Konu: The Flashes

The Fifteenth Flash

This consists of the Indexes of Sözler (The Words), Mektûbat (Bediuzzaman Said Nursi—Letters 1928-1932), and Lem’alar (The Flashes Collection), from the First to the Fourteenth Flash. Since they have been included in the relevant volumes, they have not been published here.

The Sixteenth Flash

In His Name, be He glorified!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.


Peace be upon you, and God’s mercy and blessings!
My Dear and Loyal Brothers Hoja Sabri, Hâfiz Ali, Mes’ud, the Mustafa’s, Husrev, Re’fet, Bekir Bey, Rüstü, the Lütfi’s, Hâfiz Ahmed, Shaykh Mustafa, and the others! It occurred to my heart to explain to you in concise informative fashion four small Matters which have been the subject of curiosity and questions.

• THE FIRST

Certain of our brothers like Çaprazzâde Abdullah Efendi had heard related from those who divine the realities that this last Ramadan a relief from difficulties, a victory, would occur for the Sunnis, whereas it did not occur. Why do people of sainthood and illumination such as that make predictions that are contrary to reality? They asked me, and a summary of the reply I gave them, with which I was inspired, is this:
It is said in a Hadith: “Sometimes a calamity is visited on a person, but it is confronted with alms-giving, and is repelled.”1 The underlying meaning of this Hadith shows that while appointed events are going to come to pass through certain conditions, they do not occur. That is to say, the appointed events of which the people of illumination are aware are not absolute, but restricted by certain conditions; on the conditions not being present, the event does not occur. However the event, like the appointed hour of death, which is suspended, is written and determined in the Tablet of Appearance and Dissolution, which is a sort of notebook of the Pre-Eternal Tablet. It is only extremely rarely that illuminations penetrate as far as the Pre-Eternal Tablet; mostly they cannot rise that far.
As a consequence of this, predictions made as a result of interpretations or illuminations this last Ramadan and Feast of Sacrifices or at other times that do not occur because the conditions on which they were dependent were not fulfilled, do not give the lie to those who told of them. For they were determined, but did not come about because the conditions were not fulfilled.
Yes, the sincere prayers of the majority of the Sunnis for the abrogating of innovations in the month of Ramadan formed a condition and important reason. But since innovations had entered the mosques in Ramadan, they formed an obstacle to the acceptance of the supplications, and the relief did not arrive. Just as in accordance with the above Hadith, alms-giving repels calamities, the sincere supplications of the majority attract a general release from troubles. Since the power of attraction did not come into being, the victory also was not given.

* SECOND CURIOUS QUESTION
The last two months there has been a lively political situation in the face of which some attempt should have been made to alleviate conditions both for myself and the brothers with whom I am connected. While there was a strong possibility that this could have been achieved, I attached no importance to the situation, and on the contrary, had an idea in support of ‘the worldly’ who oppress me. A number of people were astonished at this. They said: “What do you think about the policies followed by those at the head of these innovators and in part dissembling people who torment you, so that you do nothing to them?” A summary of my reply is as follows:
The greatest danger facing the people of Islam at this time is their hearts being corrupted and belief harmed through the misguidance that arises from science and philosophy. The sole solution for this is light; it is to show light so that their hearts can be reformed and their belief, saved. If one acts with the club of politics and prevails over them, the unbelievers descend to the degree of dissemblers. And dissemblers are worse than unbelievers. That is to say, the club cannot heal the heart at this time, for then unbelief enters the heart and is concealed, and is transformed into dissembling. And at this time, a powerless person like myself cannot employ both of them—the club and the light. For this reason I am compelled to embrace the light with all my strength, and cannot consider the club of politics whatever form it is in. Whatever physical jihad demands, we are not charged with that duty at the moment. Yes, in accordance with a person’s way, a club is necessary to form a barrier against the assaults of the unbelievers or apostates. But we only have two hands. Even if we had a hundred hands, they would be sufficient only for the light. We do not have any other hands with which to hold the club!

* THIRD CURIOUS QUESTION
Why do you violently oppose war, although, with foreign forces like the British and Italians interfering in the government recently, it would have excited Islamic zeal—the true point of support and source of moral strength of this country’s government—and been a means to an extent of reviving the marks of Islam and repulsing innovations? Why have you offered prayers for its being settled by peaceful means, and come out fervently in support of the innovators’ government? Is this not indirect support of innovations?
T h e A n s w e r : We want relief, release, happiness, and victory—but not with the sword of the unbelievers. Let the unbelievers’ swords be the end of them! We are not in need of any advantage proceeding from their swords. In fact it is those obstinate Europeans who have set the dissemblers to pester the people of belief, and have raised the atheists.
As for the calamity of war, it would cause great harm to our service of the Qur’an. Since the majority of our most valuable, self-sacrificing brothers are under the age of forty-five, they would be forced because of war to leave their sacred service of the Qur’an and enroll in the army. If I had the money, I would gladly pay the thousand liras necessary to release each of such valuable brothers from military service. With hundreds of my valuable brothers leaving the Qur’anic service of the Risale-i Nur and laying hands on the club of physical jihad, I feel a loss in myself of a hundred thousand liras. These two years of Zekâi’s military service, even, have caused perhaps a thousand liras of his immaterial profit to be lost. Anyway... Like the One Powerful Over All Things sweeps and cleans in a minute the atmosphere filled with clouds and shows the shining sun in clear skies, so He may also dispel these black and merciless clouds and show the truths of the Shari’a like the sun, and give them without expense or trouble. We await it from His mercy that He will not sell them to us expensively. May He give intelligence to the heads of those at the top, and belief to their hearts; that would be enough. Then matters would put themselves to rights.

* FOURTH CURIOUS QUESTION
They ask: “Since what you hold in your hand is light, not a club, and light cannot be objected to, nor fled from, nor can harm come from showing it, why do you advise caution to your friends, and prevent them showing many light-filled parts of the Risale-i Nur to people?”
A brief reply to the question is this: the heads of most of those at the top are drunk and they cannot read them. And even if they do read them, they cannot understand them; they give them the wrong meaning, and interfere. In order that they do not interfere, they should not be shown them until they come to their senses. There are also many unscrupulous people who out of spite or ambition or fear, deny the light or close their eyes to it. Therefore, I advise my brothers to be cautious and not to give the truths to those who are unfit, and not to do things which excite the suspicions of ‘the worldly.’

* * *
Conclusion

Today I received a letter from Re’fet Bey. In connection with his question about the Prophet’s (PBUH) beard, I say this:
It is established by Hadiths that the number of hairs from the blessed beard of the Noble Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace) was limited. Despite their being few in number, like thirty, forty, fifty or sixty, the fact that there are hairs from the blessed beard in thousands of places caused me much thought at one time. At that time it occurred to me that what is known at his blessed beard consists not only of its hairs, but the Companions, who neglected nothing, preserved the hair of his blessed head when he cut it. His luminous, blessed hair, which would be preserved for ever, numbered thousands and may be equal to what is now extant.
I also wondered at that time whether or not it was established with sound documentary evidence that the hair found in all mosques was the Prophet’s (PBUH) hair so that it was acceptable to visit it. It occurred to me suddenly that the hair was the cause of visits, and of uttering benedictions for the Noble Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace), and venerating and loving him. Since it was the cause, the thing’s essential nature was not considered, but its nature as a means. Therefore, even if the hair was not truly from the Prophet’s blessed beard, since it was considered to be because of its appearance, and performed the function of being a means of veneration, regard, and benedictions, it was not necessary to specify and authenticate it. So long as there was no definite evidence to the contrary, that was sufficient. For generally held opinions and the acceptance of the Islamic Community counts as a sort of proof.
If some of the pious object to such matters on grounds of fear of God (taqwa), or caution, or resolution, they do so in particular cases. And if they say it is an innovation, it is included among the type, ‘commendable innovations,’ because it is the means of reciting benedictions for the Prophet (PBUH). Re’fet Bey said in his letter: “This matter has been the cause of argument among the brothers.” I advise my brothers that they do not argue in such a way that will cause differences and conflict; they should grow accustomed to discussing things as an exchange of ideas, without disputing.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.

Peace be upon you and God’s mercy and blessings.
My Dear and Loyal Brothers from Senirkent, Ibrahim, Tükrü, Hâfiz Bekir, Hâfiz Hüseyin, Hâfiz Receb Efendi!
The atheists have for a long time objected to the three matters you sent with Hâfiz Tevfik.
THE FIRST
According to the explicit meaning of the verse,
Until when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water,
he saw the sun setting in a hot, mud spring.
THE SECOND
Where is the barrier of Dhu’l-Qarnayn?
THE THIRD
This is about Jesus (UWP) coming at the end of time and killing the Dajjal.
The answers to these questions are lengthy, so indicating them briefly, we say this: since the verses of the Qur’an express matters in accordance with the styles of Arabic, in conformity with outward appearances, in a way everyone will understand, they frequently explain things in the form of metaphors, allegories, and comparisons. So to consider the verse, set in a spring of murky water: Dhu’l-Qarnayn saw the sun setting in the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which appeared like a boiling, muddy spring, or in the fiery, smoking crater of a volcano. That is, in the outward view, the Atlantic appeared to Dhu’l-Qarnayn in the distance as the large pool of a spring surrounded by a swamp which in the intense heat of summer was steaming and vaporizing; he saw the sun’s apparent setting in a part of it. Or he saw the sun, the eye of the skies, being hidden in a new, fiery crater at the summit of a volcano, which was spewing out rocks, earth, and lava.
Yes, the All-Wise Qur’an’s miraculously eloquent expression teaches many matters with this sentence. Firstly, by explaining that Dhu’l-Qarnayn’s journey to the west coincided with the intense heat of summer, the area of a swamp, the time of the setting of the sun, and the time of a volcanic eruption, it alludes to many instructive matters, like the complete conquest of Africa.
It is well-known that the sun’s motion is apparent, indicating the hidden movement of the earth and giving news of it. What it intended is not the actual setting of the sun. Also the spring is a metaphor. From the distance a large sea appears like a small pool. The likening of a sea appearing beyond swamps, and mists and vapours rising from it due to the heat, to a muddy spring, together with word ‘ayn, which in Arabic means both spring, and sun, and eye, is most meaningful and apt according to the mysteries of eloquence. It appears like that to Dhu’l-Qarnayn because of the distance. So too, coming from the Sublime Throne and commanding the heavenly bodies, the heavenly address of the Qur’an states that the subjugated sun, which performs the duty of a lamp in this guest-house of the Most Merciful One, is hidden in a dominical spring like the Atlantic Ocean, and this is fitting for the elevatedness and greatness of the heavenly address; through its miraculous style it shows the sea to be a hot spring and steaming eye. And that is how is appears to heavenly eyes.
I n S h o r t : Terming the Atlantic Ocean a muddy spring indicates that Dhu’l-Qarnayn saw that huge ocean as a spring due to the distance. But because the Qur’an sees everything from close to, it did not see what Dhu’l-Qarnayn saw, which was a sort of illusion. Indeed, since the Qur’an comes from the heavens and looks to them, it sees the earth sometimes as an arena, sometimes as a palace, sometimes as a cradle, and sometimes as a page. Thus, its calling the vast misty, vaporous Atlantic Ocean a spring shows its great elevatedness.

* * *
YOUR SECOND QUESTION
Where is the barrier of Dhu’l-Qarnayn? Who were Gog and Magog?
T h e A n s w e r : Long ago I wrote a treatise about this question. The atheists were silenced by it at that time. I do not have it with me now, furthermore, my memory is not working and not helping me. Also, this question is discussed a little in the Third Branch of the Twenty-Fourth Word. We shall therefore only indicate very briefly two or three points about it, as follows:
According to explanations given by investigative scholars, and as indicated by the title Dhu’l-Qarnayn, names beginning with the suffix Dhu, like Dhu’l-Yazan, were used by the kings of Yemen, therefore this Dhu’l-Qarnayn was not Alexander the Great. He was rather one of the kings of Yemen who lived at the time of Abraham (UWP) and received instruction from Khidr. Alexander the Greek, however, lived approximately three hundred years before Christ, and was taught by Aristotle.
Human history goes back in regular fashion approximately three thousand years. This deficient and short view of history is not accurate concerning pre-Abrahamic times. It continues back either as superstition, or as denial, or in very abbreviated form. The reason this Dhu’l-Qarnayn of Yemen became known since early times in Qur’anic commentaries with the name Alexander, was either that it was one of his names, so that he was Alexander the Great or the Alexander of Ancient Times, or else the following:
The particular events mentioned by verses of the Qur’an are the tips of universal events. Thus, through his prophetic guidance, Alexander the Great, who was Dhu’l-Qarnayn, founded a barrier between the peoples who were oppressors and those who were oppressed, and built the famous Great Wall of China to prevent the raids of those cruel enemies. Similarly, many powerful kings and world conquerors like Alexander the Greek followed in the path of Dhu’l-Qarnayn materially, while prophets and spiritual poles, who are like the kings of man’s spiritual world, followed him in respect of spiritual matters and guidance; they built barriers between mountains—one of the most effective means of saving the oppressed from oppressors, and later constructed strongholds on mountain tops. They founded these themselves through their material power, or through their guidance and planning. Then they built walls surrounding towns and citadels inside the towns, and finally they made machine-guns and Dreadnoughts, which were like mobile citadels. The most famous barrier on earth, the Great Wall of China, covers a distance of several days’ journeying and was built to halt the incursions against the oppressed peoples of India and China of the savage tribes known in the Qur’an as Gog and Magog, and otherwise known as the Mongols and Manchurians. These tribes several times threw the world of humanity into chaos, and pouring out from behind the Himalayas wrought destruction from East to West. A long wall was built between two mountains close to the Himalayan mountains which for a long time prevented the frequent assaults of those savage peoples, and barriers were also built through the efforts of the kings of ancient Persia, who resembled Dhu’l-Qarnayn, in the mountains of Caucasia, in the region of Darband, to halt the inroads of the plundering and pillaging Tatar peoples. There are very many barriers of this sort. Since the All-Wise Qur’an speaks with all mankind, it mentions what is apparently a particular incident, recalling all events similar to it. It is from this point of view that the narrations concerning the Barrier and Gog and Magog, and the writings of the Qur’anic commentators about them, all differ.
Furthermore, in respect of related subjects, the All-Wise Qur’an transfers from one event to another distant one. Someone who does not think of this relation supposes the two events to be close in time. Thus, the Qur’an’s predicting the end of the world from the destruction of the Barrier is not in respect of the two events being close in time, but for two subtle points in respect of the association of the subjects. That is, the world will be destroyed just as the Barrier will be destroyed. Also, as mountains, which are natural, Divine barriers, are firm and will only be destroyed at the end of the world, so is this Barrier firm as a mountain, and will only be levelled to dust at the destruction of the world. Even if it suffers damage from the assaults of time, for the most part it will remain intact. Yes, although the Great Wall of China, which is one particular meaning from the universal meaning of the Barrier of Dhu’l-Qarnayn, has been standing for thousands of years, it is still there for all to see. It is read as a long embodied, petrified, meaningful line from ancient history written by man’s hand on the page of the earth.

* * *
YOUR THIRD QUESTION
There are brief replies concerning Jesus (Upon whom be peace) killing the Dajjal in both the First and the Fifteenth Letters, which should suffice you.

* * *
In His Name!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.

