In His Name, be He glorified!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise! (Q 17:44)
Peace be upon you, and God's mercy and blessings to the number of the letters of the Risale-i Nur!
My Dear, Loyal Brother and Friend, Successful in the Service of the Qur'an!
Welcome a thousand times over! You have made me eternally indebted to you, and with your loyal friends your efforts for the Risale-i Nur's freedom are so great and valuable that you have made not only us indebted to you, but all the Risale-i Nur students, indeed, this country and even the Islamic world. For you came to the assistance of the believers and opened
up the way to the Risale-i Nur's free dissemination. This last year, I have included you and those working with you in my prayers and spiritual gains, together with such heroes of the Risale-i Nur as the late Hâfız Ali and Husrev, and so it will continue. Every minute on the way here, a day, you have made me indebted to you as though you were engaged in the Risale-i Nur work. In addition, I shall never forget as long as I live the person known as the Just Judge and those working with him, for the true justice they dispensed. I have included them in my spiritual gains this last six or seven months.
I am going to reply to my brothers about the part of the Risale-i Nur they delivered to me; let them write out all of it; I give it to them as a gift. For from now on they shall have a full share of the work. I have decided to look on the town of Denizli as the counterpart of my native town, and to include their dead and the living believers in the spiritual gains of both myself and of the Risale-i Nur students. I look on Denizli Prison as a school of examination, and I send greetings to all those concerned with us both in the town and in the prison, and especially to the board of judges, from whom we received true justice, and we pray for them.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
I no longer have any doubts at all that not only ourselves and Anatolia and the world of Islam applaud the Risale-i Nur's liberty, a consequence of this work of ours; the universe itself is gratified and the atmosphere and skies applaud it, For despite the severe need, for three or four months no rain fell, but then Denizli Court's decision to return the copies of the Risale-i Nur coincided with [rain falling on] the Night of Regâib, just like on the Night of the Ascension, showing that the Risale-i Nur is an instance of divine mercy. Then the mercy of rain falling in Emirdağ together with the accolades of the angel of thunder coincided with the decision to hand over the Risale-i Nur. Then the time of its being handed over a week later to the deputy in Denizli coincided with abundant rain falling in this region on the eve of Friday, just like the coinciding of the rain with the Nights of Regâib and the Ascension. All these coincidences (tevâfukat) made one feel quite certain that just as the coinciding of four earthquakes with the seizure of the Risale-i Nur and its imprisonment was an objection on the part of the earth; so in the past four months the abundant rain which fell in the region of Emirdağ only on the eves of three Fridays, those of the
Nights of Regâib and the Ascension and the first of the month of Sha'ban, coinciding with the three stages of the Risale-i Nur's release and freedom were congratulations and announcements of good news by the atmosphere, and was a powerful sign that the Risale-i Nur bears the meaning of mercy and spiritual rain.
A truly subtle sign was seen yesterday when suddenly a sparrow appeared at the window and tapped at it, We made a move to make it fly away, but it remained. I felt obliged to tell Ceylan to open the window to see what it had to say. It entered the room and remained there till this morning. We left the room to it and I went to my bedroom. I went out this morning and opened the door. Not a minute later I returned and saw that another bird was chirruping and singing in my room. I smiled and asked myself why such a guest had come. It looked at me for a full hour without flying away or being startled, I was reading. I put some breadcrumbs for it, but it did not eat theme I again opened the door and went out. When I returned thirty seconds later, it had gone.
Later the child who assists me arrived and said: "I had a dream last night. Hâfız Ali's brother visited us." I told him that one of our brothers who resembles Hâfız Ali and Husrev is going to come here. Two hours later that same day the boy came and said that Hâfız Mustafa had arrived: he had brought both the good news of the Risale-i Nur's release, and some of my books that had been held by the court; and he solved the question of both the sparrow, and the singing bird, and his own dream, all of which proved that nothing is chance or coicidence.
Could it be just chance that both the extraordinary appearance of the sparrow, and the strange songbird flying in and just looking at me and then disappearing, and the boy's dream turning out to be completely true all coincided with the Risale-i Nur's arrival here brought by such a person as Hâfız Mustafa? Is it at all possible that all these could be a mere chance and not be auspicious good news from the Unseen?
This is certainly not some unimportant matter; it is connected with the universe and with animals, As a Risale-i Nur student, I myself am content with the profits that fall to me as though they were worth thousands of gold sovereigns. An analogy may be made between this and the other hundreds of thousands of students and the benefits gained by believers in need of having their faith strengthened,
Yes, since the Risale-i Nur has solved more than a hundred of the mysteries of religion, the Shari'a, and the Qur'an; and it silences even the most obdurate atheists; and proves as clearly as the sun in the face of obstinate irreligious men of learning such Qur'anic truths as the Prophet's (UWBP)
ascension and the resurrection of the dead that were supposed to be remote from pure reason, and has induced some of them to accept belief; it surely will attract the attention of the earth and atmosphere to itself and is a Qur'anic truth that will preoccupy the present and future, and is a diamond sword in the hands of the believers.
