The Twenty-eighth Letter
Eighth issue
(This treatise consists of points in the form of answers to questions.)
FOURTH POINT: You ask: “How will the Place of Supreme Mustering be built? How will people be gathered there? Will they be naked? How will they meet friends and find God’s Messenger to request his intercession? How will God’s
Messenger meet countless people personally? How will the people of Paradise and Hell be clothed? Who will show us the way?”
ANSWER: As the answers are given in the books of Traditions, I mention only a few points relevant to our way:
First: The Tenth Letter explains that Earth draws a huge circle through its annual orbit and every year empties the immaterial outcome of what has happened on it into that circle’s tablets. On the Day of Judgment, the total outcome of Earth’s life will assume a form specific to the Hereafter. On the Last Day, Earth will submit the minor hell in its center into the Hell of the Hereafter, and empty its contents into the Place of Supreme Mustering, which will be built on Earth’s annual orbit.
Second: The Words, mainly the Tenth and Twenty-ninth, prove that the dead will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment and assembled in the Place of Supreme Mustering.
Third: The Sixteenth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second Words explain how God’s Messenger will be able to meet everyone. Just as the sun’s luminosity enables it to be everywhere at once, his nature’s luminosity will allow him to be present in thousands of places and meet millions of people at the same time.
Fourth: God Almighty supplies a natural covering for all living creatures except humanity. So, as a requirement of His being All-Wise, He will provide humanity with a natural covering in the Place of Supreme Mustering, for no one will need artificial clothes. People use artificial clothes to shelter from cold and heat, as well as to cover their private parts and show their commanding position and control over other species. If this were not so, they would be clothed quite simply. Without this wisdom of requiring humanity to wear elaborate clothes, a person wearing rags would be ridiculed by other conscious beings. As this wisdom will not be sought in the Place of Supreme Mustering, artificial clothes will be unnecessary.
Fifth: The guide for those who sought shelter under the Qur’an’s light will be the Qur’an itself. Look at the suras beginning with Alif-Lam-Mim, Alif-Lam-Ra, and Ha-Mim to see what an acceptable intercessor, a true guide, and a sacred light the Qur’an is.
Sixth: As for the clothes of the people of Paradise and Hell, the principle mentioned in the Twenty-eighth Word to explain the houris’ 70-timespleated garment is enough to understand this matter. People of Paradise desire to experience uninterrupted pleasure from every section of Paradise at the same time. Paradise has innumerable kinds of beauties with which they interact continually. And so they cloth themselves and their houris in specimens of those beauties, transforming each into a miniature paradise.
Just as a gardener grows in his own garden a sample of each flower in his country, shopkeepers list the examples of their inventory, or people make their clothes or house material out of the things they use or dispose of, people of Paradise and their houris will be dressed by God’s Mercy in a fashion to display Paradise’s beauties so that these beauties may please each sense and feeling and satisfy each faculty. This is especially true for those who worshipped God with all their senses and faculties while in this world, for such people deserve all the pleasures of Paradise.
The Tradition: “Houris wear 70 celestial garments one over the other, but the marrow in their legs is still perceptible,” shows that the garments worn by the people of Paradise are not of the same kind.380 Every garment, from the most outer to the most inner, is of a different level so that all senses and feelings will receive their specific pleasures through specific beauties.
In accord with wisdom and justice, the people of Hell will be clothed in garments that will cause each person to suffer a special torment, for they sinned with their bodily organs, intellects, and so on while alive. Each garment will be like a miniature hell.
FIFTH POINT: You ask: “Were the Messenger’s ancestors devoted to a certain religion during the interregnum (when no Prophet came)?”
ANSWER: Some Traditions relate that they followed the remnants of Abraham’s religion, which survived in some people despite the pervasive veils of heedlessness and spiritual darkness. Members of an illustrious lineage, beginning with Abraham and resulting in God’s Messenger, must not have been indifferent to the true religion’s light or overcome by unbelief’s darkness. Those who lived during the interregnum will not be called to account for their faults in religion’s secondary commands.
In addition, as stated in: We do not punish unless We send a Messenger (17:15), they will be exempt from Hellfire. Imam Shafi‘i and Imam Ash‘ari maintain that they will be saved from Hell’s torment even if they did not believe and were unaware of the pillars of belief, for God holds His servants responsible for His Commands only after sending a Messenger. Moreover, people can be held responsible only if they are aware of belief and Divine commands. Since the passage of time covered the earlier Prophets’ religions, those who lived during the interregnum cannot be punished for not following those religions. But those who carried out some of those religions’ commandments, whether consciously or unconsciously, will be rewarded; those who did not will not be punished.