Peace be upon you, and God’s mercy and blessings.
My Dear Self-Sacrificing, Loyal, Conscientious Brothers, Hoja Sabri and Hâfiz Ali!
Although your important question about the verse at the end of Sura Luqman about the Five Hidden Things deserves an important reply, unfortunately neither my present state of mind nor physical condition permit such an answer. I shall only allude very concisely to one or two points your question touches on.
Your question shows that atheists who have deviated from true path of religion have made objections and criticisms concerning the time of rain falling and nature of the embryos in the womb from among the Five Hidden Things. They have said: “Instruments in the observatory can discover when rain is to fall, so someone other than God knows. Also the sex of embryos can be learnt by means of X-rays. This means it is possible to learn the Five Hidden Things.”
T h e A n s w e r : Not being tied to any law, the time rain falls is bound directly to Divine will. One instance of wisdom in its appearance from the treasury of mercy being dependent on a particular Divine wish is as follows:
The most important things in the universe and the most valuable are existence, life, light, and mercy, which look directly, without intermediary or veil, to Divine power and a particular Divine wish. In other creatures, apparent causes are veils to the disposal of Divine power, and regular laws and principles to an extent screen the Divine will and wish. However, such veils have not been placed on existence, life, light, and mercy, for the purpose they serve is not in force in those things.
Since the most important truths in existence are mercy and life, and rain is the source of life and means of mercy, indeed is pure mercy, for sure intermediaries will not veil it, neither will laws and monotony screen the wishes that pertain to God alone. In this way everyone in every situation will all the time be obliged to offer thanks and worship and supplications and prayers. If rain had been included under a law, everyone would have relied on the law and the door of thanks and supplication would have been closed.
It is clear that there are numerous benefits in the sun’s rising. But since it is tied to a regular law, supplications are not offered for its rising and thanks are not given. And since by means of the law human knowledge knows that it will rise again tomorrow, it is not counted among the matters of the Unseen. But since the particular occurences of rain do not follow any law, men are all the time obliged to take refuge at the Divine Court with prayers and supplications. And since human knowledge has been unable to specify the times of precipitation, they consider it to be a special bounty proceeding from the treasury of mercy alone, and truly offer thanks.
It is because of this that the verse includes the time of rain among the Five Hidden Things. Deducing the preliminaries of rain with instruments in observatories and specifying the times of precipitation is not knowing the Unseen, but through studying certain of its preliminaries knowing when it has emerged from the World of the Unseen and drawn close to the Manifest World.
When the most secret events of the Unseen occur, or when they are close to occurring, they are known through a sort of premonition. That is not knowing the Unseen, it is knowing something existent or its being close to existence. I myself even, through a sensitivity in my nerves, perceive the rain, sometimes twenty-four hours before it comes. That is to say, the rain has preliminaries, forerunners. They show themselves through a sort of dampness, making it known that rain is to follow. Just like a law, this situation is a means of reaching matters that have left the World of the Unseen but not yet entered the Manifest World. But to know when rain will fall that has not yet set foot in the Manifest World, nor left through a particular Divine wish the treasury of mercy, is peculiar to the One All-Knowing of the Unseen.
* * *
THE SECOND MATTER
Learning by means of X-rays whether a child in the womb is male or female is not contrary to the meaning of the verse, And He Who knows what is in the wombs, which refers to the Unseen. For what is intended by the verse are the preliminaries of the child’s particular capacity and the appointed course of its life, which it will acquire in the future, and even the wondrous stamp of the Eternally Besought One on its face—the child being known in this way is particular to the knowledge of the One All-Knowing of the Unseen. Even if a hundred thousand X-ray-like minds of men were to combine, they still could not discover its true features, each of which is a mark distinguishing the child from all the other members of the human race. So how could they discover the immaterial features of its abilities, which are a hundred times more wondrous than its physical features.
We said at the beginning that existence, life, and mercy are the most important truths in the universe and that the most important station is theirs. Therefore, one reason for that comprehensive truth of life looking with all its fine points and subtleties to the Divine will and wish and mercy, which are particular to God Almighty, is this:
It is because life together with all its faculties is the source and means of thanks and worship that laws and monotony, which are a veil to the will which is God’s alone, and apparent intermediaries, which screen mercy which is particular to God Almighty, have not been placed on it. Almighty God has two manifestations in the physical and non-physical features of unborn children.
One shows Divine Unity, Oneness, and Eternal Besoughtedness, whereby, being in conformity and agreement with other human beings in regard to basic members and human faculties, the child testifies to Divine Unity. With this tongue the child shouts out: “Whoever gave me these features and members is also the Maker of all human beings, who resemble me in regard to basic members, and He is also the Maker of all living beings.”
Thus, this tongue of the child in the womb does not pertain to the Unseen; it may be known since it follows the law and general rule and the species. It is a branch and tongue of the Manifest World which has entered the World of the Unseen.
The Second Aspect: Through the tongue of the features of its particular capacity and its individual features, it proclaims its Maker’s choice, will and wish and particular mercy and that He is under no restriction. But this tongue comes from the deepest Unseen; none apart from Pre-Eternal Knowledge can see it before it comes into existence, nor comprehend it. These features cannot be known while in the womb through one out of a thousand of its members being seen!
I n S h o r t : In the features of the embryo’s innate capacity and in its physical features there are both evidence for Divine Unity and proofs of Divine will and choice. If Almighty God grants success, a number of further points shall be written about the Five Hidden Things. But for now I have no more time and my condition does not permit it, so I conclude here.
The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!
S a i d N u r s i

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You taught us; indeed You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.
* * *
In His Name, be He glorified!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.

My Dear, Loyal, Curious Brother, Re’fet Bey!
You ask in your letter about the Ten Subtle Faculties. It is not appropriate to give instruction in the Sufi way at present; there are in any case the works of the scholars of the Naqshbandi way about the Ten Subtle Faculties. Our duty at the present time is the discovery of mysteries, not the relating of existent matters. Don’t be offended, I cannot give the details. I shall only say this much, that Imam-i Rabbani defined the Ten Subtle Faculties as the heart, spirit, inner heart [sirr], khafi, akhfa, and a faculty related to each of the four elements in man, and discussed briefly the progress of one faculty in each stage of the spiritual journeying.
I myself observe that there are numerous subtle faculties in man’s comprehensive disposition and vital potentialities, of which ten have become famous. The philosophers and ‘externalist’ scholars, even, took those Ten Faculties as the basis of their theories in another form, calling them the five external senses and five internal senses, which are the windows or samples of those Ten Faculties. In fact, man’s ten subtle faculties, which are known by both the learned and ordinary people, are related to the Ten Subtle Faculties of the Sufis. For example, if faculties like the conscience, nerves, emotions, intellect, desires, power of animal appetites, and power of anger are added to the heart, spirit, and inner heart, the Ten Subtle Faculties are shown in another way. There are many other faculties in addition to these, like the sense of premonition, and various motive and appetitive powers. If the reality of this question was described, it would be very lengthy, and as I have little time, I am compelled to cut it short.
As for your second question, about the aspect of things which looks to themselves, and the aspect which looks to their Maker [mânâ-yi ismî and mânâ-yi harfî], they are explained at the start of all books on Arabic grammar. So too there are ample explanations of them, together with comparisons, in the works of the science of reality, called The Words and Letters. For someone intelligent and exacting like yourself, further discussion would be superfluous. When you look in the mirror, if you look at it for the glass, you will intentionally see the glass; in it, Re’fet will strike the eye secondly, indirectly. Whereas if your purpose is to look at the mirror in order to see your blessed face, you will intentionally see lovable Re’fet. You will exclaim: “So blessed be God, the Best of Creators!” The glass of the mirror will strike your eye secondly and indirectly.
Thus, in the first instance, the glass of the mirror is ‘the meaning which looks to the thing itself’, while Re’fet is its ‘significative meaning’. In the second instance, the glass of the mirror is ‘the significative meaning’, that is, it is not looked at for itself, but for another meaning; that is, the reflection. The reflection is ‘the meaning which looks to the thing itself.’ That is, it is included in one respect in the definition “it points to a meaning in itself.” While the mirror verifies the definition of its ‘significative meaning’, which is “it points to the meaning of another.”
According to the Qur’anic view, all the beings in the universe are letters, expressing through their ‘significative meaning,’ the meaning of another. That is, they make known the Names and attributes of that Other. Soulless philosophy for the most part looks in accordance with ‘the meaning which looks to the thing itself,’ and deviates into the bog of Nature. However... I do not have the time now for much talk. In fact, I cannot even write the final and easiest and most important part of the Index. Convey my greetings to your study companions, in particular, Husrev, Bekir, Rüsdü, Lütfü, Shaykh Mustafa, Hâfiz Ahmed, Sezâi, the Mehmed’s, and the Hojas. I pray for the blessed innocents in your household.

• • • • • • The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!
            Your brother,
            S a i d N u r s i

* * *

The Seventeenth Flash

This Flash consists of Fifteen Notes taken from Zühre.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Introduction

Twelve years before this Flash was written, I wrote down in note form in Arabic in such treatises as Zühre, Su'le, Habbe, Semme, Zerre, and Katre, a number of flashes concerning Divine Unity which became clear to me through dominical grace during an unfolding of the spirit and progress of the mind and journey of the heart in Divine knowledge. Since they were written to show only one tip of a lengthy truth and point out only one beam of a shining light, and since each was in the form of a memento and reminder for myself only, their benefits for others were limited. And particularly as the great majority of my most select and special brothers were unable to read Arabic. On their insistent and pressing requests, therefore, I was obliged to write in Turkish an approximation of those Notes, those flashes, in part expounding them and in part abbreviating them. Since these Notes and Arabic treatises form the first of the New Said's works arising from the knowledge of reality, which he to a degree witnessed in the form of illumination, their meanings have been written unchanged. Because of this, a number of the sentences are included here despite being mentioned in some others of the Words. And some are not expounded despite being very concise, so that the refinement of the original should not be lost.

First Note

I addressed myself saying: O heedless Said! Know that it is not worthy of you to attach your heart to something that will not accompany you after this world comes to an end and will part from you on its destruction. It is not reasonable to fasten your heart to transitory things which will turn their backs on you and leave you when the age in which you live comes to an end, and not befriend you on the journey through the Inter-mediate Realm, nor accompany you to the door of the grave, and which, leaving you for ever after one or two years, will burden you with their sins and out of spite abandon you at the moment of accomplishment.
If you are sensible, you will leave matters that will be shattered and destroyed under the blows of worldly revolutions and the stages of the Intermediate Realm and clashing upheavals of the Hereafter; which are not able to accompany and befriend you on the journey to eternity. Do not give them importance. Do not grieve at their passing.
Consider your own nature; among your subtle faculties is one that is such that it cannot be content with anything other than eternity and the Eternal One. It cannot address itself to any other than Him. It cannot demean itself for them. Should you give it the whole world, it would not satisfy that innate need. It is the sovereign of your senses and faculties. So obey that sovereign, which is obedient to the All-Wise Creator's command, and find salvation!

Second Note

I had a true dream in which I said to people: "O man! One of the Qur'an's principles is this: do not consider anything other than Almighty God to be greater than yourself to the degree that you worship it. And do not consider yourself to be greater than anything else to the degree that you become arrogant and haughty before it. For just as all creatures are equal in regard to their distance from being fit to be worshipped, so too are they equal in regard to their createdness."

Third Note

O heedless Said! You have illusions and see the exceedingly temporary world as undying and permanent. When you look around yourself at the world, you see it as stable to a degree, and constant. And so, since looking with the same view you also consider your own transient self to be constant, you only take fright at Doomsday. As though you were going to live till then, so you are only frightened at that.
Use your reason! You and your personal world are perpetually subject to the blows of death and decline. Your illusion and sophistry resemble this comparison: If you have a mirror in your hand which you hold up to a house or a town or a garden, the image of the house, town or garden will appear in the mirror. If the tiniest movement or smallest change occur to the mirror, the images become confused and distorted. The fact that the actual house, town or garden outside the mirror continue and are constant is of no avail to you, for the house in the mirror in your hand and your town and garden are only in the scale and proportions which the mirror gives you.
Your life is the mirror. The support and mirror of your world and its centre is your life. Every minute it is possible that the house and town and garden will die and be destroyed, their condition is such that any minute they may collapse on your head and your doomsday will come. Since it is thus, do not burden this life and world of yours with loads they cannot raise and support!

Fourth Note

Know that it is generally the practice of the All-Wise Creator to return important and valuable things exactly the same. That is to say, renewing most things in similar form in the alternating of the seasons and changing of the centuries, He returns the things of value and importance exactly. This law of Divine practice is seen to be mostly unvarying in the resurrections of the days, years, and centuries.
Thus, as a consequence of this constant law, we say: since according to the agreement and testimony of science, the most perfect fruit of the tree of creation is man, and among creatures the most important is man, and among beings the most valuable is man, and since a human individual is equivalent to a species of the other animals, for sure it may be surmised with certainty that at the Supreme Resurrection, each human individual will be returned exactly the same, with his body and all his attributes.

Fifth Note

Since Western science and civilization had to a degree a place in the Old Said's thought, when the New Said embarked on his journeys of the mind and of the heart, they were transformed into sicknesses of the heart and were the cause of excessive difficulties. The New Said therefore wanted to shake off from his mind that fallacious philosophy and dissolute civilization. In order to silence the emotions of his evil-commanding soul, which testified in favour of Europe, he was compelled to hold in his spirit the following discussion-which in one respect is very brief and in another is long-with the collective personality of Europe.
It should not be misunderstood; Europe is two. One follows the sciences which serve justice and right and the industries beneficial for the life of society through the inspiration it has received from true Christianity; this first Europe I am not addressing. I am rather addressing the second corrupt Europe which, through the darkness of the philosophy of Naturalism, supposing the evils of civilization to be its virtues, has driven mankind to vice and misguidance. As follows:
On my journey of the spirit at that time I said to Europe's collective personality, which apart from beneficial science and the virtues of civilization, holds in its hand meaningless, harmful philosophy and noxious, dissolute civilization:
Know this, O second Europe! You hold a diseased and misguided philosophy in your right hand and a harmful and corrupt civilization in your left, and claim, "Mankind's happiness is with these two!" May your two hands be broken and may these two filthy presents of yours be the death of you!... And so they shall be!
O you unhappy spirit which spreads unbelief and ingratitude! Can a man who is suffering torments and is afflicted with ghastly calamities in both his spirit and his conscience and his mind and his heart be happy through his body wallowing in a superficial, deceptive glitter and wealth? Can it be said that he is happy?
Do you not see that on feeling despair at some minor matter and his hope for some illusory wish being lost and his being disillusioned at some insignificant business, such a person's sweet imaginings become bitter for him, what is pleasant torments him, and the world constricts him and becomes a prison for him? But what happiness can you ensure for such a wretched person who through your inauspiciousness has suffered the blows of misguidance in the deepest corners of his heart to the very foundations of his spirit, and because of this whose hopes have all been extinguished and whose pains all arise from it? Can it be said of someone whose body is in a false and fleeting paradise and whose heart and spirit are suffering the torments of Hell that he is happy? See, you have led astray wretched mankind in this way. You make them suffer the torments of Hell in a false heaven.

• O evil-commanding soul of mankind! Consider the following comparison and see where you have driven mankind. For example, there are two roads before us. We take one of them and see that at every step is some wretched, powerless person. Tyrants are attacking him, seizing his property and goods, and destroying his humble house. Sometimes they wound him as well. It is such that the heavens weep at his pitiful state. Wherever one looks, things are continuing in this vein. The sounds heard on this way are the roars of tyrants and the groans of the oppressed; a universal mourning envelops the entire way. Since through his humanity man is pained at the suffering of others, he is afflicted with a boundless grief. But because his conscience cannot endure so much pain, one who travels this way is compelled to do one of two things: either he strips off his humanity and embracing a boundless savagery bears such a heart that so long as he is safe and sound, he is not affected if all the rest of mankind perish, or else he suppresses the demands of the heart and reason.

