Second Addendum to the Damascus Sermon
Second Part
An Allusion of Sura al-Ikhlas1
In the Name of God, the Merciful,
the Compassionate.
All praise be to God, the Sustainer of All the Worlds,
and peace and blessings be upon Muhammad,
the Chief of His Messengers.
The specification of Say, He is is an allusion to unity of witnessing: In the view of reality, there is nothing observed except Him.
God, The One is an explicit statement of Divine Unity: There is no true object of worship save Him.
God, the Eternally Besought One alludes to the unity of Divine dominicality: There is no Creator and Sustainer save Him. It is also a sign to the unity of Divine might and power: There is no Self-Subsistent and no absolutely Self-Sufficient One save Him.
He begets not alludes to the unity of Divine Glory, and rejects every sort of association of partners with God. That is, one who is subject to change or division, or who reproduces, cannot be God. It rejects association of partners with God in the form of ‘the ten intellects,’ or the angels, Jesus or Uzayr being Divine offspring.
And neither is He begotten proves the pre-eternity of God and His Unity. It rejects ascribing partners to God in the form of causality, the worship of stars, idolatry, and Naturalism. That is, something created or detached from its original, or born of some matter cannot be God.
And there is none like unto Him is a comprehensive affirmation of Divine Unity. That is, He has no like, partner, or peer either in His essence, or in His attributes, or in His actions. There is nothing whatever like unto Him, and He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing.2
This sura of the Qur’an rejects all forms of associating partners with God, and its six phrases comprise seven degrees of the affirmation of Divine Unity. Each phrase is both the result and the proof of the others.
Together with all its parts and members, and even its cells and all its particles, the universe, which is the supreme affirmer of Divine Unity and its greatest proof, declares “There is no god save God,” like a Mevlevi dervish mentioning God’s Names, all contributing to the resounding sound of this mighty proof, as tongues affirming Divine Unity.
If you fasten your ear to the breast of the Qur’an, which is the articulate proof of Divine Unity, you will hear from the depths of its heart an utterly elevated, serious, heartfelt, familiar, convincing, heavenly voice, decked out with proofs, which continually chants: “There is no god but God.”
The six aspects of this illumined proof are all transparent. Above it is the stamp of miraculousness; within it are the lights of guidance; beneath it are proof and logic; on its right is its calling the intellect to investigate; on its left is its calling the conscience to testify; before it is good; its goal is the happiness of both worlds; and its point of support is pure revelation. How can doubts and delusions penetrate it?
* * *
Will, mind, emotion, and the subtle inner faculties, which constitute the four elements of the conscience and four faculties of the spirit, each have an ultimate aim. The ultimate aim of the will is worship of God; that of the mind is knowledge of God; that of the emotions is love of God; and that of the inner faculties is the vision of God. The perfect worship known as taqwa comprises the four. The Shari‘a both cultivates these, and corrects them, and takes them towards their ultimate goals.
* * *
If the means and causes in creation had been given an actual effect, they should also have been given universal consciousness, and this would have been opposed to the perfect art in things. However, the excellence of the art in things, from the lowest to the highest and from the smallest to the greatest, is proportionate to the innate stature of each. Thus, some are not close to the True Causer and some far from Him, and some of them are not created through intermediaries and some without. The lack of perfection in man’s voluntary works rejects the ideas of compulsion and proves will.
It is worthy of notice that in respect of order, a city built by men as the work of their intellects through the intervention of their wills is inferior to the bee community in their hive, which is the fruit of inspiration. While the city of cells of the honeycomb, the bees’ exhibition of art, is inferior as regards order to the fruit of the pomegranate and its flower. This means that from whichever pen the general attraction in the universe flows, the miniscule attraction in the most minute indivisible particles are that pen’s points.
Islam says: There is no god but God, and does not accept that causes and intermediaries have an actual effect. It looks on intermediaries as signifying the meaning of one other than themselves. Belief in Divine Unity and the duties of submission to it demand this. However, because it has been corrupted, present-day Christianity considers causes and intermediaries to have an effect, and looks on them as signifying themselves. Their belief in Jesus as the son of God and in the priesthood demands this, and urges it. They look on their saints for their own sakes as though they do not signify another, as the source of effulgence, like the light of a lamp -according to one view- transformed from the sunlight. We look on the saints as signifying the meaning of another, that is, as a place of reflection and manifestation, like a mirror spreads the sunlight.3
It is because of this that spiritual journeying begins from humility, passes through self-abasement, and reaches the station of annihilation in God. It begins to journey through infinite stations. Such journeying is extinguished by the arrogant pride of the ego and evil-commanding soul. However, not true Christianity, but the corrupted Christianity which has been shaken by philosophy, strengthens the ego. If a person of high rank and station with a powerful ego is a Christian, he becomes more determined in his religion, whereas a Muslim in a similar position becomes lax in religion.
* * *
The intense and varying pleasure in activity as it passes from the potential to the actual is the leaven of change in the universe and the nucleus of the law through which all things are perfected. Stepping out of prison into a garden, and passing from a seed to a shoot is the same pleasure. If activity incorporates change, the pleasure increases immeasurably. It is this that causes the hardship in duties to be borne. However attractive for intelligent creatures is absolute perfection, for unintelligent creatures activity is attractive to the same degree and encourages effort. It is for this reason that ease is hardship and hardship, ease.
* * *
• Greed and precipitancy are the cause of loss. For the greedy and hasty person will not act in accordance with the successive causes in creation, like the steps of a staircase, and therefore will not be successful. Even if he is, since he skips some of the steps of the natural progression, he falls into despair, and then, when overcome by heedlessness, the door is opened to him.
