Lecture N

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

THE SOUL APPEARING AND FUNCTIONING AT OUTER REALMS AS BEING THE ANGELS

Angel means power and force. In the Islamic terminology this description is valid. In reality, the creation of the universe and its administration, ruling and destroying happen through a great and huge power. Power (Al Qudrah) is one of THE POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES of Allah Taala, which also constitutes the source of the souls. Power is, too, from GENERAL ATTRIBUTES just like the attribute of life. That is, it includes in its structure the other six positive attributes LIFE (AL- HAYAH), KNOWLEDGE (AL-‘ILM), WILL (AL-IRADAH), HEARING (AS-SAM’), SIGHT (AL-BASAR), SPEECH (AL-KALAM) and CREATION (TAKWEEN).

Due to the mentioned reason, ANGELS are the recipients of the POWER attribute of the SOUL and representatives of it. As a matter of fact, Gabriel (peace be upon him) has THREE more names: SOUL, THE RELIABLE SOUL and the Holy spirit (RUH UL QUDS).

The noble verse says:
“WE SUPPORTED HIM (JESUS) WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT”. (Surah Al Baqarah, 2/87)

The angels that function in the material realms are called THE ANGELS OF CREATION; those who work in the UNSEEN (LATIF) REALMS are called THE ANGELS OF HAQQIYYAH.

THE ANGELS OF CREATION

Angles constantly PRAISE AND GLORIFY Allah Taala because they keep observing the divine greatness and the attributes of sublimity and perfection. Their degree is known and fixed. They are innumerable but the greatest angels are four and called the MUQARRABEEN ANGELS.

1-Gabriel (peace be upon him)

He has been honored by the attribute of KNOWLEDGE and the name of AL-ALIM (The All-knowing). He conveys the knowledge and meanings in the UNSEEN TREASURES to the hearts of the creatures in the physical realm as voices and words. Each creature gets the enough knowledge -in proportion- to perform its duty in accordance with the purpose of its creation. A noble hadith declares that Gabriel (peace be upon him) has SIX HUNDRED wings. According to the venerable Visali, here the six hundred wings show the existence of six hundred types of KNOWLEDGE BRANCHES in the PHYSICAL AND UNSEEN REALMS. These are conveyed to the Prophets as revelation, to the saints as inspiration and to the good people and every one as comprehension and thoughts. Gabriel has many assistant angels whose number is known only by Allah.

2- Michael (peace be upon him)

He connects the life with the causes. Lives are connected to the causes. The divine law happens like this. Each living being continues its liveliness and species with the sustenance Allah Dhul Jalal grants them as necessitated by his mastership.

The vehicles that are manufactured in the automotive industry are formed by thousands of parts –small or big- and the beings that are many started to appear as one being. CARRYING GOODS is the main purpose of each part. Each part has secondary, third, until the end acts and deeds to achieve the main purpose. Accumulator transmits the electrical power and the car starts with the first ignition of the gasoline, and after that thousands of other parts carry out their duties and the purpose of carrying GOODS and HUMANS is obtained.

Our universe with its magnificent structure was created to inform about THE EXISTENCE OF ALLAH, ITS MAIN PURPOSE. There are innumerable creatures in vast variety that form its magnificence and each of them has their own special duty. Thus, Michael (peace be upon him) is the name of the power that prepares and distributes the stuff that will ensure the MAIN PURPOSE in the order of the universe and the supporters of this main purpose, the secondary, the third… purposes.

3- Israfel (peace be upon him)

The life of each creature peculiar to itself takes place by way of Israfel (peace be upon him) breathing the soul into it. As all creatures are alive and having a life, the administration effect of Israfel (peace be upon him) spreads to all creatures. Under his command there are innumerable assistant angels. The qiyamah (the destruction of the existing order) and the resurrection occur as expressed. Allah Taala knows its details.

4- Azrael (peace be upon him)

He is also known by the name of The Angel of Death. He takes the souls at death. At the time of the soul leaving the body of the humans, setting the reasons for the separation of the soul and the body and materializing it occur in accordance with the divine laws. The manager here is Azrael and his supporters are other angels. The death of animals, the plants losing their liveliness are actually means their soul is taken. The souls of the humans are preserved in the trumpet of Israfel under special conditions.

