All True Pain Is In Misguidance, and All True Pleasure In Belief

“Every village must have its headman; every needle must have its manufacturer and 
craftsman. And, as you know, every letter must be written by someone. How, then, can it
be that so extremely well-ordered a kingdom should have no ruler?

He makes everything out of one thing and makes one thing out of everything

true enjoyment, pain-free pleasure, grief-free joy, and life’s happiness are only to be found in 
belief and in the sphere of the truths of belief. While a single worldly pleasure yields 
numerous pains; as though dealing ten slaps for a single grape, it drives away all life’s 
pleasure

1. The prescription for a sick age, an ailing nation, an ill member, is to follow the 
Qur’an.
2. The prescription for a glorious though unfortunate continent, an illustrious though 
hapless state, a noble though ownerless people, is Islamic Unity.
3. Someone who lacks the strength to raise and turn the earth and all the stars and 
suns as though they were the beads of a tesbih cannot lay claim to creating 
anything in the universe. For everything is tied to everything else.
4. The raising to life of all animate beings at the resurrection of the dead can be no 
more difficult for divine power than restoring to life a fly in the spring, heavy 
with the death-stained sleep of winter. For pre-eternal power is essential; it does 
not change; impotence cannot penetrate it; obstacles cannot intervene in it; there 
can be no degrees in it; everything is the same in relation to it.
5. Whoever created the mosquito’s eye, created the sun.
6. Whoever ordered the flea’s stomach, ordered the solar system.
7. There is such miraculousness in the universe’s compilation that if to suppose the 
impossible all natural causes possessed will and the power to act, they would still 
prostrate in utter impotence before such miraculousness, exclaiming: “Glory be 
unto You! We have no power; indeed You are the Mighty, the Wise!”
8. An actual effect has not been given to causes, for divine unity and glory require it 
to be thus. Only, in the outer aspect of things, causes are a veil to the hand of 
power; and this, divine dignity and grandeur require, so that in the superficial 
view the hand of power should not be seen to be directly in contact with lowly 
things.
9. The inner dimensions of things, where divine power has its connection, are 
transparent and pure.
10. The Manifest World is a lace veil strewn over the Worlds of the Unseen.
11. An infinite power sufficient to create all the universe is necessary to create a 
single point and set it in its place. For every letter of this 
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mighty book of the universe, and particularly all its living letters, has a face 
looking to all the sentences and an eye that beholds them.
12. It is well-known: they all looked for the crescent moon of the ‘Id, but no one 
could see it. An elderly man swore he had seen it. But what he had seen was not 
the crescent moon; it was a curved white eyelash. What is an eyelash compared 
with the moon? What is the motion of minute particles compared with the one 
who fashions all beings?
13. Nature resembles a printing-press, not the printer. It is an embroidery, not the 
Embroiderer. It is passive, not active. It is a pattern, not a source. It is an order, 
and not the Orderer. It is a law, not a power. It is a code of laws proceeding from 
a will, not an external reality.
14. The lure and attraction in the conscience, which is the essential nature of 
conscious beings, is felt through the appeal of a drawing truth.
15. The essential nature of beings does not lie. The inclination to grow in a seed
declares: “I shall sprout and produce fruit!” It speaks the truth. An egg displays 
the desire for life; it says: “I shall be a hen!,” and this comes about, with divine 
permission. It speaks the truth. Owing to the inclination to freeze, a handful of 
water says: “I shall take up more space!,” and unyielding iron cannot give it the 
lie; the rightness of its words splits the iron. These inclinations are the 
manifestations of the creative commands proceeding from divine will.
16. Pre-eternal power, which does not leave ants without a prince or bees without a 
queen, certainly does not leave mankind without prophets. As the Splitting of the 
Moon was a miracle of Muhammad (UWBP) for men in the Manifest World, so 
his Ascension was a supreme miracle before the angels and spirit beings in the 
World of the Inner Dimensions of Things. Through this clear wonder, the 
sainthood of his prophethood was proved, and like lightning or the moon, that 
shining Being scattered light through those inner worlds.
