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("And believing, I declare:" içeriğiyle yeni sayfa oluşturdu) |
("And since through the comprehensiveness of his essential nature he was the most perfect locus for the manifestation of all the divine names;" içeriğiyle yeni sayfa oluşturdu) |
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(Aynı kullanıcının aradaki diğer 32 değişikliği gösterilmiyor) | |||
298. satır: | 298. satır: | ||
'''In Short:'''All that rises to the divine court from the universe is a supplication. Those things that are causes seek the effects from God. | '''In Short:'''All that rises to the divine court from the universe is a supplication. Those things that are causes seek the effects from God. | ||
'''The Third Sort of Supplication:'''This is the supplication of conscious beings, which arises from need. It is of two kinds: | |||
''' | |||
If it is made at a time of desperate need, or is completely conformable with innate need, or if it is close to the tongue of latent ability, or is made with the tongue of a pure, sincere heart, this supplication is virtually always acceptable. The greater part of human progress and most discoveries are the result of this sort of supplication. For the things they call the wonders of civilization and the matters and discoveries they take pride in are the result of what is in effect supplication. They were asked for with a sincere tongue of latent ability and so were given. So long as there is nothing preventing them and they are conformable with conditions, supplications made through the tongues of latent ability and innate need are always acceptable. | |||
'''The Second Kind:'''This is the well-known supplication and it too is of two kinds. One is by action and the other by word. For example, ploughing is supplication by action. It is not seeking the sustenance from the earth; the earth is a door to a treasury of mercy, and the plough knocks on the earth, the door to divine mercy. | |||
We shall skip details of the remaining sorts, and explain in the following two or three points one or two of the secrets of supplication by word. | |||
< | <span id="İKİNCİ_NÜKTE"></span> | ||
=== | ===Second Point=== | ||
Supplication has a powerful effect. It almost always yields results, indeed, its results are continuous, especially if it gains universality and is constant. It may even be said that supplication was one of the reasons for the world’s creation. That is to say, the supplications of chiefly mankind, and of them principally the Islamic world, and mainly the sublime supplications of Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace) were a cause of the universe’s creation. That is to say, the Creator of the World knew that in the future Muhammad (UWBP) would ask for eternal happiness and for a manifestation of the divine names in the name of mankind, indeed, on account of all beings, and He accepted that future supplicaton and created the universe. | |||
Since supplication possesses this great importance and capacity, is it at all possible that the supplications offered all the time for one thousand | |||
three hundred and fifty years by three hundred million of mankind and by uncountable numbers of blessed beings from among men, jinn, angels, and spirit beings for the bestowal of suprem divine mercy and eternal happiness on the Person of Muhammad (UWBP), and for the accomplishment of their aims would not be accepted? Is it in any way possible that their supplications would be rejected? | |||
Since all these supplications have acquired universality, extensiveness, and continuousness to this extent and have reached the level of the tongues of latent ability and innate need, for sure, as a result of them, Muhammad the Arabian (UWBP) has achieved such a rank and degree that if all minds were to gather together and become one mind, it could not completely comprehend it. | |||
O Muslims! This is the intercessor you shall have on the Day of Resurrection! So if you want to attract his intercession, follow his practices (sunna)! | |||
'''If you ask:'''Since he is God’s Beloved, what need does he have of all these blessings and supplications? | |||
''' | |||
'''The Answer:'''This Being (UWBP) is concerned with the happiness of all his community and shares in the good fortune of each of its members. So too, he is disturbed by all their tribulations. For sure, the degrees of his own happiness and perfection are endless, but since he desires ardently the numberless kinds of happiness for the numberless members of his community for an unlimited time, and is saddened at the numberless kinds of their wretchedness, he is surely worthy of and needy for endless blessings and supplications and mercy. | |||
''' | |||
'''If you ask:'''Sometimes supplications are offered for things that are definite; for example, the supplications in the prayers offered during lunar and solar eclipses. Also, sometimes supplications are made for things that will never come about. What does this mean? | |||