O Europe corrupted with vice and misguidance and drawn far from the religion of Jesus! You have bestowed this hell-like state on the human spirit with your blind genius which, like the Dajjal, has only a single eye. You afterwards understood that this uncurable disease casts man down from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low, and reduces him to the basest level of animality. The only remedy you have found for this disease are the fantasies of entertainment and amusement and anodyne diversions which serve to temporarily numb the senses. These remedies of yours are being the death of you, and so they shall be. There! The road you have opened up for mankind and the happiness you have given them resembles this comparison.
The second road, which the All-Wise Qur'an has bestowed on mankind, is like this: We see that in every stopping-place, every spot, every town on this road are patrols of a Just Monarch's equitable soldiers doing the rounds. From time to time at the King's command a group of the soldiers are discharged. Their rifles, horses and gear belonging to the state are taken from them and they are given their leave papers. The discharged soldiers are apparently sad to hand over their rifles and horses with which they are familiar, but in reality they are happy to be discharged and extremely pleased to visit the Monarch and return to His Court.
Sometimes the demobilization officials come across a raw recruit who does not recognize them. "Surrender your rifle!," they say. The soldier replies: "I am a soldier of the King and I am in His service. I shall go to him later. Who are you? If you come with His permission and consent, I greet you with pleasure, show me His orders. Otherwise go away and stay far from me. Even if I stay on my own and there are thousands of you, I shall still fight you. It is not for myself, because I do not own myself, I belong to my King. Indeed, my self and the rifle I have now are in trust from my owner. I shall not submit to you because I have to protect the trust and preserve my King's honour and dignity!"
This situation then is one of thousands on the second way which cause joy and happiness. You can conclude the others for yourself. Throughout the journey on the second way there is the mobilization and despatch of troops with joy and celebrations under the name of birth, and the discharge of troops with cheer and military bands under the name of death. The All-Wise Qur'an has bestowed this road on mankind. Whoever accepts the gift wholeheartedly travels this second road leading to the happiness of both worlds. He feels neither grief at the things of the past nor fear at those of the future.
O second corrupted Europe! A number of your rotten and baseless foundations are as follows. You say: "Every living being from the greatest angel to the tiniest fish owns itself and works for itself and struggles for its own pleasure. It has the right to life. Its aim and purpose and all its endeavour is to live and continue its life." And supposing to be conflict the compassionate, munificent manifestations of the universal law of the All-Generous Creator which is manifest through plants hastening to the assistance of animals and animals hastening to the assistance of man through a principle of mutual assistance, which is conformed to in perfect obedience by all the principal beings of the universe, you declare idiotically: "Life is conflict."
How can particles of food hastening with total eagerness to nourish the cells of the body— a manifestation of that principle of mutual assistance— be conflict? How can it be a clash and struggle? Rather, that hastening and assistance is mutual help at the command of a Munificent Sustainer.

And one of your rotten foundations is, as you say: "Everything owns itself." A clear proof that nothing owns itself is this: among causes the most noble and with regard to choice the one with the most extensive will is man. But out of a hundred parts of the most obvious acts connected to man's will like thinking, speaking, and eating, only a single, doubtful, part is given to the hand of his will and is within the sphere of his power. So how can it be said of one who does not own one hundredth of the most obvious acts such as those that he owns himself`?

If the highest beings with the most extensive will are thus inhibited from real power and ownership to this degree, someone who says: "The rest of beings, animate and inanimate, own themselves" merely proves that he is more animal than the animals and more lifeless and unconscious than inanimate beings.
What pushes you into such an error and casts you into this abyss is your one-eyed genius. That is, your extraordinary, ill-omened brilliance. Because of that blind genius of yours, you have forgotten your Sustainer, Who is the the Creator of all things, you have attributed His works to imaginary Nature and causes, you have divided up the Creator's property among idols, false gods. In regard to this and in the view of your genins, every living creature and every human being has to resist innumerable enemies on his own and struggle to procure his endless needs. And they are compelled to withstand those innumerable enemies and needs with the power of a minute particle, a fine: thread-like will, a fleeting flash-like consciousness, a fast extinguishing flame-like life, a life which passes in a minute. But the capital of those wretched animate creatures is insufficient to answer even one of the thousands of their demands. When smitten by disaster, they can await no salve for their pain other than from deaf, blind causes. They manifest the meaning of the verse:

• • For the prayer of those without faith is nothing but (futile) wandering (in the mind).
    
  Your dark genius has transformed mankind's daytime into night. And in order to warm that dark, distressing, unquiet night, you have only illuminated them with deceptive, temporary lamps. Those lamps do not smile with joy in the face of mankind, they rather smirk idiotically at their pitiful and lamentable state. Those lights mock and make fun of them.

In the view of your pupils, all living beings are miserable and calamity-striken, subject to the assaults of oppressors. The world is a place of universal mourning. The sounds in the world are the cries and wails arising from death and suffering. The pupil who has absorbed your instruction thoroughly becomes a pharaoh. But he is an abased pharaoh, who worships the most base thing and considers himself to be lord over everything he reckons advantageous. A student of yours is obstinate. But an obstinate wretch who accepts utter abasement for a single pleasure. He demonstrates despicableness to the degree of kissing Satan's foot for
some worthless benefit. And he is a bully. But because he has no point of support in his heart, he is in fact a most impotent bullying braggart. The aim and endeavour of this pupil is to satisfy the lusts of the soul, to cunningly seek his own personal benefits under the screen of patriotism and elf-sacrifice, and work to satisfy his ambition and pride. He loves seriously nothing at all other than himself and sacrifices everything for his own sake.
As for the sincere and total student of the Qur'an, he is a worshipping servant. But he is an esteemed servant who does not stoop to bow in worship before even the mightiest of creatures, and does not make a supreme benefit like Paradise the aim of his worship. And he is mild and gentle. But at the same time he is noble and gracious and does not lower himself before any but the All-Glorious Creator. And other than with His permission and at His command, he does not stoop before the lowly. And he is needy. But due to the reward his All-Generous Owner is storing up for him in the future, he is at the same time self-sufficient. And he is weak. But he is strong in his weakness, for he relies on the strength of his Lord Whose power is infinite. Would the Qur'an make its true student take this fleeting, transient world as his aim and purpose while it does not make him take even eternal Paradise as his goal? Thus you can understand how different from one another are the aims and endeavours of the two students.

You can further compare the zeal and self-sacrifice of the All-Wise Qur'an's students with the pupils of sick philosophy as follows:

The student of philosophy flees from his own brother for his own sake and a files a lawsuit against him. Whereas, considering all the righteous worshippers in the heavens and on the earth to be his brother, the student of the Qur'an makes supplications for them in the most sincere fashion. He is happy at their happiness and he feels a powerful connection with them in his spirit, so that in his supplications he says: "Oh God, grant forgiveness to all believing men and women!" Furthermore, he considers the greatest things, the Divine Throne and the sun, to be each subservient officials, and servants and creatures like himself.

Also, compare in the following the loftiness and expansion of spirit of the two students: The Qur'an imparts such a joy and loftiness to the spirits of its students that instead of the ninety-nine beads of the prayer-beads, it places in their hands the minute particles of ninety-nine worlds displaying the manifestations of the ninety-nine Divine Names, and says to them: "Recite your invocations with these!" Listen to the invocations of students of the Qur'an like Shah-i Geylani, Rufa'i, and Shazeli (May God be pleased with them)! See, they hold in their hands the strings of particles, the droplets of water, the breaths of all creatures, and recite their invocations with them. They praise and glorify God with them and mention His Most Beautiful Names.

• Thus, look at the miraculous instruction of the Qur'an of Miraculous

Exposition and see how man is elevated by it-insignificant man who is stunned and confused at some minor grief and tiny sorrow and defeated by a microscopic germ. See how his inner senses expand so that he sees the beings in the mighty world to be inadequate as prayer-beads for his invocations. And although he considers Paradise to be insufficient as the aim of his invocations and recitations of the Divine Names, he does not see himself as superior to the lowest of Almighty God's creatures. He combines the utmost dignity with the utmost humility. You can see from this how abject and base are philosophy's students.
Thus, concerning the truths which the one-eyed genius proceeding from the sick philosophy of Europe sees wrongly, the guidance of the Qur'an-which looks at the two worlds with two shining eyes familiar with the Unseen and points with two hands to the two happinesses for mankind-says:
O man! The self and property which you have is not yours; it is in trust to you. The owner of the trust is an All-Compassionate and Munificent One, powerful over all things and with knowledge of all things. He wants to buy from you the property you hold so that He can guard it for you and it will not be lost. He will give you a good price for it in the future. You are a soldier under orders and charged with duties. Work in His name and act on His account. For He sends you the things you need as sustenance and protects you from the things you are unable to bear: The aim and result of this life of yours is to manifest the Names and attributes of your Owner. When a calamity comes your way, say:

• • To God we belong, and to Him is our return.
    

That is to say, "I am in the service of my Owner. And so, O calamity, if you have come with His permission and consent, greetings, you are welcome! For anyway we shall return to Him some time and enter His presence, and we yearn for Him. Since He will in any event release us from the responsibilities of life, let the release and discharge be at your hand, O calamity, I consent to it. But if He has ordered and decreed your coming as a trial for my dutifulness and loyality in preserving my trust, then without His permission and consent to surrender it to you, so long as I have the power, I will not surrender my Owner's trust to one not certainly charged to receive it."
Thus, look at this one example out of a thousand and see the degrees in the instruction given by the genius of philosophy and guidance of the Qur'an. Indeed, the reality of the two sides proceeds in the manner described above. But the degrees of people in guidance and misguidance an different, and the degrees of heedlessness are different. Everyone cannot perceive completely this truth in every degree, because heedlessness numbs the senses. And in the present age it has numbed the senses to such a degree that the civilized do not feel this grievous pain and suffering. However. the veil of heedlessness is being rent through increased sensitivity due to developments in science and the warnings of death which every day displays thirty thousand corpses. Utter abhorrence and a thousand regrets should be felt for those who take the way of misguidance due to the Europeans' idols and sciences of Naturalism, and for those who follow them and imitate them blindly!

O sons of this land! Do not try to imitate Europeans! How can you reasonably trust in and follow the vice and invalid, worthless thought of Europe after the boundless tyranny and enmity it has shown you? No! No! You who imitate them in dissoluteness, you are not following them, but unconsciously joining their ranks and putting to death both yourselves and your brothers. Know that the more you follow them in immorality the more you lie in claiming to be patriots! Because your following them in this way is to hold your nation in contempt, to hold the nation up to ridicule!

• God ,guides us, and you, to the Straight Pat
  
  
  Sixth Note

O you unhappy person who is alarmed at the great numbers of the unbelievers and their agreement in denying some of the truths of belief, and as a result is shaken in his faith! You should know that value and importance do not lie in quantity and number. For if man is not a true human being, he is transformed into a diabolical animal, and the more man increases in animal greed, the more animal he becomes-like some Europeans and their imitators. Yon can see that with regard to quantity and number, men are extremely few in comparison to the boundless numbers of animals, and yet they are sovereign rulers over all the animal species and God's vicegerents on earth.
Thus, the harmful unbelievers and those depraved wretches who follow in their way are a vicious species among Almighty God's animals which the All-Wise Maker has created for the development and prosperity of the world. He has made them a unit of measurement in order to let His believing servants know the degrees of the bounties He has bestowed on them, and finally will consign those animals to the Hell they deserve.

There is no power in the unbelievers and misguided denying and negating a truth of belief. Their agreement has no power; a thousand deniers are equal to one denier. For example, even if the whole population of Istanbul denies seeing the new moon at the beginning of Ramadan, the proven testimony of two witnesses invalidates the negation and agreement of that great multitude. Since in reality unbelief and misguidance are negation and denial, they are ignorance and non-existence, and the agreement of unbelievers in great numbers even has no significance. In matters of belief, which are true, established, and whose validity is proved, the judgement of two believers based on certain witnessing takes preference and prevails over the agreement of those vast numbers of the misguided. The reason for this fact is as follows:
Superficially, the claims of those who deny are the same, but in fact they are diverse and cannot unite in order to gain strength. While the claims of those who affirm unite and receive strength from each other. This is because a person who does not see the new moon of Ramadan in the sky says: "In my view, there is no moon. lt has not appeared that I can see." And another says: "In my view, the moon has not appeared." And so does another. Each says that in his own view, there is no moon. Since the view of each is different, and the causes that prevent them seeing it may also be different, their claims are all different as well; each claim cannot reinforce the other claims. But those who are affirming it are not saying: "In my view and opinion the new moon is there," but, "The reality of the situation is that the new moon has appeared in the sky." Those who sight it all make the same claim and say: "The reality of the situation is..." That is to say, all the claims are the same. While, since the views of those who are denying it are all different, their claims also are different. They are not making the judgement according to the reality of the situation. Because negating the reality of the situation cannot be proved; for that, an all-embracing proof is necessary.
It is an established rule that "absolute non-existence can only be proved with extreme difficulty." Yes, if you claim that a particular thing exists in the world, it is enough to rnerely point that thing out. But if you say it does not exist and you deny it, the whole world has to be sifted through in order to demonstrate it so that the denial can be proved. It is as a consequence of this that the unbelievers denying a truth is like solving a problem or passing through a narrow hole or jumping over a ditch; a thousand men are the same as one man, because they cannot help one another. But since those who affirm look at the heart of matter and reality of the situation, their claims unite, and the individual strength of all of them combines and assists them. It resembles lifting a great boulder: the more hands there are, the more strength they receive and the easier it becomes.

Seventh Note

O miserable pseudo-patriot who fervently encourages Muslims to embrace this world and forceably drives them to European industry and progress! Beware, do not let the bonds with which certain members of this nation are tied to religion be broken! If thus foolishly blindly imitating and crushed under foot, their bonds with religion are broken, those irreligious people will become as harmful for the life of society as fatal poison. For since an apostate's conscience is completely corrupted, he becomes like poison in the life of society. It is because of this that according to the science of the principles of religion, "The apostate does not have the right to life, whereas if an unbeliever is a member of the protected minorities or he makes peace, he has the right to life;" this is a principle of the Shari'a. Furthermore, according to the Hanafi school, the testimony of such an unbeliever is acceptable, whereas the testimony of someone who has strayed from the path of the Shari'a is rejected. For he is perfidious.
O miserable sinner who has deviated from Shari'a! Do not look at the multitude of the dissolute and be deceived; do not say: "Most people think the same as me!" For the depraved do not want to embrace depravity; they rather fall into it and cannot extricate themselves. There is no sinner who does not want to be righteous and who does not want to see his superior and chief as religious. Other than if I seek refuge with God!-his conscience is corrupted through apostasy and he receives pleasure from poisoning, like a snake.

O crazy head and corrupted heart! Do you suppose that Muslims do not love the world, or that they do not think about the poverty into which they have fallen, and that they are in need of admonishment so that they do not forget their share of the world?

Your supposition is false, your surmise, wrong. Their greed has increased; that is the reason they are impoverished. Because for Muslims, greed causes loss and indigence. The saying: "The greedy is subject to loss and disappointment" has become proverbial.

