A Concise Summary of the Twentieth Letter, and Part One of the Instruction Given in the Third School of Joseph.It Consists of Three Parts
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
And from Him do we seek help
I am someone who has spent thirty‑five years in seclusion, and particularly at night forgets the world, and having for twenty-three years suffered the annoyance of being under hostile surveillance, has become unsociable. Being all alone, I become fed up if, for an hour even, I am with anyone other than the people who assist me or are desirous of the lessons of the Risale‑i Nur. But then, on the pretext of the petition I wrote to the Court of Appeal about being held for eleven months in total solitary confinement in Afyon Prison, they forcibly transferred me to Ward Five and forbade my brothers to come to me. I was feeling truly alarmed that I would be unable to endure the crowded conditions when suddenly as a sign of wrath and anger, the cold became so severe I would not have survived had I remained where I was before. The hardship turned into mercy for me.
It occurred to me as I was reciting the tesbihat following the prayers: “In all the wards the Risale‑i Nur students are working as hard as they can at the Risale‑i Nur and its lessons both on their own account and in place of you. But because this fifth ward is somewhat isolated and is constantly being filled and emptied, the need here is greater for the Risale‑i Nur’s instruction. The youths and elderly people read the newspapers, which write about the assaults of Russia with its awesome denial of Allah the Most High, and are therefore in far greater need of its definitive, powerful instruction about belief in Allah’s existence and unity.”
I was thinking of writing a brief summary of the Twentieth Letter and the sacred sentence: There is no god but Allah, He is One, He has no partner; His is the sovereignty and His is the praise; He gives life and deals death, and He is Living and dies not; in His hand is all good; He is powerful over all things; and to Him shall be your return, which for years I have recited ten times after the morning prayer. For it points out the affirmation of divine unity on a vast scale, and with its eleven phrases demonstrates in detail as clearly as the sun both eleven proofs of the divine necessary existence and dominical unity, and eleven good tidings. According to one narration, it bears the greatest name. But then it was suddenly imparted to me that I should teach this concise summary to Nadir Hodja and the youths here. So saying: “In the name of Allah,” I began:
This sentence demonstrating divine unity contains eleven good tidings and eleven proofs of the truths of belief. For now, I shall point out briefly the proofs only and refer their further explanation and the good tidings to the Twentieth Letter and other parts of the Risale‑i Nur. However, I consider it appropriate to write here a few points I did not tell them when I was writing the lesson.
Of the eleven phrases of the above sentence affirming divine unity:
The First Phrase:
There is no god but Allah
The proof here is the treatise called The Supreme Sign (Âyetü’l‑Kübra), which has been printed. It was because it is a matchless wonder that in giving news of various parts of the Risale‑i Nur, Imam ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) said: And by The Supreme Sign preserve me from sudden death, and making that Supreme Sign an intercessor, through the treatise’s victories in the courts of both Ankara and Denizli and its spreading effectively and secretly, it was both the reason for the Risale‑i Nur students being acquitted, and since its secret printing had led to the students’ imprisonment for nine months, it both clearly affirmed Imam ‘Ali’s (May Allah be pleased with him) wondrous prediction, and his prayer for the Risale‑i Nur students.
Yes, the Seventh Ray, The Supreme Sign, points out in all beings thirty‑three vast, universal, unanimous proofs. Alluding to innumerable evidences in each universal proof, it proves firstly that the heavens point to the Necessarily Existent One’s existence and unity with the words of the stars; the earth with the phrases and sentences of the animals and plants; and so on, until the universe as a whole, with the words of all its contents and beings, and the truths of contingency and createdness and change – it proves them as clearly as sunlight and as certainly as the day.
Anyone who wants unshakeable belief and seeks an unbreakable sword to combat irreligion and anarchy should refer to The Supreme Sign.
The Second Phrase:
He is One
A concise indication of the proof in this phrase is as follows:
In every aspect of the universe a unity, a oneness, is apparent. For example, it displays a unity and oneness by being a well set‑out city, a magnificent palace, a meaningful, materialized book, and an embodied Qur’an every verse, and even every letter and point of which, is miraculous. Similarly, since the palace’s lamp is one and the same, and its calendar-lamp, and fiery cook, and water-bearing sponges, and hundreds of thousands of other things it contains are all one and the same, it proves decisively that the owner, ruler, scribe, and author of the palace, city, book, and mighty embodied Qur’an is existent, one, and single.