''' | |||
'''The Answer:'''As is explained in others of the Words, supplication is worship. By means of it, God’s servant proclaims his powerlessness and want. The apparent purposes mark the times of the supplication and the supplicatory worship; they are not really the purpose. The purpose of worship and its benefits look to the hereafter. If its worldly aims are not obtained, it should not be said that the supplication was not accepted, but that the time for it has not yet ended. | |||
''' | |||
Also, is it at all possible that eternal happiness, which all the believers have asked for at all times, continuously, with complete sincerity and yearning and entreaty, should not be given to them, and that the Absolutely Generous One, the Absolutely Compassionate One, who according to the testimony of the universe possesses boundless mercy, should not accept their supplications and that eternal happiness should not exist? | |||
< | <span id="ÜÇÜNCÜ_NÜKTE"></span> | ||
=== | ===Third Point=== | ||
There are two ways in which voluntary supplication by word is acceptable. It is either accepted exactly as desired or what is better is granted. | |||
For example, someone asks for a son and Almighty God bestows a daughter like Mary. One should not say that his supplication was not accepted, but that it was accepted in a better way.Also, sometimes a person makes supplication for his happiness in this world and it is accepted for the hereafter. One should not say that his supplication was rejected, but that it was accepted in a better form. | |||
Similarly, Almighty God is All-Wise; we seek from Him and He responds to us. But He deals with us in accordance with His wisdom. A sick person should not cast aspersions on his doctor’s wisdom. If he asks for | |||
honey and the expert doctor gives him quinine, he should not say: “The doctor didn’t listen to me.” For the doctor listened to his sighs and moans; he heard them and responded to them. He prescribed something better than what was asked for. | |||
< | <span id="DÖRDÜNCÜ_NÜKTE"></span> | ||
=== | ===Fourth Point=== | ||
The best, finest, sweetest, most immediate fruit and result of supplication is this, that the person who offers it knows there is someone who listens to his voice, sends a remedy for his ailment, takes pity on him, and whose hand of power reaches everything. He is not alone in this great hostel of the world; there is an All-Generous Being who looks after him and makes it friendly. Imagining himself in the presence of the One who can bring about all his needs and repulse all his innumerable enemies, he feels a joy and relief; he casts off his load, which is as heavy as the world, and exclaims: “All praise be to God, the Lord and Sustainer of All the Worlds!” | |||
< | <span id="BEŞİNCİ_NÜKTE"></span> | ||
=== | ===Fifth Point=== | ||
Supplication is the spirit of worship and results from sincere belief. For the person who makes supplication shows that there is someone who rules the whole universe, saying: “He knows the least significant things about me, can bring about my farthest aims; who sees every circumstance of mine, and hears my voice. He hears the voices of all beings, and He hears my voice too. He does all these things, so I await my smallest needs from Him too. I ask Him for them!” | |||
< | See the extensive, sincere belief in God’s unity that supplication gives, and the sweetness and purity of the light of belief that it shows! Under stand the meaning of the verse,Say, No importance would your Sustainer attach to you were it not for your supplication;(25:77) | ||
listen to the decree of,And your Sustainer says: Call on Me; I shall answer you.(40:60)As the saying goes: “If I had not wanted to give, I would not have given wanting.”(*<ref>*See, Abu Nu’aym, Hilyat al-Awliya’, iii, 263.</ref>) | |||
</ | |||
Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All Wise!(2:32) | |||
O God, grant blessings to our master Muhammad from pre-eternity to post- eternity, to the number of things present in divine knowledge, and to his Family and Companions, grant them peace; and preserve us from harm, and preserve our religion. Amen. | |||
And all praise be to God, the Sustainer of All the Worlds. | |||
< | <span id="Yirmi_Dördüncü_Mektup’un_İkinci_Zeyli"></span> | ||
== | ==The Second Addendum to the Twenty-Fourth Letter== | ||
[This is about the Ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (UWBP)] | |||
In His Name!And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.(17:44) | |||
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. | |||
For, indeed, he saw him at a second descent; * Near the Lote-tree of the farthest limit; * Near it is to the Garden of Abode. * Behold, the Lote-tree was shrouded in mystery unspeakable! * [His] eye did not waver, nor yet did it stray; * Truly did he see some of the most profound of his Sustainer’s signs.(53:13-18) | |||
