The Thirteenth Ray (13.Sua, Englisch)

The Thirteenth Ray

[The light-scattering, highly valuable letters Ustad Bediuzzaman Said Nursi sent his students while in Denizli Prison, which illustrate in brilliant fashion the great exertions of the Risale-i Nur.]

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I congratulate you with all my being on the Night of Power which has passed and the coming festival, and I entrust you to the unity and mercy of the Most Merciful of the Merciful. Although in accordance with the meaning of “he who believes in Divine Determining is saved from unhappiness,” I do not consider you to be in need of consolation, I say that I received from the allusive meaning of the verse,

Now await in patience the command of your Sustainer, for verily you are in Our eyes, and glorify with praise your Sustainer,1

all the solace the verse affords. It was like this:

While thinking of passing Ramadan tranquilly, in forgetfulness of the world, this unimaginable and completely unendurable episode befell us, yet I observed that it was pure grace both for me, and for the Risale-i Nur, and for you and our Ramadan, and our brotherhood. I shall describe only two or three of its many benefits for myself.

One of them: The intense excitement, seriousness, entreating and seeking refuge with God I experienced overcame a serious illness, and made me work in Ramadan.

The Second: I had a powerful desire to see all of you this year and be near you. I would have agreed to the difficulties I have suffered to see only one of you and to come to Isparta.

The Third: In an extraordinary way, all the painful circumstances both in Kastamonu, and on the way here, and here, suddenly change, and contrary to what I hoped and desired a hand of grace is apparent, making one exclaim: “Good is in what God chooses.” What made me realize this most was that the most heedless and high-ranking persons are being made to read the Risale-i Nur with careful attention, opening up new fields for its triumphs. I was suffering all the pains and regrets of everyone else as well as my own, but then since this calamity increased the hundred merits of each hour’s worship to a thousand —for the blessed month of Ramadan makes each hour the equivalent of a hundred hours— my pity and sorrow for sincere people like you who have learnt thoroughly the lessons of the Risale-i Nur, so know that this is a fleeting place of trade, who sacrifice everything for their belief and lives in the hereafter, and believe that the transient hardships of this ‘School of Joseph’2 will produce everlasting pleasures and benefits, —my pity and sorrow for you were transformed into congratulations and appreciation and applause at your steadfastness. I declared: “All praise and thanks be to God for all circum-stances other than unbelief and misguidance!”

I am of the opinion that in this respect there are such benefits both for myself, and for our brotherhood, and for the Risale-i Nur, and for our Ramadans, and for you, that if the veil was drawn back, it would make us declare: “Thanks be to You, O God! This Divine Decree and Determining are an instance of Your grace for us.”

Do not blame those who were the cause of this affair. The far-reaching and fearful plans for this calamity had long since been laid, and in the event we have got off lightly. God willing, it will pass quickly. In accordance with the meaning of the verse, It may be that you hate a thing, and it is good for you,3 do not be grieved.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear Brothers!

I am very happy to be close to you. From time to time I converse with you in imagination and am consoled. Know that if it had been possible, I would proudly and happily have endured all your difficulties. Because of you, I love Isparta and its environs down to its very stones and soil. I declare even, and I shall say so officially, if the Isparta authorities were to inflict some penalty on me and another province was to acquit me, I would still choose here.

Yes, I am from Isparta in three respects. I cannot prove it genealogically, but I have the conviction that the forebears of Said, who came into the world in the sub-district of Isparit, went there from here. And the province of Isparta has given me such true brothers that I would be happy to sacrifice not Abdülmecid4 and Abdurrahman,5 but Said [myself] for each one of them.

It is my guess that there is no one on earth at this time who suffers less —in their hearts, spirits, and minds— than the Risale-i Nur students. For due to the lights of certain, verified belief,6 their hearts, spirits, and minds do not suffer distress. As for physical hardships, they know from the teachings of the Risale-i Nur, that they are both transitory, and unimportant, and yield reward, and are a means by which the service of belief unfolds in other channels, and so meet them with thanks and patience. They prove through their states of mind that certain, verified belief leads to happiness in this world too. Yes, they say “Let’s see what God does, whatever He does, it is good,” and steadfastly work to transform these transient difficulties into permanent instances of mercy.

May the Most Merciful of the Merciful increase the numbers of those like them, make them the cause of pride and happiness for this country, and grant them eternal happiness in Paradise. Amen!

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

In regard to this Divinely ordained event from the point of view of the justice of Divine Determining: because some of the new students sought worldly things by means of the Risale-i Nur, which were not in keeping with the true meaning of sincerity, they found themselves confronted by self-seeking rivals, and obtaining from somewhere a long way off from me the Fifth Ray, the original of which was written twenty-five years ago and in the past eight years copies of which have only twice come into my possession and were then mislaid, a number of jealous people like that corrupt hoja aroused the suspicions of the judiciary with it. At the same time, The Supreme Sign (Âyetü’l-Kübra) was printed without my agreement instead of The Key to Belief (Miftahü’l-Iman Mecmuasi), which I wanted printed in the new letters; on the arrival of copies of it, it was reported to the Government, and the two matters were confused. Suggesting the Fifth Ray had been printed in opposition to the Civil Code, some malicious people made a mountain out of a molehill and had us put away in this place of penitence. Nevertheless, Divine Determining drove us here for our own good; it called us again to the ‘School of Joseph,’ where, being far more meritorious than the places of ordeal of former times, we could receive a thorough lesson in sincerity and rectify our attachment to the affairs of this world, which in truth are valueless.

We say in the face of the unfounded suspicions of the worldly: from beginning to end the Seventh Ray (The Supreme Sign) is about belief; you have been deceived; it is completely different to the Fifth Ray, which has been held strictly private and was not found in my possession in any of the scrupulous searches, and was originally written twenty years ago. We did not agree to show it to anyone at the present time, let alone have it printed; it nevertheless is a verified prediction, and does not contest anything.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

I again congratulate you on the festival; do not be sorry that we could not meet in person. In truth we are always together, and God willing this togetherness will continue on the road to eternity. It is my opinion that the eternal merits, and the virtues and joys of the spirit and heart that you obtain in serving belief reduce to nothing the present temporary, passing sorrows and hardships. Up to now, there has been no one who has suffered as few difficulties as the Risale-i Nur students in such sacred service. Yes, Paradise is not cheap. To save others from absolute disbelief, which destroys the life of both this world and the hereafter, is of the very greatest importance at this time. If there is a little hardship, it should be met with enthusiasm, thanks, and patience. Since our Creator, Who employs us, is All-Compassionate and Wise, we should rely on His mercy and wisdom and meet everything with resignation and joy.

An heroic brother of ours has assumed all responsibility for The Supreme Sign affair. He has shown how much he deserves the extraordinary honour and merit pertaining to the hereafter he has gained through his pen and the Hizb al-Qur’an7 and Hizb al-Nuri,8 and made me weep at the deep joy I felt. There is much wisdom in The Supreme Sign, the Seventh Ray, attracting attention to itself, and preparing the ground for the future triumphs it deserves: its temporary confiscation will not nullify the work and expenses of that brother and his wife; God willing, it will make them shine even more. This we await from Divine mercy.

From your brother who, through the use of the first person plural in all his supplications, such as: “Deliver us; have mercy on us; preserve us,” includes all of you in them without exception; who works in accordance with the principle of our partnership of the spirit, as though we were numerous bodies and a single spirit and is more concerned with your distress than you are yourselves; and who, from your collective personality awaits strength, assistance, constancy, steadfastness, and intercession.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

At a time when, under the effects of this event, I determined to completely resign myself to sacrificing myself for my innocent brothers and was seeking for a solution, I read Jaljalutiya.9 It suddenly occurred to me that Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) prayed: “O God! Deliver us!”; God willing, you shall be delivered through the meaning of his supplication.

Yes, in his Qasidat al-Jaljalutiya, Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) gave news of the Risale-i Nur in two ways, and alluded to The Supreme Sign with the lines “And through the Supreme Sign, secure me from sudden disaster.” Through this allusion, he is indicating that due to The Supreme Sign, a disaster of significant proportions will be visited on the Risale-i Nur students and is beseeching God to deliver the students from the calamity for the sake of The Supreme Sign; he is making the treatise and its source an intercessor. Yes, the printing of The Supreme Sign was made the pretext for the calamity that occurred, and confirmed exactly that sign of the Unseen.

Also, on the opposite page in the qasida, it says at the end of the allusions to the important parts of the Risale-i Nur and their arrangement, in meaning:

These letters of light, gather together their properties;

And study their meanings, for through them good is fulfilled.

That is: “The words and letters of the Risale-i Nur, which we alluded to; collect their properties and study their meanings, for all good and happiness is achieved through them.” It may be inferred from the phrase “Study the meanings of the letters” that it refers not to the letters, which express no meaning, but to the treatises called Sözler, which means The Words.

Our Sustainer! Do not call us to task if we forget or do wrong.10 * None knows the Unseen save God.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brother, Re’fet Bey!

I cannot meet with indifference your learned questions since they are the keys to important truths contained in the part of the Risale-i Nur called Mektûbat (Letters). A short answer is as follows:

Since the Qur’an is a pre-eternal address and speaks with all the classes of humanity and all the groups of worshippers, it has to possess numerous meanings conformable with them, and numerous levels of the universal meanings. Some commentators choose only the most general or the most explicit meaning, or one which expresses an obligatory act or a confirmed practice of the Prophet (PBUH). For example, for the verse, And in the night glorify God11 they mention an important sunna, the two rak‘as of the tahajjud prayer, and for the verse the flight of the stars12 the early morning Fajr sunna, which is a confirmed Practice of the Prophet (PBUH). And there are numerous other constituents of the former meaning. My brother! Speaking with you does not cease.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I have just performed the noon prayer and it occurred to me when I was reciting the tesbihat that you were all probably sad at thinking of yourselves and your relations at home. It suddenly came to mind that if those of former times who chose the hereafter over this world and passed their lives mortifying the flesh in caves and other places of ordeal with the intention of being saved from the sins of society and of working sincerely for the hereafter, had lived now, they would have been Risale-i Nur students. Certainly, those living under the conditions of these times are ten times more needy than they were and gain ten times more merit, and are ten times more comfortable.

* * *

My Dear, Blessed Brothers!

Very many greetings... In former times in my native region, we used to recite Sura al-Ikhlas a thousand times on the Day of ‘Arafa.13 Now, I am able to recite five hundred on the day before, and five hundred on the Day of ‘Arafa. Those who are confident may recite them all at once. I cannot see you and cannot speak with you all personally, but most of the time I can converse with you all while praying, sometimes by name.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I reckon that up to now two leaders of the main group of the Light (Nur) Factory circle have been saved. That circle, that group, has truly accomplished the triumphs of twenty to thirty years in six or seven; as though it was a souvenir of their shining pens, their service does not cease; it causes merits to be recorded in the books of their deeds in their places. In fact, the Hizb-i Nuri has achieved such overwhelming conquests and entered such important places that it is as if those who published it are continuously working. I supposed that like the first person, Hafiz Mustafa, who has worked so hard and is so hardworking, was outside, then I heard that he is here too. Thinking it was perhaps another Mustafa, I found consolation.

* * *

My Dear Brothers!

This morning while reciting the tesbihat, I pitied Hafiz Tevfik.14 I recalled that it is the second time he has suffered this trouble. Then it suddenly occurred to me: Congratulate him! With needless caution, he wanted to withdraw himself a little from his important position and his large share in the Risale-i Nur. But the vastness and sacredness of his service again awarded him a large share and vast merit. One should not flee from spiritual honour such as that due to a little distress and fleeting hardship.

