THE FOURTH TRUTH: The truth of Compassionateness and Providing

 

 

Which constitutes the thirty-third step, that the traveler has observed in the third mansion or stage is the truth of Compassionateness and Providing.

We can see with our own eyes that all living beings on earth, in the skies and in the seas, particularly those endowed with spirit, and among them especially the impotent, the weak and the young, are given all of their necessary sustenance, be it material or immaterial, in the most solicitous manner, at the most appropriate time, in the most orderly fashion, and without any omission or confusion, by an Unseen Hand. Some kinds of sustenance are derived from dry soil, some from dry, bone-like pieces of wood, while vast amounts of other kinds of sustenance come from a single seed. The most delicate of all of them is that which comes from between blood and waste matter.

The verse, Surely God—it is He Who is the All-Providing, Lord of all might, and the All-Forceful (51:58), restricts to God only the bestowal of provision, while the verse, No living creature is there moving on the earth but its provision depends on God, and He knows its every lodging and disposition (every stage of its life), and the duration of its stay, and the moment of its transition therefrom. All is in a Manifest Book (11:6), declares that the Lord has undertaken to give all humankind and animals the sustenance that is essential for their lives. Similarly, the verse, How many a living creature there is that does not carry its own provision (in store), but God provides for them, and indeed for you. He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing (29:60), establishes the fact that it is God Who guarantees and provides for all impotent, weak and wretched creatures that are unable to work to secure their sustenance, producing it from unexpected places—indeed from the Unseen or even out of nothing. For example, insects on the ocean bed and their young are provided for virtually out of nothing; all the young are provided for from unexpected sources, while all animals receive their sustenance every spring as if from the Unseen. The above verse establishes and proclaims even to those who ascribe everything to material causes or nature that it is He Who bestows provision from behind the veil of causality. In addition, numerous other Qur’anic verses and cosmic evidences demonstrate beyond doubt that it is through the Compassionateness of a single All-Providing One of Majesty that all animate beings are nurtured.

Indeed, since the trees, which need a certain form of sustenance, have neither power nor will, and therefore remain in their places in complete reliance on God, their provision comes hastening to them. The sustenance of the powerless young flows to their mouths from amazing small pumps, ceasing only when they acquire a little power and will. The sustenance of human infants in particular comes to them aided by the affection and tenderness of their mothers. These various instances show that lawful sustenance is not proportionate to will and power; rather it comes in relation to weakness and impotence, which stimulate trust in God.

Will, power and cleverness, which lead to greed and are a source of loss in most cases, often drive certain learned or literary people toward a form of beggary, while the trusting weakness of many ignorant, crude and common people may lead them to plenty. It is because of this that “How many are the learned whose path has led nowhere; how many are the ignorant who are knee-deep in riches.” has become a proverb. This shows that a person is not led to lawful provision on account of power and will; rather, lawful provision is given to those whose labor and striving is deemed acceptable by the Giver of Mercy: it is granted by a Compassion that takes pity on their neediness.

Now provision is of two kinds:

The first kind is true provision, which is absolutely essential for life: this is guaranteed by the Lord. It is indeed so regular and well-ordered that the part of this basic provision stored in the body in the form of fat and other things, for example, is enough to ensure survival for at least twenty days, even if nothing is eaten. Those who appear to die of hunger before the twenty or thirty days are over or before the basic provision stored up in their body is consumed, die in reality not from a lack of provision but rather from a disease that results from bad or disrupted habits.

The second kind is the provision which is not really vital, but which has become necessary over time on account of habit, wastefulness and misuse. This kind of provision is not under the guarantee of the Lord but depends rather on His Generosity: sometimes He may give it, sometimes He may not.

With respect to this second form of provision, happy are they who regard the lawful acquisition of livelihood and the virtues of frugality and contentment—themselves sources of happiness and pleasure—as a form of worship and active prayer for sustenance. They accept what God grants to them gratefully and appreciatively, and spend their life in happiness.

On the contrary, wretched are those who abandon lawful acquisition of livelihood on account of their wastefulness and greed—sources of wretchedness, loss and distress—and instead knock on every door, spending their life in indolence, oppression and complaint, to the extent that they are ready to destroy their own lives.

In the same way that a stomach demands sustenance, the five senses of humans and their other faculties such as the heart, the spirit, the intellect, and the power of imagination also request, and receive with gratitude, their sustenance from the All-Compassionate Provider. The sustenance of each is granted to them separately and in an appropriate form from the treasury of Mercy, giving them pleasure and filling them with joy. Indeed, in order to grant them sustenance more generously, the All-Compassionate Provider has created each of these senses and faculties in the form of a key to His treasury of Mercy. For example, the eye is a key to the treasure chest which contains such precious jewels as beauty and loveliness on the face of the universe. Similarly, each of the other faculties and senses is a key to a different world, allowing humans to benefit from them through faith.

We now turn to our main discussion:

In the same way that the All-Powerful and All-Wise Creator of the universe has fashioned life to be a comprehensive summary or extract of the universe, concentrating all of His purposes and the manifestations of His Names therein, He has also made provision a comprehensive locus of His Acts within the world of life. Having created living beings with appetites and the taste for provision, He causes them to respond to His Lordship and His will to be loved by them with a permanent and universal sense of gratitude, thankfulness and worship, which constitute a most significant purpose and instance of wisdom of His for the creation of the universe.