The Third Phrase:
He has no partner
A brief indication of the proof in this is as follows:
The source, master, and basis of The Supreme Sign is the sublime verse: Say: if there had been [other] gods with Him – as they say – behold, they would certainly have sought out a way to the Lord of the Throne!(to the end of the verse), which is also called The Supreme Sign. That is, if Allah the Most High had any partners and others had intervened in creation and interfered in His dominicality, the order of the universe would have been spoilt. However, the perfect order in everything, small and large, particular and universal, from the wing of the tiniest fly and the cell of the pupil of the eye to the numberless birds which fly through the air and the solar system, furnishes indubitable and decisive evidence for the impossibility and non‑existence of any such partners. It also testifies self-evidently to the existence and unity of the Necessarily Existent One.
The Fourth Phrase:
His is the dominion
A concise indication of the lengthy proof contained in this phrase:
We see that behind the veil One of boundless power and knowledge makes the face of the earth into an arable field, and every spring sows in it all mixed up together the seeds of a hundred thousand species of plants. Then in perfect order without confusing any of their crops, He raises them and with the hand of mercy and wisdom, out of them distributes to the two hundred thousand animal species their sustenance and rations according to need. He performs these acts of disposal in His vast, rich dominions, especially on the face of the earth. Anyone, then, who does not recognize that All‑Wise Disposer and Compassionate Owner is compelled to deny the earth together with its produce, like the foolish Sophists.
The Fifth Phrase:
His is the praise
This indicates very briefly the very extensive proof contained in this phrase: Yes, we see with our eyes and understand clearly with our minds that the city of the universe, quarter of the earth, and barracks of humans and animals is governed, supervised, and maintained by an All‑Compassionate Provider, a Munificent Provider of Bounties. For in order to have His bounties praised and thanked for, He makes the earth into a merchant ship and railway train bringing provender, and the spring into a waggon filled with a hundred thousand sorts of foods and packets of conserves called breasts, conveying them to the needy living creatures whose rations have been exhausted by the end of winter. Anyone with an iota of intelligence would agree that this was the work of an All-Compassionate Provider. While the person who does not affirm it and deviates into denial is a foolish, harmful animal since he is then obliged to deny all the regular bounties and specific foods on the face of the earth, which are the cause of praise and thanks.
The Sixth Phrase:
He gives life
An extremely brief allusion to the proof in this phrase: Yes, it is proved in the Tenth Word and in other parts of the Risale‑i Nur that every spring on the face of the earth a glorious army is raised to life which consists of three hundred thousand species of living beings of infinite variety. With its innumerable members, all of whose lives and necessities are given them with perfect order and regularity, it displays a hundred thousand samples, indeed, signs, of the supreme resurrection of the dead. All those innumerable different creatures which are intermingled and mixed up together, are raised to life in perfect balance and order without error, mistake, or deficiency, with none being confused, disarranged, or forgotten. Those hundreds of thousands of animal species with their uncountable members, which all differ as regards their forms, art, and livelihoods, are resurrected from droplets of fluid called sperm which are all similar, from seeds resembling earth, from tiny grains which differ little from one another, from the tiny eggs of flies which are all similar, and the birds from the same air and from fluid and eggs which are either the same as or only a little different from each other. The person, therefore, who does not conclude that it is an Ever‑Living and Self-Subsistent One, an All-Knowing, Creative Giver of Life Who writes out on the page of the earth and the spring a hundred thousand different books, all together, one within the other, without error, perfectly, is surely compelled to deny both himself and all the living creatures throughout the earth, in all the springs attached to the string of time, and on the faces of the living earth and space, and must himself be the most foolish and wretched of living creatures.