17. The two phrases of the confession of faith testify to each other. The first is the 
proof of cause to effect of the second, while the second is the proof of effect to 
cause of the first.
18. Life is a sort of manifestation of unity within multiplicity, and therefore leads to 
unity. Life makes one thing the owner of everything.
19. Spirit is a law possessing external existence, a conscious law. Like the stable and 
enduring laws of creation, spirit comes from the World of the Divine Command 
and the attribute of will. Divine power clothes it an existence decked out with 
senses. He makes a subtle, flowing being 
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the shell to that jewel. Existent spirit is the brother of the conceivable law. They 
are both enduring and come from the World of the Divine Command. If preeternal power had clothed the laws governing in the species of beings in external 
existence, they would have been spirits. And if the spirit banishes consciousness, 
it still would be an undying law.
20. Beings are visible through light, and their existence is known through life. Both 
are revealers.
21. Christianity will either erupt, or being purified will lay down its arms before 
Islam. It was split apart several times and Protestantism emerged. Then 
Protestantism was rent and approached the true affirmation of divine unity. It is 
preparing to be rent again. It will either erupt and be extinguished, or it will see 
before it the truths of Islam, which encompass the basis of true Christianity, and 
it will lay down its arms.
The Prophet Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace) alluded to this 
great mystery when he said: “Jesus will come having descended from the skies; 
he will be of my community and will act in accordance with my Shari‘a.”2
22. It is the sacredness of the authority more than proof that drives the mass of the 
people to comply with it.
23. The essentials and incontestable matters of religion, which form ninety-nine per 
cent, are each diamond pillars, while the controversial matters which are open to 
interpretation form only ten per cent. Ninety diamond pillars may not be put 
under the protection of ten gold pillars. Books and interpretations should be
telescopes for observing the Qur’an; they should be mirrors; not shadows or 
deputies!
24. Anyone who is capable may make interpretations of the law for his own self; but 
he cannot make the law.
25. Calling others to accept an idea is dependent on acceptance by the ‘ulama; 
otherwise it is innovation, and should be rejected.
26. Since by nature man is noble, he seeks the truth. Sometimes he encounters the 
false, but supposing it to be the truth preserves it in his heart. Then, when delving 
into reality, without his willing it misguidance strikes him on the head; supposing 
it to be reality, he plunges his head into it.
27. Divine power has many mirrors, each more subtle and transparent than 
 2 Bukhari, Anbiya’, 49; Muslim, Iman, 242-7; Tirmidhi, Fitan, 62; Musnad, iv, 226.
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the last; they vary from water to air, and air to ether, and ether to the World of 
Similitudes; from the World of Similitudes to the World of Spirits, and even to 
time, and to thought. A single word in the mirror of the air becomes millions of 
words. The Pen of Power writes this mystery of reproduction in truly wondrous 
manner. The reflection contains either its identity or its identity together with its 
nature. The images of dense beings are moving but dead. While the images of a 
luminous spirit in their own mirrors are living and linked with it; even if they are 
not identical, they are not other than it.
28. Since the sun shakes itself in its axial rotation, its fruits do not fall; whereas if it 
did not shake itself, the planets would fall and be scattered.
29. If the light of thought is not illuminated with the light of the heart and blended 
with it, it is darkness and breeds tyranny. If the white of the eye, which resembles 
day, were not together with its black pupil, which resembles night, the eye would 
not be the eye; it would be unseeing. Similarly, if the black core of the heart is 
not present in white thought, it lacks insight. 
30. If knowledge lacks the insight of the heart, it is ignorance. Taking the part of 
something is one thing, belief is something else.
31. Embroidering meaningless things is for misleading simple minds.
32. A learned guide should be a sheep, not a bird. A sheep gives its lamb milk, while 
a bird gives its chick regurgitated food.
33. The existence of something is dependent on the existence of all its parts. As for 
non-existence, since it occurs though non-existence of one part, a weak man 
supports destruction in order to demonstrate his power; he acts negatively instead 
of positively.
34. If the laws of government are not combined with the principles of wisdom, and 
the bonds of force not combined with the laws of truth, they will not be fruitful 
among the mass of the people.
