Lecture I
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
3- RECITING THE QUR’AN:
A verse in the noble Qur’an says:
“We sent down of the Koran that which is a healing and a mercy to believers, but to the harm doers it does not increase them, except in loss.” (Surah the Night Journey, 17/82)
The Qur’an is the biggest remedy for our physical and spiritual structures. The believers should first look for the cure in the Qur’an and recite it the convenient parts of it to them.
Those who can recite the Qur’an or those who memorized the Surah Yaseen should read it and ask for the cure from Allah. The eulogy of Yaseen says.
The eulogy of Yaseen, Its ten advantages: Recovering of the sick people,
The beloved Mustafa, Ahmad Murtaza
He announced good news to his community about the mysteries of Yaseen
Yaseen is the heart of the Qur’an and has ten special characteristics
One: If a hungry person reads it, he becomes full
Two: If a naked (poor) person reads it, he wears clothing
Three: If a bachelor (wishing marriage) reads it, he gets married,
Four: If one has the fear of the enemy, he gets safe
Five: If one is sad and reads it, he feels relieved
Six: If one reads it on abroad (missing hometown), he returns to his hometown
Seven: if one’s property HAS been stolen and he reads it, his property is found
Eight: if one is thirsty and reads it, he finds water
Nine: He reads it FOR a dead wretched person, his suffering gets lighter
Ten: It has been read to a sick person, and he recovered immediately
O Visali, if you want to find the mysteries of Yaseen
Your food must be PERMISSIBLE (Halal); your faith must be complete
You can also find the mystic knowledge and the mystery of tawheed (unity)
4- NIGHT (TAHAJJUD) PRAYER
“ Stand (to prayer) by night, but not all night,-
Half of it,- or a little less,
Or a little more; and recite the Qur'an in slow, measured rhythmic tones”. (Surah Al-Muzzammil, 73/2-3-4).
With this noble verse, the night prayer has been decreed. His prayer is called TAHAJJUD prayer. Performing two cycles is enough to attain the reward of the prayer. It can be prayed between 2 and 8 cycles. It is possible to extend to 12 cycles, too. The time of the night prayer starts with the midnight and ends with the imsaq (abstinence) time (imsaq means the start of fasting, and it is just before the dawn). The night prayer is performed between midnight and imsaq time. Imam Hasan (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “there is light on the faces of those who perform tahajjud prayer at night and one can recognize them from this light.” Those who recite the last four verses of the surah AL KAHF (18th surah) with the intention of getting up for the tahajjud, awakes in the time of tahajjud (automatically). Those who keep white cock in their home attain abundance and also the cock always crows at the last third part of the night and tells us the time of tahajjud.
5- ASKING FOR FORGIVENESS AT DAWNS
“Those who are patient in adversity, and true to their word, and truly devout, and who spend (in God’s way), and pray for forgiveness at the times before the daybreak”. (Surah The Family of 'Imran, 3/17)
In this verse, Allah Taala praises the believers that are categorized into five groups, one of which is those who pray for forgiveness at dawns. Dawn is the name of the time just before the daybreak. Repenting at this time is one of the five remedies of the spiritual part of the heart.
Other mystic knowledge in the anthology of Visali
A- THE FRUIT OF THE HEART
Patience, trust in God, consent, surrender
If the heart recovers health, it possesses this good moral.
Visali Divani, pp-12
B- THE FOUR DOORS OF THE HEART
There are four doors in the heart
One is ulya (very high), the door of the majesty
One is sufla (very low), IS THE door of the world
One is at right hand side, it is the door of the heaven
One is at left-hand side, it is the door of the hell
There is no door at one, it is the door of unity
Be thankful to his blessıngs, do not complain about your pains
Visali Divani, taken from KASİDEYİ MÜNFERİCE ŞERHİ, pp-12
C- THE LIFE OF THE HEART
The bounty of our Mawla (God) has a smell of musk (scent)
There is eternal life, and it is also the food of the souls
Intend and find that life and drink the water of life
The heart of life is three, one is mystic knowledge
The other the divine love, one is baqabillah (eternal love of allah) (these are the heritage of the prophet)
Visali Divani, pp-12-13
D- THE RECOVERED HEART WEARING A SPIRITUAL CROWN
We explained above as far as we know the fact that for the heart to recover health first the diagnosis of its illnesses and the treatment of them are needed, so to speak we explained what are the spiritual antibiotics and the way they are used. Even though the above knowledge would be enough, how this knowledge will be put into practice is very important in the life of the believer. There is only one single option here, with no other alternatives. It is the completion of the spiritual journey. The predecessor religious scholars designated training systems in compliance with and parallel to the teachings of the Qur’an for the spiritual training of the humans, and those who complete the mentioned training systems are called THE HEIRS OF THE PROPHET, i.e., the inheritors of the spiritual virtues of the prophet (peace be upon him). The inheritance here means the granting of the morality, beauty, perfection and spiritual degrees of our effendi (peace be upon him) in different proportions and various dispositions to those who finish their spiritual journey. It is impossible that his perfection is given fully. No one else can ascend to the degree of our prophet (peace be upon him) and can not bear its weight.