Yes, there are many things calling and driving man to the world, like the soul and its appetites, and need, and his senses and emotions, and the Devil, and the superficial enticement of the world, and bad friends like you. While those who call to the Hereafter, which lasts for ever, and to long-lasting eternal life, are few. If you possess even an iota of patriotism towards this nation and the high aspirations you brag about are not lies, you should help the few who call to eternal life. For if you silence them and help the many, you will be befriending Satan!

Do you suppose this nation's poverty is the result of a sort of religious asceticism or of laziness arising from abandoning the world? You are wrong to suppose that. Do you not see that the nations dominated by Europe like China, and the Brahmins and Zoroastrians of India, and the blacks of Africa are poorer than we are? And do you not see that nothing apart from the most basic subsistence is left in the hands of Muslims? The rest is either stolen or seized by the European infidel tyrants or the dissemblers of Asia.
You should be certain that if your intention in forceably driving the people of belief to degenerate civilization in this way is the country's order and security and easy administration, you are mistaken and you are driving them down the wrong way. For it is more difficult to govern a hundred degenerates whose belief is shaken and morals corrupted, and to maintain public security among them, than to govern thousands of the righteous.
Thus, according to these principles, the people of Islam are not in need of being encouraged and driven to the world and to greed. Progress and public order cannot be secured in that way. They are rather in need of having their working conditions set in order, of security being established among them, and of having the principle of co-operation encouraged. And these needs can be brought about through the sacred commands of religion, and fear of God, and firm adherence to religion.

Eighth Note

O idle man who does not know the pleasure of effort and happiness of work! Know that out of His perfect munificence, Almighty God placed the reward for work within it. He included the wage for work within the work itself. It is for this reason that in their particular duties, which are called creative commands, beings, and even from one point of view inanimate creatures, conform to the dominical commands with complete eagerness and a sort of pleasure. Everything from bees, flies, and chickens to the sun and the moon carry out their duties with perfect pleasure. That means there is an enjoyment in their work so that they perform it perfectly, although they do not think of the results and consequences since they do not possess intelligence.
I f y o u s a y : "Living creatures have the ability to receive pleasure,
but how can inanimate beings experience eagerness and enjoyment?'
T h e A n s w e r : Inanimate beings desire and seek a position, a rank, perfection, beauty, and order, not on their own accounts, but on account of the Divine Names manifested on them. They become illumined and progress because in performing their natural duties, they each become like mirrors and places of reflection of the Names of the Light of Lights.
For example, if, although they are unimportant and of themselves without light, a droplet of water or fragment of glass are turned with their pure hearts to the sun, they become sorts of thrones to the sun and smile at you. Similarly, through being mirrors in respect of their duties to the Names of the All-Glorious One, Who possesses absolute beauty and perfection, like the droplet and fragment of glass, particles and beings rise from a very lowly position to a most elevated degree of manifestation and illumination. Since in regard to their duties they rise to a most luminous and exalted rank, it may be said that if it is possible and they have the capacity to receive pleasure, that is, if they receive a share of general life, they perform their duties with perfect pleasure.
For clear evidence that there is pleasure to be found in the performance of duties consider your own members and emotions. Each receives different pleasures in performing the duties for your personal survival and the survival of the human race. The duties themselves are like a means of enjoyment for them, while to give up a duty is a sort of torment for a member.
Another clear evidence is the self-sacrifice and courage which animals like cocks and hens with chicks display in performing their duties: even if it is hungry, the cock prefers the hens to itself, summoning them to eat. It does not eat itself but allows them to do so. And it is clear that it feels pleasure, pride and enjoyment in carrying out this duty. This means it receives greater pleasure from doing that than from eating. The hen too, will sacrifice its life for its chicks, throwing itself at a dog. And it will remain hungry and give them to eat. That is to say, it receives such pleasure in its duty that it makes preferable the pains of hunger and pangs of death.
Animal mothers receive pleasure in trying to protect their young, it is their duty when the young are small. When they are grown the duty ceases and so does the pleasure. The mothers beat their children and take the grains of feed from them. Only, for human mothers the duties continue for some time, because in regard to their weakness and impotence, humans are always children in one respect, and are all the time in need of compassion.
And so, consider the males and females of the animal species, like the mother hen and the cock, which acts as shepherd, and understand that they do not perform these duties on their own account, in their own names, or for their own perfections. For if it is necessary to sacrifice their lives in the course of their duties, they do so. They rather perform them on account of the Munificent Bestower of Bounties, the All-Glorious Creator, Who employs them in their duties, in which, through His mercy, He includes pleasure.
And evidence that the wage is present in the duty itself is this: plants and trees conform to the Glorious Creator's commands in a manner that implies eagerness and pleasure. For the fragrant scents they disperse, and their being adorned with decorations that attract the looks of their customers, and their sacrificing themselves for their shoots and fruits until they rot, shows to the attentive that they receive such pleasure in conforming to the Divine commands that it rots and destroys them.
Look, fruit-bearing trees like the coconut, which bears so many cans of milk on its head, and the fig, request through the tongue of disposition the finest food like milk from the treasury of mercy; they receive it and give it to their fruits to eat, while they content themselves with muddy water.
In seeds also a longing is clearly apparent in their duty of germinating and sending out shoots. Like someone imprisoned in a constricted place longs to go out into a garden or open space, such a longing, such a joyful state, is also apparent in seeds, in their duty of sprouting.
Thus, it is because of this long and mysterious principle, which is in force in the universe and is called "Divine practice," that those idle and lazy people who live in ease and affluence for the most part suffer more trouble and distress than those who strive and work. For the idle always complain about their lives, and want to pass them quickly through indulging in amusements. Whereas the one who works and strives is thankful and offers praise and does not want his life to pass quickly. "The one who lives in idleness and ease complains about his life, while the hard working striver is thankful" is a universal principle. It is also for this reason that the saying "Ease lies in hardship, and hardship in ease" has become proverbial.
Indeed, if inanimate creatures are studied carefully, it will be seen that on the innate capacities and abilities of those which have not developed expanding from the potential to the actual through great effort and exertion, a state in accordance with the above-mentioned Divine practice is apparent. This state indicates that in the natural duty is an eagerness and pleasure. If the inanimate creature partakes of general life, the eagerness is its own; otherwise it pertains to the thing which represents and supervises the inanimate creature. It may even be said as a consequence of this that when subtle, delicate water receives the command to freeze, it conforms to the command with such intense eagerness that it splits iron, breaking it into pieces. That is to say, in conveying the dominical command of "Expand!" with the tongue of freezing sub-zero temperature to the water in a closed iron container, it breaks the container with its intense eagerness. It splits the iron and itself becomes ice.
You can make analogies with this for everything. From the rotations of the suns and their journeyings and peregrinations to the spinning and turning and vibrations of minute particles like Mevlevi dervishes, all striving and motion in the universe turns on the law of Divine Determining and proceeds from the hand of Divine Power and is manifested through the creative command which comprises Divine Will, Knowledge, and Command.
Each particle, each being, each living being, even, resembles a soldier who has different relations with all the sections of the army and different duties in each; all particles and living beings are similar to that. For example, a particle in your eye has a relation with the cells of the eye, with the eye, the facial nerves, and the blood vessels of the body; and it has duties in accordance with those relations, and yields benefits in accordance with each of those duties. And so on, you can compare everything with this. Thus, everything testifies to the Necessary Existence of the Pre-Eternal All-Powerful One in two respects:
T h e F i r s t : By carrying out duties far exceeding its own power, everything testifies to the All-Powerful One's existence.
T h e S e c o n d : Through acting in conformity with the laws that form the order of the world and principles which perpetuate the balance of beings, everything testifies to that All-Knowing and All-Powerful One. For lifeless things like particles, and tiny animals like bees cannot know order and balance, which are the subtle, important matters of the Clear Book. How can a lifeless particle and tiny bee read the subtle, significant matters of the Clear Book, which is in the hand of the All-Glorious One, Who opens and closes and gathers up the levels of the heavens as though they were the pages of a notebook? If you crazily suppose the particle to possess an eye capable of reading the fine letters of that book, then you can try to refute the particle's testimony!
Yes, the All-Wise Creator summarizes the principles of the Clear Book in most beautiful form and abbreviated fashion and with a particular pleasure and through a special need, and includes them in beings. If everything acts thus with a particular pleasure out of a particular need, it unknowingly conforms to the principles of the Clear Book. For example, the minute the mosquito with its proboscis comes into the world, it emerges from its house, and not stopping, attacks man's face; it strikes it with its long staff causing the water of life to spurt out, and it drinks it. It shows the skill of a practised warrior in dodging blows directed at it. Who taught the tiny, inexperienced, newly born creature the science of war and art of extracting water? And where. did it learn it? I, that is, this unfortunate Said, confess that if I had been in the place of that mosquito with its proboscis, I could only have learnt this art, this warfare of attack and retreat, this extracting of water, only after lengthy instruction and much experience.
And so, compare animals like the bee, who receives inspiration, the spider, and the nightingale, who weaves his nest like a stocking, with the mosquito, and you can even compare plants to these animals in just the same way. Yes, the Absolutely Generous One (May His glory be exalted) has given each living being a memorandum written with the pen of pleasure and ink of need, and with it has deposited in the being the programme of the creative commands and index of its duties. See how the All-Wise One of Glory has written on a receipt the amount concerning the bee's duties, from the principles of the Clear Book, and placed it in the coffer in the bee's head. And the key to the coffer is the pleasure particular to the diligent bee. With it, it opens the coffer, reads the programme, understands the command, and acts. It proclaims the meaning of the verse,

• • And your Sustainer has inspired the bee.

If you have listened to the whole of this Eighth Note and understood it completely, through the intuition of belief, you will understand one meaning of,

• • And His mercy embraces all things,
    

and one truth of the verse,

• • And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise,
    

and one principle of the verse,

• • Verily when He intends a thing, His command is "Be!" and it is,
    

and one point of the verse,

• • So glory to Him in Whose hands is the dominion of all things; and to Him will you all be brought back.
    

Ninth Note

Know that prophethood in mankind is the summary and foundation of man's good and perfections; the True Religion is the index of prosperity and happiness; belief is a sheer, transcendent good. Since in this world a shining beauty, an extensive and exalted good, an evident truth, and superior perfection are apparent, self-evidently truth and reality lie in prophethood and in the hands of prophets. While evil, misguidance, and loss are with those who oppose them.
Of the thousands of merits of worship, consider only the following: the Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace) unites the hearts of those who affirm Divine Unity in the prayers of the Festivals and of Friday, and prayers performed in congregation. And he brings together their tongues in a single phrase. This is in such a way that one man responds to the mighty address of the Pre-Eternal Worshipped One with the voices, supplications, and invocations uttered by innumerable hearts and tongues. Strengthening each other, assisting each other and uniting, those voices, supplications, and invocations display so expansive a worship before the Godhead of the Pre-Eternal All-Worshipped One that it is as if the globe of the earth is reciting the invocations, offering the supplications, and performing the prayers with its regions, and conforming with its climes to the command of

• • And he steadfast in prayer,
    

which was revealed with glory and tremendousness from beyond the heavens. Through this mystery of unity, man, a miniscule, powerless creature in the universe like a particle, in respect of vastness of worship becomes a beloved servant of the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, His vicegerent on earth, the earth's ruler and chief of the animals, and the result and aim of the universe's creation.
Yes, if the voices of hundreds of millions of people proclaiming "God is Most Great!" after the five daily prayers, and particularly in the Festival Prayers, unite and come together in the Manifest World as they do in the World of the Unseen, the globe of the earth in its entirety becomes a huge human being. ,Since the "God is Most Great!" it proclaims with a mighty voice is equal to its own greatness, the believers in Divine Unity proclaiming "God is Most Great!" at the same instant in unison becomes like a mighty "God is Most Great!" uttered by the earth. It is as though the earth is shaken with a great tremor through the invocations and glorifications of the World of Islam at the Festival Prayers. Proclaiming "God is Most Great!" with all its regions and climes, it forms its intention with the pure heart of the Ka'ba, its qibla, and on its uttering "God is Most Great!" with the tongue of Mount Arafat in the mouth of Mecca, that single phrase assumes a form in the air in the cave-like mouths of all the believers in all parts of the earth. Just as through the echo of the words
"God is Most Great!" innumerable "God is Most Great's" come into being, so too that acceptable recitation and invocation causes the heavens to ring out and resounds rising and falling in the Intermediate Realms.
And so, we praise and glorify and exalt to the number of the particles of the earth the All-Glorious One, Who made the earth thus prostrate to Him in worship, glorifying and exalting Him, and made it a mosque for His servants and cradle for His creatures. And we offer praise to Him to the number of beings that He made us the Community of the Noble Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who taught us worship of this kind

Tenth Note

Know, O heedless, confused Said! Attaining to the light of knowledge of God and looking on it, and seeing its manifestations in the mirrors of signs and witnesses, and beholding its proofs and evidences, necessitates your not examining it with the fingers of criticism. Do not examine critically every light that passes over you or occurs to your heart or appears to your mind, nor criticize it with the hand of hesitation. Do not stretch out your hand to catch hold of a light that appears to you. Rather withdraw from the things that cause heedlessness, be turned to the light, and wait. For I have observed that the witnesses and proofs of knowledge of God are of three sorts:
O n e S o r t is like water. It is visible and palpable, but cannot be held with the fingers. For this sort, one has to detach oneself from illusions and submerge oneself in it as a whole. It cannot be spied on with the fingers nf criticism; if it is, it flows away and is lost. The water of life cannot make the finger its dwelling!
T h e S e c o n d S o r t is like air. It may be perceived, but it is neither visible, nor may he held. You should turn towards it with your face, your mouth, your spirit, and hold yourself before that breeze of mercy. But do not stretch out the hand of criticism towards it, for you will be unable to hold it. Breathe it with your spirit. If yon look on it with the eye of hesitation and lay hands on it by criticizing it, it will leave you and depart. It will not make your hand its dwelling; it could not be content with it!
As for T h e T h i r d S o r t, it is like light. It is visible, but is neither palpable nor may it be held. So you should hold yourself before it with the heart's eye and spirit's vision; you should direct your gaze towards it and wait. Perhaps it will come of its own accord. For light cannot be held in the hand nor hunted with the fingers; it can be hunted only with the light of insight and intuition. If you stretch out a grasping, physical hand and weigh it on material scales, even if it is not extinguished, it will hide itself. For just as such light will not be content to be imprisoned in matter, so too it may not be restricted, nor accept dense things as its lord and master.

Eleventh Note

Know that there is much kindness and compassion in the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition's manner of expression, for the majority of those it addresses are the mass of ordinary people. Their minds are simple, and since their view does not penetrate to fine things, it repeats the signs inscribed on the face of the heavens and earth in order to flatter their simple minds. It makes it easy to read those large letters. For example, it teaches signs that are clearly apparent and easily read, like the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the rain being made to fall from the sky, and the raising to life of the earth. It rarely directs attention to the subtle signs written in small letters among those large letters, so that ordinary people should not experience difficulty in reading them.
And there is an eloquence, fluency, and naturalness in the styles of the Qur'an whereby it is as though it is a hafiz; it recites the verses inscribed with the pen of power on the pages of the universe. It is as though the Qur'an is the recitation of the book of the universe and the verbal expression of its order, and reads out the Pre-Eternal Inscriber's attributes and writes His acts and deeds. If you want to see this eloquence of expression, listen with an aware and attentive heart to decrees like Sura 'Amma and the verse,

• Say: O God! Lord of All Dominion.
  