35. Tyranny has donned the hat of justice; treachery has clothed itself in the garment 
of patriotism; jihad has been given the name of rebellion; captivity has been 
called freedom! Opposites have exchanged forms!
36. Politics which revolves around benefit is savagery.
37. To show friendliness towards a hungry beast excites not its compassion but its 
hunger. Both its fangs and its claws will want their rent!
38. Time has shown that Paradise is not cheap, and neither is Hell unnecessary.
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39. While the qualities of those known by the world as the upper classes should be the 
cause of modesty and humility, they have led to oppression and arrogance. And 
while the poverty and powerlessness of the poor and common people should be 
the cause of compassion and bounty, they have resulted in servitude and 
enthralment.
40. So long as honour and good things are to be obtained from something, they offer 
it to the upper classes, but if it is something bad, they divide it among the 
ordinary people.
41. If a person lacks an imagined goal, or if he forgets it or pretends to forget it, his 
thoughts will perpetually revolve around his ‘I’.
42. The origin of all revolutions and corruption, and the spur and source of all bad 
morals are just two sayings:
The First Saying: “So long as I’m full, what is it to me if others die of hunger?”
The Second Saying: “You suffer hardship so that I can live in ease; you work so 
that I can eat.”
There is only one remedy for extirpating the first saying, and that is the 
obligatory payment of zakat. While the remedy for the second is the prohibition 
of usury and interest. Qur’anic justice stands at the door of the world and says to 
usury and interest: “No entry! It is forbidden! You don’t have the right to enter 
here!” Mankind did not heed the command, and received a severe blow. So it 
must heed it before it receives one even more severe!
43. War between nations and states is relinquishing its place to war between the 
classes of mankind. For just as man does not want to be a slave, so he does not 
want to be a labourer.
44. The person who pursues his goal by illicit means is usually punished by receiving 
the opposite of what he intended. The recompense for illicit love, like love for 
Europe, is the beloved’s cruel enmity.
45. The past and calamities should be considered in the light of Divine Determining 
(kader), while the future and sins from the point of view of responsibility before 
God. The Jabriyya and Mu‘tazila are reconciled on this point.
46. Impotence should not be resorted to when a solution may be found, and when 
there is no solution, punishment should not be resorted to.
47. Life’s wounds may be healed, but Islamic pride and honour, and national pride, 
their wounds are extremely deep.
48. It sometimes happens that a single word causes an army to perish, and 
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one bullet leads to the annihilation of thirty million.3 Some conditions are such 
that a small act raises man to the highest of the high, while in others a small 
action relegates him to the lowest of the low.
49. One grain of truth consumes a stack of lies. One grain of reality is superior to a 
stack of illusions. Everything you say should be true, but it is not right to say 
everything true.
50. A person who sees the good in things has good thoughts. And he who has good 
thoughts receives pleasure from life.
51. What gives life to people is hope; what kills them is despair.
52. Since early days, this Islamic state took on itself the upholding of the Word of 
God, the maintenance of independence, and jihad for Islam, an obligation which 
if undertaken by part of the community, released the rest; it considered itself to be 
charged with sacrificing itself for Islam, which was united, and carrying the 
banner of the Caliphate. The misfortune it now suffers will therefore be made up 
for by the future prosperity and freedom of the Islamic World. For this calamity 
has speeded up in wondrous fashion the growth of Islamic brotherhood, the 
leaven of our lives.
53. To attribute to Christianity the virtues of civilization, which are not its property, 
and to show retrogression, the enemy of Islam, to be its friend, is to suggest that 
the firmament is revolving in the opposite direction.
54. A tarnished, matchless diamond is always superior to a piece of glistening glass.
55. Those who seek everything in materiality know only what their eyes see, and such 
eyes are blind in spiritual matters.
56. If metaphors fall from the hands of learning into those of ignorance, they are 
transformed into their literal meanings, opening the door to superstition.
57. Favour greater than divine favour is not favour. Everything has to be described as 
it is.
58. Fame ascribes to man what is not his.
59. Hadiths are the source of life and inspirer of reality.
60. The revival of religion is the revival of the nation. The life of religion is the light 
of life.