< | [We shall explain in five points, the section on the Ascension in the Mevlid of the Prophet (UWBP).(*<ref>*A Mevlid is a recitation by special singers of the long poem about the Prophet Muhammad (UWBP) | ||
written by Süleyman Çelebi, who died in Bursa 780/1378.</ref>)] | |||
</ | |||
< | <span id="Birinci_Nükte"></span> | ||
=== | ===First Point=== | ||
Süleyman Efendi, in the Mevlid which he wrote, recounts a sad love story about Buraq, which was brought from Paradise. Since Süleyman Efendi was one of the saints and the story is based on narrations, it must surely express a truth. | |||
The truth of the matter must be this: the creatures of the Eternal Realm are closely connected with the light of God’s Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace). For it is through the light that he brought that Paradise and the world of the hereafter will be inhabited by mankind and the jinn. If it had not been for him, there would have been no eternal happiness, and mankind and the jinn, who have the ability to benefit from all the creatures of Paradise, would not have dwelt there; in that sense it would have remained empty, a wasteland. | |||
As is explained in the Fourth Branch of the Twenty-Fourth Word, a sort of nightingale has been chosen from each of the animal species to proclaim the intense need of the species – and passion even – for the caravans of plant species which, proceeding from the treasury of mercy, bear their provisions. The chief of these are the nightingale and the rose. The songs of these dominical orators, and the love-song of the nightingale for the rose, are a welcoming, an applause, glorifying God, before the most beautiful of the plants. | |||
Similarly, Gabriel (Upon whom be peace), one of the angels, served with perfect love Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who was the reason for the creation of the spheres, the cause of happiness in this world and the next, and the beloved of the Sustainer of All the Worlds. He thus demonstrated the obedience and submission of the angels to Adam (Upon whom be peace) and the reason for their prostrating before him. Similarly, the people of Paradise – and some of its animals even – feel a connection with Muhammad (UWBP), and this found expression in the passionate feelings of Buraq, whom he mounted. | |||
< | <span id="İkinci_Nükte"></span> | ||
=== | ===Second Point=== | ||
One of the adventures during the Ascension concerned Almighty God’s transcendent love for His Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace), which was expressed by the phrase: “I am your lover.” In its common meaning, such words are inappropriate for the Necessarily Existent One’s holiness and His essential self-sufficiency. Süleyman Efendi’s Mevlid has enjoyed great popularity; it may be understood from this that, as one of the people of sainthood and reality, his allusion is correct. Its meaning is this: | |||
The Necessarily Existent One possesses infinite beauty and perfection, for all the varieties of them dispersed through the universe are the signs and indications of His beauty and perfection. | |||
Those who possess beauty and perfection clearly love them. Similarly, the All-Glorious One greatly loves His beauty, and He loves it in a way that befits Himself. Furthermore, He loves His names, which are the rays of His beauty, and since He loves them, He surely loves His art, which displays their beauty. In which case, He also loves His creatures, which are mirrors reflecting His beauty and perfection. Since He loves the creatures that display them, He certainly loves the creatures’ fine qualities, which point to the beauty and perfection of His names. The All-Wise Qur’an alludes to these five sorts of love with its verses. | |||
Thus, since the Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) was the most perfect of creatures and the most excellent of beings; | |||
And since he displayed and applauded divine art with a clamour of glorification and recitation of God’s names; | |||
And since he opened through the tongue of the Qur’an the treasuries of beauty and perfection found in the names; | |||
And since, through the tongue of the Qur’an he expounded brilliantly and compellingly the evidences for the Maker’s perfection in the creational signs of the universe; | |||
And since through his universal worship he acted as a mirror to divine dominicality; | |||
And since through the comprehensiveness of his essential nature he was the most perfect locus for the manifestation of all the divine names; | |||
It surely may be said that since the All-Beauteous One of Glory loves His own beauty, He loves Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace), the most perfectly conscious mirror to His beauty. | |||
And since He loves His names, He loves Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who was the most brilliant mirror to the names, and He loves those who, according to their degree, resemble him. | |||
