The Sixth Note

O helpless human being, troubled by the great number of those who deny Allah and by their apparent agreement in rejecting certain truths of īmānFaith; belief in the six articles of faith: Allah, His angels, His revealed scriptures, His prophets, the Hereafter, and divine decree (qadar)., so that doubts begin to shake your conviction!

Know that value and importance are not determined by quantity or number. When a person fails to live in accordance with true humanity, he falls to a level lower than that of animals. The more he devotes himself to the gratification of animal desires—as do some Westerners and those who imitate them—the further he descends. You can see that human beings are extremely few in number compared with animals; yet the human being is the sultan, vicegerent, and ruler over all animal species.

Indeed, wicked unbelievers and dissipated people occupy a rank even lower than that of animals. The Fātir-i HakīmAllah, Who creates all things from nothing with perfect wisdom. has created them for the cultivation and development of this world. He makes them a measure by which the value of His mercy toward His believing servants may be understood, and in the end He sends them to the Hell they have deserved.

The fact that unbelievers and people of misguidance form the majority among mankind does not mean that their false views are founded upon truth. For, by its very nature, denial does not gain strength from numbers; a thousand deniers amount to no more than a single denier.

Suppose, for example, that all the inhabitants of Istanbul deny the appearance of the new moon of RamadanThe ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, during which Muslims fast from dawn until sunset and in which the Qur’an was first revealed. because they themselves have not seen it. The testimony of two eyewitnesses is sufficient to overturn the denial and apparent agreement of that vast multitude. Since unbelief and misguidance consist essentially in rejection and denial, and are based upon ignorance and non-existence, the agreement of large numbers of unbelievers carries no real weight. The testimony of two believers concerning established and proven truths of īmānFaith; belief in the six articles of faith: Allah, His angels, His revealed scriptures, His prophets, the Hereafter, and divine decree (qadar). outweighs the agreement of countless people of misguidance.

The reason for this is as follows: although those who deny something appear to agree in their conclusion, their standpoints are different. They cannot form a true consensus that would lend strength to their denial. Those who establish something by proof, however, unite upon the same reality, and thus reinforce one another.

For example, if someone has not seen the RamadanThe ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, during which Muslims fast from dawn until sunset and in which the Qur’an was first revealed. crescent in the sky, he can only say: “It did not appear to me.” Another may likewise say that it was not visible from where he stood, and a third may make a similar statement. Each person can testify only that the moon was not visible from his own particular standpoint. Since every standpoint is different, and since the causes preventing observation may also differ, their positions cannot combine to strengthen one another.

Those who establish the appearance of the RamadanThe ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, during which Muslims fast from dawn until sunset and in which the Qur’an was first revealed. crescent, on the other hand, do not merely say that it appeared to them personally or from their own point of view. Rather, they say: “The crescent is actually visible in the sky.” All the eyewitnesses affirm the same reality and say: “The crescent has truly appeared.” Thus their testimonies converge upon a single fact and reinforce one another.