The Thirtieth Word
An exposition of ego or human selfhood
In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
We offered the Trust to the heavens, and the earth, and the mountains, but they shrank from bearing it, and were afraid of it (fearful of being unable to fulfill its responsibility), but humanity has under taken it; it is indeed prone to doing great wrong and misjudging, and acting out of sheer ignorance. (33:72)
We point out a single gem from the vast treasure-house of this verse: Human selfhood is one aspect of the Trust which the heavens, the earth and the mountains shrank from bearing. From the time of Adam up to the present, it has been the seed of the terrible tree of Zaqqum and of the illustrious tree of Touba, which have shot out branches around the world of humankind. Before shedding some light on this great truth, we offer the following introductory explanation.
Selfhood is the key to the Divine Names, which are hidden treasures. Being a mystery and a wonderful talisman, it also is the key to creation’s mystery. When its essence is known, its mystery is resolved, and that, in turn, discloses creation’s mystery and the Necessary Existence’s treasuries. I discussed this in my Arabic treatise, A Whiff from the Breezes of the Qur’an’s Guidance (included in al-Mathnawi an-Nuri), as follows:
The key to creation is in our hand and attached to our selfhood. The doors to creation seem to be open, but in fact are closed. The All-Mighty has entrusted us with a key (Ego or Selfhood) that will open creation’s doors and reveal the hidden treasures of the Creator of the universe. However, Selfhood itself is a difficult mystery and an enigma, but if its true nature and purpose are known, both itself and creation’s mystery will be solved.
The All-Wise Maker has entrusted each human being with selfhood having clues and samples to urge and enable him or her to recognize the truths about His Lordship’s attributes and essential characteristics. Selfhood is the measure or means of comparison that makes Lordship’s attributes and Divinity’s characteristics known. A measure or means of comparison does not have to have actual existence, for its posited or supposed existence can serve as a measure, just like hypothetical lines in geometry.
QUESTION: Why did God make our selfhood a means to know His Attributes and Names?
ANSWER: An absolute and all-encompassing entity has no limits or terms, and therefore cannot be shaped or formed; neither can it be determined in such a way that its essential nature can be comprehended. For example, an endless light undetermined by darkness cannot be known or perceived. But whenever a real or hypothetical bounding line of darkness is drawn, it becomes determined and known. In the same way, the Divine Attributes and Names (e.g., Knowledge, Power, Wisdom, and Compassion) cannot be determined, for they are all-encompassing and have no limits or like. Thus what they essentially are cannot be known or perceived. A hypothetical boundary is needed for them to become known.
In our case, this hypothetical boundary is our selfhood. It imagines with in itself a fictitious lordship, power, and knowledge, and so posits a bounding line, hypothesizes a limit to the all-encompassing Divine Attributes, and says: “This is mine, and the rest is His.” Selfhood thus makes a division. By means of the miniature measures it contains, Selfhood slowly comes to understand the true nature of the Divine Attributes and Names.
For example, through this imagined lordship in its own sphere, Selfhood can understand the Lordship of the Creator in the universe. By means of its own apparent ownership, it can understand the real Ownership of its Creator, saying: “As I am the owner of this house, the Creator is the Owner of this universe.” Through its partial knowledge, Selfhood comes to understand His Absolute Knowledge. Through its defective, acquired art, it can intuit the All-Majestic Maker’s matchless, originative Art. It says: “I built and arranged this house, so there must be One Who made and arranged this universe.”
Human ego or selfhood contains thousands of states, attributes, and perceptions that, to some extent, disclose and make knowable the Divine Attributes and essential Characteristics. Like a mirror, a measure, an instrument for discovering, or a letter which has no meaning in itself but serves the word’s meaning, Selfhood is a strand of consciousness from the thick rope of human existence, a fine thread from the celestial weave of humanity’s essential nature, an alif17 from the book of human identity and character.
That alif (I) has two aspects or faces. One aspect relates to good and existence and only receives passively what is given; it cannot create. The other aspect or face relates to evil and derives from non-existence. Here Selfhood is active. Its real nature is indicative—like a letter that has no meaning by or in itself—and points to the meaning of things other than itself. Its lordship is fictitious and hypothetical, and its own existence is so weak and insubstantial that it cannot bear or support anything on its own. Rather, Selfhood is a kind of scale or measure, like a thermometer or barometer, that indicates the degrees and quantities of things. The Necessary Being’s absolute, all-encompassing and limitless Attributes can become known through it.
Those who know and realize that this is the reality of their essential nature and act accordingly are included in: He is indeed prosperous who has grown it in purity (away from self-aggrandizing rebellion against God) (91:9). Such people truly carry out the Trust and, through the telescope of selfhood, see what the universe is and what duties it performs. When any information about the universe comes to their soul, they see that their selfhood confirms it, and this information remains as light and wisdom, without changing into darkness and futility. When Selfhood has performed its duty in this way, it renounces its claim to lordship and hypothetical ownership (mere devices of measurement) and proclaims: “His is the sovereignty and ownership of all beings, and to Him is due all praise and gratitude. His is the judgment and rule, and to Him you are returning.” Thus it achieves true worship and servanthood and attains the rank of the best pattern of creation.
But if Selfhood forgets the Divine purpose of its creation, abandons its duty of creation, and views itself as a self-existing being independent of the Creator, it betrays the Trust and falls into the class of those referred to in: And he is indeed lost who corrupts it (91:10). This attitude or this aspect of Selfhood is responsible for all the kinds of polytheism, evil, and deviation that have caused the heavens, the earth, and the mountains to be terrified of assuming the Trust—lest they might be led to associate hypothetical partners with God.
If Selfhood, which is only an insubstantial alif, a thread, a hypothetical line, is not perceived in its true essence, it grows and swells under the soil of ignorance until it gradually permeates all parts of a human being. Like some huge monster, it completely swallows such people so that they and their faculties may consist of nothing more than Selfhood. Eventually, the tribal or national zealotry and human racism give strength to the individual selfhood. This causes it to contest, like Satan, the All-Majestic Maker’s commands. Finally taking itself as a yardstick, it compares everyone and everything with itself, divides God’s sovereignty between them and other causes, and begins to associate partners with God in the most grievous manner. Such people are referred to in: Surely associating partners with God is indeed a tremendous wrong (31: 13). Just as a man who has stolen money from the public treasury attempts to justify his action by saying that he took a certain sum for each of his friends, so too, one who claims self-ownership ends up believing and claiming that everything owns itself.
While in this treacherous position, Selfhood is in absolute ignorance. Even if it has absorbed thousands of branches of science, its ignorance is only compounded by its knowledge. For whatever glimmers of knowledge of God its senses and reflective powers may have brought to it from the universe, they are extinguished because it can no longer find within its soul anything with which to confirm, polish, and maintain them. Whatever comes to Selfhood is stained with the colors within it. Even if pure wisdom comes, it becomes absolutely futile within a selfhood stained with by atheism, polytheism, or other forms of denying the All-Mighty. If the whole universe were full of shining signs of God, a dark point in that selfhood would hide them from view, as though they were invisible.
In truth, however, the essential quality proper to human nature and to Selfhood within that nature is to point out what is other than itself. As discussed in the Eleventh Word, true to that nature, Selfhood is a most sensitive scale and accurate measure, a comprehensive index and perfect map, a comprehensive mirror, and a fitting calendar and diary for the universe.
We now shed some light on the truth of this subject. Consider the following: From Adam’s time until the present, two great currents or lines of thought have spread their branches in all directions and in every class of humanity, just like two tall trees. One is the line of Prophethood and religion; the other is that of philosophy and human wisdom. Whenever they agree and unite, whenever philosophy joins religion in obedience and service to it, humanity has experienced brilliant happiness and collective life. But whenever they have followed separate paths, truth and goodness have accumulated on the side of Prophethood and religion, whereas error, evil, and deviation have been drawn to the side of philosophy. We will elaborate on the origin and foundations of those two lines.
Philosophy, whenever it has split from religion, has taken the form of a tree of Zaqqum spreading its dark veils of ascribing partners to God and of misguidance. On the branch of the faculty of intellect or reason, it has yielded the fruits of atheism, materialism, and naturalism for the intellect’s consumption. On the branch of the faculty of anger and passion, it has produced such tyrants as Nimrod, Pharaoh, and Shaddad18 to tyrannize people. On the branch of the faculty of lusts and appetites, it has produced the fruits of goddesses, idols and those who have claimed divine status for themselves.19
In contrast, the blessed line of Prophethood, which takes the form of the Touba tree of worship, has borne the fruits of Prophets, Messengers, saints, and the righteous in the garden of the earth and on the branch of intellect. On the branch of anger and passion, the branch of defense against and repelling of evil, it has yielded the fruits of virtuous and just rulers. On the branch of attractiveness, it has borne the fruits of generous, benevolent per sons of good character and modest bearing throughout history. As a result, this line has demonstrated how humanity is the perfect fruit of creation.
We will now shed light on selfhood’s two aspects or faces as the origin and principal seed of these two lines of thought. One face is represented by Prophets and the other by philosophers.
The face represented by Prophethood is the origin of pure worship and servitude to God, for our selfhood knows that it is His servant. Selfhood realizes that it serves One other than itself and that its essential nature has only an indicative function. It understands that it bears the meaning of one other than itself and that it can be meaningful only when it points to that One upon Whom its existence depends. Selfhood believes that its existence and life depend upon that One’s Creativity and Existence. Its feeling of owner ship is illusory, for selfhood knows that it enjoys only an apparent, temporary ownership by the real Owner’s permission and that it has only a shadow-like reality. It is a contingent entity, an insignificant shadow manifesting the true and necessary Reality. Its duty is consciously serving as a measure and balance for its Creator’s Attributes and essential Characteristics.
This is how Prophets, pure and righteous ones, and saints who follow the Prophets’ line perceive selfhood’s nature. As a result, they resign sovereignty to the All-Majestic Sovereign and Master of creation and believe that He has no partner or like in His Sovereignty, Lordship, and Divinity. He does not need an assistant or a deputy. In addition, He possesses the key to and has absolute power over all things. “Natural” causes are but a veil of appearances, and that nature is the sum of His creation’s rules, an assemblage of His laws, of how He displays His Power.
This radiant, luminous, beautiful face of Selfhood always has been like a living seed full of meaning. From it, the All-Majestic Creator has created the Touba tree of worship, the blessed branches of which have adorned all parts of our world with its illustrious fruits. Through this face, the darkness over the past is removed and we understand that the past is not a domain of eternal extinction or a vast graveyard, as conceived by philosophy, but rather a source of light and a bright, shining ladder with many rungs from which all souls traversing it may leap into the future and eternal happiness. It is also a radiant abode and a garden for souls that have left this world, cast off their heavy loads, and been set free.
The second face, represented by philosophy, regards Selfhood as having an essential meaning of its own. It says that Selfhood has an independent existence, is an index only to itself, and labors wholly on its own behalf. It considers Selfhood’s existence as necessary and essential, and falsely assumes that selfhood owns its being and is the real lord and master of its own domain. Philosophy supposes Selfhood to be a permanent reality that has, as its duty, the quest for self-perfection for the sake of self-esteem.
As a result of such mistaken views, philosophers have built their schools of thought on corrupt foundations. Even such eminent philosophers as Plato and Aristotle, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and al-Farabi (Alfarabius), maintained that people’s ultimate aim is to make themselves like the Necessary Being; in other words, to actually resemble Him. Such views provoked Selfhood and set it free to run in the valleys of polytheism. This opened the way to associating partners with God via such practices as the worship of causes, idols, natural forces, and stars. They closed the doors to people’s perception and confession of their innate impotence and weakness, insufficiency and need, deficiency and imperfection, and thus blocked the road to worship and servitude to God. Immersed in naturalism and unable to escape from ascribing partners to God, they could not locate the wide open doors of gratitude.
In contrast, Prophethood considered that humanity’s aim and duty is to be molded by Divine values and achieve good character. Prophets believed that people should perceive their impotence and seek refuge with Divine Power, perceive their weakness and rely on Divine Strength, realize their insufficiency and essential poverty and trust in Divine Mercy, know their need and seek help from Divine Riches, see their faults and plead for pardon through Divine Forgiveness, and perceive their inadequacy and glorify Divine Perfection.
Philosophy’s deviation from the Straight Path, in disobedience to religion, caused Selfhood to take up the reins and gallop into error. Consequently, a tree of Zaqqum has grown out of such selfhood and swallowed up more than half of humanity. The fruits it has presented on the branch of lusts and appetites are idols and female deities, for according to the principles of philosophy, power is approved. “Might is right” is the norm. Its maxims are: “All power to the strongest”; “Winner takes all,” and “In power there is right.”20 It has given moral support to tyranny, encouraged dictators, and urged oppressors to claim divinity. By ascribing the beauty in “works of Art” and the threads of which they are made to the works and threads themselves, and not to the Maker and Fashioner’s pure, sacred Beauty, it says: “How beautiful it is,” not: “How beautifully made it is,” and thus considers each as an idol worthy of adoration.
In addition, philosophy adulates a cheap, self-conceited, ostentatious, superficial, transient, physical beauty that may be sold to anyone. This has led people into pretension and caused these new “idols” to display hypocritical reverence before their admirers.21 On the branch of anger and passion, it has nurtured the fruits of greater and lesser Nimrods, Pharaohs, and Shaddads to tyrannize unfortunate people. On the branch of intellect or reason, it has yielded such fruits as atheism, materialism, and naturalism, all of which it has embedded into the human mind and thereby thrown people into confusion. To clarify this truth, we will give a few examples and compare the results originating from Prophethood’s sound foundations with those arising from philosophy’s rotten foundations.
FIRST EXAMPLE: According to one of Prophethood’s principles concerning individual life, namely, the rule: “Be molded by Divine values,” there is the instruction: “Seek distinction through Divine values and turn toward the All-Mighty with humility, recognizing your impotence and insufficiency, and be a servant in His Court.” But philosophy, due to its self oriented principle of seeking human perfection in being like the Necessarily Existent Being, instructs: “Try to be like the Necessarily Existent Being.” This is impossible, for while the Necessarily Existent Being is infinitely powerful, omnipotent, self-sufficient, and without need, our essence has been mixed with infinite impotence, weakness, poverty, and need.
SECOND EXAMPLE: Among Prophethood’s principles of social life’s fundamental conditions are mutual assistance, magnanimity, and generosity. These function in the reciprocal cooperation of all things—from the sun and the moon down to particles. For example, plants help animals, animals help people, and particles of food help the body’s cells. Philosophy, however, considers conflict to be social life’s fundamental condition. In fact, conflict springs from tyrants, brutes, and savage people and wild animals misusing their innate dispositions. Conflict is so fundamental and general to the philosophers’ line of reasoning that they absurdly claim that “life is conflict.”
THIRD EXAMPLE: One sublime result and exalted principle of Prophethood about Divine Unity is: “That which has unity can proceed only from one (of unity).” That is, the unity and universal accord or harmony in existence is because of the Creator’s Oneness. Whereas philosophy states that “Only one proceeds from one.” Thus, as only one thing can proceed from one person, everything comes from that one by means of intermediaries. This misleading principle opened the way to a most grievous polytheism. By presenting the absolutely All-Powerful and Self-Sufficient as needing impotent inter mediaries, it gave all causes and intermediaries a kind of partnership in His Lordship and allotted only the creation of the “First Intellect” to the All Majestic Creator. If the Illuminists (Ishraqiyyun), considered among the foremost of philosophers, exerted themselves for such nonsense, just imagine how absurd are the theories of such inferior philosophers as materialists and naturalists.
FOURTH EXAMPLE: According to one of Prophethood’s wise principles that There is nothing but it glorifies Him with His praise (17:44), the purpose and wisdom in creation, particularly of living creatures, may have one aspect relating to the creature itself but many aspects relating to the Creator. For example, a fruit has as much wisdom and as many purposes involved in its creation as all fruits of a tree. However, according to philosophy’s principles, which lack true wisdom, every living creature’s purpose relates to itself or is connected with benefits for humanity. This means that creation is so sense less that the purpose of a mountain-like tree is only to yield a tiny fruit. It is one of the disastrous results of philosophy that such great Muslim philosophers as Ibn Sina and al-Farabi, infatuated by philosophy’s apparent glamour and deceived into following it, were considered only ordinary believers. Hujjatu’l-Islam al-Ghazzali did not accord them even that rank.
The leaders of the Mu‘tazili school, who were among the most learned scholars of Islamic theology, were attracted by philosophy’s glitter and became closely involved with it. Considering reason to be a self-sufficient and sound measure for determining the truth, they could not rise above the rank of heretical or novitiate belief. Furthermore, since they took pleasure in philosophy’s flattery of their evil-commanding souls, such famous literary figures in Islamic history as Abu’l-A‘la al-Ma‘arri, notorious for his pessimism, and Omar Khayyam, known for his pitiful weeping, basked in philosophy’s applause. However, they earned contempt, condemnation, and restraining reproofs from people of truth and perfection, who told them: “You are being impertinent. You are approaching heresy and leading others to heresy.”
Another consequence of philosophy’s rotten basis is that Selfhood, instead of being viewed as insubstantial, is seen as self-regarding and self dependent. This view has caused it to change from a “light vapor” into a “viscous liquid.” Due to our indifference to creation’s miraculous truths (as we now are “too familiar” with them) and our preoccupation with this world and natural sciences, that liquid hardens. After this, due to our neglect and denial, Selfhood “freezes.” It loses its refinement and becomes opaque, due to its rebelliousness, gradually becoming denser and enveloping the person. It then expands with all sorts of human fancies.
Finally supposing all people and even causes to be like itself—though they deny it—it considers each one a Pharaoh. At this point, it contests the All-Majestic Creator’s commands: Who will revive these bones when they have rotted away? (36:78) and, in defiance, accuses the absolutely All-Powerful of impotence. Selfhood even goes so far as to debase the All-Majestic Creator’s Attributes by rejecting or deforming the Attributes it deems unsuited to its interest or disagreeable to its Pharaoh-like evil-commanding soul.
For example, some philosophers considered the All-Mighty “self bound” (i.e., constrained by His own decree) and thus denied Him choice. They rejected creation’s endless testimony which proves that He has choice. Although all creatures show that the Creator has choice, each with its own individuality and order, wisdom and measure, this blind philosophy refuses to see it. Other philosophers claimed that Divine Knowledge does not contain the particulars, thereby denying the Attribute of all-encompassing Knowledge and refusing to accept creation’s true witnessing.
Philosophy also has attributed a creative effect to causes and thereby attributing creative power to nature. Since it does not see the clear stamp upon everything signifying the Creator of all things, philosophy assumes nature to be the originator. It ignores the facts that nature, whose supposed power is ascribed to blind chance and necessity, is impotent, inanimate, unconscious, and blind. It attributes a part of creation to nature, although every element is but a missive from God, the Eternally Besought, relaying thousands of instances of exalted wisdom.
Moreover, philosophers did not find the door to the Resurrection and the Hereafter, which the All-Mighty (with all of His Names), the universe (with all of its truths), the line of Prophethood (with all of its verifications), and the revealed Books (with all of their verses) demonstrate. As a result, they denied bodily resurrection and ascribed pre-eternity to souls. Such superstitions give an idea of what their views on other matters would be. Indeed, the powers of evil have raised up (flattered) the intellects or reason of disbelieving philosophers as though with the beaks and talons of their ego or selfhood and thrown them into the abyss of deviation. In the microcosm (human), they have made Ego or Selfhood into an idol or a false deity; in the macrocosm, they have made nature an object of worship. Hence, he who rejects the false deities (and powers of evil which institute patterns of faith and rule in defiance of God) and believes in God has indeed taken hold of the firm, unbreakable handle; and God is All-Hearing, All-Knowing (2:256).
It is useful to mention here, to elucidate the aforementioned truth, the meaning of an imaginary event I described as a visionary journey in Gleams of Truth. In İstanbul, eight years before I wrote this treatise, during Ramadan, at a time when the Old Said (concerned with philosophy) was about to become the New Said, while pondering over the three ways indicated at the end of Suratu’l-Fatiha—The Path of those whom You have favored, not of those who have incurred (Your) wrath, nor of those who are astray (1: 7)—I saw the following:
I was in a vast desert. The earth’s face was covered by a layer of murky, depressing, and suffocating clouds. There was no breeze, light, or water. I imagined that dangerous and dreadful monsters were everywhere. It occurred to me that there should be a light, a breeze, and some water at the other side of this land, and I should get there. I noticed that I was driven on involuntarily. Worming my way into an underground tunnel-like cave and gradually traveling through the earth, I saw that many people had passed this way before me. They were submerged on all sides. Sometimes I saw their footprints and heard their voices, which later ceased.
O friend who is with me on this imaginary journey. That land is nature and the philosophy of nature-worship. The tunnel is the way opened by philosophical thought to reach the truth. The footprints belonged to famous philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, and the voices I heard were those of such geniuses as Ibn Sina and al-Farabi.22 I occasionally encountered some of Ibn Sina’s ideas and principles but, after a time, they would disappear completely. Being unable to proceed, he was sub merged before reaching the truth. Anyhow, I showed you a small part of the truth to save you from anxiety. Now I return to my journey.
As I went on, I found that I had been given two things: a torch to dispel the darkness and a device that was opening a way for me through mighty boulders and rocks, which fell apart one after the other. I was told: “This torch and device have been given to you from the treasury of the Qur’an.”
After continuing on for a long time, I suddenly realized that I had come out on the other side. I saw a world where everything was rejoicing, and which had bright sunshine in the most beautiful springtime and an enlivening breeze and delicious life-giving water. I thanked and praised God.
Then I realized that instead of being in command of myself, I was being tested by someone. I again found myself under the suffocating cloud in that vast desert. Though now on another path, I still felt urged on by an unseen motive. This time I was traveling on the earth’s surface to reach the other side. I saw things so strange and curious that they cannot be described: raging seas, threatening storms—everything caused difficulties for me. As before, I felt my way through them with the help of the equipment that had been given to me from the Qur’an, and so overcame all of them. On the way, I frequently encountered the corpses of other travelers. Barely one in a thousand had completed this journey. However, I was saved from that suffocating cloud and came out the other side, happily, in full view of the shining sun. I breathed in the enlivening breeze and said: “All praise be to God.”
Then I started looking around that Paradise-like world. But someone would not let me stay there, for instantly I was returned to that dreadful desert as if I had to see another path. There I saw different sorts of apparatuses—some like airplanes, others like cars and hoists—all of which had descended like lifts. Those who jumped onto them were taken up as far as their power and capacity allowed. I jumped onto one of them, and, in a moment, was raised high above the cloud. I came out among the most beautiful, green, and spectacular mountain tops. The cloud layer only reached halfway up the mountains, and mild breezes, delicious water, and gentle light were everywhere, as were those lift-like luminous vehicles. Although I had seen them in the first two parts of my journey and on the earth’s other face, I had not understood what they were. Now I came to realize that they were manifestations of the All-Wise Qur’an’s verses.
The first way, indicated by nor of those who are astray, is that of people submerged in nature and followers of naturalism. You have seen how many difficulties this way contains. The second way, indicated by not of those who have incurred Your wrath, is followed by those who attribute creative power and creative effect to causes and intermediaries, and those (like the Peripatetic philosophers) who seek to open the way to the ultimate truth and knowledge of the Necessarily Existent Being through reasoning and thinking alone. The third way, indicated by those whom You have favored, it is the radiant highway of those who follow the Qur’an, the people of the Straight Path. This radiant highway is a brilliant path revealed and bestowed by God, the All-Merciful. It is the shortest, easiest, and safest way, and is open to everyone.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
17The alif is a short, vertical line representing the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and the word ana. The nuqta is the dot in the Arabic script from which all letters are made by either a horizontal or vertical extension. This same dot is used in Arabic to represent zero. (Tr.)
18 Shaddad was a tyrannical king of Antiquity who ruled in Yemen. (Tr.)
19 The philosophies of ancient Egypt and Babylon, which either practiced magic or were thought to do so because they were represented by a small elite, produced and nurtured Nimrods and Pharaohs. The mire of naturalist philosophy gave birth to idolatry and planted deities in the ancient Greek mind. When humanity draws the veil of nature between Divine light and itself, people attribute divinity to everything and cause themselves nothing but trouble.
20 The principle of Prophethood says: “Power is inherent in right; right is not inherent in power.” It thus halts tyranny and secures justice.
21 In order to appear desirable to their admirers and gain their attention, such people display a kind of “worshipful” attitude through a hypocritical show.
22 If asked: “Who are you to challenge these famous philosophers? While you are like a fly, how dare you challenge the flight of eagles?” I would reply: “I have an eternal teacher like the Qur’an, and so, in matters of the truth and knowledge of God, do not need to attach as much value as a gnat’s wing to such eagles, who were students of misguided philosophy and deluded reason. However inferior I am to them, their teacher is far more inferior to mine. With the help of my “teacher”—the Qur’an—nature and materialistic tendencies that led them to drown cannot even wet my toes. An insignificant private who serves a great ruler’s laws and commands can achieve more than an insignificant ruler’s chief general.”