The Twenty-fourth Letter

 

Why Divine Mercy allows death and misfortune • Prayer • The Prophet’s Ascension

 

In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.

God does and decrees whatever He wills.

 

QUESTION: CAN THE TENDER CARE, BENEFICIAL MANAGEMENT, AND loving-kindness required by such of God’s Greatest Names as the All-Compassionate, the All-Wise, and the All-Loving be reconciled with worldly decay, death, separation, misfortune, and trouble? Even if we can bear the death of people, since it is a door to eternal happiness for believers, why do delicate plants and flowers and animals, which cling to life and continuance, suffer transformation, trial and separation, and finally perish? How and why does Divine Compassion and Wisdom allow this?

ANSWER: We will use five signs to show the motive and necessary cause for, and five indications to show the purposes and benefits behind, the sublime truth displayed by the decay and death of living creatures.

FIRST STATION: The first station consists of five signs.

First sign: As the Twenty-sixth Word shows, a skillful clothes designer pays an ordinary model to display jeweled and artistically fashioned outfits. To display his skill and artistic ability, the designer tells the model to sit and stand. Does the model have any right to object, asking: “Why do you continually change the shape of this garment, which makes me look good, and annoy me by making me sit and stand?”

In the same way, the All-Majestic Creator takes each species as a model and, to manifest His Names and display His perfect art, causes everything (especially living creatures) to wear a garment of existence bejeweled with senses, and embellishes it with the Pen of Destiny and Decree. In return, He “pays” each being with a certain perfection and pleasure as well as bounteous gifts. Thus, how can anything object to any act of the All-Majestic Maker, the Owner of the Kingdom, Who controls everything therein as He wills?

If creatures have any “right” against the Necessarily Existent Being, it is to give thanks for the level of existence God has given them. All such levels are actual, concrete realities dependent on a necessary cause, whereas levels not conferred are only possibilities. A possibility does not have an actual, external existence, and there are infinite possibilities for a thing to have existence.

Besides, there is no necessary cause whereby something infinitely possible should attain existence. For example, minerals cannot complain that they want to be plants, for there were infinite possibilities for them to have any level of existence. So they must thank their Creator for their mineral existence. Plants and animals cannot complain to God about why they were not granted a higher level. Plants must thank Him for being favored with existence and life, and animals for being granted a precious gem of spirit as well as life and existence.

As for you, O people of complaint! You are favored with existence and have experienced life’s pleasures. Further, you enjoy a healthy human existence. O people of belief, you were favored with the blessing of Islam and with being led out of misguidance. Complaining about God shows ingratitude. Be grateful for whatever level He bestowed on you as a pure blessing, and do not show ingratitude by complaining that He did not favor you with still greater blessings to which you aspire passionately, though wrongly, since they are only possibilities and thus non-existent.

Suppose people elevated to a high position, like being favored with a specific blessing at each step while climbing to a minaret’s top, complain that they have not been elevated high enough. Even the most foolish people would see this as a great ingratitude and injustice on such people’s part.

O people of complaint, if you act greedily and spurn contentment and thrift, know that contentment is a profitable thanksgiving while greed is an ingratitude causing loss. Thrift shows a beneficial respect for the bounties received, whereas extravagance makes light of the bounties in a harmful and shameless way. If you are sensible, try to be content and accept what you have. If you suffer abject poverty [although you do what you can and must in lawful ways], turn to the All-Patient One and try to acquire a becoming patience. Do so without complaining. If you want to find fault with someone, focus on your carnal self and complain to God Almighty about that.

Second sign: One Divine purpose for the All-Majestic Creator’s continuous renewal and re-creation of beings through His Lordship’s awesome activities is, as explained fully in The Eighteenth Letter, as follows:

Every creature is active because it yearns for and takes pleasure in activity. It can even be said that every activity contains a kind of pleasure; moreover, activity itself is some sort of pleasure. Pleasure is turned toward perfection and is a kind of perfection. Since activity is turned toward perfection, and indicates pleasure, and beauty, and since the Necessarily Existent Being, the Perfect One of Majesty has all perfection in His Being, Attributes, and acts, for sure, in a manner fitting to His Necessary Existence and Holiness (in accordance with His essential independence and absolute Perfection and uniqueness), He has infinite sacred affection and love.

