The Flowers from the Seeds of Truth-9
There is a great pleasure in the activities in the universe
Required by the eternal Wisdom, the Hand of Power has included activity in everything so that whatever potential it has may be put into effect;
And It has added an intense pleasure in that activity, making it a significant catalyst or mechanism for the changes in the world.
This mechanism, which is a law, has been made a seed for growth and a wheel for progress. It is the Power Which creates that seed, clothing it in form, and the Mercy nurtures it.
Just as leaving prison to go into an expansive garden is a pleasure, so too, growing into a sprout is an expansive pleasure for the constricted seed.
Transformation starts in the chemical composition and light yields heat. Similarly, when the activity toward transformation begins, pleasure increases and overflows its boundaries.
It is this pleasure which enables the endurance of hardships in the fulfillment of duties and which gives the zeal to carry them out. It is because of this that, when compared to conscious beings, the duties that inanimate beings carry out are faultless.
The activities that inanimate beings are made to do are so attractive that they urge them to work and the inanimate beings thank their Creator by glorifying Him. For they know Him “innately.”
It is because of this reality that ease is actually toilsome and the toil that activity entails is ease. An idle one is unhappy, while one who strives is happy; an idle one is rebellious to the order established by the eternal Divine Will, while the one who strives is obedient.
A minority burns in the fire that has been lit to burn the majority. Otherwise, if responsibility loses its meaning, the wisdom in testing is lost
An innocent minority suffers from the punishment inflicted on a sinful majority. For human free will requires that the wisdom and mystery of responsibility should remain hidden and open to interpretation.
Religious responsibility is a test which must take place; if the wisdom in testing becomes evident, responsibility no longer involves testing.
Suppose there are two persons in a house which has burnt down; one is innocent, the other sinful and disobedient.
If the innocent one is saved by the Unseen Hand, then not only will human free will lose its meaning, but also responsibility and the wisdom in it.
Responsibility is a means for the development, refinement, and adornment of spirits, which are like raw minerals to be worked.
Through the fulfillment of the orders and through refraining from the forbidden, Abu Bakr, the truthful, loyal one, the renowned companion of the Prophet in the cave, became a diamond, and his purified soul gained refinement and discretion, while Abu Jahl’s soul was engulfed in layers of darkness.
Were it not for the wisdom in human responsibility, their souls would not be distinguished from one another, one being a shining star and the other being drowned in darkness; one would not be an illustrious leader while the other was a foul poison.
The wisdom and mystery of responsibility, the difficulties in its fulfillment, the striving and competition in good deeds – these are fire within light.
This fire serves for the purification, refinement, and adornment of souls and the distinguishing of elevated spirits from low ones.
The seed has grown into a tree and the tree has become fruit-bearing.
Weakness is sometimes tyrannical
Despair and suspicion cause a weak spot in the heart. For example: a person so affected sees that the blows of a tyrant hurt the oppressed one.
The blows are terrible; the pains of the oppressed one are reflected in the heart of that weak-hearted one and sadden them.
Sorrows are hurtful and difficult for a weak heart to endure. A person wants to be saved from them, so in order to have ease of heart, they deceive themselves into saying that the oppressed one deserves the blows.
They try to find an excuse and find it: “What business has that lowly one in a place where he will be beaten?”
Thus one becomes wrongful and helps the tyrant. A tiger tears up a weak, miserable creature who cannot escape due to their weakness.
The real cause of this outcome is the ferocity of the tiger, but the weakness of its victim is but an excuse for it. The weak-hearted person lays the crime of ferocity on the weakness of the victim.
The sin of non-existence is condemned to existence.
Greed is the cause of deprivation
Greed brings deprivation, and impetuosity loss. For the Divine law of life has established steps to be taken one after the other in the attainment of the desired goal.
Since a greedy one does not observe these steps, in most cases they are not able to be successful. Even though they try to observe the steps, greed causes them to leave at least one step untaken; in the end they despair and are engulfed in heedlessness.
However, if Mercy has pity on them, It grants them their desires. Almost everyone has experienced this.
