The Sixth Issue

The Sixth Issue

This issue is a short indication to a single one of the thousands of universal conclusive proofs of the fundamental element of faith, that of faith in Allāh (al-īmānu billāh), for which there are an almost limitless number of expositions and categorical demonstrations in many places in The Book of Light.

In Kastamonu, (21) a number of secondary school students visited me, saying ‘acquaint us about our Creator. Our teachers never talk about Allāh.’

For my part, I said ‘every one of the sciences that you study continually talks, in its particular language, about Allāh, and introduces the Creator (Al-Khāliq). Listen to them, not to your teachers.

For example: A splendid pharmacy’s comprising phials containing chemical preparations and life-giving antidotes that have each been taken in an astonishingly sensitive balance, doubtlessly points to the existence of a pharmacist who is highly skillful, wise and an expert in chemistry.

Likewise, the great pharmacy of the earth shows the Majestic and Wise One (Al-Ḥakīmu Dhu’l-Jalāl) Who is the pharmacist of the great pharmacy of the globe, even to blind eyes.

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21. Kastamonu: A city in the northern region of Anatolia, also known as the Black Sea region, where Imām Nursī stayed almost eight years after his release from Eskişehir Prison in 1936. Nursī was under surveillance and again in harsh conditions in Kastamonu yet he continued to write letters to his disciples and authored new epistles. Al-Āyatu’l-Kubrā (The Supreme Sign) or The Seventh Ray was written while he was in Kastamonu.

From the perspective of medical science, it acquaints us with Him in its perfection and vastness much more eloquently than the pharmacy existing in the market does so in its containing the four hundred thousand species of dough-like pastes and life-giving medicines that exist within the receptacles of plants and animals.

And for example: A magnificent, extraordinary factory’s weaving from simple material thousands of types of cloth, indubitably reveals and acquaints one with its owner and its masterful engineer.

Likewise, this mobile machine of the Divine, known as the globe of the earth, has hundreds of thousands of human bodies (22) on it. In each body are hundreds of thousands of faultless factories. This reveals and acquaints one in its vastness and perfection with its Artistic Maker (Aṣ-Ṣāni‘) and Owner much better than the human’s body factory known to the science of mechanics that you study.

A further example: An immaculate storehouse for food-stuffs in which a thousand and one species of food are neatly stacked and readied after having been extracted from its surroundings, without doubt makes known the extraordinary owner, possessor and overseer of this food and sustenance.

In the same way, this storehouse of food of the Merciful One, which is called the face of the earth, and this ship of the Glorified One that in a single year traverses in orderly fashion a course usually covered in twenty four thousand years; that contains hundreds of thousands of groups each of which need the type of provision particular to them;

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22. The literal translation could be “heads” but intended meaning is human bodies here. 

that in the course of its journey passes through the seasons and fills the season of spring like a great train-carriage with thousands of divers types of food, bringing it to destitute, living creatures whose sustenance has been consumed by winter; that storehouse and outlet of the Lord that carries thousands of types of appliances, merchandise, and wrappings for food, according to the criteria of food science that you have studied or will study, most certainly reveals, makes known and causes one to love one, in proportions as great as its vastness, magnificence and certainty, the Owner, Disposer and Director of the storehouse of this earth much better than the storehouse and outlet mentioned in the example above.

Again, if an army consisting of four hundred thousand nations, each of which has its particular provision, weapons, clothes, training exercises and discharge procedure was to have a miracle-wielding commander able to distribute alone, the many diverse provisions, weapons, clothes and tools of each of those nations without forgetting any of them, and without mixing any of them up - there is no doubt that this peerless army and this military barracks self-evidently reveal and acquaint one with that great commander and endears him to others with admiration and reverence.

In exactly the same way, the multifarious clothing, provision, weapons, training exercises and discharge procedures of each of the four hundred species of nations of plants and animals within the newly recruited army of the Glorified One in every spring, within the army barracks of the world, 

are given on the part of one single greater Commander with surpassing mastery, perfection and order without anyone being forgotten, nor any mix-up taking place.

Now, according to the principles of the military science that you will study, this spring army barracks of the earth in the perfection and vastness of the human army and barracks, makes known, to those who are attentive and astute, the Ruler of the globe of the earth, its Disposer, Lord and Holy Commander, in hallowing and admiration, and endears Him to all in praise and glorification.

