The Fourth Way
This is about the future page of time and particularly about the Shari‘a.
You should not neglect the following four points in your considerations:
THE FIRST POINT: A person, no matter how intelligent, cannot be a specialist in more than two or three fields of science.
THE SECOND POINT: Two persons present a subject. One presents it on the most proper occasion with all its dimensions and in its relationships with other relevant subjects. This shows that person’s expertise in this subject. The other one presents it superficially and in imitation of others. Even if you cannot discern the difference between the two presentations with your mind, your spirit feels it.
THE THIRD POINT: As explained in the First Premise in the first part of this book, if a discovery regarded as extraordinary a few centuries ago had remained hidden up until today, a child could have made it, as all the preliminary knowledge and conditions were already present. Taking this into consideration, go to the Arabian Peninsula of thirteen (now fourteen) centuries ago, and look around. You will see that an unlettered person deprived of any material help established a high standard of justice based on the laws of true knowledge, such as could only be as well worked out many centuries later as a result of many centuries of research, development, and discoveries; you will see that the Shari‘a, comprising the principles of that justice, has the capacity to meet all the needs of the future until the Last Day. It contains such basic principles that it can expand and deal with all the questions that will arise through time. It declares that it issues from the Eternal Divine Word and secures happiness in both worlds. If you are fair-minded enough, you will understand that the Shari‘a cannot be the product of any human mind. It originates in the Divine Knowledge and was brought to humanity through a Messenger of God, who is Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings.
THE FOURTH POINT: As pointed out in the Tenth Premise, the Shari‘a guides every person according to their capacity of mind and heart. It is as follows:
The great majority of people cannot grasp abstract truths unless they are not presented to them in forms that are familiar to them. Therefore, in presenting abstract truths, comparisons, similes, metaphors, parables, or allegories are used. In addition, the great majority of people tend to accept as true what they perceive to be true with their five external senses. For this reason, since even preliminary truths and basic laws concerning physical sciences had not yet been established at the earliest period of its establishment, the Shari‘a preferred to remain concise in these sciences in order not to confuse people. However, it did not refrain from hinting at certain basic truths concerning them.
A FALSE SUPPOSITION AND A REMINDER
Every act, word, and state of God’s noble Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, shows his truthfulness as clearly as the sunlight. But it is not necessary that every act or state of his should be extraordinary. The display of something extraordinary only serves the proof of a claim. For this reason, when there is no need for such a thing, a Prophet leads his normal life in accordance with God’s laws that are applicable to everyday life. He must do so because he is a leader for his community in everyday life.
O brothers and sisters! The religious life, and the Shari‘a that regulates it, both of which are necessarily in conformity with the essentials of the sciences and rational truths—necessarily so, because sciences are the tongues of God’s universal book of creation, while the Shari‘a is the assembly of His laws for religious life—encompass almost all the different fields of knowledge. To cite a few examples, moral training, purification of the soul, care of the body, management of the house, civil law, social order, general law, and so on. The Shari‘a established detailed rules concerning some matters included in these and other fields of knowledge, while in others it promulgated general principles and left to human reason the deduction of necessary laws that were based on them. Specialists in all sciences and branches of knowledge, if unbiased and fair-minded, will certainly admit that the religious rules and regulations of Islam and the commandments of its Shari‘a, which were given thirteen (now fourteen) centuries ago cannot be the product of a human being. Thomas Carlyle, one of the famous thinkers of the modern world, quotes from a wise German politician that after his research about Islam, he asked himself whether modern civilization could adapt itself to Islam and survive. That politician gave an affirmative answer to his question. Carlyle himself also acknowledges that when the truths of Islam appeared, like a brightly burning fire, they assimilated other systems of thought and religions, which resembled pieces of wood.56 He is correct in his judgment because any fallacy cannot survive in the face of truth.
Despite a myriad of attacks from all fronts and endeavors to distort it, Islam preserves its truths. It can even be said that all those attacks and endeavors make the layer of dirt that has been placed over Islam thinner and thinner (as a love for the truth and a zeal for research develop in humanity). The present state of the world bears witness to this. The premises in the first part of this book should be taken into consideration.
A FALSE SUPPOSITION AND A REMINDER
If you claim that a person can have knowledge of certain basic principles and laws of all sciences, I will reply as follows:
You are right and you are wrong. In theory, this seems to be possible. But knowing something does not mean knowing it theoretically and superficially. There are certain principles and laws that must be known in all their aspects; these pertain to all times, conditions, and people, and they are different from one another. They are also of such a form that in them are reflected many laws and principles of other sciences. In addition, one must understand them with their practicability for the optimal degree of use in every condition and section of time. No one, however intelligent a genius they may be, can discover or establish these laws and principles. The same word can be uttered by two persons. But one may display his or her ignorance by doing so, while the other demonstrates knowledge.
AN INDICATION, GUIDANCE, AND A REMINDER
O brothers and sisters who have continued traveling together with me from the beginning of this book! Look with a broad view and reflect, and form a high council in your mind in order to reason properly. Then summon whichever of the twelve premises in the first part of this book you wish to consult. You can also consult the following principles:
A person cannot be a specialist in more than one or two or three sciences. The same word uttered by two persons may vary in purpose, meaning, content, and several other aspects. Sciences develop through studies and research; they support one another over the course of time. Something known today by everybody as a fact may have been only a theory in the past, and something known by civilized people may have been unknown to uncivilized ones. Comparing the past with the present and the future is misleading. The simplicity of desert people cannot tolerate the cunning and deceptiveness of the civilized person. Deception can conceal itself under the veil of civilization. Customs and events suggest and imply such things that they may cause many branches of knowledge to be formed. Human sight cannot encompass the future. The laws made by humanity do not last long; they have a “natural” lifespan. The environment formed of time and space has a great influence upon humans. Many things which were extraordinary in the past may be ordinary in the present, for the preliminary conditions and foundations for their comprehension may have long been prepared. Any intelligence, however sharp it is, cannot suffice for a branch of science to be formed and perfected, so how can it suffice for more than one science to be formed?
So, O brothers and sisters! Consult these principles, and then lay aside your soul which cannot submit to the truth easily. Take off the garb of whims, suppositions, false assertions, and groundless objections that the present time and conditions have caused your mind to don. Enter the apparently limitless ocean of time from the coast of the present, and land on the island of the Age of Happiness. The thing that will first attract your sight and attention is as follows:
A single person devoid of any help and formal authority confronts and addresses the whole world. He carries on his shoulders a truth heavier than the earth, and preaches an assembly of laws which guarantees the happiness of humanity in both worlds. That assembly of laws, which contains the essentials of all branches of both Divine and human knowledge, has the capacity to develop in parallel with the development of human capacity over the course of time, yielding fruit in both the world and the Hereafter. It establishes such a system of justice that it contains all the principles of setting up and preserving the balance in both personal characteristics and in human individual and collective life. If you ask the principles of that assembly of law (the Shari‘a) where they come from and where they are heading for, they will answer, “We come from the Divine Eternal Speech, and accompany humanity on its way towards eternity in order to secure its happiness. Even when humanity’s connection with this world will be cut off, we continue to accompany it. We will continue to guide and satisfy it in the realm of the other world.”
A CONCLUSION
Doubt issues from three sources. If, being unaware of the purposes of the Owner of the Shari‘a and not realizing that Divine guidance considers the different capacities of humanity, you deviate into a demagogy, which is a nest of misleading doubts and suppositions, your objections will arise from the following three points:
The first is that you may see the allegorical and ambiguous-seeming statements of the Qur’an as incompatible with its matchless eloquence that is based on its stylistic uniqueness, its clarity of statement, and its linguistic purity and fluency.
The second is that you may not be able to reconcile the Qur’an’s conciseness and elusiveness in the “natural” facts studied by physical sciences with its guidance and methods of teaching and education.
The third is that you may not be able see some statements of the Qur’an as congruent with some rational and observable realities, and may regard it as unfitting for its purposes of guidance and establishment of truths.
O brothers and sisters! Help and success are from God. I say that these three points which you see as defects are not as you think. Rather, they are proofs of the Qur’an’s being a miracle of eloquence. So, listen!
An explanation for the first objection: The overwhelming majority of people make up the general public. The Revealer of the Qur’an considers the level of the majority, without ever neglecting the academics or intellectuals. These latter can easily understand anything that is addressed to the general public, and so they will find their full share in the Qur’an’s address. If the Revealer had considered the level of the elite, then the overwhelming majority of people would have been deprived of His Message. The general public cannot easily understand the abstract truths in their abstractness, so those truths should be conveyed to them in concrete forms. This requires the use of some literary devices, such as comparisons, similes, personifications, and metaphors, which we find contained in the allegorical statements of the Qur’an. The Qur’an has made them binoculars for the general public so that they can observe the abstract truths. Even though it is possible for some to be entangled in this usage and the apparent meanings of the verses containing them, and thus misunderstand some Divine truths—such as attributing a body, time, and space to the Divine Being, and comparing Him to the created—careful observation can easily penetrate the truths behind this usage. For example, when thinking on the verse, The All-Merciful has established Himself on the Supreme Throne (20: 5), a person can see the truth that God is the sole Ruler of the universe. The verse establishes in our minds God’s supreme authority and dominion, and that God is not just the Creator of the universe, but also is its absolute Sovereign and Ruler. Having created the universe, He has not detached Himself from it, and has not become indifferent to His creation. On the contrary, He effectively rules the universe as a whole, as well as controlling every small part of it. All power and sovereignty rest with Him. Everything in the universe is fully in His grasp and is subservient to His Will and Power. In order to establish this truth in our minds, the Qur’an speaks at the level of the general public and presents to their view a sovereign’s rule of His country from His throne. This style of the Qur’an is described as “God’s lowering His speech to the level of human understanding.” You can also consult the Tenth Premise in the first part of this book.
Presenting abstract truths at a level at which human beings can understand with the use of literary devices is a requirement of eloquence.
An explanation for the second objection: This was elaborated upon in the Second Premise. Creation has a tendency to perfection, and humankind to progress. Sciences are the fruit of this tendency, and they have come into being via experiences and research, supporting and providing a basis for one another over the course of time. They have not come into being all of a sudden, nor are they independent of one another. Like both eccentric and concentric circles, they intersect and overlap, one within the other. The conclusions drawn are based on the foundations that were laid earlier. This means that a science which is still in the stage of formation will be a developed one in the future, and provide a basis for new developments and the birth of new sciences.
For this reason, supposing if someone had attempted to teach ten centuries ago a science or its established facts which have only recently been formed, they would not have escaped the commission of many errors or from leading their students into fallacies and confusion. If, for example, the students had been informed that it is the earth that revolves around the sun, not the other way round, and that there are more than one million living organisms in one drop of water, giving us a glimpse of the Creator’s Grandeur, the majority would have denied their teacher and defied the truth. For they could not have perceived the existence of more than one million of living organisms in a drop of water, and would have had to suffer self-contradiction when their eyes were plainly seeing the earth stable and the sun moving. Confusing minds for many centuries would have been a grave error in and an obstacle to guiding people.
A REMINDER
Knowing something beforehand in no way requires that we base our present actions on that knowledge, neglecting what is happening in the present. For the sake of the guidance of future people, those who live in the present cannot be neglected. For this reason, both eloquence and guidance require that the truths that are manifest to the people in the present and the thought that serves as guidance should be mentioned with their clarity, but the truths unknown at the present and that will be brought to light in the future should either be ignored or, if we think we should mention them, mentioned in broad terms and allusively. Minds should also be prepared and kept ready for them, invited to investigate them. This is what the Qur’an does.
It is completely contrary to eloquence and guidance to throw minds into confusion by burdening them with what they cannot bear. “Speak to the people according to their mental capacities!” is a principle of wisdom. You can consult all the premises in the first part, including particularly the first one.
As for the third objection, which is not being able to see the apparent meanings of some Qur’anic statements as being in congruity with some rational or observable realities, after first consulting the First Premise, you should consider this: The four basic purposes of the Qur’an are establishing in the mind God’s existence and Oneness, the Prophethood, the bodily Resurrection, and justice and worship. Therefore, the Qur’an refers to the facts of creation, which are the subject matter of physical sciences and can only be known through scientific study, parenthetically for the sake of its basic purposes. While mentioning the facts observable by everyone in every age clearly, it refers to others allusively and in broad terms, leaving their clarification to scientific studies over time and encouraging humankind to study them.
A REMINDER
It is a rule of both eloquence and guidance that the evidence should be clearer than the thesis and known prior to it. For this reason, the apparent meanings of some Qur’anic verses relate to the impressions sensed by the majority of people. However, these verses are not intended to provide evidence for those impressions. As well as serving for the establishment in the minds of people of the four basic purposes of the guidance of the Qur’an, they contain such subtle truths that they attract the attention of researchers and truth-seeking people. The verses of the Qur’an, clear in themselves and clearly showing the basic truths, interpret one another; some verses uncover the jewels of meanings contained in their siblings. Therefore, we should try to see those more important meanings that lie under their apparent, literal meanings.
A FALSE SUPPOSITION AND A REMINDER
If in order to draw attention to God’s existence and Oneness the Qur’an clearly mentioned electricity, the law of gravity, the daily or annual movements of the earth, the formation of chemical compositions with the seventy (now more than a hundred) elements that have been discovered, and the sun’s stability despite its apparent movement, then the proofs would have been more hidden and in need of explanation than the thesis itself. For this reason, the Qur’an uses a language that is comprehensible for every level of understanding and never throws its audience into confusion, taking into consideration the level of the majority of the people without ever neglecting the elite, and referring to certain subtle realities that will be discovered over time through metaphors, comparisons, and similes.
O brothers and sisters! The three points which some put forward to object to some Qur’anic statements are in fact miraculous aspects of the Qur’an and its styles. It is particular only to the Qur’an that it is able to address all levels of understanding and satisfy them at all times without the least contradiction or falsification.
I swear by Him Who has imparted the miraculous Qur’an that the sight of the warner and the insight of the most careful one of humankind, upon him be peace and blessings, are absolutely exalted above being deceived or confusing the truth with falsehood or the reality with illusion; his way is pure and high above deceiving or leading to falsehood.
Said Nursi
56 Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), a Scottish essayist and historian, gave a lecture on Prophet Muhammad in 1841, titled “The Hero as Prophet,” and wrote his famous book, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History. Karen Armstrong, a contemporary writer and historian of religion, evaluates Thomas Carlyle’s lecture as the first attempt in Europe to see Muhammad as a genuinely religious man. (Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, San Francisco, 1993, p. 38.) However, many Western thinkers, partly freed from the prejudices of earlier centuries, have later admitted the genuine value of Islam and Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings. See, Abu’l-Fazl Ezzati, An Introduction to the History of the Spread of Islam, London, News and Media Limited, 1978. (Trans.)