“Zuhra” literally means a flower. In the symbolic framework of the Risale-i Nur Collection, it refers to a person whose ego has become a thick, dark veil—so instead of reflecting the truth itself, they reflect their own “colors” (self-regard, attachments, personal qualities), which refract and obscure what should be seen.

“… my friend who cannot renounce the world, is preoccupied with physical subjects, and whose soul is dense, you be the flower. The flower assumes a color as an effect produced by a ray of sunlight having a particular wavelength, and makes it an adorned form in which to be clothed. You have the same capacity.”¹⁾

“You who are like a flower—you are advancing, so advance as a flower. You have advanced until you reach a universal rank, as if a universal flower to represent all flowers. However, as a flower is a dense mirror in which light is refracted and its seven colors are dissolved, it veils the sun’s reflection and image. As you cannot see the face of the sun that you love, for its restricted colors and qualities draw a veil over and obscure it, you cannot be freed from the separation caused by interposing barriers. But you can be freed if you raise your head (now sunk in the love of your selfhood), withdraw your gaze (fixed on the merits you ascribe to your selfhood), and direct it to the face of the sun in the sky. You should also turn your face, looking down to the earth to attract your sustenance, up to the sun, for if you are a mirror of it, you must act as such. Whether you know it or not, your sustenance will come to you from the soil, the door to the treasury of mercy.”²⁾

“You have a capacity for feeling that, at its fullest, can take you into deep spiritual depth. But you must strengthen it through practice for it to be of any real use. Yes—without keeping you waiting long at the door, they will seat you on the cushion or the bench; and in any case, the bench you are given depends on your aptitude. Yes: if you are a qatra (drop), you are seated in the station of a qatra; if you are a rashha (dew drop), in the station of a rashha; if you are a zuhra (flower), in the station of a zuhra. In other words, even if these are purely matters of the heart, feelings must be integrated with practice and experience. And that is only possible through service to faith and Islam—and by translating them into lived action.”³⁾

“The Divine Names a person keeps on their tongue for spiritual ascent are closely connected to their nature, capacity, true identity, and the ‘colors’ placed within their being by God. For example, no matter how much I may wish it, I cannot reach another person’s level—because that person is directly open, clear and without intermediaries, to the Divine Names and Attributes and to the realities of Lordship, and rises toward God as if mounted on a swift steed. This truth is expressed in the Twenty-Fourth Word through the examples of zuhra (flower), qatra (drop), and rashha (dew drop). Even if zuhra is torn, spilled, or shattered, it cannot change its relationship with the sun—because the sun is transformed within its colors and makes itself felt through them. And likewise, no matter what it does, a qatra cannot attain the sun-relationship of a rashha—because it is a body, and can only hold the sun within the pupil of the eye.”⁴⁾

Drop (Qatra)

Dew Drop (Rashha)

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