Humanity's Progress to Happiness and Decline to Misery

 

By Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

 

[Humanity has been created on the most excellent pattern and given the most comprehensive abilities. As a result, all of us have been cast into an arena of trial and examination in which we may rise from the lowest of beings to the highest, from the Earth to the Divine Throne, from minute particles to the sun. We have been sent here as a miracle of Divine Power, the result of creation, and a wonder of Divine art. Each of us must choose a path leading either to infinite ascent or to infinite descent.]

First Remark

Our needs do not differ markedly from those of all other beings, to which we are connected. Our needs spread throughout the world, and our desires extend to eternity. Just as we want a flower, we want the spring. Just as we desire a garden, we desire everlasting Paradise. Just as we long to see a friend, we long to see the All-Beauteous One of Glory. Just as we travel to visit our beloved, we need our Beloved's door to be opened. Just as we seek to visit the 99 percent of our friends who have saved themselves from eternal separation by traveling to the intermediate realm, we need to seek refuge at the Absolutely Powerful One's court. This One will close this world's door and open that of the Hereafter, which is an exhibition of wonders. He will remove this world and establish the Hereafter in its place.

For those people in this position, the only True Object of Worship will be One Whose hand holds the reins and treasuries of all things; Who sees all things, is omnipresent, beyond space, All-Powerful, and without fault or defect; an All-Powerful One of Glory, an All-Compassionate One of Beauty, and an All-Wise One of Perfection.

O humanity, if you serve Him alone you will earn a place superior to all creatures. If you do not, however, you will become an abased servant to impotent creatures. If you rely on your own ego and power, thereby abandoning reliance on God and supplication, you will deviate into pride and boasting. In such a case, you will fall lower than an ant or bee in regard to goodness and creation, and become weaker than a spider or a fly.

O humanity, you have two aspects. The first one is that of creation, good, acts, and positivity; the other is that of destruction, non-existence, evil, negativity, and passivity. In regard to the first aspect, your capabilities cannot exceed those of a bee or a sparrow, and your talents are weaker than those of a spider or fly.

In regard to the second aspect, you surpass the mountains, Earth, and skies. You agreed to assume a burden after they said they could not do so and so shrank from it. You assumed a sphere that is more extensive and vaster than they are. When you do good, you can do so only to the extent of your own power and strength, and to the degree your hand can reach. When you commit evil and destruction, your evil is overwhelming, and your destruction spreads.

For example, unblief is an evil, a destruction, an absence of affirmation. A single sin as it may seem, it implies an insult to all creation, debasement of all the Divine Names and degradation of the whole of mankind. For the whole of creation has a sublime rank and important task, each being a massive of the Lord, a mirror of His Glory and an official of His Divinity. Unbelief denies them the rank bestowed by those functions, and reduces them to the state of play-things of chance, to the level of being insignificant, unless and worthless objects doomed to decay and decomposition.

Unbelief, through denial, also insults the Divine Names, even though their inscriptions, manifestations, and beauties are seen throughout the universe and in the mirrors of beings. It makes humanity more abased and weaker, more powerless and needy, than the lowliest transient animal. And this despite the fact that humanity is God's vicegerent on Earth.

Unbelief denies that humanity is a well-composed ode of wisdom proclaiming the Sacred Divine Names' manifestations; a seed-like self-evident miracle of Divine power containing within itself an entire eternal tree; and that part of creation that assumed the "Supreme Trust" and thus rose to a higher level than the Earth, sky, and mountains-and even gained superiority over the angels. Unbelief reduces this glorious creation a common sign-board without meaning, something confused and decaying swiftly.

In short: The evil-commanding soul may commit infinite harm through its destruction and evil, whereas its power for creativity and good is extremely small and partial. It may destroy in one day what it took 100 days to build.

However, if the soul gives up egoism and seeks good and existence from Divine assistance, foregoes evil and destruction and relying on itself, and seeks forgiveness so that it can become a true servant of God, it will manifest the meaning of the verse: God will change their evil into good (Qur'an 25:70). Its infinite capacity for evil will be transformed into an infinite capacity for good. It will acquire the value of the Most Excellent of Patterns and ascend to the highest of the high.

 

Fountain Magazine: Issue 30 / April - June 2000