 3 A single bullet fired by a Serbian soldier at the Austrian crown-prince set off the Great War, and was 
the cause of thirty million souls being lost.
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61. The Qur’an, which is a mercy for mankind, only accepts a civilization that allows 
for the happiness of all, or at least of the majority. Modern civilization has been 
founded on five negative principles:
Its point of support is force, the mark of which is aggression.
Its aim and goal is benefit, the mark of which is jostling and tussling.
Its principle in life is conflict, the mark of which is strife.
The bond between the masses is racialism and negative nationalism, which 
are nourished through devouring others; their mark is collision.
Its enticing service is inciting lust and passion and gratifying the desires. But 
lust transforms man into a beast.
As for the civilization the Shari‘a of Muhammad (UWBP) comprises and 
commands, it is as follows: 
Its point of support is truth instead of force, the mark of which is justice and
harmony. 
Its goal is virtue in place of benefit, the mark of which is love and attraction. 
Its means of unity are the ties of religion, country, and class, in place of 
racialism and nationalism, and the mark of these is sincere brotherhood, 
peace, and only defence against external aggression. 
In life its principle is mutual assistance instead of conflict, the mark of which 
is accord and solidarity. 
And it offers guidance instead of lust, the mark of which is human progress 
and spiritual advancement.
Do not loosen your hands from Islam, the preserver of our existence; cling onto it 
with all your strength or you shall be lost!
62. A general disaster results from the error of the majority. Disaster is the result of 
crime and the introduction to reward.
63. A martyr supposes himself to be alive. He did not suffer the pangs of death, so he 
thinks the life he sacrificed is perpetual and has not been severed. But he finds it 
purer.
64. The pure justice of the Qur’an does not spill the life-blood of an innocent, even 
for the whole of humanity. The two are equal in the view of both divine power, 
and justice. Self-interest, however, makes man such that he will destroy anything 
that impedes his ambition, even the world if he can, and mankind.
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65. Fear and weakness invite outside influences.
66. Definite benefits should not be sacrificed for imaginary harms.
67. Istanbul politics at the present time are as sick as Spanish ’flu.
68. Tell a bad man, “You are good, you are good,” and it is not unheard of that he will 
become good. And tell a good man “You are bad, you are bad,” and it is not rare 
for him to become bad.
69. So long as the enemy of an enemy remains his enemy, he is a friend; and so long 
as the friend of an enemy remains his friend, he is an enemy.
70. Obduracy is this: if Satan assists someone, he calls him an angel and calls down 
blessings on him. But if among his opponents he encounters an angel, he calls 
him a satan in other clothes and curses him.
71. The remedy for one ill may be poison for another. An excessive dose is the cause 
of ills.
72. Solidarity in a society results in harmony in all its activites, while mutual envy 
causes all its activities to come to a standstill.
73. If the community is not one and a whole, undivided number, addition makes 
smaller, like multiplying fractions.4
74. Non-acceptance is confused with the acceptance of non-being. The evidence for 
non-acceptance is the absence of established proof. The acceptance of non-being 
requires proof of non-being. One is doubt while the other is denial.
75. If doubt in the questions of belief destroys one, or even a hundred, evidences, it 
does not harm what is posited; for there are hundreds of evidences.
76. The majority of Muslims should be followed. For when they followed the 
majority the Umayyads, who were slack in religion, finally entered the Sunni 
community. As for the Shi‘a, who were firm in religion but remained in the 
minority as regards their practices, finally only a part of them followed the 
Rafida.
77. If unanimity concerning good leads to conflict concerning what is better, then 
sometimes good is better than the better; right is truer than what is truer. 
Everyone should say about his own way that “It is right,” 
 4 It is well-known that in arithmetic, multiplication and addition increase: four times four makes 
sixteen, while in fractions, on the contrary multiplication and addition make smaller: a third multiplied 
by a third makes a ninth. In just the same way, if there is not integral wholeness, correctness, and unity 
among people, by multiplying they become smaller, spoilt, and valueless.
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he should not say “it is the only right way.” Or he should say, “It is good,” but he 
should not say “It is the only good way.”
