The Epistle on Gratitude



* A page from of the original manuscript of The Risale-i Nur

THE EPISTLE ON GRATITUDE

The Fifth Issue from the Twenty-Eighth Letter

بسم الله الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ (a)

وَإِن مِّن شَيْءٍ إِلاَّ يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ (b)

By means of the repetition of the verse the like of

(c) أَفَلَا يَشْكُرُونَ Do they not give thanks?

(d) وَسَنَجْزِى ٱلشَّاكِرِينَ We will reward the thankful

(e) لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ  If you show gratitude, We will increase

(f) بَلِ ٱللَّهَ فَٱعْبُدْ وَكُن مِّنَ ٱلشَّاكِرِينَ But worship Allāh, and be from amongst the thankful

_____

a. In the Name of Allāh, the Merciful, the Compassionate

b. And there is nothing but that it glorifies with His praise

c. Qur'ān: Yā-sīn, 36:35, 36:73

d. Qur'ān: Āl-‘Imrān, 3:145

e. Qur'ān: Ibrāhīm, 14:7

f. Qur'ān: az-Zumar, 39:66  

the Qur'ān of Miraculous Exposition shows that the most important thing that the Merciful Creator requires of His servants is thankfulness.

In The Wise Criterion (Al-Furqān al-Hakīm), He calls to thankfulness with great concern. By showing that being unthankful is a form of denial and refutation of Divine blessings, He severely and terribly threatens thirty one times through His edict (a) فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ in the [Qur'ānic verse of] Surah Rahmān.

It shows that unthankfulness constitutes denial and refutation of blessings.

Yes - just as the Wise Qur'ān shows that thankfulness is the proper outcome of creation, so too this universe, the Great Qur'ān, shows that the most important outcome of the creation of the universe is thankfulness.

For were one to carefully scrutinise the universe, one would find that the universe has been ordered so as to produce thankfulness - and that, from a certain perspective, all things therein are related to thankfulness. They are oriented towards thankfulness, as if the most important fruit of the tree of creation is thankfulness, and the finest of the products of the factory of the universe is thankfulness.

For we see that it is within the creation of the universe that existent beings of the universe have been ordered

_____

a. Which of your Lord's bounties will you then deny? (Qur'ān, ar-Raḥmān, 55:53) 

in the form of a sphere and life has been created within it as their focal point.

All existent beings turn towards and look to life. They serve life. They make necessities for life available. That is to say, the One Who created the universe, singles out this life therefrom.

Moreover, we see that He brings worlds of living creatures into being [each] in the form of a sphere, and He places man at the focal point. It is as if the purposes intended from living creatures are centred on him. The Majestic Creator gathers all living creatures around man and makes them into his servants, and they are subjected to him, and He makes man into their ruler - that is, amongst all living creatures, the Majestic Creator selects man. Allāh wills and chooses him in the cosmos.

We behold furthermore the fact that the world of human beings and even the animal kingdom are ordered in the form of a sphere, and provision is placed at the focal point thereof. It is as if He has made all people and even animals passionate lovers of provision, and has made them in most cases servants of provision, and subjected them to it. It is provision that rules them. He has made, what is more, provision such an expansive and diverse treasury that it contains illimitable blessings. In the tongue has He placed a faculty called the sense of taste and as many precise immaterial criteria as there are different foods, so that one might know the tastes of just one of the many types of provision.

That is, the most wondrous, richest, strangest, sweetest, most all-embracing and most artful reality in the cosmos therefore lies in provision.

And now we see that just as everything is gathered around provision and it is oriented towards it, so too does provision in all its types [itself] exist - spiritually and materially in state and word - as long as thankfulness exists. It comes about through giving thanks, and produces thankfulness, and points to thankfulness. For having an appetite and yearning for provision is a type of natural innate thankfulness, and even pleasure and taste are a type of unconscious thankfulness, in that this type of gratitude exists in all of the animals.

