Since the Risale-i Nur has established and clarified this great testimony, we will content ourselves here with this brief indication.
In brief allusion to the lesson of faith learned by our traveller from the cosmos, we said in the Eighteenth Degree of the First Station:
There is no god but God. the Necessary Existent, the like of Whom can¬not exist, other than Whom all things are contingent, the One. the Unique, to the Necessity of Whose Existence in Unity points the cosmos, the great book incarnate, the supreme Quran personified, the ornate and orderly palace, the splendid and well-arranged city, with all of its suras, verses, letters, chapters, parts, pages, and lines, with the agree¬ment of its fundaments, species, parts and particles, its inhabitants and contents, what enters it and what leaves it; with the testimony of the sub¬limity of the comprehensiveness of the truth of createdness. change and contingency; with the consensus of all scholars of the science of theology; with the testimony of the truth of the changing of its form and its contents, with wisdom and regularity, and the renewal of its letters and words with discipline and equilibrium; and with the testimony of the sublimity of the comprehensiveness of the truth of co-operation, mutual response and solidarity, reciprocal care, balance and preservatici, among all its beings, as is to be clearly observed.
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Then the ardent and inquisitive traveller, who was seeking the Creator of the world, had advanced by gaining knowledge of God indirectly through eighteen degrees and approached, at the end of an ascension in belief to the throne of truth, a station where in the presence of God, he addressed Him directly. He said to his own spirit:
"In the noble opening sura of the Qur'an, the verses that extend from the beginning to the word iyyaka (You alone) are like a form of praise and encomium uttered indirectly; but the word iyyaka signifies a coming into His presence and addrcsssing Him directly. So too we should abandon this indirect seeking and ask for the object of search from the object of our search. For one must ask the sun, that shows all things, concerning the sun. since that which shows all things will show itself even more clearly. Just as we perceive and know the sun by its rays, so too we can strive to know our Creator, in accordance with our capacities, through His Most Beautiful Names and Sacred Attributes."
We will set forth here, with the utmost brevity and concision, two of the countless paths that lead to this goal; two of the infinite degrees of those two paths; and two of the abundant truths and details of those two degrees.
THE FIRST TRUTH: There appears visible to our eye a comprehensive, per¬manent, orderly and awesome truth, one that changes, transforms, and renews all beings in heaven and on earth, with imperious and incessant activity. Within the truth of that in every way wise activity, there is imme¬diately perceived the truth of the manifestation of dominicality, and in turn, within the truth of that in every way merciful manifestation of dominical¬ity. is recognizable the truth of the epiphany of Divinity.
From this continuous, wise and imperious activity, the deeds of an All-Powerful and All-Knowing Doer can be discerned, as if from behind a veil. And from behind the veil of these nurturing and administering deeds of dominicality, the Divine Names, manifest in all things, can be immediately perceived. Then behind the veil of the Beautiful Names, manifest with Glory and Beauty, can be deduced the existence and reality of the seven sacred attributes, according to the testimony of all creation, in a life-giving. powerful, knowledgeable, all-hearing, all-seeing, volitional and speech-endowed form, there appears to the eye of faith in the heart, self-evidently, necessarily, and with full certainty, the existence of a Necessary Existent that is described by these attributes, a Single One of Unity known by these Names, a Peerless and Eternal Doer, in a form more evidential and brilliant than the sun.
For a beautiful and profound book necessarily presupposes the act of writing and a well-built house presupposes the act of building; and the acts of writing beautifully and building well presuppose the names of writer and builder; and the titles of writer and builder obviously imply the arts and attributes of writing and building; and these arts and attributes self-evidently necessitate one who will be qualified by the names and attributes, and be the artist and craftsman.