THE SECOND FRUIT OF DIVINE UNITY AND BELIEF IN IT

 

While the first fruit relates to the All-Holy Being and Creator of the universe, this second fruit relates to the universe itself and its essential nature.

It is on account of God’s being the sole Creator and Lord of the universe and the affirmation of this greatest truth that the perfections of the universe are realized; and the elevated duties of beings are understood; and the purposes behind the creation of beings are realized. It is on account of this that the value of creatures is known; and the Divine purposes underpinning the existence and life of all existent beings come into view; and the wisdom in the creation of animate and conscious beings becomes apparent; and the smiling, beautiful faces of Mercy and Wisdom which lie behind the angry, bitter faces of the violent storms of flux and upheaval are seen. And it is known that the beings which disappear behind the veil of death and decay leave behind many imprints of their existence and consequences of their life in the visible world, such as their identities, natures, spirits, and glorifications.

It is also on account of God’s being the sole Creator and Lord of the universe and the affirmation of this greatest truth that it is known that the whole of the universe is a meaningful book of the Eternally Besought One; and all beings, from the depths of the earth to the furthest reaches of the heavens, constitute a miraculous collection of missives written by the All-Glorified One. It is on account of this that all the species of creatures appear as a magnificent, well-organized army of the Lord, and that all tribes of beings, from microbes and ants to rhinoceroses, eagles, and planets, are seen to be dutiful officials of the Pre-Eternal Sovereign. It is on account of this that everything acquires a value thousands of times greater than its own individual worth, thanks to the connection it enjoys with that Sovereign and the fact that it acts as a mirror to Him. It is on account of this that one is able to find answers to enigmatic questions such as: “From where did these vast floods of beings and these endless caravans of creatures come? Where are they going? Why did they come here? And what are they doing, what purposes are they serving?” Were it not for Divine Unity, these elevated perfections of the universe would disappear, and these lofty, sacred truths would be transformed into their opposites.

It is because the crimes of unbelief and associating partners with God are acts of aggression against all of the perfections of creation and its inviolable rights and sacred truths that the universe grows angry with the unbelievers and those who associate partners with God. The wrath of the heavens and the earth descends upon them and the universal elements unite to destroy them, as they did when they drowned the people of Noah, destroyed the ‘Ad and the Thamud7, and obliterated the Pharaoh, all of whom were guilty of associating partners with God. As stated in the verse, Almost bursting with fury (67:8), Hell rages and fumes at the unbelievers and those who associate partners with God with such vehemence that it almost bursts apart. Associating partners with God is a tremendous insult to the universe and a monstrous aggression against it. By denying the sacred duties of the universe and demeaning the instances of wisdom in creation, one commits a gross affront to the honor of the universe. To illustrate this, we will mention one example out of thousands.

For example, on account of Divine Unity and the unified character it has bestowed upon creation, the universe resembles a vast, corporeal angel. This angel has as many heads as the number of species of creatures, and each head has mouths to the number of the members of those species. In each mouth there are as many tongues as the number of the organs, parts, and cells of those members. Therefore, the universe is like a wonderful creature which glorifies its Maker and, with innumerable tongues, declares Him to be the All-Holy, thus engaging itself in worship like the Archangel Israfil. The universe is also like an arable field which yields abundant crops for the realms and mansions of the Hereafter; it is like a factory that produces supplies—human deeds, for example—to be dispatched to the various levels of the Realm of Happiness. It is like a movie-camera with thousands of lenses, uninterruptedly taking pictures in this world for the people of the next, including particularly the people of Paradise, to watch. Unbelief and associating partners with God portray this truly wonderful, perfectly obedient and living corporeal angel as a lifeless, decaying, futile, perishing, meaningless and wretched accumulation of things revolving in the turmoil of events, the storms of change and the darkness of non-existence. Also, associating partners with God changes this marvelous, perfectly orderly and most beneficial factory into an idle, disorderly plaything of chance that produces nothing and has no function. It sees and shows it to be the playground of deaf nature and blind force, a place of mourning for all conscious beings and the slaughterhouse of all living creatures.

Thus, in accordance with the verse, Surely associating partners with God is a tremendous wrong (31:13, associating partners with God, despite being a single evil, is the cause and source of so many monstrous crimes that it renders those guilty of it deserving of infinite torment in Hell.

