Glossary

The Prophet Muhammad's household and lineage — above all Ali, Fatima, Hasan, Husayn and their descendants. The Fourth Flash dwells on the love the Qur'an asks for them and on their role as guardians of his Sunna.

Permanence, undying continuance — the opposite of fenâ (passing away). God alone is el-Bâkî, the Truly Enduring; the Third Flash teaches that whatever is loved and spent for His sake takes on a reflection of that permanence.

The phrase "In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate" — its mysteries are expounded in the Second Station of the 14th Flash.

Innovation: introducing into religion practices with no basis in its sources — contrasted with the Sunna in the 11th Flash.

Divine oneness — God known as wholly present in each single thing, as opposed to vâhidiyet, His unity across the whole. Nursî stresses "oneness within unity" so the mind, faced with vast multiplicity, can still meet the One directly.

The ego or "I-ness": the self's tendency to claim ownership, importance and independence, which obstructs sincerity and the recognition of God.

The chain of apparent, "natural" causes through which God acts. A recurring theme in Nursî: causes are only a veil and have no creative power of their own, so the First Flash urges turning past them to the Causer of Causes (Müsebbibü'l-Esbâb) — God Himself.

The "most beautiful names" of God. Their manifestations in creation — especially those bearing the Greatest Name — are a major theme of the 30th Flash.

Heedlessness — the forgetful inattention to God and the hereafter that lets the passing world seem solid and lasting. Nursî calls his era an "age of neglect," in which an illness that turns a young person back toward the eternal can be a hidden mercy.

The gathering and bodily resurrection of all people for the Last Judgement. Nursî argues for it from nature's habit of renewal — the way each spring returns life in similar form (Seventeenth Flash, Fourth Note).

Love of status and fame — the craving for position and renown that Nursî identifies as a chief enemy of sincerity and a root of showing off.

The Qur'an's miraculous inimitability — the quality by which it cannot be matched. Nursî counts ten "aspects" of it; the Seventh Flash treats one of them, its tidings of the Unseen.

The Qur'an's foretelling of things hidden at the time of revelation — past, future or unseen. The Seventh Flash draws seven such fulfilled predictions from the closing verses of Sūrat al-Fath.

Sincerity: doing an act purely for God's pleasure, free of any wish for show, praise, status or worldly gain. The central theme of the 20th and 21st Flashes.

Frugality and economy: moderate, grateful use of provision as a form of worship, against waste and extravagance — the theme of the 19th Flash.

Belief or faith — affirmation of God, His messengers and the hereafter; strengthening and saving belief is the overarching aim of the Risale-i Nur.

Sharing in one another's deeds: through sincere unity, the reward of the group's collective worship is reflected, by God's grace, in each member's account — illustrated by the lamp and the needle analogies.

Divine determining — that all things unfold within God's knowledge and measure (with kazâ, its enactment in events). The Second Flash leans on the fuller treatment in the Twenty-Sixth Word to argue that one has no standing to complain of an illness the All-Wise has ordained.

A saintly wonder — an extraordinary, God-given event granted to a friend of God, as distinct from a prophet's miracle (mu'cize). The Tenth Flash reads the steady pattern of its "compassionate slaps" as a kerâmet attending the service of the Qur'an.

Reading a thing "as a letter" — for the meaning it points to beyond itself, namely its Maker — as opposed to mânâ-yı ismî, reading it for itself. The Sixteenth Flash's mirror image: look at the glass and you miss the reflection. Materialist science, reading creation only "for itself," loses its way.

Knowledge of God: coming to know the Creator through reflection on His works and names, the fruit toward which much of the work is directed.

The lower self or soul that inclines toward ego, appetite and heedlessness; its purification (tazkiya) is a recurring concern.

Prophethood — God's guidance of humanity through chosen messengers, which Nursî calls the foundation of human good and the index of true happiness (Seventeenth Flash, Ninth Note).

The contemplation of death: keeping one's mortality consciously in view as a means of protecting sincerity and loosening attachment to the world.

Divine mercy — God's all-embracing compassion, which the Fourteenth Flash presents as the force that turns the whole universe toward needy man. The Bismillah is the way to take hold of it.

Showing off in worship or good works — performing them to be seen and praised by people rather than for God. Nursî treats the love of fame behind it as a hidden form of associating partners with God.

Contentment with God's decree — accepting what He sends without resentment or protest. The Second Flash sets it against the anxious complaint that, it argues, drives an ailment from the body into the heart.

Provision — the sustenance God apportions to every creature. The Twelfth Flash argues it is guaranteed and runs inverse to a creature's own power, so that the most helpless (the unborn, the infant) are fed most freely.

Patience — steadfast endurance under hardship. In the Second Flash Nursî treats it as a God-given strength rationed for the present: enough for any single day's trial, but wasted when spent grieving the past or dreading the future.

The Companions of the Prophet — those who knew and followed him in his lifetime. Nursî regards them as the most elevated of humankind after the prophets; they are central to the Seventh Flash's account of Qur'anic prophecy.

The "collective personality" — the single moral/spiritual body formed when individuals unite in sincere common purpose, stronger and more enduring than any one person.

Compassion and tender mercy — a quality Nursî foregrounds as a swift, pure path to God, and a lens for consoling the sick and the elderly.

Gratitude: recognising every blessing as a gift and responding with thankfulness, treated as a fundamental duty of the servant.

The Sunna: the practice and example of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), following which is presented as a path of guidance and light.

"Nature" — which materialism treats as a self-sufficient creative force. The Twenty-Third Flash argues it is at most God's artwork, decree and law — "a body of the laws of creation, not the Lawgiver" — a passive screen, never an agent.

Manifestation or self-disclosure — the way God's names and attributes show themselves in creation, as the sun shows itself in countless mirrors. Each being is a tecellî: a real reflection, never identical with its Source.

Self-effacement among brothers: so dissolving one's ego in the fellowship that one takes grateful pride in a companion's merits and virtues as if they were one's own.

Reflective thought: contemplating the signs in the universe to arrive at knowledge of God — described by Nursî as the way of the Risale-i Nur.

The Islamic covering or veil for women. The Twenty-Fourth Flash argues — set out as Nursî's own case, not adjudicated here — that it accords with women's disposition and protects the dignity and trust of family life.

Reliance on God — entrusting the outcome to Him after doing one's own part. In the Second Flash it is the inner posture that, paired with contentment, keeps a hardship from taking root: meet misfortune trusting its Sender and it loosens its grip.

Divine oneness: affirming that God is one and that all things point to a single Creator — the truth defended against naturalism in the 23rd Flash.

"Long-stretched hope": living as though one will not die soon, an attachment to the world that dulls sincerity and the readiness for the hereafter.

Brotherhood: the bond of faith that unites those who serve it, requiring that one set aside rivalry and envy and support one's companions.

The "Unity of Existence" — the Sufi doctrine that in the end "there is no existent but God," so that the existence of created things is in some sense imaginary. The Ninth Flash respectfully argues this overstates a real insight: things are "all from Him," not "all Him."

The "Unity of Witnessing" — the sober counterpart to the Unity of Existence: the seeker so witnesses God that nothing else registers, yet without denying that creatures truly, if dependently, exist. Nursî calls it the safer, higher way of the "people of sobriety."

The involuntary "whisper" or intrusive suggestion that Satan casts into the mind. The Thirteenth Flash teaches that recognising it as not one's own — and simply refusing it attention — robs it of its power.