My Dear Brother!
Convey our heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Ziya, the Risale-i Nur's lawyer! For a long time now it has been imparted to my spirit that someone called Ziya would perform a great service for the Risale-i Nur, and the present matter has shown that it was him. He has won our everlasting gratitude. We thank also fair-minded people like the court's secretary and member Hesna Hanım and the examining magistrate, I shall never forget them. And especially convey our greetings and thanks to our leading brothers, foremost the Mufti Osman and Hasan Feyzi. And tell the just judge that I have decided to have most of the parts of the Risale-i Nur written out as a gift for him. Also, I intend to have a large part of it written to give to its honorary lawyer, Ziya.
Will the five hundred printed copies of The Supreme Sign be given to the people who had it printed? I'm curious.
Also, however many copies of the Risale-i Nur were confiscated in Istanbul, they all belong to me. The collection consisting of twenty treatises is especially important for me.
Also, when leaving Denizli I left The Miracles of Muhammad (UWBP) (Mu'cizat-i Ahmediye Risalesi) with some of the people there as a trust. I need it now. Perhaps Hoja Mûsa Efendi knows about this.
Also, I say the following to save some wavering or new Risale-i Nur students from succumbing to doubts: Due to the intrigues of a secret society, certain ingenuous hojas and opponents who support the innovations publicize my personal faults and errors, for I admit that I am indeed faulty, in order to oppose some of the Risale-i Nur's incontestable truths, and they want to refute them by attacking me. They try to harm the Risale-i Nur in some way. These last twenty years there have been twenty such significant incidents. In fact, it led to our imprisonment on two occasions. So I say this to my friends and to the Risale-i Nur students:
I offer thanks to Almighty God that He has not allowed me to like myself and has informed me of my faults. I have not sought to sell myself
boastingly, but overwhelmed by shame, through the sincerity and pure heartedness of the blessed Risale-i Nur students, to seek forgiveness and atonement for my sins through their intercession.
The people who oppose me do not know my secret faults; they just make a pretext of some apparent failings and wrongly supposing the Risale-i Nur to be mine, criticize me saying that I do not attend the Friday Prayers and do not have a beard. In this way, they hope to obscure the Risale-i Nur's lights and compete against its spreading.
The Answer: Together with accepting my numerous faults, I have to say that in these two matters I have powerful excuses.
Firstly: I follow the Shafi'i school of law, according to which a congregation of forty people is obligatory to perform the Friday Prayer. There are other requisites as well. For which reason, here, attendance of the Friday Prayer is not obligatory. Sometimes following the Hanafi School, I attend it as a Sunna (practice of the Prophet UWBP).
Secondly: I do not feel at ease in crowded places because for twenty years I have been unjustly prevented from mixing with people, and also recently, four months ago, I received an official warning not to have contact with people; for twenty-five years I have lived all alone. According to my school of law, I cannot perform the prayers behind everyone, because I cannot recite the Fatiha quickly enough and the Imam bows (ruku') when I am only half way through it, and it is obligatory for us to recite it.
As for the beard, to have one is a Sunna; it is not particular to hojas. Since my youth I have been one of the ninety per cent of this country who do not have beards. Since in the course of official offensives these last twenty years some of our friends have had to shave theirs, my not having one has proved to be an instance of divine providence and wisdom. If I had had one and it had been shaved off, it would have caused enormous harm to the Risale-i Nur because I would have died; I could not have borne it.
Some authorities have said that it is not permissible to shave off one's beard, but what they meant was that it is prohibited (haram) to cut it off after you have grown one. So if one has never had one, one has only given up one Sunna. But in the face of that, through the Risale-i Nur's guidance at this time in order to avoid committing numerous serious sins, I have passed a torturous life in what has been twenty years of virtual solitary confinement. God willing, it will be atonement for giving up that Sunna.
I also say openly and with complete certainty that the Risale-i Nur belongs to the Qur'an; how could I claim ownership of it so that my faults should pass to it? I am one of its faulty servants and a salesman of that store of diamonds and jewels. My confused circumstances cannot pass to it
and harm it. Anyway, the Risale-i Nur has taught us true sincerity and renunciation of the ego, and always knowing oneself to be faulty, and not being boastful. We show the believers the Risale-i Nur's collective personality, not ourselves. We are grateful to those who point out our faults to us and tell us of them, on condition that is indeed the case, and we utter a prayer for them. We are thankful if a scorpion is brushed off our neck before it stings us. Similarly, we accept our faults and are grateful, but on condition we are not told out of ill will and obduracy, and it does not assist innovations and misguidance.
My Dear Brothers!
