How can one declare one’s Belief in the Resurrection?

 

O Compassionate Lord! Through the teaching of the noble Messenger and the instruction of the Wise Qur’an, I have understood that all the Divine Books and the Prophets, primarily including the Qur’an and Your noble Messenger, unanimously assert and testify that the manifestations of all Your Names of Majesty and Grace, the exemplary radiations of which are witnessed throughout the universe, will continue to be manifested in eternity in a more splendid way; that Your bounties and blessings, the merciful manifestations and specimens of which are observed in this world, will persist in more brilliant fashion in the Abode of Eternal Bliss; and that those who are fond of them, those who discern them in this brief worldly life with pleasure and seek them in love, will accompany them eternally in the Hereafter.

Moreover, all of the Prophets, led by Your noble Messenger, who relied on their hundreds of manifest miracles and evident signs of their truthfulness, and the decisive Divine verses they brought, and are the masters of all illustrious and illuminated ‘spirits’; and all the saints who are leaders of all illumined ‘hearts’; and all the truthful and purified scholars who are the sources inspiring all keen, enlightened intellects—they give man the good tidings of the eternal happiness, and proclaim and testify with firm faith that there is Hellfire for the misguided and Paradise for the truly guided. They do this on the basis of the promises and threats You have reiterated in all the heavenly Pages and Sacred Books; on all Your sacred attributes such as Power, Mercy, Favoring, Wisdom, Majesty and Grace, all of which require the Resurrection; of the dignity and might of Your Majesty and the sovereignty of Your Lordship; and of their innumerable visions and observations, and their belief and convictions in the degree of certainty coming from true knowledge and direct observation, that convey to us the traces and effects of the Hereafter.

O All-Powerful and All-Wise One! All-Merciful and All-Compassionate! O All-Munificent, Truthful in His Promises! O Possessor of Splendor, Grandeur and Majesty, All-Overwhelm-ing One! You are exalted to the utmost degree above causing so many of Your sincere friends to appear liars, or rendering false the testimony of so many of Your Names and attributes; or rebutting and denying reality to that which is decisively required by the Sovereignty of Your Lordship; from refusing the innumerable prayers and petitions for the Hereafter of your innumerable servants whom You love and who seek Your love with belief in You and obedience to You; or from supporting the denial of the Resurrection made by the people of misguidance who insult Your Glory and Majesty with their rebellious disbelief and their belying Your promises, who transgress the Majesty of Your Lordship. We proclaim to the utmost degree the transcendence and sanctity of Your infinite Justice, Beauty and Mercy, and their exaltation above such boundless injustice and abomination. We believe with all our power to believe in the reality and truth of what has been told with utmost certainty by the hundreds of thousands of truthful Messengers, all the Prophets, the purified scholars, and the saints, who are the heralds of Your Sovereignty, concerning the treasuries of Your eternal Mercy, the riches of Your Bounty to be veiled in the everlasting realm, and the wonderful, miraculous manifestations of Your Beautiful Names that will fully appear in the Abode of Happiness. Their indications are true and correct, their prophesying is truthful. They teach Your servants, by Your command and in accordance with truth, that the greatest ray to emerge from the Name ‘Truth’—which is the origin, the sun and the protector of all truths—is the sublime truth of the Resurrection. In this they believe, and then teach it as the essence of truth. O Lord! For the sake of the instruction and teaching they give, grant to us and our brethren perfected belief and fair ending to our life, and grant that we may have some share of their intercession! Amen.

 

This article has been adapted from Risale- i Nur Collection.