The First Part (The Fruit Epistle)

THE FIRST PART

of

The Staff of Moses

(peace be upon him)

THE FRUIT EPISTLE

ONE OF THE FRUITS OF

DENIZLI PRISON

 Author │BEDĪ‘UZZAMAN SA‘ĪD NURSĪ

 Hijrī 1366 │AD 1946

The Eleventh Ray

[The Fruit Epistle]

This is a defence of The Book of Light against the atheist [tyranny] and absolute disbelief; it is, furthermore, our real defence in this prison of ours. This is all that we are striving for.

This epistle is one of the fruits of Denizli Prison, (4) and a memory thereof; and it is the yield of two Fridays.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ (a)

فَلَبِثَ فِي السِّجْنِ بِضْعَ سِنِينَ (b)

By the report and secret of this verse, Yūsuf is the patron of prisoners, and prison in a way is ‘The Yūsufian Madrasa or The School of Yūsuf’.

Since students of The Book of Light have already entered this school twice in large numbers, there is no doubt that we must acquire our discipline in its fullness by studying and teaching here in this classroom, which was opened to train us in the brief summaries of some issues related to imprisonment and that have been proven true by The Book of Light. Thus will we mention five or six of these encapsulations.

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a In the Name of Allāh, the Merciful, the Compassionate. (Qur’ān: al-Fātiḥah, 1:1)

b So he remained in prison for a number of years. (Qur’ān: Yūsuf, 12:42)

4. Denizli is a city in the western region of Anatolia. Imām Nursī was forced to stay under very harsh conditions in Denizli Prison (1943-1944) together with many of his disciples. He was put into a prison along with his students in very notorious wardens full of high profile criminals for the sole purpose of making it more difficult for them. Despite this, the prison was turned into a madrasa (school) and murderers, robbers and gangsters serving in the prison in the same wardens with the students of The Book of Light became practicing believers. Due to it teaching them the Qur’ān and spurring them to observe their prayers, The Fruit Epistle had a massive effect on their transformation into tranquil, law-abiding individuals.

The First Issue

As has been clarified in The Fourth Word, our Creator beneficently gives us twenty-four hours of life’s capital every day, so that we are able, using this capital, to buy everything that we need for both our two lives. (5)

How irrational a mistake we would make were we to spend twenty-three hours for the sake of this worldly life, which is exceedingly short, and not spend the single hour sufficient to pray all of the five prescribed prayers for the sake of our life in the hereafter, which is exceedingly long. As punishment for this mistake, we would suffer both emotional and spiritual distress, and due to [the pressure of] emotional and spiritual troubles, our morality would become corrupted (6) and [as a result] we would live out [miserable and] desperate lives. By not even acting in accordance with this training [provided by our imprisonment], let alone [allowing ourselves to be] educated [by it], we would end up in this great loss. Let [the difference in the consequences of sparing and not sparing time for the prayers] be compared, then.

Everybody must reflect on the fact that were we to spend a single hour praying the five prescribed prayers, every single hour spent in prison and tribulation might at times become as good as a whole day of worship. A single of those transient hours might be as good as ever-enduring hours, and the misery and suffering of heart and spirit would largely disappear. [This imprisonment] would constitute a ground for our being forgiven for the mistakes that brought us to the prison in the first place and an expiation. We would thereby receive the discipline that is the underlying wisdom of the prison, all of which would be an immensely profitable trial and lesson, as well as [providing] comforting good company amongst our friends who are facing the same tribulation.

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5. By this, the lives of this world and of the Hereafter are intended.

6. Stress and depression, whether arising from spiritual or emotional "troubles", often give rise to sinful acts because of the loss of spiritual determination that they entail. Despair and negativity often engender misguided beliefs and ideas; these "troubles" refer to the darkness of the heart that constitutes the locus of the spiritual depression that leads to foolish sins. 

As was said in The Fourth Word, consider the case of someone who would pay out five or even ten of the twenty-four golden coins that he owns in order to gamble in a lottery in which one thousand people participated, hoping to win a prize worth one thousand gold coins. He would not, however, spend a single of these twenty-four gold coins in order to win a ticket to an endlessly eternal treasure of jewels although the likelihood of winning a thousand gold coins in the lottery of this world is one in a thousand for there are one thousand participants other than himself.

On the other hand, the likelihood of winning in the lottery of the destinies of men for the Hereafter is, for the people of faith (7) who have a good end, (8) nine hundred and ninety-nine out of one thousand, as has been reported by twenty-four thousand Prophets (anbiyā'), (9) limitless numbers of truthful reporters amongst the saints (awliyā') (10) and the purified ones (aṣfiyā') (11) who by way of their mystical unveiling (kashf) attest to the reports of the Prophets. You should compare [the two lotteries, therefore]; how contrary it would be to wisdom and the proper course if one were to run to the first lottery and run away from the second.

It is fitting, then, that the prison governors, chief guards and indeed the governors of the country and security forces, should be gladdened by this lesson from The Book of Light. For it is an established fact of experience that controlling and governing a thousand observant religious people who constantly remember the prison of hell (jahannam), is easier than controlling and governing ten people who have neither prayer nor belief in anything, those who think only of the prison of this world, who know not the meaning of ‘forbidden’ (ḥarām) and ‘permitted’ (ḥalāl) and who have become partially accustomed to idleness and being astray.

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7. Īmān: (al-īmān) True faith - the heart's assent to the truth of the revelation Allāh sent down to our Prophet Muḥammad, upon whom be blessings and peace.

"Faith" has always been a problematical translation of the Arabic īmān. One of the main difficulties stems from the negative connotations the word has acquired in the especially Anglo-American, post-Enlightenment world. The impact of empiricism and positivism have so infected the contemporary academic and even mainstream zeitgeist that the notion that religious "faith" is to be equated with "blind faith" (for which no form of evidence is even in principle possible) is now normative.

It is for this reason that we have decided to qualify our translation of "īmān" as "true faith". This is our attempt to reflect the principle in Islāmic theology that real īmān must be grounded in logical reasoning and metaphysical investigation. It is not blind faith that one must have, but faith in the truth, which is knowable via the demonstrations and evidences vouchsafed us by, amongst many other great books of the Islāmic heritage, The Book of Light. However, we also used faith in many occasions not to make the text overburdened with extra adjectives and keep the text as “plain” as possible. What we intend in those cases are stated as below.

"īmān" or faith in Islām is an end result of a well-informed decision. It is a well-established position, firm belief and persuasion built by quality questions, investigative readings and unshakably affirming truths. The words 'belief' and 'faith' are very light and inadequate translations of īmān which is in reality a firm conviction in the level of certainty. This word, "faith," is a fairly poor rendering of īmān; one might better understand the word if it is translated as "reasoned faith" or "firm conviction." What constitutes this faith is summed up in the shahādah or confession/testimony of faith. If one declares, witnesses and announces that he certainly has a conviction of this following sentence, they become Muslim. "There is no god but Allāh and Muḥammad is the messenger of Allāh."

8. The term "good end" (ḥusnu’l-khātima) refers to someone's dying in the True Faith (īmān), and in a manner befitting worshipful servanthood to the Creator. This world is the sowing-field of the Hereafter; there, one will harvest that which one had planted in this life. The identity of those who will have a good end is known only to the Creator; someone outwardly "religious" but who has no real, deeply-rooted faith may not die well, although those around him might assume that he has died in the best possible way. Likewise, someone who has spent their life in sin and outward irreligiosity may have their repentance accepted at the very end of their lives, and die in a state of deep faith and humility that is pleasing to Allāh. All true guidance is from Him, and He Alone knows the true sincerity of one's intention; this is why Muslims seek refuge in Allāh, and ask for a good end. In the meantime, we know that Allāh Most High says in the Qur’ān:

مَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَنُحْيِيَنَّهُ حَيَاةً طَيِّبَةً ۖ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَجْرَهُم بِأَحْسَنِ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ

To whoever, male or female, does good deeds and has faith, We shall give a good life and reward them according to the best of their actions.

(Qur’ān: al-Naḥl, 16:97)

And it is narrated that Prophet Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) said "You shall die in the way that you have lived." (‘Aliyyulqārī, Mirqātu’l-mafātīh 1/332, 7/375, 8/431). As a result, a good end is highly likely for someone with a good life.

9. Anbiyā' (pl of nabī): Prophets or Messengers of Allāh who deliver the message from Allāh to their people. A nabī is a messenger who does not receive a specific book and a code of law (sharī‘a) yet he acts upon the previous messenger’s book and the code of law. A messenger with a new law or a book (scripture) is called rasūl.

10. Awliyā' (pl of walī): Saints

11. Aṣfiyā' (pl of ṣāfi): The purified ones, the spiritual elite, the people of purity, taqwā, spiritual perfection and critical verification (taḥqīq) who follow the Qur’ān and sunnah hence are also known as the inheritors of the Prophet (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām).

The Second Issue

The Summary of the Second Issue

As A Guide for Youth (12) from The Book of Light has explained beautifully, death is so certain and evident that just as night is coming after this day and winter after this autumn, so will death come for us all [in the end].

Now, just as this prison is a temporary guest house for the continual [stream of] people entering and leaving it, so too is the face of the earth a rest house upon a road of fast-moving caravans, for arriving, staying over a night and departing. Death, then, that a hundred times makes [the entire population of] every single city flow down to the graveyards, doubtlessly demands of us far more than this mere life of ours. The Book of Light has treated and solved the mystery of this tremendously terrifying reality. A very short summary of it runs as follows:

Since death cannot be killed, and the door to the grave cannot be closed, and if there is a way to escape from the hand of fate’s executioner and from the prison of the solitary confinement of the grave, there is no doubt that this is man’s greatest and most important worry and concern, overshadowing all else.

Yes! There is a way out! The Book of Light has established it, as conclusively as two and two is four, by means of the secret of the Qur’ān; what follows is a short summary of this way out:

Death is either eternal execution, and a gallows to hang human beings along with their loved ones and relatives or it is a certificate of release allowing one to travel to another, endlessly eternal world and to enter into the palace of bliss by means of the permit of faith. And the grave is either a dark, solitary confinement and a bottomless pit or it is a door opening from the dungeon of this world onto a feasting hall and gardens that are ever-abiding and luminous. A Guide for Youth has established this reality by means of an illustration:

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12. A Guide for Youth: A book from The Risāle-i Nūr Corpus that aims to guide young people. It comprises a selection of various topics from the Corpus - like youth, faith and the hereafter. 

Numerous gallows - for example - have been erected in the yard of this prison. Behind the wall against which the gallows rest, quite a large office has been set up for a lottery in which every single individual in the world is taking part. It is inescapably the case - without exception - that one by one, they will summon to that yard all five hundred of us in this prison. In every place it is being announced ‘Either come and receive the execution warrant and ascend to the gallows or grab onto the permit needed for solitary confinement and enter through this open door’. Or, ‘There is good news for you! You have secured a ticket that wins you millions of gold coins! Come and take it!’

We, too, with our own eyes, are seeing them ascend one after another to the gallows. We witness a group of them being hanged. Due to the news given by highly ranked and serious officials, we know as certainly as if we had seen it that another group of people are making those gallows into a ladder and going into the lottery office on the other side of the wall. Meanwhile, two delegations have entered into this prison of ours.

The first of the two groups have musical instruments and alcoholic drinks in their hands, and they try to get us to eat the apparently very delicious sweets and desserts in their hands. Yet those sweets are poisoned. Satans in human form have placed poison therein. The second group hold in their hands books and treatises meant for training, as well as ḥalāl food and beverages blessed. They gift them to us, all saying in agreement and perfect seriousness and certainty:

“If you accept the gifts presented to you by the first group to test you and you eat them, you will be hanged on the gallows just like those hanging now upon them in front of you. Yet if, instead of those that were brought by the first group, you accept the gifts that we have come with under the authority of a decree from the Ruler of these lands, and if you read the supplications (du‘ās) and litanies (awrād) contained within these training books and treatises, you will escape from that hanging. Believe with a certainty as great as the clarity of the morning and [believe] as if you have seen it that each of you will take a ticket by which you will win millions of gold coins in this lottery office, as a special bestowal [from that Ruler.] Yet we and these decrees certainly report in certainty and perfect agreement that if you have eaten those forbidden, dubious, poisoned sweets, you too will suffer from pain in your stomach from the effect of that poison, until you ascend to the gallows.”

Just as in this illustration do one hundred and twenty four thousand prophets report, in agreement, carrying the limitless miracles in their hands that constitute signs of their truthfulness, that a ticket will appear by which the people of faith and obedience will, with a one hundred percent likelihood, win an endlessly eternal, inexhaustible treasury from the lottery of human destinies behind the gallows of fate that we see at all times - with the condition only of having a good end. [On the other hand,] those who persist in shamelessness, ḥarām activity, brazen sin and unbelief, shall receive either a warrant for eternal execution, should they not turn to Allāh in repentance, for those who believe not in Allāh; or a warrant for perpetual, dark solitary imprisonment and an eternal deprivation of happiness for those who believe in the ever-abidingness of the spirit yet persist in futile amusements.

More than one hundred and twenty four million righteous saints report the same - saints who after having witnessed them by means of mystical unveiling (kashf) and spiritual tasting (dhawq) endorse and attest to the traces and shadows of that which those prophets have reported, as if in a cinema. So too do billions of past and present scholars of critical verification (muḥaqqiqīn), (Footnote) independent jurists (mujtahidīn), as well as the elite subtle sages (ṣiddiqīn) verify those reports. They demonstrated this with conclusive rational proofs, and strong reflective evidence both intellectually and in terms of scholarly consensus, within a certain, evident form; they attest to it, and endorse it.

Whoever does not hearken to that which has been reported by consensus and unanimous testimony and that rests upon decrees by these three great groups - the individuals of which are suns, moons and stars of humanity, these three categories of the people of [Divine] reality, these three lofty, sublime delegations, who are all righteous leaders of mankind; there is no doubt that the person who does not take the straight path that extends onto endless bliss, the path shown by them all and the one who is not concerned by the ninety-nine percent likelihood of awful danger, although were even a single person to report ‘beware, this road is dangerous!’ he would leave the path and instead travel down another, longer path, there is no doubt then that the situation of such a person is absolutely and certainly as follows:

According to the conclusive reports of a limitless number of people, such a person has left the shortest, easiest way, and one hundred percent

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Footnote: The Book of Light is [itself] one of those critical verifiers (muḥaqqiqīn), which has for twenty years, in all its parts and in full view of all, silenced and through logical arguments compelled obstinate philosophers and stubborn atheists. Anyone can read it, and no one can deny [this].

likely to lead to paradise and eternal bliss. He chooses a way that is the most troubled, difficult and long - a road that is ninety-nine percent certain to lead to the prison of hell and to the perpetual deprivation of happiness.

Despite the fact that in this world, he was willing to leave a shorter way for a longer way due to [the claims of] only a single reporter - who could be lying - reporting that that way is dangerous, when the likelihood of that report is only one in a hundred, and the shorter way holds only the possibility of a month’s imprisonment. As a result, he chooses a longer way that is of no benefit to him, only in order to avoid harm. His similitude here is that of demented, wretched, drunk men who care not about the terrifying dragons that they can see in the distance about to overcome them, preferring instead to occupy themselves exclusively with the flies [around them] to the extent that they give importance solely to them, as if they have totally lost their minds, their hearts, their spirits and indeed their humanity.

Since this is the reality of this situation, it is incumbent upon us prisoners to accept the gifts presented by that second, blessed delegation, (13) in order that we are able to fully avenge the tribulation of our having been imprisoned here. That is, this tribulation has put us into this prison for a period of fifteen, or indeed a mere five or ten, or even two or three years, all for the sake of the pleasure of taking revenge that lasts only a single minute or for the sake of the pleasures of shamelessness that last only a few minutes, or at most an hour or two. This has made our world into prison.

We must then take full revenge upon this tribulation, despite all its best efforts [to prevent us from doing so], by turning an hour or two of our prison time into the worship of a day or two, and by turning two or three years of our punishment into twenty or thirty years of eternal life – by means of the presents given to us by the blessed caravan – by making our ten or twenty year punishment in prison a means to our being saved from the prison of hell that endures for millions of years, making our eternal life laugh in return for the crying of this transient world of ours.

We must show that this prison is a place for training and we must strive to be people who are courteous, trustworthy and beneficial for our country and our nation - such that even the officials, governors and guards of the prison know that the people they thought were criminals, bandits, wretches, killers, shameless and foolish sinners and people who are harmful to the country, are [now], in actual fact, students studying in a blessed school, such that the officials proudly thank Allāh.

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13. This refers to one of the two delegations previously mentioned in the allegory - one holding musical instruments and alcoholic drinks in their hands, and the sweets are poisoned, while the second is holding books and treatises meant for training, as well as ḥalāl food and beverages blessed. 

The Third Issue

Below is the encapsulation of an event containing a lesson that was explained in A Guide for Youth:

I was once sitting before a window in Eskişehir Prison (14) on the Republic Day. (15) The older girls in the secondary school opposite the prison were dancing in the schoolyard, laughing. Suddenly, via a spiritual cinema, I was shown the states of each of them, fifty years later. Of those fifty or sixty girls and students, I saw that forty or fifty of the fifty or sixty girls and students were turning into dust in the grave and being tortured therein. Ten of them had reached the age of seventy or eighty and had become ugly, arousing disgust in all those from whom they yearned for love [and affection], due to their having not guarded their chastity in their youth. I certainly witnessed all of this. I wept at their pitiful [and miserable] states that they were in. Certain of my friends in the prison heard my crying and came to me asking, [what was happening]? I told them: “Please go and leave me alone for the time being.”

Yes, what I saw was a reality and not an imagination. Just as winter lies at the end of this summer and autumn, so too behind the summer of youth and the autumn of old age lies the winter of the grave and the isthmus (barzakh). (16)

Were there to be a cinema that showed future events that are going to take place in fifty years - in the same way as past events from fifty years ago are currently shown by means of the cinema - and the states into which the people of misguidance (ahlu’ḍ-ḍalālah) and shamelessness will pass after fifty or sixty years were to be shown to them, they would weep in revulsion and pain at their illicit pleasures, and at those things at which they now laugh.

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14. Eskişehir (read as Esky-shaheer) is a city in the western region of Anatolia where Imām Nursī was imprisoned (1935 - 1936) in solitary confinement along with his disciples in the worst possible wardens with no facilities and food for days. Even under the most terrible circumstances he was writing his epistles. In this prison he wrote five significant epistles of his corpus within eleven months.

15. The Republic Day of Turkey (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Bayramı) is one of the public holidays in Turkey commemorating the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. After the fall of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire that ruled three continents, a new state, Turkey, was declared to be a republic. The holiday commemorates the events of 29th October, 1923 with various festivities including parades, torchlight processions, music and dances to mark the founding of the republic.

16. ‘Ālamu’l-barzakh (the isthmus world) is a transitional realm between the realms of this world and the hereafter. It is quite like a waiting hall for the souls of those who finished their worldly tests. The souls (arwāḥ) of the people who pass away, go there and wait until the Judgement Day or Resurrection Day. This realm is also called ‘ālamu’l-qabr (realm of grave). The Messenger of Allāh described the grave as follows: “The grave is either a garden from the gardens of paradise or a pit from the pits of hell.” (Tirmidhî)

‘Ālamu’l-barzakh is like a garden of paradise for a believer. The souls who migrated to that luminous realm with īmān (true faith) watch the gardens of paradise from there. For the people of kufr (unbelief), this place will be a pit of hell where the first samples of torture of hell are tasted. 

As I was preoccupied by this vision in Eskişehir Prison, a collective personality promoting shamelessness and misguidance suddenly stood before me, like a human devil. It said to me: ‘We indeed want to taste and let others taste every sort of life’s pleasures and enjoyments. [Now leave us be, and] do not interfere in our work.’

I responded to him, saying ‘Since you do not bring to mind [your own] death, and wilfully throw yourself into misguidance and shamelessness for the sake of your mere pleasure and enjoyment, know for sure that because of your misguidedness, the entirety of past time is dead and non-existent, and an appalling graveyard in which corpses have putrefied. The pains in your head and in your heart, if you still have one and it has not died, springing from that limitless separation and from the eternal death of those numberless loved ones, through the bond of humanness and due to misguidance, wipe out the present, partial drunkard-like pleasure of yours that lasts only a very short time. The future too, due to your unbelief, is a non-existent, black, dead and desolate place of terror. And those poor inbound [souls] who are coming from there, those who stretch their heads out into [the world of] existence, who pass through present time, have their heads cut off by the executioner of fate’s own hatchet and are thrown into nothingness. Thus are illimitable painful worries continually raining down upon your faithless head, due to your mind’s relation with [past and future] - and it destroys even your petty and dissolute enjoyment.

Yet, if you were to leave misguidance (ḍalālah) and shamelessness (safāhah) and enter, by means of critically verified faith (al-īmānu’t-taḥqīqī), into the sphere of steadfastness, by the light of true faith you would see that past time is not nonexistent, nor is it a graveyard decomposing and corrupting all things. It would rather be seen as an existent, luminous world that has been transformed into the future and a waiting room for the ever-lasting spirits’ entry into the palaces of bliss which exist in the future. For this reason, it does not bequeath pain, but instead allows one to taste, to an extent corresponding to the strength of one’s faith, the spiritual pleasures of paradise while still in this world.

Future time is not a place of terror and darkness. Rather, faith’s perspective sees that the banquet of the Merciful and Compassionate, the Possessor of Majesty and Bounty (Ar-Raḥmānu wa’r-Raḥīmu Dhu’l-Jalāli wa’l-ikrām) - the mercy and generosity of Whom are limitless - are stretched out in palaces of endless bliss. He Who has made every spring and every

summer a table laden with blessings and opened therein exhibitions of His beneficence (iḥsān). Since through faith’s cinema he observes that men are driven there in droves, he is able to feel the partially similar pleasures of the ever-abiding world, to an extent corresponding to the degree of his faith.

In other words, the true pleasure not mixed with pain lies in faith alone and it can only become actualised with faith. We will now clarify, by means of an illustration pertaining to this theme that was written as a Footnote to A Guide for Youth, a single benefit and pleasure amongst the thousands of benefits and outcomes which are bestowed upon us by faith, even in this life. This as follows:

For example, whilst your sole child, whom you love so fervently, suffered in his death throes and you desperately contemplated painful, everlasting separation from him, a doctor suddenly appeared, like The Venerable Khiḍr or like Luqmān the Sage, and administered an antidote-like remedy to him. Your sweet and beautiful child opened his eyes and escaped death. Surely you will be able to perceive how much happiness and serenity this gives you!

Likewise, while millions of people - with whom you are closely associated and whom you love just like you love that child of yours - are, from your perspective, about to decompose and perish in the graveyard of the past, the reality of faith suddenly sends a light from the window of the heart - like Luqmān the Sage (Luqmānu’l-Ḥakīm) - to the graveyard that is imagined as a vast execution arena. By way of that [light], all of the dead from the first to the last are resurrected. With the languages of their states, they say “never did we die and never will we die and we will meet you again”. Through the bringing to life even in this world of the illimitable joy and serenity that touched you by means of these words of theirs, faith itself establishes the fact that faith is a seed. Were it to germinate, a personal paradise would spring out of it and become the Ṭūbā tree (17) of that seed.

[After I had spoken to that obstinate fellow in this way,] he countered, saying ‘we will live a life of shamelessness and fun without thinking about these deep topics, so that we will be able at least to live our lives in joy and pleasure like animals do.’

I responded to him ‘You can never be like an animal, because for an animal, there is no past nor future. They do not feel pain or grieve about the past and nor does [the thought of] the future bring them worry or

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17. The Ṭūbā Tree is a tree growing in Paradise believed to have its roots in the heavens - according to a ḥadīth, it is so large that a rider could journey in its shade for a hundred years without leaving it. (See Ṣaḥīḥu’l-Bukhārī 4:474, Kitābu’r-Riqāq, Bābu Ṣifati’l-Jannati wa’n-Nār)

fear. They thus experience perfect pleasure; they live in comfort, sleep and thank their Creator. Even the animal held down to be slaughtered feels nothing. At the moment at which the knife cuts, it tries to discern some sensation, but even that feeling disappears and it becomes free of that pain.

