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The preceding Twelve Truths confirm, complement, and support each other. As a
single truth, they demonstrate the desired result. Can any doubt penetrate those
twelve firm walls, each like steel or diamonds, and shake the belief in the
Resurrection housed within them?
Your creation and your resurrection are as but a single soul (31:28) means
that creating and resurrecting humanity or a single person are equally easy for
the Divine Power. In Nuqta (Point), I elaborated this truth. Here, I will
summarize it and present various comparisons.[1]
For example, if the sun had free will and could manifest itself however it
wished, as a light‑giving object it could do so with the same ease in
innumerable transparent objects or in one particle.[2]
Being transparent, the tiniest transparent thing equals the ocean’s surface in
containing the sun’s image. By virtue of orderliness and its interrelated parts,
a child can steer a battleship as easily as a toy boat. By virtue of obedience,
a commander can order an army to move with the same “March!” issued to one
soldier.
Imagine a balance so sensitive that it can weigh two walnuts, and so large
that it can weigh two suns. If two walnuts or suns of equal weight were placed
in these pans, the resulting equilibrium, the same power that lifts one walnut
to the heavens and lowers the other to the ground, would move the suns with the
same ease.
In this lowly, imperfect, and transient World of Contingency, and by virtue
of such qualities as luminosity, transparency, orderliness and interrelatedness,
obedience and balance (or equilibrium), all things become equal, and numerous
things appear as equal to one thing. Given this, and by virtue of the luminous
manifestations of the Absolutely Powerful One’s essential, infinite, and utterly
perfect Power; the transparency of the inner dimension of things; the exact
universal order dictated by Divine Wisdom and Destiny; the perfect obedience of
things to His command of creation; and because the existence or non‑existence of
all things is equally possible, little and much, small and great are equal in
respect to His Power. And so He will resurrect us with one trumpet blast, as if
we were one person.
Furthermore, a thing’s degrees of strength and weakness are determined by the
intervention of its opposite. Degrees of heat are determined by cold’s
intervention, degrees of beauty by ugliness’ intervention, and degrees of
illumination by darkness’ intervention. But if a quality or property is
essential to something, that is, if it originates directly from itself and is
almost identical with itself, its opposite cannot intervene in it. If its
opposite could intervene, this would mean that opposites of the same qualities
would have to be united in a single thing—something clearly impossible.
The Absolutely Powerful One’s Power is essential to His Divine Essence,
originates from It directly, and is almost identical with It. Given this, and
that It is also absolutely perfect, It cannot have an opposite to intervene in
It. Hence the Lord of Majesty creates spring as easily as He creates a flower,
and will resurrect and assemble humanity with the same ease as He resurrects one
person. If material causes had to create just one flower, on the other hand,
they would have to create an entire spring.
All that we have explained so far is derived from the radiation of the Wise
Qur’an. So, let’s listen to more of what it has to say:
For God is the final, conclusive argument. (6:149)
Look upon the signs and imprints of God’s Mercy, how He revives the
soil after its death. He it is Who will revive the dead [in the same way].
He is powerful over all things. (30:50)
[Humanity] coins for Us a similitude, and forgets his own creation,
saying: “Who will revive those bones when they have rotted away?” Say: “The
One Who first produced them will revive them. He is Knower of every
creation.” (36:78)
O humanity, fear your Lord. The quaking of the Hour is a mighty thing.
The day you see it, every suckling woman shall forget her suckling‑babe, and
every pregnant one shall drop her burden. You shall see humanity as drunk,
yet they are not drunk. Dreadful will be the doom of God. (22:1‑2)
God, there is no god but He. Surely He will gather you all to a Day of
Judgment about which there is no doubt. Who is more true than God in the
words [He speaks] and the news [He gives]? (4:87)
The pious, purified will be in bliss and blessings. The wicked will be
in blazing Fire. (82:13‑14)
When Earth is shaken with its [final and terrible] earthquake and
throws up its burdens, and humanity asks: “What is the matter with it?” That
day it will proclaim its tidings because Your Lord has inspired it. That day
humanity will come forth in scattered groups to be shown their deeds.
Whoever does an atom’s weight of good shall see it, whoever does an atom’s
weight of evil shall see it. (99:1‑8)
The noise and clamor! What is the noise and clamor? Would that you
knew what the noise and clamor is! The day whereon humanity will be like
moths scattered about, and the mountains will be like carded wool. Then
those whose scales are heavy [in good deeds] will be in a pleasing life. But
those whose scales are light, shall plunge in the womb of a [bottomless]
Pit. What will convey to you what that is like? A raging Fire! (101:1‑11)
To God belongs the unseen of the heavens and Earth. The affair of the
Hour is as the twinkling of an eye, or even quicker. God is powerful over
all things. (16:77)
Listening to these and other similar verses, we should say: “We so believe
and affirm.”
I believe in God, His angels, books, Messengers, the Last Day, and
Destiny in that whatever comes as good or evil [is recorded in His Knowledge
and created by Him]. Resurrection is true, Paradise is true, the Fire is
true, intercession [on the Last Day] is true, and Munkar and Nakir are true.[3]·God
will resurrect those in the graves. I bear witness that there is no god but
God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.
O God, bestow blessings on the most graceful, noble and dignified,
perfect and beautiful fruit of Your Mercy, which has blossomed throughout
the universe like a blessed tree; on him whom You sent as a mercy for all
worlds, and as a means for us to attain to the most adorned, fairest,
brightest, and most exalted fruit of that “tree” extending into the
Hereafter, that is, into Paradise. O God, save us and our parents from the
Fire, and take us and our parents into Paradise with the purified, pious
ones, for the sake of Your chosen Prophet. Amin.
If you are studying this treatise with an open mind, do not ask: “Why can’t I
immediately understand this Tenth Word in all its details?” Do not become bored
if you cannot understand it right away. Even such a master of philosophy as Ibn
Sina judged that the Resurrection could not be understood through rational
criteria. As it is beyond human reason, we must believe in it. Also, almost all
scholars of Islam consider it one of the revealed truths requiring belief and
one that cannot be established through reason. Therefore, it is difficult for
human reason to grasp such a profound and exalted issue. Thanks to the Merciful
Creator’s Mercy and the Wise Qur’an’s radiation, I hope that this Tenth Word, if
studied carefully and repeatedly, will convince your reason of the
Resurrection’s truth and help secure belief in it.
One difficulty that human reason encounters here is that since the Resurrection
and Great Gathering will occur through the manifestation of God’s Greatest Name,
this event can be established rationally only by demonstrating His acts through
His Greatest Name’s manifestation and the universal manifestations of other
Names, as if proving the coming of next spring. We followed this approach in
this Word.
[1] This treatise is
included in Said Nursi’s al-Mathnawi al-Nuriya.
[2] In fact, the sun is
manifested with the same ease in everything, without any one hindering any
other.
[3] Munkar and Nakir are
the two angels who interrogate the dead about their beliefs and deeds in this
world. (Ed.)
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