The first station
This is a concise summary of The Twentieth Letter. It consists of three parts.
Part One
In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
And from Him do we seek help.
THE STUDENTS OF THE RISALE-I NUR ARE TRYING THEIR BEST TO TEACH the lessons of the Light wherever they are. However, the young and elderly people who read the newspapers, which write about the attacks of Communist Russia with its awful denial of God, are in greater need of its definitive, powerful instruction about belief in God’s Existence and Unity. I was thinking of writing a brief summary of the lesson that the following magnificent pronouncement of God’s Existence and Unity teaches—a pronouncement which should be recited ten times after every morning Prayer:
There is no deity but God, One, having no partners; His is the Sovereignty and to Him belongs all praise; He alone gives life and causes to die, and He is the All-Living and dies not; in His hand is all good; He has full power over everything; and to Him is the homecoming.
This pronouncement of Divine Unity contains eleven glad tidings and eleven proofs of belief. I will briefly point out the proofs and refer their further explanations and the glad tidings they bring to The Twentieth Letter and other relevant parts of the Risale-i Nur.
THE FIRST PHRASE: THERE IS NO DEITY BUT GOD
The proof here is the treatise called The Supreme Sign, the Seventh Ray. The Supreme Sign points out thirty-three vast, unanimous, universal proofs in the totality of all beings. Pointing to innumerable arguments in each universal proof, firstly with the words of the heavens and stars, then with the sentences of the earth, the animals, and plants, then with the messages of the totality of the universe and all its contents, and through the realities of coming into existence within time, contingency, and change, it proves the Existence and Unity of the Necessarily Existent Being as clearly as the light of day. Those who seek unshakeable belief and an unbreakable sword to combat irreligion and anarchy should refer to The Supreme Sign.
THE SECOND PHRASE: (HE IS) ONE
An extremely brief indication of the proof in this phrase is as follows:
In every aspect of the universe, unity is apparent. For example, the universe displays unity inasmuch as it is an entirely well-organized city, a magnificent palace, a meaningful, materialized book, and an embodied Qur’an, every verse, letter, and dot of which is miraculous. Similarly, since the palace’s lamp and fiery cook (the sun) is one and the same, and its calendar lamp (the moon)109 is one, and its water-bearing sponges (clouds) are of the same formation and nature, and since hundreds of thousands of other things it contains are all one and the same, it proves decisively that the owner, organizer, ruler, and author of the city, palace, book, and mighty embodied Qur’an is Existent, One and Single.
THE THIRD PHRASE: HE HAS NO PARTNERS
An extremely brief indication of the proof in this is as follows:
The source, master, and basis of The Supreme Sign is the mighty verse, Say: “If there were, as they assert, deities apart from Him, surely they would seek a way to the Master of the Supreme Throne (the dominion of the creation) (17:42).” This is itself a supreme sign. That is, if God had had any partners or other agents who had a part in creation or intervened in Lordship, the order of the universe would have been destroyed. However, the perfect order in everything, whether big or small, particular or universal, from the wing of the tiniest fly and the cell of the pupil of the eye to the innumerable birds which fly through the air and the solar system, provides decisive and indubitable evidence for the impossibility and non-existence of any such partners. It also testifies self-evidently to the Existence and Unity of the Necessarily Existent One.
THE FOURTH PHRASE: HIS IS THE SOVEREIGNTY
What follows is an extremely concise indication of the comprehensive proof found in this phrase:
We see with our eyes that there is a veiled, All-Powerful, All-Knowing Director and Controller Who makes the face of the earth an arable field, Who every spring sows the seeds of hundreds of thousands of species of plants, all mixed together in that vast field. Then He harvests them in perfect order, and without any confusion distributes from this field sustenance and rations to hundreds of thousands of animal species according to their needs with the hand of Mercy and Wisdom. He performs these acts throughout His vast, rich dominion, and particularly on the face of the earth. Therefore, those who do not recognize this All-Wise and All-Compassionate Director, Controller, and Owner are compelled to deny the earth together with its produce, as the foolish Sophists have done.
