That world traveller voyaging through different ages chanced upon the school of the Renewer of the Second Millennium, Imam Rabbani, Ahmad Faruqi. He entered and listened to the lesson being taught by the Imam:
“The most important result yielded by all the Sufi paths is the unfolding of the truths of belief. The unfolding in clarity of a single truth of belief is preferable to a thousand miraculous deeds and mystical visions.” The Imam said too:
“In former times, great persons said that someone will arise from among the theologians and the scholars of the science of theology. He will prove all the truths of belief and Islam with rational proofs and the utmost clarity. I wish to be that man and maybe I am.” He continued his instruction by saying that belief and the assertion of divine unity were the foundation, substance, light and life of all human perfection; that the Hadith An hour’s reflective thought is better than a year’s worship refers to reflection on belief; and that the silent mode of invocation practised in the Naqshbandi Order is a form of this most excellent reflection.
The traveller listened with utmost care. He turned and addressed himself as follows: “It is thus that this heroic Imam speaks. To increase the strength of one’s belief by as much as an atom is worth more than a ton of gnosis or other form of perfection and sweeter than the honey of a hundred visionary experiences. “On the other hand, the philosophers of Europe have leagued together for a thousand years to invent objections and doubts in their hostility to faith and the Qur’an, and to attack the believers. They wish to shake the pillars of belief that are the key, the source, the foundation of everlasting felicity, of life immortal, of eternal Paradise. We ought therefore to strengthen our belief by making it one of realization instead of one of imitation.
So come, let us advance! In order to bring the twenty‑nine degrees of faith that we have found, each as powerful as a mountain, to the blessed number of thirty-three, the number of litanies that follow upon prayer, and in order to see a third stopping-place in this realm of instruction, let us knock at the door of the dominical sustenance of the animate world and open it with the key of In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Speaking thus he beseechingly knocked at the gate of this Third Stopping‑Place, a compendium of wonders, and a spectacle of marvels. Saying, In the Name of Allah, the Opener, he opened the gate. The Third Stopping‑Place became visible to him. He entered and saw that it was illumined by four great and encompassing truths that demonstrated the divine unity as brightly as the sun.
The First Truth:
The Truth of Opening. That is, the opening up from a single simple substance of innumerable varied and separate forms, together, everywhere, in a single instant and by a single deed, through the manifestation of the name of Opener. Yes, in the same way that Allah’s creative power has opened up innumerable beings like flowers in the garden of the cosmos, and endowed each with an orderly form and distinct identity, through the manifestation of the name Opener, so too, although in more miraculous fashion, He has given to the four hundred thousand species of animate beings in the garden of the earth each its symmetrical, adorned and distinct form. He creates you in the wombs of your mothers, creation after creation in three darknesses. That is Allah, your Sustainer. His is the sovereignty; there is no god other than He. Where, then, will you turn? Nought is hidden from Allah, neither on earth nor in the heavens. He it is Who forms you in the wombs as He wills; There is no god but He, the Mighty, the Wise. As these two verses indicate, the strongest proof of divine unity and the most remarkable miracle of divine power is Allah the Most High’s opening up of forms. Because the opening of forms is repeatedly established and expounded in different ways elsewhere in the Risale‑i Nur, and particularly in the Sixth and Seventh Degrees of the First Chapter of the Second Station of this treatise, we refer the discussion of this matter to those places and restrict ourselves here to the following:
According to the testimony of botany and biology, based on profound research, there is in the opening and unfolding of forms, such comprehensiveness and artistry that other than a Single and Unique One, One Absolutely Powerful, able to see and do all things in all things, no one could undertake this comprehensive and all‑embracing deed. For this deed of the unfolding of forms demands a wisdom, an attention and a comprehensiveness that are present at all times and are contained within an infinite power. This power, in turn, can be found only in that Unique Being Who administers the whole cosmos.
As is decreed in the above‑quoted verses, Allah the Most High’s attribute of opening expressed in the opening and creation of the forms of men from their mother’s wombs, within three darknesses, separately, with equilibrium, distinctness, and order, without any error, confusion, or mistake; this truth of the unfolding of the forms of all men and animals, all over the earth, with the same power, the same wisdom and the same artistry, is a most powerful proof of Allah the Most High’s unity. For to comprehend and embrace all things is itself a form of unity that leaves no room for the assignation of partners to Allah.
Just as the nineteen Truths of the First Chapter bearing witness to the necessary existence of Allah the Most High also attest the existence of the Creator through their own existence, so too they bear witness to His unity through their comprehensiveness.