For example, one of the Divine Acts demanded by the wisdom of His Lordship is the creation of beings appropriate to every part of His domains and His populating the universe with them: the celestial realm He fills with angels and similar supra-material beings; the Realm of the Unseen He populates with spirits; and the material world—in particular the atmosphere and the earth—He fills with numerous kinds of living beings, from the birds in the air to the flies and beasts of the field, from the fish in the seas to human beings on land. By endowing these living beings with an innate need for sustenance, He impels them to strive for their provision by making it pleasurable for them, and thus saves them from indolence and lethargy. Had it not been for such significant instances of wisdom, He would have made their essential provision hasten to animals without any effort on their part, just as He makes the provision of trees hasten to them.

Were we able to see the whole surface of the earth simultaneously in order to be able to perceive the gracious manifestations of the Names the All-Compassionate and the All-Providing and how they bear witness to Divine Unity, we would see what exquisite grace and sweet beauty are contained in the affectionate manifestation of the All-Compassionate Provider. For example, we would see how, at the end of winter when their provisions are almost exhausted, He sends to whole caravans of animals an abundance of varied and most delicious foods from His unseen treasury of Mercy: this sustenance, which is succor from the Unseen and a gift of His Compassion, comes to them by means of the hands of plants, the crowns of trees and the breasts of mothers. Were we able to see all of this, we would realize the following:

The One Who makes a single apple and provides a human being with it munificently can only be the One Who makes one season follow another and causes night to follow day; it can only be the One Who causes the cargo ship that is the earth to revolve, bringing the products of each season to His needy guests. For since the stamp of Creation, the seal of Wisdom, the signet of His Eternal Besoughtedness and the imprint of Mercy on the face of the apple can also be found on all apples and all other fruits, plants and animals, the true Owner and Maker of the apple must certainly be the All-Majestic Master and All-Gracious Creator of all the inhabitants of the earth, who are the peers, fellows and siblings of the apple. The Creator of that single apple must also be the Creator of the vast earth that is the garden where the apple is grown, of the tree that is the factory where it is manufactured, of the seasons that are the workshop where it is produced, and of the seasons of spring and summer that are its place of maturing. In short, every fruit is a seal of Divine Unity that makes known the Author and Maker of its tree, of the earth which is its garden, and of the book of the universe: it demonstrates His Unity and shows that this garden or book is a Divine decree to which the seal of Unity to the number of fruits is affixed.

Being a manifestation of the Names the All-Compassionate and the All-Wise, the Risale-i Nur has expounded numerous mysteries of the truth of Compassionateness in many of its parts. Readers who wish for a more elaborate discussion of these truths may refer to those parts, while we content ourselves here with this brief indication.

And so our observant traveler now says: “All praise be to God, for I have seen and heard thirty-three truths which bear witness to the necessary Existence and Unity of my Creator and Master, the One Whom I was seeking and enquiring after everywhere. Each of the truths is as strong as a mountain and as bright as the sun, leaving no point in darkness. Each of them, by being an established fact, bears decisive witness to His Existence, and with its comprehensiveness proves His Unity in manifest fashion. While also proving all the pillars of faith, the totality of these truths causes our belief to develop from the imitative to the investigative; it then allows us to verify our belief, and advance from certainty arising from knowledge to certainty arising from vision or observation, and therefrom to certainty based on experience. All praise and gratitude be to God, for this is nothing but a pure gift from my Lord!”

All praise and gratitude are for God, Who has guided us to this. If God had not guided us, we would certainly not have found the right way. The Messengers of our Lord did indeed come with the truth. (7:43)

In a very brief reference to the lights of belief the inquisitive traveler derived from the four tremendous truths they observed at the third mansion or stage, it was said in The Second Chapter of The First Station concerning these truths:

There is no deity but God, the One, the Unique, Whose Unity and necessary Existence are demonstrated clearly through the observation of the sublimely comprehensive truth of Opening, which, as testified by botany and zoology, is manifested in the unfolding of hundreds of thousands of species of living beings, perfect and without any defect; through the observation of the sublimely comprehensive truth of Mercifulness, all-embracing and absolutely orderly, without any deficiency, as can be clearly seen; through the observation of the sublimity of the truth of Administering, Which encompasses all living beings in an absolutely orderly fashion, without error or defect; and through the observation of the sublimely comprehensive truth of Compassionateness and Providing, Which embrace all consumers of sustenance at every time of need, without any mistake or forgetfulness. All-Exalted is the Majesty of their All-Merciful, All-Compassionate, All-Kind and Caring, and All-Bounteous and Favoring Provider. Universal are His gifts, all-embracing is His Favoring, and there is no deity but He.

All-Glorified are You! We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. Surely You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.

O Lord, for the sake of In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate, O God, O the All-Merciful, O the All-Compassionate, bestow peace and blessings upon our master Muhammad, his Family and all his Companions, to the number of all the letters in the Risale-i Nur, multiplied by all the seconds of the minutes of all of our lives in this world and the Hereafter, multiplied by the number of particles in my body throughout the course of my life. Forgive me and those who help me in sincerity with the copying and writing of the Risale-i Nur, for the sake of every peace and blessing, and forgive our parents, our masters, our teachers, our sisters, our brothers and the loyal students of the Risale-i Nur, particularly those who write and copy this treatise. Forgive us by Your Mercy, O Most Merciful of the Merciful, Amin. The conclusion of their prayer is, “All praise and gratitude are for God, the Lord of all the worlds!”

NOTE: Since the other parts of the Risale-i Nur were not available in the place where the above treatise was written, certain important matters included in The Words and The Gleams have been repeated in it. This has been done in the hope that each of these matters may strengthen the cause of the whole Risale-i Nur for its pupils in this area.

Said Nursi