Thus, the greatest mercy and compassion of Allāh is His not informing about the unseen and His veiling [the course of events that will happen to them]. This becomes most perfectly manifest especially in the case of innocent animals. Yet [take notice], O humankind! You are totally excluded from the animal repose that springs from the veiling of the unseen - for within the mind’s perspective, your past and future has, to some degree, emerged from the unseen. Thus, sorrows and the painful separations that stem from the past as well as fears and worries derived from the future take away your partial enjoyment and cause you to tumble down to a degree of pleasure one hundred times lower than that of the animals. Since this is the state of affairs, it is for you to either remove your intellect and cast it aside! Be an [untroubled] animal and free yourself, or return to your senses by means of faith, and listen to the Qur’ān! You will thereby obtain pure pleasure even in this transient world, a pleasure a hundred times more abundant than that of the animals.’ In saying all this, I silenced him.

Yet this recalcitrant fellow turned and said again, ‘well then, we can at least live our lives like non-Muslims and atheists do!’ In answer to this, I said, ‘you won’t be able to be like non-Muslims and atheists either. For even if they reject one of the Prophets, it may well be that they believe in the rest of them and if they do not recognise the Prophets, they may well believe in Allāh. Even if they do not believe in Allāh, it could be the case that they embody certain moral characteristics that could result in some virtues. Yet if a Muslim rejects and throws off the reins of the last, greatest Prophet, the Prophet of the end times (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), whose religion and mission are universal by that act he can no longer believe in any Prophet, nor accept [the existence of] Allāh.

This is because it was only by means of him (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) that one came in the first place to know of Allāh, of the Prophets and of moral perfections. Without him (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) these [realities] abide no longer in one’s heart. Because of this, from the days of antiquity people of all faiths have entered Islām - yet no Muslim ever becomes a real Jew, Zoroastrian or Christian. Rather the very same person would probably become someone with no faith, his otherwise moral virtues and characteristics are lost and corrupted. He would

thereby enter into a harmful situation for the country and the nation. I have proved [all of this]. This obstinate and recalcitrant fellow was left with nothing to hang on to any longer. He [turned away and] disappeared from sight and went to Hell.

O classmates of mine in this Yūsufian School! Since this is the truth and since The Book of Light has established this reality as clearly as the sun’s clarity such that it is able to break the stubbornness of the recalcitrants, and has for twenty years entered them into the fold of true faith, it is incumbent upon us to also travel down the path of faith and righteousness that is the most fully beneficial, easy and safe path for our world, our future, our Hereafter, our country and our nation.

Rather than occupying ourselves with troublesome dreams [and imaginations], we must spend our free time reciting the sūras that we know from the Qur’ān and learning their meanings from the friends of ours that teach us. We must make up the obligatory prayers that we did not pray in their proper times and and benefit from the beautiful character traits of one another.

We must [then] transform this prison into a blessed garden that brings forth seedlings [i.e. students] with beautiful character. We must do all the like of these righteous acts in order that each of the governors and officials in the prison become upright teachers and compassionate guides employed in the work of readying men for paradise and in overseeing their training in the Yūsufian School - not torture officials like the zabāniya, (18) standing over criminals and murderers.

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18. The zabāniya are the guards of Hell, angels of punishment mentioned in the 18th verse of Sūratu’l-‘Alaq in the Qur’ān.

The Fourth Issue

The brothers that serve me once asked me a question that has also been clarified in A Guide for Youth:

‘It has been fifty days now and you have not once asked [for news] about the appalling World War [II] (in fact, it has now been over seven years and I have still not asked) (19) that has thrust the world into such chaos and that bears on the fate of Islām. It does not seem even to enkindle your interest. On the other hand, certain religious and scholarly individuals abandon the congregation and the mosque and rush to listen to the radio. Now we wonder, could there be an event more momentous than the War? Or is it that some harm lies in occupying oneself with it?

I said as an answer: Life’s capital is minimal, yet there are very many crucial matters [to take care of]. Many spheres exist in the world of a human being, like concentric circles; beginning with the sphere of heart and stomach, then the sphere of body and home, the sphere of neighbourhood and city, the sphere of homeland and country, the sphere of the earth and mankind, unto the sphere of living creatures and this world [itself].

Every human being may to some degree have a role to play in each sphere, yet the greatest, most important and most permanent duty lies in the sphere that is smallest. Indeed, the smallest duty - [although] temporary and to be fulfilled only from time to time - may exist within the greatest of spheres. According to this logic, these duties may well correspond to spheres that are inversely proportional with respect to their greatness and littleness. Yet the greater spheres wield an attraction, and because of this, man occupies himself with useless, fruitless extraneous matters, leaving his crucial service in the smaller spheres. He futilely squanders the capital of his life itself. He wastes his precious life engaging in things of no value.

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19. This note refers to the year 1946.

Sometimes, the person who with curiosity follows the battles of this war, may well find himself siding in his heart with one of the two factions. He thus condones the tyrannies of one side. He thereby partakes in that same tyranny. (20) The answer to the first point is as follows:

Yes, an event has taken place that concerns all people, and most especially Muslims - an event that is more momentous than the World War. This event and case is more important than the issue of the control of the entire world, such that were each man to have the power and wealth of the Germans and the English as well as a sound intellect, he would without hesitation spend it all in order to win this case alone.

The case is as follows: One hundred thousand of the most illustrious of humanity - an almost limitless number of the stars and guides of mankind relying upon thousands of promises and covenants of the Owner and Disposer of the universe some of which they have seen with their own eyes - congruently report the following:

A case concerning each human being has been opened that involves, in return for faith, either the obtainment or the loss of an ever-abiding, endlessly eternal tillage and property, ornamented with gardens and palaces, the extent of which is as that of the entire earth. If he does not obtain full certification of his faith, he will lose! Many of the people of this time have lost their cases by reason of the plague of materialism. Indeed, only a few of the forty individuals who died in a particular township won this case during their death throes, whereas the rest of them lost it entirely. Now I wonder; if such a man were to be given the rulership of the entire world, would anything be able to compensate for the case that he had lost?

We as students of The Book of Light believe that it would be absolute madness for us to occupy ourselves with useless, extraneous matters which do not concern us, as if we were to remain forever in this world, and for us to leave the duties that cause that case to be won, and the services that ensure that we are represented by an outstanding lawyer under whose care ninety percent of people are able to avoid losing that case. For this reason, we have become convinced that were we each of us to become a hundred degrees more intelligent than we are now, we would have to apply it all in this case alone.

Thus, O new brothers of mine within this tribulation of prison! You have not studied The Book of Light to the same degree as the previous

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20. Nursī explains this verse “And do not incline toward those who do wrong, lest you be touched by the Fire” (Qur’ān, Hūd, 11:113) in The Twenty-eighth Letter (Mektūbāt) and says that this noble verse with its Divine commandment severely and dreadfully threatens not only those who become a means of tyranny or a supporter of it but also those with even a very low level of inclination towards it. This is a very famous quote regarding this topic: “Just like consent to disbelief (kufr) is disbelief, similarly consent towards tyranny (ẓulm) is tyranny, too.” 

brothers who entered the prison with me have done so. I now say, with the previous fellow brothers [in the prison] and thousands of Students of Light as witnesses, and I prove just as I did prove [previously]:

It is The Book of Light that has won that weighty case for ninety percent of people and delivered verified faith - that constitutes the note, acquittal and certification of having won that case - into the hands of twenty thousand people within twenty years, [that The Book of Light that was] reared by the semantic miraculousness of the Qur’ān and gushes forth from it, and that is the foremost of the lawyers of this time.

Despite the fact that my enemies and the disbelievers and materialists have for the last eighteen years caused us to be imprisoned by deceiving certain senior officials in the government with singularly cruel tricks, and previously entered us into prison hoping to wipe us out just as they have done so on this occasion, they have been unable to interfere with any but two or three of the one hundred and thirty pieces of equipment existing within the steel castle of The Book of Light. Anyone, then, who wishes to appoint a lawyer need only get hold of it. Do not be troubled, for The Book of Light will not be banned. Apart from two or three of them, the most important epistles of The Book of Light are circulating totally freely in the hands of the deputies and senior officials of the Republic’s government.

If Allāh wills, a day will come when happy prison governors and staff will distribute its lights to prisoners, just as they now distribute bread and medicine in order to transform the prisons into places of reform and refinement.

The Fifth Issue

As has been explained in A Guide for Youth, youth will no doubt depart [one day]. In the certainty of summer giving way to autumn and winter, and the day turning into evening and night, so will youth transform into old age and death. All of the divinely revealed scriptures have given the glad tidings that should a young person spend his transient, evanescent youth in chastity and goodness, within the sphere of uprightness, he will win a youth that is everlasting and ever-abiding.

[The state of affairs of] one who spends his youth [recklessly and foolishly] indulging in sins [can be understood in the following manner]: Just as a murder of which anger is the cause lasts only a minute but compels one to suffer the torment of a prison sentence that lasts for millions of minutes, so too, any sensible youth in their right mind would confirm with their own experience that the entertainments and pleasures of youth within the unlawful sphere, really cause them to suffer the sorrows of the responsibility of hereafter, agonies of torture in the grave and pains from the loss of these illicit pleasures. Those pleasures also cause one to suffer the gloom of sins and misery of worldly punishments. Apart from all these, any sensible youth would affirm that there exist far more pains and sorrows within that illicit pleasure than that pleasure itself.

For example, the insignificantly small pleasure hidden in loving the forbidden turns into that of poisonous honey due to many reasons along with the deepest pains of jealousy, the agony of separation and the desperate misery of not being loved back [by that ḥarām lover]. If you want to understand that such young people fall into hospitals because of illnesses brought about by their misuse of their youth, and prisons because of their reckless transgressions, and clubs and bars and places of sin, and graveyards

because of distress and depression stemming from the absence of nourishment for their hearts and spirits and their not having been employed in their proper capacities, then go and ask at the hospitals, prisons, bars and graveyards.

There, you will certainly hear laments and weeping cries, and the wails of sorrow and regret at the terrible blows of their being beaten, for the most part a punishment for their having misused their youth, and for their transgressions, and for illicit pleasures. All of the heavenly scriptures and decrees, foremost amongst them the Qur’ān in its numerous, conclusive verses, report and give the glad tidings that youth, if spent upon the straight path, is a tremendously sweet and beautiful Divine blessing and a comely and powerful means of goodness which will result in the hereafter, a youth that is radiant and ever-abiding.

Since this is the state of affairs, and since the sphere of the permitted (ḥalāl) is sufficient for enjoyment [happiness and well-being], and since an hour’s pleasure within the sphere of the forbidden (ḥarām) gives rise to punishment in prison, sometimes for a year and sometimes for ten, there is no doubt that the sweet blessing of youth must most necessarily and essentially be spent in chastity and righteousness, in gratitude for it.

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. 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

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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.

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

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; 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.

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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.

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, 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. 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.

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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.

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.

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; 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 (c)

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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)

c 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.’ [Thereafter,] the prisoners felt a yearning for the hereafter stemming from their having become further convinced in their faith and they said, ‘acquaint us fully with our hereafter as well, so that our own lower self (nafs) (28) and the devils of this time do not misguide us and so that we are not imprisoned again as is our state now’.

In accordance then with the desire both of the students of The Book of Light in Denizli Prison and that of those who read the previous six issues, it became necessary to write an exposition of an encapsulation of the fundamental article of ‘ faith in the hereafter’. Thus do I say the following, in a short encapsulation from The Book of Light:

Just as we asked the earth and the heavens about our Creator, and in the languages of the sciences in The Sixth Issue, they made our Creator known to us as clearly as the clarity of the sun, in the same way, we will further ask about our Hereafter; first from our Lord, Whom we have just come to know, and then from our Prophet (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), then from our Qur’ān, and then from the rest of the Prophets and the Holy Scriptures, followed by the

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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)

28. Nafs - the lower self. In common parlance the word refers to the human 'self' in general, but it is here used in its capacity as a term in practical spirituality as the lower self, or literally the 'self that commands to evil'. The term is Qur’ānic, originating from the words of the Prophet Yūsuf [Joseph], (Qur’ān: Yūsuf, 12:53). It is the lower, animalistic self that potentially dominates man, before he is able to overcome its evil promptings through opposing his whims, engaging in religious knowledge and ma‘rifatullāh (gnosis of Allāh), ascetic exercises, self-purification, and prayer. It is 'the self that inclines to the human being's bodily nature, ordering the indulgence in lower pleasures and the gratification of sensory lusts.' 

angels and the very cosmos itself. Now, in the first stage, we ask Allāh about the hereafter. He decrees with all of the Prophets that He sent and all the Divine decrees, and with all of His Names and attributes, ‘Yes; the Hereafter exists and I am driving you all unto it.’

The Tenth Word has established and explained the answers given by some of the Beautiful Names concerning the Hereafter in its dazzling, conclusive ‘Twelve Realities’. Since we are contented with that exposition, we will very briefly point to it here.

Yes, since there is no kingdom that does not hold up a recompense for those obedient to it and a punishment for those who rebel against it, there is no doubt that the eternal sultanate, which is in the station of absolute lordship and sovereignty, has a recompense befitting that mercy and beauty for all those such as affiliate themselves to that sultanate by means of faith and who submit to its decrees in obedience. It further has a punishment befitting that might and majesty for all those such as reject, in disbelief and rebellion, that mighty sultanate. This is how Divine Names Rabbu’l-‘Ālamīn (The Lord of the Worlds) and As-Sulṭānu’d-Dayyān (The Judging Sultan Who fully repays due recompense and punishment) answer.

[Consider the fact that] we see with our own eyes as clearly as the sun and the day, a universal mercy; an all-embracing compassion and generosity on the face of the earth. An example of this is the indubitable fact of mercy and compassion’s clothing and decorating all trees and fruit-bearing plants in spring as if they were houris, and placing every type of fruit in their hands. That mercy and compassion [engenders their] saying, hands outstretched ‘Here you come, pick and eat!’ Mercy and compassion feed us healing and sweet honey from the hands of a poisonous insect and dress us in the softest silk at the hands of a handless bug.

The very mercy and compassion hide tonnes of food within a handful of tiny kernels and seeds, incorporating all of this in such tiny little repositories as a reserve of food for us. This Divine mercy and compassion would certainly and without any doubt never wipe out and obliterate these believers who are His beloved, thankful [servants] and adorers that He feeds so gently and lovingly. Rather, Divine mercy and compassion will release them from the vocation of this worldly life, in order to cover them in much brighter mercy. That is the answer of the Names Ar-Raḥīm (the Compassionate) and Al-Karīm (the Generous) to our question - and they both say الجنة حقٌّ ‘paradise is real’.

And [consider the fact that] with our own eyes we see that such an [extraordinary] hand of wisdom works within all creatures, and upon the face of the earth, and that these operations are directed by such [wonderful] balances of justice that the human intellect cannot imagine any further than that. An example of this is beginningless wisdom’s writing the entire history of man’s life and limitless incidents that happen to him, within the wisdoms attached to the thousands of human physical systems one of which is man’s power of memory that is only the size of a tiny seed. It writes on that memory and makes man’s mind into a type of library.

And [the beginningless wisdom] then delivers this library into man’s hands [by recording] each moment in order to remind man [of his each moment and that he will be brought to account], and places it into the pocket of his memory, like a little note for the logbook of his actions, which will be opened at his trial during the Gathering (al-ḥashr).

[Consider] the eternal justice that we see, that incorporates all of the organs of all artfully created beings with so sensitive a balance, and that manifests, from germs to rhinoceros and flies to phoenixes (29) and from a single flowering plant to the flower of spring during which blooms billions and trillions of types of flowers, proportionality, balance, harmonious order, beauty and fine artistry in which nothing is wasted.

[Consider] the eternal justice that gives each living creature its rights of life in perfect balance, and that makes good work to yield good outcomes, just as it makes bad works to yield ugly outcomes. This eternal justice clearly manifests itself in the blows by which it has always struck despotic, oppressive nations, right down from the time of Ādam (‘alayhissalām).

Certainly and there can be no possible doubt that this eternal wisdom and this eternal justice simply cannot exist without the hereafter, just like morning cannot be without the sun. They can under no circumstances allow the continuation of a potentially endless, severe oppression. Nor can they allow the unfairness, injustice and pointlessness entailed in considering the most tyrannical oppressor at his death to be equal to those he has oppressed at their deaths. Thus do the Names, al-Ḥakīm (the Wise), al-Ḥakam (the Judicious Apportioner), al-‘Adl (the Equitable) and al-‘Ādil (the Just) answer our question conclusively.

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29. The word “phoenixes” is used by the author possibly to mean peacocks.

[Volitional and non-volitional supplications]

[Consider the fact that] the needs of all living creatures are given them; all the innate requirements that are not within the range of their capacities, neither within their own power nor their reach to obtain. All that they ask for they are given at the moment they request it, in the language of innate capacity (al-isti‘dādu’l-fiṭrī) (30) and necessary requirement (al-ikhtiyāju’ḍ-ḍarūri), (31) both of which are a type of supplication. They are given it by an unseen hand of consummate mercy, hearing and pity. Contrary to what one would expect, six or seven out of every ten of man’s volitional supplications are accepted, especially in the case of the elect of mankind, and the Prophets.

From all this, it is understood that behind the veils there exists a Hearer and an Answerer Who listens to all of the grievances and worries of every distressed being and to the supplication of each one in need. This to such an extent that He satisfies even the most insignificant of the needs of the least of living creatures, and hears their most hidden laments and sighs, and He has pity on them, and answers them through action, setting their minds at rest.

It is incontrovertibly the case that no doubt whatsoever remains that Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) is of all creatures the most important. He brought together the weightiest and most universal of man’s supplications concerning eternal life - supplications that concern the whole universe and all the Divine Names and Attributes. He made all of the Prophets to support him, those suns, stars and leaders of mankind, saying ‘āmīn! āmīn!’ to his prayers.

Every day, every devout member of his nation says ‘āmīn!’ to his prayer by means of their abundantly sending blessings upon him. And indeed, all creatures take part in his prayer, saying ‘O yes our Lord, give him what he asked, we too ask you that for which he asked’. Only a single prayer for eternal life and endless bliss by Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) realising as it does all the conditions of a prayer that ensure that it cannot go unanswered, is, amongst the unrejectable innumerable grounds necessitating the Resurrection, a sufficient ground for the existence of paradise and the existentiation of the hereafter, which is as easy for His power as the existentiation of the spring.

In this way do the Names al-Mujīb (the Answerer), as-Sami‘ (the Hearer) and ar-Raḥīm (the Compassionate) answer our question.

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30. Innate capacity (al-isti‘dādu’l-fiṭrī): An individual’s abilities that are inherited from birth. The du‘ā of seeds is the du‘ā of al-isti‘dādu’lfiṭrī, that is, they say `drop us to earth, bury us so that we grow and let us reach our capacity because we have that within us`.

31. Necessary requirement (al-ikhtiyāju’ḍ-ḍarūri): The du‘ās of animals that they do in order to sustain their lives. All animals are given their sustenance by Allāh in a way in which no one would expect. 

[Consider now] the way in which the universal death and resurrection and the alternation of the seasons upon the face of the earth reveal an Agent acting therein behind the veil - as self-evidently as the existence of the day reveals the existence of the sun. [That Agent] creates the vast globe of the earth like a garden of perfect orderliness, indeed, with the ease and orderliness with which He creates a single tree.

He creates the expansive, sublime spring as easily as He creates a single flower and with the same carefully balanced decoration. [This Agent] reveals the fact that a pen of power inscribes all of the different groups of plant and animal upon the page of the earth, like three hundred thousand books, embodying three hundred thousand models and examples of the Gathering and the Resurrection.

This pen of power writes them such that they are artful, harmoniously ordered, and overflowing with meanings, all together and overlapping without error, and without being mixed up though they are mixed with one another, and without confusion, omission, nor mistake, although they are all similar to one another. In these sublime Divine operations, it works with mercy that has no end and wisdom of which there is no limit. [The pen of power conferred upon man a station most high], in its having subjected the great universe to him, and in its having ornamented it and fitted it out as if it is man’s house. In its having made him the guardian (khalīfa) of the earth by bestowing the greatest trust (32) upon him - the trust that the mountains and the heavens and the earth feared to take on. In its honouring him by making him, to a certain extent, the governor of all other living creatures, and by conferring upon him its Divine addresses and its speech, and its promising and pledging to him eternal bliss and eternal life in the hereafter in a promise and a pledge that are absolute in every single heavenly scripture.

Certainly there is no doubt nor dubiety whatsoever then that He will create and open an abode of bliss for these praised and honoured human beings, and will bring about the Resurrection and the doomsday, (33) and that for His power, this is as easy as [creating and existentiating] the spring.

Thus do the Names al-Muḥyī (the Giver of Life), al-Mumīt (the Giver of Death), al-Ḥayy (the Living), al-Qayyūm (the Self-subsistent Sustainer), al-Qadīr (the Omnipotent) and al-‘Alīm (the All-knowing) answer this question of ours concerning our Creator.

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32. The greatest trust: “Indeed We did offer the Trust (amānah) to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to bear its burden and (they) feared from it, and man picked it up. Indeed he is very unjust (ẓālim) and unaware (jāhil)”. (Qur’ān: al-Ahzāb, 33:72) The Qur’ānic scholars who wrote exegesis of the Qur’ān (mufassirīn) interpreted the word ‘Trust’ in various ways such as: the entirety of religious obligations, farāiḍ, commands of Islām, every blessing that is bestowed on mankind, the ability of being the khalīfa (vicegerent) on earth, ‘aql (intelligence) etc; yet the most popular meaning of ‘the Trust’ is the responsibilities and obligations of humankind. (For more information on the Trust, please see The Thirtieth Word of Imām Nursī where he mentions comprehensively two issues: Ana wa Dharra.)

33. Yawmu’l-Qiyāmah: Doomsday or Apocalypse 

Yes, the power that gives life each spring to all of the trees and to the roots of each and every plant and that existentiates three hundred thousand animals and plants which are exemplars of the Gathering and Resurrection, will be seen to manifest in two thousand springs (Footnote) if we are to imagine one thousand exemplars and one thousand proofs of the Gathering and Resurrection corresponding to the thousand years of the nation of Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) and to the thousand years of the nation of Mūsā (‘alayhissalām).

Given this, deeming the bodily resurrection to be improbable for such a power like this would be a thousand-fold blindness and great folly.

And consider the fact that one hundred and twenty four thousand prophets, who are the most illustrious of human beings, announced in agreement the reality of eternal bliss and endless life in the hereafter, based upon Allāhu Ta‘ālā’s thousands of promises and pledges in this regard, and it being the case that they proved their truthfulness with their miracles; and since illimitable numbers of the people of sainthood (walāyat) endorse and uphold the same reality through their mystical unveilings and spiritual experience, there can be no doubt that that reality is as manifest as the sun and that he who has doubts concerning it is a crazed lunatic.

Yes, the judgements and opinions of even one or two specialists in a scholarly or artistic field invalidate the contrary opinions of a thousand non-specialists in that field, even though those non-specialists be specialists and scholars in other fields. By the same token, two affirmers of an issue take precedence over a thousand deniers and negators thereof, and win the case. Take for example the issue of establishing that the new moon has appeared on the day on which this is in doubt, or establishing the claim that there exists somewhere on earth a garden of coconuts resembling cans of milk. The affirmers here can easily win the case by simply displaying a single coconut fruit or by pointing out the coconut garden. The negator and denier on the other hand is only able to establish his case after long investigation, and after conducting a survey of the entire face of the earth, and by way of indicating that no such thing exists anywhere. Likewise, the one, who brings news about paradise and the abode of bliss and establishes their existence, wins the case just simply by showing

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Footnote: Each and every spring that has passed has seen its doomsday and died, and every following spring is like its resurrection.

people, by means of mystical unveiling (kashf), only a single one of their traces and a single of their shadows and a seepage of light like the one on a cinema screen. On the other hand, it is only by establishing the validity of his denial and negation that the one wishing to negate and deny their existence can win the case, and this entails himself seeing and showing the evidence required by that denial and negation, which would need to be from every part of the universe and from every single period of time, from beginningless to endless eternity.

