O you who believe! Turn to God in true, sincere repentance. (66:8)

Philosophers and scientists have long mulled over the faculties that govern our actions and thoughts. They have identified these in different ways, and there is still endless debate over these tangible and intangible faculties. There seem to be conflicting forces within us – an “evil-commanding” carnal self and a “regulatory” conscience. These have been caricatured as the devil and angel on our shoulders. Freud called this phenomenon the id and the super-ego within us: i.e. the instinctual drive and the moralizing conscience. Unrestricted drives can lead to destruction, so moral laws and society impose certain rules and consequences for such actions.

An important tool that aids this self-regulation is the feeling of guilt. However, the conscience can easily be manipulated and with some effort a rationale that justifies most actions can be found. A troubled conscience cannot be escaped forever. Non-conformity to established moral norms can be the greatest source of anxiety and guilt, and the cause of drastic internal conflicts.

In any case, everyone has something that they hold to be right and wrong, whether induced by society, revelation, or both.

For immigrants, such moral questions have an amplified effect. Living in a society that can have different moral norms to that of their cultural upbringing, which itself has variations from the religious moral values that they hold dear, can cause a turbulence of internal conflicts. “Who I am today,” and, “what made me this way?” are answered by a cohort of forces which are in perpetual conflict with one another. An immigrant realizes that their so-called innate urges, and even personality traits, are simply a set of influences that they need to learn to grow conscious of in order to truly find inner peace. During this process, however, they may develop a deep sense of guilt which they are not able to escape. The only way out could be to appeal to a higher being.

Projecting this situation onto myself, an idea came to me while I was contemplating why I am not able to get rid of my feeling of guilt. After I perceive myself to have sinned, I repent and feel sorrow for my sins, but then I repeat that sin. Why is it that I cannot stop this cycle? Is it possible, I thought, that deep in my subliminal mind, I feel at ease when I realize my weakness and inferiority before God because it is only then that I am able to truly connect with Him? If I stopped sinning, would the relief and comfort corrupt me and distance me from God?

My first reaction, of course, was that this idea must be a waswasa (a satanic whispering). Surely one’s connection to God is not merely one of embarrassment or fear, but involves qualities such as awe, gratitude, love, and rida (a satisfied resignation and submission). Also, how could I assume that I could attain a state of sinlessness when even the purest of the pure Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, felt the need to repent seventy or a hundred times a day?

What I repent for and what the Prophet repented for could not have been the same. So, I must have a misconception of what constitutes a sin. Sinning cannot simply be a case of misbehaviour or non-compliance with an order. One can make the following deduction: since sinning is unpleasant because it is accompanied by guilt (a troubled conscience), and since heartfelt guilt is as a result of immorality, then feelings of guilt can be treated as an inner motivation for repenting. Our troubled conscience is a result of a more expanded meaning of sinning, which included not just merely acting immorally but also entails things such as: lack of right action, vanity, being heedless, or even having unpleasant thoughts.

The example of Prophet David’s (peace be upon him) startling state of anguish seems to prove this point: “One day he asks God Almighty: ‘O Lord. How can I be thankful to You, since thanking You is another favour that requires thankfulness?’ The Almighty responded: ‘Just now you have done it.’”

It seems then that an extraordinary level of self-regulation and a true understanding of the meaning of repentance brings the conscious ones to bend down in modesty. They are greater sinners in their own eyes than I perceive myself to be. Alas, the only way to free myself from my deviations is to be sincere and resolute in growing conscious of my sins and to focus my attention on re-assessing my position in the face of God. At the end of the day, being conscious that God is seeing me, even at times when nobody else is, may be the only way of abstaining from sin. It is only then that I will realize there is so much more to my relationship with God than my fear and shame.

For a balanced and healthy state of mind, I have since realized that I must enrich and diversify my relationship with God. I can develop different areas of connection, for instance, through contemplating the manifestation of His names in His creation by studying the sciences; and then my astonishment of His might will be aroused and this will lead me to further gratefulness; and by turning to His word, I can establish a direct conversation with him and lend an ear to what He has to say to me. The benefits of having a concerned conscience need to be further discussed, but something is clear: if the feeling of heartfelt concern dies out and is replaced by vanity, then that is cause for serious concern.

The basic freedoms of humanity that range from personal rights to political and general ones – such as the freedom of belief, worship, thought, the freedom to have a family, to work, to own personal property, the right of freedom of expression and association, of electing, and being elected, etc. – are not among the subjects to be discussed in “Emerald Hills of the Heart.” However, they have always been regarded as among the most important matters in human history.

Being the most fundamental and vital dimension and the most important human faculty, namely free-will, which is considered an important pillar of conscience, freedom (hurriya) is one of the most valuable gifts of God to humanity. This great gift has been defined in Islamic literature as an individual’s assertion and enjoyment of his/her basic rights. However, in order to fully perceive freedom one must be able, to some extent, to perceive its opposite. This opposite is the individual’s dependence on others for the enjoyment of those rights, which is a form of servanthood. It is God Almighty Who grants these rights to humanity, so a person has no right to change or sell them or transfer them to others. Those who commit such a sin, that is, change or sell their fundamental rights or transfer them to another, have lost their humanity to a certain extent and will be held accountable before God for that loss. Such an action shows, first of all, disrespect for human values, and those who commit such disrespect cannot be conscious of their existence, and those who are not conscious of one’s existence have no relationship with the truth and no share in the love of and servanthood to God.