Twelfth Note

O my friends who are listening to these Notes! You should know that the reason for my sometimes writing down the prayers, entreaties, and supplications of my heart to my Sustainer, which ought to be secret, is to request Divine mercy to accept the words of my writing when death has silenced the words of my tongue. Yes, the repentence and regret of my short-lived tongue is insufficient to atone for my numberless sins. The tongue of writing is constant and permanent to an extent, and more effectual. And so, thirteen years ago, when as the result of an upheaval and storm of the spirit the laughter of the Old Said was being transformed into the weeping of the New Said-at a time I awoke from the heedless sleep of youth in the morning of old age-I wrote these entreaties and supplications in Arabic. The Turkish meaning of a part of them is as follows:
O my Compassionate Sustainer and Munificent Creator! Through making the wrong choice my life and youth are lost and gone, and all that has remained to me as their fruits are grievous sins, abasing sorrows, and misguiding doubts and scruples. I am drawing close to the grave shamefaced with this heavy load and sick heart. Like, without choice or deviating to left or right, all my friends, peers, and relations are dying before my eyes, I too am nearing the door of the grave.
The grave is the first stopping-place on the road leading from this fleeting realm to everlasting separation and all eternity; it is the first door opening onto it. I have understood with absolute certainty that the realm of this world, to which I am attached and by which I am captivated, is transient and will die, will perish and depart. And as is to be observed, the beings within it travel on convoy after convoy and disappear. Especially for those like me with evil-commanding souls, this world is exceedingly cruel and treacherous. For one pleasure, it inflicts a thousand pains. For a single grape, it deals a hundred slaps.
O my Compassionate Sustainer and Munificent Creator! In accordance with the saying "Everything that is coming is close," I see now that soon I will have donned my shroud, mounted the bier, bade farewell to my friends. Approaching my grave I call out to the Court of Your Mercy through the mute tongue of my corpse and the articulate tongue of my spirit: "Mercy! Mercy! O Most Kind, Most Clement! Deliver me from the shame of my sins!"
Now I have reached the brink of my grave. I am standing at the head of my corpse stretched out beside it. Raising my head to the Court of Your Mercy, I cry out beseeching with all my strength: "Mercy! Mercy! Most Clement! Most Kind! Deliver me from the heavy burden of m sins !"
Now I have entered my grave, I am wrapped in my shroud. Those who came to send me on my way have left me alone and departed. I await Your forgiveness and mercy. I see clearly that there is no place of refuge or succour other than You. I cry out with all my strength at the ugly face of sin, the savage form of rebellion against God, at the narrowness of the place:
"Mercy! Mercy! Most Merciful One! Most Clement! Most Kind! Just Judge! Deliver me from the companionship of my ugly sins! Broaden my place! My God! Your mercy is my recourse. Your Beloved, the Mercy to All the Worlds, the means to Your mercy. I complain, not about You, but about my soul and my state.
"O my Munificent Creator and Compassionate Sustainer! Your creature and servant called Said is both rebellious, and impotent, and heedless, and ignorant, and sick, and base, and a sinner, and aged, and a wrong-doer, and like a runaway slave; but after forty years he has repented and wants to return to Your Court. He seeks refuge in Your mercy. He confesses his countless sins and errors. Suffering from doubts and every sort of affliction, he beseeches and entreats You. If out of Your perfect mercy You accept him, if You forgive and have mercy on him, that is anyway Your mark. For You are the Most Merciful of the Merciful. If You do not accept me, which door can I approach`? What other door is there? There is no sustainer other than You whose court may be approached. There is no true object of worship other than You in whom I can seek refuge."
There is no god but You, You are One, You have no partner; the last word in this world, and the first world in the Hereafter, and in the grave, is: I testify that there is no god but God, bat I testify that Muhammed is His Prophet, may God Almighty grant him blessings and peace.

Thirteenth Note

This consists of Five Matters which have been the cause of confusion.

• The First Matter

Although those who work and strive on the way of Truth should think only of their own duties, they think of those that pertain to Almighty God, base their actions on them, and fall into error. It is written in the work Adabu'd-Din wa'd-Dunya, that one time Satan tempted Jesus (Upon whom be peace) saying: "Since the appointed hour of death and all things are specified by Divine Determining, throw yourself down from this high place, and see, you'll die." Jesus (Upon whom be peace) replied: "God tries his servants, but His servants may not try their Sustainer." That is,
"Almighty God tests his servant, saying to him: If you do that I shall do this. Let's see, are you able to do it. But His servant does not have the right and power to test Almighty God and say: If I do that, will You do this? To assume such a manner, as though subjecting Almighty God's dominicality to test and examination, is bad conduct and contrary to worship and man's being God's slave." Since this is the case, man should do his own duty and not interfere in Almighty God's business.
It is well-known that when one of the heroes of Islam who many times defeated Jenghis Khan's army, Jalaluddin Khwarazmshah, was going to the war, his ministers and followers said to him: "You will be victorious; Almighty God will make you victor." He replied: "I am charged by God's command to act on the way of jihad, I do not interfere in God's concerns. To make us victor or vanquished is His business." Thus, due to understanding the mystery of submission, he was wondrously victorious on numerous occasions.
Indeed, in his voluntary actions, man should not think of the results which pertain to Almighty God. For example, for a number of our brothers, the people joining the Risale-i Nur fires their enthusiasm and makes them increase their efforts. And when the people do not listen, the weak ones among them become demoralized and their enthusiasm wanes to an extent. Whereas the Noble Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who was the Absolute Master, Universal leader, and Perfect Guide, took as his absolute guide the Divine decree,
No more is the: Prophet bound to do than deliver the message, and when people held back and did not listen, conveyed the message with greater effort, endeavour, and seriousness. For in accordance with the verse,
It is true you will not be able to guide everyone whom you love; but God guides those whom He will,
he understood that making people listen and guiding them was Almighty God's concern. And he did not interfere in God's concerns.
And so, my brothers! You too do not interfere; by basing your actions on what is not your business, and do not take up a position testing your Creator!

• The Second Matter
  Worship and servitude of God look to the Divine command and

Divine pleasure. The reason for worship is the Divine command and its result is Divine pleasure. Its fruits and benefits look to the Hereafter. But so long as they are not the ultimate reason and not intentionally sought, benefits looking to this world and fruits which come about themselves and are given are not contrary to worship. They are rather as though to encourage the weak and make them choose worship. If those fruits and benefits are the reason for the invocation or recitation, or a part of the reason, it in part invalidates the worship. Indeed, it renders the meritorious invocation fruitless, and produces no results.
And so, those who do not understand this mystery, recite for example the Awrad-i Qudsiya-i Shah Naqshband, which yields a hundred benefits and merits, or Jawshan al-Kabir, which yields a thousand, making some of those benefits their prime intention. Then they do not receive the benefits, and shall not receive them, and do not have the right to receive them. For the benefits may not be the reason for the invocation and may not themselves be intended and sought. For they are obtained when unsought for, as a consequence of the sincere invocation, as a favour. If they are intended, it damages the sincerity to an extent. Indeed, it ceases being worship and looses all value. There is just this, that weak people are in need of something to encourage them to recite meritorious invocation such as those. If they think of the benefits and eagerly recite them purely for God's sake and for the Hereafter, it causes no harm and is even acceptable. It is because this instance of wisdom has not been understood that when they do not receive the benefits narrated from the spiritual poles and righteous ones of former generations, many of them come to doubt, or even to deny them.

The Third Matter

"Happy is the man who knows his limits and does not exceed them." The sun has manifestations from a fragment of glass, to a droplet of water, a pool, the ocean, and the moon to the planets. Each contains the sun's reflection and image in accordance with its capacity, and knows its limits. In accordance with its capacity, a drop of water says: "There is a reflection of the sun on me." But it cannot say: "I am a mirror like the ocean." In just the same way, there are degrees in the ranks of the saints, in accordance with the variety of the manifestations of the Divine Names. Each of the Divine Names has manifestations like a sun, from the heart tr the Divine Throne. The heart too is a Throne, but it cannot say: "I too am like the Divine Throne."
Thus, those who proceed reluctantly and with pride instead of knowing their impotence, poverty, faults, and defects, and prostrating entreatingly before the Divine Court, which form the basis of worship, hold their miniscule hearts equal to the Divine Throne. They confuse their drop-like stations with the ocean-like stations of the saints. They stoop to artificiality, false display, and meaningless self-advertisement in order to make themselves fitting for those high ranks, and cause themselves many difficulties.
I n S h o r t : There is a Hadith which says: "All will perish save those who know, and those who know will perish save those who act, and those who act will perish ,save the sincere, and the sincere are in grave danger." That is to say, the only means of salvation and deliverance is sincerity. It is of the greatest importance to gain sincerity. The tiniest act perforrned with sincerity is preferable to tons of those performed without sincerity. A person should think that what gains sincerity in his actions is doing them purely because they are a Divine command and that their result is Divine pleasure, and he should not interfere in God's business.
There is sincerity in everything. A jot of love, even, with sincerity is superior to tons of official love for which return is wanted. Someone described this sincere love as follows: "I do not want a bribe, recompense, return or reward for love, for love which requires a price in return is weak and short-lived." Sincere love has been included in human nature and in all mothers. The compassion of mothers manifests this sincere love in its true meaning. Evidence that through the mystery of this compassion mothers do not want or seek a reward or bribe in return for their love of their children, is their sacrificing their lives and even their eternal happiness for them. While all a hen's capital is its life, a hen sacrificed its own head in order to save its chick's head from the jaws of a dog-as Husrev witnessed.

The Fourth Matter

One should not receive bounties which arrive at the hands of apparent causes on account of the causes. If a cause does not possess will, like an animal or a tree for example, it gives the bounty directly on account of Almighty God. It says: "In the Name of God" through the tongue of disposition and gives it to you, so you too should say: "In the Name of God," and take it for God's sake. If the cause possesses will, he should say: "In the Name of God," then you should take it, otherwise you should not take it. For apart from the explicit meaning of the verse,

• • Eat not of (meats) on which God's name has not been pronounced,
    

an implicit meaning is this: "Do not partake of bounties which do not recall the True Bestower of Bounties and are not given in His name."
Since this is so, both the one who gives should say "In the name of God," and the one who receives should say, "In the name of God." If he does not say it, but you are in need, then you say, "In the Name of God," and seeing the hand of Divine mercy upon him, kiss it in thanks, and take the bounty from him. That is to say, look from the bounty to the bestowal, and from the bestowal think of the True Bestower. To think in this way is a sort of thanks. Then if yon wish, offer a prayer for the apparent means, since it was by his hand that the bounty was sent to you.
What deceives those who worship apparent causes is the two things coming together or being together, which is called `association;' they suppose the two things cause one another. Also, since the non-existence of one thing is the cause of a bounty being non-existent, they suppose that the things existence is also the cause of the bounty's; existence. They offer their thanks and gratitude to the thing and fall into error. For a bounty's existence results from all the bounty's conditions and preliminaries. Whereas the bounty's non-existence occurs through the nonexistence of only a single condition.
For example, someone who does not open the water canal to water a garden is the reason and cause of the garden drying up and the nonexistence of bounties. But the existence of the garden's bounties is dependent on hundreds of conditions besides the man's duty and the bounties come into being through dominical will and power, which are the true cause. So understand just how clear is the error of this sophistry and how mistaken are those who worship causes!
Yes, `association' is one thing and the cause is another. You receive a bounty, but the intention of a person to bestow it on you was the `associate' of the bounty, not the cause. The cause was Divine mercy. If the man had not intended to give you the bounty, you would not have received it an it would have been the cause of the bounty's nonexistence. But as a consequence of the above rule, the desire to bestow cannot be the cause of the bounty; it can only be one of hundreds of conditions.
For example, some of those among the Risale-i Nur students (like Husrev and Re'fet) who have received Almighty God's bounties have confused the `association' and the cause, and have been over-grateful to their Master. However, Almighty God put together the bounty of benefiting from the Qur'anic instruction which He bestowed on them, and the bounty of instructing which He had bestowed on their Master; He `associated' the two. They say: "If our Master had not come here, we would not have received this instruction, so his instruction is the cause of our benefiting." However, I say:
`My Brothers! The bounties Almighty God bestowed on you and on you arrived together. The cause of both bounties is Divine mercy. Like you, I too at one time confused the association with the cause, and felt much gratitude towards the hundreds of Risale-i Nur students with diamond pens like yourselves. I would say: `If it had not been for them, how could have a semi-literate unfortunate like myself have performed this service?' Then I understood that after bestowing on you the sacred bounty by means of the pen, He bestowed on me success in this service. He associated the two; they were not the cause of each other. I do not thank you, but congratulate you. And you too pray for me and congratulate me, rather than being grateful to me."
It may be understood from this Fourth Matter just how many degrees there are in heedlessness.

The Fifth Matter

Just as if the property of a community is given to one man, it is wrong; or if one man lays hands on charitable foundations which belong to the community, he does wrong; so too to ascribe to the leader or master of a community the results of that community's labours or the honour and merits resulting from its good works, is wrong-doing both for the community and for the leader or master. Because to do so flatters his egotism and encourages pride. While being the door-keeper, he supposes himself to be the king. He also does wrong to himself. Indeed, he opens the way to a sort of concealed associating partners with God.
Indeed, the colonel cannot claim the booty, victory, and glory belonging to a regiment which conquers a citadel. The master and spiritual guide should not be considered to be the source and origin, but known to be the place of reflection and manifestation. For example, heat and light reach you by means of a mirror. If you forget the sun, and considering the mirror to be the source, are grateful to it instead of being grateful to the sun, it would be crazy. The mirror should be preserved because it is the place of manifestation. Thus, the guide's spirit and heart is a mirror; it is the place for reflecting effulgence emanating from Almighty God. He is the means of its being reflected to his followers. He should not be ascribed a higher station with regard to the effulgence than that of being the means. It sometimes even happens that a master considered to be the source is neither the place of manifestation nor the source. The follower supposes the effulgences he receives due to the purity of his sincerity, or his strength of attachment, or his concentration on his master, or in other ways, to have come from the mirror of his master's spirit. Like by means of mesmerism, some people open up a window onto the World of Similitudes by gazing attentively at a mirror, and observe strange and wonderful things in the mirror. But it is not in the mirror; rather by focussing their attention on the mirror, a window opens up in their imaginations outside the mirror and they see those things. It is for this reason that sometimes the sincere student may be more advanced than a deficient shaykh. He returns, guides his shaykh and becomes the shaykh's shaykh.

Fourteenth Note

• This consists of four short Signs alluding to Divine Unity. First Sign

O worshipper of causes! You see a wondrous palace fashioned of rare jewels which is being made. Some of the jewels used in its construction are only found in China; others in Andalusia; others in Yemen; while others are found nowhere but Siberia. If you see that as it is being made, the precious stones are summoned the same day from north, south, east, and west, would you have any doubt that the master builder making the palace was a miracle-worker who ruled the whole earth?
Thus, every animal is a Divine palace such as that. Particularly man, he is the finest and most wondrous of the palaces. Some of the jewels of this palace called man come from the World of Spirits, some from the World of Similitudes and the Preserved Tablet, and others from the world of the air, the world of Light, and the world of the elements. And so too he is a wondrous palace whose needs stretch to eternity, whose hopes have spread to al) the regions of the heavens and the earth, and who has relations and ties with all the epochs of this world and the Hereafter.
And so, O you who considers himself to be a true man! Since your true nature is thus, the one who made you can only be One for Whom this world and the Hereafter are each a dwelling, the earth and the skies each a page, and Who has disposal over pre-eternity and post-eternity as though they were yesterday and tomorrow. In which case, man's true object of worship, place of recourse, and saviour can only be the One Who rules the earth and the heavens, and holds the reins of this world and the next.

