The Thirtieth Word
Second aim
This Aim is about the motion and transformation of atoms as well as their duty.
In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
The unbelievers say: “The Hour will not come upon us.” Say: “No indeed, by my Lord—and He is the Knower of the Unseen—it most certainly will come upon you.” Not an atom’s weight of whatever there is in the heavens or in the earth escapes Him, nor is there anything smaller than that, or greater, but it is in a Manifest Book.” (34:3)
In this Aim, I point to a gem of only an atom’s weight from this verse’s great treasure. It consists of an introduction and three points.
INTRODUCTION: The transformations of atoms are their vibrations and circulations while the Pen of the Eternal Inscriber’s Power writes creation’s signs in the book of creation. They are not games of chance or random and meaningless motions, as materialists and naturalists assume. For each atom, like all of creation and with the tongue appropriate to its disposition, says: “In the Name of God” when it starts to move. It does so because it bears loads that infinitely exceed its strength. For example, a grain-sized seed shoulders a load the size of a huge pine tree. After completing its duty, it says: “All praise and gratitude are for God.” For by exhibiting a wise beauty of art, as well as meaningful and subtle ornament, that amaze all minds, it has displayed a work of art like an ode in praise of the All-Majestic Maker. Look carefully at pomegranates and ears of corn, for example.
Indeed, the transformations of atoms are their motions and meaningful circulations caused by Divine Power’s transcribing “words of Power” from the Manifest Book onto the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation, which is the reality and, metaphorically, a page of the stream of time. The Manifest Book is a title for Divine Power and Will, Which operate in the present time and the corporeal world to create things. Divine Power’s transcription of Its words—all things and events—from the Manifest Book onto the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation or on the page of time takes place according to the dictates and principles of the Manifest Record,170 which is a title for Divine Knowledge and Command and secures the harmonious arrangement of things coming from the realm of the Unseen with their seeds and roots and their future progeny.
FIRST POINT: This Point consists of two matters.
First matter: In each atom, through its motion and rest, two lights of Divine Unity shine like two suns. For if each atom were not acting under God’s authority and with His permission, if it were not undergoing change within His Knowledge and Power, it would have to possess infinite knowledge and limitless power, as well as eyes to see and an authority to command everything, for each atom acts in an orderly fashion within the body of all living beings.
The order within things and the rules of their formation differ from one to the other. If each thing’s specific order is unknown, acting within it is impossible. If we suppose that acting is possible, acting without error would be impossible. Since we observe a perfect order and harmony in each animate being’s body, either those atoms of which it is made up or which act in it have an all-encompassing knowledge and power, or someone with infinite knowledge and power is using them under his irresistible will and command.
Each air atom can enter every living being’s body, every flower’s fruit, and every leaves’ structure, and can act within them. However, each of these things has a different formation and a unique order. If a fig may be likened to a textile mill or a pomegranate to a sugar factory, the programs of these fruits (or those factories’ structures) differ from each other. Despite such structural differences, an air atom can enter all of them, assume the appropriate position, and act in a wise and lordly fashion without error. Thus a mobile air atom must know the forms, shapes, measures, and formations of whatever it enters, or must be acting under the command and will of one who has that all-encompassing knowledge.
This also is true of an apparently motionless soil atom. Each soil atom has the capacity to be the means and place of cultivation for each plant and tree seed, for any seed can find therein whatever it needs to germinate and grow. Therefore, either that soil must contain functioning mechanisms that can adapt to any number of such species, or its atoms must have a marvelously comprehensive knowledge and miracle-working power that creates everything from nothing. Alternatively, those duties must be performed at the command, with the permission, and through the power and might of an all-knowing and all-powerful one.
If an untrained and inexperienced blind person entered an industrial city and performed so excellently in each trade and craft that everyone was speechless, who could doubt that that person was being taught and employed by a master of all trades and crafts? Or say that another crippled and blind person, rendered helpless by his or her disability, lived in a small house. People see small fragments of stone and bits and pieces of material like bone and cotton go in, and sacks of sugar, rolls of cloth, boxes of jewelry, finely made bejeweled clothes, delicious foods, and so on come out of it. The only logical conclusions would be that that person was just the doorkeeper of some extraordinary miracle-working being, and that he or she had as little share in those products as the factory’s lock.