What led me to this second fruit was a strange feeling and experience. Once, when I was observing the unfolding of spring, I saw the creatures— in particular, the living ones, and the tiniest of these in particular—enter the sphere of existence, caravan after caravan, and leave it after a short appearance in a flowing torrent displaying hundreds of thousands of examples of the Resurrection.

The scenes of death and decay which appeared in this continuous flurry of activity were so pitiable that they moved me to tears. The more I witnessed the death of those lovely creatures, the more my heart ached. Sighing with pity and regret, I found my spirit in deep turmoil, for life that came to such an end seemed to me to be a torment worse than death.

The living beings of the plant and animal kingdoms, most beautiful and full of precious art, were opening their eyes to gaze on this exhibition of the universe for a moment and were then disappearing. The more I watched, the more pain I felt. I was moved to complain by shedding tears, while my heart asked profound questions such as: “Why do they come and then go away without ceasing?” I saw that these lovely creatures being torn up like rags and thrown away into the darkness of non-existence before my eyes as though they were worthless and without purpose, despite having been created, equipped, and nurtured with so much attention and art and in such valuable forms. And as I saw this, my senses and faculties, captivated as they are by perfection and as attached as deeply as they are to beauty and things of value, began to scream: “Why are these not shown mercy? How pitiful it is! Where do decay and death come from in this bewildering cycle of events to assail these poor beings?”

As I started complaining bitterly about fate because of the painful way the events of these beings’ life are governed, indicated by the light of the Qur’an and the mystery of belief, Divine Unity came to my aid as a pure favor of the All-Merciful. It illuminated all those layers of darkness, changing my laments into professions of joy and my pitiful complaints into exclamations, such as “What wonders God has willed!” and “How blessed God is!” It caused me to declare, “All praise and gratitude be to God for the light of belief!” For the unity manifested in creation showed me that Divine Unity causes each created being—and each living creature in particular—to have general benefits and to yield considerably significant results.

For example, each living creature—this ornate flower, for example, or that sweet-producing bee, is such a meaningful Divine ode that innumerable conscious beings study it with great delight. It is such a precious miracle of Power and so great a proclamation of Wisdom that it exhibits the Art of the Maker to countless appreciative observers in a most attractive manner. Another exceedingly elevated result of its creation is that it presents itself to, or is favored with, the gaze of the All-Majestic Originator, Who wills to observe His Art Himself, to look on the grace and beauty of His creation, and view the beauties of the manifestations of His Names in the countless mirrors that are His creatures.

Furthermore, as explained in The Twenty-Fourth Letter8, it is another elevated duty of the creation of each creature that it in five ways it serves the manifestation of God’s Lordship and the demonstration of Divine Perfections, which necessitate the infinite activity in the universe. In addition to yielding such results and serving such purposes and benefits, each living being that possesses a spirit (but has no intellect) leaves that spirit behind in this visible realm when it departs. And in countless memories and other “preserved tablets” it leaves behind its form and identity, and in its seeds or eggs it leaves the laws of its nature and a sort of plan for a future duplicate of its life. And in the World of the Unseen and the sphere of Divine Names it leaves the perfections and beauties which it has mirrored, before passing through a veil of death and becoming hidden from worldly eyes through an apparent demise, which is, in reality, a joyful discharge from its duties. I perceived this reality and uttered, “All praise and gratitude are for God!”

These genuine, deeply-rooted, exceedingly powerful, faultless, and infinitely brilliant instances of grace and beauty, which are observable in all the levels of the universe and all the species of creation, demonstrate unequivocally that the extremely ugly, harsh, repugnant, and wretched picture painted by unbelief and associating partners with God is impossible and illusory. For such appalling ugliness could not exist hidden under the veil of such genuine grace and beauty: if it really did exist, then that true grace and beauty would be false, baseless, futile, and illusory. This means that the association of partners with God is not based upon a reality: its way is closed, it has become stuck in a mire, and it is a mere claim or supposition that is impossible to verify. This clearly observable truth of belief has been elucidated with numerous proofs in many parts of the Risale-i Nur.

Said Nursi

7 The ‘Ad were the people of Prophet Hud and lived in southern Arabia, and the Talmud were the people of Prophet Salih, living in northwest Arabia. (Tr.)

8 See The Letters, translated by Hüseyin Akarsu, The Light, 2007.