• Second Sign

There are certain foolish people who because they do not recognize the sun, if they see it in a mirror, start to love the mirror. With intense emotion they try to preserve the mirror so that the sun within it will not be lost. Whenever the foolish person realizes that the sun does not die on the mirror's dying and is not lost on its being broken, he turns all his love to the sun in the sky. He understands then that the sun seen in the mirror is not dependent on the mirror, nor does its continued existence depend on it. It is rather the sun which holds the mirror, supplying its shining light. The sun's continuance is not dependent on the mirror, rather the continuance of the mirror's living brilliance is dependent on the sun's manifestation.
O man! Your heart, identity, and nature are a mirror. The intense love of immortality in your nature and heart should be not for the mirror, nor for your heart and nature, but for the manifestation of the Enduring One of Glory, Whose manifestation is reflected in the mirror according to the mirror's capacity. However, due to stupidity that love of yours is directed to other places. Since it is thus, say: "O Enduring One! You are the Enduring One!" That is, "Since You exist and You are enduring, whatever transience and non-existence want to do to us, let them do it, it is of no importance!"

• Third Sign

O man! The strangest state the All-Wise Creator has included in your nature is that sometimes you cannot settle in the whole world; like someone suffocating in prison, you gasp for somewhere wider than the world. And yet you enter the minutest matter, a memory, a moment, and settle in it. Your heart and mind which cannot settle in the vast world settle in that jot. You wander about with your most intense emotions in that brief moment, that tiny memory.
And He gave to your nature immaterial powers and subtle faculties that are such that if some of them devoured the world, they would not be satisfied; and some of them cannot sustain even a minute particle within themselves. Like the eye cannot bear a hair although the head can bear heavy stones, those faculties cannot bear the weight of even a hair, that is, some insignificant state arising from heedlessness and misguidance. They are sometimes even extinguished and die.
Since it is thus, be careful, tread with caution, be frightened of sinking! Do not drown in a mouthful, a word, a seed, a flash, a sign, a kiss! Do not plunge your extensive faculties, which can swallow the world, in such a thing. For there are things which are very small that can in one respect swallow things which are very large. The sky together with its stars can enter a small fragment of glass and be drowned. And most of the pages of your actions and leaves of your life enter your faculty of memory, tiny as a mustard-seed. So too there are tiny things which swallow things thus large, and contain them.

• Fourth Sign

O world-worshipping man! Although you conceive of your world as very broad, it resembles a narrow grave. But since the walls of that narrow grave-like dwelling are of glass, they are reflected one within the other and stretch as far as the eye can see. While being narrow as a grave, your world appears to be as large as a town. For despite both the right wall, which is the past, and the left wall, which is the future, being nonexistent, they are reflected one within the other, unfolding the wings of present time, which is extremely brief and narrow. Reality mixes with imagination, and you suppose a non-existent world to be existent.
Like on being spun round at speed, a line appears to be broad like a surface, despite in reality being a fine line, your world too is in reality narrow, but due to your heedlessness, delusions, and imagination, its walls have drawn far apart. If driven by a calamity you stir in that narrow world, you will hit your head on the wall, which you supposed to be distant. It will dispel the illusions in your head and banish your sleep. Then you will see that that broad world of yours is narrower than the grave, finer than the Bridge of Sirat. Your life passes faster than lightening, it pours away more swiftly than tea.
Since worldly life and the life of the flesh and animal life are thus, shake free of animality, leave behind corporeality, enter the level of life of the heart and spirit! You will find a sphere of life, &127;ı world of light, more broad than the world yon imagined to be broad. The key to that world is to make the heart utter the sacred words "There is no god but God," which express the mysteries of Divine Unity and knowledge of God, and to make the spirit work them.

Fifteenth Note

• This consists of three Matters.
  The First Matter
  This is the verse

And whoever has done an atom's weight of good shall see it, * And whoever has done an atom's weight of evil, shall see it.
If you want proof of this truth of the All-Wise Qur'an, look at the pages of the book of the universe, which is written on the pattern of the Clear Book; you will see the maximum manifestation of the Divine Name of Preserver and many things similar in many ways to the supreme truth of this verse.
For instance, take a handful of seeds of various trees, flowers, and plants. Then bury the seeds, which are like the small coffers of those all-different flowers, trees, and plants, and are themselves all different and various, in the darkness of simple and lifeless earth. Then water them with simple water, which lacks balance, cannot distinguish things, and runs wherever you pour it.
Now come back in the spring, the arena of the annual resurrection, and look! Note carefully the time in the spring; when the Israfil-like angel of thunder calls out to the rain as though sounding his trumpet, giving the good news of the breath of life being breathed into the seeds buried beneath the ground; yon will see that under the manifestation of the Divine Name of Preserver, those seeds that resemble each other and are all mixed up and confused, conform perfectly and without error to the creative commands proceeding from the All-Wise Creator. They conform so exactly that in their growth a brilliant consciousness, insight, purpose, will, knowledge, perfection, and wisdom are apparent. For you see that those seeds which all resemble each other separate out and are distinguished from one another.
For example, this tiny seed has become a fig-tree, it has started to spread the All-Wise Creator's bounties over our heads. It distributes them, stretching them out to us with its hands. And these two seeds which are superficially the same have produced the flowers called sun-flowers and pansies. They have adorned themselves for us. They smile in our faces, making us love them. And this sort of seed has produced fine fruits; they became shoots, then trees. Whetting our appetites with their delicious tastes, scents, and forms, they invite us to themselves. They sacrifice themselves for their customers so that they may rise from the level of vegetable life to that of animal life.
And so on, you can make further examples in the same way. Those seeds developed in such a way that the single handful became like a garden filled with various trees and flowers. There was no fault, no error among them. They demonstrated the meaning of the verse,

• So turn your vision again; do you see any flaw ?

Through the manifestation and bestowal of the Name of Preserver, each of the seeds preserves and shows without confusion or defect the legacy inherited from its parent and origins.
Thus, this is a certain indication that the Preserver Who carries out this wondrous work will demonstrate the supreme manifestation of His preservation at the resurrection of the dead and Last Judgement.
Yes, the manifestation of preservation that is faultless and without defect to this degree in insignificant, fleeting, transient states is a decisive proof that the actions, works, words, and good deeds and bad deeds of man, the holder of the Supreme Trust and God's vicegerent on earth— deeds which have an eternal effect and supreme importance— are precisely preserved and will be subject to account.
Does man suppose he will be left to his own devices? God forbid! Man is destined for eternity, and for everlasting happiness and perpetual misery. He will he called to account for all his actions, small and great, many and few. He will receive either reward or punishment.
And so, witnesses to the maximum manifestation of preservation and to the truth of the first-mentioned verse are beyond count or calculation. Those we have shown in this Matter are a mere drop from the ocean, an atom from a mountain.

• • Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.
    
    * * *

The Eighteenth Flash

This has been published in Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybî (The Ratifying Stamp of the Unseen) and in hand-duplicated editions of Lem'alar (The Flashes Collection).

The Nineteenth Flash

On Frugality
[This treatise is about frugality and contentment, and wastefulness and extravagance.]

• • In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
    Eat and drink, but waste not by excess.
  This verse gives most important and wise instruction in the form of categorically commanding frugality and clearly prohibiting wastefulness. The matter contains seven Points.

• FIRST POINT

The All-Compassionate Creator desires THANKS in return for the bounties He bestows on mankind, while wastefulness is contrary to thanks, and slights the bounty and causes loss. Frugality, however, shows respect for the bounty and is profitable. Yes, frugality is both a sort of thanks, and shows respect towards the Divine mercy manifested in the bounties, and most definitely is the cause of plenty. So too, like abstinence, it is health-giving for the body, and, since it saves a person from the degradation of what is in effect begging, is a cause of self-respect. It is also a powerful means of experiencing the pleasure to be found in bounties, and tasting that pleasure in bounties which apparently afford no pleasure. As for wastefulness, since it is opposed to these instances of wisdom, it has grave consequences.

• SECOND POINT

The All-Wise Maker created the human body in the form of a wonderful palace and resembling a well-ordered city. The sense of taste in the mouth is like a door-keeper, and the nerves and blood vessels like telephone and telegraph wires; they are the means by which the sense of taste communicates with the stomach, which is at the centre of the body, and informs it of the food that enters the mouth. If the body and stomach has no use for it, it says: "Forbidden!", and expels it. And sometimes the food is harmful and bitter as well as not being beneficial for the body, and it spits it out immediately.
Thus, since the sense of taste is a doorkeeper, from the point of view of administering the stomach and body, it is a master and a ruler. If the gifts arriving at the palace or city and those given to the palace's ruler are worth one hundred liras, only five liras’ worth is appropriate for the doorkeeper in the form of a tip, lest he becomes conceited and is corrupted, then forgetting his duty he lets revolutionaries into the palace who will give him a bigger tip.
So, as a consequence of this mystery we shall now imagine two mouthfuls. One consists of nutritious food like cheese and egg and costs forty para, and the other is of the choicest baklava and costs ten kurush, Before entering the mouth, there is no difference in these two mouthfuls with respect to the body, they are equal. And after passing down the throat, they are still equal in nourishing the body. Indeed, forty paras' worth of cheese sometimes is more nutritious. Only, in regard to pampering the sense of taste in the mouth, there is a half-minute difference. You can see from this what a meaningless and harmful waste it is to increase the cost from forty para to ten kurush for the sake of half a minute.
Now, although the gift arriving for the palace's ruler is worth one lira, to give the doorkeeper a tip nine times bigger than his due will corrupt him. He will declare: "I am the ruler," and will allow to enter whoever gives him the biggest tip and most pleasure; he will cause a revolution and conflagration to break out. Then he will compel them to cry out:
"Oh! Call the doctor and make him put out this f re in my stomach and bring down my temperature!"
Thus, frugality and contentment are in conformity with Divine wisdom; they treat the sense of taste as a doorkeeper and give it its remuneration accordingly. As for wastefulness, since it is to act contrary to wisdom, it swiftly receives its punishment, upsets the stomach, and causes real appetite to be lost. Producing from the unnecessary variety of foods a false and artifici1 clpetite, it causes indigestion and illness.

• THIRD POINT

We said in the Second Point that the sense of taste is a doorkeeper, and indeed, for the heedless and those who have not progressed spiritually nor advanced in the way of thanks, it is like a doorkeeper. Wastefulness should not be indulged in nor the sense of taste's price be raised from one to ten for the sake of giving it pleasure.
However, the sense of taste of those truly on the way of thanks, those seeking reality, and those who approach it with their hearts is like a supervisor and inspector in the kitchens of Divine mercy-as is explained in the comparison in the Sixth Word. Its duty is to recognize and weigh up the varieties of Divine bounties on the tiny scales present in it to the number of foods, and to send the body and stomach news of the food in the form of thanks. In this respect the sense of taste does not only look to the physical stomach, rather, since it looks also to the heart, spirit, and mind, it has a position and importance superior to the stomach. On condition it is not wasteful or extravagant, and is purely to carry out its duty of thanks and recognize and perceive the varieties of Divine bounty, and on condition it is licit and does not lead to degradation and begging, it can follow its pleasure. In fact, delicious foods may be preferred in order to employ the tongue which bears the sense of taste in giving thanks. The following is an instance of Shaykh Geylani's wonder-working which alludes to this truth:
At one time, being instructed by Ghawth al-A'zam, Shaykh Geylani (May his mystery be sanctified), was the only son of an aged and anxious woman. This esteemed lady had gone to her son's cell and seen that he had nothing to eat but a piece of dry, black bread. Her maternal compassion was aroused by his emaciated condition resulting from his asceticism. She felt sorry for him. Later she went to GhawthGhawth al-A'zam said to the chicken: al-A'zam in order to complain, and saw the Shaykh was tucking into roast chicken. Out of her concern, she said: "O Master! My son is dying of hunger while you are eating chicken!" Whereupon
"Rise up, with God's permission!" At this, the cooked chicken bones assembled and were throw out of the dish as an entire live chicken. This has been related unanimously through many reliable and documented channels as a marvel of someone whose extraordinary wonder-working is world-famous. Ghawth al-A'zam said to her: "When your son reaches this level, then he too can eat chicken." Thus, the meaning of Ghawth al-A'zam's words is this: whenever your son's spirit rules his body, and his heart rules the desires of his soul, and his reason rules his stomach, and he wants pleasure for the sake of offering thanks, then he may eat delicious things.

• FOURTH POINT

According to the Hadith the meaning of which is: "He who is thrifty will not have family difficulties as regards livelihood,"- the frugal and economical person will not suffer undue trouble and hardship in supporting his family.
There are countless proofs that the consequence of frugality is plenty and good living. For instance, I have seen myself and I can say according to the testimony of those who have befriended and assisted me that through being frugal, I have sometimes seen a tenfold increase, and so have my friends. Even, nine years ago-and now it is thirty, a number of the tribal leaders who were exiled to Burdur together with me did their best to make me accept their zakat so that I would not suffer privation and humiliation through lack of money. I said to those rich leaders:
"Although I have very little money, I am frugal and economical and I am accustomed to being content with little. I am richer than you." I refused their repeated and insistent offers. It is worth noting that two years later some of those who had offered me their zakat were in debt because they had not been frugal. Thanks be to God, seven years on from that, through the plenty resulting from frugality that small amount of money was still sufficient for me; it did not degrade me, nor compel me to present my needs to the people, nor make me deviate from my way of self-sufficiency and being independent of people, which is one of the principles of my life.
Someone who is not frugal is certain to be abased and reduced to poverty and in effect to begging. At this time, money, the means of wastefulness and extravagance, is extremely expensive. Sometimes a person sells his honour and self-respect and bribes are taken to receive it. Sometimes the sacred things of religion are sold, then some inauspicious money received in return. That is to say, material goods worth ten kurush are received in return for an immaterial loss of one hundred lira.
However, if a person is frugal and restricts and limits his needs to the essential, according to the implied meaning of the verse,
Indeed, it is God Who Gives all sustenance, Lord of all power and strength,
and the explicit meaning of the verse,
And there is no Moving creature on the earth but its sustenance is provided by God,
he will find enough sustenance to live on in unexpected ways. Because the verse guarantees it. Yes, there are two sorts of sustenance:
One is true sustenance, which is enough to subsist on. As the verse decrees, this sustenance is guaranteed by the Sustainer. So long as man's inclination towards evil does not interfere, he will find this essential sustenance under any circumstances. He will not be compelled to sacrifice his religion, or his honour, or his self-respect.
The second sort is metaphorical sustenance. With this, through abuse, inessential needs become like essential ones, and through the calamity of custom and tradition, people become addicted to them and cannot give them up. Since this sustenance is not guaranteed by the Sustainer, obtaining it is extremely expensive-and especially at this time. These unfruitful, inauspicious goods are obtained with first of all sacrificing the self-respect and accepting degradation, and sometimes stooping to what is in effect begging, kissing the feet of the vile, and sometimes sacrificing the sacred things of religion, which are the light of eternal life.
Also, at this time of poverty and hardship, the distress those with consciences feel at the anguish of the hungry and needy sours any pleasure to be had from unlawfully acquired money. During strange times such as these, as far as doubtful goods are concerned, one has to make do with them to the minimum degree necessary. For according to the rule,
"Necessity is determined according to its extent," when compelled to, illicit goods may be taken to the minimum degree necessary, not more. Someone in dire need may eat dead meat, but he may not fill his stomach with it. He may only eat enough not to die. Also, more cannot be eaten with unspoilt pleasure in the presence of a hundred people who are hungry.
The following is a story showing that frugality is the cause of dignity and distinction:
One time, Khatim Tay, who was world-famous for his generosity, was giving a large banquet. Having given his guests a superfluity of presents, he went out to walk in the desert. There he saw an old poor man who was carrying a load of thorny bushes and plants on his back. The thorns were piercing his skin and making him bleed. Khatim said to him: "Khatim Tay is giving a large banquet and giving away gifts. You go there and you will receive five hundred kurush in return for your load worth five kurush." The frugal old man replied: "I raise and carry this thorny load with my self-respect; I am not going to become obliged to Khatim Tay." Later, they asked Khatim Tay: "Have you come across anyone more generous and estimable than yourself?" He replied: "The frugal old man I met in the desert was more estimable, elevated, and generous than me."