In short, it cannot be asserted that those who do not recognize God, Who is the Truth and the source of human rights, are free in the sense that they are conscious of human rights, nor can those who have not been able to free themselves from slavery to others than God be free in the real sense of the term.

What we have so far said about freedom is only by way of introduction to the freedom that is one of the emerald hills of the heart.

The freedom inherent in Islamic Sufism, being one of the most significant fruits of austerity, is that a person does not submit or bow to any power other than God, indicating thereby that the heart of that person has become a clear mirror receiving and reflecting the manifestations of God. The person who has reached this point on the way to God through austerity and by God’s special help, severs inward relation with all things and beings other than God, and with emotions pulsing with freedom, heart beating joyfully with a yearning for freedom, and having broken all the restrictions around the selfhood, that person sets for him or herself this single goal and, in the philosophy of the respected saint Harith al-Muhasibi, weaves the tissue of his or her thought with the threads of the hereafter.

True freedom is attainable only by freeing one’s heart from worldly worries and anxieties about the things of this world, and so being able to turn to God with one’s whole being. In order to express this reality, the leaders of the Sufi way say: “Child, undo the bonds of servanthood and be free; how much longer will you remain enslaved to gold and silver?” The answer of Junayd al-Baghdadi to those who asked him what freedom was, “You can taste freedom when you are free from all bonds other than slavery to God” also expresses the essence of freedom.

If freedom is directly proportional to sincere devotion and servanthood to God Almighty, and it is, then it is not possible to assert that those who live their lives under the direction of others are really free. In this respect, the following anonymous couplet speaks significantly:

If you would like to beat the drum of honor,
Go beyond the wheel of the stars;
As this circle filled with rings is a drum of humiliation.

True freedom is necessary in order to be a perfect servant of God. The measure of a person’s true freedom is servanthood to God. Those who cannot realize servanthood to God can neither be free nor attain human values in their full reach and meaning. Such people can never be saved from corporeality and sensuality so as to reach the achievable horizon of spiritual life with a “sound heart,” nor can they feel the essence of human existence in the depths particular and special to it.

People who spend their life in the captivity of worldly considerations grow in arrogance in the face of the blessings granted to them. Instead of becoming more thankful to God, they attribute to themselves whatever achievement God has enabled them to realize, and are disappointed time after time when they fail, and shiver with the fear of losing whatever advantages they have accrued-such unfortunate people have no share in freedom, even if they are as kings in the world.

As long as the heart sets itself upon various goals, loved ones, and ambitions, it can never taste freedom. How can those be free who are constantly worrying about how to hold onto or pay back the goods they expect from others, who have mortgaged most of their life’s energy to others in return for worldly interests and bodily pleasures?

It is a great trial, one that leads to perdition if one wanders in the whirl of physical considerations and is confined to worldly aims with a heart attuned to worthless, fleeting objects. By contrast, it is a great favor from God upon those whose inner world He has sealed off from the many attributes of the ephemeral world that attract the carnal self; it is a great favor from God that He cuts away the relation of the heart with the world. For that relation is a form of bondage, and that cutting away is a bridge by which humanity is able to reach true freedom.

However, turning to the Eternal Truth must not be governed merely by our own desires and whims. We must turn to God in an attitude of conscious servanthood, in utmost humility and fragility, to ask for our common needs.

Our Lord is more aware of our needs and wishes than we are. Hence our petitions must be made quietly, as such courtesy is expected of those who are truly aware of this. Our Lord, closer to us than we are to ourselves, says: Pray to Me so I may respond to your prayer. This Divine encouragement to pray indicates that failing to do so causes people to feel a senseless independence and alienation from themselves.

When those who pray turn to God wholeheartedly, they express their respect to God’s continual closeness while being saved from the turmoil of their remoteness to God. In return, God makes them hear what needs to be heard, see what needs to be seen, say what needs to be said, and accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

As a result, all who feel the pleasure of faith and have become very sensitive in their duties to God remain highly aware of prayer. In fact, such people understand that worship is the purpose of their existence and so give it the importance it deserves. They conform to daily life’s material and immaterial aspects, and see a pleading heart as a sign of seeking closeness to God. In such an atmosphere of closeness, they usually feel hope and joy, as well as fear and anxiety.

Although we are fragile and weak beings with endless needs, God gives us existence, provides us with food, causes us to grow, and is aware of our every need and wish. His Mercy is so vast that we are not left to the mercy of others. Hence, our behavior must be equally and carefully gauged. As God is the Absolute Ruler of all that we have, we need to be aware of our smallness while appreciating God’s greatness and of our duty to direct our prayers only to God. When we reflect that God is closest and that our prayers will be answered, we analyze our behavior and adjust our voice levels.

We feel pleasure and awe while observing ourselves as we become conscious of God’s always ready and watching presence. Hence our petitioning through prayer is the purest form of worship. In fact, all parts of existence prays to God through the language of their innate abilities. In return, God responds to their needs from His Wisdom. God hears all and makes us aware that His response covers everything.

