THE SEVENTH STEP: The earthly animals and birds

 

 

Then, as that curious traveler, whose journey of reflection becomes more pleasurable with every step, returns from the garden of spring with a bouquet of knowledge of God and belief, itself like a spring, the gateway to the realm of earth’s animals and birds open before their truth-perceiving mind and intellect, which has by this time acquired knowledge of God to a certain degree. With hundreds of thousands of different voices and various tongues, they summon the traveler inside. Entering, they see that all the species, groups and nations of the animals and birds of the earth are pronouncing: “There is no deity but He,” both verbally and in the language of mute eloquence of their disposition, turning the earth into a vast assembly for the proclamation of God’s Unity and the mentioning of Him by His Names. The traveler sees that they are describing their Maker and praising Him as if each is an ode dedicated to Him as the Lord, a word which glorifies Him or a letter that indicates His mercy. It is as if the senses, powers, members and instruments of these animals and birds are graceful, rhythmical, well-proportioned words, or perfect and orderly expressions. The traveler observes three great and comprehensive realities which indicate decisively that they offer thanks to their Creator and Provider and testify to His Unity.

THE FIRST REALITY: Animals and birds are brought into existence from nothing with wisdom, they are created and fashioned with complete artistry and perfect knowledge and given life in a way that displays in twenty aspects the manifestation of knowledge, wisdom and will—all of this, which occurs in such a way that it cannot be attributed to chance, testifies to the Necessary Existence, the Seven Essential Attributes, and the Unity of the All-Living, Self-Subsistent One—a testimony that is based on as many proofs as there are living beings.

THE SECOND REALITY: In the distinction of facial features which exists among these infinite beings, in their adorned forms, and in their perfectly calculated numbers and well-ordered fashioning, there appears a truth so magnificent and powerful that it is absolutely impossible and inconceivable for anyone other than the One Who has absolute Power and Knowledge to be able to achieve such a comprehensive act, an act that displays thousands of wonders and instances of wisdom in every respect.

THE THIRD REALITY: Each of the hundreds of thousands of species of these innumerable animals and birds is given in the most orderly and proportionate fashion and without the least error, a distinctive face and form— a miracle of wisdom—that emerges from eggs and drops of fluid called sperm, which are identical to or closely resemble one another. This is so brilliant a reality that it is illuminated by as many different proofs as there are animals and birds in existence.

Through the consensus of these three realities, all the species of animals testify together that “There is no deity but He.” It is as if the whole earth, like a vast human being, were saying “There is no deity but He,” in a manner commensurate with its vastness, and conveying its testimony to the inhabitants of the heavens. The traveler sees this and understands it perfectly. As an expression of these realities, it was said in The Seventh Step of The First Station:

There is no deity but God, the Necessarily Existent One, Whose Necessary Existence in His Unity is demonstrated clearly by all the species of the earth’s animals and birds, which praise God and bear witness to Him with the measured, well-proportioned and fluent words of their senses, powers, and faculties, and with the perfect and eloquent words of their members, limbs, and organs. This is testified to by the sublimely comprehensive, vast and perfect reality of purposeful inventing, making, and originating, by the reality of purposeful distinguishing and adorning, and by the reality of wise determining, identifying, and fashioning, all of which are clearly observable. It is also decisively indicated by the fact that each of these animals and birds is given a well-ordered, different, and distinctive form that emerges from similar or seemingly identical eggs and drops of fluid, all of which are finite and limited.

Said Nursi