• God Almighty created the inner heart for belief and for knowledge and love of Himself, while the outer heart He designed for other things. Criminal greed pierces the heart, and introduces idols into it. God is displeased and punishes the greedy person with the opposite of his purpose.
• The scoundrels who because of ambition took political thought to the places of Islamic beliefs did not receive honour and glory, but were execrated and reviled. The frustration and despair of sensual love arise from this same greed and ambition. All the poetry about this sort of love are the lamentations of mourning.
• If you anxiously try to sleep at night, you will chase sleep away and remain awake.
• There are two beggars, one persistently importunate, the other reserved and self-contained. A further example of this extensive law is that one would rather give to the latter.
* * *
Our worst calamity and sickness is that criticism which is based on pride and deception. If fairness utilizes criticism, it pares the truth. Whereas if it is pride that employs it, it mutilates and destroys it. The very worst sort is that which is levelled at the tenets of belief and questions of religion. For belief comprises both affirmation, and exercise of the mind, and commitment, and surrender, and compliance. Criticism of this sort destroys the compliance, commitment, and mental exercise. Rather than affirming, the person feels uncommitted. At this time of doubts and hesitation, it is necessary to look favourably on the positive ideas and encouraging statements that emerge from luminous, warm hearts, and to foster and strengthen the exercise of the mind and commitment. What they call “unbiased, objective reasoning” is temporary unbelief. Novices and those new to the truth do it.
* * *
The view of the one who taught the Miraculous Qur’an -that Warner and Bringer of Good News- and his critical insight, were too accurate, sublime, clear, and penetrating to confuse and obscure reality with his imagination; and his way of truth is too scrupulous, self-sufficient, and elevated to deceive and cheat people.
For the perceptive eye is not deceived, and a truth-seeking heart will not deceive.
* * *
The Qur’an describes the loathsomeness of backbiting with the verse:
Would any among you like to eat the flesh of your dead brother?4
With six phrases, on six levels, it severely censures the backbiter. It is as follows:
With its interrogative form it says: “Think! Could such a thing be permitted? If your mind is not sound, look at your heart; could it love such a thing? And if your heart is not sound, examine your conscience; would it consent to destroying the life of society, as though tearing off your own flesh with your own teeth? And if you have no social conscience, examine your humanity; could it have such an appetite and such monstrous rapacity? If you have no humanity, think of fellow-feeling; could it incline towards an action that would break its own back? And if you have no humanity, is your inborn nature so completely corrupted that you tear at a corpse with your bare teeth?
That is to say, backbiting is repugnant to man’s mind, heart, conscience, humanity, fellow-feeling, and inborn nature, as well as to the Shari‘a, and is therefore to be utterly rejected.
* * *
The person who does not understand the true meaning of co-operation is more lifeless than a stone. For some stones arch themselves to co-operate with their brothers. Such a stone, despite being a stone, leans towards his brother in the dome when he leaves the builder’s hand and bows his head so it touches his brother’s head, and so they keep from falling.
That is, the stones of domes stand shoulder to shoulder so as not to fall.
* * *
The unique being at the centre of the conical successive chain from the smallest indivisible particle to man and from man to the sun of suns, is man the ennobled.
* * *
Man possesses senses other than the well-known ones; he has an impelling sense like the sense of taste, and a sense of longing. He possesses too numerous unconscious senses.
* * *
Sometimes desire takes the form of thought, and the greedy person supposes an animal desire to be thought.
* * *
It is strange but some people fall into stinking mud, then to deceive themselves say it is musk and ambergris, and smear it over their faces.
* * *
The martyr is a saint. While being an obligation that if a number of the community undertake it, the rest are absolved, jihad has become incumbent on everyone. Indeed, it is now doubly incumbent. As in the Hajj and zakat, intention plays little part in jihad. However, in point of reality, the lack of intention still resembles intention. That is, if the reverse of the intention is not definitely clear, jihad results in true martyrdom. This is because the more the necessity of the jihad increases, the more definite it becomes, and the effect of intention, which comprises will, diminishes. If tens of thousands of saints suddenly appear for this sinful nation, it will not be a small reward.
* * *
With us, if someone has strayed from the right path, he is generally immoral and without conscience. For the desire to sin grows by silencing the voice of belief in the conscience. This means that without shaking his conscience and spiritual life, and without holding them in contempt, he cannot commit a completely voluntary evil act. It is for this reason that Islam considers the depraved to be disloyal and traitorous, and does not accept their testimony. It considers apostates to be poison, and sentences them to death. While it recognizes Christian subjects and infidel signatories of a treaty. The Hanafi School accepts the testimony of a non-Muslim subject. Justice should be executed in the name of religion so that it may be effective over the mind, heart, and spirit, and they may conform to it. Otherwise it affects only the imagination. A criminal is then frightened only of the penalty set by the state, if it is enacted, or he shrinks from the reproaches of the public; if they occur.
* * *
A boat carrying numerous innocent people may not be sunk on account of one criminal. Similarly, enmity should not be nurtured towards a believer who possesses numerous innocent attributes, because of a single criminal attribute.
In particular, belief and the affirmation of Divine Unity, the causes of love, are like Mount Uhud, while the causes of enmity are like pebbles. However unreasonable it is to think of pebbles being heavier than Mount Uhud, for a believer to be hostile towards another believer is lacking in heart to the same degree. Hostility between believers may only take the form of pity.
In Short: Belief demands love, and Islam demands brotherhood.
Words are like goods, wastefulness in them is not permissible.
S a i d N u r s i
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1. Qur'an, Sura 112.
2. Qur'an, 42:11.
3. The Naqshbandis' method is based on this mystery.
4. Qur'an, 49:12.