THE ANGELS OF HAQQIYYAH

The details of this topic can be found under the title of the GRACE OF COMMAND OF OUR PROPHET. The owners of THE ADMINISTRATION AND FUNCTIONING of the Unseen realms that can not be seen by the physical eyes are the angels. In the Surah Pen (68/1) the muqarrabeen (near) ones are referred as:
“NUN. BY THE PEN AND THAT (THE ANGELS) WRITE,” (68/1)
They are three angels and under their command there are innumerable angels.
1- NUN
2- VAL KALAM
3- VA MA YASTURUN
This classification belongs to our sultan venerable Visali.

In the Fusus Şerhi (Deceased A. Avni Konuk, Vool 1, pp-27) THE ANGELS OF HAQQIYYAH ARE CALLED ANGELS OF THE NATURE (TABIIYYOON). The esteemed commentator expresses like this:

“Angels are divided into two sections. One is natural and the other one is elemental. The angels of nature (tabiiyyoon) are the sublime souls that exist as natural forms in the space where there are no elements. As they live in the space and have no relations with celestial bodies that are composed of elements, they are not ordered with prostrating before and becoming submissive to Adam.”

5- THE DEGREE OF THE REALM OF DREAM (The world of symbols and similitude = ALAM AL-MITHAL)

This is the Absolute God’s first degree that can be seen by the physical eyes. The realm of mithal is composed of subtle (latif) objects such as the pictures seen in the dreams while sleeping, the shapes seen in the mirrors, the scenes of movies seen on the television screens, the shadows of the solid objects.

The shape of each creature in its material structure, its size and other qualities had appeared much before its bodily structure came to existence. The same image already existed in the structure of the SOUL as well as in THE REALMS OF SOULS that we can call mental structure. The forms that existed in the structure of the mental body, in the souls, turn into screen scenes on the screen of television, or in the dreams and mirrors and then they take the form of the bodily structure in the worldly life that will occur after this. The images are the same at the three degrees, they do not change.

The images that are seen can not be divided or split into parts or get united or burnt.

6- THE DEGREE OF THE PHYSICAL REALM

At this degree the existence of THE SELF OF GOD occurs in the shapes and forms of THINGS AND OBJECTS. This can be held by hands, can be seen by the physical eyes, can be divided, broken into pieces, unite with each other and turn into heat and energy by having burnt. It is three-dimensional.

Each thing and object in the order of the universe performs the duty given to it for the continuation of the order. This order is THE BEST and THE MOST SUPERIOR. It is one of the WITNESSES of TAWHEED (unity). They are the proofs of Allah being the single entity and they announce this fact.

They have consciousness. They confirm the mastership of Allah due to the fact that they know the divine order.

Allah Taala asked all souls “AM I NOT YOUR LORD. THEY REPLIED: 'WE BEAR WITNESS (THAT YOU ARE)”.

Intellect is a latif (corporeal) being and can not be seen by the eyes. We decide the existence of the intellect by looking at the words and behaviours of the person. Likewise, we understand that all creatures have knowledge and consciousness from their actions and behaviours. Cats and other domesticated animals get along with the humans and surrender their kids to them. When the chickens see a squirrel, or a fox or a weasel they run away since they have seen their enemy. When the lion, the king of the forest roars all other animals look for a hole to hide. Birds run away from eagles, fish keep away from sharks. Mosquitoes stay motionless when there is wind. The animals that sleep throughout the winter live in slow motion in adverse winter conditions. Recognizing who is friend and who is enemy is the proof of having intellect and consciousness. Their biggest and loyal friend is Allah Taala. They know their Sustainer due to the mentioned reasons.

Everything and everybody is 15 billion years old, the age of the universe. All things we see around, our foods, the air, the water, and the soil are all composed of very small particles that can not be seen by eyes and we call them ATOMS. We can include ourselves, too, in this framework.

