A great work penned with an understanding and style far removed from the conventional religious books of recent times, aiming to imbue form with spirit and deeds with wisdom, with the claim of combining the most reliable catechism with the most infallible contemplation.
He began writing this work during his imprisonment in 1960-61 and took it up again in 1981, having kept it alive within himself for "20 years in the form of an embryo (protoplasm) without finding its shape." He describes the work and what he intended to achieve with it as follows:
"The Atlas of Faith and Islam" is, in comparison to books that each draw a cup from the same source, an event of kneeling directly before that source and cupping one’s hands for its water, using the fewest possible intermediaries; and whatever God grants from now on, I do not know, it is of a nature that completes all my works.
Instead of writing "definitions," to have the purpose absorbed into souls through its essence; instead of a prescription, to have one taste the medicine itself in its meaning... This is what I strove for. And to rescue this noble cause from parrot-like mouths...
A body cannot exist without a skeleton, but then there is also the matter of placing the body and limbs upon that skeleton to the extent of one's human capacity... After drawing the honeycomb perfectly, to fill it with the purest honey... The degree of my success in this endeavor, which I do not believe has been accomplished rightfully for centuries, will be determined by the new generation of faith and Islam whose dough I have tried to knead in the vessel of Great East (Büyük Doğu) for exactly 45 years.
Peace and blessings be upon the Master of the Universe, without whom existence would not be!..
May Allah grant the nation of His Beloved a new understanding, feeling, vision, and existence from the first year of the 15th Islamic Century onwards...