God has created the interior of the heart for belief in and love of Him, as well as for the vision of Him, thus making it delicate.
It is the mirror of the Eternally Besought One; no idol can enter it, for the weight of this “stone” breaks that “glass.”
God has made the exterior of the heart also an orderly store for other things. The criminal greed pierces that delicate heart and causes it much trouble.
It imports idols without permission. God is offended by this and punishes the greedy one by making them attain the opposite of their goal.
Those who extend political ambitions and approaches far into the innermost shrine of the Islamic creed meet not with honor and glory, but with disgrace and shame.
They are the objects of disparagement. It is for the same reason that figurative love – love of the opposite sex – usually meets with loss and deprivation.
The collections of poems by those who have fallen in figurative love are full of complaints and wailings and of humiliating lamentations.
For most of the beloveds are tyrannical; they humiliate their lovers and do not pity them.
For figurative love in the interior of the heart is an insult to Divine order and laws of life, it is offensive to them.
The Divine order holds in contempt whatever is contrary to it, and it also disparages such disgraceful and offensive acts and attitudes.
It is because of the principle about greed that two examples from human social life are known to all.
One is greed for sleep; it causes a loss of sleep. The other is that a greedy, importunate beggar does not benefit from charity.
Being over-anxious to sleep and striving to do so in the middle of the night causes one lose it and reach the morning wakeful.
There are two beggars, one greedy and importunate, the other contented, shy, and retiring.
It is to the latter that one wants to give in charity, not the former. Thus does the Divine order urge or punish. There are many other examples like these, demonstrating the universality of this law.
What becomes a Muslim is justice and fairness for God’s sake, not egotistical criticism
Our most grievous illness, which is indeed a disaster, is criticism that arises from haughtiness, loquacity, and demagogy. If even a just, truth-loving one engages in such criticism, they injure the truth, while if it is exercised in vanity, it destroys the truth.
What is most grievous is when such criticism is directed against the tenets of the faith and the foundations of the Religion – for faith is both an affirmation and conviction; it is also preference, submission, and observance –
The criticism in question damages submission and observance, preference and compliance. Even though it may not cause doubt, this causes indifference and neutrality in respect of confirmation.
At this time of doubt, suspicion, and ungrounded misgivings, it is necessary for everyone to study and follow sincerely the uncontaminated works that nurture and strengthen compliance and observance, as well as the moving and enthusing ideas and words, free from doubt, that come from illuminated, warm hearts.
What circulates among the tongues of the Western-infatuated fellows is objective or impartial thought and argumentation, whereas this attitude is taking the side of irreligion, even if temporarily.
Only one who intends to enter the Religion or has just entered it can assume this attitude. Or one out of a hundred can assume it temporarily for the purpose of silencing the enemies of the Religion or convincing those who seek the Religion.
However, popularizing it causes the loss of forty Muslims in the hope of winning over one enemy of Islam.
Self-esteem comes from weakness and leads to misguidance: it is deviance among one’s comrades, while it is steadfastness against the misleading incitements of hostile unbelievers
One of the sources of misguidance is being proud of one’s opinions. One’s pride or self-esteem means that their opinions have nothing to do with the “common way of the public” and so they should be taken elsewhere – then one has to build another way for themselves.
One who takes another way than the common way of the public is regarded with doubt and suspicion, and the self-esteemed one feels compelled to fight such doubts and suspicions.
That haughty one, not only is left alone and bereft of the good will of the public, but they also become the object of doubts and suspicions, and people turn against this person. Only one out of a thousand of such people can find salvation.
O one seeking right guidance! Put the head of vanity under your feet and crush it! Enter the formidable castle of belief and follow the way of the believing public.
One sinful and addicted to their lusts does not like the existence of Hell, as it is contrary to the ease of their heart. They welcome anything that, according to their faulty view, contradicts the existence of Hell. With this attitude, a person will go so far as to deny Hell.
The degree of the wickedness of backbiting
Would any of you love to eat the flesh of his dead brother? (49:12)
This noble verse, the Arabic original of which consists of six words, reprimands backbiting with six degrees of severity; it censures backbiting and rebukes it.
