The Tenth Letter

 

• The Manifest Record and the Manifest Book

• The Supreme Plain of Mustering

 

In his Name, glory be to Him.

There is nothing that does not glorify Him with His praise.

 

(This consists of the answers given to two questions.)

FIRST: THE QUR’AN MENTIONS THE MANIFEST RECORD (IMAMUN Mubin) and the Manifest Book (Kitabun Mubin) several times. Some Qur’anic interpreters maintain that they are the same thing, while others say they have different meaning and connotations. Although explanations of their true content and meaning differ, all agree that both phrases describe Divine Knowledge. Through the Qur’an’s enlightenment, I have the following conviction:

The Manifest Record, which relates to the Unseen world, describes one aspect of Divine Knowledge and commands. It relates to the past and the future, not the present. This notebook of Divine Destiny contains the origin, roots, and seeds of things rather than their flourishing forms in visible existence.

The origins, roots, and seeds, from which God grows things with perfect order and artistry, show that they are arranged according to a notebook of principles contained in Divine Knowledge. The seeds and fruits, which contain the indexes and programs of beings that will come into existence, indicate that they are miniature registers of Divine commands. For example, a seed is the program and index for forming a tree, as well as a miniature embodiment of the Divine principles causing the tree to come into existence and determine this program and index.

In short, the Manifest Record can be understood as the index and program of the Tree of Creation, which spreads its branches through past and future time, and through the Unseen world. In this sense, it is a ledger of Divine Destiny or a register of its principles. Particles are used and managed to bring things into existence through the dictates and requirements of these principles.

The Manifest Book relates to the visible or observable world, and thus more to the present than to the past and future. It is a book or a description of God’s Power and Will, rather than of His Knowledge and commands. If the Manifest Record is the Divine Destiny’s notebook, the Manifest Book is the Divine Power’s notebook. In other words, all things display perfect art and orderliness through their existence and essence, attributes and functions. This proves that everything is given existence according to an effective Will’s laws and an absolute Power’s principles, that it is formed specifically and given an appointed measure and particular shape. Thus Divine Power and Will have a universal, comprehensive register of laws, a great notebook, according to which a particular form and substance for each thing is determined.

Neglectful people, who follow misguidance and philosophy, surprisingly call this “nature,” thereby making it quite meaningless even though they have felt the existence of God’s Supreme Preserved Tablet (Lawhun Mahfuz) and seen the manifestations and reflections of that perspicaciously written book of Divine Wisdom and Will. However, through the Manifest Record’s dictates (namely, Divine Destiny’s decree and instruction), Divine Power uses particles to create or write the chain of beings, each link of which is a sign in the creation of things, on the metaphorical page of time (the Tablet of Effacement and Reaffirmation [Lawh Mahw wa Ithbat]).

Thus particles move because of that writing’s vibration and motion, which occurs while beings pass from the Unseen world to the manifest (material) world, from Knowledge to Power. The Tablet of Effacement and Reaffirmation is a slate for writing and erasing, an ever-changing notebook of the fixed and constant Supreme Preserved Tablet, and this latter Tablet’s notebook in the sphere of contingencies, where all things are unceasing manifestations of life and death, existence and ephemerality. This is the reality of time. What we call time, a mighty river flowing in creation, has a reality like everything else. Its reality is like the ink and pages of the writing of Power on the Tablet of Effacement and Reaffirmation. Only God knows the Unseen.

SECOND QUESTION: Where is the Supreme Plain of Mustering?

ANSWER: True knowledge of everything is with God. The sublime wisdom displayed by the Wise Creator in everything (by attaching great wisdom to a small thing) also is manifested in Earth’s revolution. It does not revolve aimlessly, but draws the periphery of a huge circle into which, through its revolution, it continually empties the outcomes of all events occurring within it. On the Day of Judgment, each person will see his or her life’s outcome.

According to a Prophetic Tradition, this huge circle will be centered on the area of Damascus, but in its expanded form and according to the Hereafter’s dimensions and features. All outcomes are continually transferred to the Supreme Plain of Mustering’s registers or tablets. This plain, now behind the veil of the Unseen, will be visible on the Day of Judgment, and Earth’s inhabitants will see it in their new Hereafter forms.

At the end of time, Earth, which is a field (of seeds to grow and be harvested for the Mustering), a stream (carrying our deeds), a measure of grain, a bushel (measuring and emptying the outcome of our deeds), will have produced enough material to fill up the Supreme Plain of Mustering. Earth functions like a seed from which this plain will grow, like a tree, with all its contents. Just as rapidly spinning a radiant dot produces a radiant circle, the rapid and purposeful movement of Earth, a small dot when compared to the universe, as well as its life’s outcome will be used to form the Supreme Plain of Mustering. Say: True knowledge is with God.

The Everlasting: He is the Everlasting.

Said Nursi