of prophethood, righteousness, and belief, who, following the straight path, receive the bounty of happiness in this world and the next. Since they act in accordance with the true beauty, order, and perfection of the universe, they both receive the favours of the universe’s Owner, and experience happiness in this world and the next. Being the means of mankind rising to the level of the angels, or higher, through the truths of belief they attain to a sort of Paradise in this world, and to bliss in the hereafter, and they cause others to win these too.

As for the second current, because it deviates from the straight path and through excess and deficiency transforms the intelligence into an instrument of torture amassing pains, it casts humanity down to a degree lower than the animals. Moreover, in addition to receiving the blows of Divine wrath in return for their wrongdoing in this world, due to their intelligences, they see the universe as a place of universal mourning and as the slaughterhouse of living creatures toppling over in death, and as exceedingly ugly and confused, thus causing their consciences to suffer a perpetual Hell in this world and making themselves deserving of everlasting torment in the next.

Thus, the verse,

Not those who have received Your wrath nor those who have gone astray

at the end of Sura al-Fatiha informs us of these two mighty currents. It is also the source, basis, and master of all the comparisons in the Risale-i Nur. Since the treatises of the Risale-i Nur expound this verse with hundreds of comparisons, we refer you to them for further explanation, and here suffice with this brief indication.

NINTH PHRASE: ‘Amen’

An extremely brief allusion to this:

The nun in na’budu and nasta’in points out to us those three great congregations, particularly the congregations of those who affirm Divine unity in the mosque of the World of Islam, and especially the congregations of millions performing the prayers at that time, and it places us among them and opens the way for us to receive a share of their intercession; we too, then, through the word “Amen,” join in the supplications of that congregation of believing