THE FIFTH PHRASE: TO HIM BELONGS ALL PRAISE
This is a brief indication of the very extensive proof in this phrase:
We see with our eyes and understand clearly with our minds that an All-Compassionate, All-Munificent Provider and Bestower of bounties governs, supervises, and maintains this city of the universe, this quarter of the earth, these barracks of humans and animals. For in order to encourage conscious beings to praise and thank Him exclusively in return for His bounties, He makes the earth into a merchant ship and a railway train that brings provisions; He makes spring into a wagon filled with hundreds of thousands of types of foods and packets of conserves called breasts, conveying them to the needy living creatures whose rations have been exhausted by the end of winter. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would affirm that this is the work of an All-Compassionate Provider. However, one who does not affirm this but deviates into denial is a foolish, harmful creature who will be compelled to deny all the regular bounties and specified foods on the face of the earth, which are the means for praise and thanks.
THE SIXTH PHRASE: HE ALONE GIVES LIFE
An extremely brief indication of the proof in this phrase:
It is explained convincingly in The Tenth Word and in certain other parts of the Risale-i Nur that every spring on the earth a glorious army comprising hundreds of thousands of different species, each of which has infinite members, is revived. Their lives and whatever they need are given to them with perfect order and regularity, thus displaying hundreds of thousands of examples and signs of the supreme Resurrection. All of these innumerable different creatures are raised to life in perfect balance and order without forgetfulness, error, and confusion, despite the fact that they are all intermingled. Those hundreds of thousands of species of creatures with their innumerable members, all different in respect to their forms, art, and livelihoods, are brought into being from droplets of seminal fluid, which are all similar; or from seeds buried in the earth which resemble one another; or from the tiny eggs of flies which are all similar; or, in the case of the birds of the air, from fluid or eggs, which are either the same as or only a little different from one another. The person, therefore, who does not conclude that it is an All-Living and Self-Subsistent One, an All-Knowing Giver of life and Creator Who has inscribed on the page of the earth and the spring hundreds of thousands of different “books,” all together, one within the other, without error, perfectly, and Who acts and performs works with infinite care and wisdom—that person is surely obliged to deny both themselves and all the living creatures that each spring are attached to the string of time throughout the animated earth and space. Indeed, such a person must be the most foolish and wretched of living creatures.
THE SEVENTH PHRASE: AND CAUSES TO DIE
A very brief indication of the proof contained in this phrase is as follows:
When hundreds of thousands of species of plants are being discharged in fall from their duties under the name of death, the registers of the actions of each species and all their members, and the list of the contents of everything they have done and everything they will do the following spring— their seeds, which are their spirits of a sort—are all entrusted in their places to the hand of Wisdom of the All-Majestic Preserver. Whoever, therefore, does not recognize the All-Wise Creator, the All-Living and Undying One, He Who inscribes the life-history of the fig-tree, details of which would fill a large volume, in its miniscule seeds—each of which is like an immortal spirit and bears all the laws “governing” the tree’s life—that person cannot be called foolish; rather, they are more abject than the devils who stoke up the fire of Hell, and will be condemned to eternal execution.
Just as it is clearly impossible that the universal, comprehensive, and wise acts mentioned above, which comprise numberless wonders and miracles and mark the proofs in the phrase discussed, could exist without the One Who performs them, so too, to attribute them to blind, deaf, impotent, unconscious, lifeless, confused, or disorderly material causes is inconceivable and unjustifiable, a thousand times over. For this would require that every particle of earth should possess infinite power and wisdom, together with an extraordinary universal craftsmanship in order to give form to all plants and flowers and to endow them with the necessary equipment. Furthermore, as is explained in “He: A Point of Divine Unity” in The Thirteenth Word, every molecule of air would have to possess the ability to know all speeches made or uttered by beings and all the words spoken on the radio and telephone, and then convey them to other molecules. Not even a demon could cause anyone to accept such a fantastic idea. Therefore, the just due for unbelief and denial, which is so far from reason and truth that it constitutes an insult and onslaught against all beings, could only be terrible Hell, the punishment of which is pure justice.