And likewise, were there to exist in an extraordinary city millions of moving electrical lamps that roamed around everywhere therein, their fuel never becoming exhausted, there would be no doubt that the like of such electrical lamps and the factory in which they were made would self-evidently and admiringly make known with congratulations, as well as endear with much applause, an artist wielding wonders of a nature near miraculous, and an electrician of towering ability, who oversees the electricity and makes the moving lamps, establishes the factory and sustains them by bringing their fuel. In the same way, although some of the lamps that are the stars within the city of this earth, in the ceiling of the palace of this world, are, according to the science of cosmography, one thousand times greater than the globe of the earth and move seventy times faster than a cannonball, their order is not ruined, nor do they run into one another, nor are they extinguished, nor do they run out of fuel. 

According to the science of cosmography that you study, it would take fuel to fill all of the oceans on earth, and coal the size of all of its mountains, and heaps of firewood the size of a thousand earths in order for the sun to continue aflame for one day - the sun that is more than a million times bigger than the globe and that has lived more than a million years, a lamp and heating stove within the guest house of the Merciful One (Ar-Raḥmān).

The electric lights and lanterns of the palace of the world within this magnificent city of the universe, that point with their fingers of light to a limitless power and sultanate (23) that ignites the sun as well as the similar lofty stars without fuel, nor firewood, nor coal, never leaving them to go out. That [limitless power and sultanate] moves them along together and at great speed and never allows them to run one into the other. This, as well as the actual direction of these lamps, makes known in its superior sublimity, vastness and magnificence when compared with the electric lamps in the illustration, and taking the luminous stars as witnesses, the Sultan of the great exhibition of the universe, its Illuminator, Disposer and Maker - all in accordance with the principle of the science of electricity that you have studied or will study; and they endear Him to all and make Him to be adored by all, with glorifications and hallowings.

A further example: Were there to be a book, within the each line of which an entire book had been written in a precise script, and within every word a Qur’ānic sūrah with a precise pen, there would be no doubt that such an extraordinary composition containing such abundant meanings,

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23. “Sultanate” (Turkish:saltanat) is a very frequent word in The Book of Light Corpus meaning the sovereign domain, kingdom of the Creator. We used both sultanate and kingdom in our translation. 

of which each theme supports the other, and which made evident that its composer possesses extraordinary skills and lofty strength - there would be no doubt that such a composition makes known and points to its writer and composer with his perfections and skills in a way that, morning-like, leaves no room for doubt. Inspiring the phrases ماشاء الله (Māshā'Allāh) (24) and بارك الله (BārakAllāh), (25) it attracts appreciation of him.

Exactly as in this illustration, with our own eyes we can all see that a pen is working upon this great book of the universe.

Upon the face of the earth, which is a single page thereof, it writes. Upon the spring that is a single section thereof, it writes three hundred thousand groups of plants and animals; this alone constitutes three hundred thousand totally different books. Together does it write all of these within one another, without omission nor mistake, nor confusion - masterfully and in an orderly fashion. Upon a word like a tree does it sometimes write a poem, and on a seed like a dot does it write an index of an entire book.

[I am saying that] the book of this universe, the embodied, greater Qur’ān of the universe, that conveys endless meanings, that carries abundant wisdoms within every one of its words, makes known in its superior sublimity, vastness and magnificence and the great number of its meanings, when compared with the book mentioned in the illustration, the Inscriber and Writer of the book of this universe, in all of His perfections, all according to the broad principles and telescope-like vision of the science of philosophy that you study, as well as the sciences of reading and writing to which you now apply yourselves in school.

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24. Māshā'Allāh (ماشاء الله) is an Arabic phrase that expresses appreciation, joy, praise, or gratefulness for an object, event or person that was just mentioned.

25. BārakAllāh (بارك الله) is an Arabic phrase that is quite similar to Māshā'Allāh. 

With the hallowing of سبحان الله (SubḥānAllāh) (26) does it introduce Him and make Him known, and with the laudations of الحمد لله (Alḥamdulillāh) (27) it describes Him and endears Him to all.