We must understand that God does not necessarily answer our prayer by giving that for which we ask. More often than not, we make our own window of needs narrow by thinking only of today and the present, thereby ignoring many things that are related to us. However, as God knows and sees today and tomorrow, He grants different kinds of needs with Mercy and Wisdom. When God enlightens our present situation, the future is not deprived of this light; when complimenting one person, God is not oblivious of another person.

And so when believers raise their hands to entreat their Lord, they are aware that there is a One who sees them, hears their breathing, knows all that passes through their minds, and, last but not least, gives due importance to all of their complaints and pains. In addition, they know that the One God accomplishes all acts according to His Absolute Ability and Wisdom. They are reassured of God’s actions, whenever and whatever is willed. They are convinced that all obstacles will be overcome through God’s mercy and will and, even at worst of times, breathe with security and hope. Those who turn to their Lord many times during the day and visualize reality beyond matter through the eyes and ears of their hearts can never again depart from this door.

“The subjective experience of emptiness represents a temporary or permanent loss of normal relations of the self with object-representations, that is, with the world of inner objects that fixates intrapsychically the significant experiences with others and constitutes a basic ego identity and, therefore, a stable integrated self and a stable integrated world of internal objects.”(3) Existential psychotherapists call this “existential isolation,”(4) an unbridgeable gulf between self and other, a separation from the world. Yalom asserts that even fully satisfying relationships with other people, complete self-knowledge, and a sense of wholeness cannot overcome this feeling.

Fromm agrees that existential isolation is inevitable: “The awareness of his aloneness and separateness, of his helplessness before the forces of nature and of society, all this makes his separate disunited existence an unbearable prison … The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is indeed the source of all anxiety. To be separate means to be helpless, unable to grasp the world-things and people-actively; it means that the world can invade me without my ability to react.”(5)

Yalom writes: “A defamiliarization occurs when meanings are wrenched from objects, symbols disintegrate, and one is torn from one’s moorings of ‘at homeness.’”(6) This is true, for the two concepts most closely related to emptiness and existential isolation are meaninglessness and alienation.

We have self-knowledge only when other things have meaning, and relations with them when their meaning is understood. Reinhardt describes the alienation caused by the loss of meaning as: “Something utterly mysterious intervenes between him and the familiar objects of his world, between him and his fellowmen, between him and all his ‘values.’ Everything which he had called his own pales and sinks away, so that there is nothing left to which he might cling. What threatens is ‘nothing,’ and he finds himself lost in the void.”(7)

Even if this is inevitable, Yalom still asks: “How does one shield oneself from the dread of ultimate isolation?” In his view: “One may take a portion of the

isolation into oneself and bear it courageously or resolutely.“ His second solution is relationship, for it alleviates-but does not dispel-the sense of loneliness and basic isolation. Psychology stops here. Said Nursi, author of the Risale-i Nur and one familiar with emptiness and alienation, goes further.(8)But how was this feeling of emptiness initially caused? Kernberg provides the most useful clue: 

What does he mean?

Internalization of Self and Universe

No person begins life with a tabula rasa.(10) “The infant is equipped with basic feelings, as well as the basic ability to communicate them through expressive-motor mechanisms that are mainly concentrated in the face system.”(11)

A baby’s existing senses must be developed. According to Said Nursi, animals are born already perfected, whereas we need years to acquire the same skills and knowledge.(12) He concludes that a person’s innate duty is “to be perfected through learning and to proclaim his worship of God and servitude to Him through supplication.”

For the first 6 months, infants live in an “undifferentiated” world, an “us” system formed with the mother, and are unaware of any “self” and “other.”(13) But they are not passive, for they perceive and respond to stimulants as a “we.” This engenders a strong sense of security, like being a drop in the ocean (ocean feeling). “Self” and “other” are seen as not completely distinct, but as closely joined-mainly biologically-within one system.(14)

When they are around 2 years old, infants become more aware of themselves and thus of duality. The first thing encountered is the “self.” Through this developing “I,” they gradually acquire an awareness of “self” and “other,” and divide the world accordingly.

Internalization and self- and object-representation formation now begin. Children experience countless interactions, mainly with the mother, and begin

representing their self and objects, as well as the self-image and the object-image.(15) When they are around 2.5 years old, they enter the “identification” stage and begin internalizing their own and the other’s image and function.(16) “Just as the world settles in the child’s inner world, so the child’s inner world starts to become established in the world.”(17) This stage ends with the onset of puberty.

People, being alive and conscious, have relations with all things. Living but unconscious beings, such as birds and trees, also have relations but are unaware of them-only consciousness “illuminates” life and makes the being aware of its own existence.(18)

The sentence “a human being is able to move through the rooms of his house through his consciousness and mind, which are the light of life,”(19) means that we can internalize ourselves. We become aware of our existence through consciousness and mind, and come to know our spirit, consciousness, body, intellect, senses, and feelings. Conceptualizing and reaching conclusions about ourselves and values, we gain a “self” whose image is reflected and represented in our spirit’s mirror.

