Faith is the right way

I created not jinn and mankind except that they might worship me.
According to the meaning of this mighty verse, the purpose for the sending of man
to this world and the wisdom implicit in it, consists of recognizing the Creator of all
beings and believing in Him and worshipping Him. The primordial duty of man and the
obligation incumbent upon him are to know God and believe in Him, to assent to His
Being and unity in submission and perfect certainty.
For man, who by nature desires permanent life and immortal existence, whose
unlimited hopes are matched by boundless afflictions, any object or accomplishment
other than belief in God, knowledge of God and the means for attaining these,
which are the fundament and key of eternal life — any such object or accomplishment
must be regarded as lowly for man, or even worthless in many cases.
Since this truth has been proven with firm evidence in the Risale-i Nur, we refer
exposition of it to that, setting forth here, within the framework of four questions, only
two abysses that shake certainty of faith in this age and induce hesitation.
The means for salvation from the first abyss are these two Matters:

The First Matter: As proven in detail in the Thirteenth Flash of the Thirty-First
Letter, in general questions denial has no value in the face of proof and is extremely
weak. For example, with respect to the sighting of the crescent moon at the beginning
of Ramadan the Noble, if two common men prove the crescent to have emerged by
their witnessing it, and thousands of nobles and scholars deny it, saying: “We have not
seen it,” their negation is valueless and without power to convince. When it is a
question of proof each person strengthens and supports the other, and consensus
results. But when it is a question of negation, there is no difference between one man
and a thousand. Each person remains alone and isolated. For the one who affirms
looks beyond himself and judges the matter as it is. Thus in the example we have
given, if one says “The moon is in the sky,” and his friend then points his finger at the
moon, the two of them unite and are strengthened.
The one who engages in negation and denial, however, does not regard the matter
as it is, and is even unable to do so. For it is a well-known principle that “a nonparticularized
denial, not directed to a particular locus, cannot be proven.”
For example, if I affirm the existence of a thing in the world, and you deny it, I
can easily establish its existence with a single indication. But for you to justify your
negation, that is to establish the non-existence of the thing — it is necessary to hunt
exhaustively through the whole world, and even to examine every aspect of past ages.
Only then can you say, “It does not exist, and never has existed.”
Since those who negate and deny do not regard the matter as it is but judge rather
in the light of their own souls, and their own intelligence and vision, they can in no
way strengthen and support each other. For the veils and causes that prevent them
from seeing and knowing are various. Anyone can say, “I do not see it; therefore, in
my opinion and belief, it does not exist.” But none can say, “It does not exist in
actuality.” If someone says this —particularly in questions of belief, which look to all
the universe— it is a lie as vast as the world itself, and he who utters it will be
incapable both of speaking the truth and of being corrected.
In Short: The result is one and single in the case of affirmation, and every
instance of affirmation supports all other instances.
Negation by contrast is not one, but multiple. Multiplicity arises through each
person’s saying concerning himself, “In my opinion and view,” or “In my belief,” and
leads to multiplicity of result. Hence each separate instance cannot support all other
instances.

Therefore, with respect to the truth with which we began, there is no significance
in the multiplicity and apparent predominance of the unbelievers and deniers who
oppose belief. Now it is necessary to refrain from introducing any hesitation into the
certainty and faith of a believer, but in this age the negations and denials of the
philosophers of Europe have induced doubt in a number of unfortunate dupes and thus
destroyed their certainty and obliterated their eternal felicity. Death and the coming of
one’s appointed hour, which afflict thirty thousand men each day, are deprived of their
meaning of dismissal from this world and presented as eternal annihilation. The grave
with its ever-open door, constantly threatens the denier with annihilation and poisons
his life with the bitterest of sorrows. Appreciate then how great a blessing is faith, and
the very essence of life.

The Second Matter: With respect to a problem subject to discussion in science
or art, those who stand outside that science or art cannot speak
authoritatively, however great, learned and accomplished they may be, nor can their
judgements be accepted as decisive. They cannot form part of the learned consensus of
the science.
For example, the judgement of a great engineer on the diagnosis and cure of a
disease does not have the same value as that of the lowliest physician. In particular, the
words of denial of a philosopher who is absorbed in the material sphere, who becomes
continually more remote from the non-material or spiritual and cruder and more
insensitive to light, whose intelligence is restricted to what his eye beholds — the
words of such a one are unworthy of consideration and valueless with respect to nonmaterial
and spiritual matters.
On matters sacred and spiritual and concerning the Divine unity, there is total
accord among the hundreds of thousands of the People of Truth, such as Shaykh
Gilani (May his mystery be sanctified), who beheld God’s Sublime Throne while still
on the earth, who spent ninety years ad-vancing in spiritual work, and who unveiled
the truths of belief in all three stations of certainty. This being the case what value have
the words of philosophers, who through their absorption in the most diffuse details of
the material realm and the most minute aspects of multiplicity are choking and dazed?
Are not their denials and objections drowned out like the buzzing of a mosquito by the
roaring of thunder?
The essence of the unbelief that opposes the truths of Islam and struggles against
them is denial, ignorance, and negation. Even though it may appear to be an
affirmation of some kind and a manifestation of being, it is in reality negation and nonbeing.
Whereas belief is knowledge and a manifestation of being; it is affirmation and
judgement. Every negating aspect of belief is the gate to a positive truth or the veil
covering it. If the unbelievers who struggle against faith attempt, with the utmost
difficulty, to affirm and accept their negative beliefs in the form of acceptance and
admission of non-being, then their unbelief may be regarded in one respect as a form
of mistaken knowledge or erroneous judgement. But as for non-acceptance, denial,
and non-admission —something more easily done— it is absolute ignorance and total
absence of judgement.

In Short: The convictions underlying unbelief are then of two kinds:
The First pays no regard to the truths of Islam. It is an erroneous admission, a
baseless belief and a mistaken acceptance peculiar to itself; it is an unjust judgement.
This kind of unbelief is beyond the scope of our discussion. It has no concern with us,
nor do we have any concern with it.
The Second Kind opposes the truths of belief and struggles against them. It
consists in turn of two varieties.
The First is non-acceptance. It consists simply of not consenting to affirmation.
This is a species of ignorance; there is no judgement in-volved and it occurs easily. It
too is beyond the scope of our discussion.
The Second variety is acceptance of non-being. It is to consent to non-being with
one’s heart, and a judgement is involved. It is a conviction and a taking the part of
something. It is on account of this partiality that it is obliged to affirm its negation.
The negation comprises two types:
The First Type says: “A certain thing does not exist at a certain place or in a
particular direction.” This kind of denial can be proved, and it lies outside of our
discussion.
The Second Type consists of negating and denying those doctrinal and sacred
matters, general and comprehensive, that concern this world, all beings, the hereafter,
and the succession of different ages. This kind of negation cannot in any fashion be
substantiated, as we have shown in the First Matter, for what is needed to substantiate
such negations is a vision that shall encompass the whole universe, behold the
hereafter, and observe every aspect of time without limit.
The Second Abyss and the means for escaping from it: This too consists of
two matters.
The First: Intelligences that become narrowed by absorption in neglect of God
and in sin, or the material realm, are unable to comprehend vast matters in respect of
sublimity, grandeur, and infinity; hence taking pride in such knowledge as they have,
they hasten to denial and negation. Since they cannot encompass the extremely vast,
profound and comprehensive questions of faith within their straitened and dessicated
intellects, their corrupt and spiritually moribund hearts, they cast themselves into
unbelief and misguidance, and choke.
If they were able to look at the true nature of their unbelief and the essence of
their misguidance they would see that, compared to the reasonable, suitable and indeed
necessary sublimity and grandeur that is present in belief, their unbelief conceals and
contains manifold absurdity and impossibility. The Risale-i Nur has proven this truth
by hundreds of comparisons with the same finality that “two plus two equals four.”
For example, one who does not accept the Necessary Being, the pre-eternity, and the
comprehensiveness of attribute of God Almighty, on account of their grandeur and
sublimity, may form a creed of unbelief by assigning that necessary being, pre-eternity,
and the attributes of Godhead to an unlimited number of beings, an infinity of atoms.
Or like the foolish Sophists, he can abdicate his intelligence by denying and negating both his own
existence and that of the universe.
Thus, all the truths of belief and Islam, basing their matters on the grandeur and
sublimity which are their requirement, deliver themselves from the awesome
absurdities, the fearsome superstitions, and the tenebrous ignorance of unbelief that
confront them, and take up their place in sound hearts and straight intellects, through
utmost submission and assent.
The constant proclamation of this grandeur and sublimity in the call to prayer, in
the prayers themselves and in most of the rites of Islam,
Allahu akbar, God is Most Great!
God is Most Great! God is Most Great!
the declaration of the Sacred Tradition that “Grandeur is My shield and Sublimity My
cloak;”5 and the statement of the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) — his
most inspiring communing with God, in the eighty-sixth part of Jawshan al-Kabir:6
O You other than Whose Kingdom no kingdom exists;
O You Whose Praise cannot be counted by His slaves;
O You Whose Glory cannot be described by His creatures;
O You Whose Perfection lies beyond the range of all vision;
O You Whose Attributes exceed the bounds of all understanding;
O You Whose Grandeur is beyond the reach of all thought;
O You Whose Qualities man cannot fittingly describe;
O You Whose Decree His slaves cannot avert;
O You Whose Signs are manifest in everything
—Be You glorified; there is no god other than You—
Protection, protection, deliver us from the Fire!
— all these show that grandeur and sublimity constitute a necessary veil.

The-Rays 125 From Risalei Nur Collections Bediüzzaman Said Nursi(R.A)