The Fourth Question of The First Letter

Like the metaphorical ‘ashq for beloveds transforming into true (Haqîqî) ‘ashq, can the metaphorical ‘ashq for the world, which is present in most people, also transform into a true (Haqîqî) ‘ashq?

The Answer: Yes. If the lover turns his face from the transitory face of the world by seeing the ugliness of fade and transience on that face, searches for an eternal beloved and if he is successful in looking at the world's other two most beautiful faces, which are the mirror to the Names of Allah and the tillage of the âkhirah, such metaphorical love for the transient face of the world, which is not permitted by the Sharî’ah, begins to transform into true (Haqîqî) ‘ashq. But on the one condition that he does not confuse his own fleeting and unstable world tied to his life with the outside world. If like the people of dhalâlah and ghaflah, he forgets himself, plunges into the âfâk1 and by supposing the general world to be his private world, he becomes the lover of it, he will fall into the swamp of nature and drown. Unless, extraordinarily, a hand of ‘inâyah saves him. Look at the following comparison in order to illuminate this haqiqah:

For example, if on the four walls of this beautiful and adorned room were four full-length mirrors belonging to four of us, then there would be five rooms. One is actual and general and four are similitudes and personal. Each of us could change our personal room’s shape, form and colour by means of our own mirror. If we were to paint it red, it shows it red, if we were to paint it green, it shows it green. And so on… We could give numerous states to it by changing the mirror; we could make it ugly, or beautiful and give it many forms. But we could not easily change and transform the outer and general room. While the general room and personal rooms are the same in haqiqah, the requirements of their conditions are different. You can destroy your room with one finger, but you cannot make one stone of the other stir.

Thus, this world is a decorated halting place. The life of each of us is a full-length mirror. Each of us has a world, an ‘âlam from this world, but its pillar, centre and door is our life. Rather, that personal world and ‘âlam of ours is a page. Our life is a pen… Many things are written with it that will pass to the page of our deeds. If we have loved our world, later we have seen that it is fading, transitory and unstable like our life since our world is constructed on our life. We have felt and understood this. Our love for it turns toward the beautiful embroideries of the Names of Allah to which our personal world is the mirror and which it represents; from them, it progresses to the manifestation of the Names. Also, if, by understanding our personal world is a temporary seed-bed of the âkhirah and Jannah, we turn our feelings like intense ambition, desire and love toward the benefits of the âkhirah, which are its results, fruits and shoots, then that metaphorical ‘ashq transforms into true (Haqîqî) ‘ashq. Otherwise, if he sunk into the world and embrace it with intense emotions by manifesting the mystery of the âyahنَسُوا اللّهَ فَاَنْسَيهُمْ اَنْفُسَهُمْ اُولئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ2 forgetting his nafs, not thinking the fading of life, supposing his personal, unstable world to be constant like the general world and imagining himself to be undying, he will drown in it. Such love is boundless trouble and torment for him. Because compassion peculiar to orphans and a despairing tenderness are born of that love. He pities all living beings. To a degree that he feels the tenderness for all beautiful creatures, which are subject to fading, and the pain of separation; he is incapable of doing anything; he will suffer pain in absolute despair.

But the first man, who is saved from ghaflah, finds an elevated panacea for the pain of such intense compassion that in the death and fading of all the living beings he pities, he sees the mirrors of the rûhs representing the perpetual manifestations of the eternal Names of a Bâqî One, to be eternal; his compassion transforms into joy. Behind all beautiful creatures subject to fading and transience, he also sees a perpetual embroidering, beautifying, art, adornment, bestowal and illuminating, which make a sacred beauty that is free from any unworthy thing and ugliness perceived. He sees the fade and transience to be refreshing in order to increase the beauty, renew the pleasure and exhibit the art, he increases his pleasure, his ardour and his astonishment.

اَلْبَاقِى هُوَ الْبَاقِى

Said Nursî