And it is because of this important secret that the people of scholarly verification have in agreement accepted, as a fundamental principle, that negation and denial, whether they be undirected towards a particular locus, and directed towards the entire universe as in the case of the denial of the realities of faith, cannot be established - this as long as the things concerned are not in their essences impossible.

Now based on this certain reality, thousands of philosophers’ opponent ideas must not cause even the slightest of doubts nor an anxiety against a single trustworthy reporter concerning the matters of faith. Compare how very much stupidity and insanity is committed by those who fall into doubt engendered by the denials of only a few number of philosophers, the intellects of whom have sunken down unto only that which their eyes can see, who are heartless, who have been blinded in spirituality and distanced from the spiritual concerning the fundamental principles of faith, the truth of which has been agreed upon by a hundred and twenty thousand trustworthy reporters, people who agree with one another and specialised [in this issue], as well as an illimitable and endless number of the people of reality and verificationist scholars, who are authenticators and specialists.

[Consider] then the universal mercy, all-embracing wisdom and perpetual favour that we witness with our own eyes within ourselves and around us as clearly as we witness the day and the effects and the manifestations of the astonishing sultanate of lordship and the lofty, precise justice, and the majestic, mighty [Divine] operations that we see.

Indeed, the wisdom that adorns a single tree with as many wisdoms as it has fruits and flowers, and the mercy that bestowed as many benefactions and blessings upon each human being as he has physical systems, senses and capabilities, the mighty, solicitous justice that dealt blows to rebellious peoples, like that of Nūḥ (‘alayhissalām), Hūd (‘alayhissalām) and Ṣāliḥ (‘alayhissalām), the people of ‘Ād,

Thamūd, and Fir‘awn, and that protected the rights of even the smallest living creature, and the verse with its magnificent concision says:

وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ تَقُومَ السَّمَاءُ وَالأَرْضُ بِأَمْرِهِ ثُمَّ إِذَا دَعَاكُمْ دَعْوَةً مِنَ الأَرْضِ إِذَا أَنْتُمْ تَخْرُجُونَ (a)

‘Just as obedient soldiers, who live and lie down to rest in two barracks take up arms by the call of the commander and hasten to their duties on hearing the mobilising blow of a trumpet, just so do the vast, immense heavens and the expansive earth, in their obedience to commands, resemble the two barracks. When the soldiers of the Beginninglessly Eternal Sultan lying in death in these barracks are summoned by the Trumpet of Isrāfīl (‘alayhissalām) they will immediately garb themselves in the uniform of their bodies and betake themselves out [of the grave].’

Every spring establishes and points to this [reality] that the barracks of the earth reveal these same circumstances at the blow of the trumpet of the angel of thunder. Absolutely and certainly, it is incontrovertibly the case that no doubt whatsoever remains (34) that the sultanate of lordship - the endless absolute sublimity of which is beheld and perceived [when the earth exhibits the same circumstances every spring] - would not accept for the abode of the hereafter to never be opened - the abode of resurrection and gathering that is necessarily and conclusively entailed by that mercy, wisdom, favour, justice and eternal sultanate.

This is all built upon that which has been established in The Tenth Word, whence it also follows that [the endless sultanate] would not accept the endless beauty of mercy turning into a most heinous harshness, nor the limitless perfection of wisdom transforming into a most faulty futility and a useless wastefulness, nor that surpassingly gentle favour being replaced by a most painful and bitter treachery, nor that justice of singular balance, equity turning into terribly odious instances of oppression, nor, indeed, the collapse of the eternal sultanate that is of tremendous sublimity and power.

For the sublimity of the eternal sultanate would then entirely pass away and its perfect lordship would become contaminated with the powerlessness and deficiency entailed by the Resurrection having not come about. Its not coming about is not in any way possible, and no intellect can consider it a possibility, and there are one hundred impossibilities within this.

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a And of His signs is that the heaven and the earth stand firm at His bidding: when with one call He summons you out of the earth, you shall come forth. (Qur’ān: Ar-Rūm, 30:25)

34. Literal: surely and surely, and in under any circumstances and no doubt remains 

It is absurd and impossible, quite outside the realm of possibility. For how singularly, oppressively merciless it would be for mercy, wisdom, favour, justice and eternal sublimity to obliterate man for all eternity, especially after man has been brought up most tenderly and kindly, and inspired [in his intellect and his heart] with longing for eternal bliss and abiding forever in the hereafter.

How opposed to wisdom it would be to let all of his faculties and capabilities, each of which comprises thousands of benefits, go completely to waste uselessly, without purpose and without wisdom in an absolute death after which no resurrection lies, despite the fact that hundreds of wisdoms and benefits are attached to his mind alone! How inconsonant with the sublimity of that sultanate and its perfect lordship would the appearance of the powerlessness and ignorance - far be they from Allāh - entailed by unfaithfulness to thousands of promises and pledges that it had promised and pledged with! All conscious beings will understand this!

Now, you apply favour and justice yourselves by drawing analogies from these matters. By means of this reality do the Names ar-Raḥmān (the Merciful), al-Ḥakīm (the Wise), al-‘Adl (the Equitable), al-Karīm (the Generous) and al-Ḥākim (the Judge) answer our question to our Creator concerning the hereafter, and by this mentioned reality, the hereafter becomes as indubitably and clearly established as the sun.

[Consider] the fact that with our own eyes, we see that a sublime all-encompassing Divine protectorship (ḥafīẓiyyah) rules [and puts into effect its laws]. This ḥafīẓiyyah records and inscribes many images of every living creature and every incident, the book of innate duty that they perform, the scroll of deeds regarding the glorifying litanies (tasbiḥāt) that they recite through the language of state (lisānu’l-ḥāl) (35) for the Divine Names.

All of this is recorded and written on [virtual] tablets of similitudes, and upon the kernels and little seeds [of each plant], and upon their memories each of which is a sample of al-Lawḥu’l-Maḥfūẓ (the Preserved Tablet), and most especially upon the memory of man, which is his personal library, simultaneously vast and tiny within his brain and upon other material and spiritual mirrors of reflection. By way of recording [with precision and exactitude], the Divine protectorship preserves them all. Then, when

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35. Lisānu’l-ḥāl: All of the beings in the universe have languages particular to them - this is lisānu’l-ḥāl, or the 'language of state'. Just as meaningful communication with human beings depends on our learning the language that they speak, so too is our learning the language of the universe a prerequisite to our understanding its 'speaking'. The universe is a book written by the pen of the might of Allāh, that describes His Holy Names and Attributes. Reading this book enables us to acquire knowledge or 'gnosis' of Allāh (ma‘rifatullāh), as in, for example, each being's particular form of speaking, in the language of its state, of the Name al-Muṣawwir, 'the Shaper', and in the life in all creatures' speaking of the Name al-Muḥyī, 'the Giver of Life'. 

the time is right, in front of our very eyes it manifests all of these spiritual writings into material forms, too. Every spring - spring, one of the flowers of Divine power - proclaims to the world by means of its supreme flower and on the strength of millions of examples, proofs and exemplars and upon billions of tongues, the most wondrous reality of the Resurrection contained in the verse وَإِذَا الصُّحُفُ نُشِرَتْ . (a)

It powerfully establishes the fact that all things, and foremost amongst them man, were not created in order to merely descend into nonexistence and perish into nothingness. It also proves that living creatures and especially man were not created to be executed. Rather, they were created for the sake of entering into eternal life by means of [spiritual] ascension, perpetuality by means of purification, and to take on their innate duty according to their innate capacity.

Yes, every spring, we witness that the limitless number of plants that had died during the doomsday of the season of autumn, every tree, every root, every kernel and every seed in the resurrection of spring, recites the verse وَإِذَا الصُّحُفُ نُشِرَتْ and each one provides a commentary for one of its meanings and one of its particular individuals in its own language, and by means of examples of the duties it has carried out in the past years. In this, it is testifying to that sublime protectorship. They manifest, in all beings, the four extraordinary realities contained in the verse هُوَ الأَوَّلُ وَالآخِرُ وَالظَّاهِرُ وَالبَاطِنُ (b) and they instruct us in the highest degree of this protectorship, teaching us that the occurrence of the Resurrection will come as easily and inevitably as that of spring.

Yes, the manifestations of these four Names continuously operate [and are apparent] in all creatures, from the smallest particular to the greatest universal.

For example: The seed that is the wellspring of this tree constitutes, through the Name الأَوَّلُ al-Awwal (the First) becoming manifest in it, a little box comprising the singularly exquisite blueprint of this tree, the faultless structure by which it comes into existence, and all of the conditions governing its formation and it establishes the sublimity of protectorship. Its fruit, that the Name وَالآخِرُ al-Ākhir (the Last) becomes manifest in, is also a little box comprising the seeds contained within each fruit, an index

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a When the pages are spread out (Qur’ān: at-Takwīr, 81:10)

b He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward (Qur’ān: al-Hadīd, 57:3) 

of all of the duties of its innate nature that this tree has carried out, a list of its actions, and a detailing of the principles governing its second life - and they too testify to Divine protectorship in the most supreme degree. The material form of that tree, into which becomes manifest the Name الظَّاهِرُ aẓ-Ẓāhir (the Outward) is as if the garb of a houri in seventy hues - a harmonious, artful and decorated raiment and clothing, brocaded with divers motifs of embroidery, distinct ornaments and myriad gilded medals - and through this, the sublimity of [Divine] power and the perfection of the [Divine] wisdom and the beauty of the [Divine] mercy within [Divine] protectorship become revealed for all eyes to see.

The apparatus within the tree is a mirror of the Name البَاطِنُ al-Bāṭin (the Inward) - it is a well organised, an artfully designed, perfect, miraculous factory, a workshop and a chemical laboratory, a balanced receptacle of sustenance that leaves no branch nor fruit nor leaf without nourishment.

Through the Divine protectorship, this establishes like the sun, the perfection of power and justice, the beauty of mercy and wisdom. Now, in the same way as all that we have just mentioned, the globe of the earth is also a tree with respect to the seasons of the year.

All of the seeds and kernels stored in the season of autumn as a trust of Divine protectorship through the manifestation of the Name هُوَ الأَوَّلُ al-Awwal (the First), are little amalgamations of Divine commands concerning the fashioning of the shape of the tree on the face of the earth, wrapped in the cloak of spring that has brought forth billions of branches and offshoots, and yielded billions of fruits, and flowered billions of flowers.

They are rosters of the principles coming from the Divine predestining, and a little scroll of actions, and a logbook of the services that the past summer had fulfilled, that [seeds and kernels] evidently show that the Protector [of deeds], the Possessor of Majesty and Bounty (Al-Ḥafīẓu Dhu’l-Jalāli wa’l-ikrām) is operating all things with limitless power, justice, wisdom and mercy.

The end of the annual tree of the earth deposits all of the duties that that tree has fulfilled into the following autumn, and all of the litanies it has recited to the Divine Names that arise from its innate disposition, and all the scrolls of its actions that will be distributed in the resurrection of the coming spring into tiny and little boxes, and [then] entrusts it into the hand of wisdom of The Protector [of deeds], the Possessor of Majesty. It recites the Name هُوَ الآخِر (a) in limitless tongues on the face of the earth.

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a He is the Last. 

The outward form of this tree blooms three hundred thousand universal flowers of great diversity, that reveal three hundred thousand exemplars and signs of the Resurrection. It unfurls and stretches out limitless tables of mercy, provision, compassion and generosity, putting on thereby banquets for all living creatures. [By means of all this,] it remembers the Name هُوَ الظَّاهِرُ (a) in as many languages as it has fruits, flowers and foods, glorifying and extolling Him with praise, it shows the reality of the verse وَإِذَا الصُّحُفُ نُشِرَتْ (b) as [bright] as the day[light]. This great and towering tree is in its inward reality a receptacle and workshop that puts to work countless and limitless well-ordered machines and carefully balanced factories within which it cooks from one gram’s weight one thousand tonnes of food, that it then serves to the hungry. And it works with so fine a balance and precision that it leaves not space for even an atom’s width of chance to interfere. In a hundred thousand different ways [and forms], it proclaims and establishes by means of the inner face of the earth the Name هُوَ البَاطِنُ (c) just as certain of the angels glorify Allāh with one hundred thousand tongues.

The earth is a tree with respect to the yearly cycle of its life and it reveals the Divine protectorship within these four Names. [By way of showing the Divine protectorship] it makes it into a key to the hereafter.

Just as it is so, similarly, it is an artful and well designed tree, the fruits of which are sent on to the market of the hereafter - this in terms of its life within time and its life within this world. And this tree is a locus of the manifestation of these four Names and a mirror thereof that cleaves open a road extending on into the hereafter, such that our intellect falls short of fully comprehending its scope and of being able to properly express it in words. All we can say is this:

Just as the hands of a clock, that count the seconds, minutes, hours and days resemble one another, establish one another, and anyone who sees the movement of the seconds is forced to assent to the movements of the rest of the hands, so too do the days that count the seconds of this world that is a great clock of the Majestic Creator of the heavens and the earth, the years that calculate its minutes, the ages that reveal its hours

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a He is the Outward.

b When the pages are spread out (Qur’ān: at-Takwīr, 81:10)

c He is the Inward 

and the cycles that report its days resemble one another and establish one another. They each give news of the coming of a perpetual spring and an eternal morning after the dark winter of the transient world with limitless signs and in the certainty of this night [will be followed] by a morning and this winter by a spring. It is by way of this reality then, that the Names هُوَ الأَوَّلُ وَالآخِرُ وَالظَّاهِرُ وَالبَاطِنُ (a) in conjunction] with the Name al-Ḥafīẓ (the Preserver) answer our question to our Creator concerning the matter of the Resurrection.

[Consider] now that fact that we both see with our own eyes and perceive with our intellect that man is the ultimate, most comprehensive fruit of the tree of this universe, and in terms of the Reality of Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), the original seed of the universe; man is the supreme sign of the Qur’ān of the universe and its Throne Verse which bears the Supreme Name (Al-Ismu’l-A‘ẓam).

He is the most honoured guest in the palace of the universe, and the most enterprising official therein who is authorised to dispose of the rest of the inhabitants of that palace, and he has thus been charged with overseeing incomings and outgoings, and with the cultivation of the garden and the field of the earth district within the city of the universe, and he is the most vocal and responsible overseer who has been decorated with hundreds of sciences and thousands of arts. He is the inspector working under the supervision of the Sultan of Beginningless and Endless Eternity (Sulṭānu’l-Azali wa’l-Abad) within the homeland of the earth within the country of the universe.

Man is, in a certain way, His vicegerent (khalīfa) and His disposer [of affairs], the particular and universal movements of whom are recorded. He is the universal servant, charged with the religious obligation of an all-embracing worship and servanthood, who shoulders the responsibility of carrying the greatest trust that the heavens and the earth and the mountains feared to take on.

He is [the universal servant] to whom two extraordinary paths lie open, on one of which he is the most wretched of all living creatures, and on the other the most blissful. He is favoured with [being the locus of] the manifestation of the Sultan of the Universe’s Supreme Name and he is the most all-embracing mirror of all of His Names.

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a He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward. 

He is His privileged addressee, and becomes thereby [of all creatures] the one who best understands His Lordly addresses and speeches. Yet he is of all the universe’s living creatures the one most in need and the most destitute. Despite his endless powerlessness and poverty, he has a limitless number of aims and desires, and numberless enemies, and countless harmful things that hurt him. He is of all living creatures the richest in capabilities and the most pained by his life’s pleasures. All of his enjoyment is tainted by severe pains, and he is of all of them the one who most yearns for and is in most need of eternal life, and the one most suited to and worthy of it. It is he who limitlessly prays for perpetuity and eternal bliss and begs for this request of his. If man were to be given every type of pleasure existing in this world, it would not in any way quench his desire for eternal life.

He is a singularly marvellous miracle of the Independent and Eternally Besought power, and is an extremely artistic marvel of Divine creation, who loves one who shows him beneficence almost to the degree that he worships him. He endears the one who shows him beneficence to others and he is loved by him. He encompasses the entire universe and all of the faculties of his humanity testify to the fact that he has been created for the journey to endless eternity. It is he who is linked to the Name al-Ḥaqq (the Truth) of Allāh Most High, by means of twenty universal realities like this one.

Man is favoured, more than any other being, with the close attention of the Name al-Ḥafīẓ (the Preserver) of the Majestic Preserver (Al-Ḥafiẓu Dhu’l-Jalāl) - which sees the most insignificant need of the tiniest living creature, and listens to its supplication and its request, and actively answers its prayer, and records its actions - by way of perpetually dictating the Noble Scribes (Kirāman Kātibīn) (36) of that Name with his important deeds that will affect the universe.

As required by the foregoing twenty realities, absolutely and certainly, it is incontrovertibly the case that no doubt whatsoever remains that a Gathering and Resurrection will take place for all humanity. And man will be recompensed for his former services and punished for his sins, in accordance with the Name al-Ḥaqq (the Truth). He will be judged and asked to answer for all of his recorded actions, be they particular or universal, in accordance with the Name al-Ḥafīẓ. The doors both of the guest houses of endless happiness in the realm of eternity as well as those of the dungeons of endless deprivation

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36. Kirāman Kātibīn (Honourable Recorders or Noble Scribes) are two angels who record each person's good and bad deeds. The Qur’ān refers to them in two places, in 50:16-18 and by name as 'Noble Recorders' in 82:10-12. 

from happiness will be opened to him. An officer who leads many of the species of this world and interferes with them, corrupts them and confuses their lives at times, will not simply disappear into the earth, reclining therein, never to be woken nor asked about all of his actions.

Otherwise, should it be imagined that Allāh does not hear the illimitable thunder-like prayers of man resonating all throughout existence concerning eternal life that are lifted up on the tongues of the twenty realities of man’s limitless rights that we have just mentioned, and [should it be imagined that Allāh] will neglect those limitless rights, whereas He hears the voice of a fly and actively responds to its prayer by bestowing its life rights upon it; [and] should it be imagined that the wisdom that wastes nothing even to the breadth of a fly’s wing, as indeed is testified to by the harmonious ordering of the wing of a fly, should totally waste all of man’s capabilities connected to every one of the foregoing realities - all his desires and hopes, stretching into endless eternity, and the many interrelationships and realities of the universe that nourish those capabilities and desires; [we say] neglecting and wasting all of these matters would be simply ugly and unjust in an oppression outside of the realm of possibility.

For all of the existent beings bearing witness to the Names al-Ḥaqq (the Truth), al-Ḥafīz (the Preserver), al-Ḥakīm (the Wise), al-Jamīl (the Beautiful) and ar-Raḥīm (the Compassionate) rebuke this [imagination] and say ‘this is one hundred percent unattainable and ever-impossible from one thousand different points of view’.

Thus do the Names al-Ḥaqq (the Truth), al-Ḥafīz (the Preserver), al-Ḥakīm (the Wise), al-Jamīl (the Beautiful) and ar-Raḥīm (the Compassionate) answer the question we have asked our Creator concerning the Resurrection saying, ‘just as we are true and a reality, so too is the existence of the Resurrection as conclusively verified as that of the beings who bear witness to us.’

And consider the fact that …

I had envisaged writing more examples, but I have cut short, for the matter is now as clear as the sun.

For just as every one of the aspects of one hundred Names, and indeed one thousand Names of Allāh that are oriented towards the universe self-evidently prove [the existence of] the Owner of each Name, by means of the mirrors of these Names and their manifestation in existing beings,

in a way analogous to the realities mentioned in the foregoing examples and instances of ‘consider the fact that’, so too do they point to the Resurrection and the realm of the hereafter and conclusively establish that they will occur.

And just as our Lord gives an answer both holy and conclusive to the question we asked our Creator, in all of His [Divine] decrees and the scriptures that He revealed and through a majority of His Names of which He is the Named, so too does He answer through the angels and the tongues of the angels, and [that is] He makes them speak in another manner by which they answer our question saying ‘Since the time of Ādam (‘alayhissalām), there have been a great number of events in which you have come into contact with spirits and with us that are reported on the strength of a hundred instances of unanimous testimony. There are limitless signs and proofs that point to our existence and our servanthood as well as that of the spirits. When we met your [spiritual] leaders we said, and we constantly say and we are all in agreement, [surely] do we roam in the halls and some dwelling-places of the hereafter. It is certainly the case then that those eternal and exquisite halls within which we roam, as well as the ornamented and decorated palaces and pavilions behind them, are awaiting the arrival of very honourable guests whom they will [eternally] host - we have no doubt whatsoever in this. We announce this to you conclusively.’

Consider the fact that our Creator appointed the Prophet Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), as the greatest teacher, most perfect master, and most truthful guide who neither misleads nor is he misled, and sent him as the seal of all of the Prophets; it is incumbent upon us to ask our teacher before all else the question about which we asked our Creator. In doing this we may ascend from Certainty by Knowledge (‘ilm al-yaqīn) unto Certainty by Vision (‘ayn al-yaqīn) and unto Certainty by Reality (ḥaqq al-yaqīn) itself, thereby reaching perfection. For, that Personage himself as a miracle of the Qur’ān, establishes by means of his one thousand miracles, each a sign of his truthfulness from his Creator, that the Qur’ān is truth and that it is the Speech of Allāh (Kalāmullāh). Likewise, the Qur’ān - a great miracle of that Personage - establishes through the forty different types of its miraculous inimitability that he is truthful and trustworthy, and that he is the messenger of Allāh. The reality of the Resurrection claimed and established with thousands of evidences by these two together - one being the language of the observed world, with the assent of all of the prophets and saints throughout their lives, and the other being the language of the

unseen world, with the assent of all of the heavenly scriptures and cosmic realities - is as certain as the sun and the day.

Yes, a matter like the Resurrection, which is of all questions [one of the] most wondrous and astonishing, and which is outside of the reach of the intellect, is only resolved and understood by means of lessons taken from the like of these two great masters.

The reason why the prophets of past times did not explain this reality to their nations in the manner of the Qur’ān was that those ages of humanity were the stage of nomadism and nascence for humanity. There are less explanations in rudimentary lessons.

The upshot: It being the case that the majority of the Divine Names necessarily entail and require the existence of the hereafter, there can be no doubt that all of the proofs that point to these Names also point in a way to the occurrence of the hereafter. And since the angels report that they have seen the dwelling-places of the hereafter and the eternal world, there is no doubt that the proofs pointing to the existence of the angels and spirits and their servanthood also point indirectly to the existence of the hereafter.

And just as the fundamental and ongoing claim in the entire life of Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) was, after Divine unity (waḥdāniyyah), the existence of the hereafter, there is no doubt that all of the miracles and proofs that point to the prophethood of that Personage and to his truthfulness also indirectly bear witness to the occurrence and coming of the hereafter.

And since one quarter of the Qur’ān concerns the Resurrection and the hereafter, and since it strives to establish them in thousands of its verses and gives news of them, there is no doubt that all of the proofs and evidence bearing witness and pointing to the Qur’ān’s being true are also indirectly pointing and bearing witness to the existence, occurrence and the opening of the hereafter. Look then how strong and conclusive is this fundamental article of faith! Behold this!

The Eighth Issue

A Summary of the Eighth Issue

We were going to ask in many different degrees in The Seventh Issue concerning the Resurrection, yet the answer of our Creator with His Names proved sufficient in conferring such strong certainty and conviction in us that no need remained to ask further questions. For that reason, we sufficed ourselves with that.

Now in this issue, [only] one percent of the benefits and fruits realised through faith in the hereafter concerning both the bliss of this world and the bliss of the hereafter will be summarised. Indeed, the section related to the bliss of the hereafter we will entrust to The Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān) - for after its explanations, there remains no need for any other explanations whatever.

Here, entrusting the section relating to the bliss of this world to [the rest of] The Book of Light, we will mention only three or four of the hundreds of fruits related to man’s personal and societal life in short encapsulations.

Its First Benefit

Contrary to other living beings - just as man is attached to his home, so too is he attached to this world, and just as he is related to his relatives, so too is he related powerfully and naturally to all other human beings.