• FIFTH POINT

Out of His perfect generosity, Almighty God makes a poor man understand the pleasure of His bounty the same as a rich man, and a beggar the same as a king. Indeed, the pleasure a poor man obtains from a dry piece of black bread through hunger and being frugal is greater than the pleasure a king or a rich man obtains from the choicest baklava eaten with the weariness and lack of appetite resulting from excess.
It is surprising but some dissolute and extravagant people accuse the frugal and economical of being "mean" and "stingy." God forbid! Frugality is dignity and generosity. Stinginess and meanness are the inner face of the apparently noble qualities of the wasteful and extravagant. There is an event corroborating this fact which occurred in my room in Isparta the year this treatise was written. It was as follows:
One of my students insisted on my accepting contrary to my rule and the principle of my life-a present of nearly two and a half okkas of honey. However much I stated my rule, he was not to be persuaded. Saying, with being economical let the three brothers with me eat the honey for thirty to forty days in the months of Sha'ban and Ramadan, and not be without something sweet to eat, and let the one who brought it earn the reward, I told them to take it. I myself had an okka of honey as well. Although my three friends were moderate and appreciated frugality, through offering the honey to each other, and each flattering the others' souls, and each preferring the others to himself, which in one respect is a good quality, they forgot about being economical. In three nights they finished the two and a half okkas of honey. Laughing, I said: "I would have given you the taste of that honey for thirty to forty days, and now you have reduced the thirty days to three. I hope you enjoyed it!" Whereas I used my one okka of honey frugally. For the wole of Sha'ban and Ramadan both I ate it, and, Praise be to God, I gave each of those brothers a spoonful every evening while breaking the fast, and it became the means of signficant reward. Perhaps those who saw this conduct of nine thought it was stinginess and my brothers' conduct for three nights was generosity. But in point of fact I saw that concealed beneath the apparent stinginess lay an elevated dignity, increase and plenty, and great reward. If they had not stopped, it would have resulted in something much baser than stinginess beneath the generosity and excess, like beggarliness and watching another's hand greedily and expectantly.

• SIXTH POINT

There is great difference between frugality and stinginess. Just as humility is a praiseworthy quality superficially resembling but different to the bad quality of servility, ad dignity is a laudable virtue superficially similar to but different from the bad quality of haughtiness, so too frugality, which was one of the elevated qualities of the Prophet (PBUH) and indeed is one of the things on which the Divine wisdom in the order of the universe depends, bears o relation to stinginess, which is a mixture of baseness, avarice, miserliness, and greed. There is merely superficial resemblance. The following is an event corroborating this fact:
Abdullah b. Umar, who was one of the famous Companions of the Prophet know as `the seven Abdullahs', was the greatest and most important of the sons of the Caliph Umar, Faruq al-A’zam, and one ot the most distinguished and learned of the Companions. One day while shopping in the market, in order to be economical and to preserve the confidence and integrity on which trade depends, he disputed hotly over something worth a few kurush. One of the Companions saw him, and imagining the Illustrious Successor of the Prophet on Earth, the Caliph Umar's sons's wrangling over few krush to be an extraordinary stinginess, he followed him in order to understand his conduct. Next he saw that Abdullah was entering his blessed house and had spotted. a poor man the door. He chatted with him for a bit, and the man left. Then he came out of the second door of the house and saw another poor man. He chatted with him for a while too, and the man left. The Companion, who was watching from the distance, was curious. He went and asked the poor men: "Abdullah paused while with you. What did he do`?" Each of then replied: "He gave me a gold piece." "Glory be to God!," exclaimed the Companion, and thought to himself': "How is it that he wrangled like that over a few kurush in the market, then was completely happy to give away two hundred kurush in his house without letting anyone know?"
He went to Abdullah b. Umar and said: "O Imam! Solve this difficulty for me! In the market you did that, while in your house you did this." Abdullah replied to him saying: "In the market it was not stinginess, but conduct arising from frugality; it was perfectly reasonable, and to preserve confidence and honesty, which are the basis and spirit of commerce. And the conduct in my house arose from the heart's compassion and the spirit's perfection. Neither was the first stinginess, nor the second immoderateness."
Alluding this, Imam Abu Hanifa said: "There car he no excess in good, just as there is no good in excess." That is to say, just as in good works and benevolence there can no excess or wastefulness-so long as they are for the deserving, so too there is no good at all in wastefulness and immoderateness.

• SEVENTH POINT

Excess and wastefulness lead to greed, and greed has three consequences:
The First is dissatisfaction. As for dissatisfaction, it destroys endeavour and enthusiasm for work, and causes the dissatisfied person to complain instead of giving thanks, and makes him lazy. Such a person abandons possessions which though few in number are licit, and seeks possessions which are illicit and free of trouble. And he sacrifices his self-respect on that way, and even his honour.
The Second Consequence of Greed is disappointment and loss. The greedy person drives away what he wishes for, is found disagreeable, and is deprived of assistance and help. He even confirms the saying: "The greedy person is unsuccessful and suffers loss."
Greed and contentment have their effects in the animal kingdom in accordance with a most extensive law. For instance, the natural contentment of trees needy for sustenance makes their sustenance hasten to them; this shows the huge benefits of contentment. While animals' running after their sustenance greedily and with difficulty and deficiency demonstrates the great loss of greed.
Also, the contentment apparent through their tongues of disposition of all helpless young and a pleasant food like milk flowing out to them from an unexpected place, while wild animals greedily attack their deficient and dirty sustenance, prove our claim in clear fashion.
Also, the contented attitude of fat fish being the means of their perfect sustenance, and intelligent animals like foxes and monkeys remaining puny and weak because they cannot find sufficient sustenance, although they pursue it with greed, again show to what a degree greed is the cause of hardship and contentment the cause of ease.
Also, the Jewish people finding through greed, usury, and trickery their degrading, miserable, illicit sustanance only at subsistence level, and the contented attitude of nomads and their living with dignity and finding sufficient sustenance, proves decisively what we say once more.
Also, many scholars and literary figures being reduced to poverty because of the greed arising from their intelligence, and many stupid and incapable people becoming rich through their innate contentedness proves decisively that licit sustenance comes through impotence and want, not through ability and will. Indeed, licit sustenance is in inverse proportion to ability and will. For the more children increase in ability and will, the more their sustenance decreases, the further it is from them, and the more difficult to digest. According to the Hadith, "Contentment is an unfailing treasure," contentment is a treasury of good living and ease of life, while greed is a mine of loss and abasement.
The Third Consequence: Greed destroys sincerity and damages actions in regard to the Hereafter. For if a God-fearing person suffers from greed, he will desire the regard of others. And someone who considers the regard of others cannot have complete sincerity. This consequence is extremely important and worth noticing.
I n S h o r t : Excess and wastefulness lead to lack of contentment. And lack of contentment destroys enthusiasm for work; it causes laziness, opens the door to complaining about life, and makes the dissatisfied person complain continuously. Also, it destroys sincerity, and opens the door to hypocrisy. And it destroys self-respect, and points the way to begging.
As for frugality and economy, these result in contentment. According to the Hadith, "The contented person is respected, and the greedy person despised," a consequence of contentment is self-esteem. Also, it encourages effort and work. It increases enthusiasm, and leads to work. For example, a person worked for one day. Because of his contentment with the petty wage he received in the evening, he worked again the second day. But because the wasteful and immoderate person was not content, he did not work again the following day. Or if he did work, he did so without. enthusiasm.
Also, the contentment arising from frugality opens the door of thanks and closes the door of complaint. Throughout his life, the contented person is thankful. And i so far as he is independent of others through his contentment, he does not seek their regard. The door of sincerity is opened, the door of hypocrisy closed.
I observed the fearsome harm of wastefulness and excess on a broad scale. It was as follows: nine years ago I visited a fortunate town. Since it was winter, I could not see its sources of wealth. Several times the town's Mufti, may God have mercy on him, said to re, "Our people are poor." Those words touched me. For the following five or six years, I felt continual pity for the people of the tow. Eight years later i the summer, I again visited it:. I looked at the gardens and recalled the words of the late Mufti. "Glory be to God!", I said, "These gardens' crops are far greater than the needs of the town. Its people should be very rich." I was amazed. The I understood through remembering a fact which has never deceived e and is my guide in understanding other truths, that the abundance and plenty had disappeared due to wastefulness and excess, so that although the town possessed such sources of wealth, the late Mufti used to say:
"Or people are poor."
Indeed, just as giving zakat and being frugal and economical is proven by experience to be the cause of increase ad plenty in goods and possessions, so too are there innumerable events showing that wastefulness and failure to give zakat cause increase and plenty to be taken away.
The Plato of Islamic sages, the staykh nf physicians, and master of philosophers, the famous genius Abu Ali Ibn-i Sina explained the verse,
"Eat and drink, but waste not in excess’’
just from the point of view of medicine, as follows: "I concentrate the science of medicine in two lies, the best word is the shortest; when you eat, eat little, and do not eat again for four r five hours. Health lies in digestion. That is to say, eat so much as you can digest easily. The heaviest and most tiring thing for your stomach and yourself is to eat many things ore on top of the other."
An Extraordinary and Instructive `Coincidence': In all the copies of the Treatise on Frugality written by five or six scribes-three of whom were inexperienced, who were in different places far from one another, were writing it out from different copies, whose handwriting was all different, and who did not take the Alifs into consideration at all, the Alifs which `coincided' numbered fifty-one, or `with a prayer,' fifty-three. These numbers coinciding with the date the Treatise on Frugality was written and copied, which was [13]51 according to the Rumi calendar and [13]53 according to the Hijri calendar, undoubtedly cannot be chance. It is an indication that the blessing of plenty resulting from frugality has risen to the degree of wondrousness, and that this year is fit to be named `Frugality Year.'
Indeed, this wonder of frugality was proved two years later, during the Second World War, by the widespread hunger, destruction, and waste, and mankind and everyone being compelled to be frugal.
Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.

* * *

• • • • • • The Twentieth Flash
            
            • • On Sincerity

[While being the First of the Five Points which form the Second of the Seven Matters of the Seventeenth Flash, this became the Twentieth Flash because of its importance.]
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
The verse:
Verily We sent the Book down to you in truth, so worship God in sincerity, for God’s is sincerely practised religion,
and the noble saying of the Prophet:
All men will perish, except the scholars, and all scholars will perish except those who act in accordance with their knowledge, and all of them will perish except the sincere, and even the sincere are in great danger,”
demonstrate together how important a principle of Islam is sincerity. From among the innumerable points concerning sincerity, we will briefly expound only five.
Note: An auspicious sign of blessed Isparta which causes one to offer thanks is that compared with other places, there is no visible rivalry and dispute between the pious, those who follow the Sufi path, and the religious scholars. Even if the required true love and union is not present, comparatively speaking, there is no harmful rivalry and conflict.
FIRST POINT
A n I m p o r t a n t a n d A w e s o m e Q u e s t i o n : Why is it that while the worldly and the neglectful, and even the misguided and hypocrites, co-operate without rivalry, the people of religion, the religious scholars, and those who follow the Sufi path, oppose each other in rivalry, although they are the people of truth and concord? Agreement belongs in reality to the people of concord and dispute to the hypocrites; how is it that these two have changed places?
T h e A n s w e r : We will set forth seven of the extremely numerous causes of this painful, disgraceful and awesome situation, one that causes the zealous to weep.

• THE FIRST

Just as dispute among the people of the truth does not arise from lack of the truth, so too the agreement prevailing among the people of neglect does not arise from any possession of truth. Rather it is that a specific duty and particular function has been assigned to the classes in society, like ‘the worldly’, those engaged in politics, and those who have received a secular education, and thus the functions of the various groups, societies, and communities have been defined and become distinguished from one another. Similarly, the material reward they are to receive for their functions in order to maintain a livelihood, as well as the moral reward that consists in the attention they receive from men for the sake of their ambition and pride— this too is established and specified. There is therefore nothing held in common to the degree that it might produce conflict, dissension and rivalry. However evil be the path that they tread, they will be able to preserve unity and agreement.
But as for the people of religion, the scholars, and those who follow the path, the duty of each is concerned with all men; their material reward is not set and specified; and their share in social esteem and acceptance and public attention is not predetermined. Many may be candidates for the same position; many hands may stretch out for each moral and material reward that is offered. Hence it is that conflict and rivalry arise; concord is changed into discord, and agreement into dispute.
Now the cure and remedy for this appalling disease is sincerity. Sincerity may be attained by preferring the worship of God to the worship of one’s own soul, by causing God’s pleasure to vanquish the pleasure of the soul and the ego, and thus manifesting the meaning of the verse:
Verily my reward is from God alone;
by renouncing the material and moral reward to be had from men and thus manifesting the meaning of the verse:
Naught is incumbent on the Messenger but conveying the message;
and by knowing that such matters as goodly acceptance, and making a favourable impression, and gaining the attention of men are God’s concern and a favour from Him, and that they play no part in conveying the message, which is one’s own duty, nor are they necessary for it, nor is one charged with gaining them— by knowing this a person will be successful in gaining sincerity, otherwise it will vanish.