Another name of the completion of the spiritual journey is known as the names of PATHS. Even though in Turkey the religious orders are banned and their activities are prohibited with the law number 676, our aim at writing this book is to inform about our past cultural riches as historical cases and not let them having been forgotten. Below we will try to explain our historical heritage with their known aspects.
The spiritual degrees that will be granted to the believer upon his completion of the spiritual journey are explained to the believers as a gift in the Anthology of Visali, the last six lines of the eulogy of Rahimiyyah, in the eulogy of the seven remedies of the heart.
The eulogy of RAHIMIYYAH
Those who finish this journey wears spiritual crown
Here is FANAFILLAH, in there is BAQABILLAH
Visali let the brothers know this mystery
One SHOULD ANNIHILATE ın Allah (FANAFILLAH) and find the eternal love of Allah (BAQABILLAH)
Those who finish this journey ascends to the great throne
And wears spiritual crown and becomes the heir of the prophet
Visali Divani, pp-59
the eulogy of the seven remedies of the heart
the seventh is the covering of the heart by the love of Allah, a door is opened from the heart
sees though it the light of the Jamaal, and sees the prophet
sees both prophets and saints
sees also the Almighty Throne and the seat, and the angels revolving around it
sees also the arena for judgment, the bridge, the scale, the deeds of the public
sees also the seven paradises, and the blazing fire of the hell
sees also the satan, the genie, also the dead people in the realm of Berzah
Visali completed his spiritual journey and saw the guarded tablet
And also the mystery of the fate, o brothers, you, too
Complete the journey and see the posts and be like Visali
COMPARISON
He reason for our choosing this title is to compare the event of HUMAN LANDING ONTO THE MOON SURFACE in the year 1969 and the technology it required, with the event of heavenly journeys, JOURNEY OF ASCEND (MI’RAJ) which is mentioned in the great Qur’an, too. Only the main lines of these events will be compared and then some evaluation based on this comparison will be given.
b) Landing on the surface of the Moon
“Our world is a planet revolving around the Sun. It is the third closest planet to the Sun. The Sun is a star, one of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Our planet may be like a MINUTE PARTICLE within the entire SPACE. However, it does not look like other planets. It is a SELECTED place with its stones, air, water, forests, oceans and the like. Above all the human beings that live in the world are a community of five billion.
The first steps of men on the Moon… Going into the space that humans had waited for centuries long with great curiosity and excitement…Men’s COMMENCEMENT OF the space era with moon…
A Plaque that the astronauts put on the surface of the Moon:
“Humans that come from a planet called the World landed here - 20th July, 1969
Space is a realm that it is impossible to understand and explain without forgetting about all kinds of concepts and the measurement units that we get accustomed to so far. We have to leave aside all numbers and dimensions that we keep using in the World. There the lengths are different. Speeds, powers, masses and attractions are different…SPACE is a totally different milieu in which all physical laws and principles that are valid in the World change to a considerable extent, even degenerate.
UZAY’IN SIRLARI- Taşkın Tuna, pp- 53-56-90
In addition to what is already said, let us take from the same book (source) the section that explains the distances of the 9 closest planets to OUR WORLD. This section also tries to show how much time these distances take with an airplane with the speed of 1000 km per hour.
We will try to analyze the planets in the Solar system shortly:
………………………………………………..
“Let us assume we boarded on a fastest-going jet plane that takes 1000 kilometers per hour, and we are going to our closest neighbor, the MOON. This travel will take 17 days. The travel to the closest planet (to the world) VENUS takes 4, 5 years. We could arrive in MARS in 6 years and 9 month, arrive in MERCURY in 10 years, and in JUPITER in 76 years. The travel to SATURN takes more than human life, 152 years.