Such affection and love will cause an infinite sacred enthusiasm, the origin of an infinite, sacred joy that is the source of infinite sacred pleasure. Due to this pleasure as well as His Compassion, the All-Merciful and All-Compassionate has infinite sacred gladness and pride when His creatures’ realize their full potential and attain their relative perfection through their deeds by His Power. This sacred gladness and pride require creation’s incessant, infinite whirl that, in turn, demands incessant change, renewal, and transformation. This incessant activity also calls for decay, death, and separation.

Once the motives and causes posited by human philosophy for all beings’ creation and life seemed very insignificant to me. I inferred from this why such philosophy inevitably results in absurdities that lead prominent philosophers to misguided naturalism or sophistry, denying the Maker’s Will and Knowledge, or regarding the Creator as self-compelled (to do what He does). At that point, Divine Compassion came to my aid with the Divine Name the All-Wise, and showed me the comprehensive purposes for creating beings. That is, each creature is a Divine missive for conscious beings to study.

I remained content for a year with this purpose, but later began to seek other purposes. First, the wondrous Divine art in beings became manifest to me and, afterwards, another purpose showed itself: The greatest purposes for their life and creation are related to the Maker. I perceived that they present to His View His art’s perfection, His Names’ embellishments, His Wisdom’s jewels, and His Compassion’s gifts; they are mirrors reflecting His Grace, Beauty and Perfection. After a long time of satisfaction, I noticed His Power’s miracles and His Lordship’s actions in a very rapid change and renewal brought about through His creativity’s amazing acts.

Still not content, I thought there should be another still greater purpose. At that time, the motives and purposes partly explained in this second sign (and which will be discussed further below) became obvious. I knew that the Divine Power’s actions and the incessant flux of things are so meaningful that the All-Wise Maker causes all beings to speak through that flux. It is as if all active creatures in the heavens and on Earth, along with all their actions are words of their speech, and as if each movement is an act of speech. In other words, all creatures glorify God through their movements, including their birth and death.

Third sign: Things do not go into absolute non-existence; rather, they are transferred from the sphere of Power to the sphere of Knowledge, from the visible, material world (of change and mortality) to the Unseen world (of light and permanence).

In reality, a thing’s beauty and perfection belong to the Divine Names, as they are manifestations of those Names. Since those Names and their never-ending manifestations are permanent, their inscriptions will be renewed, freshened, and made even more beautiful. As nothing enters absolute nonexistence, only their relative forms of existence change. In other words, their real nature and identity, the sources of beauty and the object of enlightenment and perfection, are permanent.

Inanimate beings owe their beauty to the Divine Names, and so the admiration and love felt for them belong to those Names. In addition, their changing (since they are mirrors reflecting Divine Names) does not detract from the Names. When animate beings without intelligence die, they do not enter complete annihilation; rather, they are freed from the corporeal body and life’s turbulence and have the fruits of their duty transferred to their permanent spirit, which, depending on a Divine Name, attains its own kind of happiness. The death of intelligent beings is a journey through the All-Wise Maker’s stations of the Intermediate World of the grave and the Worlds of Ideal Forms and Spirits, which are more beautiful and illumined than this world, and on to the World of Permanence, where eternal happiness as well as material and spiritual perfections are obtained.

In short, since the All-Majestic Maker exists and is permanent with His Attributes and Names, their inscriptions and manifestations are renewed constantly in spiritual permanence. They are not subject to absolute nonexistence.

People’s humanity connects them to most creatures. People derive pleasure from their happiness and grieve over their misfortune. They especially rejoice over animate beings’ happiness, particularly over that of other people, and especially over that of the approved and loved people of perfection, and share their grief. Like affectionate mothers, they may sacrifice their own rest and happiness for such people’s welfare.

Thus all believers, according to the degree of their belief and through the Qur’an’s light and belief, may be happy with creatures’ happiness and permanence, their being saved from nothingness, and their being valuable missives of the Lord. They may acquire thereby a light so comprehensive that it fills the world and benefits everyone according to his or her capacity.

But people of misguidance, who regard death as absolute annihilation, fall into despair and depression and become pessimists due to all creatures’ misfortune and death. Their unbelief causes them to become obsessed with the fear of going to absolute non-existence, and as a result they suffer hellish torment even before reaching Hell.