• SECOND CAUSE

The agreement among the poeple of misguidance is on account of their abasement, and the dispute among the people of guidance is on account of their dignity. That is to say that the people of neglect— those misguided ones sunk in worldly concerns — are weak and abased because they do not rely on truth and reality. On account of their abasement, they need to augment their strength, and because of this need they wholeheartedly embrace the aid and co-operation of others. Even though the path they follow is misguidance, they preserve their agreement. It is as if they were making their godlessness into a form of worship of the truth, their misguidance into a form of sincerity, their irreligion into a form of solidarity, and their hypocrisy into concord, and thus attaining success. For genuine sincerity, even for the sake of evil, cannot fail to yield results, and whatever man seeks with sincerity, God will grant him it.
But as for the people of guidance and religion, the religious scholars and those who follow the Sufi path, since they rely upon truth and reality, and each of them on the road of truth thinks only of his Sustainer and trusts in His succour, they derive dignity from their belief. When they feel weakness, they turn not toward men, but toward God and seek help from Him. On account of difference in outlook, they feel no real need for the aid of the one whose outlook apparently opposes their own, and see no need for agreement and unity. Indeed, if obstinacy and egoism are present, one will imagine himself to be right and the other to be wrong; discord and rivalry take the place of concord and love. Thus sincerity is chased away and its function disrupted.
Now the only remedy for the critical consequences of this awesome state consists of Nine Commands:
1. To act positively, that is, out of love for one’s own outlook, avoiding enmity for other outlooks, not criticizing them, interfering in their beliefs and sciences, or in any way concerning oneself with them.
2. To unite within the fold of Islam, irrespective of particular outlook, remembering those numerous ties of unity that evoke love, brotherhood and concord.
3. To adopt the just rule of conduct that the follower of any right outlook has the right to say, “My outlook is true, or the best,” but not that “My outlook alone is true,” or that “My outlook alone is good,” thus implying the falsity or repugnance of all other outlooks.
4. To consider that union with the people of truth is a cause of Divine succour and the high dignity of religion.
5. To realize that the individual resistance of the most powerful person against the attacks through its genius of the mighty collective force of the people of misguidance and falsehood, which arises from their solidarity, will inevitably be defeated, and through the union of the people of truth, to create a joint and collective force also, in order to preserve justice and right in the face of that fearsome collective force of misguidance.
6. In order to preserve truth from the assaults of falsehood,
7. To abandon the self and its egoism,
8. And give up the mistaken concept of self-pride,
9. And cease from all insignificant feelings aroused by rivalry.
If this ninefold rule is adhered to, sincerity will be preserved and its function perfectly performed.7

• THIRD CAUSE

Disagreement among the people of truth does not arise from lack of zeal and aspiration, nor does union among the people of misguidance arise from loftiness of aspiration. That which impels the people of guidance to the misuse of their high aspiration and hence to disagreement and rivalry is the desire for heavenly reward that is counted as a praiseworthy quality in respect of the Hereafter, and extreme eagerness with respect to duties pertaining to the Hereafter. Thinking to oneself, “Let me gain this reward, let me guide these people, let them listen to me,” he takes up a position of rivalry towards the true brother who faces him and who stands in real need of his love, assistance, brotherhood and aid. Saying to oneself, “Why are my pupils going to him? Why don’t I have as many pupils as him?” he falls prey to egoism, inclines to the chronic disease of ambition, loses all sincerity, and opens the door to hypocrisy.
The cure for this error, this wound, this awesome sickness of the spirit, is the principle that “God’s pleasure is won by sincerity alone,” and not by a large following or great success. For these latter are a function of God’s will; they cannot be demanded, although they are sometimes given. Sometimes a single word will result in someone’s salvation and hence the pleasure of God. Quantity should not receive too much attention, for sometimes to guide one man to the truth may be as pleasing to God as guiding a thousand. Moreover sincerity and adherence to the truth require that one should desire the Muslims to benefit from anyone and at any place they can. To think “Let them take lessons from me so that I gain the reward” is a trick of the soul and the ego.
O man greedy for reward in the Hereafter and the performance of deeds entitling you to that reward! There have been certain prophets who had only a limited following but received the infinite reward of the sacred duty of prophethood. The true achievement lies, then, not in gaining a vast following, but in gaining God’s pleasure. What do you imagine yourself to be, that saying, “Let everyone listen to me,” you forget your function, and interfere in what is strictly God’s concern? To gain acceptance for you and to have people gather round you is God’s concern. So look to your own duty and concern, and do not meddle with God’s concerns.
Moreover, it is not only men who earn reward for those who hear and speak the truth. The sentient and spiritual beings of God and His angels have filled the universe and adorned its every part. If you want plentiful reward, take sincerity as your foundation and think only of God’s pleasure. Then every syllable of the blessed words that issue forth from your mouth will be brought to life by your sincerity and truthful intention, and going to the ears of innumerable sentient beings, they will illumine them and earn you reward. For when, for example, you say, “Praise and thanks be to God,” millions of these words, great and small, are written on the page of the air by God’s leave. Since the All-Wise Inscriber did nothing prodigally or in vain, He created innumerable ears, as many as were needed to hear those multiple blessed words. If those words are brought to life in the air by sincerity and truthful intent, they will enter the ears of the spirit beings like some tasty fruit in the mouth. But if God’s pleasure and sincerity do not bring those words to life, they will not be heard, and reward will be had only for the single utterance made by the mouth. Pay good attention to this, you Qur’an reciters who are sad that your voices are not more beautiful and that more people do not listen to you!

• FOURTH CAUSE

In just the same way that rivalry and disagreement among the people of guidance do not arise from failure to foresee consequences or from shortsightedness, so too wholehearted agreement among the people of misguidance does not result from farsightedness or loftiness of vision. Rather the people of guidance, through the influence of truth and reality, do not succumb to the blind emotions of the soul, and follow instead the farsighted inclinations of the heart and the intellect. Since, however, they fail to preserve their sense of direction and their sincerity, they are unable to maintain their high station and fall into dispute.
As for the people of misguidance, under the influence of the soul and caprice, and the dominance of sense-perception, which is blind to all consequences and always prefers an ounce of immediate pleasure to a ton of future pleasure, they come together in eager concord for the sake of instant benefit and immediate pleasure. Indeed, lowly and heartless worshippers of the ego are bound to congregate around worldly and immediate pleasures and benefits. It is true that the people of guidance have set their faces to the rewards of the Hereafter and its perfections, in accordance with the lofty instructions of the heart and the intellect, but even though a proper sense of direction, a complete sincerity and self-sacrificing union and concord are possible, because they have failed to rid themselves of egoism, and on account of deficiency and excess, they lose their union, that lofty source of power, and permit their sincerity to be shattered. Their duty in regard to the Hereafter is also harmed. God’s pleasure is not had easily.
The cure and remedy for this serious disease is to be proud of the company of all those travelling the path of truth, in accordance with the principle of love for God’s sake; to follow them and defer leadership to them; and to consider whoever is walking on God’s path to be probably better than oneself, thereby breaking the ego and regaining sincerity. Salvation is also to be had from that disease by knowing that an ounce of deeds performed in sincerity is preferable to a ton performed without sincerity, and by preferring the status of a follower to that of a leader, with all the danger and responsibility that it involves. Thus sincerity is to be had, and one’s duties of preparation for the Hereafter may be correctly performed.

• FIFTH CAUSE

Dispute and disagreement among the people of guidance are not the result of weakness, and the powerful union of the people of misguidance is not the result of strength. Rather the lack of union of the people of guidance comes from the power that results from the support provided by perfect belief, and the union of the people of neglect and misguidance comes from the weakness and impotence they experience as a result of their lack of any inward support. The weak form powerful unions precisely because of their need for union.8 Since the strong do not feel a similar need, their unions are weak. Lions do not need union like foxes and therefore live as individuals, whereas wild goats form a herd to protect themselves against wolves. The community and collective personality of the weak is strong, and the community and collective personality of the strong is weak. There is a subtle allusion to this in the Qur’an in the words, “And women in the city said,” the verb “said” being in the masculine form, although it should be feminine for two reasons [women is a feminine noun, and also a plural—so-called “broken” plurals in Arabic are always regarded as feminine]. But by contrast see the words, “the desert Arabs said,” the verb said in this case being in the feminine, even though its subject designates a community of men. Herein lies an indication, that an association of weak, meek and soft women gains strength, toughness and force, and even acquires a certain kind of virility. The use of the masculine form of the verb is therefore most appropriate. Strong men, by contrast, and in particular Beduin Arabs, trust in their own strength; therefore their associations are weak, for they assume a stance of softness and caution and take on a kind of femininity, for which the use of the feminine form of the verb is most suitable. Similarly the people of truth submit to and place their reliance in the firm source of support that is belief in God; hence they do not present their needs to others or request aid and assistance from them. If they do sometimes make the request, they will not adhere to the persons concerned at all cost. But the worldly ignore in their worldly affairs the true source of support; they fall into weakness and impotence, and experiencing an acute need of assistance, come together sacrificing themselves wholeheartedly.
The people of truth do not recognize and seek the true strength that is to be found in union; hence they fall into dispute, as an evil and harmful consequence of this failure. By contrast, the people of misguidance and falsehood perceive the strength to be found in union, by virtue of their very weakness, and thus acquire union, that most important means for the attainment of all goals.
The cure and remedy for this disease of discord among the people of truth is to make one’s rule of conduct the Divine prohibition contained in this verse:
Do not fall into dispute, lest you lose heart and your power depart,
and the wise Divine command for social life contained in this verse:
Work together for the sake of virtue and piety.
One must further realize how harmful to Islam dispute is, and how it helps the people of misguidance to triumph over the people of truth, and then, wholeheartedly and self-sacrificingly, join the caravan of the people of truth, with a sense of his own utter weakness and impotence. Finally, one must forget his own person, abandon hypocrisy and pretension, and lay hold of sincerity.

• SIXTH CAUSE

Discord among the people of truth does not arise from lack of manliness, aspiration and zeal; similarly, the wholehearted union among the misguided, neglectful and worldly with respect to their worldly affairs does not result from manliness, aspiration and zeal. It is rather that the people of truth are generally concerned with benefits to be had in the Hereafter and hence direct their zeal, aspiration and manliness to those important and numerous matters. Since they do not devote time—the true capital of man—to a single concern, their union with their fellows can never become firm. Their concerns are numerous and of a wide scope. As for the neglectful and worldly, they think only of the life of this world, and they firmly embrace the concerns of the life of this world with all their senses, their spirit and heart, and cling firmly to whoever aids them in those concerns. Like a mad diamond merchant who gives an exorbitant price for a piece of glass worth virtually nothing, they devote time, which is of the highest value, to matters which in reality and in the view of the people of truth are worth nothing. Paying such a high price and offering oneself with the devotion of all the senses will naturally result in a wholehearted sincerity that yields success in the matter at hand, so that the people of truth are defeated. As a result of this defeat, the people of truth decline into a state of abasement, humiliation, hypocrisy and ostentation, and sincerity is lost. Thus the people of truth are obliged to flatter and cringe before a handful of vile and lowly men of the world.
O people of truth! O people of the law, people of reality and people of the path, all worshipping God! Confronted by this awesome disease of discord, overlook each other’s faults, close your eyes to each other’s shortcomings! Behave according to the rule of courtesy established by the criterion that is the Qur’an in the verse:
When they pass by error, they pass by it with honourable avoidance.
Regard it as your primary duty—one on which your state in the Hereafter depends—to abandon internal dissension when attacked by an enemy from the outside, and thereby to deliver the people of truth from their abasement and humiliation! Practise the brotherhood, love and co-operation insistently enjoined by hundreds of Qur’anic verses and traditions of the Prophet! Establish with all of your powers a union with your fellows and brothers in religion that is stronger than the union of the worldly! Do not fall into dispute! Do not say to yourself, “Instead of spending my valuable time on such petty matters, let me spend it on more valuable things such as the invocation of God and meditation;” then withdrawing and weakening unity. For precisely what you imagine to be a matter of slight importance in this moral jihad may in fact be very great. In just the same way that under certain special and unusual conditions the watch kept for one hour by a soldier may be equal to a whole year’s worship, in this age when the people of truth have been defeated, the precious day that you spend on some apparently minor matter concerning the moral struggle may be worth a thousand days, just like the hour of that soldier. Whatever is undertaken for the sake of God cannot be divided into small and great, valuable and valueless. An atom expended in sincerity and for the sake of God’s pleasure becomes like a star. What is important is not the nature of the means employed, but the result that it yields. As long as the result is God’s pleasure and the substance employed is sincerity, any means to which recourse is had will be great, not small.

• SEVENTH CAUSE

Dispute and rivalry among the people of truth do not arise from jealousy and greed for the world, and conversely union among the worldly and neglectful does not arise from generosity and magnanimity. It is rather that the people of truth are unable to preserve fully the magnanimity and high aspiration that proceed from the truth, or the laudable form of competition that exists on God’s path. Infiltrated by the unworthy, they partially misuse that laudable form of competition and fall into rivalry and dispute, causing grave harm both to themselves and to the Islamic Community. As for the people of neglect and misguidance, in order not to lose the benefits with which they are infatuated and not to offend the leaders and companions they worship for the sake of benefit, in their utter humiliation, abasement and lack of manliness, they practise union at all costs with their companions, however abominable, treacherous and harmful they be, and wholeheartedly agree with their partners in whatever form may be dictated by their common interest. As a result of this wholeheartednees, they indeed attain the benefits desired.
So O people of truth given to dispute and afflicted with disaster! It is through your loss of sincerity and your failure to make God’s pleasure your sole aim in this age of disaster that you have caused the people of truth to undergo this humiliation and defeat. In matters relating to religion and the Hereafter there should be no rivalry, envy or jealousy; indeed there can be none of these in truth. The reason for envy and jealousy is that when several hands reach out after a single object, when several eyes are fixed on a single position, when several stomachs hunger for a single loaf of bread, first envy arises as a result of conflict, dispute and rivalry, and then jealousy. Since many people desire the same thing in the world, and because the world, narrow and transitory as it is, cannot satisfy the limitless desires of man, people become rivals of each other. However, in the Hereafter a five-hundred-year paradise will be given to a single individual; seventy thousand palaces and houris will be granted to him; and every one of the people of Paradise will be perfectly satisfied with his share. It is thus clear that there is no cause for rivalry in the Hereafter, nor can there be rivalry. In that case, neither should there be any rivalry with respect to those good deeds that entail reward in the Hereafter; there is no room for jealousy here. The one jealous here is either a hypocrite, seeking worldly result through the performance of good deeds, or a sincere but ignorant devotee, not knowing the true purpose of good deeds and not comprehending that sincerity is the spirit and foundation of all good deeds. By cultivating a kind of rivalry and hostility toward God’s saints, he is in fact placing in doubt the breadth of God’s compassion.
An instance supporting this truth: One of my former companions nurtured hostility to someone. His enemy’s good deeds and sanctity were once favourably described in his presence. He was not jealous or upset. Then someone said, “That enemy of yours is courageous and strong.” We saw a strong vein of jealousy and rivalry suddenly appearing in that man. We said to him:
“Sanctity and righteousness bestow a strength and exaltation like a jewel of eternal life, yet you were not jealous of them. Now worldly strength is to be found in oxen, and courage in wild beasts; in comparison with sanctity and righteousness they are like a piece of glass compared to a diamond.”
The man replied:
“We have both fixed our eyes in this world on a single object. The steps that lead to it are provided by things such as courage and strength. It is for this reason that I was jealous of him. The objects and stations of the Hereafter are without number. Although he is my enemy here, there he can be my beloved and intimate brother.”
O people of the truth and the path! The service of the truth is like carrying and preserving a great and weighty treasure. Those who carry that trust on their shoulders will be happy and grateful whenever powerful hands rush to their aid. Far from being jealous, one should proudly applaud the superior strength, effectiveness and capacity of those who in upright love come forward to offer their help. Why then look on true brothers and self-sacrificing helpers in a spirit of rivalry, thus losing sincerity? You will be exposed to fearsome accusations in the eyes of the people of misguidance, such as pursuing worldly interest through religion, even though it is something a hundred times lower than you and your belief, earning your livelihood through the knowledge of truth and rivalling others in greed and acquisitiveness.
The sole remedy for this disease is to accuse your own soul before others raise these charges, and always to take the side of your fellow, not your own soul. The rule of truth and equity established by the scholars of the art of debate is this: “ Whoever desires, in debate on any subject, that his own word should turn out to be true, whoever is happy that he turns out to be right and his enemy to be wrong and mistaken—such a person has acted unjustly.” Not only that, such a person loses, for when he emerges the victor in such a debate, he has not learned anything previously unknown to him, and his probable pride will cause him loss. But if his adversary turns out to be right, he will have learned something previously unknown to him and thereby gained something without any loss, as well as being saved from pride. In other words, one fair in his dealings and enamoured of the truth will subject the desire of his own soul to the demands of the truth. If he sees his adversary to be right, he will accept it willingly and support it happily.
If then the people of religion, the people of truth, the people of the path, and the people of learning take this principle as their guide, they will attain sincerity, and be successful in those duties that prepare them for the Hereafter. Through God’s mercy, they will be delivered from this appalling wretchedness and misfortune from which they presently suffer.

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed You are All-Knowing, All Wise.

* * *