The Fourteenth Hope

The beginning of the Fourth Ray, which discusses the verse

حَسْبُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكٖيلُAllah is sufficient for us, and He is the best Protector. — The Qur’an 3:173

describes, in essence, the following:

Once, when worldly-minded people had isolated me from everything and I had consequently fallen into five forms of exile and estrangement, I was overcome by a heedlessness arising from that distress. Instead of seeking consolation and assistance in the luminous truths of the Risale-i Nur, I turned my attention directly to my own heart and soul.

I saw that within me there dwelt an exceedingly powerful love of eternity, an intense attachment to existence, a profound desire for life, an utter helplessness, and a boundless neediness. Yet the dreadful reality of transience was extinguishing that longing for eternity.

In this state, I uttered the words of a despairing poet:

“Though my heart yearns for eternity, the Divine will has decreed that my bodily existence must pass away.

I am afflicted with an incurable pain; alas, even LuqmānA wise and righteous man mentioned in the Qur’an, particularly in Surah Luqmān (Chapter 31). Allah granted him wisdom, and he is known for his advice to his son concerning faith, gratitude, prayer, humility, and good character. knows no remedy for it.”

Overwhelmed by sorrow, I bowed my head. Suddenly, the verse

حَسْبُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكٖيلُAllah is sufficient for us, and He is the best Protector. — The Qur’an 3:173

came to my aid and said to me, “Recite me with attentive reflection.” Thereupon, I began reciting it five hundred times a day.

As I continued this recitation, nine distinct degrees of meaning, arising from the precious lights of this verse, were unveiled to me—not merely with the certainty of ilm al-yaqīnCertainty through knowledge; a level of certainty attained through reliable knowledge, evidence, and reasoning, without directly witnessing or experiencing the reality concerned., but with that of ayn al-yaqīnCertainty through direct sight; certainty of seeing..

The First Luminous Degree of HasbiyyaRefers to the Qur’anic expression Hasbunallāhu wa Ni‘mal-Wakīl, meaning “Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best Disposer of affairs."

The love of eternity within me is not meant to be directed towards my own eternal existence. Rather, it arises because my being bears the shadow of a manifestation of one of the Names of the Perfect and Majestic Lord, the Possessor of Absolute Perfection, Who is worthy of love in His very Essence.

This innate love, whose true object is the existence, perfection, and eternity of that Absolutely Perfect One, had, through heedlessness, lost its way and become attached to the shadow. It had fallen in love with the eternity of the mirror itself.