But man, in his misguidance and disbelief, alters the quiddity of this natural innate thankfulness, and plummets down from thankfulness to ascribing partners to Allāh.

Furthermore, the tremendously beautiful and decorated forms and the singularly pure smells and very agreeable tastes of the blessings that come in the form of provision, are inviters of thankfulness that summon living creatures to have yearning.

They drive the living creatures in longing toward a type of approval and respect, and push them to spiritual thankfulness, and they attract the attention of conscious beings to carefully [scrutinise these qualities of provision], and awaken their desire to appreciate, and encourage them to respect the Divine blessings, and guide them by way of them in word and action to gratitude, and make them to give thanks, 

and make them to experience, by means of thankfulness the loftiest and sweetest pleasures and tastes.

That is to say, it shows that this delicious provision and blessing, together with its short and temporary outer nature of pleasure, by means of thankfulness, causes one to win the solicitude of the Compassionate that carries a perpetual, true and unlimited pleasure and taste.

In other words, they drive man to reflect upon the limitless pleasure-bearing instances of solicitude of the Generous Owner in the treasuries of mercy, and causes one to taste – in a spiritual sense - the ever-abiding pleasure of Paradise even in this world.

Yet although provision becomes such a precious, rich, and all-embracing treasure by the mediation of thankfulness, it plummets all the way down as a result of the abandonment of thankfulness.

And as has been elucidated in ‘the Sixth Word,' if the sense of taste in the tongue turns to provision for the sake of Allāh, that is, in terms of its vocation of spiritual gratitude, this sense of taste in the tongue is like a greatly worthy, thankful appraiser and praiseful overseer of illimitable infinite kitchens of Divine mercy.

But if it does so for the sake of the lower self, that is, if it turns to provision without thinking about thanking the One Who gave the blessing, this sense of taste in the tongue plummets down from the status of a worthy overseer 

to the pit of being a [mere] hindering doorkeeper of the factory of the belly and a guard of the stables of the stomach.

Just as this servant of provision plummets down to that pit by not giving thanks, so too do the quiddity of provision itself and all the rest of its servants. They descend from the highest to the lowest of stations.

They go down to a state that is opposed to the wisdom of the Creator of the universe.

The gauge of thankfulness is contentment, frugality, consent and satisfaction. The measure of a lack of thankfulness is greed and wastefulness, and not respecting [blessings]. In addition, it is also eating everything without distinguishing between that which is permissible and that which is forbidden. Yes - just as greed means unthankfulness, so too is it a cause of being deprived, and a means to humiliation.

It is as if even the blessed ant, which enjoys a social life, stays beneath people's feet and is trampled underfoot because of greed. Because whereas just a few grains a year suffice it, it is unsatisfied and [strives to] gather thousands of grains of wheat, if at all possible; but because of its contentment, the blessed bee flies above the heads of all, and because of its contentment generously gives its honey to mankind by a Divine command, feeding them therefrom.

Yes - the name 'Allāh' is the proper and supreme name of the Holy Essence [pointing] to His essentiality. The name 'Merciful', which is the most supreme name just after the name Allāh, [is oriented towards] and looks to provision.

One may reach [realisation in the reality of this name] by means of the thankfulness that is latent in provision. What is more, the most manifest and evident meaning of 'the Merciful' is 'the Provider'. What is more, there exists different kinds of thankfulness. The most all-embracing of these kinds and their general index is the Prayer. What is more, thankfulness contains mere faith and pure Divine unity.

Anyone who eats an apple and says, Alhamdulillah 'praise be to Allāh,' proclaims by means of this thankfulness that “this apple is a present that comes directly from the hand of Divine power, and a gift coming directly from the treasury of Divine mercy.”

By saying and believing this, he entrusts all things – be they particular or universal – to the hand of His Power, may He be exalted. And he comes to know the manifestations of mercy within all things.

And by means of this thankfulness, he proclaims true faith and pure Divine unity.