78. If Paradise did not exist, Hell would not be torment.
79. As time grows older, the Qur’an grows younger; it signs become apparent. Just as 
light sometimes appears to be fire, so sometimes intense eloquence appears to be 
exaggeration.
80. Degrees in heat occur through the intervention of cold; the degrees of beauty 
occur through the intervention of ugliness. Pre-eternal power is essential, 
necessary, and inherent. Impotence cannot penetrate it; there can be no degrees it 
in; everything is equal in relation to it.
81. The sun’s image, which is the effulgence of its manifestation, displays the same 
identity on the surface of the sea and in all its droplets.
82. Life is a manifestation of unity; unity is also its consequence.
83. So long as it remains unknown who are the saints among men, which moment 
prayers are accepted on Fridays, which night in Ramadan is the Night of Power, 
and which among the divine names is the greatest name, other things retain their 
value and importance is given to them. Twenty years of doubtful life is preferable 
to a thousand years’ life the end of which is specified.
84. The consequence of sin in this world is evidence for its punishment in the next.
85. In the view of power, sustenance is as important as life. Power brings into 
existence, Divine Determining clothes in form, divine favour nurtures. Life is a 
summary, a specified product and is apparent. Sustenance is not a summary; it is 
gradual and widespread, and provokes thought. No one dies from hunger, for 
death occurs before the food stored up in the body in the form of fat is exhausted. 
That is to say, illness resulting from the giving up of habit kills, not lack of 
sustenance.
86. The licit sustenance of carniverous wild animals are the innumerable remains of 
dead animals; they both cleanse the face of the earth, and they find their food.
87. Before entering the mouth and disappearing down the throat, a mouthful worth 
one kurush and one worth ten are the same. There is only a few seconds’ 
difference in the mouth. To raise the price from one to ten in order to gratify the 
sense of taste, which is like an inspector and doorkeeper, is most prodigal and 
wasteful.
88. When pleasure calls, a person should say: “It is as though I ate it.” (Sanki yedim.) 
For a person who took it as his guiding principle, could 
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have eaten a mosque called “Sanki Yedim,” but he didn’t.5
89. Formerly, most Muslims did not go hungry; they desired a comfortable life. Now 
they are hungry, and they have no wish for pleasure.
90. Temporary pains rather than temporary pleasure should be greeted with smiles 
and welcomed. For past pleasures make one say: “Alas!”, and “Alas!” is an 
expression of concealed pain. While past pains make one say: “Oh!”, and “Oh!” 
tells of permanent pleasure and bounty.
91. Forgetfulness is also a bounty; it allows one to suffer the pains of only one day 
and causes the rest to be forgotten.
92. Every calamity holds a degree of bounty, like a degree of heat. One should think 
of greater calamities and should note the degree of bounty in the small one, and 
thank God. For if the calamity is blown up, it will grow; and if it is worried over, 
it will double; the image, the imagining, in the heart will be transformed into 
reality; and they will pound the heart as well.
93. In society as a whole, everyone has a window, known as rank, through which to 
see and be seen. If the window is higher than a person’s stature, he will grow 
taller through arrogance, but if it is lower, he will bow down out of modesty to 
see and be seen at that level. The measure of greatness in man is smallness, that 
is, modesty. The scale of smallness is bigness; that is, arrogance.
94. The dignity of the weak before the strong becomes arrogance in the strong; while 
the modesty of the strong before the weak becomes abasement in the weak. The 
seriousness of someone in authority in their office is dignity, and his humility is 
abasement. While his seriousness in his house is haughtiness, and his humility, 
modesty. If an individual is on his own, then his tolerance and self-sacrifice are 
good acts. But if he is more than one and attached to others, they are treachery 
and inauspicious. Someone should swallow his pride in his own name and not be 
boastful, but he may boast in the name of his nation and should not swallow his 
pride.
95. To leave it to others in planning the preliminaries of a matter is laziness, while in 
awaiting the outcome it is reliance on God. Resignation with the fruits of one’s 
labour and with fate is contentment, and strengthens the wish to strive. Whereas 
making do with what exists is to lack enterprise.