In the same way, the motion and functions or service of air atoms in these living objects, each of which is a letter from the Eternally Besought, a precious work of the Lord’s art, a miracle of His Power, and a marvel of His Wisdom, tells us that those atoms are acting according to the Command and Will of an All-Majestic, All-Wise Maker, an All-Gracious, All-Munificent Originator. Likewise, soil atoms are the place and means of cultivation for seeds to grow into young plants and tall trees. Each tree is a unique factory and workshop, a unique printing press and treasury, a unique precious object and declaration proclaiming the All-Majestic Maker’s Names. It is also like a unique ode singing a hymn to His perfections. These soil atoms tell us that they are acting under the Command and through the Power of an All Majestic Maker Who owns the command, “Be! and it is,” and to Whose Command everything is subject.
Second matter: This is a brief indication of the functions and instances of wisdom in the motion of atoms. Materialists, whose reason is limited to what they receive through their five senses, consider the trans formations of atoms random and coincidental, and yet they base their approaches and ideas on and attempt to explain all existence with these random and coincidental movements. But how can that which has no consciousness (let alone meaning and purpose) create existence, which over flows with instances of wisdom and purpose?
According to: There is nothing but it glorifies Him with His praise (36:82), and many other similar verses, the transformations of atoms are based on various purposes and duties and demonstrate many instances of wisdom. We will mention some of these purposes by way of illustration.
First: Through His Power, the All-Majestic Originator moves and uses atoms. He takes each spirit as a model and, renewing and refreshing the manifestations of His acts of creating, annually clothes it with a fresh body. Also, He miraculously copies out countless books from each book of creation through His Wisdom, shows one truth in ever-differing forms, and prepares the ground and makes ways for beings, worlds, and universes to follow each other.
Second: The All-Majestic Master of all dominion created this world, especially its surface, in a way that allows cultivation to flourish and produce ever-fresh crops so that He might sow and reap His Power’s countless miracles. Thus, by causing atoms with wisdom to move and employing them in order in His field of the earth, He continuously displays a new form of the universe through miracles of His Power and makes His field produce ever-differing crops. Through the atoms’ movement, He demonstrates gifts from His Mercy’s infinite treasury and samples of His infinite Power’s miracles.
Third: The Eternal Inscriber causes atoms to move with perfect wisdom and employs them with perfect order so that, in order to set forth the manifestations of His Names by displaying their limitless embroideries, He may exhibit infinite inscriptions in a finite arena and write endless signs, which will express limitless meanings, on a small page. Although this year’s crops are like those of last year in respect of their nature, their meanings are different. As their relative determinations and identifications have changed, they display many different meanings. They are almost the same in form, structure, and appearance, but in truth they are renewed annually. Though they are ephemeral in respect of their material existence, their beautiful meanings are preserved, constant, and permanent.
Since a tree’s leaves, blossoms, and fruits have no spirit, they are the same every spring both in meaning and in appearance. But as they are formed anew each spring, a tree repeatedly comes to leaf, blossoms through the years, and yields fruit to show the meanings of the acts of the Divine Names, Whose manifestations are renewed constantly.
Fourth: In order to produce things like crops or items for decoration or provision appropriate for the most broad World of the Inner Dimensions of Things and the World of Ideal Forms or Representations, and endless worlds of the Hereafter, the All-Wise One of Majesty sets atoms moving in the narrow tillage of this world, in the workshop and field of the face of the earth, and keeps the cosmos continuously moving and its beings circulating. From His Power’s infinite treasury, He causes an endless flow into the World of the Unseen, and some of it enters the worlds of the Hereafter.
