The Tenth Letter
[This consists of the answers to two questions.]
In His Name, be He glorified!And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.(17:44)
The First
is about the footnote to the long sentence describing the transformations of minute particles in the Second Aim of the Thirtieth Word.(*[1])
The Clear Book and the Clear Record are mentioned in many places in the All- Wise Qur’an. Some Qur’anic commentators said they are the same, while others said they are different. Their explanations as to their reality differ, but in short they said they are titles for divine knowledge. However, through the effulgence of the Qur’an I have formed this opinion:
the Clear Record is a title for a variety of divine knowledge and command that looks to the World of the Unseen rather than to the Manifest World. That is, it looks to the past and the future more than to the present. That is, it looks to the origin, progeny, roots and seeds of things more than to their external existence. It is a notebook of divine determining (kader), the existence of which has been proved both in the Twenty-Sixth Word and in a footnote in the Tenth Word.(*[2])
Yes, the Clear Record is the title for an aspect of divine knowledge and the divine command. For since the origins, roots, and sources of things result, with the utmost order and perfect art, in their [external] existences, they show that they are set in order in accordance with a notebook of the principles of divine knowledge. And since the results, progeny, and seeds of things comprise the programmes and indexes of beings that will come in the future, they surely infer that they are miniature collections of divine commands. For example, it may be said that a seed resembles the programmes and indexes which will impart order to all the parts of the tree, and is like a miniature embodiment of the creative commands that specify the index and programme.
In short, the Clear Record resembles a programme or index of the tree of creation, the branches of which have spread throughout the past and the future and the World of the Unseen. In this sense it is a notebook of divine determining and a collection of its principles. Minute particles are despatched to their duties and motions in the bodies of things through the dictation and decree of those principles.
As for the Clear Book, it looks to the Manifest World rather than the World of the Unseen. That is, it looks to the present more than to the past and the future. It is a title, a notebook, a ledger, of divine power and will more than of divine knowledge and command. If the Clear Record is the notebook of divine determining, the Clear Book is the notebook of divine power. That is to say, the perfect art and order in the beings, essences, attributes, and qualities of things show that they are being clothed in existence through the principles of a perfect power and the laws of a penetrating will. Their forms are determined and specified, each is given definite proportions and a particular shape. This means the power and will have a universal, general collection of laws, a great ledger, according to which the particular existences and forms of things are cut out, sewn, and clothed.
The existence of this notebook, like the Clear Record, has been proved in the discussions about divine determining and man’s will. So see the foolishness of the people of misguidance, heedlessness, and philosophy, for they perceived the Preserved Tablet of creative power and the manifestation, reflection, and similitude in things of that perspicuous book of dominical wisdom and will, but, God forbid, calling it “nature,” they made it blind.
Thus, through the dictation of the Clear Record, that is, through the decree of divine determining and according to its principles, on creating, divine power writes the chains of beings, each of which is a sign, on the page of time known as the Tablet of Appearance and Dissolution (Levh-i Mahv, Isbat), and causes the motion of particles.
This means that the motion of particles is a vibration, a movement, arising from that writing and copying, as beings pass from the World of the Unseen to the Manifest World, from knowledge to power. As for the Tablet of Appearance and Dissolution, it is an ever-changing notebook, a slate for writing and erasing, of the Supreme Preserved Tablet – which is fixed and constant – in the sphere of contingency, that is, in beings, which constantly manifest life and death, existence and annihilation; it is the reality of time. Yes, time has a reality as does everything; the reality of what we call time, a might y river flowing through the universe, is like the page and ink of power as it writes on the Tablet of Appearance and Dissolution.
None knows the Unseen save God.
Second Question:
Where will the Great Gathering and Last Judgement take place?
The Answer: The knowledge is with God alone. The elevated instances of wisdom the All-Wise Creator displays in all things, and His even attaching vast instances of wisdom to a single insignificant thing, suggests to the point of being plain that the globe does not revolve in a circle aimlessly and pointlessly, but revolves around something important; it depicts the circumference of a vast arena. It travels around a huge place of exhibition and hands over its immaterial produce to it; because in the future the produce will be displayed there before the gazes of men.
That is to say, it will fill the circle, the circumference of which is a distance of approximately twenty-five thousand years. Syria will be like a seed, according to one narration;(*[3])the arena of the Great Gathering will be expanded out of that region. All the immaterial produce of the earth is for now sent to the notebooks and tablets of the arena which is beneath the veil of the Unseen, and in the future when the arena is opened up, the earth will pour its inhabitants into it too. Its immaterial produce will also be transposed to the Manifest Realm from that of the Unseen.
Yes, as though it were an arable field, a spring, or a measure, the earth has produced crops enough to fill that vast arena, and the creatures that will occupy it have flowed on from the earth; the beings to fill it have departed from the earth. That is to say, the globe is a seed, and the arena of the Great Gathering and what it holds, a tree, a shoot, and a store.
Evet, nasıl ki nurani bir nokta, sürat-i hareketiyle nurani bir hat olur veya bir daire olur. Öyle de küre-i arz süratli, hikmetli hareketiyle bir daire-i vücudun temessülüne ve o daire-i vücud mahsulatıyla beraber, bir meydan-ı haşr-i ekberin teşekkülüne medardır.
قُل۟ اِنَّمَا ال۟عِل۟مُ عِن۟دَ اللّٰهِ
اَل۟بَاقٖى هُوَ ال۟بَاقٖى
Said Nursî