This letter, written to Mawlânâ Hamîd Ahmadî, informs that the âlam was created from nothing, and refutes the thing which the Greek philosophers called active mind:
Thanks be to Allâhu ta’âlâ who, is the creator of âlams, and salât and salâm be on the highest of Prophets! Allâhu ta’âlâ exists by Himself. Allah’s existence is from Himself. As He exists now, so He always existed in the past. And He will always exist in future. It is impossible that He be nonexistent before or after His existence. He should exist always. Nonexistence cannot approach Him. Everything other than Allâhu ta’âlâ is called âlam. All the âlam, matter’s physical states, [that is, solid substances, liquids and gases, atoms, molecules and energies], heavens, minds, selves
[cells, all the living], elements and compounds came into existence by His creation. While being nonexistent, they came to being later. Only He exists eternally. All besides Him were nonexistent. They came to being afterwards. After a while they will cease to exist again. He created the earth in two days. Then He created heavens, the stars in two days, too. That is, He created them from nothing. The ninth âyat of Hâ-mîm Sajda Sûra purports: “He created the earth in two days,” and its twelfth âyat purports: “then, He created the seven heavens in two days, too.” If a person comes forward, denies these âyats of the Qur’ân, and says that some creatures, heavens,
stars, elements, minds and souls are eternal, it will be understood that he is an idiot. All dîns have communicated that everything other than Allâhu ta’âlâ is hâdith, that is, they were created afterwards while they had been nonexistent. This unanimity of all dîns is communicated by Hujjat-ul-Islâm Imâm-i Muhammad Ghazâlî in his book Almunqidhu Aniddalâl, in which he also writes that those who say that some of the things in the âlam are eternal will become disbelievers. As it is seen, to say that one of the creatures is eternal means to go out of the dîn and to become a philosopher. All things other than Allâhu ta’âlâ were nonexistent, and they will cease to exist again. Towards Doomsday, stars will leave their places and disperse, heavens will be rent asunder, and mountains
also will be torn to pieces, and all will be annihilated. The Qur’ân informs with the fact clearly. All groups of Muslims have communicated this unanimously. Al-hâqqa Sûra purports, “Once the Sûr is blown, the earth and mountains shall be lifted up and shaken off. That day, end of the world shall come, the sky shall be divided and rent asunder.” Takwîr Sûra purports, “When the sun shall darken, the stars shall fall and the mountains shall be broken to pieces and dispersed...”; Infitâr Sûra purports, “When the sky shall be broken apart and the stars shall be dispersed and annihilated...” and the last âyat of Qasas Sûra purports, “Everything shall be annihilated, He only shall remain!”
These and many other similar âyats exist in the Qur’ân. It will be ignorance not to believe that they will be annihilated. Or it is to believe in the falsely-adorned lies of the philosophers who deny the Qur’ân. As it is seen, it is one of the conditions of îmân to believe that creatures will be annihilated as well as to believe that they were created from nothing. It is certainly necessary to believe it. Some savants said that seven things, namely the Arsh, the Kursî, the Lawh, the Pen, Paradise, Hell, the Rûh, will not be
annihilated, and they will remain eternally. But these words of theirs do not mean that these cannot be annihilated. They mean that Allâhu ta’âlâ will annihilate whichever He wishes of the things which He created and He will not annihilate some others which He wishes, for uses and reasons which He, alone, knows; these will eternally exist. Allâhu ta’âlâ does what He wishes and commands what He wishes. As understood from what has been written so far, the âlam, that is, everything, exists through Allah’s Will and Power. Everything needs Allâhu ta’âlâ to exist, to remain in existence. For, to be eternal means to go on existing every moment. It does not mean to become something else. It is by Allah’s Will and Decree both to exist and to go on existing. How could the thing which was called active mind by the ancient philosophers [and which is called natural forces by today’s enemies of the dîn] ever control creatures’ existence or nonexistence? There have been various sayings even on its own existence. For, the thing which they have given the name has been put forward through their poor minds. According to the true teachings of Islam, these things are intermediaries in Allâhu ta’âlâ’s creating. These intermediaries also were, and are being, created by Allâhu ta’âlâ. It is such a grave idiocy to end up the existence of creatures by such made-up, illusive names instead of believing the fact that it is from Allâhu ta’âlâ [who is Omniscient, Omnipotent]. In fact, creatures would deem it base and would be ashamed to be servants, slaves to something concocted by those shortsighted people who are the slaves of their own minds, instead of being creatures of Allah, Who is the highest of the high. They would prefer nonexistence to being such slaves. They would not wish to exist as the slaves of something fabulous instead of being creatures of a creator who is capable of everything and who can do what He wishes. As it is purported in an âyat in Kahf Sûra, such idiots are decribed as “What they utter is a very evil word. They always tell lies.”