On Sekizinci Mektup/en

In His Name, be He glorified!

And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.(17:44)

[This letter consists of three important matters.]

FIRST IMPORTANT MATTER

Famous saints like Muhyi’l-Din al-‘Arabi (May his mystery be sanctified), the author of al-Futuhat al-Makkiya, and Sayyid ‘Abd al-Karim (May his mystery be sanctified), the author of a well-known book entitled al-Insan al-Kamil,(*)speak of the seven levels of the globe of the earth and the white earth beyond the Kaf mountain, and strange things which in Futuhat are called “mashmashiya.” Are these true? But these places do not exist on the earth. Furthermore, the things that they say are not accepted by geography and science. And if they are not true, how can they be saints? How can people who say things contrary to reality and the truth in this way be people of reality?

The Answer:They were the people of truth and reality. They were also saints and experienced direct vision of the realities. They saw correctly what they saw, but since they were not correct in declarations they made while in the state of illumination and witnessing, which is without comprehension, and in their interpretations of their visions, which were like dreams, they were partially incorrect. People of unveiling and direct vision of that sort cannot interpret their own visions while in such a state, just as a person cannot interpret his own dream while dreaming it. Those who can interpret them are the exact scholars of the legacy of prophethood, called “the purified ones.” For sure, when they rise to the rank of the purified ones, the people of direct vision belonging to that group understand their errors through the guidance of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s (UWBP) practices, and they correct them; and they did correct them.

Listen to this story which is the form of a comparison and will illustrate this truth. It is like this:

One time, there were two shepherds who were from among those who approach reality with their hearts. They milked their sheep into a wooden pail and put the pail beside them. They laid their shepherd’s pipe on the pail, then one of them stretched out, overcome by sleep. He slept for a while. The other shepherd was watching him carefully when he saw something like a fly emerge from the sleeping man’s nose, look at the pail of milk, enter the pipe at one end, emerge from the other, then disappear into a hole under a bush. Some while later the thing emerged again, passed down the shepherd’s pipe, entered the sleeping man’s nose, whereupon he awoke. He exclaimed: “I had an extraordinary dream!” His friend replied: “May God make good come of it. What was it?” The other man said: “I saw a sea of milk stretching over which was a strange bridge. The upper part of the bridge was closed and contained windows. I passed through the bridge. I saw a grove of oaks, the tops of which were all pointed. Beneath them was a cave; I entered it, and I saw some treasure full of gold. How can this be interpreted, I wonder?”

His alert friend said to him: “The sea of milk you saw was this wooden pail, and the bridge, our shepherd’s pipe. The pointed oak trees were this bush, while the cave was this small hole. Get the pickaxe and I’ll show you the treasure.” He brought the pick and they dug under the bush, and there they found gold enough to make them both prosperous in this world.

Thus, what the sleeping man dreamt was right, and what he saw, correct, but because he had no comprehension while dreaming and no right to interpret the dream, he could not distinguish between the physical world and the non-material world and his assertions were partially wrong; he said: “I saw an actual physical sea.” But since the man who was awake could distinguish between the physical world and the World of Similitudes, he had the right to interpret the dream; he said: “What you saw in the dream was right, but it wasn’t an actual sea; our milk pail appeared to your imagination as a sea, and our pipe as a bridge, and so on.”

This means the physical and spiritual worlds have to be distinguished from one another. If they are combined, assertions about them appear wrong.For example, you have a small room the four walls of which have been covered with four large mirrors. When you enter it, you see the small room to be as broad as a large arena. If you say, “My room appears to be as large as a broad arena,” what you say is correct. But if you assert, “My room is as large as a broad arena,” you would be wrong, for you are confusing the World of Similitudes with the actual world.

Thus, having failed to weigh them on the balances of the Book and Sunna, the descriptions of the seven levels of the globe made by certain people of unveiling do not refer only to its physical state from the point of view of geography. For instance, they said that one of the earth’s levels is that inhabited by the jinns and demons, and that it has a breadth of thousands of years. But those strange levels are not found on our globe, which makes its circuit every one or two years. However, if we suppose the globe to be like a pine-seed in the World of Meaning, the World of Similitudes, the Intermediate Realm, and the World of Spirits, the similitude of the tree formed from it would be like a huge pine-tree in relation to the seed. Thus, in the course of their spiritual journeyings, some of the people of direct vision have observed that some of the earth’s levels in the World of Similitudes are extremely extensive and that they stretch over a distance of thousands of years.

What they saw was right, but because superficially the World of Similitudes resembles the physical world, they saw the two worlds blended together, and interpreted them thus. When they returned to the world of sobriety, since they lacked balance, and since they wrote exactly what they witnessed, it has been thought to be contrary to reality.Like the similitudes of a large palace and large garden may be found in a small mirror, so similitudes and non-material realities as extensive as thousands of years may be situated in a single year’s distance in the physical world.

