The First Stations
Consists of the answer to two questions.
In His Name be He glorified!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.
Peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings!
My Dear and Loyal Brother, Re’fet Bey!
The answer to the question you ask about the Bull and the Fish is to be found in several parts of the Risale‑i Nur. The Third Branch of the Twenty‑Fourth Word contains an explanation of that sort of question, in the light of twelve important rules called twelve principles. Those rules all offer criteria for understanding the various interpretations of the Prophet’s (UWBP) Hadiths, and comprise important principles for dispelling doubts that may arise about them. Unfortunately at the moment a number of circumstances prevent my becoming occupied with scholarly matters that are not inspiration. I therefore cannot reply to your question as you asked it. I have to be busy with the inspiration when it comes to my heart, I am compelled to be busy with it. I answer some questions because they coincide with the inspirations, so don’t be offended. I cannot answer all questions as they deserve. But this time let me reply briefly to your question.
This Time You Ask in Your Question:
“The hojas say that the earth rests on a bull and a fish, but geography sees it hanging in space and travelling like a star. There is neither bull nor fish?”
The Answer: There is a sound narration attributed to people like Ibn ‘Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) which says that the Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) was asked: “What does the world rest on?” He replied: On the Bull and the Fish.(164) In one narration, he said, On the Bull, and on another occasion he said, On the Fish. Some Hadith scholars applied this Hadith to superstitions and stories taken from isra’iliyat, related since early times. Scholars of the Children of Israel who became Muslims especially applied it to stories about the Bull and the Fish they had seen in the former scriptures, altering it to mean something strange. For now I shall explain very concisely three ‘principles’ and three ‘aspects’ in connection with your question.
First Principle
When some of the Israelite scholars became Muslims, their former knowledge became Muslim along with them and was ascribed to Islam. However, what they knew contained errors which were certainly their errors and not Islam’s.
Second Principle
On comparisons and metaphors passing from the elite to the common people, that is, on their falling from the hands of learning to those of ignorance, with the passage of time they are imagined to be literally true.
For example, when I was a child an eclipse of the moon occurred. I asked my mother: “Why has the moon gone like that?” She replied: “A snake has swallowed it.” “It can still be seen,” I said. She replied: “The snakes up there are like glass; they show the things inside them!”
For a long time I recalled this childhood memory. Pondering over it, I would say: “How could such a false superstition come to be repeated by serious people like my mother?” Then when I studied astronomy I realized that people like her who repeated it supposed a metaphor to be reality. For when the vast circle called the zodiac, which is the circle denoting the degrees of the sun, and the circle of the declination of the moon, which is the circle depicting its mansions, pass over one another, it gives each of the two circles the form of an arc. Using a subtle metaphor the astronomers called the two arcs “the two great serpents.”
They called the points of intersection of the two circles “the head” and “the tail.” When the moon comes to the head and the sun to the tail, in the terminology of astronomy, an interposition of the earth occurs. That is, the globe of the earth passes right between the two of them and the moon is eclipsed. According to the above metaphor, “the moon has entered the serpent’s mouth.”
Thus, when this elevated and scholarly metaphor entered the language of the common people, in the course of time it took on the shape of a huge snake swallowing the moon.
Thus, with a sacred and subtle metaphor and meaningful allusion, two great angels were called the Bull (T. Sevr; Ar. Thawr) and the Fish (T. Hût; A. Ḥūt), but on entering the common language from the elevated tongue of the prophethood, the metaphor was transformed and given a literal meaning, and they took on the form of a truly enormous bull and awesome fish.
Third Principle
Just as the Qur’an contains allegories and comparisons, and with them teaches profound matters to the ordinary people; so do Hadiths contain comparisons and allegories; they express profound truths by means of familiar comparisons.
For example, as we have described in two other places, one time in the presence of the Prophet (UWBP) a deep rumbling was heard. He said: “It is the sound of a rock which has been rolling downhill for seventy years and has now hit the bottom of Hell.” A few minutes later someone arrived and reported that a famous seventy‑year-old dissembler had died, thus proclaiming the true meaning of the Noble Messenger’s (Upon whom be blessings and peace) highly eloquent comparison.
For now, three ‘aspects’ will be explained in reply to your question:
The First
Allah the Most High appointed four angels – called the Eagle (Nasr – Aquila) and the Bull (Thawr – Taurus) – as bearers of the divine throne and the heavens, to supervise His dominical sovereignty. He also appointed two angels as supervisors and bearers of the earth, which is the small brother of the heavens and companion of the planets. One of them was called the Bull and the other, the Fish. The reason for His giving these names is this:
There are two parts to the earth, one is water and the other is land. Fish inhabit the part that is water, while agriculture, the support of human life, is practised with bulls and oxen, which inhabit the part of the earth that is land; agriculture rests on the shoulders of oxen. Since the two angels appointed to the earth are both commanders and supervisors, they surely have some sort of relationship with the bovine and piscine species. Indeed, And the knowledge is with Allah, the angels are represented in the Worlds of the Inner Dimensions of Things and of Similitudes in the forms of a bull and a fish. Thus, alluding to their relationship and supervision and those two important species of the earth, with his miraculous manner of expression the Prophet (UWBP) said: The earth is on the Bull and the Fish, thus stating in one fine, concise sentence a page of profound truths.