Fourth sign: A sovereign’s government has many departments representing his functions as supreme ruler, judge, commander, and head of the religious office. In the same way, God Almighty’s Names have infinite manifestations and thus cause the great variety and difference of creatures. Since every possessor of perfection and grace tends to see and show that perfection and grace, God’s permanent Names will to manifest themselves on the Most Sacred Being’s behalf, to behold their inscriptions, and to see and show their reflected perfection and grace in their inscriptions’ mirrors.

As a result, they tend to renew or rewrite constantly the great Book of the Universe and the various missives of creatures in a most meaningful way. Or, they write thousands of letters on a page and present it to the Most Holy Being to view, and to all conscious beings so that they may read and ponder. The following stanza of truth expresses this:

The sheets of the Book of the Universe are of infinite kinds,

Its individual letters and words are also countless.

Written in the printing house of the Preserved Tablet of Truth,

Each creature in the universe is a meaningful word.

 

Consider the lines of the Book of the Universe, for they are missives to you from the Highest Abode.

Fifth sign: This consists of two points.

First point: Since God exists, everything exists. Since everything is connected to God, His Unity causes each thing to be connected to everything. Thus each thing is an object of the infinite light of existence. Since decay and separation cannot impede this reality, one can receive an infinite light of existence by living even for a moment with consciousness of this connection.

If this connection cannot be established or is ignored, one suffers infinite separation and non-existence due to the resulting endless despair and depression felt when a creature to which one feels a connection decays and dies. If people were to live in this state even for a million years, they would never taste the true pleasure of a moment lived in connection to God. This is why people of truth conclude that a moment of life enlightened through this connection is preferable to a million years of life devoid of such light. They also conclude that the light of existence can be received only by recognizing the Necessarily Existent Being.

For those who recognize God, the light of existence fills the universe with angels and other spiritual and conscious beings. For those who do not recognize God, the universe is a vast, dark, and desolate place in which beings wait for death and separation. Consider that each fruit on a tree is connected to all fruits on that tree, and so has as many kinds of secondary existence as the number of fruits. Picking it separates it from the other fruits and envelopes it in the darkness of non-existence. The connection to the One Eternally Besought’s Power gives each being or thing an actual existence. Without this connection, there are as many types of non-existence as the number of things. Ponder this sign when considering the comprehensive light of belief and the frightful darkness of misguidance. In fact, belief is the essence of the sublime truth explained in this sign. Everything means nonexistence for unbelievers, as they have no belief, just as nothing exists for people without senses.

Second point: The world and things have three facets, as follows:

The first facet turns to the Divine Names. Being the mirrors of those Names, it experiences no decay or separation; rather, it is refreshed and renewed continually. The second facet turns to the Hereafter (the World of Permanence). Resembling a field sown with the seeds of the Hereafter to grow into permanent trees with permanent fruits, it serves the World of Permanence by causing transient things to acquire permanence. This facet also manifests life and permanence. The third facet turns to transient beings. People of desire and fancy love this facet; however, it is the marketplace of sensible, conscious persons and the stage of trial for the duty-bound. This facet is apparently the object of decay and death. However, its inner dimension contains manifestations of life and permanence to heal the sorrows related to death, decay, and separation.  

In conclusion, these streams of beings and flux of creatures are moving objects, ever-changing and renewed mirrors to renew and brighten the Necessarily Existent Being’s lights of existence and creation.

SECOND STATION: This station consists of an introduction and five indications. The introduction comprises two topics.

First topic: Analyze the following comparisons to understand the Essential Qualities and acts of God’s Lordship. Although they cannot express or measure fully the truth of His Lordship’s acts and Essential Qualities, they are permissible if they further understanding. The expressions in them as well as in the foregoing signs that do not fit the Essential Qualities and acts of the All-Holy Divine Essence are my fault.

For example, colloquial meanings of pleasure, joy, and gladness cannot express the sacred acts and Essential Qualities adequately; rather, they are only aids to reflection, means of contemplation. Also, by pointing to the tip of an encompassing, mighty law of Divine Lordship, such comparisons may serve to see the truth and nature of that law in His Lordship’s Essential Qualities.

For instance, when we mention as an example that a flower dies, but leaves behind thousands of instances of its existence, we point to a mighty law of Divine Lordship prevalent in all plants, spring flowers, and creatures.