But we do not stop here, for “that conscious and animate being may go in spirit as though as a guest to those worlds [and].… those worlds too come as guests to his mirror-like spirit by being reflected and depicted there.”(20) Our consciousness and intellect convey the things with which we have relations to the spirit’s mirror, where they are reflected and their representations are formed. Thus each person becomes “a universal within particularity, and a world within … insignificance,”(21) a being who internalizes everything to understand His Names and experience His bounty. Each person first was given life, then consciousness, and so gained the comprehensive nature needed to “understand and take pleasure in the Divine Names.”(22) Such comprehensiveness enables us to have relations with the universe, for it makes each person “like a tiny index and miniature specimen of the universe, and so displays the embroideries of all the Names.”(23)

These representations make us reflect the manifestation of Divine Oneness and function as the Creator’s vicegerent on Earth. This manifestation is the simultaneous manifestation in one thing of the Creator’s Names, which are manifested in everything. It also includes the duties of beings, which constitute representations by forming images in our spirit’s mirror.(24) Since we are conscious, the universe can be “established” in us. Our representation of all beings’ glorifications and worship, realized primarily as an inner duty, means that we must know, be aware of, and internalize them.

Duality and Loneliness

The more self-aware we become, the more we are differentiated from the “other,” for “consciousness is an aspect of existence according to which beings are distinct from one another.”(25) The “ocean feeling” disappears, and each child becomes “aware of being alone, of being an entity separate from all others. This separation from a world, which in comparison with one’s own individual existence is overwhelmingly strong and powerful, and often threatening and dangerous, creates a feeling of powerlessness and anxiety.”(26)

Unconscious beings cannot expe-rience separation, for they are unaware of duality. Consciousness engenders individuality, yet recaptures and joins what has been separated. Consciousness and intellect want to establish relations with everything. Since “the realms of beings in the universe are so interwoven they have made the universe into a totality,”27 we seek reunification within a framework of meaningful ties between self and other in order to live as part of the universe’s system.

We search for that lost “ocean feeling,” hoping to establish relations with our self and all things. We do not want this biologically, but within the framework of meaningful ties.

Kernberg and others conclude by saying that a person’s inner world is filled with self- and object-representations. Said Nursi, however, presses onward.

Said Nursi’s Analysis

Said Nursi mentions three sorts of representation or reflection.(29)

First Representation: The reflection of dense, physical objects, such as a tree (“other”) reflected in a mirror, water, or a shining surface. Said Nursi says such reflections are “other than the thing reflected …without life. Their only quality is their apparent identity” [emphasis added]. This is how such people see and then represent the tree in their spirit.

In this case, we deny creation by claiming to be self-created, self-owning, powerful, and able to realize our own existence. We give ourselves and others whatever meaning we wish.(30) Our “I” functions in its own name, seeks to satisfy its physical desires, and wants no connection with its true Creator. Thus the self’s internal representation has no connection with its real, created self. The reflected image and the self’s representation are dead. We see a tree as owning itself, and therefore meaningless and limited to providing fruit.(31)

Our consciousness and intellect convey the self and the other to the spirit’s mirror, where their reflections form representations and images. As the tree’s reflection and representation are separate from its reality, its form is dead and meaningless, and there is no communication. The spirit remains unnourished, for mere similarity in appearance cannot nourish it.

This results in alienation, for both remain unknown to each other, as well as anxiety and fear, for fear of the unknown is intense and keeps us alert to danger. Thus alienated, the “I” sees itself as meaningless, the internalized and reflected self becomes dead and meaningless, and we feel pain. The absence of relations causes pain, and the object-representations continue to disappear.

This view fills our world with loneliness and emptiness. The lack of relations between the self and the object-representations engender feelings of nothingness (existential emptiness) and distress, of non-relation to the external world, for both are dead and thus unable to communicate. So, we cannot connect with reality.

Second Representation: “The reflection of physical luminous objects,”(32) such as the sun’s reflection in shining objects. The sun and its reflection are neither identical nor completely different. They do not resemble each other in essence, but the reflection has most of the sun’s characteristics and may be considered as living and having some of its attributes (e.g., light and its seven colors, and heat radiations).

In this case, our “I” accepts that it is a work of the Creator’s art,(33) tasked with recognizing and knowing Him, and serving as a mirror for His Names’ manifestation. Its representation in the spirit’s mirror is like the sun’s representation in a mirror, meaning fairly close to reality.

This “I” sees the tree as meaningful and created, and so forms a relation with its Creator to “read” it. This relationship gives the tree meaning, enabling it to be read as a mirror reflecting His Names and to be related to all beings. As the reading is close to its reality, the tree becomes something living and charged with duties. Our intellect and consciousness convey it to the spirit’s mirror, where its representation and reflection are like the sun’s reflection, for the reflection is neither the tree nor different from it. The tree’s representation, now a living missive, tells us of His Attributes and makes Him known. As they can communicate with the Creator, the tree becomes luminous like the sun, its representation gains luminosity, and it nourishes the spirit.

Through the Creator, all representations are related to each other. Here, the representation is formed of the tree’s meaning within itself-its function (role representations). The spirit feels no pain when the tree dies, for its representation remains alive. As the tree is not independent or existant in its own name, but only through and in its Creator’s name, its role/function representation persists in the spirit. The object-representations are never lost, for if the Creator exists, everything exists, has meaning, and exists as representations and role representations.

Our personal universe is full of living representations, neither identical with nor different from the actual things, that nourish the spirit. Thus we feel no existential emptiness, for the actual things form relations with the living representations. We cannot be nourished by a fruit’s reflected image, but just as the sun’s reflection may warm and illuminate us, living and meaningful object-representations may nourish our spirit and heart.