Our traveller then saw the following Second Truth in the Third Stopping‑Place:
The Second Truth:
The Truth of Mercifulness. We see with our own eyes that there is one who has covered the face of the earth with thousands of gifts of mercy, and made it into a feasting‑place. He has laid out a spread of hundreds of thousands of the different delicious foods of mercifulness, and made the inside of the earth a storehouse containing thousands of precious bounties of compassionateness and wisdom.
That Being sends to us also the earth, in its yearly rotation, like a ship or a train, laden with the finest of the hundreds of thousands of vital human necessities, proceeding from the World of the Unseen; and He sends to us too the spring, like a waggon carrying food and clothing for us. Thus does He nurture us, with utmost compassion. In order for us to profit from those gifts and bounties, He has moreover given us hundreds and thousands of appetities, needs, feelings, sensations and senses.
As was set forth in the Fourth Ray concerning the verse on the sufficiency of Allah the Most High, He has given us a stomach that can take pleasure in infinite varieties of food.
He has given us such a life that through the senses associated with it we can derive benefit from the innumerable bounties of the vast corporeal world, just as if it were some bounteous spread.
He has favoured us with the human state so that we delight in the boundless gifts of both the spiritual and material worlds, through instruments such as the intellect and the heart.
He has conveyed Islam to us so that we derive light from the boundless treasuries of the Unseen and Manifest Realms.
He has guided us to faith so that we are illumined by the innumerable lights and gifts of this world and the hereafter.
This cosmos is like a palace fitted out and adorned by the divine quality of mercy with innumerable antiques and valuable items, which then gives to man’s hands the keys to open all the chests and chambers in that palace, as well as bestowing on man’s nature all the needs and senses that will enable him to make use of them.
This mercy that embraces this world and the hereafter, and indeed all things, is without doubt a manifestation of oneness within unity.
Just as the light of the sun is a parable of unity, through its comprehending all things that face it, every bright and transparent object that receives the reflection of the light, heat, and seven colours of the sun, is also a parable and a symbol of oneness. Hence, whoever sees its all‑embracing light will conclude that the sun of this earth is one and unique. Witnessing the warm and luminous reflection of the sun in all bright objects, and even in drops of water, he will say that the oneness of the sun, or the sun itself, is present with its attributes close to all things; it is at the mirrorlike heart of all things.
So too the encompassing of all things by the extensive mercy of the Merciful One of Beauty, like a light, demonstrates the unity of that Merciful One and that He in no way has any partner. Similarly, the fact that under the veil of that all‑embracing mercy the lights of most of the Merciful One’s names and a sort of manifestation of His essence are found in everything, and especially in all living beings, and in man in particular, and the fact that this gives each individual a comprehensiveness arising from life which causes him to look to and be related to the whole universe, proves the oneness of the Merciful One and that He is present with all things and does all things in all things.
Yes, the Merciful One shows the splendour of His glory in the whole of the cosmos and all over the earth through the unity and comprehensiveness of His mercy. With the manifestation of His oneness, He gathers together in every member of all animate species, and particularly man, specimens of all His bounties, orders the tools and instruments of animate beings, and proclaims the special solicitude of His beauty to each individual, this without shattering the wholeness of the universe. As for man, it is in him that Allah makes known in concentrated form the various forms of His bounty.
Similarly, a melon can be said to be concentrated in its seed; the being that makes the seed must necessarily be he who makes the melon. Then, with the special balance of his knowledge and the particular law of his wisdom, he draws the seed out from it, gathers it together and clothes it in a body. Nothing other than the one and unique master craftsman who makes the melon is able to make its seed. That would be impossible.
Since through the manifestation of mercifulness the cosmos becomes like a tree or a garden, the earth becomes like a fruit or a melon, and man becomes like a seed, of a certainty the Creator and Sustainer of the smallest animate being must be the Creator of all the earth and all the cosmos.
In Short: just as the making and unfolding of the regular and orderly forms of all beings through the truth of Opening, which is comprehensive, proves unity to the point of being self‑evident, so too the truth of Mercifulness, which encompasses all things, through its nurturing of all animate beings that come into existence and enter the life of this world, particularly the newly arrived, with the utmost order and regularity, causing all necessities to reach them, forgetting none of them, this same mercy reaching all individuals everywhere at the same instant demonstrates both unity, and oneness within unity.