In fact, the All-Compassionate Creator annually changes Earth’s robe by the same law with which He changes a bird’s feathered garment. He changes the world’s appearance every century with the same law that He will use to change the universe’s form and shape on the Last Day. With the law He uses to control particles, He causes Earth to rotate and revolve like a Mawlawi dervish turning in ecstasy. He controls, again by the same law, all spheres and causes the solar system to move.

He renews your garden and vineyard every year, and refreshes them every season by the same law He uses to break down, repair, or renew your body’s cells. He renews Earth’s face every season, arraying it in a new garment via the same law. Every spring, the All-Powerful Maker revives that tree in front of us and Earth with the same law of Wisdom that He uses to revive an insect. And He will use that same law to revive all creatures on the Day of Judgment: Your creation and upraising are as but a single soul (31:28).

Many other laws of Divine Lordship prevail in everything from particles to the universe. Reflect on the might and comprehensiveness of those laws in the Divine Lordship’s acts, and notice the Divine Oneness they display. See how their being both comprehensive and unitary, as well as manifestations of Knowledge and Will, establishes God’s Knowledge, Will, and Unity.

Comparisons and allegories in many of the Words (the books of the Risale-i Nur) show the tips of laws, and by doing so, establish the Divine laws’ existence in any of the Divine acts under discussion. Thus, most of The Words’ comparisons, allegories, and parables can be regarded as decisive proofs.

Second topic: As argued in The Tenth Word, each flower and fruit contains as many instances of wisdom and purposes as the number of those flowers and fruits. These instances of wisdom are of three kinds: those related to the Creator and demonstrating His Names’ inscriptions; those related to conscious beings and functioning as valuable, meaningful messages for them; and those related to the fruits or flowers themselves, their life, maintenance, and benefits for humanity.

While pondering over such multiple purposes for every creature’s existence, the following thoughts came to me in Arabic. These form the main themes of the following five indications concerning universal purposes:

All things that we see are in flux, are mirrors moving and acting to renew the manifestations of His creation’s light. This renewal occurs through the incessant changing of individual beings having relative existence. In other words, all objects receiving Divine manifestations are replaced by new ones, but only after, • firstly, their subtle meaning and metaphysical identities have gained permanence; • secondly, they have left behind truths pertaining to the Unseen World and forms recorded on the ideal tablets;• thirdly, they have produced otherworldly fruits and everlasting scenes; • and fourthly, they have glorified the Lord and manifested what His Names necessitate; • and, fifthly, so that the Glorious One’s acts and Essential Qualities, as well as His Knowledge’s objects, may be displayed.

Each creature, especially living ones, therefore contains five kinds of wisdom and purposes. O mortal people, if you want your little seed-sized truth to grow into a permanent tree (with the fruits of purposes explained below), try to acquire true belief. Otherwise you will be deprived of those fruits, pressed into that seed, and rot away with it.

First indication: All objects receiving Divine manifestations are replaced by new ones only after their subtle meaning and metaphysical identities have gained permanence. Something dies and appears to enter non-existence. But in reality, the meaning it expressed is permanent, for its form, nature, and metaphysical identity are preserved in the World of Ideas, on the copies of this World (the guarded tablets), and in memories (samples of the guarded tablets). Thus it exchanges its apparent, material existence for hundreds of other types of immaterial existence that are related to knowledge.

Printing a page involves arranging the necessary lead types and then removing them after the printing is finished. This page can be duplicated as many times as desired, thereby gaining permanence in countless forms and, with its meaning, in countless memories although the lead types are no longer there. In the same way, the Pen of Divine Destiny determines a shape, form, and period for the meanings in Divine Knowledge. For example, Divine Power gives vegetation external, material existence during spring. After their forms and identities are transferred to the Unseen World’s register, Divine Wisdom requires that they be replaced with new ones next spring so that the latter can exhibit their meanings.

Second indication: ... they have left behind truths pertaining to the Unseen World and forms recorded on the ideal tablets. When each thing dies, especially each living thing, it leaves all the forms it assumed while alive on the ideal tablets in the World of Ideas’ registers and brings forth many truths pertaining to the Unseen World. These forms serve as words or sentences of its life-history (its life’s Divinely destined events), upon which spirit beings reflect.

