Nightingale, renowned for his love of the rose..

First Aim: It is the official employed to proclaim in the name of the animal species the intense relationship that exists between them and the plant species.

Second Aim: It is a dominical orator from among the animals, who are like guests of the All-Merciful One needy for sustenance, employed to acclaim the gifts sent by the All-Generous Provider, and to announce their joy.

Third Aim: It is to announce to everyone the welcome offered to plants, which are sent for the assistance of his fellow animals.

Fourth Aim: It is to announce, over the blessed heads and to the beautiful faces of plants, the intense need of the animal species for them, which reaches the degree of love and passion.

Fifth Aim: It is to present with acute yearning at the Court of Mercy of the All-Glorious and Beauteous and Munificent Lord of All Dominion a most graceful glorification inspired by the truly delicate face of the rose.

There are further meanings similar to these five aims, and they are the purpose of the deeds the nightingale performs for the sake of Truth (All glory be unto Him and may He be exalted).

The nightingale speaks in his own tongue, but we understand these meanings from his plaintive words. If he himself does not altogether know the meaning of his own song like the angels do, it does not impair our understanding.

The saying, "One who listens understands better than the one who speaks" is well-known. Also, the nightingale does not show that he does not know these aims in detail, but this does not mean that they do not exist.

At least he informs you of them like a clock informs you of the time. What difference does it make if he does not know? It does not prevent you from knowing.


However, the nightingale's small wage is the delight he experiences from gazing on the smiling, beautiful roses, and the pleasure he receives from conversing with them and pouring out his woes.

That is to say, his sorrowful song is not a complaint arising from animal grief, it is thanks in return for the gifts of the Most Merciful. Compare the bee, the spider, the ant, creeping insects, the male animals that are the means of reproduction, and the nightingales of all small creatures, with the nightingale: the deeds of all of them have numerous aims.

For them, too, a particular pleasure, like a small wage, has been included in their duties. Through that pleasure, they serve the important aims contained in dominical art.

Just as an ordinary seaman acts as helmsman on an imperial ship and receives a small wage, so do the animals employed in duties of glorification each receive a small wage.

An Addendum to the Nightingale:
However, do not suppose this proclaiming and heralding and these songs of glorification are peculiar to the nightingale.

In most species there is a class similar to the nightingale that consists of a fine individual or individuals which represent the finest feelings of that species with the finest glorification and finest poetry.

The nightingales of flies and insects, in particular, are both numerous and various.

Through their humming poetry they make all animals with ears, from the largest to the smallest, hear their glorifications, and give them pleasure.
Some of them are nocturnal.

These poetry-declaiming friends of all small animals are their sweet-voiced orators when all beings are plunged into the silence and tranquillity of the night.

Each is the centre of a circle of silent recollection, an assembly in solitude, to which all the others listen, and, in a fashion, recollect and extol the All-Glorious Creator in their own hearts.

Another sort are diurnal. By day, in spring and summer, they proclaim the mercy of the Most Merciful and Compassionate One to all animate beings from the pulpits of the trees with their ringing voices, subtle songs, and poetic glorifications.

It is as if, like the leader of a gathering for the recitation of God's Names induces the ecstasy of those participating, all the creatures listening start to praise the All-Glorious Creator each in its own special tongue and with a particular chant.

That is to say, every sort of being, and even the stars, have a chief-reciter and light-scattering nightingale. But the most excellent, the most noble, the most luminous, the most dazzling, the greatest and the most honourable nightingale, whose voice was the most ringing, whose attributes the most brilliant, whose recitation the most complete, whose thanks the most universal, whose essence was the most perfect, and whose form the most beautiful, who brought all the beings of the heavens and the earth in the garden of the universe to ecstasy and rapture through his subtle poetry, his sweet song, his exalted glorification, was the glorious nightingale of human kind, the nightingale of the Qur'an: Muhammad the Arabian, Upon whom and upon whose Family and those who resemble him be the best of blessings and peace.


To Conclude:

The animals, who serve in the palace of the universe, conform with complete obedience to the creational commands and display perfectly in the name of Almighty God the aims included in their natures.

The glorification and worship they perform by carrying out the duties related to their lives in this wonderful fashion through the power of God Almighty, are gifts and salutations which they present to the Court of the All-Glorious Creator, the Bestower of Life.

WORDS/24.WORD/BEDIUZZAMAN SAID NURSI