And since He loves His art, He certainly loves Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who proclaimed His art to the universe in reverberating voice, making it ring in the ears of the heavens, and who with a tumult of glorification and recitation of the divine praises, brought to ecstasy the land and the sea; and He loves too those who follow him. | |||
And since He loves His artefacts, He loves living beings, the most perfect of His artefacts, and intelligent beings, the most perfect of living beings, and human beings, the most superior of intelligent beings, and He surely loves most of all Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who as is agreed by all was the most perfect of human beings. | |||
And since He loves the moral virtues of His creatures, He loves Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace), whose moral qualities were at the very highest degree, as is agreed unanimously, and He loves too those who, as far as they can, resemble him. This means that like His mercy, Almighty God’s love encompasses the universe. | |||
Thus, it was because among all those innumerable beloveds, the ultimate degree in every respect of the above-mentioned five aspects was unique to Muhammad the Arabian (Upon whom be blessings and peace) that he was given the name of God’s Beloved. | |||
This was the reason Süleyman Efendi expressed this highest rank of being God’s beloved with the words: “I am your lover.” The expression is meant to provoke thought; it is a distant allusion to this truth. Nevertheless,since it conjures up associations unfitting to the attributes of dominicality, it is best to say instead: “I am pleased with you.” | |||
< | <span id="Üçüncü_Nükte"></span> | ||
=== | ===Third Point=== | ||
The adventures of the Ascension cannot express those sacred, transcendent truths through allusions that we understand. Its exchanges are like observation posts, means to reflective thought, indications of profound and elevated truths, reminders for some of the truths of faith, and allusions to inexpressible meanings. They are not adventures in the sense that we know. We cannot reach those truths through our imaginations; we rather feel a pleasurable excitement in our hearts through our faith, a luminous joy of the spirit. | |||
For just as Almighty God has no like or match or peer in His essence and attributes, so He has no like in His dominicality and its qualities. Nor does His love resemble the love of creatures, or His attributes resemble theirs. So, holding such expressions to be metaphors, we say this: In a manner that befits His necessary existence and holiness and in a form | |||
appropriate to His essential self-sufficiency and absolute perfection, the Necessarily Existent One possesses certain qualities, like love, which are recalled through the adventures in the section of the Mevlid about the Ascension. The Thirty-First Word about the Prophet’s Ascension explains and expounds its reality in the context of the principles of belief. Deeming that to be sufficient, we leave the present discussion at this. | |||
< | <span id="Dördüncü_Nükte"></span> | ||
=== | ===Fourth Point=== | ||
< | The words, “He saw Almighty God beyond seventy thousand veils”(*<ref>*See, al-Qastalani, al-Mawahib al-Ladunniya (Sharh: al-Zarghani), vi, 93-100.</ref>)express distance, whereas the Necessarily Existent One is free of space; He is closer to everything than anything else. What does this mean? | ||
</ | |||
'''The Answer:'''This truth has been explained in detail and with proofs in the Thirty-First Word, so here we only say this: | |||
''' | |||
Almighty God is utterly near to us, but we are utterly distant from Him. The sun is near to us through the mirror we are holding, and all transparent objects on the earth are a sort of throne for it and a sort of dwelling. If the sun had consciousness, it would converse with us by means of our mirror, despite our being four thousand years distant from it. Without drawing any comparisons, we can say that the Pre-Eternal Sun is closer to everything than anything else, for He is the Necessarily Existent, he is free of space; nothing at all can be a veil to Him. But everything is infinitely distant from Him. | |||
This is the mystery underlying the long distance of the Ascension on the one hand, and the absence of distance expressed by, “And We are closer to him than his jugular vein,”(50:16) on the other. God’s Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) made the Ascension and traversed a vast distance, yet he returned in a single instant. The Ascension was his spiritual journeying, an expression of his sainthood. For through their spiritual journeying from forty days to forty years, the saints advance to the degree of “absolute certainty” among the degrees of faith. | |||