Not seeing ourselves as self-created or divine, we experience a warm feeling of belonging. We see ourselves as living in a friendly, stable,and interconnected world in which the “other” conveys His messages to us.

But something is missing. Our “belief consciousness” enables us to read the Creator’s art, but the unconscious “other” cannot read us.

Third representation: The reflection of luminous spirit beings belonging to unseen worlds. These reflections are identical to-and thus are-the beings themselves.(34) Said Nursi places angels, other spirit beings, and Prophet Muhammad in this group. He also emphasizes that the reflections in such representations are living. However, since the representation appears according to the mirror’s capacity, he sees a difference between the spirit being and the representation: The reflection and the thing are not the same in essence.

In this case, the third person is the second person’s articulation. This solves the following two problems: First, if people are unaware of the Creator’s Names, if their consciousness cannot understand them, or if they are aware of but cannot read them properly, the manifestation seems to be unnecessary, for all beings’ decorations, beauty, and inscriptions “require the gazes of thoughtful admirers and wondering, appreciative lovers; it demands their existence.”(35) Second, there is no real relationship, for the unconscious other is unaware of the conscious person.

If a tree’s attributes (e.g., art, beauty, order, perfection, knowledge, power, intention, and care) are unperceived or denied, they become meaningless. If they are not recognized by consciousness and read properly, they serve no purpose: “[C]reatures exist for, find their perfection and rejoice through, and are saved from futility through conscious beings.”(36)

However, angels understand the unconscious beings’ duties of worship and glorification, utter and represent them in the inner worlds, and offer them to the Divine Court. Like people, angels are “spectators of the palace of the universe, observers of the Book of Creation, and heralds of the sovereignty of dominicality.”(37) Their activities save unconscious beings from meaningless. Since angels present the duties of beings “knowingly at the Divine Court,”(38) all beings perform their functions consciously.

Angels and spirit beings, inhabitants of the unseen worlds and who necessarily exist, change our concept of the “other.” They “are not restricted to this manifest world, and existence is not limited to it,”(39) and remind us that we cannot perceive all levels of existence. Angels are created beings-not creators-who convey the Divine Names to our world.

This expanded definition causes visible beings to gain consciousness. An angel makes its tree meaningful and conscious, and its duties known and recognizable. Thus the first problem is solved, for angels and spirit beings have consciousness in the inner world. Each being’s angel observes and gazes upon the Divine Names manifested on that being, and represents its duties in the name of beings that formerly appeared to be unconscious.

This transforms all formerly meaningful missives into conscious envoys who visit our spirit and speak to us. No longer are they go-betweens waiting to carry our reply. The tree is the angel’s words in this world, for “the All-Wise Maker causes all the realms of beings in the universe to speak.”(40) The second problem is solved, for “the universe is seen to be full of angels, spirit beings, and intelligent beings.”(41)

Since we can internalize, be aware of, and experience relations with the other, we want the other to know and internalize us and so form a stable two-way relationship. As angels also want this, the relationship moves into further dimensions. Angels love us, pray to their Compassionate Sustainer for us, seek our forgiveness, and call blessings upon us.(42) There is a real relationship, for both sides are aware of, and can communicate with and “read,” the other.

Since an angel’s or spirit being’s representation is identical with its actual being, a tree is represented in the spirit as it actually is. Belief in the Creator gives life to a representation; belief in angels gives it consciousness. The tree’s reflection serves as a mirror to its Sustainer’s Names, glorifies Him, and is conscious; its angel offers its manifested Names and glorifications to the Divine Court. As both the actual thing and its reflection are conscious, our spirit is filled with reflections of conscious beings. Finally able to establish conscious relations with all beings, we represent their duties while their angels represent their reflections.

This is a basic existential need, for each person searches for the “ocean feeling” of infancy.(43) In order to say “us creatures,” all beings must be able to say “we.” The tree proclaims its createdness through the tongue of disposition only. However its angel, who is conscious and aware of and proclaims that the tree is created, enables it to say “us.”

The resulting relationship, mutual recognition, and knowledge of each other’s duties gives a sense of “us” without removing any individuality. We become friends with everything, for now they are conscious beings. Knowledge of God and belief in angels have removed all dualism. The universe remains the scene of all beings’ constant renewal, transformation, disappearance, and replacement, and yet our spirit suffers no pain. As its angel’s representation never dies, it continues to represent the tree’s glorification, even after the real tree’s death, and be light and sustenance for our spirit.

Our companionship with angels continues after death, for Azra’il, the angel of death who represents the glorifications offered at the moment of death, becomes our companion on our journey after death.(44)

Footnotes

1 I. Yalom, Love’s Executor and Other Tales of Psychotherapies (New York: 2000), 3.

2 T. Zeldin, Insanligin Mahrem Tarihi [Turk. trans.] (Istanbul: 1998) 67, 68.

3 O. Kernberg, Sinir Durumlar ve Patolojik Narsisizm [Turk. trans.] (Istanbul: 1999), 192.

4 I. Yalom, Existential Psychotheraphy (New York: 1980), 355.

5 E. Fromm, The Art of Loving (New York: 1956), 7.

6 Yalom, Psychotheraphy, 358.

7 K. Reinhardt, The Existential Revolt (New York: 1957), 235.

8 Said Nursi, Letters 1928-1932. 2d ed. [Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: 1997), 42 ff.

9 Kernberg, Sinir, 192.

10 V. F. Guidano, The Self in Process (New York: 1991), 17.

11 Ibid., 18.

12 Said Nursi, The Words. new ed. [Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: 1998), 324.

13 N. G. Hamilton, Self and Others: Object Relations Theory in Practice (London: 1988), 36.

14 Ibid., 38.

15 O. Kernberg, Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis, (London: 1995) 29.

16 Ibid., 38.

17 D. M. Orange, G. E. Atwood, R. D. Stolorow. Quoted by C. Ardali and Y. Erten, Psikoanalizden Dinamik Psikoterapilere (Alfa, 1999), 88.