Now, one can draw analogous conclusions about every other science; every one of hundreds of sciences makes known the Majestic Creator (Al-Khāliqu Dhu’l-Jalāl) of this universe in all of His Names and describes His attributes and perfections in accordance with their wide-ranging principles and using the unique mirror particular to each of them, with their telescope-like eyes and their lesson-bearing perspective.

To those young students I said this: ‘Time and time again, the Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān) makes known to us our Creator largely with verses such as رَبُّ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ  (a) and  خَلَقَ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ (b) in order to instruct us in the demonstration that we have mentioned, that constitutes a sublime, dazzling conclusive proof of Divine unity (waḥdāniyyah).’ For their part, the students completely accepted and assented, saying ‘we thank our Lord limitlessly that we have received this wholly sacred lesson and an absolute truth - may Allāh be pleased with you!’

To them I said: ‘Man is a living machine able to feel thousands of types of pain and thousands of types of pleasure; a destitute creature with thousands of physical and spiritual enemies despite his absolute powerlessness; with endless inner and outer needs despite his absolute poverty;

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26. SubḥānAllāh (سبحان الله) is an Arabic phrase that hallows Allāh. Its meaning is as follows: Glorified is Allāh [Who is pure, free from and transcendent above any faults and defects].

27. Alḥamdulillāh (الحمد لله) is an Arabic phrase expressing that all praise and thanks are due to Allāh.

a Lord of the heavens and the earth (Qur’ān: ar-Ra‘d, 13:16)

b He created the heavens and the earth (Qur’ān: al-An‘am, 6:1) 

a wretched creature continually receiving the blows of extinction and separation; yet, if he affiliates himself by means of true faith (īmān) and worshipful service (‘ubūdiyyah) with the Majestic Sultan (As-Sulṭānu Dhu’l-Jalāl), he will find a point of reliance against all of his enemies and a point of assistance that becomes the means of realising all of his needs.

Should he affiliate himself by means of faith and serve by means of worship the Sultan of absolute power and mercy, how content and grateful does he become; how proud is he in his gratitude, just as all take pride in the honour and station of the master to whom they are affiliated; he has transformed fate’s execution notice into his release ticket, so consider!’

As I said to those students, the same will I say again to my afflicted fellow-prisoners:

He who knows Allāh and obeys Him is fortunate though he be in a dungeon. And he who forgets Allāh is in a dungeon and wretchedness, though he be in a palace. Indeed, during his execution, a happy, persecuted fellow once told his wretched oppressors. ‘I am not being executed rather I am journeying to bliss having been released. Yet, I will have fully exacted my revenge on you when I see you being condemned to eternal execution.’

Thus did he joyfully give up his spirit, saying لا إله إلا الله (There is no god but Allāh).

سُبْحَانَكَ لاَ عِلْمَ لَنَا إِلاَّ مَا عَلَّمْتَنَا إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْعَلِيمُ الحْكِيمُ (a)

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a 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) 

The Seventh Issue

This is the fruit of a Friday in Denizli Prison.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ (a)

وَمَا أَمْرُ السَّاعَةِ إِلاَّ كَلَمْحِ البَصَرِ أَوْ هُوَ أَقْرَبُ (b)

مَا خَلْقُكُمْ وَلاَ بَعْثُكُمْ إِلاَّ كَنَفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ (c)

فَانْظُرْ إِلىَ آثَارِ رَحْمَتِ اللهِ كَيْفَ يُحْيِي الأَرْضَ بَعْدَ مَوْتِهَا إِنَّ ذَلِكَ لَمُحْيِي المَوْتَى وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ (d)

The prisoners in Denizli Prison who were able to reach me read the lesson, mentioned in the foregoing Sixth Issue, that I once gave in Kastamonu to the secondary school students in the languages of the sciences of the modern schools, who said [to me] ‘acquaint us with our Creator.’

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

b. The matter of the Hour is as the twinkle of an eye, or even closer (Qur’ān: an-Nahl, 16:77)

c. The creation and resurrection of all of you is as that of a single soul (Qur’ān: Luqmān, 31:28)

d. Look then to the effects of Allāh's Mercy, how He brings the earth to life after its death. That certainly is the Raiser of the dead, and He is capable of doing all things (Qur’ān:Ar-Rūm, 30:50)