Part four

 

 

He said: “Who shall revive the bones when they are rotted away?” Say: “The One who originated them the first time shall revive them.” He is the Knower of all creation. (36:78-79)

 

Recall the analogy used in the third comparison in the Ninth Truth of The Tenth Word. In sum: Someone assembles a huge army within one day before your eyes. If you were told that the one who dispersed his troops to different areas for rest could reassemble them and reorder them in battalions, and you replied that he could not, you would be regarded as crazy.

The All-Powerful and All-Knowing, by His command Be! and it is, created all animate beings’ atoms and subtle bodily constituents out of nothing. He then recorded and assigned them to their places, as if they were an army, with perfect orderliness and balance. During every spring, He creates countless different species and groups of animate creatures, each of which resembles an army. Surely He can re-gather, with a blast on Israfil’s trumpet, all the fundamental atoms and original components that enjoy mutual acquaintance through their collective submission to the body’s order—an order that exceeds that of any battalion. If you consider this improbable, are you not irrational?

In some verses, the All-Mighty tells us what wonders He has performed here to impress upon our hearts the wonder of what He will accomplish in the Hereafter, and to prepare our minds to accept and understand it. In other verses, He alludes to the wonderful deeds He will perform in the future and the Hereafter by analogies with what we see here. One example is: Has not humanity seen that We have created it from a sperm-drop? Then lo, humanity is a manifest adversary (36:77), and the subsequent verses.

The Wise Qur’an establishes the Resurrection in seven or eight different forms. It first directs our attention to our own origin: “You see how you progressed—from a sperm drop to a blood drop, to a blood clot suspended on the womb’s wall, from a suspended blood clot to a formless lump of flesh, and from a formless lump of flesh to a human form.40 How can you deny your second creation? It is just the same as the first, or even easier [for God to accomplish].”

God also refers to the great bounties He has granted to us: He Who made fire for you from the green tree (36:80). He asks us: “Will the One Who has bestowed His bounty upon you leave you free to behave as you wish and then enter the grave to sleep permanently without rising again?” The Qur’an teaches us by the following similitude: You see trees come to life again and grow green. Your bones resemble dry branches, yet you refuse to recognize the likeness in their reanimation and regard such a thing as utterly improbable.

The Qur’an asks: “Could the One Who creates the heavens and Earth not have power over humanity’s life and death, since we are the fruit of the heavens and Earth? Do you seriously suppose that He would render futile and fruitless the Tree of Creation, all of whose parts He shaped with purposive wisdom, by forsaking its high purpose and issue: humanity?” It replies: “The One Who will restore you to life at the Resurrection is the One before Whom all creation is like His obedient soldier. It bows its head submissively whenever it hears the command ‘Be!’ and it is.” Creating spring is as easy for Him as creating a flower, and creating all animals is as easy for His Power as creating a fly. No one should defy or diminish His Power by demanding: “Who will revive the bones?”

In: Glory be to Him in Whose hand is the dominion over all things (36:83), the Qur’an affirms His control and possession of the key to all things. He replaces night with day, winter with summer, as easily as turning a page in a book. He is All-Powerful, Majestic. He closes up the world and opens the Hereafter as if they were no more than two stations. Given this: To Him you shall be returned (36:83). Thus He will revive you, take you to the Plain of Resurrection, and judge you in His majestic Presence.

Such analogies prepare our hearts and minds to accept the Resurrection. However, the Qur’an sometimes alludes to God’s actions in the Hereafter in a way calling attention to their worldly parallels, so that no room is left for doubt and denial. Examples are found in the suras opened by: When the sun is folded up (81:1), When the heavens are torn asunder (82:1), and When the heavens are torn apart (84:1). In these suras, the All-Mighty alludes to the Resurrection and the vast revolutions, as well as the Lordly deeds that will occur then, by analogies with what we see every autumn or spring. Understanding these analogies, which inspire awe in our hearts, we can accept easily that which the intellect might otherwise refuse. As a more detailed analysis would occupy many pages, we will confine ourselves to: When the pages are spread out (81:10).

This verse implies: “At the time of the Resurrection, everyone’s deeds will be revealed on a written page.” At first glance, this appears rather strange and incomprehensible. But as the sura indicates, just as spring’s renewal parallels another resurrection, the “spreading out of the pages” has a very clear parallel. Every fruit-bearing tree and flowering plant has its properties, functions, and deeds. It performs its worship according to the kind of its glorification of God (namely, manifesting His Names).

All of its deeds and its life’s record are inscribed in each seed that will emerge next spring in another plot of soil. With the tongue of shape and form, the trees or flowering plants [growing from seeds buried the previous autumn] eloquently point to the original tree’s or flowering plant’s life and deeds, and spread out the pages of their deeds through their branches, twigs, leaves, blossoms, and fruits. He Who says: When the pages are spread out is the same Being Who, before our eyes, achieves these feats in a very wise, prudent, efficient, and subtle way. Such a way is dictated by His Names the All-Wise, All-Preserving, All-Sustaining and Training, and All-Subtle.41

You can pursue other issues of the Resurrection through similar analogies. For example, consider that: When the sun is folded up (81:1) both refers to a brilliant image, through folded up also alludes to its parallel in this world:

FIRST: The All-Mighty drew aside the veils of non-being, then of ether and the heavens, to bring forth from His Mercy’s treasury and show the world a jewel-like lamp—the sun—to lighten that world. After closing the world, He will wrap that jewel again in its veils and remove it.

SECOND: The sun may be considered an official tasked with diffusing light and alternately winding light and darkness around Earth’s head. Every evening, it is ordered to gather up its commodity (light) and be concealed. Sometimes the sun does only a little business, because a cloud or the moon might form a veil that prevents it from carrying out its task completely. Just as the sun has its goods and ledgers gathered up regularly in this world, a day will come when it will be relieved of its duties.

Even if there were no reason for such a dismissal, the two spots on its face—now small and liable to grow—may grow to the point that the sun will take back, by its Lord’s command, the light that it wraps around Earth’s head. God will wrap that light around the sun’s own head, saying: “Come, you have no more duty toward Earth. Journey to Hell and burn its inhabitants, those who worshipped you and thus insulted an obedient servant like you with faithlessness.” With its dark, scarred face, the sun announces the decree: When the sun is folded up (81:1).

 

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

39 This world is the Realm of Wisdom, where things happen according to certain purposes and deliberation, in conformity with certain laws, and in which God acts from behind the veil of cause and effect. The Hereafter is the Abode of Power, in which God will act without any veils. (Tr.)

40 We created humanity from an extraction of clay, then We set him, a sperm-drop, in a safe lodging, then We created of the drop a blood clot suspended on the wall of the womb, then We created of the suspended blood clot a little lump, then We created of the little lump bones, then We clothed the bones in flesh; thereafter We produced him as another creature (23:12-14). (Tr.)

41 Since the Qur’an addresses all times and peoples of different level of understanding, it naturally could not be expected to explain how the recording and reproduction of sounds and images will take place. However, humanity’s ability to do such things via tape recorders and television is a decisive argument for the “spreading out of the pages” of people’s deeds on the Day of Judgment. (Tr.)