All of our organs that constitute our body and our cells that make us are composed of extraordinarily harmonious lining up of the atoms. Atoms come together and constitute molecules, molecules come together and form cells, cells constitute tissues, tissues make systems and systems produce the whole organism.

Our veins are the same and at the same age with the iron atoms in our blood that flow through the veins as waterfalls. 15 billion years ago all atoms that constitute the current universe were created as a result of the incident of the BIG BANG (the most favorite expression of the cosmology).
The matter burst all of a sudden from non-existence, nothingness, out of an abstract realm without a space, a time and place, and spread out the vast horizons of the endless space. The atoms that constitute the first matter of the universe, even the electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks within the atom come from 15 billion years ago. Our origin, too, started with this big birth called Big Bang.

Taşkın Tuna, Sonsuz Uzaylar, (Preface)

The creation of the universe was made out of ELEMENTS whose number is around 100. ELEMENTS are solid and gas objects like Iron, Copper, Silver, Gold, Carbon, Mercury, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and the like. Materially speaking the length of an ATOM is one hundredth-millionth of a centimeter.

The nucleus of the atoms is 100,000 times smaller than this size. The physicists that discovered these sizes understood that the matter is fully empty….

The radiation that comes out as a result of hydrogen’s turning into helium in the center layers of the Sun spread out the space as photons; there is another current which is called Neutrino.

The Same Source

All creatures living or already dead are/were composite objects. They are produced as a result of the synthesis of elements. They appeared from synthesis structures as material groups and forms. As we explained above, the behaviors and speaking of the mentioned creatures in their relations with one another shows that they are conscious. Likewise cosmology found out that the smallest energy particles that constitute the matter have consciousness.

The name of the smallest energy-power accumulation is PHOTON.

Having an information system of PHOTON that is special to itself is described by the word of INFON.

The mentioned facts are expressed in the expert book called SONSUZ UZAYLAR (Endless Space).

According to Steiner, in the universe we live in exists also INFORMATION (knowledge, consciousness) APART from matter and energy, because our universe is a system that has been organized in an excellent way. At each organization the information is needed. There is always an alteration and transformation between energy and information. Potential energy turns into kinetic information. Structural information reflects the organized version of matter and energy while kinetic information reflects its thermodynamic qualities. If we can transform one joule energy to the information for each degree of the heat, we could get information load amounting to 1023 bits.

We name the smallest energy packet in the universe PHOTON and there was no other energy value smaller than that. The theory of information, on the other hand, claims that photon, too, has information and shows an extraordinary interpretation in the advanced physics. According to this view, a photon is a ‘particle’ with two components, having both energy and information… This information particle is called INFON. Thus they claim that the universe is full of infons. The result we can infer from this is rather impressive… According to this the whole universe has consciousness, no matter living or dead.

Photon is described as the smallest energy packet, ball, knot that came out first during the creation of the universe (Big Bang). From this infinite energy, subatomic particles were formed, the matter found shape and body and galaxies, the sun, the world and other planets came into existence. The residual photons, on the other hand, fills the whole space even today as cosmic background radiation.
(Sonsuz Uzaylar, pp-114)
The noble Qur’an gives short but satisfactory knowledge about the existence, organization, the creation phases of the skies, the solar system, and the world, the moon, other planets, constellations, galaxies and stars as well as the information about their formation as fire and gas (smoke), their evolving in the orbits and their other movements.

The noble verse says:

“HERE IS NOT A THING BUT CELEBRATES HIS PRAISE; AND YET YE UNDERSTAND NOT HOW THEY DECLARE HIS GLORY”

The truths that the Qur’an informed us 1400 years ago about the structure of the universe are confirmed by the findings of the current level of cosmology, in a way the information accumulation of all generations from the first creation to our time. This shows that the Qur’an is in harmony with the positive sciences.
The systematic of the noble Qur’an is based on the principle of tawheed (unity) and the idea that Allah is the sole being.

“ALLAH IS THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS.” As this Qur’anic verse shows the creator of all things is Allah. Cosmological findings and knowledge, too, comes from the divine treasury.