Just as he desires temporary survival in this world, so too does he yearn longingly for eternal life in the eternal abode. Just as he strives to supply his stomach’s need for food, so too is he compelled by his innate disposition to supply the vast scope of meals and nourishment, as vast as this world and indeed extending on into endless eternity, that the stomachs of his intellect, heart, spirit and humanity are in need of. He strives actively for this; and he has desires and demands that nothing other than endless bliss can fulfil.

What’s more, as was alluded to in The Tenth Word, in my childhood, I once asked my imagination ‘would you prefer a life that goes on for a million years and a life like a king of this world but that ends with you, after which is nothingness and annihilation - or would you prefer an eternal existence, though it be ordinary and filled with hardship?’ I saw that it desired the second and showed disdain towards the first, and sighed.

‘I want eternal life, be it even [in] hell’, it said.

Since the pleasures of this world cannot satiate the power of imagination that is one of the servants of man’s quiddity (māhiyyah), (37) there can be no doubt that man’s all-embracing (38) quiddity must in its innate nature have some relationship to eternity. For absolutely destitute man attached to those endless desires and hopes, and whose capital is a [mere] part of partial free choice; faith in the Hereafter is an immense treasure that is more than sufficient, and the pivot of bliss and pleasure, and the recourse for all seeking for help and the place to return to, and the cornerstone of solace faced with the limitless anxieties of the world, and all this is so important a fruit and so vast a benefit that it would be a small price to pay were man to sacrifice his entire life in this world in order to win unto it.

Its Second Fruit, and a benefit relating to personal life

[This is] a very important fruit, previously explained in The Third Issue, and in one of the Footnotes to A Guide for Youth. Yes, the most important anxiety perpetually occupying each human being is exactly how he will enter into that place of execution, the graveyard, that his beloved friends and his relatives have already entered into.

When this poor human being, who would sacrifice his soul for a single friend, pictures the annihilation of thousands, nay millions or billions of his beloveds in an endless separation, he suffers at this thought more than he would do in hell. Yet just at that moment, faith in the hereafter came to him and opened his eyes and removed the veil [that had been over them]. ‘Look!’ it said to him, and he looked thus, with that faith. By means of it, in his seeing that his loved ones have been delivered from endless death and annihilation and joyously await him in a luminous world, he tasted a spiritual pleasure that bespeaks of the pleasure of paradise.

We will cut this short here, sufficing ourselves with this, as this conclusion has been expounded with its proofs [elsewhere] in The Book of Light.

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37. Māhiyyah (Quiddity): The real nature or essence of a thing; that which makes a thing what it is. Just as the Arabic ماهية comes from ما 'what' and هي 'it' ('what it is') the word quiddity comes from the Latin quid 'what' and -tas, expressing state or condition.

38. All-embracingness or comprehensiveness: Jāmi‘iyyāh, or "all-embracingness" literally refers to the quality of "bringing together" numerous entities or attributes. As a technical term when referring to man, it denotes the manner in which human beings, and most eminently the Holy Prophet have been created by Allāh to possess amongst all creatures the most all-embracing and comprehensive capacity to manifest and reveal the widest range of the Names and Attributes of Allāh within their own beings. This all-embracingness then constitutes the pivot of man's spiritual ascension and his journey to reach maximal spiritual perfection. As Nursī tells us in The Thirteenth Flash, "The Majestic Creator (Al-Khāliqu Dhu’l-Jalāl) of this universe has two types of Names, those of beauty (jamāl), and those of majesty (jalāl); now, these Names of beauty and majesty demand that their spheres of influence (aḥkām) become revealed in particular, independent manifestations. It is for this reason that the Majestic Creator has mixed opposites in the universe with one another, and has placed each one facing the other, and in a state of [attempting to] outdo one another... This is why He made [this] law of competition take an even more extraordinary form in human beings than in other creatures, for [man] is the all-embracing fruit of the tree of creation, and [this is why] He opened the door of spiritual struggle before him, which is the pivot for all [types] of man's spiritual ascension."

The second form of "all-embracingness" enjoyed by man is entailed by the foregoing, and involves the numerous abilities that man possesses (more even than the angels), in virtue of his all-embracing essence, which manifests a more comprehensive variety of Divine Names and Attributes than any other creature. The third form is the manner in which man constitutes a microcosmic encapsulation of the macrocosm, that is, of the cosmos itself. Allāh has placed a sample and exemplar of all of the material and spiritual realms into man's nature; he is as if "filtered cream" of the cosmos, and has thus gathered all of the worlds within himself. (For more information about comprehensiveness or all-embracingness, please see The Staff of Moses (‘alayhissalām), The Epistle on Gratitude, The Words, The Twenty-eighth Word, The Words, The Twenty-third Word)

Its third benefit, relating to personal life

Man’s superiority over other living creatures and the loftiness of his station are in respect only of his exalted traits of character, his all-embracing abilities, his universal modes of worship, and the expansive existential spheres [in which he lives]. However, man takes on traits of character like zeal, love, brotherhood and humanity only in terms of the criterion and measurement of the short span of the current moment, which is engirdled by the past and the future that are not only non-existent but dead and dark too.

For example: He loves and serves his father, brother, wife, nation and homeland, none of whom he had known before [he was born], and whom, after he is separated from them, he will never be able to see again. He is only very rarely enabled to be a perfect, sincere friend to them, and his character traits and perfection become diminished in quality in a manner proportionate to this. When, due to his human intellect, he [is about to] fall headlong down to a station in which he is lower and weaker than the animals, having been [potentially] better and nobler than them, faith in the hereafter comes suddenly to his assistance.

It transforms his time, as narrow as a grave, into a time so expansive that it contains both past and future time, and it shows him a sphere of existence as vast as the entirety of this world, nay, that reaches from beginningless eternity unto endless eternity. He loves his father because he will be a father even in the abode of bliss and in the world of spirits; he loves his brother thinking that he will be a brother endlessly; he loves his wife, knowing that she will also be his most beautiful life-companion even in paradise, and he respects them, and has compassion for them, and helps them.

He [no longer] makes these important services that exist for the sake of his relationships in the vast, expansive sphere of life and existence, into tools for the sake of the trivial worldly matters and insignificant motives and benefits of this world.

He is thus enabled to offer serious loyalty and perfect sincerity, and his perfections and character traits begin to ascend [to a lofty state]; and in a quality proportionate to this and according to the degree to [which he has attained in loyalty and sincerity], his humanity will also ascend.

This human being, who cannot attain even to the level of a sparrow in terms of enjoyment in this life, in this way becomes the most honoured and blissful guest in the universe and above all animals, and to the Owner of the universe, becomes the most beloved and well-received servant. This conclusion has been curtailed here too, sufficing with the exposition of it with proofs provided elsewhere in The Book of Light.

Its fourth benefit that is related to man’s societal life

The summary of the conclusion, fully explained in The Ninth Ray, runs as follows:

Children, who constitute a fourth of humanity, can only live lives befitting human dignity and can only bear man’s innate potentialities by means of faith in the hereafter. Otherwise, they live frivolous lives, playing with their childish baby toys in order to numb themselves and to make themselves forget their painful anxieties.

For the constant deaths of other children around them have a severe impact on their delicate minds and on their weak hearts that carry such distant future hopes, and their feeble spirits are unable to put up any resistance. Yet, when those deaths threaten to make the life and mind of this poor little thing into instruments of torture, through the instruction of faith in the hereafter he instead comes to feel a gladness and tranquility instead of the worry and anxiety that he had attempted to hide from behind his toys, hoping that he would not see [the deaths around him].

He says ‘my brother or my friend who died is now a bird in paradise, and he is enjoying himself there more than we are here, and he freely wanders about there. And my mother died but she went to the Mercy of Allāh, and she will one day again press me to her bosom and play with me, and I will see my beloved, kind mother again.’ Thus is he able to live a life befitting human dignity.

Likewise, old people, who also make up a fourth of humanity, can find consolation against the impending extinguishment of their lives, and their entering the underside of the earth, and the shutting up of their beautiful, delightful world, solely in the faith in the hereafter. Without this, all of those merciful, revered fathers and sacrificing, compassionate mothers would suffer from lamentations in their spirits, and from tumult in their hearts that would turn the world into a dungeon of despondency, and their lives into an agonising severe torment [almost unbearable to them].

Yet faith in the hereafter says to them: ‘Do not worry. Yours is an endless youth; it will come about. A radiant life an everlasting existence awaits you. In joy will you once more meet your children and kinsfolk whom you had lost. All your good deeds have been preserved and you will obtain your rewards’. It is in this way that faith in the hereafter bestows such solace and joy upon them that were each of them to be overwhelmed by one hundred simultaneous old ages, this would not cause them despair.

[The same goes for] young people, who make up a third of humanity. They can be subject to furious outbursts and unable to control their feelings, their reckless and daring intellects not always enabling them to be prudent.

Should they lose their faith in the hereafter and should they be heedless of the torment of hell, the property and dignity of decent people and the repose and honour of the old and weak in society may well become endangered. Sometimes certain of them might ruin a happy family’s felicity. For certain of them are ready to ruin the happiness of a family just for the sake of pleasure lasting a single minute - and such a person will have to suffer for four or five years thereafter in a prison like the one we are now in, turning thus into a type of monstrous animal.

Yet if faith in the hereafter comes to the aid of this young person, he will be able to quickly come to his senses. All of a sudden, he will start to feel pity and respect for the people he had previously wished to wrongfully transgress against, saying ‘the government secret agents do not see me, I am able to hide from them it is true, yet the angels of the Majestic Sultan Who maintains a hellish dungeon see me and record my evil deeds. I am not unrestrictedly free, but I am a traveller with certain duties and one day I too will be old and weak like these people’. We again curtail our treatment of this issue here, sufficing with the conclusion pertaining to it that has also been provided alongside its proofs elsewhere in The Book of Light.

Likewise, there are those who represent another important division of humanity, that is, the sick and oppressed, and people who are, like us, suffering tribulations, the poor and the imprisoned, who have been condemned to severe punishments.

If faith in the Hereafter hastens not to their aid, the death continually taking shape before the very eyes of any given one of them, through the reminders given by his illnesses, or of the treachery of the arrogant tyrant that he is unable to avenge and from which he is unable to preserve his dignity; the painful despair stemming from his having lost his wealth and children futilely in the terrible disasters that have struck him, and the aggrieved depression engendered by the five or ten years of suffering of the like of this prison that we are in, all for the sake of pleasures lasting one or two minutes or one or two hours - there is no doubt that all this turns the world into a dungeon and life into agonising torture for those poor people. Yet they will instantly breathe a sigh of relief if faith in the hereafter hastens to their aid. Their constriction, despair and anxiety and desire for revenge will diminish to some extent, and depending on the degree of faith [realised by the individual], it may even disappear completely.

This such that I can truly say that if faith in the hereafter had not come to the aid of myself and a number of my brothers in this prison of ours that we entered without justification, and in this horrendous tribulation of ours, coping with even a single day of it would have been like death to us, which would have driven us to resign from life itself. Yet endless praise be to Allāh; despite my suffering from the pain that this tribulation is causing to my many brothers here who are more beloved to me than my own self, and despite my sorrow at the loss and the weeping of my very precious, beautifully decorated, gilded books as well as thousands of epistles of The Book of Light that are more beloved to me than my own eyes, and despite the fact that since long ago I have not been able to bear even a minor betrayal or to have others exercise control over me, I must assure you, swearing by Allāh, that the light and strength of faith in the hereafter has bestowed such patience, endurance, solace and fortitude upon me - perhaps indeed, it has conferred a deep yearning and energy to win unto greater reward, struggling in a rewarding trial.

I consider myself to now be in a lovely and auspicious school worthy of the name ‘The Yūsufian School’, just as I said at the beginning of this rather short epistle. Had it not been for the sicknesses with which I am at times afflicted, and fussiness caused by old age, I would have prepared better for my lessons, in a more perfect manner and in a state of repose. In any case, due to the present context we have gone off topic. I ask your pardon.

Now, the little world of every human being and indeed his own little paradise is his own home. Yet if faith in the hereafter is not to be the factor that determines the happiness of that home, every individual therein will end up suffering from painful torments and anxieties to an extent corresponding to the degree of their compassion, love and attachment to the others in the home. That paradise of theirs will either turn into a hell or it will numb their intellect with temporary entertainments and debaucherous enjoyments.

Their similitude in this case is that of an ostrich seeing a hunter which, being unable to flee or fly, buries its head in the sand in order not to be seen. [In the same way] does every individual [in this faithless house] bury their heads into heedlessness (ghaflah) so that death, evanescence and separation do not see them. That is, they find a temporary, simpleton’s solution in annulling their emotions and negating their senses fleetingly. Because, a mother, for example, trembles in fear every time she sees her offspring - who she would sacrifice her own spirit for - being exposed to danger. And children, powerless to save their fathers and siblings from unremitting misfortunes, feel perpetual sadness and fear.

Thus, the life of this family which is imagined happy, in many different ways suffers the loss of its happiness in the turbulent and unstable life of this world. Relationships and family ties in such a short life do not of themselves confer true loyalty for one another, nor perfect sincerity, nor service and love totally pure and devoid of ulterior motives. [A family’s] moral conduct with one another becomes weakened in direct proportion to this and it can indeed collapse, [and degenerate entirely]. Yet if faith in the hereafter enters this home, it lights it up immediately.

The attachment, compassion, kinship and love existing between the members of that family is not then regulated by the extremely short period of time they spend together [in this world], rather they instead truly respect, love, show compassion to one another, both feel and show true loyalty for one another, all in light of the fact that their relationship will continue even in the realm of the hereafter and endless bliss. Thus do they overlook each other’s shortcomings, [nor do they dwell on one another’s mistakes, but they rather pardon each other]. At this, their moral conduct is elevated and a human’s true happiness begins with its flourishing in this very home. Since the exposition of this meaning also exists elsewhere in The Book of Light along with its proofs, it should be sufficient to abridge matters here.

Moreover, every city is in the same way a vast house for its inhabitants. Should faith in the hereafter not hold sway over the members of that great family, states and actions like seeds of grudges, self-interest, fraud, egotism, affectation and ostentation, bribery and deception will replace sincerity, honesty, virtue, patriotism, sacrifice, being set on reward in the hereafter and the good pleasure of Allāh that is the basis of all good character. Thus, anarchy and savagery will reign in the name of apparent security and humanity and that town life will be poisoned. Children will begin defying [their elders], the youth getting drunk, the strong oppressing, and the old weeping.

In an analogous way, a country is also [a type of] home. Moreover, a homeland is a national family’s house. Should faith in the hereafter rule these vast homes, sincere respect, serious compassion, love and cooperation free of bribery, service and social relations free of fraud, beneficence and virtue free of ostentation and greatness and ascendancy free of egotism [instantly] begin to flourish. To children, faith in the hereafter says ‘there is a paradise, so leave this defiance of yours’ thereby maturing [and refining] them with the lesson of the Qur’ān. To youth, it says ‘there is a hell, so leave your drunkenness,’ thereby causing them to return to their senses. To the tyrant, it says ‘there is a ferocious punishment, and you will receive its blows,’ prompting him to bow to justice. To the old person, its says ‘the endlessly eternal bliss of the hereafter, greater than any of the types of happiness that have now fallen from your grasp, and a fresh eternal youth await you! Strive then to win unto them!’ This causes his weeping to turn into laughter.

[Faith in the hereafter] manifests its beautiful influence analogously in every division of being, whether universal and particular, and illuminates them all. Let the sociologists and moral philosophers [who claim] to care about mankind’s societal life then listen up! (39)

Now, were you to analogously draw out, from the five or six encapsulations that we have pointed to, the thousands of other benefits contained within faith in the hereafter, you would understand with certainty that the pivot of happiness in the two realms and the two lives is only faith, [and nothing other]. Now, in the face of feeble doubts about the corporeality (40) of the resurrection, let us say the following as only a short indication, sufficing ourselves [for a complete treatment] with the powerful answers contained within The Twenty-eighth Word, as well as in other of the epistles in ‘The Book of Light’:

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39. Literal: let their ears ring

40. Corporeal (jismānī): material; having a material body. (corporeality: jismānīyat) 

The most all-embracing mirror of the Divine Names inheres in corporeality; and the richest of the Divine purposes underlying the creation of the universe and its very active centre are in corporeality; and the greatest number of forms and the most colourful of the benefactions of Lordship exist in corporeality; and the most abundant seeds of the prayers with which man calls on his Creator in the languages of his needs and of the gratitude that he presents to Him, are again in corporeality and the largest variety of seeds of the worlds of spirituality and immateriality are yet again in corporeality.

Through drawing conclusions analogous to these and since hundreds of universal realities are concentrated in corporeality, [know that] The Wise Creator coats caravan after caravan of beings with existence with a rapid and astonishing efficiency in order to proliferate corporeality upon the face of the earth, and in order to make those bodies serve as the loci of the manifestation of the realities aforementioned; He sends them to that exhibition. Then, He discharges them and sends others [into their place].

In this way does He make the workshop of the universe to be continually at work. It weaves corporeal wares and He makes the earth like unto a plantation for the hereafter and for paradise. Indeed, just in order to satisfy man’s bodily stomach, and in order to attentively listen to that stomach’s prayer - which it did regarding its survival - and accept its prayers in the language of its state, He brings to corporeality the most succulent foods and numberless precious blessings in hundreds of thousands of different forms and thousands of types of different tastes. All of the foregoing self-evidently and indubitably manifests that the predominant pleasures of paradise and the most diverse of them in the hereafter are corporeal, and that the most central blessings of the eternal bliss, that all desire and with which all are already on intimate terms, are of a corporeal nature.

I wonder, is it really possible or conceivable that an Omnipotent, Compassionate and All-knowing Generous Being Who answers the physical stomach’s prayer to survive [of each individual] said in the language of its state, and Who makes it grateful with physical foods in which inhere endless miracles, responding in act, perpetually, and not by chance but intentionally - [is it really possible that] He would not accept the high, universal, limitless prayers of mankind’s collective stomachs - man who is

the ultimate fruit of the entire cosmos, and Allāh’s vicegerent (khalīfa) on earth, and the best of creatures and worshippers of the Creator when it is the case that he is given the corporeal pleasures that he always desires and that he is on intimate terms with, and that his innate nature demands?

Would his limitless collective prayers, that [come from the desire] for supreme satiation in the eternal realm not be accepted? Would [his supplication] not be responded to in act, through the corporeal resurrection being brought about? Would He not put man into a state of endless gratification?

For this to happen, it would be like someone hearing the sound of a fly whilst not hearing the sound of thunder, or someone who equips a single ordinary soldier [in an army] with ideal equipment and tools, yet does not help the entire army in their common need in any way nor gives importance to them. Surely you agree that this is impossible and absurd a hundred fold.

Yes, as explicitly stated by the conclusive clarity of the verse وَفِيهَا مَا تَشْتَهِيهِ الْأَنْفُسُ وَتَلَذُّ الْأَعْيُنُ (a) in a form befitting paradise man will see the corporeal pleasures with which he had become more accustomed than anything else, and samples of which he had tasted in this world.

And he will be given the rewards for the sincere gratitude and particular acts of worship that his organs engaged in, like his tongue, eye and ear, in the form of the physical pleasures that are particular to those organs. The Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān) explains the physical pleasures in such an explicit fashion that it is out of the sphere of possibility not to accept the evident meaning by [rather contrived] interpretations.

As a result, the fruits and outcomes of faith in the hereafter point to the following:

Just like the reality and needs of one of man’s organs, his stomach, conclusively point to the existence of food, so too do man’s reality, perfections, innate needs, endless desires for eternity and capacities, as well as the realities of faith in the hereafter that entail the aforementioned outcomes and benefits, all point even more conclusively to the existence of the hereafter, of paradise, and of the ever-abiding corporeal pleasures; they testify that they will all occur and be realised.

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a Therein is all that souls desire, and that eyes delight in (Qur’ān: Az-Zukhruf, 43:71) 

The [different] sections of The Book of Light also, especially The Tenth Word, two stations of The Twenty-eighth Word, The Twenty-ninth Word, The Ninth Ray, and The Epistle of Intimate Supplication (Al-Munājāt) has dazzlingly established with proofs, in a way that leaves no room for doubt that the reality of the perfections of this universe, and the meaningful creational signs and all of the realities pertaining to the aforementioned realities of humanity all point and testify to that the realm of the hereafter exists and will be realised, and that the Resurrection is coming and the opening of paradise and hell will take place. We will abridge this long issue here, entrusting it to the epistles we have mentioned.

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The Qur’ān’s elucidations concerning hell are so clear and manifest that they left no need for further explanation. We will only clarify a very short encapsulation of a few subtle points that do away with one or two feeble doubts and we will entrust the details to the rest of The Book of Light.

The First Subtle Point: The idea of hell does not, in the fear that it arouses in man, take anything away from the pleasures of the aforementioned fruits of faith. This is because to a frightened person, the limitless lordly mercy says ‘Come to me - enter through the gate of repentance! [It does this] in order that the existence of hell not frighten you, but rather to fully acquaint you with the pleasures of paradise, and in order to take revenge for you and for the limitless number of creatures whose rights have been breached, thereby quenching your thirst for revenge and making you happy.’

And if you happen to be drowned in misguidance (ḍalālah) and you are unable to extract yourself therefrom, once again the existence of hell is still a thousand times better for you than annihilation. It is a mercy for the disbelievers in a certain way, for human beings and even animals with young to take pleasure and joy in their relatives, children and loved ones. To some degree this makes them joyful.

Thus, O you atheist! Due to your misguidance, you will either fall into non-being through endless execution, or you will enter hell. Now non-being, which is pure evil, would burn your spirit, heart and human quiddity thousands of times more severely than the fires of hell - for all of your

beloved ones, relatives, ancestors and descendants by the happiness of whom you yourself are to some degree made happy, will become nothing just as you have.

For if hell were not to exist, neither would paradise. Everything, due to your disbelief, would fall into non-being. However, were you to enter hell, staying thereby within the sphere of existence, your beloved ones and relatives would either be happy in paradise, or would at least be within the spheres of existence attaining thereby instances of Divine mercy in a certain way. That is to say, you must favour the existence of hell in any case. Adopting a hostile attitude towards hell means favouring non-being, which entails your favouring the nonexistence of your limitless number of friends’ happiness.

Yes, hell is an existing land, awe-inspiring and majestic, that fulfils the role of a wise and just prison possessed by the Majestic Ruler of the sphere of existence - existence, that is pure good. Other than its taking on the role of prison, it has a number of other functions and a great number of wisdoms and services belonging to the eternal world. It is also the awe-inspiring dwelling place of many living creatures, like the angels of hell.

The Second Subtle Point: The existence and severe torment of hell is not the contradictory of the existence of the unlimited mercy, true justice and unwasteful and finely balanced wisdom. Rather, it is the mercy, justice and wisdom themselves that necessitate its existence. For just as the punishment of a tyrant who has transgressed against the rights of thousands of innocents, and the killing of a beast that has ripped apart hundreds of downtrodden animals are both acts of justice containing a thousand mercies for the victims.

And just as forgiving that oppressor and freeing that beast constitute hundreds of acts of mercilessness to hundreds of poor creatures for the sake of misplaced mercy upon a single creature, so too is the absolute disbeliever who becomes one of those who enters the prison of hell deserving of the threat contained in the following verse إِنَّ اللهَ لاَ يَغْفِرُ أَن يُشْرَكَ بِهِ . (a)

This in terms of his having transgressed, through his absolute disbelief, the rights of the Divine Names, in denying them; and in terms of having transgressed against the rights of all beings who testify to those Names, by repudiating their testimony; and in terms of his having transgressed

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a Allāh forgives not the association of partners with Him (Qur’ān: an-Nisā', 4:48)

against the rights of all creatures through his denial of their lofty vocations which glorify those Names; and in terms of his having committed a type of transgression against the rights of all created beings by denying the purpose of their creation, and the reason for their being brought into existence and sustained which is so that they respond with worship to the manifestation of the Divine lordship, and that they serve as mirrors of them - and this denial is a huge crime and oppression that there is no door left open for its forgiveness.

His not being sent to hell due to misplaced mercy would constitute endless instances of mercilessness to the illimitable claimants, the rights of whom have been breached. Just as those claimants wish that hell exist, it is likewise absolutely the case that the might of majesty and the sublimity of perfection do so too.

