1 - Endless Bliss - Hüseyin Hilmi Işık

superior to and more honoured than an angel. Through His
mercy and blessing, Allahu ta’âlâ united the soul with this
insensible, unmoving, good-for-nothing, dark body. Allahu
ta’âlâ, who has united the light of the soul with a dark body and
who keeps the soul, which is unsubstantial and without time
and place, with the body, which is made of matter, is very great.
All greatness, all superiorities are peculiar to Him only. No
defect can exist in Him. The meaning of this word should be
comprehended well. Because the soul and the body are quite
opposite to each other, Allahu ta’âlâ made the soul fall in love
with the body so that they might stay together. This love caused
them to remain at the same place together. The Qur’ân al-kerîm
informs us with this fact by declaring: “We created man’s soul
in a beautiful shape, and then later demoted it to the lowest
grade,” in Sûrat-u-Wa-t-tîn. The soul’s demotion to this grade
and its falling in love is an act of promotion in the guise of
demotion. Thus, because of its interest in and its love for the
nafs [see fn. 37 of article 30.], the soul threw itself down into the
world of the nafs and became a follower, a slave of the nafs. In
fact, it got beside itself, it forgot about itself. It took the shape of
the nafs-i ammâra, as if it became the nafs-i ammâra. Because
the soul is finer than everything [because it is lighter than
hydrogen, which is the lightest form of matter, and even lighter
than an electron], because it is not even matter, it takes the
state, shape and colour of whatever it unites with. Because it
forgot about itself, it forgot its knowledge of Allahu ta’âlâ, which
it had had formerly when it was in its own world, in its own
grade. It became ignorant and unaware. Like the nafs, it
darkened with the darkness of ignorance. Since Allahu ta’âlâ is
very merciful, He sent prophets ‘alaihi-s-salâtu wa-t-taslîmât’,
and through these great people, He called the soul to Himself
and commanded it not to follow, not to obey the nafs, which is
its sweetheart and darling. If the soul, obeying this command,
disobeys the nafs and turns its face away from it, it will be
saved from perdition. Otherwise, if it does not raise its head and
if it prefers to stay with the nafs and not leave the world, it will
lose its way and it happiness. It is understood from these words
of ours that the soul has united with the nafs, and, even, that it
has become the nafs, forgetting itself. Therefore, as long as the
soul remains in this state, the unawareness and the ignorance
of the nafs will be the unawareness and ignorance of the soul.
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