The truths that are notified by the Qur’an in words and information happen in the universe as material forms and actions.

“Each form gives identity to a meaning. As the meaning is subtle and something invisible, it can be observed when it has connection with this condensed form and one can understand it through feeling.

As the deeds of Allah are made up of gentle meanings, condensed forms are needed to observe them.

The wise men interpret the signs they see in this world and reach to their meanings. However, those who lack this knowledge can not interpret and consequently can not comprehend the meanings of the worldly forms.

A. Avni Konuk, Fusus Şerhi

Our author, the venerable Visali interprets the following verses by saying there are three types of books that the verse points out:

“ALIF LAM MIM (REFERRING TO THE SELF, ATTRIBUTES AND ACTIONS OF ALLAH). THIS IS THE SCRIPTURE WHEREOF THERE IS NO DOUBT “(SURAH BAQARAH, 2/1-2)

Three types of books:

1- The Revealed book: This is the noble Qur’an that is arranged in words.
2- The book of the universe: It is about the universe which was created by the order of ‘BE’.
3- The Talking book: This refers to perfect humans, i.e. the noble Prophet (peace be upon him) and his heirs muqarrabeen saints.

Thus the fact that each creature, from atom to the biggest ones knows the mastership of Allah and affirms it and they are alive and have consciousness was proved by the following:

1-The verses and commands of the Qur’an
2-The findings and acceptances of the positive science
3-Reading the book of the universe, namely creatures know their friends and enemies, as well as their advantages and losses and perform their behaviours accordingly.

THE DEGREE OF THE PERFECT HUMAN

A- The creation place of the universe and its materialization

Allah Taala informs us about his existence.

The following hadith qutsi expresses this reality:

“I had been a secret treasury, and I would have liked to have known and created the creatures to be known”.

For the materialization this purpose, the deigning (descending) of Allah Taala from the degree of LA TAAYYUN and as a result of this deigning, the appearance of his existence with an new construction was required and this organization is called MANIFESTATION. To convey the same truth with another expression, humans, who were held responsible for knowing God which was ordered them as a fard (obligation), acquired this ability to fulfill this responsibility by adapting to the conditions of living in the world, THE PYSICAL REALM.

As an adult person needs to come down to the level of the kid in order to speak and teach something to him;

The deigning of the sun from various degrees is in order for us to adapt to the life in the world.

The Sun with its own existence at its center is separated from the world with a distance of 150 million kilometers. This distance is required to decrease the heat that is immensely high at its center to the levels needed for the living of the creatures. The 23 degrees and 27 minutes obliquity in the orbit of the world also affects this transformation.

Thus, with all conditions having materialized, it became possible for all people in general and the perfect humans in particular, i.e. the Prophet and his heirs (saints) to honour this world.

“My beloved Muhammad, if you had not existed, I would not have created the worlds”. So, the world gained honour as the living place of the person who has been the addressee of this hadith qudsi.

B- The Qualities of the perfect human - his greatness

1- He is the fruit of the tree of the universe.

Trees have a trunk, roots, branches, leaves and flowers. The air has nitrogen and oxygen, the Sun has its movement, soil and water have feeding property, and each one has a service peculiar to it. Each one works for the sake of the fruit.

As a tree, the universe, too, with everything it has works for living, growing up, and getting mature of the perfect human. It makes him eat and drink, meets his needs. It waits for his service in the Attention mode under the military discipline and performs this service without any objections.

2- All creatures gain existence with the creation of the perfect human, because they had been a concealed potential power like an undetermined seed at the degree of La Taayyun and they were emancipated by the divine will and power.

As the seeds are willing to turn into trees by finishing their waiting as dot-like invisible subtle structures with concealed qualities, all things and objects had the will to happen with their past eternal ability. With the order of ‘be’, they took their place in the system of the universe in accordance with the divine plan and program.

3-The universe and the realms it has are willing to serve the humans, and perfect human needs worlds to happen with perfect qualities as the khalifatullah (the caliph of Allah).