Yes, were a rebellious imprudent man who has transgressed against the rights of citizens of a particular town to [insult] the mighty ruler saying, ‘it is not for you to enter me into prison, nor will it ever be’ there is little doubt that were there to be no existing prison in the town, the ruler would have one built [specially] for this rebellious individual. There he would send him. Likewise does the complete disbeliever in his disbelief severely insult the might of the Divine majesty. With his denial he insults the sublimity of His power.

Through his transgression he slanders the perfection of His lordship. There is no doubt then that the creation of hell for the like of these disbelievers and their being entered therein is the appropriate activity for that might and that majesty - even were there not to exist the numerous other reasons and wisdoms in its many duties that make the existence of hell necessary. Moreover, the quiddity of disbelief itself informs us about hell.

Yes, [alternatively], were the quiddity (māhiyyah) of faith to take on physical form, it would take on the shape of a particular paradise with its own pleasures. Thus, from this perspective it implicitly informs us of paradise.

In the same way has it been established with proofs in The Book of Light and alluded to in the foregoing ‘issues’, namely, that dark, terrifying pain and spiritual torments inhere in disbelief,and most especially in the absolute disbelief, hypocrisy and apostasy, such that were disbelief to take physical form, it would become that murtad’s (apostate’s) personal hell.

Thus, it also implicitly informs us of the supreme hell and this poisonous seed further points to the tree of zaqqūm (41) in so far as these sapling-like miniaturised realities existing in the tillage of this world germinate in the hereafter.

This seed says ‘I am a nucleus of the tree of zaqqūm.’ It says, “A private sample of the tree of zaqqūm, for the unfortunate who carries me in his heart becomes my fruit.”

Since disbelief constitutes transgression against an illimitable number of rights, there is no doubt that it is a crime that knows no limits. The perpetrator is thus deserving of limitless punishment. Since human justice accepts punishment by imprisonment for nearly eight million minutes within fifteen years for the murderer who carries out his crime within a single minute and considers this to be in keeping with the best interests and the rights of the public, there is no doubt that a single minute of absolute disbelief causes the one responsible for it to be tormented for around eight billion minutes, in so far as disbelief is like a thousand murders, [and there is no doubt] that this torment is in keeping with the precepts of that justice.

Whomsoever spends a single year of his life in disbelief becomes deserving of a torment lasting nearly two trillion and eight hundred and eighty billion minutes, and he attains the secret of the verse, خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَداً . (a)

In any case, The Wise Qur’ān’s miraculous elucidations concerning paradise and hell as well as the proofs found in The Book of Light - which is an exegesis of the Qur’ān derived therefrom - treating of the existence of paradise and hell, have left no further need for any other exposition.

The many verses, like

وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقْتَ هَذا بَاطِلاً سُبْحَانَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ (b)

and

رَبَّنَا اصْرِفْ عَنَّا عَذَابَ جَهَنَّمَ إِنَّ عَذَابَهَا كَانَ غَرَاماً إِنَّهَا سَاءتْ مُسْتَقَرّاً وَمُقَاماً (c)

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a They shall abide therein Forever.

b And they reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth. "Our Lord! You have not created this in vain - exalted are You; guard us, then, from the torment of the Fire." (Qur’ān: Āli ‘Imrān, 3:191)

c Our Lord, divert the torment of hell away from us, for surely its torment is a terrible penalty - it is an evil lodging-place and abode. (Qur’ān: al-Furqān, 25:65)

41. The Zaqqūm Tree is an accursed tree in Hell, the harmful fruit of which the damned will be compelled to eat. (See Qur’ān: adDukhān, 44:43-46) 

as well as all of the prophets continually taking refuge in Allāh from hell, foremost amongst them being the Noble Messenger (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) as well as all of the people of Divine reality who had attained certainty about its inevitability based on revelation and gnostic witnessing, all of them saying أَجرنا من النار، نَجِّنا من النار، خلِّصنا من النار (a)

This all goes together to prove that the most important issue facing man is his salvation from the Fire, Hell is a very momentous, enormous and exceedingly astonishing reality of created beings, such that certain of the people of gnostic witnessing (mushāhadah), mystical unveiling (kashf) and experiential verification (dhawq) in fact witness it, and other of them behold its overspill and its shadows, crying out ‘save us from hell!’ at its terror.

Yes, the encounter of good and evil, pleasure and pain, light and darkness, heat and cold, beauty and ugliness and guidance and misguidance, and the overlapping of each pair of them in this universe is all for the sake of a most immense wisdom.

For if there was no evil, good could not be known, and were there to be no pain, pleasure could not be perceived; and light has no importance without darkness, and it is only through cold existing that the degrees of heat become realised; and a single of beauty’s realities turn into a thousand realities through the existence of ugliness - and thousands of levels of beauty come thereby into existence. Many of the pleasures of paradise would stay hidden without hell - and analogously, all things can from a particular perspective be known by their opposites, and thereby a single reality germinates to become a great number of realities.

Since these mixed up existents flow from the transient world into the eternal world, and just as things such as good, pleasure, light, beauty and faith flow into paradise, whilst detrimental elements such as evil, pain, darkness, ugliness and disbelief pour into hell, continually gushing and rushing floods of cosmic activities enter those two pools and are then still there. We will cut this subtle point short here, entrusting it to the symbolically rich, subtle points that appear at the end of The Twenty-ninth Word.

Thus, O my companions in study at this Yūsufian School!

A solution and an easy means that saves us from this terrifying, eternal prison, other than making sure we benefit from this worldly prison, which

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a Save us from the fire, rescue us from the fire and relinquish us from the fire. 

in any case forcibly stops us from committing many sins, is to repent from our old sins and to carry out our worship obligations. As a result of this, every single hour of our lives spend in this prison will be as if an entire day of worship. This then is the very best opportunity for us to save ourselves from that everlasting prison, and for us to enter into that luminous paradise - and if we waste this opportunity, our hereafter will weep just as our life here wept, and we will be dealt the blow of خَسِرَ الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةَ . (a)

The Eid of Sacrifice (‘īdu’l-aḍḥā) arrived as I was writing this part. Allāh Most High’s making one fifth of humanity - three hundred million people - say Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar together, and the takbīr, الله أكبر Allāhu akbar of the more than twenty thousand ḥajj pilgrims upon the mountain of ‘Arafāt on Eid as if they are reciting this holy phrase of الله أكبر Allāhu akbar all together and simultaneously, as great as the vast globe of the earth to make its [planet] friends in the heavens hear.

I realised that this is all a response to the universal manifestation of Divine lordship under the sublime titles of رَبِّ الْأَرْضِ and رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ Lord of the earth and, Lord of the worlds within a vast, universal act of worship, as if it were a kind of echo of the words الله أكبر Allāhu akbar as recited by the Messenger along with his family and companions more than one thousand three hundred years ago, and that he also ordered to be recited. I visualised, felt and became quite certain of all the above. I then reminded myself ‘I wonder if this holy phrase has any connection to the issue that we are here treating of?’ It immediately occurred to me:

This phrase [Allāhu akbar] being in the first place and like many other sacred bywords of Islām - such as subhānAllāh, alḥamdulillāh and lā ilāha illallāh that carry the title of al-bāqiyatu’ṣ-ṣāliḥāt ‘good deeds [which in the sight of Allāh involve] ever-abiding rewards’ - evoke both particular and universal aspects of our issue, and point to its being realised.

For example: One of the facets of the meanings of الله أكبر Allāhuakbar is that the power and knowledge of Allāh (subḥānahu wa ta‘ālā) is greater and more sublime than anything. Nothing can possibly escape from the domain of His knowledge, nor can anything escape or be freed from the free disposal of His power. They [the knowledge and power of Allāh] are far greater than the greatest of the things we fear. Thus, they are greater even than the bringing about of the Resurrection, and than saving us from nonexistence,

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a He has lost both this world and the hereafter. (Qur’ān: al-Ḥaj, 22:11)

and than conferring endless bliss upon us. Indeed, it is greater than all strange and marvellous matters, even those the intellect cannot conceive of; the Resurrection and Gathering of mankind is as easy as the creation of a single person for that power, as [conveyed by] the conclusive clarity of the verse مَا خَلْقُكُمْ وَلَا بَعْثُكُمْ إِلَّا كَنَفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ . (a)

When dealing with great disasters or momentous demands, it is on the basis of this reality that all say, “Allāh is Great, Allāh is Great” [which is tantamount to a repeated phrase like “All will be better soon and Allāh will help us.”] They make this thereby into a solace and strength and a point of reliance for themselves.

Yes, as has been mentioned in The Ninth Word; just as this phrase and its two companions SubḥānAllāh and Alḥamdulillāh are seeds and encapsulations of the Prayer, which is itself an index of all types of worship, and just as their being repeated in the Prayer and in the glorifications after the Prayer constitutes a strengthening of the meaning of the Prayer, so too do they (SubḥānAllāh, Alḥamdulillāh, Allāhu Akbar) point to three sublime realities and respond powerfully to such of man’s questions as arise from the bewilderment, pleasure and awe that man feels and finds when faced with the wondrous, beautiful, sublime and numerous things that he sees in the universe, and which are the pivot of bewilderment, gratitude, sublimity and grandeur. As has been explained at the end of The Sixteenth Word, just as a soldier at Eid, enters into the presence of the sultan with a field marshal, whereas the rest of the year he is only able to contact him through making use of the rank of a commanding officer that he knows, in the same way, every person at ḥajj (pilgrimage) comes to know the Truth through His title رَبِّ الْأَرْضِ and رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ Lord of the earth and Lord of the worlds), to a degree like the saints do.

And every time those degrees of Divine grandeur are unveiled to his heart, again by way of its repetition the phrase الله أكبر (Allāhu akbar) comes to answer all of the repeated, bewildered, insistent questions that overwhelm his spirit.

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

As has been clarified at the end of The Thirteenth Flash:

Just as the phrase الله أكبر (Allāhu akbar) tears out the roots of the satans’ most dangerous plots, answering them conclusively, and just as it gives an abridged yet powerful response to our question concerning the hereafter, so too does the phrase الله أكبر (Allāhu akbar) evoke and necessitate the resurrection. To us, it says: ‘my meaning is incomplete without the existence of the hereafter, for instances of praise and gratitude from beginningless to endless eternity, irrespective of the identity of the thanker and the thanked, are exclusively for Him alone.

As I mentioned before, amongst all blessings the most primary, and the element that makes blessings true blessings, and that rescues all sentient beings from the illimitable tribulations of non-being can only be endless bliss alone - and this bliss corresponds to that universal meaning of mine’.

Yes, every believer’s saying, according to the dictates of the sharī‘a, Alḥamdulillāh, Alḥamdulillāh a total of at least one hundred and fifty times after the prescribed prayers every day and its meanings expressing praise and gratitude as expansive as beginningless and endless eternity is no other than the advance price and prepaid payment for paradise and endless happiness.

[My meaning, which comprises praise and الحمد لله is not limited or specific to the blessings of this world, tainted as it is with many brief and transient pains. Rather, it only turns the believer to the blessings of this world in so far as they are means of blessings that are endless, so that he will thereby show gratitude for them. As for the holy phrase SubḥānAllāh that conveys the fact of Allāh’s being Holy and Transcendent above having a partner, inadequacy, deficiency, oppression, powerlessness, mercilessness, neediness, deception, and any other defects that would constitute the opposites of His perfection, beauty and majesty - it evokes, signifies and indicates endless bliss, the hereafter and paradise therein, which are the medium by which the majesty, beauty, perfection and the sublimity of the sultanate of Allāh (subḥānahu wa ta‘ālā) [become manifest].

Otherwise, as was just established, were there to be no endless bliss, His sultanate, perfection, majesty, beauty and mercy would be marred by the blemishes of inadequacy and deficiency. Thus, just as each of باسم الله

(Bismillāh) and لا إله إلا الله (Lā ilāha illallāh) and all other blessed phrases, like the foregoing three holy phrases, are seeds and encapsulations of the articles of faith and encapsulation of the realities of the Qur’ān, like unto the meat and sugar extracts that have been discovered in recent times; and just as these three phrases are seeds of the prayer and of the Qur’ān, appearing at the beginning of certain sūras shining like diamonds, so too are they the true sources, bases of The Book of Light - the inspirations (sunuhāt) of which begin these litanies - and the seed of its realities.

They likewise constitute the litanies of the Muḥammadan Ṭarīqah (way) with respect to the Aḥmadan Sainthood (42) and the Muḥammadan Servanthood (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), in the circles of Divine remembrance that take place after the Prayer such that more than one hundred million believers repeat it all together in any given Prayer time in that supreme circle of Divine remembrance. Grasping their rosaries in their hands, they say سبحان الله (SubḥānAllāh) thirty three times, الحمد لله (Alḥamdulillāh) thirty three times, and الله أكبر (Allāhu akbar) thirty three times.

You must doubtlessly have grasped the extent to which reciting these three blessed phrases after the Prayer thirty three times in the like of that supreme gathering of Divine remembrance (circle of dhikr) is precious and greatly rewarded, phrases that are, as we have explained, encapsulations and seeds of the Qur’ān, faith and the Prayer. Thus, just as The First Issue at the opening of this epistle is a beautiful lesson about the Prayer, so has its ending, without any prior planning or intention, ended up being an important lesson about the litanies (tasbiḥāt) of the Prayer. الحمد لله على إنعامه . (a)

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

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a May Allāh be praised for His bestowals!

b 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)

42. Sainthood (walāyat) is kasbī (acquired), that is, one’s power of desire and want for imān (faith) and ‘ubūdiyyah (worshipful servanthood) by one’s own will. People are divided into different levels and stations in regards to their “kasb” or acquisition (of good deeds). The kasb of some people go as high as the level of walāyat (sainthood) while others go as low as the level of denial and unbelief (kufr). Human will is important in this matter. If a person uses their will to be a servant to Allāh, Allāh opens ways to walāyat and He makes them develop in this field. In these ways of sainthood, man’s will has a share although it is a minor one. If man does not use their will in this field, Allāh does not open ways for them. Thus, in sainthood, being kasbī by one’s own decision is important. Being kasbī is valid for sainthood while wahbī (bestowed by Allāh) is of nubuwwah (prophethood) which is given by Allāh. Sainthood cannot reach the level of prophethood. 

The Ninth Issue

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ * آمَنَ الرَّسُولُ بِمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ رَبِّهِ وَالمُؤْمِنُونَ

كُلٌّ آمَنَ بِاللهِ وَمَلاَئِكَتِهِ وَكُتُبِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ لاَ نُفَرِّقُ بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ مِنْ رُسُلِهِ (a)

An astonishing spiritual question and a state arising from a sublime Divine favour becoming manifest were the [two] causes of my explaining an all-embracing, lofty, vast, universal and extended point about this verse.

This is that the meaning of the following question occurred to my spirit ‘why does someone who denies a particular reality of faith become thereby a disbeliever? And why is it the case that anyone who does not accept [one of the realities of faith] cannot be a Muslim? For it would seem that faith in Allāh and the hereafter alone should drive those darknesses (ẓulumāt) (43) away like the sun! Furthermore, why does anyone who denies any of the articles of faith and any of the truths of faith become thereby an apostate? Why is it the case that he falls thereby into a disbelief that is absolute? Why does anyone who does not accept just one of them thereby leave Islām? For if one has belief in the rest of the articles of faith, this must save one from absolute disbelief.

The answer: Faith is a unitary reality the wellspring of which is in its six articles. It cannot be broken up. It is a universal of the type that cannot be divided, and a whole that cannot be split up. For every one of the articles of faith establishes the remaining articles by means of the proofs that establish it itself.

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a In the Name of Allāh, the Merciful, the Compassionate. The Messenger believes in what has been sent down to him from his Lord, as do the faithful. They all believe in Allāh, His angels, His scriptures, and His messengers. ‘We make no distinction between any of his messengers,’ they say, ‘We hear and obey. Grant us Your forgiveness, our Lord. To You we all return! (Qur’ān: al-Baqarah, 2:285)

43. Darknesses (ẓulumāt): The plural usage reflects the Qur’ānic ‘ẓulumāt’. Darkness, a symptom of fragmentary multiplicity, is never used in the singular in the Qur’ān, whereas light, “nūr” by nature pure, unitary and of Allāh, is always in the singular. 

Each of them thereby becomes a greater, extremely powerful proof that strengthens all of the others. Therefore, any superstitious thought that does not shake all of the articles along with all of their proofs will, in truth, be unable to deny and invalidate a single pillar or even a single reality either. And even more, one might be [guilty of] a disbelief of obstinacy by simply shutting one’s eyes under the veil of ‘not accepting’. Thereby, one tumbles down unto absolute disbelief step by step. One’s humanity is blotted out. One falls both physically and spiritually into hell.

With Allāh’s favour, this supreme subtle point will be elucidated in six points by means of abridged outlines and summarised encapsulations just as we have just done so, in very short encapsulations, in the course of our demonstration of the Resurrection in this very Fruit Epistle, where we established that the other articles also prove the reality of the Resurrection.

The First Point: The proofs for faith in Allāh also establish the reality of the other articles, as well as faith in the hereafter, as has been clearly elucidated in The Seventh Issue of The Fruit Epistle.

Yes, the beginningless, ever-abiding sultanate of lordship and the endless, perpetual sovereignty of Divinity (ulūhiyyah) that directs this boundless universe and all that it contains and all that it requires, quite as if it were a palace, city or country; that causes it to rotate within the orbit of balance and harmonious order and transforms it with wisdoms; that equips and directs particles, planets, flies and stars, directing each as though they were a regular army and that moves them and enlivens them consistently within the sphere of its command and volition, through training and employing them within lofty maneuvers, driving them and causing them to roam and wander and parade in worshipful servanthood. Is it at all possible, and would any intellect accept [this], and is there any possibility at all that the realm of the hereafter not exist, that the endless, eternal, ever-enduring and perpetual kingdom not have an ever-enduring abode, perpetual place, and eternal locus of manifestation? A thousand times far be it [from Allāh]!

Thus, the kingdom and lordship of the Truth, most of His Names, as well as the proofs of the necessity of His existence all testify to the existence of the hereafter and require it, as has been elucidated in The Seventh Issue.

See and know how strong the point of reliance of this pole of faith is, and believe in it as if you can see it. Faith in Allāh is inseparable from [faith in] the hereafter.

Just as it is mentioned with shorter indications in The Tenth Word, [we say here]:

Is it really possible in any way whatever, and acceptable to reason, that Allāh, the One worshipped by entitlement (Al-Ma‘būdu bi’l-ḥaqq), Who made the universe as an embodied book of The Eternal One [would not send messengers to explain it?] - for each of its pages conveys as many meanings as there are in an entire book, and every line conveys as many meanings as there are on an entire page. He made it an embodied Qur’ān of the Glorified One, in so far as each of its creational verses, words, letters and points is a miracle. He made it into a sublime mosque of the Merciful One, its interior ornamented with limitless verses and inscriptions of great import, in every corner of which a group of beings occupy themselves with the special mode of worship that corresponds to the vocation of their innate nature.

Is it really possible that Allāh, Who is the One worshipped by entitlement (Al-Ma‘būdu bi’l-ḥaqq), would not send teachers to instruct in the meanings of the great book [of the universe] and interpreters as messengers to interpret the verses of the Qur’ān of the Eternal One?

That he would not appoint imāms for the worshippers in that greatest of mosques with their limitless modes of worship? That he would not deliver Divine edicts into the hands of those teachers, interpreters and imāms? A thousand times, far be it from Him!

The Compassionate and Generous Artful Maker (Aṣ-Ṣāni‘u’r-Raḥīmu wa’l-Karīm) created the cosmos as a place of feasting, and exhibition hall and promenade, and has placed limitless delectable, multifarious blessings therein, as well as limitless, precious and wondrous works of art. He created them all in order to manifest the beauty of His mercy, and the goodness of His compassion, and the perfection of His lordship to sentient beings and in order to push them towards gratitude and praise.

Now, is it really possible or acceptable to reason that He would not communicate with the sentient creatures in that place of feasting, and that He would not inform them, by means of messengers, of their duties

of having gratitude for those blessings and of servanthood faced with the manifestation of His mercy and His having endeared Himself to them? Far be it from Him, a thousand times!

And furthermore, an Artful Maker loves His works of art and also wishes to endear them [to others]. He ornamented this universe with the befittingly brocaded wonders of His artistry in order to show that He wishes this to be met with approval and admiration - a proof of this is His having taken into account the thousands of different tastes that mouths [enjoy]. He wishes to make known and endear His essence to all, by means of every one of His works of art and to reveal to some degree His metaphysical beauty.

[Now, given all this], is it really possible that He would not speak to some of the foremost greats of humanity; those men who are the leaders of all of the life-endowed creatures in the universe, that he would not send messengers to them - the wonders of His art remaining thus unrecognised, His lofty, exalted Beautiful Names unadmired, and His acquainting Himself and His self-endearment unreciprocated? Far be it from Him, a thousand times far be it from Him!

The All-knowing Speaker, responds with His boundless bestowals and His endless beneficence to the endless supplications of all living creatures, which they submit to Him for the sake of the fulfillment of the needs of their innate natures, as well as to all of the prayers and desires that they convey in the language of their states.

He responds to them at a time befitting, and in a fashion that gives evidence of intention, volition and will and He speaks to them clearly, both in act and in state. Now, is it really possible or acceptable to reason that He would speak both in act and state with the smallest of living creatures, and would listen to their complaints in His beneficence that wholly fulfils their needs, and see and be fully aware of all of those needs, but that He would not meet with the spiritual leaders of mankind, leaders who constitute the most elect fruit of the universe itself, the stewards of the earth, and the leaders of the majority of the earth’s creatures!? That He would not communicate with them as He speaks to all other living creatures, in speech in act and in state? That He would not send edicts, pages and scriptures to them? Far be it from Him, endlessly far be it from Him. Thus, faith in Allāh (al-īmānu billāh) establishes the reality

of وبكُتُبِهِ ورُسُلِهِ ([I believe] in His Books and His Messengers). That is, it establishes faith in the prophets and in the holy books as conclusively as the proof for faith itself by its definiteness, and by way of its limitless amount of evidence.

Then, is it really in any way possible or acceptable to reason that Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) could be anything other than Allāh’s most selected creation, most perfect messenger and greatest prophet? Far be it from him, one hundred thousand times!

For it is he who knew that Majestic Artful Maker (Aṣ-Ṣāni‘u Dhu’l-Jalāl), Who fills and shakes the entire universe by means of the reality of the Qur’ān, and made Him known, and that loved Him and made Him loved, and that thanked Him, and caused others to thank Him in the most perfect way, and that engendered the earth with speaking سبحان الله, الحمد لله and الله أكبر so loudly that the very heavens heard it, and that gathered a fifth of humanity in quantity and a half of humanity in quality and humanness behind him across one thousand three hundred years in a way that would enkindle the land and the sea into ecstasy, and that responded to all manifestations of lordship of that Creator with all-embracing, universal worship, and that called to, addressed, taught and guided the universe and all ages, through the suras of the Qur’ān for the proclamation and realisation of all of His Divine purposes, and that revealed the dignity of man, his value and his vocation and that was ratified by his thousand miracles. [Could Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) be anything other than all this?] Far be it from him, one thousand times!

Thus, the reality of أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله along with all of its evidence proves the reality of أشهد أن محمدًا رسول الله.

Now, is it really possible that the Artful Maker of this universe would make His creatures to speak with one another in hundreds of thousands of languages, and that He would know of their conversations and listen to them, but that He would not speak Himself? Far be it from Him!

Moreover, is it really acceptable to reason that He would not apprise us of His Divine purposes for this universe by means of a Divine edict, and would not send a book like the Qur’ān to unveil the mystery of the universe and to give the real answer to of all questions the three most dangerous and universal - namely, ‘where do all creatures come from’, ‘where do they go?’ and ‘why does caravan after caravan come here in this way, stay a short while, and then leave?’. Far be it from Him!

Then, is it really possible in any way whatever that the Qur’ān could not be the speech and edict of that Beginningless Speaker (Al-Mutakallimu’l-Azalī) and that Eternal Artful Maker (Aṣ-Ṣāni‘u’s-Sarmadī)!? Absolutely not, and far be it from Him, a hundred thousand times!