Arriving in other planets can materialize only with travels lasting centuries. We can arrive in URANUS in 425 years, in NEPTUNE in 675 years. As the farthest planet in the Solar System, the PLUTO is away from us more than six billion kilometers, we could go there in 700 years with our fastest-going planes.
Lets us direct our travel to outside of our solar system. We could arrive only in ALFA CENTAUR, the closest star to the world, in 16 million years. It would take 20 billion years to go to the star RIGER.
A travel that takes 20 billion years…
This time is so long that, even the time passed since the creation of the universe is 15 billion years…”
The same book, pp-93-94
The mentioned numbers are the distances of the planets and stars that are the closest to our world. Even in our own galaxy, THE MILKY WAY GALAXY, we can not talk about the distances in kilometers (i.e. very big numbers are needed). We use the speed of the light to talk about these distances and beyond. In the observable borders of the universe there are galaxies and stars BILLONS OF LIGHT YEARS away. The result we infer from these numbers: It is impossible for a human being to go to the heavens with his bodily structure. The astronauts that went to the MOON in eight days and so in rockets took the AIR, WATER, FOOD they would need from the world. Their toilet needs and the like happened in great difficulties. The financing and health aspects of the event are also very big.
Our purpose is not to undervalue landing onto the MOON…
We do this to compare with the journeys made by the spiritual structure.
The astronomic, cosmological and technological knowledge that enabled THE TRAVEL TO THE MOON proves –with leaving no room to the doubts- the greatness and magnitude of the universe and the infinity of the existence of Allah.
The TEMPERATURE and LIGHT that enables us to live is from the existence of the SUN that appears by descending and being filtered at many degrees. The Sun itself is not like THE LIGHT and THE HEAT, its deigning, in the world.
The UNIVERSE is the deigning of Allah at the fifth degree from his degree of the Self that is his UNKNOWABLE existence. The name of this fifth level is the physical realm. It is his appearance of the existence of him that can be known and seen by the physical eyes.
The mentioned distances and the existence that we can see through telescopes are within the degree of the physical realm. If the fifth degree of Allah Dhul Jalal is so vast and big!… How about his existence above at the fourth, third, second degrees and above all at the first degree that can not be KNOWN or DETERMINED….? Our astonishment to this question increased further.
Going into the subtleties and the details of the physical realm and ascending to higher degrees are impossible under the conditions that our bodily structure have. There are realms in which jets and rockets do not work and are not enough.
D) Beyond the Intellect (UNSEEN REALMS)
Intellect is the biggest gift and grant of Allah Dhul Kamal to human beings.
The value of it can be understood by looking at those who are deprived of intellect (i.e. lunatics).
You can notice the existence of the intellect through its works. We decide whether a person is intelligent or not by looking at his talking or action style. Intellect has no physically structured existence and no place, but we suppose it is in our head. Even those who have materialistic views do not reject the existence of the intellect. They can not, because rejecting the existence of the intellect comes to mean rejecting themselves. We can define the intellect it is our subtle being that can not be seen by physical eyes, but known by its signs.
Intellect is one of the powers of the soul. It is favoured by the KNOWLEDGE (AL-‘ILM) attribute of Allah (this attribute is one of the POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES of Allah).
The CAUSES of KNOWLEDGE is three. One of them is SOUND INTELLECT, the intellect that is on the right path of God and surrendered itself to the God.
According to the venerable Visali:
Intellect has three parts: Its excess version is eloquence that is concealing the truth with deceptive talk.
Its negative excess is stupidity, i.e. silliness and lacking understanding in the subjects of knowledge.
The moderate version of intellect is wisdom. It knows the external and internal conditions, realities and laws of the objects.
As understood from the above classification, it is possible for the intellect to be useful if it surrendered itself to the truths of the belief and it has the attribute of wisdom. This is the common sense.
In spite of all its positive aspects, intellect can not know every single thing. It has limits to know and sort out certain problems. Beyond the borders of the intellect UNSEEN- TRANSFERRED sciences start. This happens as a result of Allah Taala notifying the humans who are the addressee of the noble verse: “we had taught him knowledge from Our presence” (Surah Al Kahf, 18/65). It is Allah Taala who teaches here. It has THREE DEGREES:
1- Revelation: comes to the prophets.
