The Twenty-sixth Word

Divine Destiny and Decree and human free will

Addendum

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

(This addendum is very important and benefits everyone.)

There are many ways to Almighty God. All true ways have been derived from the Qur’an, but some are safer, more comprehensive, and direct than others. The way I have derived from the Qur’an depends upon our perception and admission of our innate impotence or helplessness and poverty before God’s Might and Riches, and upon affection and reflection.

This way is as sure as the way of love, or even safer, for it elevates you so as to be loved by God on account of your sincere devotion to Him. Your perception and admission of your impotence leads you to the Divine Name the All-Merciful. Affection is more effective than love and leads to the Name the All-Compassionate. Reflection is brighter and more comprehensive than love, and leads to the Name the All-Wise. This way does not resemble the way of those Sufi orders that have developed a ten-step method to purify and sharpen their members’ ten outer and inner senses or faculties, and that prefer silent recitation and invocation. Neither does it resemble those orders that practice public recitation and seek to purify their members from all defects contained in the soul’s seven stations. Let it not be misunderstood. Our way means and demands the sincere admission of one’s innate impotence and poverty and one’s sinfulness before God; it does not mean making show of one’s impotence, poverty and sinfulness before people.

Our way consists of four steps and is the truth (haqiqa), rather than a Sufi way (tariqa). It is the Shari‘a. Its fundamental principles consist in following the Sunna, performing the religious obligations, avoiding the major sins, performing the Prescribed Prayers properly and carefully, and saying words of praise, glorification, and exaltation of God after every Prayer. The steps are as follows:

• The first step is expressed by: Do not justify and hold yourselves pure (53:32)
• The second step is indicated by: Be not like those who are oblivious of God—and so He has made them oblivious of their own selves (59:19)
• The third step is pointed to by: Whatever good happens to you is from God; whatever evil befalls you is from yourself (4:79)
• The fourth step is shown by: Everything is perishable (and so perishing) except His Face (and His good pleasure) (28:88).

The following is a brief explanation of these four steps.

FIRST STEP: We should never regard ourselves as infallible and sinless. As humans, we love ourselves first on account of our nature and innate disposition. We love our own selves before all else, so much so that we sacrifice anything for ourselves. We praise ourselves as if praising an object of worship, and hold ourselves free of faults and defects. We do our utmost in order not to ascribe any faults to us, and defend ourselves so passionately that it is as if we deify our selves. We exploit the faculties given to us for praising and thanking God by using them to glorify ourselves and resemble him who is mentioned in: who has taken his lusts and fancies for his deity (25:43). We praise, rely on, and admire ourselves. To be purified of such attitudes, we should never hold ourselves pure; instead, we should regard ourselves as fallible and susceptible to error.

SECOND STEP: As the verse: Be not like those who are oblivious of God— and so He has made them oblivious of their own selves teaches, we are oblivious and unaware of ourselves. We do not want to remember death, while we always consider others mortal. We hold back when confronting hardship and rendering service, but believe that you should be the first one rewarded when it is time to collect the wages. Purifying ourselves at this step involves carrying out our responsibilities, being prepared for death, and forgetting ourselves when it comes to pleasures, ambitions and collecting wages.

THIRD STEP: As the verse: Whatever good happens to you is from God; whatever evil befalls you is from yourself teaches, our evil-commanding soul always ascribes good to itself and feels conceited. In reality, we should perceive our defects, insufficiency, impotence and poverty and then thank and praise God for whatever good we can do and whatever virtue we have. According to the meaning of: He is indeed prosperous who has grown it in purity (91:9), our purification at this step consists of knowing that our perfection lies in confessing our imperfection, our power in perceiving our helplessness, and our wealth in accepting our essential poverty and inadequacy.

FOURTH STEP: As the verse: Everything is perishable except His Face (and His good pleasure) teaches, the carnal, evil-commanding soul considers itself completely free and existent in its own right. It even claims Lordship for itself and harbors hostile rebelliousness against its Creator, the All-Worshipped. We can save ourselves from this perilous situation only by perceiving the truth that everything, with respect to its own self, is essentially non-existent, contingent, ephemeral, and mortal. But in respect of being like a letter in a word to signify something other than itself, and in respect of being a mirror reflecting the All-Majestic Maker’s Names and entrusted with various duties, it is existent, experiencing and experienced.

Here, we can purify ourselves by perceiving that our existence lies in acknowledging our essential non-existence. Considering ourselves self-existent, we fall into the darkest pit of non-existence. In other words, relying on our personal existence and thus ignoring the Real Creator causes our ephemeral, firefly-like personal existence to be drowned in the infinite darkness of non-existence. But if we abandon pride and egoism and recognize that we are only a mirror in which the Real Creator manifests Himself, we attain to infinite existence. One who discovers the Necessarily Existent Being, the manifestations of Whose Names cause all things to come into existence, is counted as having found everything.

Conclusion

This way is the method of recognizing our innate impotence and poverty, as well as that of affection and reflective thought. This four-stage way leads to its objective rapidly, since it is the easiest and most direct way. Recognizing our incompetence or impotence leads us to be freed from our evil-commanding soul’s influence and rely on the All-Powerful One of Majesty alone. Love, regarded as the quickest route, can lead to the true Beloved only after we have directed our love to Him and love others on account of Him. This method is safer than other ways, for it enables us to recognize our limits, and find within us nothing other than impotence, poverty and defects, and it saves us from high-flown claims.

This way is a main highway, very broad and more universal, for it allows us to attain a constant awareness of God’s presence without denying or ignoring the universe’s actual existence, as demanded by the followers of the Way of the Unity of Being (Wahdatu’l-Wujud) or the Unity of the Witnessed (Wahdatu’sh-Shuhud), respectively. Instead, it admits the universe’s actual existence, as proclaimed in the Qur’an, but it ascribes it directly to the All Majestic Creator. It admits that all things consist in the manifestations of Divine Names, devoted to His service, and are charged with being mirrors reflecting them. It saves from heedlessness by allowing us to travel to Him through everything, by making us always aware of His presence.

In short, this way considers beings as neither existent nor working on their own behalf; rather, it states that beings function as signs and officials of God, the All-Mighty.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi