Twenty-fourth window: Consider the following verse:

There is no god but He. All things are perishing except His "Face;" His is the sovereignty and unto Him you are being returned. (28:88)

Death is a proof of Divine Lordship to the degree of life, a very strong evidence of His Oneness. According to the meaning of: He has created death and life (67: 2), death is neither total non-existence or extinction, nor absolute annihilation or decay without one who authors it. Rather, as the First Letter points out,[4]  it is a discharge from worldly service by an All-Wise Author, a change of place and bodily renewal, a freeing from duties, a release from the body's prison, a pre-determined and well-ordered work of wisdom. Just as Earth's lively face, as well as its creatures and animate beings, testify to an All-Wise Maker's necessary Existence and Unity, so do those living creatures bear witness through their death to an Ever-Living, Permanent One's Oneness and Eternity. As such matters were explained in The Twenty-second Word, we will explain here only the following subtle point.

Through their lives, living beings testify to a Necessarily Existent One's Existence; through their death, they bear witness to an Ever-Living Permanent One's Eternity and Oneness. For example, Earth's face is alive and shows the Maker through all of its features and orderliness. When it dies during winter and is covered with a white shroud, our view of its face is distracted or this wintry corpse of spring diverts our attention to the past and brings a broader spectacle to our eyes. In other words, all past springs, each a miracle of Divine Power covering Earth's face, urge the conviction that a new spring will come and that Earth's face will be revived and refilled with living creatures. All past springs, as well as Earth's face [which has experienced cycles of life and death for millions of years] bear witness to the necessary Existence, Unity, Permanence, and Eternity of an All-Majestic Maker, an All-Powerful One of Perfection, a Self-Subsistent, Permanent One, so brilliantly and strongly and on such a vast scale, and present such clear proofs, that one cannot help but proclaim: "I believe in God, the One, the Single."

According to the meaning of: He revives Earth after its death, just as this lively Earth testifies to the Maker through spring, it also attracts attention to the Divine Power's miracles arranged on the two wings of time—the past and the future—through its death. In place of one spring it shows thousands. It also points to thousands of Power's miracles in place of just one. The testimony of one of  those past springs is more decisive than that of the present spring, for all past springs have disappeared, together with their apparent causes, and been replaced by new ones like themselves.

This shows that apparent causes mean nothing, for an All-Powerful One of Majesty creates and dispatches them. However, He makes them dependent on certain causes due to His Wisdom. As for Earth's lively faces, arranged in sequence in time to come, their witness is more forceful, for they will be made while there is yet no sign of them. Each one will be original and, after being sent for definite duties, will be removed.

So, O heedless one drowning in the swamp of naturalism, how can something without a wise and powerful hand reaching all past and future interfere with Earth's living face? Can chance and nature, which mean nothing (with respect to creating, sustaining, and causing to die) have a hand in this? If you want to be freed from this swamp, say: "Nature is no more than a notebook of Divine Power, and chance is the veil of a hidden Divine Wisdom that hides our ignorance," and draw close to the truth.

[4] 2Said Nursi, The Letters, vol. 1 (The Light, Inc., 1998).

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