Since the Risale‑i Nur is the manifestation of the names of All‑Wise and All-Compassionate and in many places fine points and flashes of the reality of divine mercy are elucidated and proved, here we make allusion to that ocean with a single droplet and cut that long story short.
Our traveller then witnessed the following Third Truth in the Third Stopping‑Place
The Third Truth:
The Truth of Disposing and Administering. That is, to administer with complete order and equilibrium both the awesome and swift‑moving heavenly bodies and imperious, interfering elements, and the needy, weak denizens of earth; to cause them to aid each other; to administer them jointly with each other; to take all necessary measures concerning them; and to make this vast world like a perfect kingdom, a magnificent city, a well-adorned palace.
Leaving side the vast spheres of this imperious and merciful administration, since it is explained and proved in important sections of the Risale‑i Nur such as the Tenth Word, we will show, by means of a comparison, a single page and stage of that administration as it manifests itself in the spring on the face of the earth.
Let us suppose, for example, that some wondrous world conqueror assembled an army from four hundred thousand different groups and nationalities, and supplied the clothes and weapons, the instructions and dismissals and salaries of every group and nationality, separately and variously, without any defect or shortcoming, without error or mistake, at the proper time, without any delay or confusion, with the utmost regularity and in most perfect form, no cause other than the extraordinary power of that wondrous commander could stretch out is hand to attempt that vast, complex, subtle, balanced, multitudinous and just administration. Were it to stretch out its hand, it would destroy the equilibrium and cause confusion.
So too we see with our own eyes that an unseen hand creates and administers every spring a magnificent army composed of four hundred thousand different species. In the autumn – an example of the day of resurrection – it dismisses three hundred thousand out of those four hundred thousand species of plants and animals from their duties, and they go on leave through the activity of death and in the name of decease. In spring – a sample of the gathering that follows resurrection – it constructs three hundred thousand examples of raising from the dead in the space of a few weeks, with the utmost order and discipline. In the case of the tree, four such resurrections take place with respect to the tree itself, its leaves, its flowers, and its fruits. After showing spring to our eyes exactly like the preceding one, it gives each species and group in that army of glory that contains four hundred thousand different species its appropriate sustenance and provision, its defensive weapons and distinctive garments, its orders and dismissals, and all the tools and instruments it needs, with the utmost order and regularity, without error or slip, without confusion or omission, in unexpected fashion and at the proper time. It thus proves its unity, oneness, uniqueness, and infinite power and boundless mercy within perfection of dominicality, sovereignty and wisdom, and writes with the pen of divine determining this proclamation of divine unity on the face of the earth, on the page of every spring.
After reading only a single page of this proclamation of one spring, our traveller said to himself: “The torment of Hell‑fire is pure justice for those who commit the error of denying resurrection. For such denial would be to refute the numerous promises and to deny the power of One Powerful and Compelling, a Wrathful One of Glory, Who has promised and assured all of His prophets thousands of times and set forth in thousands of verses of the Qur’an, explicity and by way of allusion, that He will bring about a resurrection and gathering far easier for Him than the thousands of miraculous gatherings that occur every spring, each more wondrous than the Supreme Gathering.” His soul responded: “We believe in what you say.”
The Fourth Truth, Which Forms the Thirty‑Third Degree:
The Truth of Compassionateness and Bestowal of Provision. That is, the giving, over the whole face of the globe, within the earth, in the air above it and the ocean around it, to all animate beings, especially those endowed with spirit, and among them especially the impotent, the weak and the young, all of their necessary sustenance, material and immaterial, in the most solicitous manner, deriving it from dry and rude soil, from solid, bonelike dry pieces of wood, and in the case of the most delicate of all forms of sustenance, from between blood and urine, at the proper time, in orderly fashion, without any omission or confusion, in front of our eyes, by an unseen hand.
Yes, the verse, Allah is the Provider, the firm possessor of strength, restricts to Allah the Most High the task of sustaining and providing, and the verse, There is no moving thing on earth but depends on Allah for its sustenance; He knows its resting‑place and storage-place; all is in a book perspicuous provides a dominical guarantee and pledge to furnish provision for all men and animals. Similarly, the verse, The beasts do not carry their sustenance; Allah sustains them and you, and He is All‑Hearing, All-Knowing, establishes and proclaims that it is Allah the Most High Who guarantees and provides for all impotent, powerless, weak and wretched creatures that are unable to secure their own sustenance, in an unexpected fashion, indeed from the Unseen or even out of nothing; it is He for example Who provides for insects on the ocean bed and their young. This proclamation is directed in particular to those men who worship causes and are unaware that it is He who bestows provision from behind the veil of causality. Numerous other verses of the Qur’an and innumerable pieces of cosmic evidence unanimously demonstrate that it is the compassionateness of a single Glorious Provider that nurtures all animate beings.
