18]Quran. 43:71.

[19]Qur'an, 93:8.

[20]Qur'an, 3:191. .7. Qur'an, 25:65.

[21]