Fifth Proof, and Surmise, which indicates intention: The existence of repeated resurrections in most of the realms of beings points to the supreme resurrection. If you like, this can be illustrated with an example: take a look at your weekly clock. It contains various cogs and flywheels that turn and work the hands. One of them counts the seconds; it is a forerunner, giving news of the motion of the minute hand. This paves the way for and announces the motion of the hour hand, and it results in and proclaims the motion of the hand that counts the days of the week. The preceding one completing its circuit indicates that its sister following it will complete its circuit. Similarly, Allâh the Most High, be He exalted, has a vast clock the machinery of which are the heavenly spheres; its hands count the days, and the years, and the life of mankind, and term of the world. They are the equivalent of the seconds, minutes, hours, and days of your clock. The morning comes after every night, and the summer comes after every spring - resulting from the motion of that clock - which is a concealed sign and subtle hint that the morning of the spring of the resurrection will come, breaking forth from the vast clock of the universe.

• If you were to ask: Things are not resurrected identically in the repeated resurrections in the universe, so how does this show that they will be restored to life identically at the supreme resurrection?

You would be told: A human individual is like a species of other creatures. For the light of thought affords such breadth and expansion to man's hopes and his spirit that they encompass the past, present, and future. If he were to swallow the past and the future together with the present, it would not satisfy his hopes. For the light of thought renders his nature lofty, his value general, his view universal, his perfection unlimited, his pleasures continuous, and his sufferings constant. As for the members of other species, their natures are particular, their value individual, their views limited, their perfections restricted, their pleasures instantaneous, and their suffering fleeting. So why should the existence of a sort of resurrection in the [other] species not point to a general resurrection of the human individual?

The Sixth Proof, which is allusive: This is the unlimited nature of man's potentialities. Man's unbounded conceptions and thoughts are born of his infinite hopes. These arise from his unrestricted desires, which in turn arise from his unlimited abilities. These are concealed in his boundless potentialities, planted in the substance of his spirit, which Allâh the Most High has ennobled. All of these point testifying to eternal happiness beyond the bodily resurrection of the dead, fixing their gaze on it from afar. Reflect on this!

The Seventh Proof, conveying the good news that the mercy of the Most Merciful and Compassionate One tells of the coming of the supreme mercy, by which I mean eternal felicity. For it is through eternal felicity that mercy becomes mercy and bounty becomes bounty, and the universe is delivered from the lamentations and general mourning arising from eternal separation, which transforms bounty into an affliction. If the spirit of bounty, that is, eternal felicity, were not to come, all bounties would be transformed into misfortunes, and it would necessitate obstinate denial of the mercy that is self-evidently testified to by all the universe. O

Habib and Shafiq,¹ both lovers! Consider the finest works of divine mercy: affection, compassion, and love. Then consult your consciences, but after supposing them to be subject to eternal separation and unending parting; how they appeal for help! How your imaginations cry out, and your spirits are tormented at the transformation of affection and kindnesss, the most beautiful and exquisite sorts of mercy and bounty, into a terrible calamity and affliction. Is it at all possible that such necessary mercy would assist eternal separation in assaulting affection and kindness? No! That mercy is such that it would set eternal separation to attack unending parting, and beset unending parting with eternal separation, and annihilate both of them!

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1.The names of two of Nursi's students, which mean affectionate and compassionate, respectively. The former acted as the author's scribe.