According to the sheikh Ibn’ul Arabi:

“World is the form of the God and the perfect human is the soul of this world and a trainer. Thus human is the great world”.

Masnawi says “In terms of form, you are the small world, in terms of meaning you are the great world. It is correct to qualify human with both properties. As far as his form is concerned it would be appropriate to call him as the small world, but with his meaning, he is the big world.

As a matter of fact the venerable Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said:

“You suppose that you are small world, but the big world has been rolled up in you”.
Fusus Şerhi, A.A. Konuk

4- The perfect human is the mirror of God.

As human is the manifestation place of Allah and has been favored by his Self, attributes, names and actions, generally speaking, Allah manifest and appear at human more (at perfect degree) compared to other creatures.

The mawlid says:

“I made your self a mirror to my Self, and wrote your name with my name”.

A saint person said the following:

“This world is a mirror, everything stands with God, and God is always seen from the Muhammad mirror”

A noble hadith says:

“Allah created Adam in his own form”.

The purpose behind the expression that he created in his own form means he created with the attributes that inform about the existence and deity of Allah and these attributes are classified into three groups:

LIFE (AL- HAYAH), KNOWLEDGE (AL-‘ILM), WILL (AL-IRADAH), POWER (AL-QUDRAH), HEARING (AS-SAM’), SIGHT (AL-BASAR), SPEECH (AL-KALAM)

These attributes is special to the Self of God, but through manifestation humans are given from them in the ratio that they can bear. The recipient of this manifestation in the human body is his nafs natiqah. However, it is like his shadow, i.e. the relation with the possessor of a shadow with the shadow is the same with the relation between the attributes of the Self and the nafs, their recipient in the human, like their shadow.

Whatever it is the absolute domination and administration of Allah Taala at outer realms and in the whole universe; the influence, management and sovereignty of the nafs natiqah in the synthesis structure (body and soul) of us is the same with it. Its administration over trillions of cells, leucocytes and red blood cells, the organs of the digestive system (lung, liver, heart, stomach, kidneys and others), our spiritual organs, the powers of the animal soul, the ten inner and outer feelings, shortly everything up to the atoms is the same. Foot can not object to the order of ‘walk’ by the nafs, eye can not say ‘I do not want to see’, ear can not say ‘I do not want to hear’. If it desires he lets the body live, or kill all through suicide, we mean these by saying absolute sovereignty.

His positive attributes:

LIFE (AL- HAYAH), KNOWLEDGE (AL-‘ILM), WILL (AL-IRADAH), POWER (AL-QUDRAH), HEARING (AS-SAM’), SIGHT (AL-BASAR), SPEECH (AL-KALAM). The recipient and representative of these seven attributes in the humans is the Soul the name of his manifestation through deigning.

This manifestation happens at various degrees and levels; the manifestation in the humans is more and stronger. The most sublime one among the humans is the soul of the Prophet, the father of the souls (peace be upon him). Other souls were created out of his soul.

His Action Attributes

AL HAYY ( The Living), AL ALIM (THE KNOWER), THE POWERFUL, THE ABLE (AL QADIR), AL MURID (THE DESIRING), AS SAMI’ (The All-Hearing), AL BASIR (the Seeing), AL MUTAKALLEM (The speaking). These are the transformation of the positive attributes to the maturity of action. This is also called the degree of names, as the administration and influence starts with names.

The places that the names turn into action at the outer realms are the realm of dream and the physical realm. It is the heart in the inner realm. In the spiritual part of the heart, it passes to the DECISION-MAKING phase through intellect- wahm / suspicion- imagination- memory- common sense, so called mental actions. The decisions appear as material actions through the five senses- hearing-sight- smell-taste and touch.

The actions that occur at the outer realm and the inner realm are the attributes, names and actions of Allah Dhul Jalal (the possessor of majesty). These actions occur at outer realm via causes, humans as secondary doers, and other creatures. When the events are evaluated by the knowledge of the tawheed (unity) science, they are attributed to God as the real doer. In this context, the Prophet said in one of his hadith:

“Those who saw me saw the God”

The first volume of the Commentary is over here.