A flower dies but leaves thousands of its forms on the Unseen World’s little guarded tablets and in thousands of memories (miniature guarded tablets), and deposits the essentials of its existence in hundreds of its seeds. It dies only after showing conscious beings how it glorified the Lord and manifested His Names’ inscriptions through the forms it assumed while alive.

Likewise spring, being a flower in the global pot, decays and appears to enter non-existence. But in reality, it exchanges its present reality and leaves behind as many truths pertaining to the Unseen World as the number of its seeds, as many ideal identities as the number of its flowers, and as many instances of wisdom as the creatures it contains. Also, it makes room for the next spring to come and fulfill its function. In short, spring is stripped of a garment of apparent existence in exchange for a thousand garments of immaterial existence.

Third indication: ... produced other-worldly fruits and everlasting scenes. This world is a factory or an arable field in which the products necessary for the Hereafter’s market are obtained. Just as jinn and human deeds are transferred to the Hereafter’s market, other creatures perform many functions for the Hereafter’s sake and thereby produce different “crops.”

It may even be said that Earth, this Divine ship revolving rapidly around the sun and thus drawing the Place of Supreme Mustering’s periphery, moves as it does so that its inhabitants may reap the harvest of their work in the Hereafter. We say this because the people of Paradise will desire to narrate worldly experiences to each other and take great pleasure in watching them as though on a screen. Given this, as indicated in: (they recline) face to face on couches raised (15:47), they will talk about the events of their worldly life, and those events’ images will be present as everlasting scenes.

Thus the world produces those everlasting scenes by means of the beautiful creatures appearing one after the other and then disappearing. In today’s civilized world, for example, strange and spectacular things and events are filmed and so attain a kind of permanence for future generations. Similarly, the All-Wise Maker of creatures records, as His Names the All-Wise, All-Compassionate and All-Loving require, the outcomes of the functions performed for the sake of the Hereafter and gives them permanence as everlasting scenes in the Eternal World.

Fourth indication: ... glorified the Lord and manifest what His Names necessitate. All creatures glorify God in their own ways during their various life-stages. As they glorify the All-Wise Maker to the number of their bodily members, they also use their life and existence to display the Divine Names’ requirements or actions (i.e., compassion required by the Name the All-Compassionate, provision by the Name the All-Providing, favor by the Name the All-Favoring).

People eat delicious fruits, which then decompose and apparently die in their stomachs. But in addition to the taste they produce in the mouth, they give a pleasure to all the bodily cells they enter, and so become the means of such purposeful functions as nourishing the body and maintaining life. As sustenance, they are promoted from the level of plant life to that of human life.

When creatures die, they entrust the works and inscriptions of many Divine Names to the Names themselves and thereby obtain permanence. Given this, should we mourn for a creature who has gained thousands of kinds of permanent existence in return for a transient one through death? We should think that (Divine) Compassion, Wisdom, and Love require this, for preferring the reverse means refusing thousands of benefits just to avoid one discomfort, a preference that would result in thousands of kinds of harm. To conclude, the Names the All-Compassionate, All-Wise, and All-Loving necessitate death and decay.

Fifth indication: … and are replaced so that the Glorious One’s acts and Essential Qualities, as well as His Knowledge’s objects, may be displayed. All creatures, particularly living ones, shed their apparent existence after leaving behind many permanent things. On account of His Lordship’s Essential Qualities and in accordance with His Holiness and absolute independence, the Necessarily Existent Being has infinite love, affection, and pridea, and if the terms are permissible, endless sacred delight and pleasure and boundless transcendent happiness, the traces of which are observed. Thus, the amazing activity of those Essential Qualities require, cause all creatures to undergo a process of continuous change and transformation that moves them from the visible, material world to the Unseen world.

This continuous flux and restless movement is required by the Essential Qualities of God’s Lordship. The creatures impress the people of misguidance with wails of death and separation, and the people of guidance with voices of Divine remembrance and glorification. As a result, each dying creature leaves behind many meanings, qualities, and states through which the Necessarily Existent Being’s permanent Essential Qualities and actions may be manifested. It also leaves, through the forms and states it assumed while alive, an expanded existence representing its external, material existence in the spheres of Divine Knowledge (i.e., the Manifest Record, the Manifest Book, and the Preserved Tablet).350 Given this, we can say that each creature strips off one existence in exchange for a thousand kinds of permanent existence.