Fifth: The All-Mighty causes atoms to move through His Power and with perfect wisdom, and uses them with perfect order, to display infinite Divine perfection, endless manifestations of His Grace and Majesty, and countless glorifications of His Lordship in this limited material field and in a short, limited time. He creates numerous realities concerning the Unseen, and many fruits for the Hereafter, and invents from the lasting identities of the mortal numerous embroideries pertaining to the World of Ideal Forms and meaningful weavings to be recorded and eternalized on preserved Tablets. Therefore, the One Who causes atoms to move is the same Being Who manifests these great purposes and instances of wisdom. If it were otherwise, each atom would need a brain as large as the sun.
Materialist philosophers assume that the motion of atoms is aimless. Blind to the infinite instances of wisdom in their motion, which are far more than the five points above, they consider them stunned and aimless. In reality, however, these atoms revolve like Mevlevi dervishes glorifying God and reciting His Names in two ecstatic movements, one spinning upon its axis and the other reeling in circles.
SECOND POINT: Every atom contains two truthful testimonies to the Necessarily Existent Being’s Existence and Unity. Despite being powerless and insentient, it bears decisive witness to the Necessarily Existent Being’s Existence by carrying out important duties and functions as though it were conscious. It also testifies to the Unity of the same Being, Who owns all material and immaterial dominions, by conforming to the universal order in general, and to the rules of each place it enters in particular. It settles in every place as if it were its homeland. All of this shows that the One Who owns the atom owns all the places it enters.
By carrying out very heavy duties incompatible with its size and weakness, the atom shows that it acts at the command and in the name of One with absolute power. By conforming to the cosmos’s universal order and entering everywhere without obstacle, as though knowingly, it shows that it acts through the power and wisdom of a single Being with absolute knowledge. A private is connected with all the divisions of the army, from his squadron to the corps, and has duties with respect to each connection. By performing those duties and receiving training and instruction under the general military order, in essence he is obeying a single supreme commander who is in charge of the whole army. Similarly, an atom positioned in any of the parts of a compound within many other compounds has a different purposeful connection with every other part and compound and a well-regulated function to yield beneficial results. This shows that the Being Who holds the universe in His grasp of power can position each atom in such a way that it preserves these connections and functions without damaging any of those beneficial results. For example, an atom positioned in the eye’s pupil has a well-arranged connection with the eye’s vessels, and motor and sensory nerves, and then with the face, and further with the head, the trunk, and the whole body. It also has functions and duties in relation with each. This shows that only the One Who creates all bodily members can position the right atom in the right place.
Atoms entering the body as sustenance make their journey in the food caravan with an astonishing order and wisdom. They pass through modes and stages in an orderly manner and, progressing as if deliberately and without confusion, carry on until they are strained through the “filters” (digestive organs) in a living being’s body. They are then loaded onto the red blood corpuscles to assist those members and cells needing sustenance according to a law of munificence. This shows that the One Who drives these atoms and makes them pass through thousands of different stages of necessity must be an All-Munificent Provider, an All-Compassionate Creator, in relation to Whose Power particles and stars are equal.
Furthermore, atoms cooperate to produce or weave miraculous works of art in such a wonderful way that each atom is in a position of both dominance and subjection to every other atom individually, and to all others collectively. Given this, each atom either knows and creates that wonderful demonstration of wisdom and art (infinitely impossible), or is assigned to its place and motion and proceeds by the decree of Divine Destiny, by the Pen of the Power of an All-Wise Maker.
For example, the stones set in the Hagia Sophia’s dome are both dominant and subject to each other. If we deny that they were put in place by a skillful architect, we must admit that each stone is just as great an architect as Sinan, for each stone would have to convince the others to take their proper places. Similarly, if all atoms making up creatures, which are infinitely more skillfully fashioned, wonderful, and full of wisdom than the Hagia Sophia’s dome, were not dependent upon the Master Builder of the universe’s command, we would have to ascribe to each one as many attributes of perfection as those belonging to the Maker of the universe. Since unbelievers deny a Necessarily Existent Being, they are compelled to accept as many false deities as there are atoms. Thus all of them are in a state of profound and absolute ignorance.