Conclusion: It is understood from this matter that the degree of direct vision is far inferior to that of belief in the Unseen. That is to say, the uncomprehending disclosures of some of the saints relying only on direct vision do not attain to the statements about the truths of faith made by the purified and exact scholars, who are the people of the legacy of prophethood and who rely on the Qur’an and Revelation, not on direct vision – their statements that are about the Unseen but are lucid, comprehensive, and right.

That is to say, the balance of all illuminations, mental states, visions, and unveilings are the Book and Sunna, and their touchstone are the sacred principles of the Book and Sunna, and the conjectural laws of the purified and exacting scholars.

SECOND IMPORTANT MATTER

Question:The Unity of Existence is considered by many people to be the most elevated station, but there was no explicit sign of it among the Companions and foremost the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs, who were at the level of the greatest sainthood, or among the Imams of the Prophet’s Family and foremost the five People of the Cloak, or the great interpreters of the law and the generation following the Companions and foremost the founders of the four schools of law. So did those who lived later advance further than them? Did they find a better highway on which to proceed?

The Answer: God forbid! Nobody at all has the ability to advance further than those purified ones who were the stars and heirs closest to the Sun of Prophethood; the highway is indeed theirs.

As for the Unity of Existence, it is a way and a state, but it is deficient. However, because it is illuminating and pleasurable, most of those who have reached that degree on their spiritual journeyings have not wanted to leave it; they have remained there and supposed it to be the ultimate degree.

If the spirit of the person who takes this way is divested of materiality and intermediaries and he has rent the veil of causes, and is immersed in a state of witnessing, then an experiential – not pertaining to knowledge – unity of existence that arises not from the Unity of Existence but from the Unity of Witnessing, may obtain for him a certain attainment, a spiritual station. He may even reach the degree of denying the universe for God’s sake.

But if he is submerged in causes and preoccupied with materiality, for him, the Unity of Existence may mean going so far as denying God on account of the universe.

Yes,the great highway is the highway of the Companions, and those that followed them, and the Purified Ones. Their universal rule was, “the reality of things is constant.”(*)In accordance with the sense of “There is nothing that resembles Him,”(42:11) Almighty God has absolutely nothing that resembles Him. He is utterly beyond being comprehended in place or class and being divided into parts. His relation with beings is creativity. Beings are not imaginings or fancies as those who followed the way of the Unity of Existence said. Visible things too are Almight y God’s works. Everything is not “Him,” everything is “from Him.” For events cannot be pre-eternal. We shall make this matter easier to understand with two comparisons:

The First: For example, there is a king. Through his name of Just Judge he has a Ministry of Justice which shows the manifestation of that name. Another of his names is Khalifa, and the Shaikh al-Islam’s Office and learned institution are the manifestations of that name. He has also the name of Commander-in-Chief, through which all the offices of the army perform their actions; the army is the manifestation of that name.

Now, if someone were to appear and say: “The king is only the Just Judge, he has no office or ministry other than that of justice,” then the attributes and states of the religious scholars in the Shaykh al-Islam’s Office would have to be applied – not actually but theoretically – to the officials of the Ministry of Justice; a secondary and shadowy Shaykh al-Islam’s Office would have an imaginary existence within the actual Ministry of Justice. Again in hypothetical fashion, the dealings and states of the Army Office would be ascribed to the officials of the Judiciary, an unreal Army Office would be imagined there, and so on. In this situation, the king’s true name is the name of Just Judge and his true sovereignty is his sovereignty in the Ministry of Justice. His names like Khalifa, Commander-in-Chief, and Sultan are not actual but hypothetical. However, the nature of kingship and reality of sovereignt y demand all the names in actuality. And actual names require and necessitate actual offices.

Thus, the sovereignty of divinity necessitates in actuality numerous sacred names like All-Merciful, Provider, Bestower, Creator, Doer, Munificent, and Compassionate. And those true and actual names require actual mirrors. Now, since the followers of the Unity of Existence say: “There is no existent but He,” they downgrade the reality of beings to the level of imagination. Almighty God’s names of Necessary Existent, Existent, One, and Single have true manifestations and spheres of application. For sure, if their mirrors and spheres of application were not real and were imaginary and non-existent, it would not harm them. And perhaps if there were no colour of existence in the mirror of true existence, they would be purer and more brilliant, but the manifestations of such names as Merciful, Provider, Subduer, Compeller, and Creator would not be real, they would be hypothetical. However, those names are realities like the name of Existent, they cannot be shadows; they are essential, not secondary.

Thus, the Companions and great interpreters of the law and Imams of the Family of the Prophet said: “The reality of things is constant;” Almighty God has a manifestation through all His names in actuality. Through His creativity, all things have an accidental existence. For sure, in relation to the Necessarily Existent’s existence their existence is an extremely weak and unstable shadow, but it is not imagination, it is not fancy. Almighty God gives existence through His name of Creator and He continues that existence.

Second Comparison: For example, on the four walls of this house are four full-length mirrors. However much the house is depicted together with the other three mirrors in all the mirrors, each holds the things in itself in accordance with its own make-up and colour; it reflects a similitude of the house that is particular to itself.

