The Resurrection

Indeed, from the way this hafīziyyah appears, it can be seen that the Owner of all existence gives great care and attention to the ordering and preservation of everything that takes place within His dominion. He is extremely attentive to the events that occur within His sovereignty and takes great care over the deeds and actions that unfold within it. This occurs in such a way that He records, and causes to be recorded, even the smallest events and the most insignificant services. He preserves in various archives the forms and representations of everything that occurs within His dominion. This manifestation of hafīziyyah points to the fact that the “record of deeds” will be opened for an important assessment. In particular, the valuable deeds and important actions of man—who in essence is the most comprehensive, most honoured, and most noble among all creatures—will be assessed through His important accounting and weighed on His scales of justice; man’s book of deeds will be opened for reckoning.

Is it at all possible, then, that man should enter the grave, sleep there peacefully, and not be raised again; that he should not give account for all his deeds, not come to the gathering place of the resurrection, and not appear before the Supreme Tribunal? This, although he has been appointed as the foremost representative of all creation and entrusted with a most important responsibility: namely, that he proclaims the unity of Allah everywhere by bearing witness to His all-encompassing acts, and that he has been given the responsibility of representing the glorification and worship of most creatures. No, in no way!

And is it in any respect conceivable that man could escape from Qadīr-i Dhu’l-Jalāl by falling into non-existence, or hide himself from Him by taking shelter beneath the earth, while everything He has brought about in the past testifies that He is likewise able to bring about everything that will occur in the future,^[1] and while every year He visibly creates winter and spring, which respectively symbolize the end of the world and the resurrection?

Since a fitting accounting and judgment are not carried out for him in this world, he will certainly proceed to a Supreme Tribunal and a supreme bliss.

Indeed, the whole of the past, from the beginning of creation until the present, consists of a series of events that have occurred. Each day, each year, and each century is, respectively, like a line, a page, and a book written by the pen of Qadar. Allah, with His power, has written His wondrous signs upon them with perfect wisdom and order.

As for the whole of the future, from the present until the Day of Judgment, and even until eternal life in Paradise, it falls under imkānāt.

Thus, the past consists of events that have come into being, while the future falls under imkānāt.

When these two periods of time are compared, one realizes without any doubt that the One Who created yesterday together with everything within it is also able to bring tomorrow, together with everything within it, into existence. Truly, just as there is no doubt that the beings and wonders of the past testify that they are the works of Qadīr-i Dhu’l-Jalāl, so too, with complete certainty, they prove that He has the power to bring into existence the future creation and everything that falls under imkānāt. Indeed, the One Who will create one apple must also be able to create all the apples in the world and bring into existence an immense spring. Whoever cannot bring spring into existence cannot create even one apple, because that one apple is woven on the same workbench. Truly, whoever can create one apple can also bring spring into existence. For every apple is a miniature version of a tree, a garden, and even the universe. Moreover, the apple seed, which carries within it the life history of a gigantic tree, is such a wondrous work of art that it clearly shows that its Creator is powerful over all things.

In the same way, the One Who brings today and spring into existence is also able to bring the Day of Judgment and the resurrection into existence. The One Who has placed all the beings and events of the past onto the filmstrip of time with perfect wisdom and order, and has made it revolve, is also able to place the beings and events of the future onto the filmstrip of time and make it revolve; and He will certainly bring this about.

In many treatises of the Risale-i Nur, especially in The Twenty-Second Word, we have proven with certainty that the one who cannot create everything cannot create anything; and the One Who can create one thing can create everything. If the creation of a single thing is attributed to a single Creator, then the creation of everything becomes as easy and light as the creation of one single thing. But if the creation of one single thing were attributed to multiple causes, then the creation of that one thing would become as difficult and burdensome as the creation of everything; a difficulty would arise at the level of impossibility. ↩︎