Similarly, God’s Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace), the lord of all the saints, opened up a mighty highway with his Ascension, which lasting forty minutes rather than forty years, was the supreme wonder of sainthood, and which he made not only with his heart and spirit, but also with his body and his senses and his subtle faculties. He rose to the ultimate degrees of the truths of faith. He mounted by the steps of the Ascension to the divine throne, and at the station of “the distance of two bow-lengths” witnessed with his own eyes with the vision of certainty belief in God and belief in the hereafter, the principal truths of faith; he entered Paradise and saw eternal happiness. Then he left open the highway he had disclosed through the door of the Ascension, and all the saints of his communit y travel on their spiritual journeyings under its shadow, with the spirit and heart, in accordance with their degrees. | |||
< | <span id="Beşinci_Nükte"></span> | ||
=== | ===Fifth Point=== | ||
The recitation of the Prophet’s (UWBP) Mevlid and its section about his Ascension is a fine, beneficial custom and admirable Islamic practice. It strengthens in a pleasant, shining, and agreeable way the fellowship of Islamic social life; it is gratifying and pleasurable instruction in the truths of faith; and is an effective and stimulating way of depicting and encouraging the lights of belief, and love of God, and love for the Prophet (UWBP). | |||
Mevlid | |||
May Almighty God cause this custom to continue to eternity, and may He grant mercy to the writers of Mevlids like Süleyman Efendi, and a place in Paradise. Amen. | |||
< | <span id="Hâtime"></span> | ||
== | ==Conclusion== | ||
Since the Creator of the universe created in every species an outstanding individual, including in it all the species’ perfections and making it the pride of the species, He would surely create – through the manifestation of His Greatest Name – an individual who within the universe would be exceptional and perfect. Just as among His names there is a Greatest Name, so among His creatures there should be a pre-eminent individual in whom He would bring together all the perfections dispersed through the universe, and through whom He would draw gazes upon Himself. | |||
Such an individual would surely be from among living creatures, for among the species and realms of beings in the universe, the most perfect are living beings. And among the animate species, the individual would be an intelligent being, for among living beings the most perfect are those with intelligence. And certainly, that exceptional individual would be a human being, for among intelligent beings, the one capable of endless progress is man. And among men, that individual would be Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace). For no era in history, from the time of Adam to the present, has produced his like, and cannot and will not produce such a one. | |||
For taking half the globe of the earth and a fifth of mankind under his spiritual rule, he has perpetuated it magisterially for one thousand three hundred and fifty years, and for all who seek perfection has become a universal master in ever y sort of truth and reality. As agreed by friend and foe alike, he possessed moral qualities of the very highest order. At the start of his mission, he challenged the whole world singlehanded. The person who brought the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition, which is constantly recited by more than a hundred million men, is surely that excellent individual; it could be no one else. He is both the seed, and the fruit, of this world. | |||
Blessings and peace be upon him to the number of the species of the universe and all their beings! | |||
You may understand then what a pleasurable, honourable, luminous, joyful, auspicious, and elevated religious entertainment it is for believers to listen to the Mevlid and Ascension of that Being whom they look on as their chief, master, leader, and intercessor; that is, to hear about the beginning and end of his progress; that is, to learn the story of his spiritual life. | |||
O our Sustainer! In veneration of Your Most Noble Beloved (Upon whom be blessings and peace) and for the sake of Your Greatest Name, make the hearts of those who publish this treatise, and those of their companions, manifest the lights of belief, and make their pens disseminate the mysteries of the Qur’an, and set them on the Straight Path! Amen. | |||
Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise!(2:32) | |||
The Eternal One, He is the Eternal One! | |||
'''Said Nursî''' | '''Said Nursî''' | ||
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<center> [[Yirmi Üçüncü Mektup]] ⇐ | [[Mektubat]] | ⇒ [[Yirmi Beşinci Mektup]] </center> | <center> [[Yirmi Üçüncü Mektup/en|The Twenty-Third Letter]] ⇐ | [[Mektubat/en|The Letters]] | ⇒ [[Yirmi Beşinci Mektup/en|The Twenty-Fifth Letter ]] </center> | ||
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