18 Nursi, Words, 523.

19 Ibid., 524.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 338.

22 Said Nursi, The Flashes Collection. new ed.

[Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: 2000), 456.

23 Ibid., 458.

24 Nursi, Words, 523-24.

25 J. Kovel, Tarih ve Tin: A–zgurlesme Felsefesi Aœzerine Bir Inceleme (Istanbul: 1991), 95.

26 E. Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: 1941), 29.

27 Nursi, Flashes, 415.

28 Guidano, Self, 15.

29 Nursi, Words, 210; Said NursA, Mesnevi-i NA riye [Turk. trans. Abdulmecid NursA] (Istanbul: 1977).

30 Nursi, Words, 560.

31 Ibid., 560.

32 Ibid., 210.

33 Ibid., 320.

34 Ibid., 210.

35 Ibid., 522.

36 Ibid., 98.

37 Ibid., 191.

38 Ibid., 531.

39 Ibid., 528.

40 Nursi, Letters, 339-40.

41 Ibid., 342.

42 Qur’an: 33:56; 40:7-9.

43 Yalom, Psychotheraphy, 362.

44 Said Nursi, The Rays Collection [Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: 1998), 277.

How Does God Hear and See?

This question raises certain difficulties. If treated improperly, it can lead to denying that God hears or sees, as in St. Anselm’s meditations on God’s Attributes.1 In his Proslogion, he introduces his famous ontological argument for God’s existence and asks: If only corporeal things perceive, because the senses exist in a body and are directed towards bodies, then how can you perceive? For you are not a body but the highest spirit, which is better than any body.(2)

He replies: But if to perceive is just to know, or is aimed at knowledge”for whoever perceives knows according to the appropriate sense, as, for example, we know colors through sight and flavors through taste”then it is not inappropriate to say that whatever in some way knows also in some way perceives. Therefore, Lord, although you are not a body, you are indeed supremely percipient in the sense that you supremely know all things, not in the sense in which an animal knows things through its bodily senses.(3)

The crucial points here are that perceiving is possible through bodily senses and that for God to perceive means to know. He seems to explain how God perceives without bodily senses by claiming that the essential outcome of perceiving is knowing. Therefore, if something were known with all details of its properties and qualities, all consequences resulting from perceiving it already would be obtained. If this were true, St. Anselm’s solution would make perfect sense. However, I argue that this is far from being true.

Perceiving and Knowing

To understand his flawed reasoning, recall the definitions of perceiving and knowing. Since we perceive only through our senses, and whatever we realize through our senses’ operation is perception, we define perceiving as a sensory-based experience. Constructing a precise definition of knowing is somewhat harder, for the word is used for too many purposes and in too many contexts. However, as a working definition of knowing something, we can say that it is having a representation of the object of knowledge in our minds.

The difference between perceiving and knowing something, if we take their meanings in the most general sense, becomes clear if we consider these processes’ temporal properties. We perceive something only when exposed to the sensory data caused by the perceived object. But if we know something, we can access this knowledge at will, provided that we do not forget it. In broad terms, perceiving is dynamic while knowing is static.

St. Anselm is right in the sense that we can know what we perceive, as expressed in: I know how banana tastes or in: I know how it feels But we can know these feelings only because we experienced them before. This is why we cannot explain color to a blind person or sound to a deaf person. Besides, knowing how it feels to see a red rose is not the same as seeing it. Let alone their dynamic versus static character, knowledge of an experience is a faint impression of the experience held in our memories.

Perceiving and Knowing in Relation to God

Our considerations about perceiving and knowing are based on circumstances relevant to human subjects. Due to the immense difference between the Supreme Being and us, we must remember that we can never know how our concepts apply to God. We only can assume that the essence of these concepts are shared by us”God knows and we know, but our knowing is a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of His knowing. So we can talk about God only through metaphors and analogies. Nevertheless, we can talk about God in a meaningful way, for we are taught about the Divine Attributes through Divine Revelation and are told that God created us in His image. Thus, being human lets us at least speculate about His nature.

In the light of the above, my main point concerning the relation between God’s perceiving and God’s knowing is that they are both existent and different Attributes, for the essence of perceiving differs from the essence of knowing. The former is a temporal experience; the latter is a nontemporal Attribute. Hence it follows that perceiving cannot be substituted for by knowing.

Realizing this, we see that St. Anselm’s solution to how God perceives without bodily senses is fallacious. To say that God perceives since He knows everything confuses the meanings of perceiving and knowing, and thus is a veiled denial of God’s seeing and hearing. Since St. Anselm’s explanation for the existence of God’s Attributes of All-Seeing and All-Hearing is invalid, or at least unsatisfactory, we must ask how God perceives without a body.

