Introduction

That life (ḥayāt), spirit (rūḥ ) and angels (malā’ika) should be treated in the same chapter reflects for the most part the inextricability of the links which Nursi believes exist between them. For him, the very goal of creation itself is that God’s name ‘The Ever-Living One’ (al- Ḥayy) be made manifest in the form of creatures who, by virtue of the reflection of this name upon them, may come consciously to know, worship and love the One who has given them life. The famous Prophetic Tradition that is a staple of Nursian cosmology – “I was a hidden treasure, so I created creation that it might know Me” – alludes, among other things, to the fact that the cosmos is brought into being as a mirror in which God ‘observes’ His own attributes. Among those attributes is life, and so one may extrapolate from the Tradition and conclude that one of the overriding reasons for the creation of living creatures is so that the Ever-Living might be perceived.

Life, as we shall see, is linked closely to the notion of spirit, but is not, as some may think, identical with it. All that is living does not have spirit, which in Nursian terms is the ‘choicest essence’ of life, reserved for creatures at the apex of the ontological hierarchy. The ‘choicest’ of those beings endowed with spirit, Nursi asserts, are those who possess consciousness, and the being that is most conscious of all is man. Life, spirit and consciousness, then, find their supreme expression in the creation of the human being, who is not only the most comprehensive locus of manifestation (maẓhar) of all of the Divine Names, but also their most perfect potential exhibitor (muẓhir). As such, man is arguably more ‘alive’ than any other creature in the cosmos, and is thus perfectly placed to act as the mirror par excellence in which God ‘observes’ His own name, ‘The Ever-Living One’.

It is perfectly justifiable, then, that life and spirit should be considered together. But what of angels? Belief in angels is, along with belief in God, His Books, His Prophets and the Resurrection, one of the five core theological principles in which Muslims are expected to believe through intellectual investigation (taḥqīq) rather than blind imitation (taqlīd); in other words, they are principles which are, according to Muslim theologians, to be accepted by virtue of the endeavours of human ratiocination rather than merely as a result of scriptural diktat and ‘emulation’, as is the case with Muslim law and the principles of jurisprudence. That belief in angels constitutes one of the ‘articles of faith’ mentioned by the Quran should tell us something about their significance as an integral component of the Quranic cosmological schema.