THE EIGHTH PHRASE: HE IS THE ALL-LIVING AND DIES NOT
An extremely brief indication of the proof in this phrase is as follows:
For example, just as the innumerable tiny suns reflected in the foams on the surface of a rough sea or on a flowing river point and testify to the existence of the same, single sun in the sky, so too, by their disappearance from the foams that go and which are replaced by new ones, they bear witness to the permanence of the same, single sun. Similarly, the creatures on the surface of the constantly changing sea of the universe, throughout ever renewed, limitless space, in the field of minute particles or atoms, and in the river of time, which holds all events and transitory beings in its embrace and flows together with them, move on continuously and speedily and then die together with their apparent causes. Every day, every year, a universe dies and a new one replaces it. Since the produce of traveling worlds and flowing universes is continuously harvested in the field of atoms, then certainly, just as the foams and tiny suns reflected in them point to a perpetual sun by their disappearance and re-appearance, the deaths of these numberless creatures and endless products (to be replaced by new ones), their being discharged in perfect orderliness together with their apparent causes, testify with the clarity and certainty of the sun itself to the necessary Existence and Unity of an All-Living, Undying One: an Eternal Sun, an All-Permanent Creator, a Most Pure and Holy Commander. All beings testify to this truth a thousand times more clearly and definitely than the existence of the universe can.
By now you must certainly have understood just how deaf, foolish, and offensive is the person who does not hear or pay heed to these loud voices and powerful testimonies which fill the universe.
THE NINTH PHRASE: IN HIS HAND IS ALL GOOD
A brief indication of the proof contained in this phrase is as follows:
We see that each sphere or realm of beings in the universe, each level, each individual, and bodily member, and even each cell of each body, has a store or depot containing reserve supplies of sustenance and a field or treasury that produces and protects all the body’s requirements. For at exactly the right time, in perfect order and balance, and with perfect wisdom and graciousness all these needy beings are given their requirements by a hidden hand, outside their power and will.
For example, mountains contain all the minerals and chemicals necessary for human beings and other living creatures, as well as all the things necessary for life. Just as they are perfect stores and treasuries which are operated at someone’s command and organization, so too the earth is an arable field, a harvest, a kitchen, producing with perfect order and regularity the sustenance of all those living beings through the Power of an All-Wise Provider. Indeed, in the same way that human beings and all organs and limbs of their bodies have treasuries and stores, and even a minute cell has a tiny depot, this world is the store of the world of the Hereafter—the world of Islam and true humanity, which produces the good, the beauty and the lights that are the field and depot of Paradise, while all evils, which yield all ugliness and kinds of unbelief, and which come from non-existence and pollute the thoroughly good worlds of existence, are a storehouse of Hell. And the store of the heat of the stars is Hell, while the treasury of lights is Paradise. Thus, alluding to all those infinite treasuries, the phrase In His hand is all good demonstrates a most brilliant proof.