 5 That is, the person put aside the money saved through his abstinence, and built the mosque with the 
proceeds. It is in the Fatih district of Istanbul. (Tr.)
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96. Just as there are obedience and rebellion in the face of the commands of the 
Shari‘a, so there are obedience and rebellion in the face of the creative commands 
in the universe. With regard to the first, the reward and punishment are mostly in 
the hereafter, while with the second, they are mostly in this world. For example, 
the reward for patience is victory; the punishment for idleness is poverty; the 
reward for effort is wealth, and the reward for constancy, triumph. Justice without 
equality is not justice.
97. Mutual resemblance is the cause of contradiction; congruity is the basis of 
solidarity; smallness of character is the source of arrogance; weakness is the 
source of pride; impotence is the source of opposition; and curiosity is the teacher 
of knowledge.
98. Through need, and especially through hunger, the Creator’s power has reined in 
foremost man, and all the animals, and put them in order. Also, He saved the 
world from anarchy, and making need the master of civilization, ensured 
progress.
99. Distress teaches vice; despair is the source of misguidance; and darkness of heart, 
the source of spiritual distress.
100. When men become amiable through following their fancies, women become 
masculine by being impudent.
A beautiful woman entering a gathering of brothers awakens hypocrisy, rivalry, 
and envy. That is to say, the unveiling of women led to the unveiling of bad 
morals in civilized man.
101. The represented forms of little smiling corpses have played a large role in 
making the evil-polluted perverse spirit of modern man what it is.
102. The prohibited statue is either petrified tyranny, or embodied lust, or personified 
hypocrisy.
103. For someone who has truly entered into the bounds of Islam by conforming 
precisely to its incontestable matters, the desire to expand is the desire to be 
perfected. But for someone deemed outside those bounds due to slackness, the 
desire to expand is the desire to destroy. In time of storm and earthquake, it is 
advisable to not open the door of ijtihad, and to close the windows too. The 
overly free and easy should not be indulged with dispensations, but determinedly 
and severely warned.
104. Unfortunate truths become worthless in worthless hands.
105. Our globe resembles a living being; it displays the signs of life. 
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Would it not become a sort of animal if it were reduced to the size of an egg? Or 
if a microbe were to be enlarged to the size of the globe, would it not resemble it? 
If it has life, it has a spirit too. If the world were reduced to the size of man, and 
the stars made the particles and substance of his being, would it not also be a 
living conscious being? God has many such animals.
106. There are two Shari‘as:
The First is the Shari‘a that we know which orders the actions and conduct of 
man, the microcosm, and proceeds from the attribute of speech.
The Second is the Supreme Shari‘a of Creation, which orders the motion and rest 
of the world, the macroanthropos, proceeds from the attribute of will, and is 
sometimes wrongly called nature. The angels are a vast community; they are the 
bearers, representatives, and personifications of the creative commands which 
proceed from the attribute of will and are the Shari‘a of Creation.
107. If you weigh the senses of a microscopic organism against man’s senses, you 
will observe a strange mystery: man is in the form of Ya. Sin., inscribed in him is 
the Sura Ya. Sin.
108. Materialism is a spiritual plague that has infected man with a terrible fever, 
causing him to be visited by divine wrath. The more the ability to inculcate and 
criticize expands, so does that plague spread.
109. The most wretched, distressed, and suffering of men is the man with no work, for 
idleness is the cousin of non-existence. Labour, however, is the life of existence 
and the waking state of life.
110. Profiting from banks, the doors of usury and interest, is for the infidels, who are 
the worst of men, and for the most tyrannous of the former, and for the most 
degenerate of the latter. Banks cause absolute harm to the Islamic world, so 
mankind’s affluence should not be taken into consideration. For if the infidels are 
warmongers and aggressive, so they are disrespectful and without honour.
111. The purpose of the khutba during the Friday Prayers is to mention the essentials 
and incontestable matters of religion, not to instruct in theoretical matters. The 
Arabic terms recall the essentials best. 
112. When Hadiths and Qur’anic verses are balanced, it is clear that even the most 
eloquent of men cannot attain to the verses’ eloquence nor resemble them