For it is the Qur’ān that has lit up thirteen centuries, and that every hour flows upon hundreds of millions of tongues reciting with perfect reverence, and that is recorded upon the hearts of millions of memorisers with perfect hallowing, and that regulated the qualitatively greatest group of humanity with its laws, and that trained, purified, refined and instructed their nafs, spirits, hearts and intellects; the book the miraculous inimitability of which The Book of Light has demonstrated forty facets, and of which the wonder-working and extraordinary Nineteenth Letter has elucidated one of the types of its miraculousness for forty different groups, and for every different stratum of mankind, establishing conclusively that it is the Speech of Allāh, and that Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) by his one thousand miracles is one of the miracles of the Qur’ān. Thus, faith in Allāh demonstrates by means of all of its proofs that the Qur’ān is the Speech of Allāh.

Moreover, is it really possible that the Majestic Sultan would leave the heavens and the stars empty, He Who continually fills and empties the face of the earth of living creatures and Who populates our earth with sentient beings in order to make Himself known such that they worship and glorify Him? Is it really possible that He would not create inhabitants befitting them and that He would not lodge them in those heavenly palaces!? That He would leave the sultanate of His lordship in His greatest kingdom without servants, and without splendour, and without officials, and without messengers, lieutenants and overseers, and without witnesses, and without worshippers, and without citizens?

To the number of angels, far be it from Him!

Is it really possible in any way whatever that a Wise Ruler and a Compassionate All-Knowing [Being] would not have the actions of man pertaining to the universe recorded? That He would not have their actions recorded so as to reward or punish them? That He would not write their evil deeds and good actions upon the Tablet of Destiny? As many letters as there are written upon destiny’s Preserved Tablet, far be it from Him!

For it is He Who wrote out the universe as a book and Who records, within their each kernel, the entire life-history of every tree; Who writes

down all the life-duties of every plant and flower in every one of their seeds, and Who perfectly registers the every life-event of every sentient being in their mustard-seed-like memories; and Who preserves every action and every happening that takes place within all of His kingdom and within the realms of His sultanate, capturing them by means of a great number of photographic apparatuses; Who created the immensity of paradise and hell, the Bridge and the Ultimate Balance in order to manifest and realise the justice, wisdom and mercy that are the most important foundations of lordship.

Thus, the reality of faith in Allāh also conclusively proves by means of all of its evidence the reality of faith in the angels and faith in destiny; and every one of the articles of faith prove one another true, in the same way that the sun points to the day and the day points to the sun.

The Second Point: All of the claims of all of the heavenly scriptures and scrolls, foremost amongst them being the Qur’ān, as well as those of all of the prophets, foremost amongst them Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) revolve around five or six fundamental foundations; all of the heavenly books and scrolls endeavour always to instruct in and prove those foundations.

Every one of the proofs and evidences that testify to their prophethood and truthfulness are oriented towards those foundations, strengthening thereby their truthfulness. Those foundations are faith in Allāh and in the hereafter and the rest of the articles. There is no way then that the six articles of faith can ever be disconnected from one another.

Each of them proves the verity of all of them and indeed, necessary entails and requires the other. These six articles make up a whole and a universal that cannot be split apart. Their being divided is outside the realm of possibility.

This is just as in the case of the Ṭūbā Tree, its roots in the sky, every one of its branches, fruits and leaves depends upon the universal and endless life of that vast tree itself. Anyone then unable to deny that vital life of the tree that is strong and as manifest as the sun, will also be unable to deny the life of a single one of the leaves attached to it. Were he to deny this, that tree would refute and silence that denier with every one of its branches, fruits and leaves. Faith along with its six articles is likewise the same. Within the introduction to this station, I had intended to elucidate the six articles of faith in six points with every point comprising five subtle points,

amounting in total to thirty six subtle points, and I had wished to answer in detail the dire question that appears in the introduction, yet certain obstacles got in the way of my doing so.

Yet I am presuming that the intelligent do not require any further clarification, for the first point serves as a sufficient criterion, and I think it has been adequately perceived that any Muslim who denies a single of the truths of faith lands himself in absolute disbelief.

For whereas Islām mentioned these realities in full, the other religions only mentioned them in summary form. The articles are chained together. Any Muslim, who does not recognise or believe in Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), does not recognise Allāh in His attributes, nor does he know the hereafter. The true faith of a Muslim is founded upon proofs so powerful and unshakeable that there can be no excuses for denial. It is as if the mind is compelled to accept.

The Third Point: I once said الحمد لله (alḥamdulillāh) and then sought for a blessing that could be equivalent to its limitlessly vast meaning. Suddenly, this sentence occurred to me:

اَلْحَمْدُ للهِ عَلَى الْإِيمَانِ بِاللهِ، وَعَلَى وَحْدَانِيَّتِهِ، وَعَلَى وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ،

وَعَلَى صِفَاتِهِ وَأَسْمَائِهِ حَمْدًا بِعَدَدِ تَجَلِّيَاتِ أَسْمَائِهِ مِنَ الْأَزَلِ إِلَى الْأَبَدِ (a)

I looked at this [and found that] it was its exact equivalent, in the following manner: (44)

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a 'Praise be to Allāh for faith in Allāh, for His unity, for the necessity of His existence and for His attributes as name, as much praise as there are manifestations of His Names, from beginningless eternity to endless eternity.

44. This part - that points to the faith being a very great blessing - has been started to be written but not been able to finish.

The Tenth Issue of The Fruit Epistle

A Flower of Emirdagh (45)

An immensely powerful response to the objections

raised against repetition within the Qur’ān.

My ‘azīz (honourable) and ṣiddīq (trustworthy) brothers!

Despite this issue having been confused and obscured by my pitiful situation, I came to know with certainty that behind these confused expressions lay a type of extremely precious miraculousness. I was unfortunately unable to express it [adequately]; yet however much it is true that its mode of expression is unclear, (46) it nonetheless constitutes a form of contemplative worship and the shell of a sacred, lofty, shining jewel for it is the property of the Qur’ān.

Look then to the diamonds in its hands, and look not to its torn apart clothing. If you see it befitting, make it The Tenth Issue and otherwise, consider it a letter in response to your letters of congratulation.

I was forced by circumstance to write it in extremely summarised and abridged form over the course of one or two days in Ramaḍān while I was in a state of severe illness, misery and without food. Within single sentences I have included many truths and numerous proofs. I thus hope that you will accept my apology and overlook its shortcomings. (Footnote)

It is a small but luminous flower of Emirdagh and of this blessed month of Ramaḍān. It is The Tenth Issue of The Fruit of Denizli Prison. It is a small but luminous flower of Emirdag, and it is the ‘Tenth Issue’ of the ‘Fruit’ of Denizli Prison for this blessed month of Ramaḍān. This does away, in its elucidation of one the wisdoms underlying the repetitions in the Qur’ān, with the putrefying, poisonous delusions of the people of misguidance (ahlu’ḍ-ḍalālah).

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Footnote: You can edit. You may divide a long sentence into a few sentences. This will ease comprehensibility.

45. Emirdağ (Emirdagh) is a small town of city of Afyon in the western region of Anatolia bordering central Anatolia.

46. Literal: dim 

The Tenth Issue

My ‘azīz (honourable) and ṣiddīq (trustworthy) brothers!

When I was reading the Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān) this Noble Ramaḍān, every time I came across one of the thirty-three verses the allusions to The Book of Light of which have been elucidated in The First Ray, I would [carefully scrutinise them and] see that the page, paper and story in which those verses are contained to a certain degree also looks - in terms of the impact of the moral lesson of those stories - to The Book of Light and its students.

This is especially so in The Verse of Light (Āyatu’n-Nūr) (47) in the sūrah of Light (Sūratu’n-Nūr), which points with ten fingers to The Book of Light (The Risāle-i Nūr), whereas the verses of darknesses after it most surely refer to its opponents and apportion [them] a greater share. It is quite as if that station casts off particularity and acquires universality. And I felt then that in this age, the perfect individuation of that universality is The Book of Light and its students.

Yes, the Qur’ānic address manifests such lofty, miraculous inimitability and comprehensiveness first in terms of the vastness, loftiness and scope that it acquires from the immense station of universal lordship (rubūbiyah) of the Beginninglessly Eternal Speaker (Mutakallim Azalī); and then from the vast station of the addressee, in the name of mankind and indeed the whole universe; and from the immensely vast station of the guidance it has given to all the sons of Ādam across all of the ages; and from the station of the immensely elevated, all-embracing pronouncements of the Divine laws connected to the administration of both this world and the next, the earth and the heavens, beginningless and endless eternity, the lordship of the Creator of the universe and all creatures.

This is such that even a merely outer and simple degree of its address, even such of its degrees as are intended to caress the simple understanding of the layman, the most numerous of the addressees of the Qur’ān’s lesson, also fully delivers the most advanced stratum of addressees their share.

It does not transmit a share of a mere story or of a moral lesson from a historical narration rather [it is as if] it descends freshly addressing every

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47. The Verse of Light:

اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ مَثَلُ نُورِهِ كَمِشْكَاةٍ فِيهَا مِصْبَاحٌ ۖ الْمِصْبَاحُ فِي زُجَاجَةٍ ۖ

الزُّجَاجَةُ كَأَنَّهَا كَوْكَبٌ دُرِّيٌّ يُوقَدُ مِن شَجَرَةٍ مُّبَارَكَةٍ زَيْتُونَةٍ لَّا شَرْقِيَّةٍ وَلَا

غَرْبِيَّةٍ يَكَادُ زَيْتُهَا يُضِيءُ وَلَوْ لَمْ تَمْسَسْهُ نَارٌ ۚ نُّورٌ عَلَىٰ نُورٍ ۗ يَهْدِي اللَّهُ لِنُورِهِ مَن

يَشَاءُ ۚ وَيَضْرِبُ اللَّهُ الْأَمْثَالَ لِلنَّاسِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ

Allāh is the Light of the heavens and earth. His Light is like this: there is a niche, and in it a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, a glass like a glittering star, fuelled from a blessed olive tree from neither east nor west, whose oil almost gives light even when no fire touches it- light upon light- Allāh guides whoever He will to his Light; Allāh draws such comparisons for people; Allāh has full knowledge of everything. (Qur’ān: an-Nūr, 24:35)

strata of mankind in every age as individuals of a universal law. This becomes most especially manifest in its many repetitions of the rebuke الظالمين * الظالمين ‘the oppressors, the oppressors’, and which threatens in its forceful proclamations of both the heavenly and terrestrial tribulations that constitute the punishment for their oppression. Through mentioning the [heavenly] punishment that descended upon the peoples of ‘Ād, Thamūd and Pharoah, it draws attention to oppressions that are without parallel in our times, and gives solace, [in its mention of] the deliverance of prophets like Ibrāhīm and Mūsā (‘alayhimassalām), to the oppressed people of faith.

Yes, the Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān) presents, like the screen of a theatre, the entirety of past time, and the deceased centuries and ages that are from the perspective of heedlessness and misguidance like a gloomy, frightening world of nothingness and a painful, lifeless graveyard. To all ages and strata it presents it like a living page of moral lessons, a strange and wonderful world from end to end inspirited and enlivened and an existing, Lordly kingdom that has a real connection to us. In this way does it transmit sublimely its lesson to us, on occasion taking us to those times and on other occasions, taking them to us.

This Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition presents, with its own miraculous inimitability, this universe, which from the perspective of misguidance is inanimate, dead and wretched, and a place of limitless loneliness and horror reeling in separation and evanescence, as a book of the Independent and Eternally Besought, a city of Divine mercy, and an exhibition of Lordly works of art. It gives life to those inanimate beings, and makes them so that they are life officials that converse with one another and strive to come to the aid of one another.

[In this way], it instructs men, jinn and angels in lessons of true, luminous, pleasurable lessons of wisdom. There is no doubt that this Sublimely Glorious Qur’ān (Al-Qur’ānu’l-‘Aẓīmu’sh-Sha'n) has holy properties, such as the fact of the reading of a single of its letters counting as ten good deeds, and at times a thousand or many thousands of good deeds; and like the fact of all of the jinn and mankind together being unable to compose the like of it; and the way in which it addresses all of mankind and the entire universe in a way befitting each addressee; and the way it is sweetly inscribed onto the hearts of millions of those ḥuffāz who memorise it

in every time; and the fact of its causing neither weariness nor boredom despite its being much recited and despite its many repetitions, and its remaining firm in the tender, simple minds of young children, despite its containing multifarious phrases and sentences that could be easily mixed up; the way in which it caresses the ears of the sick so sweetly as if it were zam-zam water, and of those who feel pain hearing even a few words and of those in the stupor of death - it possesses all of these sacred properties, and it secures for its students the happiness of the two realms.

It manifests a natural fluency of style allowing no room for any artificiality, affectation or ostentation and its having come directly from the heavens by the secret of its fully taking into consideration the untaught station of its interpreter.

It instructs in the miracles of its artful power and the meaningful lines of its wisdom underlying these commonplace matters by the secret of the wisdom of its kind indulging of simple understandings of the layman, who constitute the majority, through the lowering its speech to the level of them. Most of the time, it does this simply by unfolding and revealing the most self-evident and apparent pages the like of the heavens and the earth. By doing all this, it reveals a most elegantly subtle miraculous inimitability (i‘jāz) in its kind guidance.

It reveals moreover, a type of miraculous inimitability in its enabling diverse strata of addressees to understand a great number of multifarious meanings in a single sentence and within a single story, by means of its comely, sweet repetitions, by the secret of the tidings that it is a book of supplication, of calling to the truth, of Divine remembrance, and of Divine unity - this is such that repetition becomes a requisite; and its taking into consideration even the most minor incident involving a companion during the foundation of Islām and the development of the legislation of the Sacred Law - by the secret of the tidings that all things, even the most simple and trifling of things, in particular, commonplace events - are under the gaze of His mercy, and within the sphere of His directions and volition - this reveals [the Qur’ān’s] miraculous inimitability with regard to the existence of universal laws within [those minor events], and the fact of those particular events bearing fruits of momentous importance - quite as if they were a seed - in the foundation of Islām and the universal, all-embracing Sacred Law.

Yes, repeated need entails repetition. This [repetition in the Qur’ān] instructed numerous and diverse strata in lessons as answers to the very many questions that continued to be repeated over the course of twenty years. These verses are equivalent to thousands of conclusions, and certain verses, that constitute the conclusions of limitless proofs, in the making of a foundation of a limitless and endless number of sublime, awe-inspiring and vast revolutions, that will destroy the vast universe and transform its appearance on the Day of Resurrection, and will remove this world and place the sublime hereafter in its place; that will affirm that all particulars and universals from particles to stars, are in the Hand of One [Who is One and Singular] and are subjected to His free disposal; that will show the Divine anger and the Lordly wrath - [that is] for the outcome of the creation of the universe’s sake - faced with man’s wrongdoing and oppression that angers the very universe, the heavens, the earth and the elements.

The repetition of particular sentences and certain verses is no shortcoming. Rather, it constitutes miraculous inimitability of singular power and rhetoric of superlative sublimity, and purity of style and eloquence that are very much relevant and harmonious with the requirement of the circumstances.

So for example: The phrase, بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ (Bismillāhirrahmānirrahīm) that is repeated one hundred and fourteen times despite being only a single verse, in truth connects the Throne (‘Arsh) to the earth and illuminates the universe, and all people are in need of it at each moment as has been elucidated in The Fourteenth Flash of The Book of Light, such that were it to be repeated millions of times, the need for it would never be extinguished. Let alone being in need of it daily like bread, there is [always] a need and yearning for it in each moment like that of air and light.

And for example: The repetition of the verse إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَهُوَ العَزِيزُ الرَّحِيمُ (a) eight times in Sūratu Tā Sīn Mīm [that is, Sūratu’sh-Shu‘arā'], that contains [mention] of the deliverance of the prophets and the punishment of their peoples, the stories of which are mentioned for the sake of the outcome of the creation of the universe and in the name of universal lordship; and were this verse to be repeated - which is equivalent to thousands of spiritual realities - thousands of times in order to instruct in the fact that the lordly might of the Divine entails the punishment of those oppressive

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a Surely is your Lord the Mighty, the Compassionate (Qur’ān: ash-Shu‘arā', 26:9) 

peoples, and that the Divine mercy entails the deliverance of the prophets, the need and yearning for it to be repeated would never come to an end.

Nay, its repetition constitutes elevated rhetoric (balāgha) comprising both succinctness (ījāz) and miraculous inimitability (i‘jāz). And for example: The verse فَبِأَيِّ آلاَءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ (a) in Sūratu’r-Raḥmān, and the verse وَيْلٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ لِلْمُكَذِّبِينَ (b) in Sūratu’l-Mursalāt, these two verses which proclaim to the ages, earth and heavens in a threatening fashion that the disbelief of mankind and the jinn species, and their ingratitude to every bounty [they have been given], and their tyranny and violating the rights of all creatures with [behaviour] that enrages the very universe itself, and angers the heavens and the earth, and impairs the outcomes of the creation of the universe, and that meets the sublimity of the Divine kingdom with denial and disdain; were these verses to be repeated thousands of times in the like of this universal lesson which is equivalent to thousands of topics, and related to thousands of spiritual realities, the need for it to be repeated would never be extinguished, for it is majestic succinctness and beautiful miraculous inimitability of rhetoric.

And for example: The sentence سُبْحَانَكَ لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ اَلْأمَانُ اَلْأمَانُ خَلِّصْنَا وَأَجِرْنَا وَنَجِّنَا مِنَ النَّارِ (c) is repeated one hundred times in the prophetic supplication known as, ‘al-Jawshanu’l-Kabīr’ which is a type of real and complete supplication of the Qur’ān, that flows out from the Qur’ān and is a type of Qur’ānic quintessence.

Were this sentence to be repeated thousands of times, it would be yet again insufficient because within its repetition, there exists the like of the most sublime spiritual reality in the universe, that of Divine unity (tawhīd), and the most important of creatures’ momentous three duties, the likes of glorification (tasbīḥ), praise (taḥmīd) and hallowing of the Divine (taqdīs), and the most terrifying matter facing human beings, namely being delivered from deprivation of eternal happiness, and the most compelling outcome of worship and powerlessness of human beings.

The repetitions in the Qur’ān thus go back to principles like these; indeed, at times [the Qur’ān] expresses the reality of Divine unity both

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a O which of your Lord's bounties will you then deny? (Qur’ān: ar-Raḥmān, 55:13)

b Woe, on that Day, to those who denied the truth! (Qur’ān: al-Mursalāt, 77:15)

c Glory be to You, there is no god but You, safety! safety! - deliver and protect us from the fire. 

explicitly and implicitly twenty times in a single page due to the exigency of the context, what is required [in that particular context], the need for explanation, and clarity of rhetoric. This does not bring on weariness, but it instead gives strength, and engenders yearning.

The fact that the repetitions in the Qur’ān are very much in their place, appropriate and rhetorically pleasing has been elucidated in The Book of Light along with [attendant] proofs.

The secret and wisdom underlying the divergence between the Meccan and the Medinan surahs in the Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition in terms of rhetoric, from the perspective of miraculous inimitability and with respect to detail and brevity is the following:

The front line of the addressees and opponents of the Qur’ān in Mecca were the polytheists and unlettered people of Quraysh; this state of affairs necessitated, with regard to [to the form of] rhetoric [that the Qur’ān would employ], a powerful, lofty style, a succinct, persuasive, cogent conciseness that would engender serenity, and repetition to ensure [its content would become] well-established. This is why most of the Meccan surahs repeat the fundamental articles of faith and the degrees of Divine unity, and articulate them again and again with a tremendously powerful, elevated and miraculous succinctness, and very forcefully establish the all-important matters, beginning, the place to return, Allāh and the hereafter not only in a single page, indeed in a verse and sentence and word, and indeed at times in a single letter, and in positions like bringing forward and deferment,definition, indeterminacy, omission and mention, in a way that has astonished the genius imāms of rhetoric.

The Book of Light - particularly The Twenty-fifth Word, along with its appendices, which in encapsulated form proved forty facets of the miraculous inimitability of the Qur’ān true, and the exegesis, an epistle composed in Arabic, ‘Signs of Miraculous Inimitability’ (Ishārātu’l-I‘jāz), which marvellously proved facets of that inimitability in the verses of the Qur’ān - have already revealed the fact that the Meccan surahs and verses contain the most elevated rhetorical styles, and the most sublime succinct inimitability.

The frontline of the addressees and opponents of the Qur’ān in the case of the Medinan surahs and verses, on the other hand, were the People of the Book, both Jews and Christians - who already believed in Allāh. The circumstances did not thus require that the foundational principles of the

sublime religion and the fundamental articles of faith be set out to the People of the Book, but rather that the exposition of the branches of the Sacred Law and the rulings that constituted the basis of the differences [between Muslims and the People of the Book], and the exposition of the particulars that constituted the starting point and causes of universal laws were [revealed by the Qur’ān] in a fluent, clear and detailed style in accordance with [the principles of] rhetoric and guidance, and in a way that matched the context and circumstances.

This is why in its Medinan surahs and verses and within a particular event [related to] the branches [of Sacred Law], using a peerless mode of exposition special to the Qur’ān and usually within [a discussion] of particulars, a clarification and a simple elucidation in a most clear style, the Qur’ān will suddenly mention a powerful and elevated encapsulation, conclusion and proof, and a sentence [expressing] Divine unity, faith and the hereafter that transforms that particular event relating to Sacred Law into a universal, and that implies one’s submitting to it out of faith in Allāh. Thus does it illuminate that context and make it both lofty and sublime.

The Book of Light has elucidated just how high an eloquence, fluency of style, and fine virtues and subtle points are contained in [the Qur’ān’s] encapsulations and conclusions that express Divine unity and the hereafter and are mostly mentioned at the ends of the verses, the like of:

إِنَّ اللهَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ (Surely Allāh has power over all things)

and إِنَّ اللهَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ (Surely Allāh has knowledge of all things)

and وَهُوَ العَزِيزُ الحَكِيمُ (And He is the Mighty, the Wise)

and وَهُوَ العَزِيزُ الرَّحِيمُ (And He is the Mighty, the Compassionate)

and it has proven even to the obstinate that those quintessences contain a supreme miracle in its expounding ten of the subtle points and virtues of those encapsulations and conclusions in, The Second Light of The Second Flame of The Twenty-fifth Word.

Yes, the Qur’ān lifts the gaze of its addressee all of a sudden to high and universal points within its exposition of those ancillary branches of Sacred Law and laws governing social life, and it transforms a plain style into a style that is lofty, and it turns the attention of the addressee from a lesson in

Sacred Law to a lesson in Divine unity, thus making clear the fact that it is a book of Sacred Law, of [holy] rulings, and of wisdom, as well as a book of creed, faith, Divine remembrance, contemplation, supplication and calling to the truth. In every type of subject matter (maqām) [that it contains], it instructs in a great number of the fundamental bases (maqāṣid) of Qur’ānic guidance, thereby manifesting a dazzling, miraculous fluency of style that differs from the style of rhetoric to be found in the Meccan verses.

For example: Sometimes in two phrases the likes of رَبُّ الْعَالَمِينَ (the Lord of the worlds) and رَبُّكَ your Lord: for by means of the phrase رَبُّكَ your Lord, [the Qur’ān] expounds singularity, and by means of رَبُّ الْعَالَمِينَ the Lord of the worlds, it expounds unity; and it moreover articulates unity (wāḥidiyyah) within singularity (aḥadiyyah). This is such that just as it sees a single particle in the pupil of the eye, incorporating it and fixing it therein in one sentence, it will even incorporate the sun into the pupil of the sky with the same verse and with the same hammer; and it fashions the sun into “an eye” for the sky, and says, for example وَهُوَ عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ الصُّدُورِ (a) after the verse يُولِجُ اللَّيْلَ فِي النَّهَارِ وَيُولِجُ النَّهَارَ فِي اللَّيْلِ (b), and after the verse خَلَقَ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ . (c)

Now this unrefined, simple and particular discussion that takes into consideration the degree of the unlettered and the understanding of laymen, becomes transformed into soaring magnetism, and a guidance and communication that are universal in style and exposition, such that it is as if it is saying, ‘He knows even the thoughts that occur to the [human] heart, within the immensity of the creation of the earth and heavens, and He directs them and [turns them about.]