This phrase, together with the statement His are the keys of the heavens and the earth (39:63), indicates to anyone who is not totally blind an infinitely extensive, wonderful proof of Divine Lordship and Unity. For example, consider just a few of these numberless treasuries and stores as follows: Just as with His command of “Awake!” and with the key of His Will, an All-Wise Director and Controller Who holds the keys of seeds and grains—tiny stores containing all the necessary equipment and the plans and programs of huge trees or radiant flowers—opens up in perfect balance and order the minute door of a seed, so too with the key of the rain, which is the treasury of the earth, He opens without error all the seeds, the tiny stores that contain the “seminal fluid” of plants, as well as the tiny storehouses of droplets of semen and eggs; these then receive the command to develop and act as the origin of animals, of birds, and flying insects. If you want to understand that the One Who opens all these treasuries and storehouses also opens up with the hand of Wisdom, Will, Mercy, and Choice all the treasuries and depots, physical and non-physical, universal and particular, in the universe, each with its particular key, consider your own heart, mind, body, and stomach, each of which is a storehouse for you, and your garden and spring, which is the flower of the earth, and its flowers and fruits. See how they are opened by a hidden hand with perfect order, balance, mercy, and wisdom, each with a different key that comes from the workbench of “Be!” and it is. That hidden hand produces pounds—sometimes hundreds of pounds—of food from a minute box weighing less than an ounce and presents them to living creatures as a feast. Is it at all possible that blind force, deaf nature, aimless chance, or lifeless, ignorant, impotent causes could have a part in such a boundless, orderly, knowing, and discerning act? Is it possible that they could play any kind of role in such a totally wise, completely chance-free art, in such accurate, perfectly balanced disposals, and in such completely just acts of administering, raising, and maintaining? Could any being that does not see and administer all beings together at once, or does not hold under their command minute particles together with the planets and stars, intervene in this disposal and government, which is in every way wise, miraculous, and balanced?
As the verse Almost bursting with fury (67:8) states, Hell boils over with anger at the person who does not recognize the All-Compassionate Director and Controller, the All-Wise Lord, in Whose hand is all good and with Whom are the keys of all things, and who as a result deviates into denial: it boils up in fury, declaring through the tongue of mute eloquence: “He deserves my boundless torments and is never worthy of compassion.”
THE TENTH PHRASE: AND HE HAS THE FULL POWER OVER EVERYTHING
An extremely concise indication of the proof in this phrase is as follows: As soon as every conscious creature that comes into this guest-house of
the world opens its eyes, it sees that a Power holds in its grasp the entire universe and that within that Power is infinite, eternal, all-embracing Knowledge, Which never confuses anything, as well as a most precise Wisdom and Favoring, Which never act aimlessly or without balance. Just as the Power employs a single particle in numerous tasks, turning it this way and that, like an ecstatic Mevlevi dervish, it also causes the globe of the earth to travel the distance of twenty-four thousand years in a single year, according to the same law. At the same time and according to the same law by which It sends to humans and animals the produce of the seasons, It employs the sun as a shuttle or spinning-wheel, making it move around its center ecstatically and in a way that produces a powerful gravity, employing the planets—the army of the solar system—in various tasks with perfect order and balance. At the same time and according to the same law of Wisdom, that same Power inscribes on the page of the face of the earth the “books” that are hundreds of thousands of species, one within the other, without error or confusion, thus displaying thousands of examples of the supreme resurrection of the dead. At the same time, that Power transforms the page of the air into a tablet for writing and erasing. Employing all the atoms of air, which are like the nibs of pens or the dots that make up writing, in the tasks specified for them by Will and Command, It endows all of them with such ability that each receives all words and speech as though it knows them, and broadcasts them without confusion. It employs each as a miniscule ear and a tiny tongue, proving that the element of air is a “throne” for Divine Will and Command.
Thus, as indicated in this brief indication, the One Who makes the universe into a well-ordered city, a perfectly-built and organized apartment building and guest-house, and a miraculous book or Qur’an, holds in His Grasp with the balance of Knowledge and arrangements of Wisdom all the levels, realms, and groups of creatures from the universe as a whole to minute particles, directing and controlling them. He is the All-Merciful and All-Compassionate One Who displays His Wisdom and Mercy within His Power and makes known His Existence and Unity within His absolute Lordship as clearly as the sun. So, those who do not recognize that All-Merciful and All-Compassionate One through belief in return for His making Himself known, who do not love Him through worship in return for His making Himself loved, and do not offer Him thanks or praise in return for His bounties—these demons in human form who, instead of recognizing Him and trying to love Him, or thank and praise Him, foster a sort of enmity toward Him through denial; they are minor Nimrods and Pharaohs and are certainly deserving of infinite torment.