The Seventh Phrase:
And deals death
A very brief indication of the proof contained in this phrase:
In the autumn when the three hundred thousand species of living creatures are being discharged from their duties under the name of death, the registers and pages of the actions of each species and all their members, and the indexes of all they have done, and the lists of all they will do the following spring, and their seeds, which are spirits of a sort, are entrusted in their places to the hand of wisdom of the All‑Glorious Preserver. The person, therefore, who does not recognize that All-Wise Creator, the Ever-Living and Undying One, Who inscribes in the miniscule seeds of the fig tree, each of which is like an immortal spirit and bears all the laws governing the tree’s life, the story of the tree’s life, which contains writing enough to fill a book, thus making it like a large volume – such a person is certainly not even an idiot and delirious animal, but more abject than the devils who stoke the fires of Hell, and will be condemned to eternal death.
Yes, just as it is a hundredfold impossibility and futility that the above universal, comprehensive, wise, purposive acts, which comprise numberless wonders and miracles and point to the proofs of these phrases, should be without the one who performed them; so too, to attribute them to blind, impotent, unconscious, deaf, lifeless, confused, disorderly, overwhelming causes is impossible, precluded and unjustifiable a thousand times over.
For if that were the case, every particle of earth would have to possess an infinite power and wisdom, and a wondrous, universal craftsmanship so that it could give form to all the plants and flowers; and as it says in the piece about the air in A Guide For Youth, every molecule of air would have to possess the ability to know all speech and all the words spoken on the radio and telephone, and to teach them to the other molecules. No satan even could make anyone accept such an extraordinary idea.
The penalty for unbelief and denial, which is thus far from reason and reality and constitutes insult and aggression against all beings, could only be a terrible Hell, which is pure justice. We should surely declare in the face of such disbelievers: “Long live Hell!”
The Eighth Phrase:
And He is living and dies not
An extremely brief indication of the proof in this phrase is this:
For example, on the disappearance of the tiny suns reflected in the bubbles on the surface of a choppy sea or flowing river, the bubbles that replace them display the same tiny suns, thus pointing to the sun in the sky and testifying to it, and with their disappearance and death they indicate the existence of a perpetual sun. Similarly, in the arable field of minute particles, and in the river of time, which with its current draws all transitory beings into its embrace, the creatures on the surface of the constantly changing sea of the universe and ever‑renewed, infinite space continuously and speedily flow on and depart and their apparent causes die along with them. Every day, every year, a universe dies and a new one replaces it.
Since the crops of travelling worlds and flowing universes are continuously reaped from the field of particles, certainly just as the bubbles and tiny suns point to a perpetual sun with their passage, so the deaths of those numberless creatures and endless crops, and their being discharged in perfect orderliness together with their apparent causes, testify with the clarity and certainty of daylight, indeed, of the sun, to the necessary existence and being and unity of an Ever‑Living Undying One, an Eternal Sun, an Enduring Creator, a Most Pure and Holy Commander. All beings testify to this a thousand times more clearly and definitely than the existence of the universe.
Now you have certainly understood just how deaf, foolish, and offensive is someone who does not hear these loud voices and powerful testimonies that fill the universe, nor heeds them.
The Ninth Phrase:
In His hand is all good
A brief indication of the proof contained in this phrase is as follows:
We see that each sphere of the universe, each realm of being, each level, each individual and member, and even each cell of each body possesses a store or depot containing its reserve supplies of sustenance, an arable field or treasury producing and preserving all its necessities. For at exactly the right time, in perfect order and balance, with perfect wisdom and graciousness, all their necessities are given to those needy beings by a hidden hand, outside their power and will.
For example, mountains contain all the minerals and chemicals necessary for human beings and living beings, and the things necessary for life; on someone’s command and through his planning, they are perfect stores and treasuries. Similarly, through the power of an All‑Wise Provider, the earth is an arable field, a harvest, a kitchen, producing with perfect order and regularity the sustenance of all those living beings.
Even, just as human beings and all their bodily members have treasuries and stores, and the cells of their bodies have tiny depots; so it goes on, till the world of the hereafter, a store of which is this world; and an arable field and store of Paradise are the world of Islam and true humanity, which produce the good, beauty, and lights of this world; and one storehouse of Hell are the filthy matters and groups of this world, which come from non‑existence, which is evil, and yield the produce of evils, ugly things, and disbelief, and which pollute the worlds of existence, which are good. And the store of the stars’ heat is Hell, while the treasury of lights is a Paradise. Alluding to all those infinite treasuries, the phrase “In His hand is all good,” then, demonstrates a truly brilliant proof.