The hamza, marking the interrogative (and here translated as would) at the beginning of the sentence, penetrating like water, reaches into all the words of the verse, so that each of them carries an interrogative accent.
Thus, at the very beginning it asks, “Consider your intelligence: does it permit such an abominable thing?”
It continues to ask: “If you do not have sound intelligence, then look into your heart. If you have a heart, does it love such a grievous thing?
“If you do not have a sound heart, consult your conscience. How can you bite yourself with your own teeth, while it is you who suffers the pain? Also, does your conscience agree with your corrupting social life to such a degree?
“If you do not have social consciousness, then consider your humanity: how can it feel an appetite for such a degree of bestiality that allows tearing fellow human beings into pieces?
“If you have no humanity, consider your human tenderness, your sense of kinship: is it inclined to such a wild act as destroying your own waist?
“Perhaps you have no human tenderness, no sense of kinship; then, at least, do you not have a sound nature, allowing you to tear the respect worthy dead one into pieces with your teeth?”
This means that backbiting is a chronic disease, which is despised and blameworthy in the sight of the intelligence and heart, the conscience and humanity, human tenderness and a sense of kinship, as well as in both human nature and the Shari‘a.
Refuted, rejected backbiting deserves only to be banished. How can one continually drink the blood of humans?
Muslim transgressors are not like the transgressors of other religions; our morality subsists by our Religion
If one among the Muslims is a transgressor, they are usually immoral. Most of them are unfair and unscrupulous. An evil desire can only develop in a Muslim when the voice of belief has been silenced in their conscience.
This means that a Muslim transgressor cannot commit an evil freely without upsetting their conscience and heart, or without demeaning their spiritual values.
It is for this reason that the Religion of Islam recognizes a transgressor as a traitor or criminal; it rejects their testimony. It is for the same reason that Islam judges an apostate as lethal poison.
However, it recognizes the life of a non-Muslim who belongs to a heavenly religion, so long as they follow the public law, or are not at war with it.
What makes a good act good is the good intention behind it. Also, justice must be implemented in the name of the Religion, so that together with the soul, the mind, heart, and conscience can submit to and abide by it.
If a law is promulgated only in the name of the public or political order, it can only rouse fear or apprehension in the heart.
The law can then affect the mind only through apprehension; if one is inclined to a crime they only then consider the formal penalty. They fear the whip of punishment only if it is proven that they are a criminal.
Or they may refrain from a crime fearing that people may reprove them. Equally, they may find comfort in the hope that their crime will remain hidden from people.
It is because of the neglect of the Religion in the execution of justice that justice is no longer respected or effective.
Even though it is implemented in full, justice that is not implemented in the name of the Religion is like a Prayer which is carried out without intention, without facing the direction of the Ka‘ba, or without doing the obligatory preparatory ablution – this is Prayer that is not acceptable because some of the obligatory rites are missing.
A believer pays respect to their elders, has compassion for those younger than them, and love and magnanimity for their peers
A ship cannot be sunk because there is a single criminal among its passengers. Similarly, a believer who has many innocent attributes cannot be shown enmity because of a single criminal attribute or act.
In particular, noble attributes, such as belief, confirmation of Divine Unity, and submission to God, which are all means of love, are like Mount Uhud. By contrast, the faults that are means of enmity are like pebbles.
What great foolishness and lunacy it is to consider pebbles as being weightier than Mount Uhud! It is mercilessness of the same degree for a believer to feel enmity toward another believer.
Weighed on the balance of feelings, enmity in believers is contrary to Islam and the security and peace it entails. A Muslim can only feel pity toward their Muslim brother/sister for their faults, and can feel no rancor at all.
In sum: Islam demands brother/sisterhood, and love is essential to belief.
Any person in whom bad moral qualities exist is punished and tormented by these already, while good moral qualities contain their reward in themselves. So refer the case to the All-Just Judge for everyone.
However, the modern scientific approach conceals within it sheer ignorance, for it attributes the works of the All-Powerful Creator to “natural” causes and means and publicizes them as such.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi