The Tenth Letter

In His Name, be He glorified!

And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.(17:44)

[This consists of the answers to two questions.]

T h e   F i r s t   is about the footnote to the long sentence describing the transformations of minute particles in the Second Aim of the Thirtieth Word.[1]

The Clear Book and the Clear Record are mentioned in many places in the All- Wise Qur’an. Some Qur’anic commentators said they are the same, while others said they are different. Their explanations as to their reality differ, but in short they said they are titles for divine knowledge. However, through the effulgence of the Qur’an I have formed this opinion: the Clear Record is a title for a variety of divine knowledge and  command  that  looks  to the World of the Unseen  rather  than to the Manifest World. That is, it looks to the past and the future more than to the present. That is, it looks to the origin, progeny, roots and seeds of things more than to their external existence. It is a notebook of divine determining (kader), the existence of which has been proved both in the Twenty-Sixth Word and in a footnote in the Tenth Word.[2]

Yes, the Clear Record is the title for an aspect of divine knowledge and the divine command. For since the origins, roots, and sources of things result, with the utmost order and perfect art, in their [external] existences, they show that they are set in order in accordance with a notebook of the principles of divine knowledge. And since the results, progeny, and seeds of things comprise the programmes and indexes of beings that will come in the future, they surely infer that they are miniature collections of divine commands.
 

------------------------------

          [1] See, The Words (Istanbul: Sözler Publications, new edn. 2004), 571-2, fn. 21. (Tr.)

          [2] See, Words, pp. 483-6 and 64 respectively. (Tr.)