Yes, my brothers! Everything departs, and after it has gone, if it was pleasure and enjoyment, it goes for nothing, while if it was distress and hardship, it yields such pleasurable benefits, both in this world and in the hereafter, and from the point of view of being sacred service, that it reduces the trouble to nothing. With the exception of one of you, I am the most elderly and it is I who suffers the most troubles, yet I assure you that by practising total patience, offering thanks, and endurance, I am happy at my situation. Thanks in the face of disaster is for the reward to be had from disaster, and for the benefits in this world and the next.

* * *

My Dear Brothers!

With the disappearance of the things preventing the completion of the ‘Topics’ of The Fruits of Belief, writing will recommence, God willing. One of these was the cold, the other was the fright the Masons took at its power. I think of this calamity from the angle of Divine Determining, and my difficulties are transformed into mercy. Yes, as is explained in the Treatise On Divine Determining, there are two causes for every event: one is apparent; people base their judgements on this and frequently act unjustly. The other is reality, according to which Divine Determining judges; it acts with justice in the events in which man acted unjustly.

For example, a man is sent to prison for a theft he did not commit. Divine Determining also sentences him to imprisonment, but for a secret crime, and acts justly within the human injustice. Thus, there are two causes for our having been set this severe trial, the purpose of which is to separate out the diamonds from the pieces of glass, the veracious devotees from the inconstant waverers, and the purely sincere from those unable to give up their egotism and self-interest:

The First is a powerful solidarity and a sincere and remarkable service of religion which aroused the suspicions of the worldly and the politicians; human injustice looks to this.

The Second: Since not everyone on their own could demonstrate their worthiness of this sacred service through complete sincerity and total solidarity, Divine Determining looked to this too. But that Determining is now pure mercy for us within the pure justice, for it brought together brothers who greatly missed each other, and transformed their hardships into worship and their losses into alms-giving. It is also pure mercy in many other respects, like attracting attention from all quarters to the treatises the brothers have written out; and not allowing worldly possessions and children and comfort, which are temporary, fleeting and which one day they will be bound to leave behind when they enter the grave, to damage their lives in the hereafter; and making them accustomed to patient endurance; and their being heroic models for the believers of the future, and even their leaders. But there is one aspect that caused me some thought, which is that if a finger is wounded, the eye, mind, and heart neglect their important duties and become preoccupied with it. Similarly, our lives, which reach this pitch of distress, busy our hearts and spirits with their wounds. Then just when I should be forgetting the world, the situation took me to the Masons’ council, and busied me with dealing them blows. I was consoled by the possibility that Almighty God might accept this state of heedlessness as a sort of intellectual striving.

I received the greetings of Ali Gül, the brother of Hafiz Mehmed, the Risale-i Nur’s esteemed teacher. I send greetings and prayers both to him, and to all his fellow villagers, and to all the people of Sava,15 both living and dead.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Your constancy and steadfastness foil all the plans of the Masons and dissemblers. Yes, my brothers, there is no need to hide it, those atheists draw comparisons between the Risale-i Nur and its students, and the sufi orders and particularly the Naqshbandi Order, and with the idea of refuting us and scattering us, attack us with the schemes with which they defeated the sufis.

Firstly: To intimidate and scare, and show up the abuses of the sufi way.

And secondly: To publicize the faults of its leaders and followers.

And thirdly: To corrupt them with the enticing vices and stupefying, pleasurable poisons of materialist philosophy and civilization; and destroy their solidarity; and disparage their leaders with treacherous lies; and discredit their ways with some of the principles of science and philosophy. They attacked us with the same weapons they used against the Naqshbandis and sufis, but they were deceived. For since the essence of the Risale-i Nur’s way is complete sincerity, and the giving up of egotism, and to search out and perceive the mercy within difficulties and the permanent pleasures within pains, and to point out the grievous pains within fleeting dissolute pleasures, and that belief is the means to innumerable pleasures in this world too, and to teach the points and truths that the hand of no philosophy can reach, God willing it will make all their plans come to nothing, and showing that no comparison can be made between the way of the Risale-i Nur and the sufi orders, it will silence them utterly.

A Subtle Point

This morning someone called me from the gendarmes’ ward next to me and I went to the window. He said: “Our door has closed by itself and whatever we do we can’t open it.” So I told him: “It is a sign for you that among the people you guard and keep behind bars, are those who are innocent like yourselves. They even insulted me on the pretext of my seeing one of my brothers I had not seen for ten years, and on another pretext, closed the second of our outer doors. As a punishment, your door closed too.”

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

There are three further points concerning the subtle point I wrote to you yesterday:

The First: As a representative of the collective personality of a blessed group that will be formed in the future, through the blessings of that collective personality, the bolted door opened of its own accord; again, they were angry with a representative of a blessed group which is now in existence meeting with me for half a minute, after ten years. I too was angered, and again said: “Let the doors close!” The following morning —it had never happened before— the guards’ doors closed, and did not open for two hours.

Second Elegant Point: I sent a note to the public prosecutor by means of the prison governor. I said in it: “I am being kept in isolation and I can’t meet with anyone. Even if I was to, I do not know anyone in this town. ... with someone from the town council here... and so on.” Later the prosecutor asked if I was in solitary confinement. The prison governor said: “No.” Both of them objected to my note. The same day, a distant and half crazy relation came and visited me for half a minute, and it was portrayed in such a way as to show that I had never been in solitary confinement. Their objections rebounded on themselves.

The Third: The noise of the troublesome youths next door to me between the evening and night prayers disturbed me, but not too much. It was that day that they found an excuse and shut the door. The foul stench also grew worse in my cell, and the din the youths made by my door disturbed me excessively. I again said: “Let the doors close! Why are they doing this?” That morning, the incident occurred.

* * *

My Brothers!

The two Topics you have written in the new letters have had a tremendous effect. It will be excellent if the First, Second, and Third Topics are written out as well. But I find it worrying if it is Husrev and Tahiri who do this since their pens are particularly suited to the Qur’an and the Qur’anic script, and are charged with it. It will better if others write them.

* * *

My Dear Brothers!

For the past year I have been using an amount, that is, around a kilo, of vermicelli and rice. I have no doubt that they are a means of plenty. But you do not leave them with me now so that I can cook them. So I give them to you as a gift, as a means to blessings and plenty. On one occasion, I saw a wondrous increase in the star-shaped vermicelli. I used to dry the pieces after cooking them. I myself and others saw that one single piece was ten times larger than normal.

* * *

My Dear Brothers!

Last night while I was reciting my invocations, the guards and others could hear me. I wondered anxiously to myself if such a display did not decrease the merit. Then I remembered a famous saying of Hujjat al-Islam Imam Ghazali: “Sometimes doing something openly is better than concealing it.” That is, in many ways it may be far more meritorious to do something openly, for others may benefit from it, or copy it, or be aroused from heedlessness; or it may be display the marks of Islam in the face of those who persist in misguidance or vice, and preserve the dignity of religion. Especially at this time and if done by those who have learnt thoroughly the lessons of sincerity, and no hidden artificiality intervenes. I thought of this and was consoled.

* * *

Two days ago, the examining magistrate summoned me, and when wondering how I could defend my brothers, I opened the Hizb al-Masun of Imam Ghazali. These verses struck my eye:

Verily God will defend [from ill] those who believe.16 * ...how their light runs forward before them and by their right hands.17 * God watches over them.18 * For those... is [every] blessedness.19

I saw that if the doubling and madda (long a) are not counted —the waw is also a madda— according to abjad and jafr reckoning, it makes one thousand three hundred and sixty-two, which is exactly this year’s date; both its meaning and number coincide with the time we resolved to defend our believing brothers. All praise be to God, I said, this leaves no need for my defence. Then the thought “I wonder how it will turn out” occurred to me. I was curious. I saw that according to jafr reckoning, on condition the tanwin is counted, the two phrases God watches over them and Tuba (blessedness) make exactly one thousand three hundred and sixty-two. If one madda is not counted, it makes two, and if it is counted, three. Coinciding exactly —at this time we are so needy for Divine preservation— with this year’s date, and with next year’s date, it consoles us with the assurance that we shall be preserved, despite an awesome assault against us which has been prepared over the last year on a grand scale and over a wide field. The Risale-i Nur’s making more brilliant conquests in ruling circles due to this episode means that its temporary arrest does not and should not cause us to despair. Also I consider The Supreme Sign’s being confiscated due to its printing to be a proclamation, attracting attention from all quarters to its shining station. I have just read the verse,

O our Sustainer! Perfect our light for us, and grant us forgiveness.20

The phrase grant us forgiveness makes exactly one thousand three hundred and sixty-two. It coincides exactly with this year’s date, and summons us and orders us to constantly seek forgiveness so that our light may be completed and the Risale-i Nur too not remain deficient.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

It is my opinion that those who are not shaken by the severe ordeal of these two ‘Schools of Joseph,’21 the former and the present, and do not abandon its lessons, and do not give up being its students although their mouths have been burnt by the scalding soup, and whose morale is not broken despite all this aggression, will be applauded by the people of reality and coming generations; just as the angels and spirit beings applaud them. However, since among you are some who are ill, delicate, or poor, the physical distress is excessive. But thinking of the others of you consoling them and being perfect examples in patience and good conduct, and compassionate brothers offering solidarity and kind attention, and intelligent companions in discussing lessons, and mirrors reflecting fine moral qualities, thus reducing the physical hardships to nothing, my concern for you, whom I love more than my own spirit, was allayed.

One day, I shall send you Mawlana Khalid’s jubba,22 which is one hundred and twenty years old. I invest each of you with it in his name, in the same way that he invested me with it. Whenever you want it, I shall send it.

When we first arrived, the doctor gave me a chickenpox vaccination. It formed a boil and my arm swelled up. The swelling has moved down my arm; it does not let me sleep and makes it difficult to take ablutions. I wonder if I can’t take vaccinations, or if it has some other meaning! Twenty years ago they vaccinated me in Ankara, and it still suppurates from time to time and causes me pain. I thought of this and hoped the new one would not be the same; how are yours?

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

One reason for the justice of Divine Determining driving us to the Denizli School of Joseph is both its prisoners, and its people, and perhaps also its officials and judiciary being in greater need of the Risale-i Nur and its students than people anywhere else. It is because of this that we have been put to this arduous test, with a task pertaining to belief and the hereafter. Only one or two prisoners out of twenty to thirty performed the obligatory prayers as they should be performed; but following the Risale-i Nur students, forty to fifty without exception have begun to perform them perfectly; this is such instruction and guidance through the tongue of disposition and action, that it reduces to nothing the distress and hardship; indeed, it makes one love it. We hope from Divine mercy and grace that just as the students have taught this through their actions, so through the powerful true belief in their hearts, they will become like a fortress of steel, delivering the believers from the doubts and suspicions of the people of misguidance.

The worldly here preventing us from speaking and having contact causes no harm. The tongue of disposition is more powerful and effective than verbal speech. Since imprisonment is for training and education, if they love the nation, they should allow the prisoners to meet with the Risale-i Nur students so that in one month or even a day, they may receive more training and education than they would otherwise receive in a year, and may all become persons beneficial both to the nation and country, and useful for their own futures and their lives in the hereafter. It would have been very useful if we had had A Guide For Youth here. God willing, it will be brought in.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Today I recalled the conversation between my elder brother, Molla Abdullah, and Hazret-i Ziyaeddin, which you know about. Then I thought of you and said to myself: if the Unseen was to be revealed, if each of these sincerely religious and earnest Muslims who display such constancy in these inconstant times, not being shaken by these tortuous, testing circumstances, were to appear to be saints or even spiritual poles, the importance they have in my view, and my concern for them, would increase very little; or if they were to appear to be commonplace and ordinary, the value I attach to them would in no way diminish. For the task of saving belief under such extremely severe conditions is of greater worth than everything. In such stormy, unstable conditions, the virtues afforded by personal ranks and the good opinions of others dissolve when those good opinions are destroyed, and their love lessens. The one possessing the virtues then feels himself obliged to adopt artificial manners, empty formalities, and a burdensome dignity in order to preserve his position in their eyes. Endless thanks be to God, we have no need for cold artificiality such as that.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I congratulate you with all my spirit, heart, and mind on your ‘ten nights,’ and beseech Divine mercy that they will bring great gains to our spiritual partnership. Last night I dreamt that I had come to you and awoke when I was about to lead the prayers as imam. When, according to my experience, the dream was going to be interpreted, two of our brothers from among the heroes of Sava and Homa arrived in the name of all you to interpret it. I was overjoyed, as though I had seen all of you.

My Brothers! Certainly, the situation has caused some officials and others to withdraw from the Risale-i Nur, and has scared them, but it has aroused the attention of, and a longing in, all opponents and religiously minded people and officials connected with the business. Do not worry, these lights shall shine out!23

* * *

According to Sabri’s interpretation, in conformity with the allusion of Sura Wa’l-‘Asr, the Risale-i Nur is a means of preserving Anatolia, and Isparta and Kastamonu, from heavenly and earthly calamities, like the ark on Mount Judi; they should not therefore interfere with it, or the expected disasters will shortly be visited on them. They should come to their senses. I say again what I said shortly before the disaster, and before those letters had been sent to you. According to news I have now received, Kastamonu and its surroundings and citadel are weeping as though mourning the Risale-i Nur; it has caught a fever and is shaking with earthquakes; God willing, it will be reunited with the Risale-i Nur, and will laugh again and offer thanks.

I wrote to you the other day about my two important gains. In the second I said, offering supplications and glorifications with hundreds of tongues... till the end. Some is missing here, it should be: Each one of us, according to his degree, offers... with hundreds of tongues... and so on.

Also, a venerable elderly man from the village of Sava, to which I am very attached, was handcuffed to me and we came together; it pleased me greatly and I understood from it the village’s strong attachment to me. I send special greetings to that brother.

* * *

My Dear Brother!

The verse,

And even thus did the rejecters of God perish [utterly]24

indicates the allusion of

By [the token of] time [through the ages], * Verily man is in loss,25

that all the wars and destruction of the infidels have caused untold damage and loss. There is also an indication in the phrase Wa’l-‘Asr (By [the token of] time) which points to the date 1360 according to the Rumi calendar, in which year dissemblers and disbelievers would attack the Risale-i Nur, but they would be the losers. For the Risale-i Nur is a cause of calamities like earthquake and war abating. It may be a concealed sign that its ceasing from activity attracts disaster.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear Brothers!

It is my guess that our final and true defence will be the short treatise that is the fruit of Denizli Prison. For the extensive plots hatched against us over the past year, originally due to unfounded suspicions, are the following: they attacked us on baseless pretexts such as founding a sufi order, establishing a secret society, being a tool of external forces, exploiting religious feelings for political ends, working against the Republic, meddling in government and breaching public security. Thanks be to Almighty God, their plans failed. Other than the truths of belief and the Qur’an, study of the hereafter, and working for everlasting bliss, they found nothing, even over such an extensive area, among hundreds of students, in hundreds of treatises, in the letters and books written over a period of eighteen years. They began to seek out anything at all to make a pretext of, in order to conceal their plots. But I think that in the face of a fearsome, covert atheistic organization which has deceived some leaders of the Government, turning them against us, possibly attacking us directly on behalf of absolute disbelief, we were made to write the treatise of The Fruits of Belief, which is as clear as the sun and dispels all doubts and is as firm and unshakeable as a mountain, as the most powerful defence against them and to silence them.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Brothers!

Your place is very constricted, but the expansiveness of your hearts does not allow this to distress you; it is also relatively freer than my place. Know that our firmest strength and support is solidarity. Beware! Do not let irritability caused by these tribulations make you find fault with one another. Complaining and blaming each other and saying “If such-and-such had not happened it would not have been like this” is the equivalent of complaining about fate and Divine Determining; do not do this. I have realized that there was no way we could have been saved from their assaults, whatever we did they would have attacked us. For the short time till Divine grace comes to our assistance, we must respond with patience and thanks, and resignation towards the Divine Decree and submission to Divine Determining, and try to gain plentiful reward and merit with few acts.

I pray for the well-being of our brothers there.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

A significant solace in the face of the swift changes of this worldly life and its decline, and its fleeting, fruitless pleasures, and its blows of separation, is meeting with true friends. Yes, sometimes one travels for twenty days and spends a hundred liras to see a single friend for an hour or two. So now in these strange, friendless times, our seeing forty to fifty friends all together for one or two months and our speaking together for God’s sake and receiving and giving true consolation, make these difficulties and financial losses that have befallen us extremely cheap and unimportant. I myself would have accepted this hardship to see only one of my brothers here after having been parted from them for ten years. Complaint is criticism of Divine Determining, while thanks is submission to it.

* * *

I assure you that if the appointed hour was to come now and I was to die, I would meet it with perfect ease of heart. For I know that among you are many strong, steadfast young Said’s who will ‘own,’ ‘inherit,’ and protect the Risale-i Nur far more effectively than this wretched, elderly, ill and debilitated Said. I felt very grateful and happy at those whose names are written in Nazif’s note, who effectively strengthen morale. I had anyway guessed that they would be thus. May Almighty God give them success and make them good examples to others. Amen.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Since you have attached yourselves to the Risale-i Nur for the hereafter, and for good works, and worship and reward, and for belief and your lives in the hereafter, it is surely necessary to offer thanks for your being here to meet your fate and eat the sustenance appointed to you and earn reward for it. These have been determined by Divine Determining in this School of Joseph, an arena of trial in which each hour in its severe conditions is the equivalent of twenty hours’ worship. Since those twenty hours are a striving in the service of the Qur’an and belief, they have the value of a hundred hours. And those hundred hours consist of meeting with true brothers, who are striving on God’s way, each of which have the importance of a hundred people, and to pledging your brotherhood, and strengthening them and receiving strength, and consoling them and receiving consolation, and steadfastly persisting in this sacred service in true solidarity, and profiting from their fine qualities, and acquiring worthiness to be students of the Medresetü’z-Zehra. It is necessary to think of all these benefits in the face of all the hardships, and to respond to them with patient endurance.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Brothers!

I sincerely hoped that resolute heroes like those of Isparta and its environs (like the Husrev’s and Hafiz Ali’s), strong as steel, would appear here from Kastamonu as well. Endless thanks be to God that that province fulfilled my hopes, sending numerous heroes to our assistance. I send greetings to all my self-sacrificing brothers who are with you, who are always present in my imagination but whose names I cannot write, and I pray for their well-being.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal, Constant, and Faithful Brothers!

I am describing some of my circumstances here, not to sadden you or to take any physical measures, but so that I might profit more from your shared prayers, and you might practise greater self-restraint, caution, patience, and forbearance, and earnestly perserve your solidarity. The torment and distress I suffer here in one day is more than I suffered in a month in Eskishehir Prison. The ghastly Masons have inflicted one of their unfeeling fellows on me so that out of anger I should lose patience in the face of their torments, and they could then use it as a pretext and make it the reason for their cruel aggression, and so conceal their lies. As a wondrous mark of Divine grace, I merely offer thanks in patience and I am resolved to continue to do so.

Since we have submitted to Divine Determining and in accordance with the meaning of “The best of matters are the most difficult,”26 and we know these difficulties to be a Divine bounty through which we may gain greater merit; and since we have the absolutely certain conviction, at the degree of ‘absolute certainty,’ that we have dedicated our lives to a truth more brilliant than the sun, as beautiful as Paradise and sweet as eternal happiness; certainly, knowing that we are carrying out this immaterial struggle in God’s way, proudly and offering thanks, despite the distressing conditions, we should not complain.

* * *

My Dear Brothers!

My first and last advice to you is to preserve your solidarity; avoid egotism, selfishness, and rivalry, to preserve your composure, and be cautious.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

It is understood from the public prosecutor’s indictment that the plans of the covert atheists who deceived some of the leaders of the Government, prompting them to move against us, have come to nothing and turned out to be false. They are now trying to conceal their lies by accusing us of forming a political society and a secret revolutionary committee, and as a result of this, they do not allow me to have contact with anyone. As though all those who have contact with us join us. High officials too are careful to avoid us, and they try to curry favour with their superiors by harassing us. I was going to add the below passage to the end of my objections, but I had an idea that did not allow me to. The passage was this:

Yes, we are a society and we are a society that every century has three hundred and fifty million27 members. Every day through the five obligatory prayers, its members demonstrate with complete veneration their attachment to the principles of that sacred society. Through the sacred programme of The believers are indeed a single brotherhood,28 they hasten to assist one another with their prayers and spiritual gains. We are members of that sacred, vast society, and our particular duty is to teach the believers in certain, verified fashion the Qur’anic truths of belief, and save them and ourselves from eternal annihilation and everlasting solitary confinement in the Intermediate Realm. We have absolutely no connection with any worldly, political, or intriguing society or clandestine group, or the baseless, meaningless secret societies concerning which we have been charged; we do not condescend to such things.

* * *

My Dear and Loyal Brothers!

Before dawn today I felt real pity for all of you. Then I remembered the Treatise For The Sick (Hastalar Risalesi ), and it consoled me.

Yes, this calamity is a sort of social sickness. Most of the remedies connected with belief in that treatise are in this too. As I told that blessed sick person in Erzurum, the pain of all past tribulations has passed; what remains of it is its good, and its benefits that look to this world, the hereafter, belief, and the Qur’an. That means the single transitory tribulation has been transformed into numerous permanent bounties. As for the future, since it is non-existent at the present, the tribulations that will continue in it give no pain now. To suffer pain due to delusions is to lack confidence in Divine mercy and Determining.

Secondly: Most of mankind on the earth now are afflicted with calamities, physical and non-physical, and in their hearts, spirits, and minds. Compared with theirs, our calamity is both extremely light, and profitable. There are pleasures for the heart and spirit, springing from belief, good health, and well-being.

Thirdly: If we had not entered here amid these storms, due to our contact with suspicious officials, this slight calamity would have been even severer, and there would have been the calamity of having to toady to them and flatter them.

Fourthly: Seeing with very little expense true friends more compassionate than brothers, and brothers of the hereafter like spiritual guides, here in the workless, compounded physical and spiritual winter of this School of Joseph, which is a department of the Medresetü’-Zehra; and visiting them, profiting from their personal qualities, and receiving strength from their fine characteristics, which like light are diffused through transparent objects, and from their spiritual assistance, joy, and consolation; all changes the form of this calamity, making it a sort of veil to Divine grace. Yes, a subtle facet of this hidden grace is that all the Risale-i Nur students here are called “Hoja;” they are spoken of respectfully as “the hojas... the hojas.” There is a further subtle allusion in this, that just as this prison has turned into a medrese (religious school), so the Risale-i Nur students have all become teachers, and thanks to these hojas the other prisons will also all become schools, God willing.

* * *

My Brothers!

If the short letters written before to console you, like this one, are read and studied together with the last parts of The Fruits of Belief, and any matters of the Risale-i Nur that occur to you are discussed, God willing it will gain for you the honour of being ‘students of the religious sciences.’ Pre-eminent figures like Imam Shafi‘i (May his mystery be sanctified) attached the greatest importance to this, saying “the sleep even of students of the sciences is counted as worship.” If at this time of no religious schools, a hundred difficulties are suffered in these places of torment due to being such elevated students, no importance should be given to them, or else, saying “The best matters are the most difficult,” we should smile happily at those hardships. As for the families of our needy friends and their having enough to live on, in consequence of the rule of the Qur’an, belief, and the Risale-i Nur, which is to look at those worse hit by disaster than oneself and at those in greater deprivation, they are better off than eighty per cent of people. They have no right to complain; their right, their obligation, is to offer eighty degrees of thanks. Divine Determining ordained that we meet our fate here and eat the food appointed for us. The justice of Divine mercy gathered us together here; the families have been entrusted to their true Provider, relieving those brothers temporarily of their duties of supervision. Just as one day they will be relieved of them entirely and dismissed... Since the reality is this, we should say For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs,29 and offer thanks.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

For sure I can’t meet with you in person, but I am happy and thankful that I am close to you in the same building. It came to me involuntarily that some necessary precautions should be taken. One of these: a prisoner was sent to the ward next to mine by the Masons who is both a liar and a spy. Since destruction is easy, especially among idle youths such as those, I knew from the scoundrel’s excessive harassment of me and his corrupting the youths, that atheism is attempting to corrupt their morals in the face of our guiding and reforming them. Extreme caution is necessary in this situation, and it is absolutely essential as far as is possible not to be offended by the old prisoners nor to offend them and not to allow any disagreements, and to keep cool and put up with things, and as far as is possible for our brothers to strengthen their brotherhood and solidarity through humility and modesty and giving up egotism. It pains me to concern myself with worldly matters, so having confidence in your perceptiveness, I do not consider them so long as it is not essential.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Brothers!

Against all eventualities, I have to explain a matter that was imparted to me this morning. Asking: “I wonder what atheist philosophers can say to this, and with what will they support themselves?”, for twenty years my soul and my satan have investigated whether or not the truths we have taken from the Qur’an leave any room for doubt or hesitation, and if they are as clear as daylight. They could find no fault in any nook or cranny, and fell silent. I reckon that a truth which silences my soul and devil, which are extremely sensitive and involved in the matter, will silence also even the most obdurate of them. Since we are working for the sake of and on the way of a truth which is thus unshakeable, elevated, vast, and important, and is of inestimable value, and if the whole world and a person’s life was given as its price, it would still be cheap; we should certainly respond with complete steadfastness to all the tribulations, distress, and enemies. They have also confronted us with a number of deceived or hoodwinked hojas, shaykhs, and apparently pious people. We must preserve our unity and solidarity in the face of them, and not bother with them or argue with them.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

It was disclosed to me this morning before dawn that the real reason for this extensive and significant aggression against us is not the Fifth Ray, but the Hizb al-Nuri, and The Key To Belief, and Hüccetü’l-Baliga (The Eloquent Proof).30 I read part of the Hizb al-Nuri carefully, and thought of The Key To Belief, and I understood that the atheists had put forward the Fifth Ray, which has a slight connection with politics, as the apparent reason, because they could not defend their way of absolute disbelief against the blows of these two keen swords. So they deceived the Government, making it move against us. It occurred to me at the same time that if some of our weak brothers temporarily give up, they might be able to save themselves from this calamity, and I wanted to give them permission. Suddenly it was imparted to me that those who are closely concerned and have twice been put to this test and in return have suffered so much hardship, would not then give it up in a heartfelt way that was both harmful and without benefit, but might possibly apparently hold back just to deceive them. It would otherwise cause harm both to himself, and to us, and to our sacred way, and as a penalty, the person would receive a blow contrary to his intentions.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Certainly according to the degree of their being the cause of this imprisonment, which is more distressing and colder than other places, those who are suffering its hardships will feel inclined to escape them. But since the certain, verified belief that the Risale-i Nur —its apparent cause— gains for those who suffer these hardships, and the happy death its gains through the certain, verified belief, and the good works of a hundred men it gains through the spiritual partnership, all transform the bitter hardship into sweet mercy, then the price of these two results is unshakeable fidelity and steadfastness. To be regretful and give it up would therefore be a great loss. For those of the students who have no connection with the world, or very little, this imprisonment is preferable to freedom, and in one respect is a place of freedom. While since for those who are connected and who are well-off, the money spent becomes multiple almsgiving, and the hours spent are transformed into multiple worship, they should offer thanks rather than complaining. As for those who are impecunious and needy, their lives outside afford them merits that are without benefit and hardships for which they are responsible, while the hardships here produce many merits and much reward and entail no responsibility, and are alleviated by the solace of their companions; this demands that they offer thanks.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

A pious person in Kastamonu said by way of complaint: “I have declined; I have lost my former spiritual state, lights, and illuminations.” I told him:

“Perhaps you have progressed so that you have left behind your illuminations and revelations, which flatter the ego, give a taste of the fruits of the hereafter while still in this world, and encourage self-centredness. By giving up egotism and not seeking fleeting pleasures and through self-abasement, you have perhaps flown to a higher station.” Yes, an important Divine bounty is not making the person who has given up his egotism perceive the bounty so that he does not become proud and conceited.

My brothers! In consequence of this truth, those who think similarly to that person or who take into account the brilliant stations that the good opinions of others give, look at you, and among you see the students who appear in the garment of humility and self-abasement and service, to be common, ordinary people, and they say: “Are these the heroes of reality who challenge the whole world? Alas! Who are these? Where are the people who are striving to perform this sacred service, before which even the saints are impotent at this time?” If they are friends, they experience disappointment, and if opponents, find their opposition justified.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

In my view your prison fruits31 are as agreeable and valuable as fruits of Paradise. They confirm the great hopes I had for you and what I had claimed, as well as demonstrating beautifully the power of solidarity. As when three or four ‘alifs’32 are put side by side, those blessed pens uniting while suffering severe oppression showed a value of three or four hundred. The state of mind which preserves your unity in these confused conditions proves what I said yesterday. Yes —there is no error in the comparison— just as according to the Sunnis the position of a great saint regarding service of Islam is lesser than that of a Companion of the Prophet (PBUH), so a sincere brother who forgoes the pleasures of the soul in serving belief at this time and practising humility preserves solidarity and unity, is afforded a position higher than that of a saint. This was the conclusion I came to and you confirm it constantly. May God be eternally pleased with you. Amen!

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

The Fruits of Belief is most important and very valuable. It is my hope that in time it will achieve great triumphs. It seems you have thoroughly understood its value, for you have not left this place of study without lessons. On my own account I say that if the fruit of all this trouble and expense is only this treatise and Müdâfaa Risalesi (The Defence Speeches), and being together with you in the same place, it reduces to nothing the expense and the trouble, and even if I were to suffer this calamity ten times over, it would still be cheap.

Due to many experiences and especially in this distressing, restricted prison, I have formed the firm conviction that being occupied with the Risale-i Nur, both reading it and writing it out, greatly lessens the distress and gives one a feeling of expansiveness. When I am not busy with it, the calamity doubles and I am upset by trifling things. Although I reckoned that for various reasons Husrev, Hafiz Ali and Tahiri would be suffering most, I saw that it was they and those with them who had the greatest composure and submission and ease of heart. I asked myself why. Now I have understood that they are carrying out their true duties; since they are not occupied with anything frivolous, and do not interfere in the functions of Divine Decree and Determining, and are not boastful, critical, or panicky, all of which spring from egotism, with their self-possession and their steadfastness and peace of mind, they have exonerated the Risale-i Nur students and demonstrated their moral strength in the face of atheism. May Almighty God make the true dignity and heroism within their utter humility and self-abasement spread to all our brothers. Amen!

* * *

My Brothers!

A fearful egotism arising from heedlessness and love of this world rules at this time. The people of reality, therefore, have to give up egotism and selfishness, even if it is in a licit form. Since the Risale-i Nur students dissolve their egotism, which is an ice-block, in the joint pool of their collective personality, they will not be shaken by this storm, God willing. Yes, a well-tried method of the dissemblers is to collect together people who are all like officers and judges, concerning some common question in constraining places which make them stand-offish, and irritable and critical of each other; stirring them up so they fight among themselves, they destroy their morale. The dissemblers then easily deal blows at those who have lost their strength, and kill them. Since the Risale-i Nur students have taken the way of love and brotherhood and ‘annihilation in the brothers,’ God willing, they will foil this well-tried, divisive stratagem.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

One time, a shaykh had so many followers the Government became anxious regarding its political implications and wanted to scatter his community. The shaykh told the Government: “I only have one and a half followers. No others. If you like we can put it to the test.” So he had a tent pitched somewhere and gathered together all his thousands of followers there. He told them: “I am going to put you to the test. Whoever is my disciple and complies with my command will go to heaven.” He summoned them into the tent one by one. He had a sheep slaughtered secretly, as though he had killed his favourite disciple and sent him to Paradise. When the thousands of followers saw the blood, they no longer obeyed the shaykh and started to denounce him. Only one man said “May I be sacrificed for you,” and went to him. Then a woman went to him too, and the rest dispersed. The shaykh told the government men: “Now you have seen for yourselves that I only have one and a half followers.”

Endless thanks be to Almighty God that in the test and trial of Eskishehir, the Risale-i Nur lost only one and a half of its students. Through the efforts of the heroes of Isparta and its surroundings, in their place ten thousand were added, just the opposite to the shaykh. God willing, in this ordeal too, through the efforts of the heroes of both the east and the west, few will be lost, and ten will come in place of any one that goes.

* * *

One time, someone who was not a Muslim found a way of succeeding to the leadership of a sufi order and began to give guidance. The disciples under his training began to advance, then one of them saw through a revelation that their guide had suffered a serious decline. With his insight, the guide told his disciple: “So you have understood.” But the disciple said: “Since it was with your guidance that I rose to this station, I shall follow you even closer from now on.” He beseeched Almighty God and saved his unhappy shaykh, who all of a sudden advanced, and outflanking all his disciples, again became their true guide. This means that sometimes a disciple becomes the shaykh’s shaykh. But the true skill is that when one sees his brother in a bad situation, he does not abandon him, but strengthens their brotherhood and tries to reform him. This is the mark of the loyal and faithful. Because the dissemblers want to destroy the solidarity of brothers in such situations and spoil their good opinions of each other, they say: “See, those you think so highly of are common, ordinary people.” Anyway, we have suffered much in this calamity, but since it is a matter concerning the whole world of Islam, it is very cheap and of high value. Due to their being politics of religion or for other reasons, similar events have not been of concern for the whole Islamic world.

* * *

Since the strange signature at the beginning of the printed edition of the Old Said’s work Lemeât coincides with little change with my present circumstances and exactly with my seventy-second year, I have included it here. If you consider it suitable, you can add it to the end of the defences in place of a signature, and to the Fruits and the short letters. That strange signature consists of the following three and a half lines:

The Supplicant

My demolished grave in which are heaped up sixty-nine dead Said’s with his sins and sorrows.

The seventieth is a gravestone to a grave; altogether they weep at Islam’s decline.

I have hope that the skies of the future and Asia will together surrender to Islam’s clean, shining hand,

For it promises the prosperity of belief; it affords peace and security to mankind.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

The reason for the supreme importance I give your solidarity is not only because of its advantages for us and the Risale-i Nur, but for the mass of believers who are not within the sphere of certain, verified belief, and are much need of a point of support and a truth which a community unshaken by events finds certain. Since it is an authority, a guide, a proof, which is unfearing, unflinching, incorruptible, and undeceiving in the face of the currents of misguidance, one who sees your powerful solidarity forms the conviction that there is a truth that may be sacrificed for nothing, that does not bow before the people of misguidance, nor is it defeated; his morale and belief are strengthened, and he is saved from joining the worldly and their vice.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Beware! Do not dispute among yourselves, spying ears will take advantage of it. Right or wrong, those who argue in our situation are wrong. Even if they are right to one degree, by disputing they could cause us untold harm.

I shall repeat a story I once told my irritable brothers in Eskishehir Prison. During the Great War, I was being held as a prisoner together with ninety officers in a long dormitory in northern Russia. Since they had a regard for me far higher than was my due, through my advice to them, I did not allow any noise or trouble. But then, irascibility arising from the constraints and irritations began to give rise to violent rows. I told three or four of them that whenever they heard a noisy dispute, to go and help those in the wrong. They did this, and the damaging rows ceased. They asked me why I had taken such unjust precautions, and I told them:

“A person who is in the right, is fair; he will sacrifice his one ‘dirhem’s’ worth of right for the general peace, which is worth a hundred ‘dirhems.’ Those in the wrong are mostly egotistical; they will sacrifice nothing, so the din increases.”

* * *

My Brothers!

You should repeatedly and carefully read the pieces in the treatise containing the short letters, which are a means of consolation and enjoin forbearance and patient endurance. I am the weakest of you and I have the greatest share of this distressing calamity. Thanks be to God, I am enduring it and I have not been vexed by those who have piled all the blame on me, nor annoyed at those who because it is the same matter have defended themselves alone, and implying we have formed a political association, put the blame on me. I request that since we are brothers, you imitate me in this patience.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers and Friends in this Hostel of the World!

I thought tonight of our being led handcuffed together to the court by soldiers with bayonets fixed. The Old Said’s proud vein of temperament made me feel exceedingly angry. But it was suddenly imparted to me that we should respond to this situation not with anger, but with pride, thanks, and joy, for in the eyes of the intelligent, and of incalculable numbers of angels and spirit beings and the people of reality and those among men with consciences and certain, verified belief, we appear as a caravan of heroes on the way of truth, reality, the Qur’an, and belief, challenging this century. In the face of their elevated regard, applause, and appreciation, which is indicative of dominical acceptance and Divine mercy, the insulting looks of a limited number of dissolute layabouts, can be of no importance. One day, even, when I went by car because of illness, I felt a constrictedness. But then when I went together with you with my hands bound, I felt an expansiveness and joy of the spirit. That is to say, my state of mind arose from this meaning.

I have said it many times and I shall repeat it: none have been seen in history who have performed as great service on the way of truth and have earned so much reward while suffering so little difficulty, as the Risale-i Nur students. However much hardship we suffer, it is still not costly.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Our escaping from this calamity and being saved from it is impossible in two respects:

The First: Since Divine Determining appointed that we should meet part of our fate here, we would anyway have come here. This way is therefore the best.

The Second: We found no way of being saved from the plots that were being hatched against us. I perceived them, but there was no way out. The unfortunate late Shaykh Abdülhakim, and Shaykh Abdülbaki could find no way to save themselves. This means that to complain about one another in this calamity is both unjust, and meaningless, and harmful, and is to feel a sort of offence at the Risale-i Nur. Beware! To consider some of the activities of the leading students to be the cause of this calamity and to feel indignant at them, is to withdraw from the Risale-i Nur and regret having learnt the truths of belief. This is a far greater calamity than the material calamity. I swear that although my share of this calamity is twenty or thirty times greater than each of yours, because they have acted with a pure intention, I would not be annoyed at them even if the calamity, which occurred due to lack of caution, was ten times greater. It is also meaningless to object to things that are past, because they cannot be repaired.

My Brothers! Anxiety doubles the calamity; it also roots the physical calamity in the heart; it also suggests objection to and criticism of Divine Determining and accusation against Divine mercy. Since everything has a good side and in everything is a manifestation of Divine mercy, and Divine Determining works with justice and wisdom; we are surely bound not to give importance to any slight trouble we may suffer as a result of the sacred task we are performing which concerns the whole Islamic world at this time.

* * *

[An unimportant, commonplace condition of mine necessitated that I write this to you.]

My Brothers!

I have formed the firm conviction that the evil eye affects me severely and makes me ill. I have experienced it on numerous occasions. I want with all my heart and soul to be a companion to you in all circumstances, but in accordance with the famous rule, “The evil eye puts the camel in the cooking-pot and man into his grave,”33 the evil eye has an effect on me. For those who look at me, do so with either violent hatred, or appreciation. Both these are present in the looks of some people who possess the ability to affect with the evil eye. I have formed the intention therefore that if it is possible and they do not force me, I shall not always accompany you while going to the court.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.

My Dear Brothers!

This morning before dawn a piece was suddenly imparted to me. Yes, I confirm the wonder (keramet) of the Risale-i Nur concerning the earthquake what Husrev wrote in detail; what I thought also centred on that. For just as the coinciding of the four occasions of severe aggression against the Risale-i Nur and its students and the four occasions of the assaults of earthquakes were not chance, so the exact coincidence of the two centres of the Risale-i Nur’s dissemination, Isparta and Kastamonu, being preserved from disaster relative to other places; and as alluded to by Sura al-‘Asr, since the means of salvation from the Second World War —mankind’s greatest ‘loss’ at the end of time— is belief and good works; it cannot be mere chance that the Risale-i Nur has spread certain, verified belief all over Anatolia, and Anatolia was saved from the great losses of war in extraordinary fashion. Also, just as the exact coinciding of those who impede the Risale-i Nur’s service or those who err in that service receiving blows either of compassion or wrath, cannot be mere chance —of which there have been hundreds of incidents; so too the thousands of incidents of, almost without exception, all those who serve the Risale-i Nur well experiencing plenty in their livelihoods and ease of mind and happiness, cannot be mere chance.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

According to the inner meanings of “good is in what God chooses,” and,

It may be that you hate a thing and it is good for you,34

the most confidential pieces of the Risale-i Nur have emerged from behind the veil of “sirran tenevveret”35 so as to come into the possession of the most undesirable people, to strike the arrogant, and show up the errors of those at the top. They wanted to make the matter appear unimportant, but somehow or other they understood that it has great importance, and attracting attention to it in a big way, leads to shining triumphs for the Risale-i Nur and its enemies being made to read it in wonderment. In fact, it illuminated many hesitant, bewildered, and needy people during the Eskishehir trials, and saved them, transforming our hardships into mercy. God willing, on this occasion it will perform that sacred service on a wider scale, in many courts and centres. Yes, those who see the Risale-i Nur’s style and explanations cannot remain indifferent to it. It not only makes the mind and heart submit like other works, it also conquers the soul and emotions.

Your being released causes no harm to this fact, but my acquittal would be detrimental. Even my soul agrees to sacrifice for a truth that concerns the whole Islamic world not only the life of this world but if necessary that of the next, and to sacrifice through the Risale-i Nur my own happiness for that of the people of belief.

* * *

[included here is the continuation of the earthquake incident from Husrev’s letter; the beginning is not included.]

I later saw in another newspaper, the following amazing, complementary facts: before the earthquake, the cats and dogs gathered together in groups of four or five. They silently sat down together looking at each other pensively and blankly, then dispersed. None of these animals was to be seen either during the earthquake, or immediately before it, or after it; they disappeared into the countryside away from the towns. Another strange thing they write is that these animals gave news of the coming disaster, which resulted from our sins, through the tongue of disposition, and they did not understand it and are amazed.

Among the hundreds of things that for years Bediuzzaman has predicted in the Risale-i Nur, is that the atheists should avoid interfering with the Risale-i Nur and its students, for if harm comes to them, the disasters waiting in the offing will make them regret it a hundred time over. The earthquake verified this with its signature, then four more disasters occurred... May Almighty God bestow belief on our hearts and on the hearts of those who attack the Risale-i Nur, and give them minds that will recognize the truth, and save us from these dungeons and them from disasters. Amen.

H u s r e v

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers and Companions in Disaster!

There being blessed scholars, good organizers, and sincerely devoted students among you, I felt firmly confident that you would preserve your unity and solidarity in the face of our powerful, cunning, and numerous enemies. I felt easy and was not preoccupied with you. But it has now become necessary to explain a number of matters.

The First: I was not going to send anything to Ankara, lest it delay your release. But since the court mixed up the treatises that are confidential and those which are not and the old letters and the new, and sent them to Ankara, it was essential to send to those departments Müdafaat Risalesi (The Defences), which supplies extremely powerful replies concerning the confidential treatises, especially the Sufyan and Islamic Dajjal (Antichrist) in the Fifth Ray, and The Fruits of Belief, which smashes the arrogant disbelief arising from Naturalist philosophy and its insolent attacks on belief, so that the committee of experts there would not base their judgements on those confidential treatises and rule against us like the first committee.

The Second Point: My Dear Brothers! While writing the reply to your important letter, they gave me the same letter. I had begun the Second Point and it remained unfinished. Now I am completing it, so take note of it. If this idea is given currency by your useless lawyer, it is doubtless a plan of those who are seeking our conviction, so that like the committee of experts here, the committe in Ankara will take as basic the unpublished confidential treatises, and especially the Fifth Ray, extend them to the whole Risale-i Nur then confiscate it, and inferring that the matters discussed in the Fifth Ray are what all the wretched students study who read the Risale-i Nur, have them all convicted due to my crime. The prison governor and assistant prosecutor’s making difficulties for me by preventing me from speaking and confiscating what I have written is a powerful sign that the intention is for Ankara to make the ruling against us before the irrefutable replies of the defences reach there.

The Third Point: In fact, the Chairman of the Court said that day that he was going to send the books, documents, and defences of importance, which would prolong the case, to Ankara. These have certainly arrived by now. If my two well-set-out and explicatory defence speeches are sent, they may solve the case quickly; it would not be prolonged but expedited, and those with families released. But myself and those like me who have no one, we should not be released, but remain in prison, for it is the best place to defend the truths of belief against the atheists and apostates.

Fourth Point: If the Risale-i Nur is not acquitted and my defence is not taken into consideration, your apparent denial will not save you; because of its all being the same question, we are all bound together. Only a very few of our friends who have a slight connection might be saved. Eskishehir Court demonstrated this in fact. For the past year they have planted spies among us who carefully record the disclosures of simple-minded and rash students, and have employed every means to wreck us and make us regret our way, and have even mobilized Shaykh Abdülhakim against us. But they have ruined him the same as they have ruined us and Shaykh Abdülbaki and Shaykh Süleyman, who has objected to me from time to time, so your denials to them and your running away will make absolutely no difference to what they think, and what they call “discretionary conviction,” just as it made no difference in Eskishehir.

Fifth Point: We have understood certainly through our experiences of both here and Eskishehir that due to it all being the same case, our greatest need is for complete solidarity. Taking offence and being irritable and critical due to the hardships doubles the wretchedness of our plight. Regretably, it was you that I had the most confidence in and trusted most. Sometimes when I feel a twinge of anxiety, I think of Kamil Hoja and Siddik Hoja from Istanbul and the people in the province of Kastamonu who have displayed an extraordinary loyalty, and my anxiety evaporates. Be careful that the secret organization that supports absolute disbelief does not infiltrate you. It infiltrated the ward next to me and caused me indescribable torment. Discuss this among yourselves now without argument; I shall accept your decision. But if in your discussions you take into consideration the possibility that if my defence goes to Ankara and is studied there the court here may come to a decision about those whose release is possible; and the possibility that those who struggle against us, and exiled Abdülbaki, Abdülhakim, and Haji Süleyman, and made Yesil Semsi remain here after he had been officially released, will not release those like Hafiz Mehmed and Seyyid Sefik, with their firm adherence to religion and refusal to bow before the dead leader and his picture, and their demonstrating their lack of support for atheism and innovations. You should also take into consideration that it is of the greatest importance that the Risale-i Nur emerges from obscurity and in a momentous general question at a time they are contesting themselves in their centres, the hesitant and bewildered people of belief can find the students behind them and by not running away it can be shown to them that the students are bound to an unshakeable and invincible truth. Beware! Take no notice of each other’s faults; have respect instead of feeling angry, and help each other rather than being critical.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal, Faithful Brothers!

For the past few days I have changed the form of my supplications. I no longer say “faithful” in the phrase “faithful students of the Risale-i Nur” when repeating perhaps a hundred times “forgive us” or “give us success.” Then those of our brothers who feel themselves obliged to act as though they have dispensations, or due to the anxiety and despair caused by distress, act contrarily to resolution and fidelity by apparently denying or holding back, are not left out of those prayers.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear Brother Hafiz Ali!36

Do not worry about your illness. My Almighty God grant you healing. Amen! You are making a high profit since one hour’s worship in prison is the equivalent of twelve hours’ worship. If you want some medicine, I have some here; I can send them to you. Anyway there is a slight illness doing the rounds. I am certain to be ill the day I attend the court. Perhaps you have taken on a little of my illness in order to help me, like those of former times who with extraordinary self-sacrifice, were ill and died in each other’s places.

* * *

[A perfectly apt obituary]

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Who say when afflicted by calamity: To God do we belong and to Him is our return.37

I offer my condolences to myself, to you, and to the Risale-i Nur, and I congratulate Hafiz Ali and the Denizli graveyard. That heroic brother of ours who knew with ‘knowledge of certainty’ the truths of The Fruits of Belief, has left his body behind in his grave to ascend to the stations of ‘vision of certainty’ and ‘absolute certainty,’ to journey round the stars and the world of spirits like the angels. Having carried out his duty to the letter, he has been discharged to take his rest. May the Most Merciful of the Merciful write merits in the book of his good deeds to the number of the letters of the Risale-i Nur, both written and read. Amen! And may He pour down blessings onto his spirit to their number. Amen! And may He make the Qur’an and the Risale-i Nur pleasant, friendly companions to him in his grave. Amen! And may He bestow ten heroes to take his place in the Light Factory,38 and make them work. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Remember him in your prayers like me. I beseech Divine mercy that a thousand tongues will be employed in place of his single tongue and he will gain a thousand lives in place of the single life and tongue he lost.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Endless thanks be to the Most Merciful of the Merciful that in these extraordinary times and strange place, He permitted us by means of you to win the honour of being students of the religious sciences and to perform important services. It has been seen on numerous occasions by those who divine the state of people in their graves that like martyrs, in their graves, some enthusiastic and serious students of the religious sciences who die when busy with their studies suppose themselves to be alive and still studying. Indeed, while observing a student who died when studying grammar and syntax, one such diviner of graves was curious what answer the student would give to Munkar and Nakir in his grave, and he heard that when the questioning angel asked him: “Who is your Sustainer?”, the student replied: “‘Who’ is the subject, and ‘your Sustainer’ is its predicate.” He gave a grammatical answer, supposing himself to be in his medrese. Thus, like that incident, I know the late Hafiz Ali to be a student of the religious sciences working at the Risale-i Nur, the highest of the sciences, at the degree of martyrs and at their level of life. With that conviction, in some of my supplications I pray for him, and like him for Mehmed Zühdü and Hafiz Mehmed: “O God! Busy them in perfect happiness and contentment till the resurrection of the dead with the truths of belief and mysteries of the Qur’an in the guise of the Risale-i Nur. Amen!

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear and Loyal Brothers!

I cannot forget the late Hafiz Ali; his suffering upsets me terribly. In earlier times, self-sacrificing persons would sometimes die in place of their friends; I reckon he departed in my place. If those like you who follow his system were not performing his supreme service, it would have been a terrible loss for Islam. My pain subsides when I think of you, his heirs, and I feel cheered up. It is astonishing but his departing with his spiritual life, indeed, with his physical life, to the Intermediate Realm, has aroused in me a longing to go to that world, and one veil more has been folded back in my spirit. Just as we send greetings to our brothers in Isparta from here and converse with them and exchange news, so the Intermediate Realm, where Hafiz Ali now dwells, has become like Isparta or Kastamonu in my view. I heard, even, that someone from here was sent there last night. I felt even sorrier; why had I not sent Hafiz Ali greetings with him? Then it occurred to me that no means are needed to send greetings; his powerful connection is like a telephone. Also, he would come and receive them. That great martyr has caused me to love Denizli, I do not want to leave here now. He and Mehmed Zühdü and Hafiz Mehmed are continuing their tasks serving belief and the Risale-i Nur which they carried out in their lives. They watch from very close by, and even help. With their taking their places, due to the valuable service they performed, in the sphere of the great saints, I mention the names of those two, together with Hafiz Mehmed, together with those of the spiritual poles in my ‘chain,’ and bequeath my gifts.

* * *

My Dear and Loyal Brothers!

Your sincerity, loyalty, and steadfastness are sufficient reason to disregard one another’s faults in the present trying circumstances, and to hide them. For the powerful brotherhood within the Risale-i Nur is such a good act it causes one to forgive a thousand evils. Since at the Last Judgement when good deeds will preponderate over evils, Divine justice will forgive, you too, seeing that good deeds preponderate, should act with love and forgiveness. For to become angry due to a single bad deed, and exasperated in harmful manner out of irritability, and upset because of the difficulties, is to be wrong in two respects. God willing, you will assist one another in joy and consolation, and will reduce the hardship to nothing.

* * *

My Loyal, Blessed Brothers!

The reason I have not spoken with you for a few days is a severe illness resulting from poison, the like of which I have never experienced. On account of the Risale-i Nur, I shall be proud till the end of my days of my steadfast, staunch, unshakeable brothers in the ‘Light’ and ‘Rose’ areas,39 and the devoted brothers of Kastamonu, and I find them a powerful support and effective solace in the face of the afflictions of all the tyrants. If I was to die now, I would meet my death happily seeing that they are there.

The worldly cast me into prison due to their groundless fears that I was opposing them, but Divine Determining imprisoned me because I did not speak with them and did not try to reform them. If I remain in prison with only a few friends, I shall seek an open trial which will arouse the interest of all the Islamic world, and I shall open proceedings against the departments of government in Ankara, and have numerous copies made in the new letters of The Fruits of Belief and the defence speeches, and shall send them to the important departments, God willing.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Hadiths of this sort are allegorical. They are not particular and do not look to general places. As for others, of the religious differences that would afflict the Umma, they point out a single time, citing the Hijaz and Iraq as examples. Anyway in the ‘Abbasid period, numerous misguided sects came into being which harmed Islam, like the Mu‘tazila, the Rawafid, Jabariyya, and atheists and heretics under various guises. At a time there were serious upheavals regarding the Shari‘a and tenets of belief, numerous leading figures of Islam like Bukhari, Muslim, Imam-i A‘zam, Imam Shafi‘i, Imam Malik, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Imam Ghazali, Gawth al-A‘zam, and Junayd al-Baghdadi, emerged and quelled the religious dissension. The victory continued for around three hundred years, but the sects of the people of misguidance covertly, by way of politics, brought down on the Muslims the dissension of Hulagu and Jenghiz. Both Hadiths, and Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) explicitly indicate this dissension together with its date. Then since the dissension of the present time is one of the most serious, both numerous Hadiths, and numerous Qur’anic allusions give news of it, together with the date. Making an analogy with this, when a Hadith mentions in general fashion the stages the Umma will pass through, it sometimes points out the date of a particular event within the generality, by way of an example. Various parts of the Risale-i Nur have made certain interpretations of allegorical Hadiths such as these, the meanings of which are not completely understood. The Twenty-Fourth Word and Fifth Ray elucidate this truth by means of principles.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

It was imparted to me that I should explain a truth so that you do not accuse one another of egotism or disloyalty.

At one time I observed that some of the great saints who had given up egotism and none of whose evil-commanding souls remained, complained bitterly about them and I was astonished. I later understood perfectly that on the death of the evil-commanding soul, its implements are handed over to veins of temperament and emotions, so that the striving of the soul can continue to the end of the person’s life; and the exertion does continue. Those great saints, then, complain of this second enemy and heir of the soul. Moreover, spiritual worth, station, and virtue do not look to this world so that they should make themselves felt. In fact, since some of those at the highest station do not perceive the great Divine favours bestowed on them, they consider themselves to be more wretched and bankrupt than everyone, which shows that the wonder-workings, unfoldings, illuminations, and lights which the mass of people consider to be spiritual perfection, cannot be the means to and touchstone for that spiritual worth and those stations. This is proved by the fact that although one hour of the Companions of the Prophet (PBUH) had the worth of a day of other saints, or perhaps forty days’ ordeal, all the Companions experienced the same wondrous illuminations and states as the saints.

My brothers, be careful! Do not let your evil-commanding souls deceive you by comparing others to yourselves and thinking ill of them; do not allow them to make you doubt the Risale-i Nur’s ability to train.

In His Name, be He glorified!

[The unruly youths themselves confirm that nine slaps they received related to the five matters in the Risale-i Nur’s Guide For Youth and Fruits of Belief are a subtle instance of the Risale-i Nur’s wonder-working.]

The First is Feyzi, who sometimes assists me. At the start I told him: You have attended a reading of The Fruits, so don’t get into trouble. He did get into trouble, and received a slap: he could not use his hand for a week.

Yes, it’s true,

Feyzi

The Second is Ali Riza, who assists me and writes out The Fruits. One day I was going to teach him about what he had written. Out of laziness, he made an excuse about cooking the food and did not come. He suddenly received a slap: although his saucepan was in good shape, the bottom suddenly fell out together with the food.

Yes, it’s true,

Ali Riza

The Third is Ziya. He wrote out the topics about youth and the obligatory prayers from The Fruits for himself, and began to perform the prayers. But then he became lazy and gave up praying and writing. He suddenly received a slap: for no reason and in extraordinary fashion, his basket and the clothes in it, which were beside him, caught fire. No one among that crowd being aware of this until they had burnt shows that it was an intended ‘compassionate slap.’

Yes, it’s true,

Ziya

The Fourth is Mahmud. I read him the topics about youth and the prayers from The Fruits and I told him not to gamble and to perform the prayers. He agreed. But he was overcome by laziness, and did not pray and did gamble. He suddenly received ‘an angry slap:’ while gambling, he lost three or four times, and despite his poverty, had to hand over forty liras, his sack coat and his trousers to his opponent, and he still has not come to his senses

Yes, it’s true,

Mahmud

The Fifth: A boy of fourteen called Süleyman was always causing trouble and at the same time egging others on. I told him to behave himself and perform the prayers, or his conduct would get him into big trouble and put him into danger. He began to perform the prayers, but then he gave them up and began making trouble again. He suddenly received a slap; he caught scabies and had to remain in bed for three weeks.

Yes, it’s true,

Süleyman

The Sixth is Ömer, who at the beginning assisted me; he began to perform the prayers and gave up singing. Then one evening, a song reached my ears which was being sung close to my door; it disturbed me as I was reciting my supplications. I was angry, went out and saw that unusually, it was Ömer. And unusually for me, I dealt him a slap. Then, unusually, the following morning, he was sent to another prison.

The Seventh: A sixteen year old called Hamza, who because he had a good voice, used to sing songs, also whetting the appetites of others and upsetting things. I told him not to do it or he would receive a slap. Then suddenly two days later his hand was dislocated and he suffered torments for two weeks.

Yes, it’s true,

Hamza

There are other slaps like these, but the paper is finished and so is the meaning.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

An education minister raised the veil from his face and revealed absolute disbelief in another guise. He must have written that manifesto on some other prompting, before receiving the defences we last sent. I was not thinking of sending them to that department, but this has shown that it is both appropriate and necessary to send them there too, with my brothers’ approval. For most likely a deputy so bigotted in atheism would not be indifferent towards the documents and confidential treatises sent to Ankara. He was suddenly hit on the head by the irrefutable defences; it was excellent. God willing, it will give rise to a powerful movement in favour of the Risale-i Nur in that department too.

My Brothers! Since some people are like that, to submit to them is a sort of suicide; it is to regret Islam, or even to shake off religion. For they are so bigotted in atheism that they are not content with people like us only submitting or pretending to submit; they tell us: “Give up your hearts and consciences, and work for this world alone.” In such a situation, there is no solution other than relying on dominical grace, trusting in God in patience and fortitude, sending four crates of copies of the Risale-i Nur to that centre, and praying that with their powerful truths, they will be victorious. Our experience up to now has shown that avoiding one another and being upset, and dissociating oneself from the Risale-i Nur, and submitting to them and even joining them, is of no benefit. Also, in no way be anxious. That deputy’s blustering alarm shows his weakness and fear, and that he is compelled not to attack, but to defend himself.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Sami Bey told me that one of our brothers from Homa, a student called Ali, died around the same time as Hafiz Ali. Mehmed Ali, one of heroes of Homa, also wrote and told me. So in many of my prayers I have made that Ali a companion to the great martyr Ali.

Recently, a lady who is connected with us dreamt that three of our brothers had died. Its interpretation is that these two Ali’s and Mustafa, who in prison wanted to become a follower of the Risale-i Nur and was hanged, went to the hereafter in place of all of us, and were sacrificed for our well-being.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal, Unshakeable Brothers, who know the true nature and meaning of reliance on God!

Although for twenty years I have not had the curiosity to either read or ask about any newspaper, with much regret I today saw, only for the sake of some of our weak brothers, a newspaper article. I understood from it that covertly and openly a number of important movements are playing false parts. Since we appear in the public eye, it is supposed we are connected with those movements. God willing, the four boxes of powerful, irrefutable treatises and notebooks of decisive defences will produce good results for both us, and belief and the Qur’an, and Islam. We have not meddled in their worlds and they have in no way established that we are going to meddle. Ankara was compelled to request the whole Risale-i Nur in order to scrutinize it.

Since this is the fact and since up to now in the service of the Risale-i Nur we have witnessed the manifestation of dominical grace to an undeniable degree — we have all experienced this, particular and universal; and since many of the movements of politics and the world are mustering forces against each other; and since we can do nothing except be content with the Divine Decree and submit to Divine Determining, and receive the vast and sacred consolation arising from the service of belief and the Qur’an and the Risale-i Nur; certainly, what we have to do before anything else is not be alarmed and not to despair and strengthen each other’s morale and not to be frightened and to meet this calamity trusting in God, and recognize the mountains which the inane, clamorous journalists who make mountains out of molehills to be molehills, and to give them no importance. The life of this world, especially at this time and under these conditions, is without value. Whatever happens to one, one should meet it contentedly.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Two or three of my brothers have a good way of consoling themselves. They say this:

Some of our new brothers in this prison are enduring patiently one or two or perhaps ten years of this calamity because of one or two hours illicit activity. Some of them even offer thanks, saying that they have been saved from other sins. They say: Why should we complain about six or seven months of beneficial hardship, since we are employed in the most licit activity and are serving belief through the Risale-i Nur? I congratulate them. Yes, to suffer difficulties for five or ten months because of performing for five or ten years an enjoyable, pleasant, beneficial, sacred service and elevated worship and reflection with the intention of saving both one’s own belief and that of others, is a cause of pride and thanks. In a Hadith it says: “For one person to come to believe through you is better for you than a plainful of red sheep and goats.”40 You should think therefore of all the people here, in the court, and in Ankara, whose belief has been saved, and will be saved, from ghastly doubts through your writings and your service, and offer thanks in patience and with resignation.

If the Republican People’s Party, which governs in Ankara, obstinately opposes the powerful parts of the Risale-i Nur which go there, and does not attempt to protect it with the intention of being conciliatory, the most comfortable place for us is prison. It is a sign that the atheists have combined communism and atheism, and the Government is obliged to heed them. In which case, the Risale-i Nur would draw back and halt, and calamities, material and immaterial, would begin their onslaught.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

O assembly of jinns and men! Came there not unto you messengers from among you?41

[Although these verses state that prophets were sent from the jinns, the following is Üstad’s answer to a question aimed at solving this difficulty.]

My Dear Brothers!

Truly this question of yours holds much importance, but since the Risale-i Nur’s chief function is saving mankind from misguidance and absolute disbelief, it has no place for matters of this sort and does not discuss them. The leading figures of the first generations of Islam also did not discuss them much. For such unseen, invisible matters are open to exploitation. Fraudulent persons also may exploit them for their own ends, just as spiritualists nowadays perform their charlatanry under the name of ‘calling up spirits [jinns].’ It should not be much discussed therefore since they exploit it to harm religion. Also, no prophets have been sent from the jinns after the Seal of the Prophets (PBUH). Also, the Risale-i Nur has tried to prove the existence of jinns and spirit beings with incontrovertible proofs in order to refute the ideas of materialism, which plagues humanity at this time. It has put the matter in third place and has left detailed discussion of it to others. God willing, a student of the Risale-i Nur may expound Sura al-Rahman in the future and solve the question.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Who say when afflicted by calamity: To God do we belong, and to Him is our return.42

The deaths of Hafiz Ali, Hafiz Mehmed, and Mehmed Zühdü were truly a great loss not only for us, but for Isparta, and even for this country and the Islamic world. But up to now, as a manifestation of Divine grace, whenever a Risale-i Nur student has been lost, two or three have immediately appeared who follow the same system. I have powerful hopes therefore that serious students will emerge who will carry out those students’ duties in another form. Anyway, those three blessed people performed a hundred years’ worth of duties serving the cause of belief in a short period. May the Most Merciful of the Merciful grant them mercy to the number of the letters of the Risale-i Nur that they wrote, published, and read. Amen!

Offer my condolences to Hafiz Mehmed’s relations and his blessed village for me. I have made him the companion to Hafiz Ali and Mehmed Zühdü, and included the names of the three of them among the names of those of my masters who were spiritual poles. And I have made Hafiz Akif the companion of Asim and Lütfi.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

In accordance with an inner meaning of “Good is in what God chooses,” it is good this matter of ours has been delayed. For love of that dreadful dead man was being inculcated in all the schools, government departments, and in the people. This situation would have had a grievous and painful effect on the Islamic world and the future. The Risale-i Nur, which demonstrates with decisive proofs his true nature, now passing —outside our wills— into the hands of those at the top and those most closely connected with him and those who would be last to give him up, and its being carefully and curiously studied, is such an event that if thousands of people like us were to be sent to prison, and even to be executed, it would still be cheap with regard to the religion of Islam. At the very least, it will save to a degree the most obdurate of them from absolute disbelief and apostasy, lead them into ‘doubting’ disbelief, and moderate their arrogant and insolent aggression. We have claimed with the final words we said to their faces in court, “Let our heads too be sacrificed for a sacred truth for which millions of heroic heads have been sacrificed!”, that we shall hold out to the very end. This cause may not be renounced. I hope that there is no one among you who would give it up. Since you have patiently endured it up to now, say: “Our fates and duties have not yet been fulfilled,” and continue to endure it. Certainly, they will not obstinately oppose the Risale-i Nur in order to defend their way, which is undeniably proved in The Fruits to consist of eternal annihilation and everlasting solitary confinement; they will rather seek ways of coming to terms or making a truce. Patience is the key to happiness and joy.43

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

In the First Ray, the allusions have been elucidated of the verse,

Can he who was dead, to whom We gave life, and a light whereby he can walk amongst men...?44

to both the Risale-i Nur, and with the word dead, with three powerful signs and connections, to these unhappy Risale-i Nur students. Now, in the present events, one of those signs is being realized. For, holding up life, civilization, and pleasure, those who oppress us accuse us of giving no importance to that style of life; they make charges against us, and even want to have us imprisoned with heavy labour, or executed. But they can find no legal sanction for this. As for us, we hold up death, the introduction to eternal life and its veil, and hit them over the heads with it to bring them to their senses, and work with all our strength to save them from true conviction, eternal execution, and everlasting solitary confinement. Even if I am given the severest penalties because of the vehement treatises that were sent to Ankara, and those who mete out the penalties are saved through the treatises from the execution of death, both my heart and my soul would consent to it. That is to say, we want them to have life in both worlds and this is what we are seeking, while they want us to die and they are seeking pretexts for this. But we are not defeated before them, because the reality of death and thirty thousand human corpses daily display as clearly and visibly as the sun the proclamations and decrees for thirty thousand eternal executions and thirty thousand solitary confinements for the people of misguidance. Let them do what they want. According to jafr and abjad reckoning, the verse,

It is the fellowship of God that must triumph45

has given us the good news, even in the twelve years of our most bitter defeat, of our victory together with its date. Since the reality is this, we shall from now on say the following, both to the court, and to the people:

We are trying to be saved from death’s eternal execution, which awaits us ever before our eyes, and from the everlasting darkness of the solitary confinement of the grave, which opens its door to us and summons us ineluctably. We are helping you to be saved from that awesome, inevitable calamity. The questions of politics and this world, which in your view are the most momentous, in our view and in that of reality have little value, and for those not directly concerned, are meaningless, unimportant, and worthless. Whereas the essential human duties with which we are occupied have a genuine connection with everyone all the time. Those who do not like this task of ours and want to put a stop to it, should put a stop to death and shut up the grave!

The third and fourth points have not been written for now.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

It is one of the wonders of the Risale-i Nur that for ten years Üstad Bediuzzaman has repeatedly said: “Atheists and apostates! Don’t interfere with the Risale-i Nur! It is a means of repulsing disasters, like almsgiving, so attacks on it, or its ceasing from activity, weakens its defence against disaster. If you molest it, the calamities that are waiting in the offing will rain down on you in floods.” There are numerous disasters we have witnessed in this connection. Whenever in the past four years the Risale-i Nur and its students have been attacked, a disaster or calamity has followed, demonstrating the Risale-i Nur’s importance and that it is a means of repulsing disaster. Among the hundreds of events Bediuzzaman predicted through the Risale-i Nur, disasters have put their signatures to their correctness with the hand of earthquakes; the four disasters which followed them showed how that the Risale-i Nur is a means of repulsing calamities. May Almighty God bestow belief on the hearts of those who attack us and the Risale-i Nur, and minds and eyes in their heads that will see the truth; and may He save us from these dungeons and them from those disasters. Amen!

H u s r e v

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

It is a manifestation of dominical grace that while expecting the Education Minister to erupt and attack us, although he had not seen our defences, documents, and books, and had only sensed them; and although the highest government departments had studied our most vehement confidential treatises like the Fifth Ray and Addendum to The Six Attacks (Hücumat-i Sitte’nin Zeyli) in order to criticize them; and our defences’ bold, harsh and serious blows at absolute disbelief should have led Ankara to act severely against us; they adopted a very lenient, and even conciliatory, position relative to the importance of the question. One reason for this manifestation of Divine grace is this: the Risale-i Nur’s being read with care and attention in all the country, which as a result of the interest has become a large dershane or place of study, and by all the important departments of government. Yes, such elevated teachings being studied at this time on such a comprehensive and universal scale is certainly a significant instance of Divine favour and is a powerful sign that it has smashed absolute disbelief.