THIRD POINT: One Divine purpose in making atoms move on in animate bodies and causing them to pass through several transformations is to enliven and illuminate them with meaning. This makes them suitable material from which to build the Hereafter. It is as if human, animal, and even plant bodies were guesthouses, barracks, or schools to train and instruct inanimate atoms so that they may be illumined and refined. By per forming various duties, they become worthy of being atoms in the World of Permanence, the abode the Hereafter, all of whose elements are living.
Question: How can we become aware that there is that Divine purpose (mentioned above) in each atom’s motions?
Answer: First: We can become aware through the Maker’s Wisdom, Which is established and proved by the purposiveness or instances of wisdom and orderliness observed in all creatures. The Wisdom, Which attaches universal instances of wisdom to a most particular thing would not leave the motion of atoms, which exhibit the greatest activity in the universe’s flow and are the means for embroideries full of wisdom, without purpose. Also, the Divine Wisdom and Sovereignty, Which give even the smallest creature a suitable wage and recompense for its duty and its proper perfection, would not leave their most numerous and important servants without light, without a wage.
Second: By setting the elements moving and employing them, the All Wise Maker elevates certain atoms to the degree of minerals as if that were their wage of perfection, and instructs them on how to glorify Him in the way of minerals. He causes inanimate minerals to move and employs them to reward them with the degree of vegetable life. He sets vegetables in motion and uses them as food for animals, thus favoring them with the rank of animal life. He employs the atoms in animal bodies as food for human beings and promotes them to the rank of human life. Lastly, by refining many of the atoms in a human body through repeated filtering, He raises them to the most delicate and subtle organs of the body: the brain and the heart. Given this, we can understand that each atom’s movement is neither random nor aimless; rather, they are made to race to a sort of perfection worthy of themselves.
Third: Among the atoms in animate beings, some—like those in small fruit seeds and other seeds—are favored with such a light, refinement, and quality that they become like a spirit or a king to the rest of the atoms and, say, to a mighty tree. So among a mighty tree’s atoms, some are promoted to higher ranks (e.g., to being the atoms of fruit) by performing many delicate duties and passing through many stages in a tree’s life-cycle. This shows that through the All-Wise Maker’s command, these atoms acquire a refinement, light, and rank in honor of the Divine Names manifested in them and according to the sorts of motion determined by the Divine law of creation.
In conclusion, the All-Wise Maker has appointed for each thing an attainable rank of perfection and an appropriate level of existence. Accordingly, He has endowed it with a potential to work for and attain that rank. He urges everything toward its rank of perfection and level of existence. This is a law He established as the Lord of all creation, one that is operative in the realms of both plants and animals as well as in that of inanimate things. Thus plain soil can become the source of all jewelry like price less diamonds. This indicates a universal law of God as being the Lord, One Who sustains, evolves, and trains all creatures.
The All-Munificent Creator gives animals a particular pleasure, which He uses in the comprehensive law of reproduction, as a reward. He rewards animals such as bees and nightingales, which He employs in certain other duties pertaining to His Lordship, with a wage of particular perfection. He grants to each a level of excellence that is a source of eager industry and pleasure. This reality reveals the tip of a comprehensive law of Munificence.
The reality of everything originates in the manifestation of a Divine Name, for Which the thing is a mirror. Whatever beauty appears in it is owed to the Name that requires it to be thus. Whether the individual thing is aware of it or not, the beauty apparent in it is there because it is desired to be so. This demonstrates the tip of a comprehensive law of Grace and Beautifying.
As required by His law of Munificence, the All-Munificent Originator does not take back the rank and perfection He has bestowed upon something when it dies. Rather, He makes permanent the fruits, the real meaning and identity and (if it has one) the spirit of that bearer of perfection. For example, He makes permanent the meanings and fruits of the perfections He has bestowed on humanity in this world. He will even return the thanks and praise of thankful believers to them—embodied as fruits of Paradise. In this, the tip of a mighty law of Mercy is apparent.