Now the trees require a certain form of sustenance but have neither power nor will. They remain therefore in their places, trusting in Allah the Most High, and their provision comes hastening to them. So too the sustenance of infants flows to their mouths from wondrous small pumps, aided by the solicitude and tenderness of their mothers. Then when the infants acquire a little power and will, the milk ceases. These various instances clearly prove that licit sustenance is not proportionate to will and power, but comes in relation to weakness and impotence, which induce trust in Allah the Most High.
Will, power and cleverness frequently incite greed, which is a source of loss, and often push certain learned men toward a form of beggary, whereas by contrast the trusting weakness of the boorish, crude and common man may cause him to attain riches. The proverb, How many a learned man has striven in vain, and how many an ignoramus gained rich provision, establishes that licit provision is not won by power and will, but by a mercy that finds working and striving acceptable; it is bestowed by a tenderness that takes pity on need. Now provision and sustenance is of two kinds:
The First is true and natural provision, that required for life; this is guaranteed by the Sustainer. It is indeed so regular and well‑ordered that this natural provision, stored in the body in the form of fat and other things, is enough to ensure survival for at least twenty days, even if nothing is eaten. Those who apparently die of hunger before the twenty or thirty days are up and before the provision stored up in their body is exhausted, die in reality not from a lack of provision, but from a disease arising from lack of caution and the disturbance of fixed habit.
The Second Form of Provision: metaphorical and artifical provision, arising due to addiction from habit, wastefulness and misuse, but acquiring the appearance of necessity. This form is not guaranteed by the Sustainer, but depends on His generosity: sometimes He may give it, sometimes He may not give it.
With respect to this second form of provision and sustenance, happy is he who regards his frugality – a source of happiness and pleasure – contentment and licit striving, as a form of worship and active prayer for sustenance. He accepts Allah the Most High’s bounty gratefully and appreciatively, and passes his life in happpy fashion.
Wretched is he who on account of prodigality – the source of wretchedness and loss – and greed, abandons licit striving, knocks at every door, passes his life in sloth, oppression and wretchedness, and indeed puts his own life to death.
In the same way that a stomach requires sustenance, so too the subtle capacities and senses of man, his heart, spirit, intelligence, eye, ear and mouth, also request their sustenance from the Compassionate Provider and gratefully receive it. To each of them separately and in appropriate form is presented such provision from the treasury of mercy as will rejoice them and give them pleasure. Indeed, the Compassionate Provider, in order to give to them provision in more generous measure has created each of man’s subtle capacities – eye and ear, heart, imagination, and intellect – in the form of a key to His treasury of mercy.
For example, the eye is a key to the treasury containing such precious jewels as the fairness and beauty to be seen on the face of the universe, and the same holds true of all the others mentioned; they all benefit through faith. To resume after our digression:
The All‑Powerful and Wise One Who created this cosmos created also life as a comprehensive summary of the cosmos, and concentrated all of His purposes and the manifestations of His names therein. So too, within the realm of life, He made of provision a comprehensive centre of activity and created within animate beings the taste for provision, thus causing animate beings to respond to His dominicality and love with a permanent and universal gratitude, thankfulness, and worship that is one of the significant purposes and instances of wisdom inherent in the creation of the universe.
For example, it is one of the activities of dominicality to cause every area of the broad realm of dominicality to rejoice – the heavens are caused to rejoice with the angels and spirit beings, the World of the Unseen with spirits, and the material world, particularly the air and the earth, with the existence of all animate beings, particularly birds, great and small, at all times and places. Through the wisdom of this causing to rejoice and the infusion of life and spirit, animals and men are, as it were, whipped by the need for provision and the pleasure they take therein to pursue their provision and sustenance, thus being delivered from sloth. This too is one of the wise activities of dominicality. Were it not for such significant instances of wisdom, the provision destined for animals would be caused instinctively to hasten toward them to satisfy their needs, without any effort on their part, just as provision and sustenance is caused to hasten toward the tree.