Yes, this phrase, together with the phrase, In His hand are the keys of all things, points out to anyone not totally blind an infinitely extensive, wondrous proof of divine dominicality and unity. For example, consider only the following out of those endless treasuries and stores:
Just as with his command of “Awake!” and the key of His will, an All‑Wise Disposer Who holds the keys of seeds and grains, which are all tiny stores containing the members and destinies of huge trees or shining flowers, opens up in perfect balance and order the minute door of a seed; so too throwing open with the key of the rain the treasury of the earth, without error He opens all the seeds, which are the tiny stores and seminal fluid of plants, as well as the storehouses of droplets, which receive the command to develop and are the origin of animals, and the seminal fluid composed of water and air of birds and flying insects. If you want to understand and see that He opens up with the hand of wisdom, will, mercy, and choice, all the treasuries and depots, physical and non-physical, universal and particular, in the universe, each with its particular key, consider your own heart, mind, body, stomach, and garden, and the spring, which is the flower of the earth, and its flowers and fruits, for they are all opened up by a hidden hand, with perfect order, balance, mercy, and wisdom, with all different keys which come from the workbench of Be! And it is. That hidden hand draws out pounds of foods from a minute box weighing less than an ounce, and sometimes hundreds of pounds, and presents them to living creatures as a feast.
Is it at all possible that blind force, deaf nature, aimless chance, or lifeless, ignorant, impotent causes could interfere in such a boundless orderly, knowing, and percipient act, in such totally wise, purposive art in which no chance played any part, in such error‑free perfectly balanced disposals, and in such completely just dominicality which is free of all tryanny? Could any being who does not see and administer all beings together at once, nor holds under his command minute particles together with the planets and stars, intervene in this disposal and government which is in every way wise, purposeful, miraculous, and balanced?
As the verse, Well‑nigh bursting with fury states, Hell rages at the person who does not recognize the All‑Compassionate Disposer, the All-Wise Sustainer, in Whose hand is all good and Who holds the keys of all things, and deviates into denial; it boils up in fury, saying through the tongue of disposition: “He deserves my boundless torments and is in no way worthy of compassion.”
The Tenth Phrase:
And He is powerful over all things
An extremely concise indication of the proof contained in this phrase is as follows:
As soon as every conscious creature who comes into this guesthouse of the world opens his eyes, he sees that a power holds in its grasp the whole universe, and within that power are a pre‑eternal, all-embracing knowledge which never confuses anything and a most precise wisdom and favour which never act purposelessly or without balance. Just as, spinning a single particle from the army of particles like a Mevlevi dervish in ecstasy, it employs it in numerous duties; so at the same time and according to the same law, it causes the globe of the earth to travel a twenty-four thousand-year-distance in a year, again like an ecstatic Mevlevi.
At the same time and according to same law, through which it sends to humans and the animals the produce of the seasons, it makes the sun into a shuttle or spinning‑wheel, and spinning it ecstatically so it exerts an attraction, it employs the planets, the army of the solar system, in various duties in perfect order and balance. At the same time and according to the same law of wisdom, that same power writes one within the other, without error or confusion, hundreds of thousands of species, which resemble books, on the page of the face of the earth, and displays thousands of samples of the supreme resurrection of the dead.
That same power at the same time transforms the page of the atmosphere into a slate for writing and erasing. Employing all its particles, which are like the nibs of pens or the points of the book, in the tasks specified for them by will and command, it endows all of them with such ability that each receives all words and speech as though it knows them, and broadcasts them without confusion. It employs each as a miniscule ear and tiny tongue, proving that the element of air is a throne of divine will and command.
