In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
• Sixth Question: The neglectful and heedless put it about that the earthquake resulted from a fault in the rock strata inside the earth, and look upon it as quite simply a chance event, natural, and without purpose. They do not see the non-material causes and results, so that they can come to their senses. Does ‘matter’, on which they base their views, have some reality?
The Answer: It has no reality other than misguidance for the following reason. Take the fly out of all the species on the earth, which each year is clothed in and changes more than fifty million finely embroidered well-ordered shirts: the intention, will, purpose, and wisdom manifested on the wing of a single fly, which is only one organ out of hundreds of one individual fly out of the countless numbers of all flies on the face of the earth, the fact that it is not neglected or left to its own devices, shows that the significant acts and states of the huge globe of the earth, which is the cradle, mother, place of recourse, and protector of innumerable conscious beings -no aspect of it whether particular or universal- can be outside the Divine will, choice, and purpose. However, as is required by His wisdom, the Possessor of absolute power makes apparent causes a veil to His disposals. When He wills an earthquake, and sometimes He does, He commands the movement of the strata and ignites them. Even if it results from this movement or a fault in the strata, it is still at the Divine command and in accordance with His wisdom; it cannot occur in any other way.
For example, one man shot another with a rifle. If the man who fired the shot is entirely disregarded, and only the gunpowder in the bullet igniting is taken into consideration, the rights of the wretched victim would be completely violated, and it would be the epitome of foolishness. In just the same way, to forget the dominical command concerning the earth, which is a docile official of the All-Powerful One of Glory, rather, a ship or an aeroplane of His: “Explode a bomb inside the earth prepared through wisdom and will in order to arouse the heedless and the rebellious;” to forget this and to deviate into ‘nature’, is the very peak of stupidity.
An Addition and Footnote to the Sixth Question: In order to defend their way and counter the awakening of the believers and hinder them, the people of misguidance and the atheists display an obduracy so strange and a stupidity so peculiar that it makes a person regret his humanity. For example, in order to make men give up their wicked and wrongful rebellion which recently has to a degree taken on a general form, and to arouse mankind and make it forego this awesome revolt and recognize the universe’s Sovereign, Whom it does not want to recognize, the Creator of the heavens and the earth -not on account of a particular title but as Sustainer and Ruler of the whole universe and all the worlds and through a widespread and general manifestation throughout the universe in the universal sphere of His dominicality- has struck mankind in the face with awesome and widespread calamities like earthquakes, storms, and world wars through the universal elements coming to anger -through water, the air, and electricity, which are matchless and constant- and has demonstrated through them in most clear fashion His wisdom, power, justice, and self-subsistence. Although this is the case, certain brainless satans in human form respond to these universal dominical signs and divine reprimands with a foolish obstinacy, saying:
“It’s nature. It’s the explosion of some strata under the earth and just chance. It’s the sun’s heat clashing with electricity, which happened in America and brought all machinery to a standstill for five hours, and also caused the atmosphere in Kastamonu Province to turn red and take on the appearance of a conflagration.” They utter meaningless nonsense like this. Due to a boundless ignorance resulting from misguidance and an ugly obduracy arising from aggressive atheism, they do not know that causes are only each a pretext and a veil. A small seed taking the place of a village full of factories and looms to weave and produce the members of a pine-tree as large as a mountain shows this. By saying, “The tree emerged from the seed,” they in effect deny the thousand miracles displayed in the pine tree, and put forward a number of apparent causes. They reduce to nothing a huge dominical act worked through the Creator’s will and wisdom. Sometimes they attach a scientific name to a most profound, unknowable, and important truth which has purposes in a thousand respects, as though through the name it has been understood. Whereas it is merely made commonplace, and without purpose, wisdom, or meaning.
BEDİÜZZAMAN
No comments:
Post a Comment