Second Aspect
If it is said: “What does the government and its rule rest on?,” it will be said in reply: On the sword and the pen. That is, it rests on the valour of the soldier’s sword and the perspicacity and justice of the official’s pen.
In the same way, since the earth is the dwelling‑place of animate beings and the commander of animate beings is man, and fish are the means of livelihood of the majority of men who live by the sea, and the majority of those who do not live by the sea live by means of agriculture, which rests on the shoulders of bulls and oxen, and fish are also an important means of trade, just as the state rests on the sword and the pen, so it may also be said that the earth rests on the ox and the fish. For man cannot survive if the ox does not work or fish do not produce millions of eggs; life would cease and the All-Wise Creator would destroy the earth.
Thus, replying in a most miraculous, elevated, and wise way, Allah the Most High’s Noble Messenger (UWBP) said: The earth rests on the bull and the fish. He taught an extensive truth with two words and showed how closely linked man’s life is to the life of the animal species.
Third Aspect
In the view of ancient cosmology the sun travelled and a constellation was defined every thirty degrees of its journey. If hypothetical lines were drawn connecting the stars in the constellations with one another, some would take on the shape of a lion, others the shape of scales, others the shape of a bull, and yet others the shape of a fish. Names were given to the constellations in consequence of those relationships.
But in the view of astronomy this age, the sun does not travel. The constellations remain idle and without work, for the earth travels instead of the sun. They assume shapes on a small scale within the annual orbit of the earth on the ground, instead of those lofty idle constellations above. Thus, the heavenly constellations are represented out of earth’s annual orbit, and each month the earth is in the shadow and likeness of one of the constellations. It is as if they are represented in the mirror‑like annual orbit of the earth.
For this reason, as we mentioned above, on one occasion the Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) said: On the Bull, and on another he said: On the Fish. Yes, he indicated a truly profound truth that would be understood only many centuries later, and said in the miraculous prophetic tongue: On the Bull, because at that time the earth was in the likeness of the constellation Taurus. And on being asked a month later, he replied: On the Fish, for then the earth was in the shadow of the constellation of Pisces.
Yes, he said: On the Bull and the Fish and alluded to an elevated truth that would be understood in the future, and hinted at the earth’s duty of motion and journeying, and the heavenly constellations being idle and without guests in regard to the sun, and that the constellations which truly work are in the earth’s annual orbit and that it is the earth which journeys and performs duties in the constellations. And Allah knows best what is right.
The extraordinary and unreasonable stories in some Islamic books are either isra’iliyat, or they are allegories, or they are the interpretations of the Hadith scholars, which careless people have supposed to be Hadiths and have attributed them to Allah the Most High’s Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace).
O our Sustainer! Do not take us to task if we forget or do wrong.
Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed You are All‑Knowing, All-Wise.
The Second Question
Is about the People of the Cloak
My brother! Regarding your question about the People of the Cloak, only one of the many instances of wisdom concerning it will be explained, as follows: Many mysteries and instances of wisdom are found in Allah the Most High’s Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) covering ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) and Fatima (May Allah be pleased with her) and Hasan and Husayn (May Allah be pleased with them) with the blessed cloak he wore, and his praying for them with the verse, (And Allah only wishes) to remove all abomination from you, members of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless. I shall not discuss the mysteries, but one instance of wisdom connected with the function of messengership is this:
Allah the Most High’s Noble Messenger (UWBP) saw with the eye of prophethood, which penetrated the Unseen and beheld the future, that thirty or forty years later serious strife would erupt among the Companions and the generation that succeeded them, and that blood would be spilt. He witnessed that three of the people under his cloak would be the most distinguished of them. So he enfolded them in his cloak, giving the four, plus himself, the title of the Five People of the Cloak. In this way he wanted to acquit and exonerate ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) in the view of the Islamic community; to console and offer condolences to Husayn (May Allah be pleased with him); to congratulate Hasan and proclaim the honour he would acquire by removing through reconciliation serious discord, and his supreme value for the Islamic community; and to show that Fatima’s descendants would be pure and honoured and that they would be worthy of the elevated title of the Prophet’s Family.
For sure ‘Ali was the rightful Caliph, but since the blood that would be spilt held great importance and since in the view of the community his acquittal and exoneration were important on account of the function of messengership, the Noble Messenger (UWBP) in this way absolved him. He invited the Kharijites and the aggressive supporters of the Umayyads to be silent, for they criticized him and accused him of error and misguidance. Yes, the excesses perpetrated against ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) by the extreme supporters of the Kharijites and Umayyads and their accusations of misguidance, and the truly tragic, distressing events in Husayn’s (May Allah be pleased with him) time together with the excesses and innovations of the Shi‘a and their dissociating themselves from the two Shaykhs, have all been most damaging for the people of Islam.
Thus, with his cloak and prayer, the Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) absolved Ali and Husayn of responsibility, and cleared them of the accusations and bad opinion of the Islamic community. So too he congratulated Hasan regarding the duty of messengership for the good he was to do for the community by bringing about the reconciliation. And he announced that being known as the Prophet’s Family, the blessed progeny of Fatima would be highly honoured, like those of Mary’s mother, who said: I commend her and her offspring to your protection from the Evil One, the Rejected.
Allah! Grant blessings to our master Muhammad, and to his righteous, pure, and pious Family, and to his Companions, noble and select strivers in Allah’s way. Amen.