on divine unity and the pillars of belief in the Qur'an is present in just the same way in the Risale-i Nur, which is a true commentary on it.

Furthermore, all the sections of the Risale-i Nur which explain the nature of certain affirmative belief (îmân-ı tahkikî), imitative (taklidî) belief, abbreviated (icmâlî) belief, and detailed (tafsilî) belief, and demonstrate that belief will withstand and remain unshaken in the face of all assaults, misgivings, and doubts, form such an answer to Küçük Ali's letter that no need remains for me to add to them.

Second Aspect: Belief is not restricted to a brief and imitative assent; it has degrees and unfolds from being seed-like to being a mighty date-palm, and from resembling the sun which appears in the mirror you hold in your hand to resembling its reflection on the surface of the sea, and even to the sun in the sky. Similarly, belief is related to the above number of truths, to thousands of divine names, and to the truths of the universe pertaining to the pillars of belief, It is for this reason that those who have penetrated to the realities have stated unanimously that the greatest of all sciences, knowledge, and human attainments and perfections are belief and the detailed sacred knowledge of God based on proof which springs from certain, affirmative belief.

Imitative belief may be swiftly overcome by doubts. Being much more powerful and comprehensive, certain affirmative belief contains numerous degrees. One of these is the degree of knowledge of certainty (ilmelyakîn), which may withstand thousands of doubts with the strength of its many proofs, whereas imitative belief may sometimes defeated by a single doubt.

There is also a degree of certain affirmative belief known as the vision of certainty (aynelyakîn), and that contains numerous degrees. Indeed, it contains degrees to the number of manifestations of the divine names; it reaches the degree at which the whole universe may be read as though it were a Qur'an.

Another of its degrees is absolute certainty (hakkalyakîn), which also contains numerous degrees. If troops of doubts assail persons with such belief, they cannot provoke any confusion. The thousands of books written by the scholars of the science of theology based on reason and logic have demonstrated only one way, based on proofs and reasoning, of that belief and knowledge of God. And the hundreds of books, based on illumination and spiritual unfolding, of the people of reality have depicted another aspect of that belief and knowledge of God. However, the truths of belief and sacred knowledge of God which the miraculous highway of the Qur'an points out, far surpasses in strength and loftiness those of the scholars and saints.

The Risale-i Nur, then, expounds the latter all-embracing, universal, and