Containing five comments with respect to man's happiness and misery

 

By Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Man is created on the best pattern of creation and has been given a comprehensive disposition. Therefore he has been sent to an arena of trial where he will either ascend or descend to a station which may be ranked from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low, from heaven to earth, from the largest sun to the minutest particle. With the two ways to infinite ascent and infinite descent open before him, he is here on earth as a miracle of power, a wonder of art and the fruit of creation. We will now explain this infinite ascent and descent of man in five comments.

First comment

Man has some relationship with, and stands in some need of, most of the species of creation. His needs spread throughout all parts of the cosmos, and his desires extend to eternity. As he desires a flower, so he desires a whole spring. As he wishes for a garden, so he wishes for eternal Paradise. As he longs to see a friend of his, so he longs to see the Graceful One of Glory. As he needs to knock at the door of his beloved friend in order to visit him, so he needs to take refuge in the court of an Omnipotent One Who will close the door of his world and will open that of the hereafter, Who will remove the world and establish in its place the world - to - come, in order that he should be delivered from unending separation from the ninety-nine per cent of his friends who have departed for the intermediate world.

The true object of worship of a being in this position can only be an Omnipotent One of Glory, a Compassionate One of Perfection, in Whose Hand are the reins of all things, in Whose possession is the provision for all things, in Whose sight everything, and in Whose presence everywhere, is, unbounded by space or time, free of all weakness or deficiency. For the one to meet the limitless needs of man can only be One with infinite power and all-embracing knowledge. Thus, He is the sole One worthy of worship.
Now, o man, if you see yourself as a servant of His, and of none else, you will acquire a rank above all creation. If you refuse to be such, you will become a mean slave to powerless creation. Or, if you rely on your selfhood and strength abandon prayer and trust in God, and arrogantly claim to have power, then you will fall lower than a bee or an ant, and become weaker than a spider or a fly, with respect to positive acts and constructiveness. In negative acts and destructiveness, however, you will weigh heavier than a mountain and be more harmful than an epidemic disease. This is your being; it has two aspects: one of them is positive and active and has to do with constructiveness, invention, existence and goodness; the other is negative and passive and has to do with destructiveness, non-existence and evil.

Regarding the first aspect of your being, you cannot in yourself match a bee or a sparrow, nor have the strength of a fly or a spider. Regarding the second aspect, you surpass mountains, even earth and the heavens, for you bear a burden from which they hold back because of lack of strength; and your acts therefore show their effect in a wider realm than theirs.1 When you do an act of goodness, or construct something, this does not go beyond the reach of your hand and your strength. Your evil and destructive acts, by contrast, are aggressive and expandable. For example, unbelief is an evil, a nonexistence of affirmation, and is destructive. Though it seems a simple, single sin, it implies an insult to all creation, an aggression against all the Divine Names and an affront to all mankind. For all beings in creation have lofty ranks and important tasks in virtue of their nature as letters of the Lord, mirrors of His orders. Unbelief denies them the rank bestowed by these functions, reduces them to the state of instruments of coincidence, to the degree of insignificance, valuelessness and nothingness, and makes them perishable objects doomed to decay and separation. An unbeliever denies and thus offends the Divine Names, Whose beauties, impressions and manifestations are observed on the mirrors of beings throughout the cosmos.

Man is a work of poetry, praising God’s wisdom and beautifully displaying the manifestations of all the Divine Names, a manifest miracle of Power like a seed that contains the members of an eternal tree, holding the rank of the Divine vicegerent on earth, superior to angels and in ascendancy over mountains, over the earth and the heavens by virtue of the trust he holds. Unbelief throws him into a degree that is lower than that of the lowest animal, more helpless, and impotent, and more wretched, and degrades him to the state of a speedily perishable tablet on which are scribbled meaningless, confused things.

To conclude: the concupiscent soul can commit numerous crimes in wrongdoing and destructiveness; but it has little power in goodness and constructiveness. It can destroy a city in a single day, but cannot build one in a hundred. However, if it abandons selfhood and requests from God goodness and fertility, if it turns from arrogance, wrongdoing and destructiveness, and accepts the form of a perfect slave of God, it then becomes the referent of the Qur’anic verse: ‘God will change their evil into good’ (25.70).

The infinite capability for wrongdoing inherent in man then changes into an infinite disposition to goodness, and he thus ascends to the highest of the high, and gains the value of the best pattern of creation.

Now, o heedless man! Behold the grace and munificence of God Almighty: while it would be perfect justice on His part to do the reverse, He records a single sin only once, and records a single act of goodness as ten, or seventy, or seven hundred, or seven thousand. Also draw from this comment, some understanding that to enter Hell is the punishment of crime and mere justice, but to enter Paradise is the result of His perfect grace.

 

Fountain Magazine: Issue 2 / April - June 1993