124-127

A Note for The Key to the ‘Âlam of Nûr1

One day, with two university students, we were in a moving car and listening to the blessed mawlid recited from a distance on the radio that was not connected to any wire. In connection with the discussion about the radio in The Key to Nûr, I said to those two Nurju university students:

Just as in life and existence, the direct and veilless manifestation of the Qoudrah of Allah is evidently seen in nûr. A proof of this is as follows:

A bit of air, the size of a fingernail, in this little machine, and the tiny amount of ma’nawî nûr hears and speaks not only the words it receives from the mawlid but rather hears and speaks thousands and millions of other words all at once; it hears different words across thousands of radio stations as the words that we hear right now. It can make those words heard and speak them to us. It means that the most particular becomes the most universal.

Furthermore, this tiny bit of air performs duties as big as the atmosphere. The smallest expands as the greatest, which is the atmosphere.

If this is not attributed to the manifestation of azalî Qoudrah, it will become such a strange superstitious contradiction that it would be unimaginable. Since it is not possible for something to transform into its opposite, this necessitates that the most particular should become the most universal, which is its opposite… the smallest should become the largest… the most lifeless, ignorant, unconscious and powerless should become the most powerful, able, wilful and conscious. This is a matchless superstition comprising hundreds of contradictions, impossibilities and superstitions. It means that this is evidently the manifestation of azalî Qoudrah. The meaning of the following noble hadith that represents this manifestation over the atmosphere, in general, demonstrates this. It is as follows:

There is a malâikah with forty thousand heads; each of its heads has forty thousand tongues, and each tongue offers forty thousand tasbîhât. It recites sixty-four billion tasbîhât at the same time. It means that the atmosphere resembles this malâikah. That is to say, the blessed words to the number of the tasbîhât offered by this malâikah are written on the page of the air.

The atmosphere says, “This hadith refers to me, or the malâikah that is appointed to supervise me. Because all human speeches and the endless other mixed sounds being heard without any confusion, with the exact letters, accents and distinguished voices show that this work performed with a universal consciousness, the duty of a single particle, can in no way be attributed to me, that is, the atmosphere, nor can it be attributed to all causes. It means that it is the manifestation of Ahadiyyah that is present everywhere and sees everything, and the manifestation of azalî Qoudrah that comprises an encompassing Irâdah and comprehensive ‘Ilm. The radio is one of the millions of witnesses to this."

The meaning of the matter discussed in the Thirteenth Word about the comparison between the hikmah of the Quran and the hikmah of philosophy is as follows: the philosophy of man draws the veil of ordinariness over the extraordinary miracles of rahmah of the miracles of the Qoudrah of Allah. It sees and attaches significance to certain particular exceptions that have deviated from the usual norm but does not see and show the proofs of wahdâniyyah and the wondrous ni’mahs beneath that veil of ordinariness.

For example, the philosophy of man is blind to the miracles of Qoudrah in the creation of the human being and attaches no significance to it. Yet, it sees a two-headed or three-legged man exceptionally deviated from the laws, and in bewilderment and astonishment, it attracts attention to it by creating a fuss. However, it conceals the universal, general miracles beneath the veil of ordinariness. It centres the attention on the particular matters and things that have broken the laws and left their species.

And for example, it considers the wondrous and miraculous maintenance of the rizq provided to human and animal infants to be ordinary and gives it no importance. But — as a newspaper once published in America — the fishermen cried when they saw an insect, which left its tribe, separated from its species and had fallen deep into the ocean, being fed with a green leaf delivered to its mouth and announced this event with glory. Whereas in the smallest infant and its rizq in its mother’s breast, like the water of kawthar, there are thousands of miracles of Rahmah and thousands of favours similar to this event. The philosophy of man does not see it so that it would offer shukr, recognise Rahmân'ur Rahîm and respond to Him with shukr.

Thus, the hikmah of the Quran tears down that veil of ordinariness. It gives the lesson about these universal and wondrous miracles and extraordinary ni’mahs to mankind, makes Allah known and impels them to ‘ubûdiyyah for the sake of universal shukr.

Here, one of the strangest and most absurd errors of human philosophy is this: man’s juz’ al-ikhtiyârî and irâdah are insufficient even to speak, which is his most obvious and smallest action; his juz’ al-ikhtiyârî and irâdah are unable to create it. He merely puts the air into the place of utterance of a letter of the alphabet. As a result of his minor kasb, Janâb-i Haqq creates the words and duplicates thousands of copies across the atmosphere. Anyone with even an iota of consciousness understands what an immense error it is to call human invention a wondrous and universal miracle of Qoudrah, even though man’s power is insufficient and all causes in the universe are incapable of creating it.

Here is an example of this: about a helpless and absolutely impotent man who has become the means of providing an advantage for mankind with the radio, which is a law of Allah that contains a hundred thousand wonders and is discovered through the ilham of Allah as an answer to the du‘â offered through action for making it a tool for the benefit of mankind, they say, "Aha! So-and-so inventor invented the radio and discovered the power of electricity. And other inventors are now working to invent material to read the human mind."

Indeed, Janâb-i Haqq has created this universe as a guest house wherein everything is necessary for and worthy of man. As a result of the investigations arising from the accumulation of ideas over time, which is an active du‘â, He bestows on man’s hands in the form of banquets His certain ni’mahs that have been hidden in time and centuries. While shukr should be offered in return for it, regarding it as the skill and invention of an ordinary, powerless human being, which is a denial of ni’mah (kufr an-ni’mah), and then obscuring those wonders, which are the result of universal consciousness, ‘ilm, ‘irâdah, rahmah and favour, and then showing just a thin veil of them and attributing it to the nature and random coincidence that lacks consciousness and material that is lifeless, is opening a door to absolute ignorance that contradicts the essence of humanity in ahsan taqwîm. Since this is so, in accordance with the principle of وَفِي كُلِّ شَيْءٍ لَهُ أَيَةٌ تَدُلُّ عَلَى أَنَّهُ وَاحِدٌ2, it is necessary to view the creation with ma’nâ al-harfî so that a man can be a real man.

سُبْحَانَكَ لاَ عِلْمَ لَنَا اِلاَّ مَا عَلَّمْتَنَا اِنَّكَ اَنْتَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ

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1 (Nur Aleminin bir Anahtarı. A small book from the Risale-i Nur Collection.) (Tr.)

2 (In everything, there is an âyah that proves His wahdah.) (Tr.)

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