Were there to be an eye capable of witnessing and comprehending the whole surface of the earth at one time, in order to perceive the beauties of the names of Compassionate and Provider and the witness they bear to divine unity, it would see what sweet beauty is contained in the tender and solicitous manifestation of the Compassionate Provider Who sends to the caravans of animals at the end of winter, when their provision is about to be exhausted, extremely delicious, abundant and varied foods and bounties, drawn exclusively from His unseen treasury of mercy, as succour from the unseen and divine generosity, placed in the hands of plants, the crowns of trees, and the breasts of mothers. The possessor of that all‑seeing eye would realize the following:
The making of a single apple, and the generous giving of it to a man as true sustenance and provision, can be accomplished only by a being who causes the seasons, the nights and the days to rotate, who causes the globe to revolve like a cargo ship, and thus brings the fruits of the seasons within reach of those needy guests of the earth who stand waiting for them. For the stamp of its nature, the seal of wisdom, the imprint of eternal besoughtedness, the signet of mercy that is to be found on the surface of the apple, is to be found also on all apples and other fruits, plants and animals. Hence the true Master and Maker of the apple is bound to be the Glorious Sovereign, the Beauteous Creator of all the inhabitants of the world, who are the peers, the congeners and the brothers of the apple; of the vast earth that is the garden of the apple; of the tree of the cosmos that is its factory; of the seasons that are its workshop; and of the spring and summer that are its place of maturing.
In other words, every fruit is a seal of unity that makes known the Writer and Maker of the earth, its tree, and of the book of the universe, its garden; it demonstrates His unity, and shows to the number of fruits, the seal affixed to the decree of unity.
Since the Risale‑i Nur is a manifestation of the names of All‑Compassionate and All-Wise, and numerous flashes and mysteries of the truth of Compassionateness have been expounded and proved in many parts of the Risale‑i Nur, we leave further discussion of the matter to those parts and content ourselves with this brief indication, out of a vast treasury, on account of the unfavourable circumstances from which we are now suffering.
Our traveller now says: “Praise be to Allah! I have seen and heard Thirty‑Three Truths bearing witness to the necessary existence and unity of the Creator and Sovereign I was everywhere seeking and enquiring after. Each of the truths is bright as the sun and leaves no darkness behind. It is as strong and unshakeable as a mountain. Each of them, with its verifications, bears decisive witness to His existence, and with its comprehensiveness proves His unity in manifest fashion. While proving implicitly all the pillars of faith, the totality and consensus of these truths causes our belief to advance from imitation to realization, from realization to knowledge of certainty, from knowledge of certainty to vision of certainty, and from vision of certainty to absolute certainty. Praise be to Allah; this is from the bounty of my Sustainer.”
Praise be to Allah Who guided us to this; verily we would not have been guided unless Allah had guided us. The messengers of Allah have come to us with the truth.
In extremely brief allusion to the lights of belief derived by our inquisitive traveller from the four sublime truths he witnessed at the Third Stopping‑Place, it was said in The Second Chapter of the First Station, concerning the truths of the Third Stopping‑Place:
There is no god other than Allah, the One, the Unique, to Whose Unity in Necessary Existence points the witnessing of the sublimity of the comprehensiveness of the truth of opening, through the unfolding of different forms of four hundred thousand species of living beings, perfect and without defect, according to the testimony of biology and botany;
the witnessing of the sublimity of the comprehensiveness of the truth of mercifulness, all‑embracing and regular, without any deficiency, as the eye can see;
the witnessing of the sublimity of the truth of administering, that encompasses in orderly fashion all living beings, without error or defect;
the witnessing of the sublimity of the comprehensivness of the truth of compassionateness and sustaining, embracing all consumers of sustenance, at every time of need, without any mistake or forgetfulness; Glory be unto Him, the Provider, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Solicitous, the Generous; His gifts are universal, and His Generosity is all‑embracing; There is no god but He!
Glory be unto You; we have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All‑Knowing, All-Wise.
O our Sustainer! For the sake of “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” O Allah, O Merciful One, O Compassionate One! Bestow peace and blessings upon our master Muhammad, his Family and all his Companions, to the number of all the letters in the Risale‑i Nur, multiplied by ten times the number of minutes in all of our lives in this world and the hereafter, and then by the number of particles in my body throughout the course of my life. Forgive me, and those who aid me in sincerity in the copying and distribution of the Risale-i Nur, and our fathers, our masters, our shaykhs, our sisters, our brothers, and the sincere students of the Risale-i Nur, particularly those who write and copy this treatise; by Your Mercy, O Most Merciful of the Merciful, Amen.
The conclusion of our prayer is, “Praise be to Allah, the Sustainer of All The Worlds!”