Seventh Point
My Dear Brother!
You want an explanation of the Unity of Existence. In one of the Flashes of the Thirty‑First Letter there is a very powerful and elucidating answer to Muhyiddin’s ideas concerning this matter. For now, we just say the following:
Teaching this question of the Unity of Existence to people at the present time causes serious harm. Like when metaphors and similes pass from the hands of the learned to those of the common people and knowledge passes from scholars to the ignorant, they are thought to be literally true, so when elevated truths such as the Unity of Existence pass to the heedless and to the common people submerged in causes, they are thought to be nature, and cause three significant instances of harm.
The First: The way of the Unity of Existence is quite simply to deny the universe on account of Allah the Most High. Despite this, when it is adopted by the heedless common people and enters their ideas which are tainted by materialist thought in particular, it leads to denial of Divinity on account of the universe and materiality.
The Second: The way of the Unity of Existence rejects the dominicality of anything other than Allah the Most High so vehemently that it denies everything other than Allah and removes duality. Since it does not recognize the independent existence of anything, let alone that of evil‑commanding souls, with the predominance of the idea of nature at this time and pride and egotism inflating the evil-commanding soul and causing the hereafter and the Creator to be forgotten, to inculcate the Unity of Existence in people whose evil-commanding souls are small pharaohs and quite simply are disposed to taking their own selves as their objects of worship, so inflates the evil-commanding soul that – I seek refuge with Allah – it can no longer be contained.
The Third: While the All‑Glorious One is free and exempt from, pure of and exalted above all change, alteration, division, and being comprehended in time or place, the Unity of Existence gives rise to conceptions that are not fitting for His necessary existence, holiness, and being free of all defect, and leads to false teachings. Yes, if one who speaks of the Unity of Existence rises in the mind from the ground to the Pleiades, leaves the universe behind and fixes his gaze on the sublime throne, ecstatically reckoning the universe to be non-existent, through the strength of his belief he may see everything to be directly from the Single One of Unity. But the person who stands behind the universe and looks at it, and sees causes before him and looks from the ground may possibly become submerged in causes and immersed in the swamp of nature. The person who rises in the mind to the divine throne may say like Jalaluddin Rumi: “Listen! The words you hear uttered by everyone, you may hear as uttered by Allah the Most High, like natural gramophones.” But if you say to the one who cannot rise as high as Jalaluddin, nor see all beings from the ground to the divine throne in the form of mirrors: “Listen! You will hear the divine speech from everything,” he will in effect fall from the throne to the ground, and will also be afflicted by false imaginings contrary to the truth!
Say: “Allah [sent it down]”: then leave them to plunge in vain discourse and trifling.
Glory be to the One whose Essence is holy above anything similar to It and whose attributes are free of anything resembling them, and whose signs testify to His dominicality, may His glory be exalted, for there is no god but He.
Said Nursi
The Answer to a Question
I do not have the time to weigh up the ideas of Mustafa Sabri and those of Musa Bekûf. I shall only say this much, that the one went to one extreme and the other, to the other extreme. Mustafa Sabri was right relatively to Musa Bekuf, but it is not right to denigrate someone like Muhyiddin who was a miracle of the Islamic sciences.
Yes, Muhyiddin was himself rightly‑guided and acceptable, but should not be the guide and instructor with all his works. Since he very often proceeded in the realities without balance, he opposed the rules of the Sunnis and some of the things he said apparently denote misguidance. However, he himself was free of misguidance. A word may sometimes appear to be unbelief, but the one who speaks it is not an unbeliever. Mustafa Sabri did not take these points into consideration; he was extreme concerning certain points of Sunni law, due to bigotry.
As for Musa Bekûf, he was excessively in favour of renewal; because of this and the concessions he made to modernity in respect of his ideas, he was very much in error. He corrupted some of the truths of Islam with his false interpretations. He went far to excess by maintaining that someone rejected like Abu’l‑A‘lā al-Ma‘arrī was superior to authoritative scholars, and favouring disproportionately matters stated by Muhyiddin which oppose the Sunnis because they suited his own ideas. Muhyiddin said: “Other people who are not one of us and do not know our station should not read our books, for it may be damaging for them. Yes, it is harmful to read Muhyiddin’s books at the present time, especially the matters related to the Unity of Existence.
Said Nursi