We will now elucidate a single of the very many aspects, [from which one may look at this topic], that point to the great extent to which the heedless man falls into loss as a result of his being ungrateful for the blessings [he has been given], as follows:

Were man to eat a delicious blessing, and then give his due thanks for it, by means of this thankfulness, that blessing would become a light of the Hereafter and a fruit of Paradise.  

And through the pleasure that it has bequeathed man, this blessing causes him to contemplate its being the effect of the merciful instances of Divine solicitude from the Real, and it thereby bequeaths him sublime and perpetual taste and pleasure.

He has thereby sent these spiritual kernels, quintessences, and spiritual substances to the heavenly stations, and their material, ashen and scabrous parts - that is, those substances that have finished their duties and for which there is no need - have become waste, in order to transform back into their origin - that is, the elements. If man does not give his due thanks, this temporary pleasure will leave him in pain and regret when it disappears, and will turn into garbage - which is to say that the blessing, which has the quiddity of diamonds, will turn into coal.

Evanescent provisions yield perpetual pleasures and everabiding fruits when one gives thanks for it.

Without thankfulness, a blessing metamorphoses from the most beautiful forms to the ugliest; this is because as far as this heedless person is concerned, provision is in the end bound to turn into waste after having given temporary pleasure.

Yes - provision has a form befitting passionate love, and this form appears by means of thankfulness. Otherwise, the passionate love that the heedless and the people of misguidance have for provision is animalistic.

Draw your own conclusions, given this, concerning the extent of the loss of the people of misguidance and of the heedless.

Among all types of living creatures, the most in need of different types of provision is man.

Allāh has made man in the form of an all-embracing mirror of all of His Names, and a miracle of power that has taken possession of faculties that can weigh and know all that is stored up in all of the treasuries of His mercy; and the vicegerent (khalīfah) of the earth, who has tools able to weigh the subtleties of the manifestations of His names as well as subtleties of His artful wonders.

This is why endless needs have been placed within him, and He has made him in need of illimitable types of provision, both material and spiritual.

In accordance with that all-embracingness, man's means of ascent to 'the best of forms,' the loftiest of stations, is thankfulness.

If there is no thankfulness, he tumbles down to 'the lowest of the low,' and will have committed a terrible wrongdoing.

The upshot: The greatest of the four bases of the way of servanthood and belovedness, which is the most exalted and loftiest way, is thankfulness, and those four bases have been articulated as follows:

دَرْ طَرِيقِ عَجْزِ مَنْدِي لَازِمْ آَمَدْ چَارِ چِيزْ

عَجْزِ مُطْلَقْ ، فَقْرِ مُطْلَقْ ، شَوْقِ مُطْلَقْ ، شُكْرُ مُطْلَقْ أَيْ عَزِيزْ

The way of ‘Ajzmandi requires four traits:

utter powerlessness, utter poverty, utter yearning and utter

gratitude, Oh beloved!

اَللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنَا مِنَ الشَّاكِرِينَ بِرَحْمَتِكَ يَا أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِينَ

سُبْحَانَكَ لاَ عِلْمَ لَنَا إِلاَّ مَا عَلَّمْتَنَا إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْعَلِيمُ الحْكِيمُ

اَللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلِّمْ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ سَيِّدِ الشَّاكِرِينَ وَالْحَامِدِينَ

وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ. آمين

وَآخِرُ دَعْوَاهُمْ أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Oh Allāh, make us to be from amongst the thankful, by

Your mercy, O Most Merciful of the merciful.

“Glory be to You! We have no knowledge, except that which

You have taught us, surely You are the All-knowing, the Wise.”

(Qur’ān: al- Baqarah, 2:32)

O Allāh, send blessings and peace upon our Master

Muḥammad, the Master of the Thankful and the Praiseful,

and upon his family and companions. Amin.

“And the conclusion of their prayer will be: Praise be to Allah,

Lord of the Worlds!” (Qur’ān: Yūnus, 10:10)