Twenty-First Word
The "Twenty-First Word" addresses some of the challenges that the lower soul and Satan pose to believers. It has two stations. The "First Station" focuses on the lower soul's laziness in performing daily prayers and explains the preciousness and necessity of daily prayers. The "Second Station" offers a potent remedy against obsessive thoughts that originate from Satan's whisperings.
Click to listen to Episode 01 (Warnings to the lower soul about performing daily prayers), Episode 02 (Continued, on patience, promise of reward, and threat of punishment), Episode 03 (Continued, on worldly occupation and prayer), and Episode 04 (On Satanic whisperings).
After Episode 04, I started to make videos. To listen to the new version of Episode 04: Audio / Video (obsessive thoughts, First Aspect); Episode 05: Audio / Video (obsessive thoughts, Second and Third Aspects); and Episode 06: Audio / Video (obsessive thoughts, Fourth and Fifth Aspects).
Back to The Words.
ROUGH TRANSLATION from the RISALE-I NUR
translated by Dr. Mustafa Tuna
A rough translation of the section that is being discussed is posted below. This is a work in progress and should not be considered a finalized translation. It is only meant to help with understanding the recorded discussion.
It has two stations.
FIRST STATION
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Mercy-giver
اِنَّ الصَّلٰوةَ كَانَتْ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ كِتَاباً مَوْقوُتاً
“… for prayer is obligatory for the believers at prescribed times (Qur’an, 4: 103).”
Once, a man who was great age-wise, bodily, and in rank told me: “Prayer is good. However, performing it every day and five times every day is too much. Since it never ends, it causes weariness.”
A long time after these words by his person, I listened to my lower soul. I heard it say the same things. I looked at it and saw it receiving the same lesson from Satan with the ear of laziness. Then, I understood that as though that person had said those words in the name of all evil-commanding souls or had been made to say so. So, I said: “Since my lower soul is an evil-commanding soul, and he who does not reform his soul cannot reform others, in that case, I begin with my own soul.”
I said: “O lower soul! In response to these words that you are uttering in a state of compounded ignorance, in the bed of laziness and the slumber of heedlessness, hear these five warnings from me:”
First Warning
O, my unfortunate soul! Wonder, do you have an eternal lifespan? Do you have any definitive voucher to vouch that you will stay till next year or even till tomorrow?
What wearies you is the supposition of eternity. To enjoy yourself, you are feigning reluctance as though you will remain eternally in the world. Had you understood that your lifespan is brief and it is departing without benefit, surely, spending one twenty-fourth of it for an agreeable, comfortable, and merciful service that will be the grounds for the felicity of eternal life would be the cause for stimulating serious motivation and an agreeable pleasure, let alone causing weariness.
Second Warning
O, my lower soul that is in love with the stomach! Wonder, you eat bread each and every day, you drink water and breath the air, do these weary you?
Since they do not – because since the need repeats, you feel pleasure, not weariness, in that case, the prayer that attracts and summons the nutrition for my heart, the water of life for my spirit, and the sweet breeze of my lordly subtle faculty, which are your friends in the house of my body, should not weary you either.
Yes, the sustenance and strength of a heart that is subject to and afflicted with endless distress and pains and infatuated and wildly in love with endless delights and expectations can be attained by knocking with beseechment on the door of a Mercy-Giving and Munificent One Who has power over all things.
Yes, as for the water of life for a spirit that is connected in this temporal World with most existent beings that depart with perfect rapidity raising a squall of separation, it can be drunk by turning with prayer to the fountain of mercy of an Everlasting Worshipped One and a Perpetual Beloved.
Yes, surely, within this world’s depressive, crushing, troublesome, temporary, dark, and suffocating conditions, a conscious human secret, a luminous lordly subtle faculty, which demands eternity by its innate nature, is created for eternity, is the mirror of a pre-eternal and post-eternal Entity, and is delicate and full of subtleties to an endless degree, is much in need of breathing. And it can only breathe through the window of prayer.
Third Warning
O my impatient lower soul! Wonder, does it make sense at all to think about the burdens of worship, the difficulties of prayer, and the hardships of calamity from the past days today, to conceptualize the duties of worship, service of prayer, and pains of calamity from the future days also today, and thus, to show impatience?
Your likeness in this impatience is such an addlebrained commander that while the right flank of the enemy has joined his forces to his right and become a fresh force for him, he sends one of his significant forces to the right flank and weakens the center.
Also, while the enemy has no forces on the right flank, before they have arrived, he sends a huge force there, orders them to shoot, and thus, totally weakens the center. The enemy recognizes the situation, attacks the center, and routes it all.
Yes, you resemble this. For today, the hardships of past days have turned into mercy. Their pains have gone and delight is left behind. Their burdens have joined bounties and their difficulties have turned into rewards. In that case, it behooves not to be wearied by this but to have renewed enthusiasm, fresh delight, and a serious effort to continue on. As for the future days, since they have not arrived yet, thinking about them from now, being wearied as a result and falling into apathy is a lunacy just like crying and wailing by thinking about the hunger and thirst of those future days.
Since this is the reality, if you are intelligent, think of today alone when it comes to worship. And say: “I am spending one hour of this day on an agreeable, beautiful, and lofty service the recompense for which is utterly great and its burden utterly small.” Then, your bitter apathy turns into sweet effort.
So, o my impatient lower soul! You are accountable for three types of patience. One is patience in obedience, another patience against disobedience, and yet another, patience in the face of calamity. If you have intellect, take the reality that appears in the representation of this Third Warning as a guide, say “O the Patient” with valiance, and take the three types of patience on your shoulders. If you do not squander the force of patience that the Sublime Real has given to you on the wrong way, it can suffice for all difficulties and calamities. And so, hold on with that force.
Fourth Warning
O my addlebrained lower soul! Is this duty of worship inconsequential? Is its recompense so little as to weary you? Whereas, if a man gave you a few paras[1] or if he intimidated you, he would make you work till the evening, and you would work without apathy. Wonder, is a prayer that is sustenance and wealth for your impotent and poor heart in this guesthouse of the world, nutrition and light in your grave that will surely be your stopping point, a voucher and a warrant at the Resurrection which, by all means, will be your judgement, and lumination and a mount on the Bridge of Sirat that will have to be crossed willy nilly of no consequence, or is its recompense too little.
If a man promised you a gift worth a hundred liras, he would have you work for a hundred days. You would trust that man who may break his promise, and you would work without apathy. Wonder, do you not think that if an Entity for Whom breaking a promise is inconceivable promises a recompense like Paradise and a gift like eternal felicity to you and employs you for an utterly short period of time in an utterly beautiful duty, but you do not serve, or serve unwillingly, dragging your feet, or with weariness, with that perfunctory service of yours, will you not deserve a severe disciplining and a dreadful torment? While you serve in this world out of the fear of imprisonment, in the heaviest of works without apathy, is the fear of an eternal imprisonment like Hell not encouraging you to exert effort in a most light and agreeable service?
[1] A very small unit of money used in the Ottoman Empire, which also means “money” today.
Fifth Warning
O my lower soul that worships the world! Wonder, are your weariness in worship and defects in performing your prayers due to the abundance of worldly occupations or not being able to find time while occupied by the worries of livelihood? Wonder, are you created for the world alone that you are spending all your time on it?
You know that you are above all animals with regard to aptitudes yet cannot reach a sparrow with regard to having the power to procure the requirements of your worldly life. Why do you not understand from this that your original duty is not to toil like an animal but to exert effort, like a true human being, for a true and continuous life?
Besides, most of what you call “worldly occupations” are meaningless occupations that do not belong to you and that you interfere needlessly and mess up. You abandon the most necessary thing and spend your time with the least necessary pieces of information as though you have a lifespan of thousands of years. For instance, you are passing your precious time with worthless things like: “What are the qualities of the rings around Saturn?” and “How many are the chickens of America?” It is as though you will attain some perfection from the sciences of astronomy and statistics!
If you say: “What prevents me from prayers and worship and causes weariness is not such unnecessary things but the necessary affairs of the concern of livelihood.”