The Peerless Creator wastes nothing and does nothing without purpose. For example, He uses the material remains of creatures which died in autumn in the creation and formation of springtime creatures. According to the meaning of: On the day the earth is changed into another earth (14: 48), and the indication of: The Abode of the Hereafter—it is all living indeed (29:64), His Wisdom requires that soil atoms, which are inanimate and unconscious yet perform important duties in this world, be used and included in some constructions of the Hereafter, all elements of which, including its stones and trees, will be animate and conscious. For to abandon the destroyed world’s atoms or throw them into non-existence would be wasteful. In this, the tip of a mighty law of Wisdom is apparent.
This world’s many fruits, consequences, and meanings, as well as the books containing or composed of the actions of those (jinn and human beings) charged with performing Divine commands while here, and their bodies and spirits, are sent to the market of the Hereafter. Justice and wisdom require that, after receiving their individual perfection in accordance with performing their duties, the atoms accompanying and serving those meanings be included in the Hereafter’s construction. They will be included along with this world’s debris, having received and served many times the light of life, and after being the means for sentient beings’ glorifications. In this, the tip of a mighty law of Justice is apparent.
Just as the spirit dominates the body, the commands of creation, existence and life determined and decreed by Divine Destiny dominate inanimate matter. Inanimate substances assume a disposition and order due to Divine Destiny’s rule and determination. Thus, in innumerable varieties of eggs and sperms, as well as of seeds and grains, they achieve different levels of existence and refinement according to the Divine commands and laws of creation, all of which Destiny determines differently.
All substances, being compositions of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon, issue into innumerable entities due to Destiny’s different commands and determination. In this way, they achieve different ranks of existence and refinement in different kinds and species. So if an atom has repeatedly served life and the glorifying of the Lord that is inherent in life, then the Lord must record the wisdom of the meanings it realizes, so to speak, on its immaterial forehead with the Pen of Destiny, which overlooks nothing. This is required by His Knowledge being all-encompassing. In it, the tip of a mighty law of All-Encompassing Knowledge is apparent.
In sum, and given all of the above, atoms cannot be considered random entities. Beyond the visible tip of each of the seven laws just mentioned (namely, Lordship, Munificence, Grace, Mercy, Wisdom, Justice, and All-Encompassing Knowledge) as well as many others, a Greatest or most universal Name of God and Its greatest manifestation is intimated. From that intimation, we may understand that all atoms, like all entities in this world, move in a delicate balance calculated with Knowledge. They follow Power’s commands of creation, existence ad life, and within the bounds determined by Destiny. As atoms are being prepared for another, higher existence,171 we should see animate bodies as a sort of school, barracks, or temporary lodging house for their training. This proposition can be put forward with certainty.
To conclude: As stated and demonstrated in The First Word, all things say: In the Name of God. Thus all atoms and groups and assemblages of atoms say: In the Name of God with the tongue of their individual dispositions. It is with that formula that they are in motion.
According to the argument of the three points above, all atoms say: In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate with the tongue of their individual dispositions as they begin their motion. That is: “I am moving in God’s name, for His sake, with His permission, and through His Power.” As they conclude their motion, they say: “All praise and gratitude are for God, the Lord of the worlds.” Each thus shows itself as a miniature tip of the Pen of Power tracing the embroideries of intricately worked creatures, each of which is like an ode of praise (for the Creator). Each can be seen as the point of a record player needle turning on creatures, each of which is like a record on a mighty, non-material Divine record player with an infinite number of arms.
Thus atoms cause creatures to recite odes glorifying their Lord and to hymn their praises of God.
Therein, their invocation will be: “All-Glorified You are, O God! And their greeting will be: “Peace!” And their invocation will close with “All praise and gratitude are for God, the Lord of the worlds!”
All-Glorified are You. We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. Surely You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Our Lord, do not let our hearts swerve after You have guided us, and bestow upon us mercy from Your Presence. Surely You are the All-Bestowing.