My Brothers! Supposing that there may be an excuse for some weak family men who have suffered much hardship and loss to withdraw a little from the Risale-i Nur and from us, or even to give us up, I say in consequence of the possibility that they may change after having been released: it would be a serious loss for those who have paid this price, material and non-material, for goods of such value, and have suffered much torment, to forgo those goods. And if they suddenly give up the Risale-i Nur and its parts, and their attachment to it, and stop protecting us and helping and serving us, it would be an unnecessary loss both for them and for us. For this reason, in addition to being cautious, it is necessary not to change their loyalty, ties, and service.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

It is a manifestation of dominical favour and instance of Divine preservation that as I have heard, the experts’ committee in Ankara has been defeated in the face of the Risale-i Nur’s truths, and while there are numerous reasons for its criticizing it and objecting to it strongly, it has quite simply supplied the decision for its acquittal. However, the harsh expressions in the confidential treatises and the challenging words in the defences, and the fiery attacks of the Education Minister, and there being two materialist philosophers attached to the Ministry of Education on the experts’ committee and a prominent scholar who supports the new measures, and for the past year a covert atheistic organization has been inciting the People’s Party and Ministry of Education against us, all led us to expect violent objections and crushing penalties from the experts’ committee. But then the preservation and grace of the Most Merciful came to our assistance, and pointing out to them the Risale-i Nur’s high station, induced them to forgo their violent criticisms. Even, with the idea of saving us from being convicted, and so that, because of the Eskishehir affair and famous Thirty-First of March Incident I should not be regarded as having been previously convicted of political crimes, and show that we act solely for religion and belief and have no political aims, they said: “Said Nursi has long claimed to be an heir of the Prophet. He adopts the position of a regenerator in serving the Qur’an and belief; that is, he is sometimes overcome by a sort of ecstasy, and gets carried away.” With this passage and the irreligious expressions of the philosophers, they are saying to those who support religion, whoever they are: he is carrying out this duty, having inherited it from the regenerators of religion. They have used those irreligious philosophical terms in order to both criticize the excessively good opinions of me of some of our brothers, which are higher than my due; and by calling me an ecstatic, together with my vehemence, to exonerate me from political involvement and being convicted of it; and to flatter to an extent those who object to us and are hostile; and to show that the Qur’anic allusions, and wondrous indications of Imam ‘Ali, and the truths of Gawth al-A‘zam, are all powerful; and to smash the ambition, egotism, and conceit which by comparison with others they reckon is certainly present in me. From beginning to end, the Risale-i Nur furnishes a reply to those words as brilliant as the sun. And since our way is brotherhood and the giving up of egotism, and since we have not made any self-advertising ecstatic utterances, the New Said’s humble life in the time of the Risale-i Nur and his disregarding the excessively good opinions of him of his blessed brothers and moderating them with his instruction, completely refute the implications of those expressions, and dismiss them.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I am not sending you the committee of experts’ unanimous decisions for the moment so that no harm comes to those who informed on us. This last experts’ committee has evidently done all it can to save us and preserve us from the evil of the people of misguidance and innovation, and has exonerated us from all the charges made against us. They give the feeling that they have grasped thoroughly what the Risale-i Nur teaches, and have unanimously decided that the greater part of its scholarly parts about belief are written knowledgeably, that Said explains his views both sincerely and seriously, and that the power and strength in it are not to contest the government, but only to teach the needy the truths of the Qur’an. And they inferred about the confidential treatises, which they call “unscholarly:” “He sometimes goes into ecstasy and suffers emotional disturbance and mental storms, and should not therefore be held responsible.” And concerning the terms “the Old Said” and “the New Said,” they said there are two personalities, and inferred that in the second are an extraordinary strength of belief and knowledge of the Qur’anic truths, and for the sake of the philosophers said that “there is the possibility of a sort of ecstasy and mental disturbance,” while to save us from being charged concerning a certain violence of expression and to flatter our opponents, they said: “the possibility may be noted of an illness affecting hearing and sight which results in hallucinations.” The treatises of the Risale-i Nur, which are superior to other products of the mind, form sufficient answer to the suggestion of this possibility, refuting it totally. They have these in their possession, and the treatises containing the defence speeches and The Fruits of Belief, which have left all the lawyers in amazement. I offer many thanks that due to this possibility the allusion of a Hadith was imparted to me. Also, the experts’ committee have completely acquitted all my brothers and myself. They said, “They adhere to Said’s scholarly and knowledgeable works for their belief and their lives in the hereafter; we found nothing explicit or implicit in either their correspondence, or their books or treatises, suggesting any sort of conspiracy against the government.” They gave their decision unanimously, and put their signatures, philosopher Necati, (scholar) Yusuf Ziya, and philosopher Yusuf.

It is a subtle coincidence that while for ourselves, we call this prison a School of Joseph (Medrese-i Yusufiye) and The Fruits of Belief, its fruit, these two other Yusuf’s have said secretly through their tongues of disposition “we also have shared in the lessons of that School of Joseph.” Moreover, their subtle evidence for the possibility of ecstasy and hallucinations are phrases like “The Thirty-Third Word” and “The Thirty-Third Letter Containing Thirty-Three Windows,” and “his hearing his cat reciting the Divine Names ‘Ya Rahim! Ya Rahim! (O Most Compassionate One!’,” and “his seeing himself as a gravestone.”

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Since according to numerous signs, we are under Divine protection, and since in the face of numerous inequitable enemies, the Risale-i Nur has not been defeated, and has silenced to a degree the Education Minister and People’s Party, and since those who, greatly exaggerating the extent and breadth of our question, have caused alarm to the Government are sure to try to conceal their slander and lies with various trumped up excuses; what we must do is to retain our patience and composure in perfect submission, and particularly not to feel disillusioned, and not to despair when sometimes the opposite of what we hoped occurs, and not to be shaken by passing storms! Yes, disillusionment may destroy the morale and enthusiasm of the worldly, but for the Risale-i Nur students, who see beneath the hardship, striving and distress, the favours of Divine mercy, disillusionment is necessary to strengthen their efforts, their progress, and their seriousness. Forty years ago the politicians sent me to a lunatic asylum saying I was suffering from a temporary madness. I told them: I consider most of what you call sanity to be insanity; I resign from that sort of sanity. I observe in you the rule, “Everyone is mad, but their madness differs according to their caprices.” Now with the idea of saving myself and my brothers from serious charges, I repeat the same words to those who ascribe occasional ecstasy or a temporary insanity to me because of the confidential treatise, and I am grateful in two respects:

The First: In a sound Hadith, it says: “The ordinary people deeming, because they are beyond their understanding, the elevated states of one who has attained perfect belief to be madness, point to the perfection of his belief.”46

The Second Respect: I would agree with complete pride and joy, not only to be called mad, but to sacrifice my mind completely, and my life, for the well-being and salvation of my brothers in this prison and for them to be delivered from darkness. If you think it suitable, even, let someone write a letter of thanks to those three persons, and tell them that we are allowing them to share in our spiritual gains.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers, and Sincere Friends in the Service of the Qur’an and Belief, and My Inseparable Companions on the Way of Truth and Reality and the Intermediate Realm and the Hereafter!

With the time drawing close for us to part from one another, because of the faults and tensions arising from annoyances, the principles of the Treatise On Sincerity have not been preserved. It is therefore absolutely essential that you wholely forgive each other. You are brothers closer to each other than the most devoted blood brother, and a brother conceals his brother’s faults, and forgives and forgets. I do not attribute your uncustomary differences and egotism here to your evil-commanding souls, and I cannot reconcile it with the Risale-i Nur students; I rather consider it to be a sort of temporary egotism found even in saints who have given up their souls. So on your part, do not spoil my good opinion through obstinacy, and make peace with each other.

* * *

My Brothers!

It is understood from the report of the experts’ committee that the Risale-i Nur defeats all the groups opposing us, for by repeating The Eloquent Proof (Hüccetullahü’l-Bâliga), and the Treatise For The Elderly and Treatise On Sincerity, they are attracting attention to them. Moreover, the purpose of their extremely superficial and pseudo-bigotted hoja-like criticisms, the answers to which are quite plain; and their saying, without grasping which matters are completely unrelated and which are in truth conformable, that “there is a contradiction between them;” and their unhesitatingly affirming and appreciating ninety per cent of the treatises despite the vehement refutations in the addendum to The Six Attacks (Hücumat-i Sitte) of those who have issued the fatwas for the innovations, and the attacks on them, is only to justify themselves. Moreover, their sufficing with pointing out that my saying that persecuted, religious Christians who are killed by the enemies of religion may at the end of time be sorts of martyrs is contradictory to the Addendum’s severe attacks on performing the prayers with uncovered head and making the call to prayer in Turkish, gives one the conviction that they have most definitely been defeated by the Risale-i Nur.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1. Qur’an, 52:48.

2. See, page 478, footnote 63.

3. Qur’an, 2:216.

4. Abdülmecid (d.1967) was Bediuzzaman’s younger brother. He was a teacher of the religious sciences, then a Mufti. He translated parts of the Risale-i Nur into Arabic, and others from Arabic into Turkish. [Tr.]

5. Abdurrahman (1903-1928) was the son of Bediuzzaman’s elder brother, Abdullah. He was Bediuzzaman’s “spiritual son, student, and assistant,” and joined his uncle in Istanbul after the First World War. He published a short biography of Bediuzzaman at that time. [Tr.]

6. For ‘certain, verified belief,’ see, page 569, footnote 1.

7. Hizb al-Qur’an: A collection of Qur’anic verses, many of which form the basis of, and are expounded in, the Risale-i Nur. [Tr.]

8. Hizb al-Nuri: A long supplication. See also, page 505 footnote 78. [Tr.]

9. A qasida written in Syriac and Arabic, which is attributed to ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. [Tr.]

10. Qur’an, 2:286.

11. Qur’an, 52:49.

12. Qur’an, 52:49.

13. Hafiz Tevfik (1887-1965): one of the first Risale-i Nur students, and one of its most important ‘scribes.’ He was also called ‘Shamli’ as he spent part of his youth in Damascus, where his father served as an army officer. He served terms in the prisons of Eskishehir and Denizli together with Bediuzzaman. [Tr.]

14. The eve of the Feast of Sacrifices (‘Id al-Adha). [Tr.]

15. Sava or Sav: A village close to the town of Isparta and some 50 k. from Barla, the village where Bediuzzaman was exiled between 1926-1934. All the inhabitants of Sav, young and old, men and women, voluntarily assisted in the writing out and dissemination of the Risale-i Nur.

16. Qur’an, 22:38.

17. Qur’an, 57:12.

18. Qur’an, 42:6.

19. Qur’an, 13:29.

20. Qur’an, 66:8.

21. That is, the prisons of Eskishehir (1935-6) and Denizli (1943-4). [Tr.]

22. Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi (1193/1779-1242/1826-7). One of the most brilliant scholars of his age, who was known as the ‘Regenerator’ (Mujaddid) of his age. His ‘jubba’ or gown was given to Bediuzzaman in Kastamonu around 1940 by Asiye Hanim, the descendant of one of his ‘khalifas.’ [Tr.]

23. Brother, please note! In Denizli Prison, when everything was apparently against him, and the prosecution was even seeking his execution, Üstad said: “Don’t worry, my brothers. These Lights shall shine out.” See how his words have turned out to be true!

Signed, His Students.

24. Qur’an, 40:85.

25. Qur’an, 103:1-2.

26. al-‘Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa, i, 155.

27. Now one and a half thousand million. [Tr.]

28. Qur’an, 49:10.

29. Qur’an, 3:173.

30. The second part of the collection from the Risale-i Nur called Âsâ-yi Musâ (The Staff of Moses). It consists of 11 pieces proving the fundamentals of belief. [Tr.]

31. That is, the treatises they had written out, particularly The Fruits of Belief. [Tr.]

32. Alif: the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, written as a vertical stroke, the numerical value of which is one. [Tr.]

33. al-‘Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa, ii, 76; al-Maghribi, Jami’ al-Shaml, ii, 49; al-Munawi, Fayd al-Qadir, no: 5748.

34. Qur’an, 2:216.

35. A phrase quoted from the qasida ‘al-Jaljalutiya’. See, footnote 9 above.

36. Hafiz Ali: A leading Risale-i Nur student in the Isparta area. He was from the village of Islâmköy, many of whose inhabitants he led in serving the Risale-i Nur. He fell ill and died in Denizli Prison in 1944.

37. Qur’an, 2:156.

38. That is, the village of Islâmköy.

39. That is, Islâmköy (led by Hafiz Ali) and Isparta (led by Husrev) respectively.

40. Bukhari, Jihad, 102; Abu Da’ud, ‘Ilm, 10; Darimi, ‘IIm, 10; al-Munawi, Fayd al-Qadir, vi, 359, No: 9609.

41. Qur’an, 6:130.

42. Qur’an, 2:156.

43. al-Munawi, Fayd al-Qadir, vi, 298; al-‘Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa, ii, 22.

44. Qur’an, 6:122.

45. Qur’an, 5:56.

46. Musnad, iii, 86; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, i, 499.