Then, I say to you:
If you work for a hundred kurushs a day, then someone comes to you and says: “Come, dig this spot for ten minutes. You will find a brilliant diamond and an emerald worth a hundred liras.” If you say to this person: “No, I won’t come because that would be deducted from my ten kurushs of daily pay and reduce my sustenance…” Surely, you recognize what a lunatic excuse that this would be.
Just like that, you are working for your sustenance in this orchard you have. If you leave the obligatory prayer, the fruit of all of your efforts will be restricted merely to a worldly and insignificant sustenance that lacks in blessings. If you spend the time that is for rest and breathing on prayer, which is a cause of comfort for the spirit and a breather for the heart, then, in addition to a blessed worldly sustenance, you find two metaphysical mines that will be two important fonts for your otherworldly sustenance and for your provisions in the Hereafter.
First mine: With a beautiful intention, you receive a share from the glorifications of every plant and tree – be it flowering or fruit-bearing – that you grow in your orchard (sidenote).
Second mine: Also, whoever eats from the produce of this orchard – be it an animal or human, a cow or a fly, a buyer or a thief – that becomes in effect charity for you. However, this is on condition that you dispose in the name of the True Provider and within the circle of what He permits and that you see yourself like a distribution official who gives His property to His creatures.
So look, what a great loss is for he who abandons prayer. What a significant wealth he loses. He becomes deprived of those two outcomes and mines that stir such great enthusiasm and provide a great amount of metaphysical strength for work; he goes bankrupt. As he grows older, he even becomes fed up with gardening and weariness descends on him. He says: “Why do I need this? I am departing from this world anyway. Why should I put up with so much effort?” Thus, he throws himself into laziness. However, the first man says: “I will work more to put in halal effort and to worship, so that I send more light to my grave and procure more provisions for my Hereafter.”
In conclusion: O soul! Know that yesterday has slipped out of your hand. As for tomorrow, you have nothing in your hand to vouch that you own it. In that case, consider your true span of life the day you are in. Throw at least one hour of the day, like a reserve fund, into a mosque or on a prayer rug, which is a little otherworldly coffer built for the true future.
Also, know that every new day is the gate of a new realm for you and for every person. If you do not perform your prayer, your realm on that day departs in darkness and in a distraught state; it testifies against you in the realm of similitudes. For, in every day, everyone has a private realm from this Realm. Moreover, the qualities of that realm follow that person’s heart and deeds. In the way that a magnificent palace that appears on your mirror takes on the mirror’s color, it looks black if the mirror is black, red if it is red… And also, it takes on the qualities of the mirror. If the mirror’s glass is smooth, it shows the palace beautiful. If it is not smooth, it shows ugly. Similar to the way that it shows the most delicate things as coarse, with your heart, intellect, deeds, and feelings, you change your realm’s shape. You can make it testify either for you or against you. If you perform the prayers and face the Majestic Artful Maker of that realm with that prayer, at once, your realm that is facing you becomes illuminated. As though your prayer is an electric lamp and your intention for the prayer touching its switch, doing so dispels the darknesses of that realm. It shows that the replacements and movements in the disorderly distraughtness of the world’s chaos are but wise orderliness and a meaningful inscription of power. It sprinkles a light from the pure lights of the verse of “God is the light of the heavens and Earth (Qur'an, 24: 35),” to your heart. It enlightens your realm on that day with the reflection of that light, it makes it testify with luminosity for you.
Do not ever say: “Where is my prayer and where is the reality of prayer.” For a date seed contains the properties of its tree just like the date tree does. The difference is in aggregation and detail. Just like that, the prayer of an ordinary person like you and me – even if he does not perceive it – has a share from this light like the prayer of a great saint. It has a secret from this reality – even if your consciousness is not involved. That having been said, its unfolding and illumination varies according to degrees. As there are so many levels from a date seed to a complete date tree, likewise, there can be even more levels in the degrees of prayer. Still, the essence of the luminous reality exists in all those levels.
اَللّٰهُمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلِّمْ عَلٰى مَنْ قَالَ (اَلصَّلٰوةُ عِمَادُ الدِّينِ) وَعَلٰۤى اٰلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِۤ اَجْمَعِينَ
O God send blessings and peace upon the one who said: “Prayer is the center pole of religion,” and upon his family and companions together.
sidenote: This “Station” is a lesson to a person at an orchard, and so, it is articulated in this way.
SECOND STATION
It entails five salves for five wounds of the heart:
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
رَبِّ اَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ هَمَزَاتِ الشَّيَاطِينِ وَاَعُوذُ بِكَ رَبِّ اَنْ يَحْضُرُونِ
“and say, ‘Lord, I take refuge with You from the goadings of the evil ones // and I seek refuge with you, Lord, so that they may not come near me’ (Qur’an, 23: 97-98).”
O he who is afflicted with the disease of obsessive thoughts! Do you know what your obsessive thought is like? It is like calamity. When you give importance to it, it inflates; if you do not give importance, it deflates. If you see it big, it grows; if you see it small, it shrinks. If you fear it, it becomes heavier and makes you sick; if you are not afraid, it becomes light and remains hidden. If you do not know its quiddity, it continues and settles; if you know its quiddity and recognize it, it goes away.
In that case, of the many categories of this calamitouos obsessive thought, I will expound only “Five Aspects” that happen frequently. Perhaps, it may be a means for healing for you and me, for this obsessive thought is such a thing that ignorance invites and knowledge expels it. If you do not recognize it, it comes; if you reccognize it, it goes away.
First Aspect – First Wound
Satan casts doubt into the heart first. If it does not accept it, it turns from doubt into sacrilege. It depicts before the imagination some dirty thoughts that resemble sacrilege and ugly states that are in violation of proper etiquette. It makes the heart say “Woe to me” and fall into despair. A man with obsessive thoughts presumes that his heart is being disrespectful to his Lord. He feels a dreadful trepidation and anxiety. To get rid of this, he flees from divine presence and wants to plunge into heedlessness. The salve for this is the following:
Look, O helpless obsessive man! Do not be alarmed. For what comes into your thoughts is not sacrilege. Rather, it is imagination. As imagining disbelief is not disbelief, imagining sacrilege is not sacrilege. For according to logic, imagination is not judgement but sacrilege is.
In addition to this, those ugly words are not the words of your heart, for your heart is affected by it and regrets it. Rather, they are coming from the satanic “fellow traveller” (lummah shaytaniyyah) that is close to the heart. The harm of obsessive thought is in the supposition of harm. In other words, its harm is in feeling harm in the heart by supposing it to be harmful. For he supposes an imagination without judgment to have reality. He also attributes Satan’s work to his heart. He thinks that Satan’s words are from the heart. He perceives it to be harmful and falls into harm. And this is what Satan wants after all.
Second Aspect
It is this that when meanings leave the heart, they enter imagination naked without imagery, and there, they clothe in images. As for imagination, it always weaves some types of imagery under the influence of this or that cause. It leaves on the way the images of things to which it gives importance. Whatever meaning passes through it, it either clothes it, attaches to it, taints it, or veils it. If the meanings are pure and clean, yet the images are polluted and despicable, then there is contact but no clothing. The person with obsessive thoughts confuses contact with clothing and says: “Woe to me. How corrupted has my heart become. This lowliness and vileness of the lower soul will make me expelled.” Satan takes advantage of this vein of his a lot.
The salve for this wound is this: Listen O helpless one! In the way that the filth in your abdomen does not affect and ruin the external purity that is the means for the pure etiquette of prayer, likewise, the proximity of sacred meanings to polluted images does not cause harm. For example, say you are contemplating divine verses. Suddenly, a rousing sensation, such as an illness, an appetite, or the need to pass water, triggers your senses. Of course, your imagination will see whatever is required to remedy the affliction or answer the need; it will look and weave the lowly images that suit them. And the meanings that come will pass between them. There is no trouble, nor pollution, nor harm, nor danger for what passes through. The only danger is in paying attention and presuming harm.
Episode 04 (Audio / Video) [Note that this new video recording repeats the beginning of the treatise. Therefore, we have two versions of “Episod 04.”]
SECOND STATION
It entails five salves for five wounds of the heart:
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
رَبِّ اَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ هَمَزَاتِ الشَّيَاطِينِ وَاَعُوذُ بِكَ رَبِّ اَنْ يَحْضُرُونِ
“and say, ‘Lord, I take refuge with You from the goadings of the evil ones // and I seek refuge with you, Lord, so that they may not come near me’ (Qur’an, 23: 97-98).”
O he who is afflicted with the disease of obsessive thoughts! Do you know what your obsessive thought is like? It is like calamity. When you give importance to it, it inflates; if you do not give importance, it deflates. If you see it big, it grows; if you see it small, it shrinks. If you fear it, it becomes heavier and makes you sick; if you are not afraid, it becomes light and remains hidden. If you do not know its quiddity, it continues and settles; if you know its quiddity and recognize it, it goes away.
In that case, of the many categories of this calamitouos obsessive thought, I will expound only “Five Aspects” that happen frequently. Perhaps, it may be a means for healing for you and me, for this obsessive thought is such a thing that ignorance invites and knowledge expels it. If you do not recognize it, it comes; if you reccognize it, it goes away.
First Aspect – First Wound
Satan casts doubt into the heart first. If it does not accept it, it turns from doubt into sacrilege. It depicts before the imagination some dirty thoughts that resemble sacrilege and ugly states that are in violation of proper etiquette. It makes the heart say “Woe to me” and fall into despair. A man with obsessive thoughts presumes that his heart is being disrespectful to his Lord. He feels a dreadful trepidation and anxiety. To get rid of this, he flees from divine presence and wants to plunge into heedlessness. The salve for this is the following:
Look, O helpless obsessive man! Do not be alarmed. For what comes into your thoughts is not sacrilege. Rather, it is imagination. As imagining disbelief is not disbelief, imagining sacrilege is not sacrilege. For according to logic, imagination is not judgement but sacrilege is.
In addition to this, those ugly words are not the words of your heart, for your heart is affected by it and regrets it. Rather, they are coming from the satanic “fellow traveller” (lummah shaytaniyyah) that is close to the heart. The harm of obsessive thought is in the supposition of harm. In other words, its harm is in feeling harm in the heart by supposing it to be harmful. For he supposes an imagination without judgment to have reality. He also attributes Satan’s work to his heart. He thinks that Satan’s words are from the heart. He perceives it to be harmful and falls into harm. And this is what Satan wants after all.
Second Aspect
It is this that when meanings leave the heart, they enter imagination naked without imagery, and there, they clothe in images. As for imagination, it always weaves some types of imagery under the influence of this or that cause. It leaves on the way the images of things to which it gives importance. Whatever meaning passes through it, it either clothes it, attaches to it, taints it, or veils it. If the meanings are pure and clean, yet the images are polluted and despicable, then there is contact but no clothing. The person with obsessive thoughts confuses contact with clothing and says: “Woe to me. How corrupted has my heart become. This lowliness and vileness of the lower soul will make me expelled.” Satan takes advantage of this vein of his a lot.
The salve for this wound is this: Listen O helpless one! In the way that the filth in your abdomen does not affect and ruin the external purity that is the means for the pure etiquette of prayer, likewise, the proximity of sacred meanings to polluted images does not cause harm. For example, say you are contemplating divine verses. Suddenly, a rousing sensation, such as an illness, an appetite, or the need to pass water, triggers your senses. Of course, your imagination will see whatever is required to remedy the affliction or answer the need; it will look and weave the lowly images that suit them. And the meanings that come will pass between them. There is no trouble, nor pollution, nor harm, nor danger for what passes through. The only danger is in paying attention and presuming harm.
Third Aspect
It is this that there are some hidden relations between things. Threads of relations exist even among completely unexpected things. It either exists in and of itself or your imagination has made those threads in accordance with the art with which it is preoccupied and tied them together. It is due to the secret of this relationship that sometimes seeing a sacred thing calls to mind a dirty thing. As it is explained in the science of eloquence: “The opposition that is a cause for distance in the external world is a cause for closeness in the imagination.” That is, the means for bringing together the forms of two opposites is an imaginary relationship. The thoughts that come through this relationship are called “association of ideas.” For instance, while you are engaged in a colloquy or performing a prayer in divine presence in front of the Kaaba, this association of ideas takes hold of and drives you to the furthest meaningless vile things.
If your head is afflicted with such an association of ideas, beware, do not panic. Instead, return to the moment when you became aware of this situation. Do not keep occupying yourself with the analysis of the matter, saying “Oh mine, what did I do wrong!” so that that weak relationship does not gain power as a result of your attention. For, as you show distress and pay attention, your thoughts turn into a permanent faculty and become a disease of the imagination. Do not be afraid, this is not a disease of the heart. Such thoughts are predominantly without volition. It is more dominant especially in sensitive and nervous people.
The salve for this wound is the following:
The association of ideas are predominantly not volitional; there is no accountability in this. Moreover, in association there is neighborhood, not contact or blending. Therefore, the qualities of ideas do not pass onto one another. As Satan and the angel of inspiration are neighbors around the heart, and as the proximity of open sinners and the devout or their being in the same location does not cause harm, likewise, if dirty imaginations that you do not want come and enter among clean ideas at the prompting of the association of ideas, this does no harm – unless it is intentional or one occupies himself too much with them by presuming them to be harmful. Also, sometimes the heart gets tired. The mind occupies itself with a random thing in order to entertain itself. Satan finds an opportunity in this. It scatters dirty things in front of it and goads them to it.
Fourth Aspect
This is an obsessive thought that originates from searching for the best form of deeds. As it increases in intensity with the presumption of God consciousness, one’s obsessive state becomes more intense too. It reaches such a degree that this person stumbles into the domain of the prohibited while seeking better deeds. Sometimes, seeking a sunnah causes one to abandon what is obligatory. One asks, “I wonder if my deed was sound?” and does it again. This state continues, and he falls into utmost despair. Satan takes advantage of this state and wounds him. This wound has two salves:
First salve: Obsessive thoughts like this become the people of i’tizal (the Mu’tazilites), for they say: “The acts and things that become subject to accountability either have a beauty in their entity regarding the Hereafter and have been commanded because of that beauty, or likewise, they have an ugliness and have been prohibited because of that. That means, the beauty and ugliness that exist in things with regard to the Hereafter and reality are entitative; the divine command and prohibition follow them.” According to this madhab, an obsessive thought like the following arises in every deed a person performs: “I wonder if my deed is performed in the beautiful form that exists in external reality?”
Yet, the People of the Sunnah and the Community, which is the true madhab, say: “The Sublime Real commands something, and after this, it becomes beautiful. He prohibits, and after this, it becomes ugly.” In that case, beauty becomes real through command and ugliness through prohibition. Beauty and ugliness concern the awareness of the accountable person and are accordingly decided. This beauty and ugliness are not on the formal face of a thing that faces the world but on the face that looks to the Hereafter. For example, let’s say you performed a prayer or took ablution. However, there was a cause in external reality that would spoil your prayer or ablution even though you never became aware of it. Your prayer and ablution would still be sound and beautiful. The Mu’tazilites say: “It is ugly and spoiled in reality, but it is accepted from you, for you are ignorant and did not know.” In that case, follow the madhab of the People of the Sunnah and do not enter into obsessive thoughts saying, “I wonder if this was sound?” about the deeds that you have performed according to the external form required by the Shariah. Instead, say: “Is it accepted?” Do not become vainglorious, do not fall into vanity.
Second salve: There is no constriction in religion. لاَحَرَجَ فِى الدِّينِ Since the four madhabs are all true, and since – for such a person with obsessive thoughts – the perception of a shortcoming that leads to seeking forgiveness is preferable over seeing a deed to be beautiful, which leads to vainglory. That is, for a man with obsessive thoughts like this, seeing shortcomings in his deed and seeking forgiveness is better than seeing his deed to be beautiful and falling into vainglory.
Since this is the case, throw away the obsessive thought. Say to Satan: “This state is a constriction. Knowing the true state of reality is difficult; it contradicts the facility in religion. It is against the principle of لاَحَرَجَ فِى الدِّينِ ..اَلدِّينُ يُسْرٌ “Religion is facility… There is no constriction in religion.” One way or another, my deed will conform to one of the true madhabs. That is sufficient for me. Moreover, at the very least, admitting my impotence and taking refuge in divine mercy, by seeking forgiveness for not being able to fulfill the requirements of worship as due and by showing the direness of my condition, is a means for me to beseech in a state of self-abasement for the acceptance of my defective deed.”
Fifth Aspect
These obsessive thoughts come in the form of doubt in matters of faith. Sometimes, the helpless obsessive person confuses imagination with reasoning. That is, he supposes a doubt that enters the imagination to have entered the intellect and presumes his credence to be damaged. Also, sometimes he presumes a supposed doubt to be dubiousness that is harmful to the faith. Also, sometimes he presumes a doubt that he conceptualizes to have entered among rational affirmations. Also, sometimes he presumes the contemplation of an affair that entails disbelief to be disbelief. That is, he presumes the activity and analysis of the power of reflection in the form of understanding the causes of deviation and its impartial judgment to contradict the faith. So, he fears these presumptions resulting from satanic inculcations and says: “Woe to me! My heart has spoiled. My credence is damaged.” Because such states are mostly without volition and he cannot fix them with his partial volition, he falls into despair. The salve for this wound is this:
As imagining disbelief is not disbelief, so is the presumption of disbelief not disbelief. As conceptualizing deviation is not deviation, so is contemplating deviation not deviation. For imagination, supposition, conceptualization, and contemplation are all different from and something other than rational affirmation and the heart’s internalization. Those are independent to a degree. They do not listen to partial volition much. They cannot be included in religious accountability. Affirmation and credence are not like that. They are subject to a scale.
Moreover, as imagination, supposition, conceptualization, and contemplation are not affirmation or credence, so can they not be considered doubt or hesitation. However, if they gain constancy due to unnecessary repetition, then a real doubt can be born out of this.
Also, by repeatedly complying with the opposing option in the name of impartial judgment and fairness, [the intellect] may attain such a state that it involuntarily complies with the opposing side. Compliance with the truth that is obligatory on a person shatters. One falls into danger. A state that becomes an intrusive deputy of the opponent or of Satan becomes established in his mind.
The most significant type of these obsessive thoughts is this: The obsessive person confuses entitative possibility with mental possibility. That is, if something appears to be possible in itself, he supposes it to be mentally possible and rationally dubious as well. However, it is among the principles of the science of kalam that entitative possibility does not eliminate certainty of knowledge or contradict mental necessity. For example, it is possible for the Black Sea to sink into the earth at this very moment; this is possible in itself and it is within the realm of likelihood with regard to entitative possibility. However, we judge with certainty and know without a doubt that that sea is in its place. That likelihood of possibility and entitative possibility does not give dubiousness to us, it does not cause doubt, and it does not spoil our certainty. For example, it is possible in itself for this sun not to set today or rise tomorrow. However, this possibility does not harm our certainty nor does it cause doubt.
So, likewise, for example, the suppositions arising from the side of entitative possibility about the setting of worldly life and the rising of the life of the Hereafter, which are among the truths of faith, do not harm the certainty of faith. Also, the famous principle of لاَعِبْرَةَ ِلْلاِحْتِمَالِ الْغَيْرِ النَّاشِئِ عَنْ دَلِيلٍ , that is, “a likelihood that does not originate from an indication has no significance,” is among the established rules of both the methodology or religion and the methodology of jurisprudence.
If you say: “Why do these obsessive thoughts, which are harmful and vexing to the believers to a degree, trouble us?”
Answer: Provided that it does not reach the level of excess and triumph over a person, the original obsessive thoughts cause vigilance, invite investigation, and are a means for seriousness. They throw out indifference and chase away carefree disregard. It is due to this that in this abode of testing and the arena of competition, the Absolute All-Wise has given obsessive thoughts to Satan’s hands as a whip of encouragement; he hits on the human beings’ heads. If it hurts too much, one should complain to the All-Wise Mercy-Giver and say: اَعوُذُ بِاللهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ “I take refuge with God from the stoned Satan.”