Why would a single person need countless palaces, immense estates, and endless blessings in Paradise?
At first glance, the descriptions found in authentic hadiths may seem difficult to reconcile with human experience.
In The Twenty-Eighth Word, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi offers a profound explanation: the human being is not merely a physical body but a creation endowed with infinite spiritual capacity, limitless desires, and countless subtle faculties.
When viewed through this perspective, the vast rewards of Paradise become a natural manifestation of God’s infinite mercy rather than an exaggeration.
This article explores how the Risale-i Nur explains the relationship between human nature, eternity, and the boundless blessings of Paradise.
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The Infinite Capacity of the Human Soul in Paradise
This text and video address the vastness of human capacity and the faculty of desire by explaining the nature of the immense rewards and expansive estates in eternal Paradise.
The author responds to the question of why a single inhabitant of Paradise would be granted lands as vast as entire worlds and countless blessings, drawing on the spiritual depth of the human being and their insatiable innate nature (fıtrat).
Even within the constrained conditions of earthly life, attention is drawn to the vastness of human imagination, and it is argued that the multiplicity and expansiveness found in Paradise become reasonable in light of the ability of luminous beings (nurani varlıklar) to exist in many places at once.
It is emphasized that once a person is freed from the material heaviness of this world and attains spiritual agility, they become worthy of these great rewards as a reflection of divine mercy.
In conclusion, it is stated that the boundless blessings of Paradise must be assessed not through the narrow molds of the worldly realm, but through the lens of the infinitude of divine power.
NotebookLM & Claude
PowerPoint
The Twenty-Eighth Word
This Word is about Paradise and consists of two Stations.
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The brief answers to a number of questions about eternal Paradise.
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QUESTION:
It says in Hadiths: “Some of the people of Paradise are given lands as extensive as the world, and thousands of palaces and hundreds of thousands of houris are bestowed on them.”3
(3- Bukhari, Janna, 17; Tafsir Sura al-Qiyama, 2.)
What need has a single person of all these things, why should it be necessary? How can this be and what does it mean?
THE ANSWER:
If man was only a lifeless being, or was only a vegetable creature consisting of a stomach, or consisted only of a limited, heavy, temporary, simple corporeality or animal body, he could not own many palaces and houris, or be fit for them. But man is such a comprehensive miracle of power that even in this transitory world and brief life, if he is given the rule of all the world with its wealth and pleasures, his ambition is not satisfied – in respect of the need of some of his subtle faculties, which do not develop here. It is therefore reasonable, right, and true that a person possessing an infinite capacity who knocks on the door of an infinite mercy with the hand of infinite desires and the tongue of infinite needs will receive in an eternal abode of bliss the Divine bounties described in Hadiths. We shall observe this elevated truth through the telescope of a comparison. It is as follows:
Although, like this valley garden,1
(1- That is, the garden of Suleyman, who served this poor one with perfect loyalty for eight years, where this Word was written in one or two hours.)
all these gardens and vineyards of Barla have different owners, all the birds and sparrows and honey-bees in Barla, who have only a handful of grain for food, may say: “All the gardens and orchards of Barla are my pleasant resorts where I fly around and enjoy myself.” Each may take possession of Barla and include it in its property. Others sharing it does not invalidate his ownership. Similarly, a man who is a true human being may say: “My Creator made this world a house for me. The sun is my lamp and the stars my electric lights. The face of the earth is my resting-place spread with flowered carpets.” And he offers thanks to God. The other creatures sharing it does not negate his statement. On the contrary, the creatures adorn his house like decorations. And so, if in this narrow fleeting world, by virtue of his humanity, man – and even a bird – claims a sort of power of disposal over such a vast sphere and receives such a vast bounty, how can it be deemed unlikely that he is given ownership of a property stretching over a five hundred year distance in a broad and eternal abode of bliss?
Moreover, just as in this dense and dark narrow world the sun is present in the same way at the same time in numerous mirrors, so too, as is proved in the Sixteenth Word, a luminous being may be present in many places in the same way at the same time. For example, Gabriel (Peace be upon him) being on a thousand stars simultaneously, and at the Divine Throne, and in the presence of the Prophet (PBUH), and in the Divine Presence; and the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) meeting with most of the righteous of his community at the resurrection of the dead at the same time and appearing in this world in innumerable places simultaneously; and a strange group of the saints known as abdal, appearing at the same time in many places; and ordinary people sometimes carrying out as much as a year’s work in one minute in a dream and observing this; and everyone being in contact with and concerned with numerous places at the same time in their hearts, spirits, and imaginations – all these are well-known and may be witnessed. Most certainly, in Paradise, therefore, which is luminous, unrestricted, broad, and eternal, the people of Paradise, whose bodies have the strength and lightness of the spirit and the swiftness of imagination, being in hundreds of thousands of places at the same time, and conversing with hundreds of thousands of houris, and receiving pleasure in hundreds of thousands of ways, is fitting for that eternal Paradise, that infinite mercy, and as told by the Bringer of Sure News (PBUH), is reality and the truth. Nevertheless, these vast truths cannot be weighed on the scales of our tiny minds.
This tiny mind cannot perceive the true meanings,
For this scale cannot bear such a weight.
Glory be unto to You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.1 (1- Qur’an, 2:32).
O our Sustainer! Do not call us to task if we forget or fall into error.2 (2- Qur’an, 2:286).
O God! Grant blessings to Your Beloved, who by being Your Beloved and through his prayers, flung open the doors of Paradise, and because of the benedictions for him of its members, You confirmed its opening for his community, and bless him and grant him peace.
O God! Appoint us to Paradise among the righteous, through the intercession of Your Beloved, the Chosen One. Amen.
SOURCES
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, The Words – The Twenty-Eighth Word – This Word is about Paradise, The English translations of the Risale-i Nur Collection, translated by Şükran Vahide and published by Sözler Neşriyat, are an exact printed version of the original text. (erisale.com)
https://erisale.com/index.jsp?locale=en#content.en.201.517