Allahu Akbar [God is the Greatest]*
In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate
We say God is the greatest for the following reasons:
- He is incomparably greater than all things, for He is the All-Powerful, Who is powerful over all things through His infinite Power. He creates everything, without exception, with the same ease: Your creation and raising from the dead are the same as creating and raising a single soul (31:28). He can create a giant star, a whole, and a species as easily as He can create a minute particle, a part, and an individual.
- He is the All-Knowing, Who knows all things through the limitless knowledge essential to Him as the Divine Being. Nothing escapes Him, as He is present everywhere. The comprehensive wisdom, all-embracing favor, and all-encompassing consciousness; the decrees putting all things in exact order; and the fruitful ordinances and measurements, appointed hours, regular provision, mercy of universal diversity, firm and magnificent organization, and exact care, all of which are witnessed throughout the whole universe, testify to the Almighty’s all-encompassing Knowledge: Should He Who creates not know? (67:14).
- His Will includes all things. While there was infinite number of probabilities for the universe and its contents to assume a certain form, it was arranged in the present order according to exact measures. Like a tree with leaves, blossoms, and fruits, all well-ordered creatures were created of simple, inanimate elements. All this bears witness to the Almighty’s all-encompassing Will and demonstrates that whatever He wills is, and whatever He does not will is not.
- He is the Eternal “Sun,” and this universe shows only a shadow of His lights, manifestations of His Names, and imprints of His acts.
- He is incomparably greater than all things. He is the Eternal Sovereign. All worlds are at His disposal in absolute dependence on the order and measure He has established.
- He is the Eternal Ruler. He ordered the universe through the laws of His usual way of acting, the prescripts of His Destiny and Decree, the precepts of His Will and Wisdom, the requirements of His Favor and Mercy, and the manifestations of His Names and Attributes. What we call laws (of nature) are but manifestations of His Knowledge, Command, and Will on all species.
- He is the Eternal Maker, Who has created and founded this macrocosm (the universe) and this microcosm (humanity). His stamp is on the foreheads of both, nay, on each part of both.
- He is the Eternal Designer. This universe consists of the lines of the “pen” of His Destiny and Decree, the designs of the “compasses” of His Wisdom, the fruits of the diffusion of His Mercy, the decorations of the “bright hand” of His Favoring, the flowers of the dispensations of His Munificence, and the rays of the manifestations of His Grace.
- He is the Eternally Powerful. This universe consists of the miracles of His Power, which testify that He is powerful over all things. Nothing has been (or is) able to escape His Power’s dominion, in relation to which a minute particle and the sun are the same.
- He is the Creator, Originator, and Fashioner for Whom are the Beautiful Names. All heavenly objects are shining proofs of His Divinity and Grandeur, and radiating witnesses of His Lordship and Splendor.
- He is the Creator of all things, the Provider of all living beings, the Giver of bounties to all in need of bounty, the Merciful in both worlds. Our master Muhammad and Paradise are works of His comprehensive Mercy. He is the Lord and Sustainer of all things, Who rears, trains, and maintains all things.
- He is the Fashioner of all things, the One Who has ordered this world and controls all things.
- He is exalted high above human comprehension, and absolutely free of incompetence and defect.
- He is incomparably greater than all things, for He is the greatest, Most High, Most Beautiful, the Best because of Himself, and the Most Grand and Most Majestic by Himself.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
*From The Seedbed of Light / The Fourth Treatise / Third Chapter