...this palace of the world and factory of the universe display a greatest manifestation of the divine name…
Mustafa SOYLU
Senior Engineer & Environmental Auditor at Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change
THE FIRST POINT
The Divine Name Most Holy
[This point concerns one aspect of the divine name of Most Holy. It is appropriate that it should form an addendum to the Addendum of the Thirtieth Word.]
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
And the earth We have spread wide; and how well have We ordered it.(51:48)
One manifestation of the divine name Most Holy, which is one meaning of the above verse and is a greatest name or one of the six lights contained in the greatest name, became clear to me in the month of Sha‘ban in Eskişehir Prison. It demonstrated with complete clarity both the divine existence and divine unity. I saw it as follows:
The universe is a vast, constantly working factory and the globe of the earth a hostel and guesthouse which is continually filled and emptied. Generally, factories, hostels and guesthouses which are thus used become much dirtied and soiled with filth, debris and rubbish, and putrid matter accumulates in all parts of them. They cannot be occupied unless they are kept with care and cleaned and swept; human beings are overwhelmed by the dirt. The factory of the universe and guesthouse of the earth, however, are totally pure, clean and spotless, and completely unsoiled, untainted and fresh; there is nothing unnecessary, nothing without benefit, not a random piece of dirt to be found. Even if there is apparently, it is quickly thrown into a transformation machine and cleaned.
This means that the One who looks after this factory does so very well. Its Owner is such that He sweeps and cleans and orders the vast factory and extensive palace as though they were small rooms. Considering the size of the huge factory, there is no dirty or rubbish remaining from its filth and debris. Indeed, its cleanness and tidiness are remarkable.
If someone does not wash himself and clean his small room for a month, they will become extremely dirty and soiled. That is to say, the cleanliness, purity, and luminosity in this palace of the world arise from a continuous, wise, and diligent cleaning. If it were not for this cleaning, sweeping and careful tending, in one year all the hundred thousand animal species would have been choked on the face of the earth.
Also, the debris of the globes in space and the heavens, which manifest life and death, and of satellites and stars, would have smashed not only our heads and those of the other animals, but also the head of the earth itself and of our world. They would have rained down on our heads rocks the size of mountains and driven us away from our homeland in this world. However, for a long time past, if as a warning a few meteorites have fallen as a result of destruction and reconstruction in those lofty worlds, they have not broken any heads.
Furthermore, the corpses of a hundred thousand animal species and the debris of two hundred thousand plant species each year on the face of the earth resulting from the alternation and struggles of life and death would have so utterly filthied the land and the sea that conscious creatures, rather than loving and delighting in the face of the earth, would have felt disgust and aversion at such ugliness and fled to death and non-existence.
Just as a bird cleans its wings with ease and a scribe his pages, so too the wings of the aircraft of the earth and the birds of the heavenly bodies and the pages of the book of the universe are cleaned and made beautiful. So much so that people who do not consider the infinite beauty of the hereafter and think with belief become lovers of this cleanliness and beauty of the world, they worship it.
That is to say, this palace of the world and factory of the universe display a greatest manifestation of the divine name Most Holy whereby it is not only the carniverous cleaners of the seas and the eagles of the land which obey the commands proceeding from that sacred cleansing, but also its cleansing officials which gather up corpses, like worms and ants. Like the red and white blood-corpuscles flowing in the body obey those sacred commands and do the cleaning in the body’s cells, so does breathing purify and clean the blood.
And as eyelids obey the command to clean the eye and flies to brush their wings, so the extensive atmosphere and the clouds obey it. The air blows upon the pieces of dust and soil settled on the surface of the earth and cleans it. The sponges of the clouds sprinkle water on the garden of the earth and dampen the dust and soil. Then, so as not to dirty the sky, the air quickly collects the earth’s rubbish and withdraws and hides itself with perfect orderliness. It displays the beautiful face and eye of the skies as swept and polished, all sparkling and shining.
And as the stars, elements, minerals, and plants obey the command to clean, all particles and atoms obey it: they pay attention to cleanliness within the astonishing upheavals of change and transformation. They never congregate anywhere unnecessarily and get in the way. If they do become soiled, they are quickly cleaned. They are impelled by a hand of wisdom to acquire the cleanest, neatest, and most shining states and the most beautiful, pure and subtle forms.