A question: One might imagine that there is some sort of shortcoming in the Qur’ān in its occasionally not revealing an important truth to superficial eyes, and because of the ignorance [of some people] of the relevance of the mention of a tremendously lofty encapsulation of Divine unity or a universal law to a commonplace, particular event, [as occurs] in some places [in the Qur’ān].

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a He knows the thoughts in the breasts. (Qur’ān: Ḥadīd, 57:6)

b He makes the night to enter into the day and makes the day to enter into the night. (Qur’ān: Ḥadīd, 57:6)

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

For example, in the eyes of rhetoric there doesn’t appear to be a relevance in mentioning a principle of singular sublimity وَفَوْقَ كُلِّ ذِي عِلْمٍ عَلِيمٌ (a) in connection with Prophet Yūsuf’s taking his brother by means of subterfuge? So what is the secret and wisdom underlying this?

The answer: The nature of the Qur’ān is that in the majority of its long and medium length surahs, the each of which is a little Qur’ān in itself, and in many of its pages and treatments (maqāmāt) does not comprise only two or three objectives, but indeed comprises numerous books: a book of Divine remembrance, of faith and contemplation, and a book of sacred law and wisdom and spiritual guidance, as well as diverse lessons.

Now the Qur’ān, which constitutes a way of reading the Great Book of the Universe in terms of the Lordship of Divinity’s encompassing all things, and in terms of the articulation of the sublimity of its manifestations, and because it instructs in knowledge of Allāh (ma‘rifatullāh), the degrees of Divine unity and the spiritual realities of faith, taking care within each of its treatments and indeed at times within a single page a very great number of objectives, there is no doubt thus that it encompasses in a single of its treatments another new lesson, though it may, for example, be apparently of weak relevance, it is in fact the case that other matters that are very strongly relevant are connected to this [apparently] weak relevance, and are therefore also relevant and harmonious with that [original] context - and it thus attains a higher degree of eloquence.

Another question: What is the wisdom underlying the hereafter, Divine unity, and the reward and punishment of mankind being established explicitly, implicitly and by way of allusion thousands of times in the Qur’ān, and attention being [continually] turned towards it, and its [reality] being taught in every surah, every page and every context?

The answer: With regard to the teaching of the most important questions and the eradication of illimitable [possible] doubts, the shattering of the tremendously intense denial and obstinacy existing in the sphere of contingency, and in terms of the revolutions connected to that which transpires in the universe, and with respect to the greatest, most momentous, most awe-inspiring events relating to the vocation of man, who carries the supreme trust and the guardianship of the earth on his shoulders, that vocation that constitutes the pivot of both eternal wretchedness and eternal

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a Over every man of knowledge is One who knows (Qur’ān: Yūsuf, 2:285)

bliss - it would indubitably not be wasted space for the Qur’ān to turn attention to them - to those themes - thousands, nay, millions of times, in order to cause man to assent [to the reality] of those astonishing revolutions, and to submit [to the truth] of the momentous realities, and those that are the most pressing for man in the immensity of those revolutions; for those themes are recited in the Qur’ān again and again millions of times, but this does not cause weariness, nor boredom, nor does it extinguish the need for [their mention].

For example: The reality of the glad tidings of eternal bliss that is manifested by the verse إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ لَهُمْ جَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ (a) and خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَداً (b) Were this verse, that says, ‘the reality of death, which shows itself to a helpless mankind at all times, [in actual fact] saves man and saves his world and saves all of his loved ones from eternal execution, and enables him to acquire an eternal kingdom,’ to be repeated billions of times, and were an importance as tremendous as the universe to be afforded to it, it would be no waste of space, nor would it impair its precious value.

The Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān) thus, that instructs in such surpassingly numerous, important issues, the like of those aforementioned, and that strives to convince, persuade and prove to [people’s having] faith in the revolutions that are awe-inspiring, that transforms and deforms the universe as if it were a [small] house, there can be no doubt that attention being turned even thousands of times to those realities, explicitly, implicitly and by means of allusions, can never be a waste of space, but it is rather a renewal of the beneficence [contained in their mention], for [these issues] are necessities for life, the like of bread, medicine and air and light.

And for example: The wisdom underlying the Qur’ān’s mention and repetition of the verses that contain Divine threats in a very severe and furious way and by using forceful and amplified language, the like of وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَهُمْ نَارُ جَهَنَّمَ (c) and وَإِنَّ الظَّالِمِينَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ (d) is that mankind’s

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a Those who believe and do righteous deeds, surely for them await gardens underneath which rivers flow (Qur’ān: al-Burūj, 85:11)

b therein dwelling forever and ever (Qur’ān: an-Nisā', 4:57)

c The disbelievers will be in the Fire of Hell (Qur’ān: Fāṭir, 35:36)

d A painful punishment awaits the oppressive (Qur’ān: ash-Shūrā, 42:21)

disbelief and denial violates the rights of the universe and of the majority of [other] creatures - this has been conclusively proven in The Book of Light - such that it provokes the wrath of the heavens and the earth, and angers the very elements; thus does it strike the oppressors with blows [in this way] and hell hates the oppressors such that it comes to a point of explosion from the severity of its anger and falling to pieces, as is explicitly stated in the verse, إِذَا أُلْقُوا فِيهَا سَمِعُوا لَهَا شَهِيقاً وَهِيَ تَفُورُ (a) and تَكَادُ تَمَيَّزُ مِنَ الْغَيْظِ . (b)

Now, were the Sultan of the Universe, faced with this all-embracing crime and limitless violations, to repeat the mention of these crimes and their punishment with surpassing severity and hardness in His edict; they are not in accordance with man’s small size nor his unimportance [in themselves], but in accordance with the immensity of his tyrannical crimes and the horror of his atheistic transgressions. And through the wisdom of revealing the importance of the rights of His subjects, and of manifesting the limitless ugliness latent in the disbelief and oppression of the deniers, were it to repeat it not only a thousand times but millions and billions of times this would constitute neither a waste of space nor a deficiency - for hundreds of millions of people have recited it every day for a thousand years, [all] in perfect longing and need and without boredom nor weariness.

Yes, every day and at every moment a world [particular] to each person departs and the door of a fresh world opens for [each person]. One makes لا إله إلاّ الله (there is no god but Allāh) into a lamp against every one of the changing veils, by means of one’s repeating the sentence لا إله إلاّ الله (there is no god but Allāh) a thousand times in need and with longing so as to illuminate every one of one’s temporary worlds.

In the same way, does the Qur’ān in an utterly meaningful fashion repeat significant matters, with the [underlying] wisdom of making man appreciate, through reading the Qur’ān and getting rid of the rebellion of the lower self.

It repeats the punishments for those crimes and the severe threats coming from the Beginninglessly Eternal Ruler - threats that break even the strongest stubbornness in order not to darken these numerous, temporary

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a When they are cast into it they will hear it sighing the while it boils (Qur’ān: al-Mulk, 67:7)

b well nigh bursts asunder with rage (Qur’ān: al-Mulk, 67:8) 

veils and these ever renewing, continually moving universes and in order not to disfigure the images of them that are reflected into the mirror of the life of man; and in order not to cause those fleeting, temporary states of affairs that could be in [man’s] interests to be against him. Even Satan flees from supposing that the Qur’ānic threats repeated with such power and severity have no reality.

The Qur’ān shows to the deniers who do not hearken to it that the punishment of hell is pure justice. And for example, the repetition of the story of Moses (‘alayhissalām), containing as it does a great many wisdoms and benefits - like that of Moses’ staff (‘alayhissalām) - and the frequent repetition of the stories of the rest of the prophets, all for the sake of a wisdom the like of [the following]: the prophethood of every one of the prophets puts forward evidence for the truth of the Aḥmadan messengership (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) in that whoever finds himself unable to deny all of [the prophets], will also find himself unable to deny the messengership of this person (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) in reality; and because not everyone is able to recite the whole of the Qur’ān all of the time - they are not enabled to do so - those stories are repeated, just as are the important fundamental articles of faith, so as to make each long and middle-length sūrah like a little Qur’ān [in itself].

The Qur’ān’s repetition of these stories for the sake of these wisdoms is no waste of space, but it is rhetoric in inimitability, and a reminder that the Muḥammadan event (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) is for all human beings the most sublime of events, and the most momentous issue for all of the universe.

[The Muḥammadan Reality]

(‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām)

Yes, in the epistles of The Book of Light, a great many proofs and indications in conclusive form have been given concerning the Muḥammadan Personage (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) being conferred the loftiest place in the Qur’ān.

The reality of محمد رسول الله (Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allāh) which is equivalent to the article of لاإله إلاّ الله (There is no god but Allāh) in its comprising four articles of faith; and [proofs have been given] concerning the Muḥammadan messengership’s (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) being the universe’s most süblime reality and the Personage of Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) is the most honourable of the creation; and that his universal, spiritual person, known as the Muḥammadan Reality (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), as well as his holy station, is a dazzling sun of the two realms, and that he is worthy of this magnificent station.

Just one of a thousand [of these proofs] is the following:

The Knower of the Unseen (‘Allāmu’l-Ghuyūb) knew and saw that the Muḥammadan Reality (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), which is the spiritual person of this individual would in the future be like unto the Ṭūbā Tree of paradise, in that all of the good deeds of his community in all times would be added to the like of [those good deeds] in his own book of good deeds this according to the principle السبب كالفاعل (a) and He knew and saw] his illuminating the realities of the whole of the universe with the light with which he came; and his making not only the jinn, mankind, the angels and living creatures, but also the very universe and the heavens and the earth grateful to Him; and the merciful supplications along with blessings and peace (salawāt) of the righteous of his community - millions, nay billions, innate prayers of whom are never rejected but accepted - [their being accepted] is testified to by the actual acceptance, in front of our eyes, of the supplications of the plants in the language of their innate capacities and the supplication of the animals in the language of their innate needs - and their gifting their spiritual gains to him first of all; and limitless lights going into his scroll of good deeds with respect just to the Qur’ān being recited alone. In so far as it is the case that for every one of the three hundred thousand letters of the Qur’ān recited by the Community there is a reward that starts from ten and at times constitutes a hundred or at times thousands of good actions and fruits.

It is in accordance with this station that the Knower of the Unseen gave him that sublime importance in His Qur’ān. In His decree He made clear that following him and winning his intercession through following his exalted sunnah constitutes the most important issue facing man.

From time to time, Allāh treats Prophet Muḥammad’s human personality (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) which is the seed of the immense Ṭūbā Tree, and his “humane conditions” at the beginning [of his life]. Thus the realities that are repeated in the Qur’ān indeed carry this precious importance, and it is thus that a sound innate disposition will bear witness to the fact that those repetitions are a spiritual miracle, powerful and expansive - except only for those who have been afflicted (48) with a disease of the heart and of sentiment because of the plague of materialism - they come under the principle:

قَدْ يُنْكِرُ الْمرءُ ضَوءُ الشَّمْسِ مِنْ رَمَدٍ وَيُنْكِرُ الْفَمُ طَعْمَ الْمَاءِ مِنْ سَقَمٍ (b)

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a the cause is like the doer

b For man may deny the sun's light because of inflammation of the eye and when the body is unwell, the mouth may shun even the taste of sweet water.

48. Literal: addiction

Two notes serving as a conclusion to this Tenth Issue

The first note: Twelve years ago I heard that one of the most dangerous and obstinate of atheists had begun [to reveal] his bad intentions with regard to the Qur’ān by having it translated and enacted a calamitous plan saying, “let the Qur’ān be translated so that people may know its lack of value, that is, so that all be enabled to see its superfluous repetitions for themselves, and so that its translation be read instead of it.”

Yet the irrefutable evidences of The Book of Light have conclusively proven that it is impossible to produce a real translation of the Qur’ān and that no language can maintain the special characteristics and points of the Qur’ān other than the Arabic language, which is a grammatical language; and that ordinary, particular human translation cannot possibly articulate the inimitable, all-embracing expressions of the words of the Qur’ān, the each letter of which holds a reward of between ten and one thousand, and [such a translation] could never be read in mosques instead of it.

In this way has The Book of Light rendered this terrifying plan invalid, in its having been circulated everywhere. However, I guess it was because the idiotic, deranged efforts of the hypocrites who had taken lessons from that atheist, striving again for the sake of Satan to extinguish the sun of the Qur’ān by blowing at it out of their mouths like silly children, that I was inspired to write this ‘Tenth Issue’ in a challenging, pressing and troublesome state [of constriction], due to their foolish and lunatic endeavors. Yet I do not know the actual state of affairs, for I am not able to meet anyone [in order to find out].

The second note: After we were discharged from Denizli Prison, I was sitting on the top floor of the famous Şehir Hotel one day; before me in the beautiful gardens I could see the many poplar trees, as if they were in a circle of dhikr (Divine remembrance) surpassingly elegant and sweet. The ecstatic and magnetic movements and [melancholic] dancing of those trees and their branches [and hiss of] the leaves at the touches of the air and my separation from my brothers and my loneliness impacted my [already] grieved and sorrowful heart.

The seasons of autumn and winter sprung suddenly to mind, and I was seized by heedlessness. I was moved by compassion for those delicate trees

and living creatures swaying in perfect ecstasy such that my eyes welled up with tears. Sorrows and sadnesses of separation and extinction as vast as the universe itself crowded my mind, in [my] remembering and sensing the [future] nonexistence and separation of those trees and living creatures, under the ornamented veil of the universe. It was then that the light that the Muḥammadan Reality (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) had come with came to my aid, and transformed those limitless sorrows and sadnesses into contentment and joy.

Even more, just like every individual of people of faith, I am eternally indebted to the Muḥammadan Essence (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) for his having brought this light to my aid and having consoled me with it - that light that was only a single of the millions of emanations that have been manifested to me only in that time and in that situation in the following way:

From that heedless perspective, those blessed and elegant beings were from the first moment shown to be manifest within seasons as if without duty nor outcome, and that their movements are not out of ecstasy, but showing that it is as if they are trembling with fear [in the process of] tumbling into nonexistence and separation, and this wounded my feelings, for feelings are the locus of the passionate love of living forever, love of beauties, compassion for [one’s fellow] human beings and [fellow] living beings, such that the world nigh on turned into a spiritual hell, and the intellect an instrument of torture. It was at this point that the light which Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) brought as a gift pulled back the veil, and revealed that there exist a wisdom and as many meanings underlying those poplar trees as there are leaves on each of them, not execution, nonexistence, nothingness, inoperation, futility and separation, and, as has been established in The Book of Light, they each have three types of products and vocations:

The first type: It is related to the Names of the Majestic Artful Maker (Aṣ-Ṣāni‘u Dhu’l-Jalāl). For example, when a craftsman makes a firstrate device, and all applaud him saying, Māshā'Allāh and BārakAllāh; and were even the device itself to congratulate and applaud its maker in the language of its state and in its producing exactly what it was intended to produce; [so too is] each living creature and each thing a device the like of that, that congratulates and applauds its Creator.

The second [and third] type: The second type of wisdoms are orientated towards the gaze of living creatures and conscious creatures. They (poplar trees) become a means of observation and a book of knowledge for

them, leaving their meanings in the sphere of existence within the minds of conscious beings, and [leaving] their forms in their memories and tablets of representation, (49) and in the logbooks of the unseen world within the sphere of existence; thus do they depart from the observed world, and they are taken to the unseen world. That is to say, they leave a formal existence behind them, and win multifarious spiritual (ma‘nawī) and unseen existences in knowledge.

Yes, since Allāh exists and His knowledge is all-encompassing, there can be no doubt that there is no real place for nonexistence, extinction, nothingness, obliteration or annihilation in the worlds of the people of faith, and that the world of the disbelievers is full of nonexistence, separation, nothingness and annihilation.

Here is an aphorism that passes around on the tongues of all, that instructs in this reality saying, “Whosoever [believes that] Allāh exists, everything [continues] to exist for him. Whosoever [believes that] Allāh does not exist, nothing exists [nor continues to exist] for him, everything is [as if it is] nothing.”

The upshot: Just as faith (īmān) saves man from eternal execution at the time of death, so too does it save the world particular to each person from execution and the gloom of nonexistence. Disbelief (kufr) however - and specifically if absolute disbelief - executes that human being and his personal world with [the reality of] death, and casts him into the darknesses of spiritual hell [in this world]. [Disbelief] turns the pleasures of his life into painful poisons. Let the ears of those who prefer the life of this world over their hereafters ring!

Let them come and find a solution to the circumstances [in which they will find themselves], or else let them enter into faith, and be saved from these two appalling losses.

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

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a Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge except that which You have taught us, surely you are the All-knowing, the Wise

49. Photograph, picture or a video capture are sorts of tablets of representation. 

A letter written by Husrev to his master in connection with the Tenth Issue

O my very beloved master teacher,

We praise Allāh with an illimitable praise; for we have received ‘the Flower of Emirdag,’ named ‘The Tenth Issue,’ of the fruit of Denizli [Prison], which has softened the sadness of the separation that has gone on now for two months, and the pains of news of you being cut off, and which has bestowed fresh life in our hearts, and gifted a new, pure breeze upon our spirits, and which enumerates the virtues of the repetitions in the august and mighty verses, and the merciful and compassionate verses of the Qur’ān, and clarifies the necessity and importance of its wisdom of repetitions, and that constitutes a magnificent defense of ‘The Book of Light.’

In truth, every time we have smelt that flower, so worthy of appreciation and regard, the yearning that is latent in our spirit has only increased. Just as The Nine Issues of the Fruit [Epistle] manifested their beauty in their being a momentous means of our acquittal in the face of nine months of suffering in the prison, its flower, that is, ‘the Tenth Issue,’ has likewise manifested its beauty in an analogous manner in its revealing the wonders that exist in the miraculously inimitable succinctness of the Qur’ān.

O my beloved teacher, yes, just as the towering subtle elegance and beauty of the flower of the rose turn attention away from the thorns in its bush, so too did this luminous flower erase it completely [from our memories] in a way that causes us to forget the suffering of the prison that went on for nine months.

This luminous flower, that was written in a way that stirs desire whenever it is read that one should read it again, that bewilders minds, has revealed the sublimity of the Qur’ān that necessitates that the whole world be offered up for its sake, by making completely manifest the value of those repetitions, in all of the abundant beauties that it contains - in opposition to the treacherous contempt of others who try to make the Qur’ān appear run-of-the-mill in the eyes of mankind, especially by having it translated.

This poor student of yours has been driven to limitless gratitude and immense happiness by the stern, terrifying and repeated threats to the oppressors in every age in the Qur’ān of Miraculous Exposition (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān), the freshness of which - as if it has just been revealed this very moment - has been demonstrated by the followers’ strict

adherence to it in every age with the utmost firmness, and in their fully observing its commands and prohibitions.

I was also driven to this by its compassionate, kind words repeated to the oppressed, and by its making the oppressors - and especially within its threat directed towards our age - to have spent the last six or seven years wailing and screaming continuously in a quite unparalleled manner, as they are now in an astral hell of this age resembling a sample of the Greatest Terror; and by the fact that students of The Book of Light are at the head of those universal individuals [intended by] those oppressed people; and by its making those students truly to win unto an immense deliverance that is both general and specific, like the deliverance that was granted to the prophets and past communities; and by its revealing the fact that the atheists that constitute its opponents will be slapped with the blows of hellish punishment; and the ‘Flower’ was completed through the appending of two beautiful, elegant notes.

A number of times, I had even said to my brothers, ‘like I told my beloved master, my whole life I have not felt the happiness and gladness that this beautiful flower has conferred on me.’

May Allāh be eternally pleased with you O my beloved master, for you have carried a heavy and immense burden upon your frail and weak shoulders, and may He make you blissful to all eternity by assuaging that burden. Āmīn! Āmīn! Āmīn!

Yes, O my beloved master, we are forever contented with Allāh and His Qur’ān and His illustrious beloved (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), and with The Book of Light, and with you our beloved master and inviter to the Qur’ān. We have no regret about being affiliated to you in any way, regardless of the circumstances. We do not carry in our hearts even an atom’s weight of intention of doing evil in any way.

We desire nothing but Allāh and His good pleasure. As time passes, the longing in our hearts to arrive at The Ḥaqq (Allāhu Ta’āla) - at a time when He is pleased with us - only becomes more concentrated. Wishing good for all with no exception, even for the tyrants that have oppressed us, is one of [the distinctive practices and] bywords of Islām and it has settled in the heart of every one of the Students of Light. We forgive those that have offended us and entrust their cases to Allāh. We thank Allāh with a thanks that is endless and boundless, Who proclaims [the truths of faith], without us wanting it.

Your extremely deficient student,

Husrev

The Eleventh Issue

In The Book of Light, hundreds of exemplars of the illimitable universal and particular fruits of the sacred tree of true faith, like Paradise, endless bliss and the vision of Allāh (ru'yatillāh), have been expounded and established with proofs; therefore, we will refer their exposition to The Lamp of Light (Sirāju’n-Nūr). (50)

Here, then, in the introduction of The Eleventh Issue of The Fruit Epistle, we will not elucidate one of the fruits of the universal articles of true faith, but rather a few specific fruits of particulars and parts [of the articles of true faith].

One of them: One day, I made a prayer the meaning of which was “O Lord, protect me from the evils of jinn and men, by the sacrality and intercession of Jabrā'īl, Isrāfīl and ‘Azrā'īl (‘alayhimussalām).”

When I mentioned the name of ‘Azrā'īl (‘alayhissalām) who fills all with fear and trembling, I felt a state of sweetness and goodness that gave me solace. I said “Alḥamdulillāh” (All praise be to Allāh!). It was then that I began to really love ‘Azrā'īl (‘alayhissalām). We shall make a very short allusion now only to a particular fruit amongst the very numerous of this particular individual’s fruits, part of the article of faith in the Angels.

One of them: The most precious thing that man possesses, which he intensely treasures and protects, is his spirit. I sensed with certitude that delivering it up to a strong, safe hand in order to protect it from being lost, annihilation and futility would provide a deep happiness and joy. I then thought of the angels who record man’s deeds. I reflected and found that they possess their own delectable fruits, just like this fruit.

One of them: With yearning and longing, every human being endeavours to preserve his precious words and actions, in writing, or poetry,

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50. "The Lamp of Light" (Sirāju’n-Nūr) is one of the names of The Book of Light. 

or even cinema, in order to make them last forever. Especially if those deeds have ever-enduring fruits in Paradise he yearns for those ever more.

The recording of Kirāman Kātibīn (the Noble Scribes) who sit on a man’s two shoulders takes place in order to show those [actions] to him in eternal sights, and in order that all who have [those angels] acquire a perpetual recompense delighted me, and I derived a pleasure from it that I cannot explain.

Then, while the [materialist] people of the world [who do not think about the hereafter] isolated me from all affairs of the social life, and separated me from all of my books, friends and servants, and from any activities that provide consolation to me, and as the dreadful loneliness and gloom of being in a strange and foreign land [far away from my home] were equally pressing me [and causing me anxiety] and this trivial, empty world was falling in on me, [all of a sudden] one of the great many fruits of the faith in the angels came to my aid. This caused my world to become delightful. It filled my world with angels and spiritual beings. [This fruit] made my world laugh joyfully and it showed that the worlds of the people of misguidance (ahlu’ḍ-ḍalālah) weep in loneliness, emptiness and darknesses. As my imaginal faculty was being cheered up by the pleasures of this fruit, it picked and tasted a fruit the like of this out of the abundant fruits of faith in the Messengers (‘alayhimussalām). Suddenly, my faith in them and assent to their [truth] illuminated those moments, and it was as if I lived amongst all of the Prophets who dwelt in bygone times. This universalised my faith and expanded it, and placed thousands of signatures upon the creedal-claims of the Prophet of the End of Time, our Master Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām) and silenced the satans.