The Sense Organs

The above-mentioned question presupposes that perceiving is possible only through a body’s sense organs. This seems natural, as it is verified by daily experience. We do not witness people seeing without eyes or hearing without ears. Even though it appears obvious, the connection between perception and the sense organs is tricky. While we can say that the sense organs are somehow necessary for perception, we cannot say that they are sufficient.

To clarify this subtle point: A knife is sufficient for cutting bread, and a calculator is sufficient for multiplying 174 by 303. In other words, apart from discussing the absolute necessity in causal relations and given our universe’s physical laws, it is sufficient to have a knife or a calculator to perform those tasks. However, it is quite doubtful and even impossible for the sense organs to provide such a conscious experience as hearing a sound or seeing a color.

This may sound strange if we do not consider several stages and aspects of perception. Observations and experiments show that perception is a process initiated by the sense organs with incoming sensory data, such as a light pattern (an electromagnetic wave) or a human voice (a kind of pressure wave), and followed by evaluating such sensory data at the appropriate specialized areas in the brain. All stimuli arriving at the sense organs are transformed into nerve impulses”various patterns of electrical activity propagated through nerve cells (neurons).

Even though we do not know exactly how this sensory data is evaluated, all perceptions eventually are correlated with nothing but patterns of firing neurons in the brain. Thus, the brain represents and stores all data (e.g., color, shape, taste, softness), regardless of form, in terms of its neurons’ positions and firing rates. This is verified by stimulating various regions of the brain appropriately and watching the subject experience the corresponding sensations or feelings.

Brains and Computers

Analogous to a brain, a computer can represent and store data on its chips in terms of various electrical potentials. For example, an image can be loaded and stored by transforming its pixels’ brightness and color data into numbers so that a computer can distinguish colors and recognize patterns. Since different numbers represent different colors or color tones, a computer sees them as different objects and can discern them easily.

But unless a computer is programmed to signal when it sees green, it cannot perceive that green. It is not our recognizing, discriminating, representing, or responding to a color that makes us conscious percipients, but rather our experiencing a color. A brain or computer can have the necessary parts or circuits to represent, evaluate, and respond to a color or any other sensory stimulus. However, experiencing something, such as greenness, is a totally different and extraordinary phenomenon of perception.

Conscious Experience

How is it that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin, when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.(4)

To realize fully the essential unaccountability of conscious experience in terms of physio-chemical processes or the organization of brains and sensory organs, this kind of thought experiment might be very useful: Might your experience of red be the same as my experience of green? Sure, you might label grass as ˜green’ and the tomatoes as ˜red’, just as I do, but perhaps you actually see the grass as having the color that I would describe, if I were in your shoes, as red.(59

Considering such unique and intractable aspects of conscious experience, the most reasonable conclusion would be to treat the sentience and feelings in our perceptions as belonging to a distinct domain beyond the realm of this physical universe. Sense experience cannot be reduced to physical activities or replaced by each other. In this sense, they are simple and fundamental, such as the dimensions of space“time or the fundamental forces in physics. They are not produced, but just happen to be correlated with stimulating bodily senses and the nervous system’s resulting activity. This is just as bizarre as correlating a supernova’s explosion with my pushing the button of my pen. The only difference is that we have been accustomed to the former since we were children.

Given this, how can we explain why we have conscious experience? Science gives us no hint. One may deny sentient experience, as some philosophers of the mind do, but this is not satisfactory. The only clue comes from Divine Revelation, which teaches us of an Ultimate Creator Who is Compassionate and Merciful. Reminding us of his bounties, God says in the Qur’an: Say: He has created you and made for you faculties of hearing, seeing, feeling and understanding: little thanks it is ye give (67:23).

Once the true character of perception as a special gift of God is understood, our eyes and ears and other bodily organs cannot be considered the real sources of our bodily senses; rather, we will understand that they are just like windows of the human soul that God breathes into each person: (Remember) when thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am creating a mortal out of potter’s clay of black mud altered, so, when I have made him and have breathed into him of My Spirit, fall down and prostrate unto him (15:28-29).

Only in the light of this profound truth can we have an idea of why we have so many remarkable qualities and capabilities. Being human, we are like mirrors on which the manifestations of God’s Attributes are focused. Of course, we have only the faintest copy of His Attributes, such as All-Seeing, All-Hearing, and All-Knowing. As all our knowledge is like a drop in the ocean with respect to His knowledge, our seeing and hearing are insignificant with respect to His seeing and hearing.

Since such elements of perception as seeing and hearing are not products of bodily senses but rather faculties of the human soul breathed into us by God from His Spirit, the perfect modes of seeing and hearing naturally belong to God as the Attributes of All-Seeing and All-Hearing.

Conclusion

As a final point, we stressed that seeing and hearing are temporal experiences. This raises the following question: How can an eternal God have temporal experiences? However, since investigating God’s actions in relation to time is a huge issue, we will consider it as a possible subject of future research. Here, I remark that God’s greatest Attribute is that of All-Living.

Footnotes

1. St. Anselm (1033?-1109) was an Italian prelate, Archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor of the Church, and a founder of Christian scholasticism.
2. St. Anselm, Monologion and Proslogion, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: 1996), 102.
3. Ibid.
4. Thomas Huxley, in Nicholas K. Humphrey, A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).
5. Stephen Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York: Norton, 1999), 146.