Now, two men enter the house. One of them looks at one of the mirrors and says: “Everything is within it.” When he hears of the other mirrors and the images in them, he applies what he hears to a tiny corner of the one mirror whose contents are shadows twice over, and whose reality has shrunk and has changed. He also says: “I see it thus, in which case reality is thus.”

The other man says to him, “Yes, you see it like that and what you see is true. But in actuality and reality the true form of reality is not like that. There are other mirrors besides the one you looked at; they are not the shadow of shadows and as tiny as you saw.”

Thus, each of the divine names requires a different mirror. And, since Merciful and Provider, for example, are real and fundamental, they require beings worthy of them who are needy for sustenance and compassion. Just as All-Merciful requires real beings with spirits needy for sustenance in a real world, so too, All-Compassionate requires a paradise which is thus real. To maintain that only the names of Existent, Necessarily Existent, and Single One of Unity are real and that the other names are mere shadows within them, is a sort of injustice towards those other names.

It is due to this mystery that the great highway is surely the highway of the Companions, the Purified Ones, the Imams of the Prophet’s Family, and the great interpreters of the law and founders of the four schools of law, who possessed greater sainthood and were directly the first class of the Qur’an’s students.

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 our Sustainer! Do not cause our hearts to swerve now that You have guided us, and bestow mercy on us from You; for You are the Bestower of Gifts.(3:8)

O God! Grant blessings to the one whom You sent as a Mercy to all the worlds, and to all his Family and Companions.

THIRD MATTER

An important matter that has not been solved by philosophy and reason.

Every day in [new] splendour does He [shine]!(55:29) *Indeed, your Sustainer is Doer of what He will.(11:107; 85:16)

Question:What is the reason for the astonishing unceasing activity in the universe? What is the wisdom in it? Why do these fleeting beings not stop, but are continuously changed and renewed?

The Answer:To explain the wisdom in this would require a thousand pages. So we shall leave aside a full explanation and condense in two pages an extremely brief summary of it.

If a person performs a natural function or social duty enthusiastically, anyone who observes him carefully will certainly understand that there are two things that make him act in this way:

The First are the benefits, fruits, and advantages resulting from the duty, which are called the ultimate cause.

The Second: Such things as love, desire, and pleasure cause him to perform the duty enthusiastically, and these are called the necessitating cause and reason.

For example, eating food; the pleasurable longing arising from appetite drive a person to eat, and afterwards, the result of eating is nourishing the body and perpetuating life.

In the same way, “And God’s is the highest similitude,”(16:60) based on two sorts of divine names, the awesome and astonishing endless activity in the universe occurs for two vast instances of wisdom, each of which is also infinite:

The First:Almighty God’s Most Beautiful Names have incalculable sorts of manifestations. The variety in creatures arises from the variety of the manifestations. The names require to be manifested in a permanent fashion; that is, they want to display their embroideries; that is, they want to see and display the manifestations of their beauties in the mirrors of their embroideries; that is, they want every instant to renew the book of the universe and missives of beings; that is, they necessitate the continuous mean ingful writing, and to display each missive to the attentive gaze of the Most Pure and Holy Essence, the One signified, as well as to all conscious beings; they require to make each of the missives read.

The Second Reason and Instance of Wisdom: Just as the activity of creatures arises from appetite, desire, and pleasure, and there is a definite pleasure in all activity; indeed, all activity is a sort of pleasure;

so too, in a suitable way and form appropriate to His essential self-sufficiency and absolute riches and in a manner fitting for His absolute perfection, the Necessarily Existent One has boundless sacred compassion and infinite holy love.

And He feels a boundless sacred ardour arising from that sacred compassion and holy love, and an endless holy joy arising from that sacred ardour, and, if one may say so, an infinite sacred pleasure arising from the sacred joy.

And pertaining to that Merciful and Compassionate One, is, if the term is permissible,

a boundless sacred gratification and infinite holy pride arising from the boundless feeling of compassion that springs from the sacred pleasure,

sacred gratification and pride which arise from the gratitude and perfections of creatures which result from their abilities emerging from the potential to the actual and their developing within the activity of power. It is these which necessitate in boundless fashion, an endless activity.

Because philosophy, science, and natural philosophy do not know this subtle instance of wisdom, they have confused unconscious nature, blind chance, and lifeless causes in this utterly knowing, wise, percipient activity, and falling into the darkness of misguidance, have been unable to find the light of reality.

Say, “God [sent it down];” then leave them to plunge in vain discourse and trifling.(6:91)

O our Sustainer! Do not cause our hearts to swerve now that You have guided us, and bestow mercy upon us from Yourself; indeed, You are the Bestower of Gifts.(3:8)

O God! Grant blessings and peace to the Solver of the talisman of Your universe to the number of atoms of beings, and to his Family and Companions, so long as the earth and the heavens persist.

The Eternal One, He is the Eternal One!

Said Nursî

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The Seventeenth Letter ⇐ | The Letters | ⇒ The Nineteenth Letter

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