SIXTH POINT: You ask: “Did a Prophet appear among the Messenger’s ancestors?”
ANSWER: There are no Traditions or verses to inform us if one appeared after Isma‘il (Ishmael). Two Prophets, Khalid ibn Sinan and Hanzala, did appear, but they were not from the Messenger’s lineage. Nevertheless, the couplet of Qa’b ibn Luayy, who was from that lineage,
Prophet Muhammad will appear in the time of heedlessness,
He will give tidings, in all of which he is truthful.
seems to be miraculous and therefore belonging to a Prophet. Imam Rabbani, based on evidence and spiritual discovery, said: “Many Prophets appeared in India, but, since no one or only a few followed most of them, they either did not become famous or were not recognized as Prophets.” Based on this illustrious Imam’s viewpoint, we can say that such Prophets might have appeared in the Messenger’s lineage.
SEVENTH POINT: You ask: “What is the truest and most acceptable opinion about the belief of the Messenger’s parents and grandfather (‘Abd al-Muttalib)?”
ANSWER: I have had only the Qur’an with me for 10 years, and do not have enough spare time to research the books of Tradition for such details. However, his parents are among the people of belief and Paradise, for God Almighty would not hurt His most noble beloved’s feelings and affection for his parents.
If you ask why they did not live until his Prophethood so that they could believe in him, I reply: To please His most noble beloved’s filial feelings, God Almighty may have willed not to make his parents indebted to him. Since His Compassion required, in order to please His noble beloved and his parents, that his parents not be reduced to being his children-in-religion and that they should be indebted only to His Lordship and not to any created being, God Almighty did not make the Messenger’s grandfather and parents members of his community. However, He granted them the virtues, merits, and happiness shared by the community. For example, if a noble marshal’s father is only a captain and enters his son’s presence, the son will have paradoxical feelings. So the monarch excludes the captain from his honorable aide-de-camp’s (the marshal) company out of compassion.
EIGHTH POINT: You ask about the most accurate opinion about his uncle Abu Talib’s belief.
ANSWER: The Shi‘ah say he believed, while most Sunnis say he did not. I maintain that Abu Talib sincerely loved God’s Messenger for his person, not on account of his Messengership. This sincere and solemn love and affection will not be lost. Even if Abu Talib enters Hell because shame and tribal zeal, instead of willful denial and obstinacy, prevented his belief, God Almighty could create a particular paradise therein to reward him for loving, protecting, and supporting the Messenger. As He sometimes sends spring-like weather during mid-winter, creates spring in some places, or changes a dungeon into a palace through sleep, He may change his abodes in Hell into an abode paradise for him.
Only God has knowledge and knows the Unseen. Glory be to You. We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Said Nursi
380 Bukhari, Bad‘ al-Khalq, 8; Tirmidhi, Qiyama, 60. The greatest blessing in Paradise is obtaining God’s approval and good pleasure and, as implied by some verses and explicitly stated in some Traditions, seeing God beyond all concepts of quality and quantity. However, since such purely spiritual blessings are concerned rather with the élite of the believers, the Qur’an usually mentions the blessings of Paradise as if they were purely bodily pleasures. Human beings are not composed of only the spirit, but are tripartite beings composed of a spirit, carnal soul, and flesh (the physical body). Since a believer’s body and carnal soul serve him or her in the world, have to endure some hardships, and are deprived of some of the worldly pleasures to be disciplined and trained, each body will be rewarded with the pleasures particular to them as well. However, it must not be thought that those pleasures are purely corporeal. The spiritual contentment they will give is greater than the corporeal satisfaction. For example, every person needs a friend, a companion. What most satisfies a person’s human needs is having an intimate life companion with whom to share love, joy, and grief. Since the kindest and most compassionate and generous of hearts is the heart of a woman, the Qur’an mentions women as being among the greatest blessings of Paradise for men, rather than vice versa. That is, in addition to the sensual pleasure she provides, the spiritual pleasure a woman can give to her spouse through such elevated feelings as compassion, love, and being a life-companion is greater than a man can give her. This does not mean that women in Paradise will be left without companions. The pleasure coming from mutual helping, sharing the joy and grief of one another and companionship, and that provided by love, affection, and intimacy, is much greater than the bodily pleasures men and women supply for each other. Those defeated by bodily pleasures and unaware of the spiritual pleasures included in them may see Paradise as a realm of sensual enjoyment. They are, however, mistaken. (Tr.)