Consider another example: A factory burns raw materials to produce valuable chemical substances, and uses the resulting thermal energy to manufacture the desired product. This combustion results in many new things of greater value. If this is so, why should we complain about the consumption of raw materials or wail that the manufacturer shows no mercy toward them?

The All-Wise, All-Compassionate, and All-Loving Creator sets the factory of the universe in motion, as a requirement of His Compassion, Wisdom, and Love, to use each mortal existent as a seed that will grow into many kinds of permanent existence. This end result is His essential qualities’ glorious object, the means of His Lordship’s purposes, the ink for His Pen of Destiny, and a shuttle for His Power’s textiles. In short, He keeps the universe in constant operation for these and many other sublime purposes unknown to us.

He sets particles or atoms in restless motion, elements and plants in continuous flux, animals in endless procession, and planets in ceaseless revolution, thus making the universe speak and write expressively of His signs. His Lordship causes Him to make air, light, water, and soil imperial mediums for the operation of, successively, His commands and decrees, Knowledge and Wisdom, bounties and Mercy, and preservation and revival. Each supports a living creature’s continued existence.

This bright, sublime truth can be discerned only through the Qur’an’s light and acquired through the power of belief. If it cannot be discerned, it will be replaced by a dense, dreadful darkness. This is why the people of misguidance see the world as a place of death and separation, where everything goes to absolute non-existence. They view the universe as a kind of hell, and its contents as being enveloped by an overall non-existence after a very brief existence. They see the past and the future as engulfed by layers of the darkness of non-existence, believing that only in the twinkle of the present can a tragic life of existence be found. But for the people of guidance, the Qur’an and the light of belief illumine all time by the light of existence and thus enable them to gain eternal happiness.

In conclusion: I pronounce in the manner of the poet Niyazi Misri:

When my soul is annihilated in God

And the cage of my body breaks into pieces;

When my tongue is reduced to silence,

I call: “O Truth, O Existent One,

O Ever-Living, O Worshipped One,

O All-Wise, O Desired One,

O All-Compassionate, O All-Loving!”

 

And I shout:

There is no deity but God, the Sovereign, the Evident Truth; Muhammad is the Messenger of God, true to what he promised and the Trustworthy.

 

Also, I believe and prove:

The Resurrection, Paradise, Hell, and eternal bliss are true. God is Compassionate and Wise and Loving, and Compassion and Wisdom and Love encompass all things and their actions required by their existence.

Praise be to God, Who guided us to this. We could not have been led aright if God had not guided us. Our Lord’s Messengers brought the truth.

Glory be to You. We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. Our Lord, take us not to task if we forget or err. O God, bestow blessings on our master Muhammad in a way to please You and to perform his due, and on his Family and Companions, and bestow peace also! Amen! All praise be to the Lord of the Worlds.

Glory be to Him Who made the garden of His Earth a place where His art’s works are exhibited, His creatures are assembled, His Power and Wisdom are manifested, His Mercy blooms, the seeds of His Paradise are sown, created beings appear and then disappear, existent things stream in and out, and creatures come and go according to a fixed measure. Adorned animals, embellished birds, fruitful trees, flowering plants are all miracles of His Knowledge, wonders of His art, gifts of His Munificence, proofs of His Grace, evidences of His Oneness, subtleties of His Wisdom, and witnesses of His Compassion. Flowers smile because of fruits, birds sing because of the morning breeze, and raindrops trill on the cheeks of flowers. The finery displayed by the fruits in these gardens, and the compassion of all animal and human mothers for their young, come from the All-Loving’s recognition, the All-Merciful’s love, the All-Affectionate’s compassion, and the All-Bounteous’ affection for all created beings, be they jinn, people, spirits, animals, or angels.

Said Nursi

350 The Manifest Book symbolizes Actual Destiny, a title for Divine Will, God’s creational and operational laws of the universe, and the physical order displayed by living creatures. The Manifest Record means the Preserved Tablet, the book of Divine Knowledge, and symbolizes the Formal Destiny determining the immaterial order and the life of the universe. The Guarded Tablet refers to that upon which God has predetermined and recorded all events, a kind of Divine blueprint for creation. (Ed.)