Thus, according to this brief indication, it is one Most Merciful and Compassionate Who makes the universe into a well‑ordered city, a first-class apartment building and guesthouse, and a miraculous book and Qur’an, and holds in His grasp with the balance of knowledge and arrangements of wisdom all the levels, realms, and groups of creatures from the universe as a whole to minute particles, and disposes of them. So the person who does not recognize that Most Merciful and Compassionate One, Who demonstrates as clearly as the sun and daylight His wisdom and mercy within His power, and makes known His existence and unity within His absolute dominicality, thus wanting recognition through belief in return for His making these known, and love through worship in return for His making Himself loved, and thanks and praise in return for His bounties – the satans in human form who do not recognize Him or try to love Him through worship, in fact foster a sort of enmity towards Him through denial, and are each minor Nimrods and Pharaohs, and are certainly deserving of infinite torment.
The Eleventh Phrase:
And to Him is your return
This means to say: just as beings will depart for His presence, going to the eternal world, the hereafter, and the everlasting realm of happiness; so it is He who is the place of recourse of all the creatures in the universe. All the chains of causes are based on Him and rest on His power; they are all merely veils for the disposals of His power. Apparent causes are only screens for preserving the dignity and majesty of His sacred power; they have no effect whatsoever in creation. If it were not for His will and command, nothing, not even a particle, could move or act. A very brief indication of the proof contained in this phrase is as follows:
Firstly:
We refer to the Tenth Word and its addenda, the Twenty‑Ninth Word, the Seventh Topic of The Fruits of Belief, the Third Ray, and to the treatises of the Risale‑i Nur about belief, the proof, leading to completely certain belief, that the resurrection of the dead will occur and the hereafter and eternal life will be brought about as indubitably and definitely as the coming spring, as this sacred phrase states. Truly, those treatises have proved this pillar of belief with so many evidences that they compel even the most obdurate deniers to affirm that the existence of the hereafter is as certain as the existence of this world.
Secondly:
One third of the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition looks to the resurrection of the dead and the hereafter and it constructs all its claims on them. Since this is so, all the miracles and evidences proving the Qur’an’s veracity indicate the existence of the hereafter. Similarly, all the miracles bearing witness to the prophethood of Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace), and all the evidences of his prophethood, and all the proofs of his truthfulness, testify also to the resurrection of the dead and the hereafter.
For just as throughout his life, one of his most constant calls concerned the hereafter, so all the twenty‑four thousand prophets (Upon whom be peace) taught eternal life and everlasting happiness, giving the glad tidings to humankind, and proving them with innumerable miracles and certain evidences. Since this is so, all the miracles and evidences proving their messengership and veracity testified to the hereafter and eternal life, which was their constant and most important teaching. Making an analogy with this, all the evidences proving the other pillars of belief testify also to the resurrection of the dead and the throwing open of the realm of bliss.
Thirdly:
In order to display His perfections and His power and dominicality, an All‑Glorious Maker, a Beauteous Maker, an All-Perfect Allah creates the universe together with all its atoms, planets, parts, and levels. With perfect wisdom He continuously makes each being work at a task, indeed, at numerous tasks, and in order to display the eternal, endless manifestations of His names, He sends caravan after caravan, indeed, world after travelling renewed world, and the tribes of creatures to the guesthouse of this world and the arena of trial which is worldly life. He records for the cinemas of the hereafter set up in the World of Similitudes, with the cameras of the Intermediate Realm, all their images, deeds, and circumstances, and after releasing them from their duties, sends other tribes, caravans, and flowing, travelling worlds to the arena in order to perform those duties and be mirrors to the manifestations of His names. Is it therefore at all possible that there should be no realm of reward and punishment, no resurrection of the dead and last judgement for men, who with consciousness and intelligence respond in this fleeting world to all the aims of the Creator, loving Him with all their capacity and making Him love them; recognizing Him and making Him known; beseeching with endless supplications everlasting happiness in the hereafter? Is it at all possible that they should suffer infinite pains because of their intelligence and not long for eternal life, which is pure pleasure, with all their beings, spirits, and capacities? Allah forbid! A hundred thousand times, Allah forbid!
Since these brief indications are proved and explained brilliantly, powerfully and in detail in the Risale‑i Nur, we refer you to its treatises and here cut this long story short.
Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All‑Knowing, All-Wise.