Thus, this single act, that is, making clean, which is a single truth, is a greatest manifestation of a greatest name, the name of Most Holy, which shows itself in the maximum sphere, that is, throughout the universe. Like the sun, it shows directly to eyes that are far-seeing and broad-sighted the divine existence and unity together with the most beautiful divine names.
It has been established with decisive proofs in many parts of the Risale-i Nur that the act of ordering and order, which are a manifestation of the names of Sapient and All-Wise; and the act of weighing and balance, which are a manifestation of the names of Justice and All-Just; and the act of adorning and munificence, which are a manifestation of the names of Beauteous and All-Generous; and the act of sustaining and bestowal, which are a manifestation of the names of Sustainer and Most Compassionate are each a single truth and a single act, they therefore demonstrate the necessary existence and unity of a Single Being. In exactly the same way, the act of purifying and making clean, which is a manifestation and display of the name Most Holy, demonstrates like the sun both the existence of the Necessarily Existent One, and like daylight, His unity.
And as the wise acts of ordering, balancing, adorning and making clean mentioned above point to a Single Maker by reason of their unity of kind in the maximum sphere, so most of the beautiful names, indeed, the thousand and one names, each have such a greatest manifestation in the maximum sphere. And the act proceeding from that manifestation points to the Single Unique One with clarity and decisiveness in relation to its extensiveness.
The self-evident truths and single acts that illuminate the face of the universe and make it smile, such as the universal wisdom that causes all things to conform to its law and order, the comprehensive munificence that adorns all things and causes them to smile, the all-embracing mercy that makes all things pleased and happy, the universal providing of sustenance which nurtures and gives pleasure to all things, and the life and giving of life which connects each thing with all things and makes each thing benefit from, and to some extent own, all things – these self-evident truths and single acts point as plainly as light points to the sun to a single All-Wise, All- Generous, and All-Compassionate One, a single Sustainer, a single Ever-Living Giver of Life.
If those hundreds of extensive acts, each of which is a clear proof of God’s unity, are not attributed to the Single Unique One, each necessarily becomes impossible in hundreds of respects. For example, let alone such self-evident truths and single evidences as wisdom, providence, mercy, sustaining and giving of life, if only the act of making clean is not attributed to the Creator of the universe, then the following becomes necessary in the unbelieving way of the people of misguidance:
Either all the creatures connected to cleansing from particles and flies to the elements and the stars would have to have the ability to know and consider the adorning, balancing, and cleansing of the vast universe and would act accordingly, or each would have to possess the sacred attributes of the world’s Creator, or each would have to be present at a consultative meeting the size of the universe in order to regulate the equilibrium of the adorning and cleansing of the universe and its incomings and outgoings, and innumerable particles, flies, and stars would have to be participants in the meeting; and so on. Hundreds of superstitious, nonsensical and sophistical impossibilities like these would have to occur so that the universal, comprehensive, and exalted adorning, purifying and cleansing that is to be seen and observed everywhere could come about. As for this, it is not impossible once, but a hundred thousand times over.
If daylight and the imaginary miniature suns represented in the shining objects on the earth are not attributed to the sun and they are not said to be the manifestation of the sun’s reflection, it would be necessary for the actual sun to be present in all fragments of glass, drops of water and snow-flakes glistening on the face of the earth, and even in all particles of air, so that the universal light could exist.
Thus, wisdom is a light; all-embracing mercy is a light; adorning, balancing, ordering, and cleansing are each an encompassing light: they are all the rays of the Pre-Eternal Sun. So see how misguidance and unbelief have entered a bog from which there is no escape! See just how idiotic is the ignorance of misguidance! Say: “Praise be to God for the religion of Islam and complete and perfect belief!”
For sure, this exalted, universal cleansing which keeps the palace of the universe clean is the manifestation and requirement of the divine name Most Holy. Yes, just as the glorification of all creatures looks to the name Most Holy, so does the name of Most Holy require their cleanliness.1
It is because of this sacred connection of cleanliness that the Hadith, “Cleanliness is a part of belief”2 deems it to be a light of belief. And the verse,
Indeed, God loves those who turn to Him constantly and He loves those who keep themselves pure and clean(2:222)
shows that cleanliness is a means of attracting God’s love.
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(1) We must not forget that bad qualities, false beliefs, sins and innovation are all instances of moral and spiritual dirt.
(2) Muslim, Tahara, 1; Darimi, Vudu’, 2; Musnad, v, 342, 344; al-‘Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa’, 291.