2-Inspiration: comes to the saints.
3-Comprehension: comes to the pious people and all creatures.
Muhyiddin-I Ibn’ul Arabi said: “our words are not revealed words, but taught words”.
S. ULUDAĞ, Tasavvuf Terimleri, pp-508
c) Evaluation
There are two options for humans who want to ascend to the skies, learn the borders and mysteries of the universe, know the cosmological subjects he is interested in and inquires curiously. The first one is reliance on one’s intellect and solving the problems via intellect, or conceding the insufficiency of the intellect and preferring the second option which is composed of Revelation-Inspiration and comprehension, hence the road of religious tradition. We extracted here in summary the topics and means of the two paths and the results they achieved so far. Taking into consideration these results, the possibility of making a comparison is on hand.
The path of intellect and the positive science it represents remained weak. Their capacity is not enough to understand the borders of the universe. The sheikh of the universe, the prophet (peace be upon him), opened the way of the ascension (Mi’raj) and passed to his followers.
With the event of Mi’raj he (peace be upon him) passed over the physical limits and turned towards the REALMS OF HAQQIYYAH (the realm of the unseen) from THE REALMS OF CREATION, saw the owner of the divine order, given some knowledge and then communicated it to his followers.
A noble verse is as follows:
“O company of jinn and men, if ye have power to penetrate (all) regions of the heavens and the earth, then penetrate (them)! Ye will never penetrate them save with (Our) sanction.” ( Surah Ar-Rahman, 53/33)
This verse clarifies the issue. Passing beyond the borders is only possible by the power of Allah and it is absolutely impossible via other options (JETS, ROCKETS and OTHERS). This is miracle of the glorious Qur’an and a challenge to the ones who think the opposite.
The name Sultan is one of the names of Allah. It means sovereignty, dominion, the one who has power to do anything, who is powerful and influential and who has all perfection attributes. We even can not know the border of the physical realm and it keeps expanding and getting bigger and bigger every second, every moment. The present rockets and the like devices can not pass the expansion of a moment, it is an undoubted reality that it is impossible to reach to the borders that has been kept expanding since the first creation.
The noble verse not only addresses to humans but also addresses to the GENIES. Genies are the creatures with subtle structure; they have a limited ability to wander around the sky of the world, but they have power to go to THE ZONES OF THE HEAVENS.
The only way to do it is with the power of Allah and this power was demonstrated by THE EVENT OF MI’RAJ, some verses in the Qur’an and the hadith of Mi’raj. The mawlid, too, explains Mi’raj. During Mi’raj, the Gabriel (peace be upon him) was able to go to the Lote-tree of the utmost boundary and said “if I move one single step ahead I wILL BE burnt”. Even the muqarrab (closer) angels can go up to this border. Therefore all angels are weak. Actually absolute weakness encompasses all creatures. The power of the angels have, as seen externally, is the power of Allah and is limited with what He has given.
His passing through the realm of creation which takes billions of light years and going to the realm of haqqiyyah up to the permitted borders and his retuning back to the world took a very short time. As per the authentic quotation, his bed was still warm when he returned. The branch of the date-palm tree in front of the house shook in his first ascending and this shaking continued after his return (the span of this journey was so short). It is certain that the next day he informed his great companions about what he saw. Because a human can go to the closest star outside the solar system in 20 billion years with the fastest growing jets, there is no possibility of comparing these two options with the duration of going and returning.
Knowing the borders of the universe through the positive science is not possible.
The only waY is ISLAM; the happiness in the world and in the afterlife is achieved by knowing the religion of ıslam and practicing it.
KNOWLEDGE BELONGS TO ALLAH AND IS FROM ALLAH. It is His property. He gives it, from a branch or a kind of it, to whoever he wishes in the quantity he wishes. Those who claim the possession of it commits the sin of ascribing divinity to aught beside God. The forgiveness of this sin is no possible except if the person re-embraces Islam (RENEWAL OF FAITH). The technology of going to the Moon happened by the teaching of Allah. Even a straw can not move without his will. The fact that the travel to the Moon was materialized by cosmology scholars, who do not know Islam and not work for Islam, has some reasons unknown to us. We hope that those who caused it will embrace Islam. Their quantitative findings of the magnificence, THE GREATNESS, almıghteness and mastership of Allah, beyond our expectations, were useful to the Muslims.