O God, bestow such blessings on our master Muhammad as will be pleasing to You and a fulfillment of his due, and also on his Family, Companions, and followers in religion, and grant them peace. Protect us and our religion. Amin, O Lord of the worlds.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
170 The Qur’an mentions the Manifest Record and the Manifest Book in several places. Some interpreters (of the Qur’an) consider these to be identical in meaning, while others say they have different meanings and connotations. The explanations of their true nature differ, but all are in agreement that both describe Divine Knowledge. However, through the enlightenment of the Qur’an, I have arrived at the following conviction:
The Manifest Record, which relates more to the World of the Unseen than to the visible, material world, expresses one aspect of Divine Knowledge and Command. That is, it relates more to the past and future than to the present. It is a book of Divine Destiny that contains the origins, roots, and seeds of things, rather than their flourishing forms in their visible existence.
By growing into their full bodies with perfect order and art, the origins, sources, and roots of things show that they are arranged according to a book of the principles contained in the Divine Knowledge. Likewise, the seeds, results, and fruits of things, which contain the indexes and programs of beings that will come into existence, demonstrate that each is a miniature register of the Divine Commands. For example, it can be said that a seed is the miniature embodiment of the program and index according to which a tree may be formed and of the Divine principles or commands which determine this program and index.
In short, the Manifest Record is an index and program of the tree of creation as a whole, which spreads its branches through the past and future and the World of the Unseen. In this sense, it is a book of Divine Destiny or a register of its principles. By means of the dictates and demands of these principles, atoms are used and managed for things to come into existence and to continue their existence.
As for the Manifest Book, it relates more to the visible, material world than to the World of the Unseen, and more to the present than to the past and future. It expresses Divine Power and Will rather than Divine Knowledge and Command. If the Manifest Record is the book of Divine Destiny, the Manifest Book is the book of Divine Power. In other words, the perfect art and orderliness in everything’s essence and existence, as well as its attributes and functions, show that everything is made to exist in accordance with the laws of an effective, all-penetrating Will and the principles of a perfect, absolute Power. Everything is specifically formed and given an appointed measure and particular shape. This shows that Divine Power and Will have a universal, comprehensive register of laws, a great book, according to which a particular existence and form are determined for each entity.
Curiously, although the people of neglect, misguidance, and corrupt philosophy are aware of the existence of the Supreme Preserved Tablet (Lawhun Mahfuz) of the Creative Power and the manifestations and reflections of the Manifest Book of Divine Wisdom and Will on things, they name it “nature,” thus making it completely meaningless. In sum, through the dictates of the Manifest Record, that is, through the decrees and instructions of the Divine Destiny, Divine Power uses atoms to create or manifest the chain of beings, each link of which is His sign, on the metaphorical or “ideal” page of time, which is called the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation. Thus, atoms are set to move so that beings may be transferred from the World of the Unseen to the material, visible world, from (the Realm of) Knowledge to the (Realm of) Power.
The Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation is the tablet on which beings are inscribed and then removed or effaced according to their origins in, or the dictates of, the Supreme Preserved Tablet. Therefore, it displays continuous change. The Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation constitutes the essence of time. Time, a mighty river that flows through existence, has its essence in the Divine Power’s inscription of beings and in the ink It uses. Only God knows the Unseen.
171 It is observed that in this dense, lowly world life’s light is kindled and diffused most freely and in great abundance with an extraordinary dynamism; that a spark of life is kindled over a broad expanse in the most unpromising material and in the most decayed substances. In this way, heavy and unpromising matter is made subtle and given a sheen by the light of life. That tells us that this agitated, dense and lowly world is being melted, refined and made more beautiful through the activity of atoms and the light of life for the sake of another subtler, more exalted, pure, and ever-living world. It is as if it were being adorned for passage to a finer world. If those so narrow-minded as to be unable to understand and believe in bodily resurrection look with the light of the Qur’an, they will see that a Divine law (issuing from God’s being Self-Subsistent) as infinitely comprehensive and mighty as to resurrect and rearrange all atoms like a well-ordered army, is clearly in force in the maintenance of creation.