A question then occurred to my heart which I have given a categorical answer to in the epistle Hikmatu’l-Isti‘ādha (The Wisdom Underlying The Seeking of Refuge). (51) I was asked [a question] proceeding from a spiritual direction “why do the people of misguidance often overcome the people of right-guidance? Indeed, this is so even to the point that twenty of them are sometimes able to harrow a hundred of the people of right-guidance, despite the fact that illimitable fruits and delicious advantages the like of these, and the exceptionally good results and benefits of good actions, and the success granted by the Most Merciful of the merciful, and His surpassingly compassionate favour support them and give them strength.”

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51. This is the Thirteenth Flash.

While I was in the midst of these thoughts, the Qur’ān’s great emphasis against the very weak plots of Satan came to mind, and the fact of His sending a great amount of evidence and angels as well as His victory to the believers. The Book of Light has elucidated the wisdom underlying this by means of conclusive proofs; thus, we will now give [only] a very brief allusion to the answer to that question.

Yes, in some cases due to a single reckless, undercover and destructive man’s attempt to set fire to a palace, hundreds of royal guardians work to protect the palace as if it is an attempt of a hundred people, and in other cases the existence of the palace can only continue by way of having recourse to [and taking refuge in] the state and the king. For it is dependent for its existence upon the existence of all of the conditions, underpinnings and means [of its existence], whereas its nonexistence and its destruction take place through the absence of merely a single of those conditions - and it will burn down merely as a result of the reckless man setting fire to it with a single matchstick, thereby being erased and passing out of existence.

[In the same way], the satans from amongst men and jinn bring about, by means of small actions, huge destruction and ruin, and terrifying spiritual conflagrations. Yes, the nucleus and basis of all sins, transgressions and evils are nonexistence and destruction. Nothingness and corruption are hidden under the apparent presence [of transgressions, sins and evils].

Now you see that the satans from amongst men and jinn, and the evil people - relying upon this fact thereby opposing a limitless power with a power that is extremely weak indeed - compel the people of truth and reality to seek refuge at all times at the court of Allāh, and to flee from them to Him.

This is why the Qur’ān places great emphasis [on seeking refuge] to protect the people of truth and reality from them. It delivers the ninety-nine Divine Names into the hands of the people of truth and reality, issuing moreover, tremendously powerful and emphatic directives so that they be enabled to hold fast and hold out against those enemies. The tip of an immensely sublime reality has suddenly appeared by means of this answer, and the foundation of a tremendous and astonishing matter, namely:

Just as Paradise carries the harvests of all of the worlds of existence, and makes the seeds that have been grown by this world to bear enduring and eternal grain, so too does Hell cause the harvests of nonexistence to

roast, in order to reveal the immensely painful products of the singularly terrifying worlds of nonexistence and nothingness. And amongst its other duties, that terrifying factory of Hell cleans created beings of the world of existence from [different types of] filth of the world of nonexistence. For the time being, we will not open the door of this dreadful matter. It will be elucidated in what is to come, inshā'Allāh (if Allāh wills). Moreover, a portion of the fruits of faith in the angels and an exemplar thereof connected to Munkar and Nakīr (52) lies in the fact below:

I for my part entered - in the imaginal world - my grave, my grave that I will inevitably enter just like all other human beings. And in the grave, while I was feeling distressed at my being absolutely isolated from all things, and overwhelmed by the despair of the grave in that lonely, forlorn, dark, cold, narrow, solitary, individual prison, two blessed friends from Munkar and Nakīr’s group suddenly appeared to me. They began a discussion with me.

My grave began to widen, and my heart to expand, and they became both illuminated, and they were flooded with warmth. Windows onto the world of spirits opened. Upon this delight [spread] throughout the entirety of my heart because of this circumstance that I see now imaginally, and which I will in the future see for real, and I thanked Allāh. And like when a student of sacred knowledge studying Arabic grammar and morphology died, Munkar and Nakīr came to him and said, من ربك ‘who is your Lord,’ and he gave an answer from grammar (nahw), imagining that he was still in the madrasa, saying, من “who” is the subject, and ربك “your Lord” is the predicate. Ask me a difficult question, that’s easy.’

With this answer, he made those two angels laugh as well as the spirits who were present, and he made laugh a saint to whom the circumstances of the inhabitants of the graves are mystically revealed, and who had been witnessing this event there. And he made the Divine mercy to smile. He was thus saved from punishment.

[In the same way], when the late Hāfiz ‘Ali, the martyr hero of The Risāle-i Nūr, passed away during a time in which he had been writing and reading The Fruit Epistle in the prison with perfect ecstatic love, he answered the questions of interrogating angels in his grave with truths from The Fruit [Epistle], just as he had done so in the court. (53)

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52. Munkar and Nakīr are two angels who interrogate the dead in their graves and ask them whether they know their Creator, religion and prophet. If the person was of the believers in the world, s/he would easily answer these questions.

53. As explained in the introduction of the book, this risāla was written during the author's time in the Denizli Prison. Ḥāfiz ‘Ali was one of the senior students of The Risāle-i Nūr. There were two groups of students in different districts of Isparta. The central group was called “The Rose Factory” and Husrev Efendi was the owner of this spiritual factory, that is, the leading figure of the students, and the Archscribe (Serkātib) of "The Rose Factory". The other group of senior students was in the suburbs of Isparta. Ḥāfiz ‘Ali was the leading student in Islāmkoy, Atabey and Kuleonu villages. This group of students was called “The Light Factory” and Ḥāfiz ‘Ali was named as the owner of The Light Factory, that is the leading figure of the students. Ḥāfiz ‘Ali was a tremendously sincere and selfless student of ‘ilm. Interestingly, he responded to all the questions of the judge with the lessons and truths of The Book of Light. He was poisoned and martyred during his time in Denizli Prison. 

In the future, the Students of Light and I really will answer those same questions using the dazzling and powerful proofs of The Book of Light, just as we are now answering [the angels] metaphorically, and we will drive them to assent, appreciation and congratulations, if Allāh wills!

The following, moreover, is a particular exemplar of happiness in this world that comes about by means of faith in the angels:

Just as an innocent child who receives his faith lesson from the science of jurisprudence says to another child who is wailing because of the death of his innocent brother, “don’t cry, you should thank Allāh, your brother has gone to Paradise with the angels and he is roaming about there, and he will enjoy himself there more than we do here, and he will fly about there like the angels, and he will see all the places there” these words transforming the crying of the wailing child into smiling and gladness. I, too, just like this wailing child, have received very distressing news of two deaths this sad winter, and in painful circumstances:

The first of them was the death of my brother’s son Fu'ād, who had attained first place in the top schools, and spread the truths of The Book of Light. The other was my sister known as ‘Ālime Hanım, and who had gone to ḥajj and was performing the ritual circumambulation (ṭawāf) when she was suffered her death throes and passed away in ṭawāf.

While the death of these two relatives of mine was making me weep just as the death of the late ‘Abdurraḥmān, which was mentioned in The Epistle on the Elderly, also made me weep, I saw, [by means of the light of faith] spiritually and in my heart, that innocent Fu'ād and the righteous woman had become friends of the angels and the houris instead of friends of people, and they had been saved from the dangers and trespasses of this world. I felt then sublime happiness instead of that terrible sadness, and I congratulated them, and congratulated my brother ‘Abdulmajīd the father of Fu'ād, and I congratulated myself for this blessing, and I thanked the Most Merciful of the merciful.

This has been written here and recorded with the intention that [people who read these lines] pray for mercy for these two people who have died.

All of the deliberations and comparisons in The Book of Light elucidate the fruits of faith, which is the pivot of the bliss of both this life and that of the hereafter. And those great and universal fruits [of faith] give news

of the bliss of life and pleasure of living even in this world. From this perspective the belief of each believer will win them an endless bliss and even cause that [bliss] to flower and be revealed in accordance with that form [in the hereafter].

At the end of The Thirty-first Word, it was written about five of [faith’s] universal fruits as the fruits of the Mi‘rāj (Ascension), and five of them were written as samples in The Fifth Branch of The Twenty-fourth Word.

At the beginning we said, ‘just as each of the articles of faith have diverse and very numerous and indeed infinite fruits, so too is just a single of its many fruits the whole of Paradise, and the second [of its fruits] is endless happiness, and the third and the sweetest of them is the instance of seeing the Divine (ru'yatillāh - beatific vision). And some of the wonderful fruits of faith causing the bliss of the two realms have been well elucidated within the comparison at the end of The Thirty-second Word.

One of the proofs that the precious fruits of the article of ‘faith in predestination,’ also exist in this world is that the saying مَنْ آمَنَ بِالْقَدَرِ أَمِنَ مِنَ الكَدَرِ (a) is transmitted on the tongues of all like an aphorism; at the end of The Epistle on Destiny, one of its universal fruits has been elucidated by means of an elegantly subtle example, in the simile of the entrance of two men into the magnificent, artful garden of a palace.

Indeed, I have seen and understood from thousands of experiences in my life that without faith in predetermination, the happiness of this life is impaired and perished. Every time I have looked at painful tribulations from the perspective of faith in predetermination, I have seen that the pain of the tribulation becomes much less substantial. And I have found myself astonished and I was wondering how could one be able to live not believing in predestination.

In The Second Station of The Twenty-second Word, one of the universal fruits of the article of faith in the angels has been alluded to in the following way:

Whilst ‘Azrā'īl (‘alayhissalām) was supplicating to Allāh (subḥānahu wa ta‘ālā) once, he said, ‘your servants will be cross with me, resent and complain of me when I am carrying out my duty of the seizure of the spirits.’

By way of answer it was said to him, ‘I will make illnesses and tribulations veils over your duty, so that the complaints of My servants be directed to them and not to you.

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a Whoever believes in predestination is safe from worry. 

Just like other veils, the duty of ‘Azrā'īl (‘alayhissalām) itself is also to be a veil just like other veils, in order that illegitimate complaints not be directed towards Allāh; for the element of wisdom, mercy, beauty and benefit in death cannot be seen by all. People look to its outward aspect and object to it. They begin to complain. This is why ‘Azrā'īl (‘alayhissalām) has been made a veil for the sake of the [underlying] wisdom that those illegitimate complaints not be directed towards the Absolutely Compassionate.

Just in the same way, the vocations of all of the angels and indeed the duties of all apparent causes (asbāb) are veils of the might of Lordship, so that the might (‘izzah) of Divine power and all-encompassing nature of His mercy be safeguarded in matters the beauties of which is not seen and the wisdoms of which are not known, and so that they do not become the object of objections, and so that they do not appear to the superficial glance to be [instances] of Divine power being directed towards contemptible, insignificant, merciless things.

Otherwise The Book of Light has, with illimitable proofs, proven that no causes whatever have real effect, and that in the first place they do not have the capacity to bring anything into existence, and that the seals of Divine unity borne by all things conclusively reveal this to be the case. Creation and origination are uniquely His (subḥānahu wa ta‘ālā). Causes are nothing but veils; there is nothing in the hands of conscious beings like the angels other than a type of service [befitting] their innate dispositions, and a type of practical worship known as partial acquisition - they do not originate anything, despite their partial free choice.

Yes, from the perspective of the intellect, might and sublimity entail that causes (asbāb) veil the hand of Divine power, and Divine unity and singularity require that causes disassociate themselves from having real effect. Thus, just as the angels and the apparent causes that are employed in matters of good and existence safeguard the Lordly power from having any deficiency or oppression [attributed to it] in matters the beauty of which are not seen or known, and [furthermore] constitute the means of the hallowing and glorification of the Divine, likewise does the employment of satans from amongst jinn and mankind and harmful substances in matters of evil and nonexistence also save the power of the Glorified One from having injustice attributed to it, and from illegitimate objections, and from being the object of complaints. In this way do they serve the hallowings and glorifications of the Lord and exonerate and declare Him above any deficiencies existing in the universe.

For all deficiencies spring from nothingness (‘adam), and from an absence of capacity, and from destruction and from duties not being carried out and from actions of nothingness that have no real existence. [One should not forget that] all these things are pertaining to nothingness. These satanic and evil veils are the origin of that deficiency, and accepts objections and complaints being directed towards it, for it is deserving of them; and it becomes thereby a means of the hallowing of Allāh (subḥānahu wa ta‘ālā).

It is already known that there is no need for power and capability when it comes to matters of evil and nonexistence and destruction. For just a little action and a partial force, nay simply not carrying out a duty can at times lead to major instances of nothingness and corruption. Those evil agents are imagined to have capability. In fact, they have absolutely no effect whatsoever except in nothingness, and they have no power whatsoever except for partial acquisition [of their actions]. Since those evil matters come from nothingness, and so those evil ones are the real and genuine agents thereof. Should they have been conscious beings, they will be deservedly punished. Thus, it is those evil creatures that are the agents of evil actions. Whereas it being the case that good deeds and acts of beneficence and righteousness involve actual existence, those who do good deeds cannot be said to be the real agents or effectors thereof, but they rather have the capacity for them. They receive the Divine emanation thereof. Even their being rewarded for them is pure Divine generosity. The Wise Qur’ān announces this meaning in this verse:

مَا أَصَابَكَ مِن حَسَنَةٍ فَمِنَ اللهِ وَمَا أَصَابَكَ مِن سَيِّئَةٍ فَمِن نَّفْسِكَ (a)

The upshot: While the infinite worlds of existence and worlds of nonexistence fight each other and yield fruits the likes of Paradise and Hell, and while all of the worlds of existence say, alḥamdulillāh, alḥamdulillāh (praise be to Allāh, praise be to Allāh) and the worlds of nonexistence say, subḥānAllāh, subḥānAllāh (Allāh is transcendent above deficiencies, glory be to Allāh), and while the angels and the satans contend with one another, as do good actions and bad actions, and while inspiration (ilhām) and satanic whisperings (waswasa) fight over the heart in accordance with an all-embracing law of conflict, all of a sudden one of the fruits of faith in the angels appears. It solves the difficulty, and illuminates the darkened universe. It reveals one of the lights of the verse

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a Whatever of good that betides you is from Allāh, and whatever of evil that betides you is from yourself. (Qur’ān: an-Nisā', 4:79) 

اَللهُ نُورُ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ (a) to us and it makes us to taste the perfect sweetness of this fruit.

The Twenty-fourth Word as well as The Twenty-ninth, which reveal the wonder (karāmah) of alifs, (54) have alluded to another of its universal fruits, and have dazzlingly established the existence and vocation of angels.

Yes, the sublimity of Lordship is compassionate, and it wished to make Itself known and endear Itself in every dimension of the universe, and all things, both particular and universal, and within every species. There can thus be no doubt that it is inevitably necessary and certain that that sublimity and mercy, and that self-introduction and self-endearment [of Allāh] must be met with gratitude and hallowing and with [such an] ‘ubūdiyyah (worshipful servanthood) - that is expansive, all-encompassing performed in full awareness.

Only the endless multitude of angels can carry out that task for the sake of inanimate, unconscious beings and for the immense basic elements of the universe. And only those angels can represent the wise, süblime measures of the kingdom of Lordship all through [the universe], upon the ground and up in the pleiades and within the earth itself.

For example, the dry, unspiritual principles of philosophy show the creation of the earth and the innate circumstance of the world in a very dark and gloomy way, whereas with this fruit they are shown in a form both illuminated and intimate.

[In its depiction] the globe is carried on the shoulders of two angels known as Thawr and Hūt; that is, it is under their observation. And a spiritual matter and a reality known as Sahrat (The Rock) has been brought from Paradise and made the tower of strength for Thawr and Hūt (the Bull and Fish). It is the enduring foundation stone of this transient globe.

[The purpose of this depiction] is as an allusion to the fact that a part of this globe will [one day] be transformed into eternal Paradise. This meaning has been related from some of the past prophets of Banī Isrā'īl (children of Israel). And this is also related by Ibn ‘Abbās (raḍiallāhu anhu).

Unfortunately however, this sacred meaning and this simile has, with the passing of time, taken on a form outside of the sphere of intellect, and because laymen have thought it to be literally true. It being the case that

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a Allāh is the light of the heavens and the earth. (Qur’ān: an-Nūr, 24:35)

54. Risālas were dictated by Imām Nursī to his students at the time of the first phase of the authorship as his handwriting was not amongst his strengths. His students would support him in writing the master copy. After the dictation process was finished, master copies were generally sent to different scribes who had beautiful writing skills. The Epistles (Risāles) were multiplied through writing by hand. The Twenty-ninth Word was similarly multiplied by different people. One of the scribes amazingly wrote this epistle in one night. After finishing the multiplication of the entire epistle, he realised that the letter `alif `s were aligned marvellously and in a harmonious congruence (tawāfuq). Except for a few lines, all 501 lines in 16 pages in his copy of this very risāla (The Twenty-ninth Word) started with Alif - the first letter of lafzatullāh [Arabic]. What was more interesting was the fact that the scribe of the risale did not mean to write the alifs in this fashion, it was not deliberately done nor was it intentional. It just happened this way by the will of Allāh. The Twenty-ninth Word is not the only risāla with extra-ordinary states that amaze people. Many other epistles like the Miracles of Muḥammad (Al-Mu‘jizātu’l-Aḥmadiyya) (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām), The Tenth Word and The Supreme Sign have their own peculiar and wondrous points as well. That is why this is said to be one of the karāmāt (wonders) of The Risāle-i Nūr and this is solely because The Risāle-i Nūr belongs to the Holy Qur’ān. 

angels roam within earth and stone and within the centre of the earth just as they also roam in the air, there can be no doubt that angels need not the physical [bodies of] rock nor fish nor bull on which the globe would stand.

And for example: The globe glorifies the Divine with as many heads as there are existent species and with as many tongues as there are individuals of those species, and with as many faculties as there are organs and leaves and fruits of those individuals; there can thus be no doubt that there exists a custodian angel with forty thousand heads, and upon each head forty thousand tongues, and that glorifies with forty thousand glorifications with every tongue in order to knowingly and consciously represent that unconscious, sublime innate slavehood, and to present it to the Divine presence - the Truthful Herald has given news of this reality.

And the angels exist as the most extraordinary quiddities, like Jabrā'īl (Gabriel) (‘alayhissalām) who heralds and manifests the relationship between mankind who are the most important outcome of the creation of the world and their Lord. Also Isrāfīl and ‘Azrā'īl (‘alayhimassalām) who represent only the Divine measures special to the Creator, exalted is His majesty, of resurrection, revivification and release by death; those matters that are the most momentous and dangerous of all in the world of the living and they supervise them in a state of slavehood. And Mikā'īl (Michael) (‘alayhissalām), who represents the awareness and perception of unconscious species of gratitude that are offered within the sphere of life to the Divine benefactions of mercy in the giving of provision, which is the most all-embracing, expansive and delectable type of mercy - and he supervises this. [What I am saying] is that the existence of the angels as these very extraordinary quiddities, and the eternal existence of the spirits is an entailment of the kingdom of Lordship and of its sublimity.

Their existence and the existence of special groups of each of them is conclusively certain and there can be no doubt about it, [as certain] as the existence of the Divine kingdom and the sublimity that are witnessed in the universe just as the sun [is witnessed]. Draw your own analogous conclusions about other spiritual realities relating to angels.

Yes, the Almighty, Possessor of Majesty and Beauty, Who created four hundred thousand species of living creatures on the earth, the One, indeed, Who creates even from the very simplest, putrescible materials a great abundance of spirit-endowed beings, and Who made them to

joyfully inhabit the entire world, and made them to say in their languages, before the miracles of His artistry, Māshā'Allāh, BārakAllāh, SubḥānAllāh; Who made those little animals to say, Alḥamdulillāh, Wa’sh-shukru-l’illāh and Allāhu Akbar before the benefactions of His mercy; there can be no doubt whatsoever that He created inhabitants and spirits appropriate and befitting to the vast heavens, observant in their servanthood, and that do not disobey Him and He populated the heavens by means of them, leaving no space empty.

He brought into existence a much greater diversity of species of angels than that of the different groups of animals, such that some of them are tiny indeed, and ride upon the droplets of rain and snow, and applaud the Divine artistry and mercy in their own special languages. Some of them ride upon the stars and, as they journey in space, proclaim to the world their slavehood, by means of tahlīl and takbīr directed towards the sublimity and might and majesty of Lordship.

Yes, the agreement since the time of Ādam of all of the heavenly scriptures and religions concerning the existence of angels and their worshipful servanthood, and their transmitting and relating, through numerous unanimous testimonies, the occurrence of discussions and conversations that took place between angels and human beings in every age, surely conclusively demonstrates the existence of angels and their relationship to us, just like [we know] the existence of the inhabitants of America that we have not [ourselves] seen.

Come now thus and with the light of faith gaze upon this second universal fruit, and taste it. [Understand how] it populates the universe from end to end, and beautifies it, and transforms it into the supreme mosque and into a vast place of worship. And it makes the people of faith taste even in this world the flavour of one of the manifestations of eternal life - each in proportionate to their levels of faith - by way of presenting a living, conscious, illuminated, intimate, sweet universe against the cold, lifeless, darkened, terrifying universe presented by [modern] philosophy and science.

Conclusion: Just as the [Divine] power itself, the name itself, the wisdom itself and the artistry itself exist all throughout the universe by the secret of oneness (waḥdah) and of singularity (aḥadiyah), the unity (waḥdah), free disposal (taṣarruf), existentiation (ījād) Lordship (rubūbiyah), creatorhood (khallāqiyāt) and holiness (qudsiyat) of the Creator are proclaimed in

the language of the state of every particular and universal created being, in the same way, He creates angels in every place and make them to engage in their own languages, in servanthood, in the litanies glorifying [the Divine] that every single creature engages in, subconsciously, in the language of their own state.

Angels have no disobedient actions in any way against a command. They do not create anything [and they do not have anything] whatsoever other than pure worshipful servanthood, nor are they able to intervene [in anything] without having been commanded [to do so] - indeed, that cannot even intercede [for anyone] without permission; they have truly won unto the secret of عِبَادٌ مُكْرَمُونَ (a) and يَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ . (b)

A section of the letter from Husrev, the hero of The Book of Light,

in connection with The Eleventh Issue of The Fruit [Epistle]

بِاسْمِهِ سُبْحَانَهُ (c)

وَإِن مِّن شَيْءٍ إِلاَّ يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ (d)

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته أبدًا دائمًا (e)

O our very blessed, very precious and very beloved teacher and master,

The Fruit - in its nine ‘issues’ - comprising as it does sublime beauties and benefits for the nation and the country, has not sufficed itself with merely being a means, in a most astonishing form, of the salvation of its students in a terrifying time and amongst terrible rebelling sinners and bitter enemies, [but it has also] celebrated and applauded its students,

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a they are honoured servants

b they do what they are commanded

c In His Name, may He be glorified!

d There is nothing but that it glorifies with His praise. (Qur’ān: al-Isrā', 44)

e Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of Allāh, always and forever. 

particularly with its tenth and eleventh issue, and especially for the Students of Light who journey upon the roads of the truth.

It has transformed the terrors of the grave, that real place to which the Students of Light will all go, and it has made dialogue and companionship with angels beloved to them, who they will see and converse with under the earth, a place that provokes fear in all people, a tremendously alarming and frightening place, a singularly painful and calamitous place especially for the heedless. Yet, it has made them feel more of an intimate [connection] with that place than ever before, and it has thereby wiped away our extreme fears concerning that alarming place, the first of the stopping places of the Hereafter; it has helped us breathe a sigh of relief.

It has particularly become like an electric lamp, the rays of which extend the distance of hundreds of thousands of years, [carried] in the hands of even those who like myself are unable to see the life of that luminous world [without it]; it has further become an exemplary garden of flowers the fragrance of which can ever be smelt.

Yes, we submit to our beloved master’s appraisal that we continually present the spiritual emanations of The [Book of] Light that we have received to his presence, like a student who reads his lesson to his teacher every day, though it be that our beloved master has temporarily ceased their speaking.

O esteemed master of ours!

The reality of The Book of Light, and the beauty of the Fruit, and the spiritual emanation of its flower have made me speak a few words in gratitude on behalf of my city. And it has refreshed many hearts speaking like me. Now the steps advancing towards The Book of Light, and the hands stretched out towards it in our area, have acquired through the eleventh flower of The Fruit, more toughness than ever before; The Book of Light has spread, and its activities have commenced.

Your extremely deficient student,

Husrev