Scientists restrict the concept of life to the conditions that obtain on or beneath the outer surface of our planet. Therefore, when they have looked for extra-terrestrial life what they have looked for is conditions which are the same as or similar or closely correspondent to the conditions in which life is evident on the surface of earth. But surely, if they had retained a sufficient sense of the absolute wonder of life (and that absolute wonder is an aspect of life’s being a direct manifestation of the Ever-Living) they should not have ruled out forms and conditions of life which are at present beyond their understanding. In their view, the arguments put forward by Said Nursi, a Muslim scholar from Turkey who wrote mostly in the first half of this century, for the existence of angels and other spirit beings may not be worthy of consideration. However, the latest discoveries in deep sea biology may persuade them to review Nursi’s arguments. Said Nursi wrote at the beginnings of I 930s:

Reality and the wisdom [purposiveness] in the existence of the universe require that the heavens should have conscious inhabitants of their own as does the earth. These inhabitants of many different kinds are called angels and spirit beings in the language of religion.

It is true that reality requires the existence of angels and other spirit beings because the earth, although insignificant in size compared with the heavens, is continually being filled with and emptied of conscious beings. This clearly indicates that the heavens… are filled with living beings who are the perfect class of living creatures. These beings are conscious and have perception, and they are the light of existence; they are the angels, who, like the jinn and mankind, are the observers of the universal palace of creation and students of this book of the universe and heralds of their Lord’s kingdom.

The perfection of existence is through life. Moreover, life is the real basis and the light of existence, and consciousness, in turn, is the light of life. Since life and consciousness are so important, and a perfect harmony evidently prevails over the whole creation, and again since the universe displays a firm cohesion, and as this small ever-rotating sphere of ours is full of countless living and intelligent beings, so it is equally certain that those heavenly [realms] should have conscious, living beings particular to themselves. Just as the fish live in water, so those spirit beings may exist in the heat of the sun. Fire does not consume light, rather, light becomes brighter because of fire. We observe that the Eternal Power creates countless living beings from inert, solid substances and transforms the densest matter into subtle living compounds by life. Thus it radiates the light of life everywhere in great abundance and furnishes most things with the light of consciousness.

From this we can conclude that the All-Powerful, All-Wise One would certainly not leave without life and consciousness more refined, subtle forms of mater like light and ether, which are close to and fitting for the spirit; indeed He creates animate and conscious beings in great number from light, darkness, ether, air and even from meanings and words. As He creates numerous species of animals He also creates from such subtle and higher forms of matter numerous different spirit creatures. One kind … are the angels, others are the varieties of spirit beings and jinn. (The Words I, Truestar l993,pp.113-12)

Half a century after Said Nursi wrote this, nearly 300 animal species, almost all of them previously unknown, have been discovered living around hydrothermal vents which form when sea-water leaking through the ocean floor at spreading ridges is heated by the underlying magma and rushes into the cold ocean. Verena Tunniclife writes:

All life requires energy, and nearly all life on earth looks to the sun as the source. But solar energy is not the only kind of energy available on the earth. Consider the energy that drives the movement and eruption of the planet’s crust. When you look at an active volcano, you are witnessing the escape of heat that has been produced by radioactive decay in the earth’s interior and is finally reaching the surface. Why should there not be biological communities associated with the same nuclear energy that moves continents and makes mountains? And why could not whole communities be fuelled by chemical, rather than, solar energy?

… Most of us associate the escape of heat from the interior of the earth with violent events and unstable physical conditions, with extreme high temperatures and the release of toxic gasses-circumstances that are hardly conducive to life. The notion that biological communities might spring up in a geologically active environment seemed fantastic. And until recently, few organisms were known to survive without a direct or indirect way to tap the sun’s energy. But such communities do exist, and they represent one of the most startling discoveries of 20th-century biology. They live in the deep ocean, under conditions that are both severe and variable.

This ‘startling’ discovery of biology contains clues to some other realities, which sciences should consider. The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, states that angels are created from light. We read in the Qur’an that God created man from dried earth, from wet clay and, from an extract of clay. According to the Qur’an, man has been made a khalifa on the earth. Khalifa means one who succeeds. Many interpreters of the Qur’an have concluded from this that the jinn once ruled the earth and they were succeeded by men.

Starting from the clues above, it should be possible to do formal studies to determine the worth of conclusions such as these:

God first created pure light (nur) and then light. The process of creation followed a gradual, regular accumulation of identities and/or a saltational sequence of abrupt leaps. Fire followed light and then came water and earth. God spread one existence through another, compounding and interweaving. He also created living beings in every phase of creation appropriate for each phase. While the universe was in a state of pure fire or some other high energy, He created the appropriate life-forms. And when the earth became conducive to life, He created plants, animals and man. He adorned every part and phase of the universe with creatures, among them living ones, that are appropriate for that part and phase.

Finally, just as He created innumerable beings from light, ether, air, fire, water and earth, so too, from every word and deed of man, He forms either his paradise or hell. In other words, as He grows a tree from a tiny seed through particles of earth, air and water, so He will build the other world from the material of this world which He will adapt for the other world during the convulsions of Doomsday. And He will use the words and actions of human beings in preparing the paradise or hell of each.