THE ELEVENTH PHRASE: AND TO HIM IS HOMECOMING
This means that just as beings will leave for His Presence and proceed to the eternal world—the Hereafter—and the everlasting realm of happiness, so too is He the refuge of all the creatures in the universe. All the chains of material causes end in Him and rest on His Power. They are all merely veils for the acts of His Power—veils for preserving the Dignity and Majesty of His sacred Power against unbecoming complaints. They have no part whatever in creation. Were it not for His Will and Command, nothing, not even a particle, could move or act. A very brief indication of the proof in this phrase is as follows:
FIRSTLY: We refer to The Tenth Word and its addenda, The Twenty-ninth Word, The Seventh Matter of Fruits of Belief (The Eleventh Ray), The Third Ray (The Treatise of Supplication), and to the treatises of the Risale-i Nur concerning belief, the fact that the Resurrection will occur and that the Hereafter and eternal life will be brought about as indubitably and clearly as the coming spring. Truly, these treatises have proved this pillar of belief in such a way, with so much evidence that they compel even the most obstinate deniers to affirm that the existence of the Hereafter is as certain as the existence of this world.
SECONDLY: One third of the miraculously eloquent Qur’an concerns the Resurrection and the Hereafter and it builds all its claims on them. Therefore, all of the Qur’an’s miraculous aspects and the evidence that proves that it is God’s Word also testify to the existence of the Hereafter. Similarly, all of the miracles which bear witness to the Prophethood of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, and all other evidence of his Prophethood and proofs of his truthfulness also testify to the reality of the Resurrection and the Hereafter. Throughout his life one of this noblest being’s most constant claims concerned the Hereafter; in the same way, all the other twenty-four thousand Prophets, upon them be peace, also gave humankind glad tidings of everlasting happiness in an eternal realm, proving it with countless miracles and clear evidence. Therefore, all the miracles and evidence that proved their Prophethood and truthfulness also bear witness to the Hereafter and eternal life, which, after the Existence and Unity of God, was their constant and most important doctrine. Furthermore, all the evidence that prove the other pillars of belief also testify to the reality of the Resurrection and the opening up of the realm of happiness.
THIRDLY: In order to display His Perfections, His Power and His Lordship, an All-Majestic Maker, an All-Gracious and Beautiful Creator, an All-Perfect God has created the universe with all its atoms, planets, parts and levels, and makes each work at a task, indeed, at numerous tasks, continuously and with perfect wisdom. Also, in order to display the endless, perpetual manifestations of His Names, He sends convoy after convoy, indeed, world after renewed traveling world, and the tribes of creatures, to the guest-house of this world and the arena of trial, which is worldly life. Having recorded all their images, deeds, and states for the movies of the Hereafter with the cameras that have been set up in the World of representations or “ideal” forms and belong to the Intermediate Realm (between the material and immaterial realms), He discharges them from their duties to be followed by other tribes, convoys, and flowing or traveling worlds for the same tasks and in order that they should be mirrors to the manifestations of His Names. Is it therefore at all possible that there should be no realm of reward and punishment, no Resurrection and Last Judgment, for human beings, who with consciousness and intelligence should respond in this fleeting world to all the purposes of the Creator, and should, with all their capacity, love Him and make Him loved, recognize Him and make Him known, and who endlessly pray to Him for everlasting happiness in the Hereafter, and who, on account of having intelligence, suffer infinite pains and long for eternal life, which is pure pleasure, with all their being, spirit, and capacities? God forbid! A hundred thousand times, God forbid!
Since this brief indication is found in detail together with its proofs in relevant parts of the Risale-i Nur, we refer you to them and cut this long story short here.
All-Glorified are You! We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. Surely You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Said Nursi
109 The calendar-lamp is the moon. The Qur’an declares: They ask you (O Messenger) about the new moons. Say: “They are markers for the people to determine time periods and for the Pilgrimage.” (2:189) (Tr.)