Just as with the lines: "And through the Supreme Sign save me from sudden death!" Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) miraculously foretold that because of The Supreme Sign the students would be overtaken by disaster, but that through its grace they would emerge safe and sound; so too, the free circulation of the hundreds of printed copies of The Supreme Sign from the Risale-i Nur and its becoming more firmly established was the chief reason for three spells of abundant mercy and rainfall. Similarly, just as like almsgiving, up until now the Risale-i Nur has been a means of repulsing calamities as has been shown by many signs and incidents; so too, the The Supreme Sign and its friends gaining their freedom will turn out to be a means of repulsing calamities and deliverance from those at our throats, who supposing us to be without support obtain an awesome power and lie in wait together with their partisans in order to overpower us. Moreover, it was imparted to my heart that just as in one respect Imam 'Ali's (May God be pleased with him) lines, "Through the name of Moses's staff the darkness will be dispersed" intend The Supreme Sign; so too they coincide with the eleven Topics of Denizli Prison's Fruits, The Conclusive Proof, and exactly with the eleven miracles of The Staff of Moses and its eleven proofs, and show that they are under his gaze.
That is to say, like Moses's staff, The Fruits of Belief will silence many pharaohs and defeat them. Our heroic, blessed brothers who had The Supreme Sign printed performed an invaluable service for the Risale-i Nur. And with it, the services of the late Hâfız Ali are perpetuated.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
Unobtrusively the printed copies of The Supreme Sign have performed great services. I sent you those six lines to be a footnote in the blank space at the end of the piece above that was imparted to me; you may copy them out if you find them appropriate, or correct them, On reading The Supreme Sign attentively and considering it from the point of view of our opponents, I have become completely certain and no doubt remains in my mind that the reason they disregarded the awesome blows dealt by the Risale-i Nur on its opponents, despite their flimsy pretexts and considering faults as insignificant as a fly's wing to be indictable, and the reason they accepted both our acquittal and the free circulation of the Risale-i Nur was their ghastly obduracy being broken by the wondrous, unshakeable truths of foremost The Supreme Sign and such parts of the Risale as The Fruits of Belief and The Conclusive Proof. They had no alternative but to endorse them officially, But still, the covert atheistic society is trying to seek out our faults and to deceive the government in order to be saved as far as it can from being loathed and execrated by the nation. We, therefore, must continue to be circumspect and act cautiously as previously.
I congratulate most sincerely all our brothers on the coming blessed month of Ramadan and the past Night of Acquittal. May Almighty God make the Night of Power in Ramadan more meritorious for them and for us than a thousand months and cause it to yield reward to that degree, and happiness and well-being for the community of Muhammad (UWBP).
My Dear, Loyal, Steadfast, Unshakeable, Constant, Unselfish, Faithful Brothers!
You know that the Ankara committee of experts could not deny the wondrous signs from the Unseen alluding to the Risale-i Nur; they only wrongly objected to them because they supposed I had a part in them and said that such things should not be written in books since instances of wonder-working (kerâmet) should not be advertised. In my defence speech I replied to this slight criticism as follows:
Those instances of wonder-working are not mine and it would be presumptuous of me to claim them. They are rather traces and flashes of the miraculousness of the Qur'an's meanings (mu'cize-i mâneviye) which take the form of wonders in the Risale-i Nur, which is a true commentary on it; they are a sort of divine bestowal in order to strengthen the morale of its students. To make known divine bestowals is a form of thanks and is permissible. It is also acceptable. Now, for an important reason I am going to elucidate this reply to a degree, It has also been asked why I do make them known and why I have attached so much importance to this question and why I have mentioned it so frequently these last few months, for most of my letters are concerned with those charismata.
The Answer: Although, faced with thousands of wreckers at this time, hundreds of thousands of repairers are necessary to assist in the work the Risale-i Nur carries out for the cause of belief; and although I have need of at least a hundred scribes and assistants; and although the people and the authorities should appreciate and encourage us rather than avoiding us, and get in touch with us and help us; and although it is obligatory for the believers to give preference to serving belief, since it looks to eternal life, over their preoccupation with transitory worldly life and its benefits; taking myself as an example, I say this:
In addition to hindering me in everything and preventing me from even having contact with people and my assistants, our opponents try with all their strength to break my friends' morale and to make them look coldly on me and on the Risale-i Nur, and load the work of a thousand people on an elderly, ill, weak, and lonely person like myself who is a stranger and compel him to refrain from having contact with them, which in these oppressive and isolated circumstances is like a physical illness; and they scare people off so effectively in this way that some of my closest friends even are frightened to greet me, and so scared even as to give up performing the prayers. They try to break their morale in this way. So faced with such obstacles, outside my own will, some instances of divine bestowal that
have strengthened the Risale-i Nur students' morale have been made known to me and I have been occasioned to write down things of this sort so as to gather moral forces around the Risale-i Nur and to show that it is as powerful as an army and has no need for others. For, God forbid, self- advertisement and trying to make yourself liked and seeking praise destroy sincerity, which is one of the Risale-i Nur's chief principles.
God willing, just as the Risale-i Nur both defends itself and demonstrates its own value, so it will defend us and have our faults forgiven.
My Dear Brothers!
Now, due to a sort of admonition, I have become quite certain that a wide-ranging premonition I had forty years before the Risale-i Nur was written was realized both in myself and in our village and in our district. I would have liked to divulge this secret to my old students like Şefik and my brother Abdülmecid, but since Almighty God has bestowed many Abdülmecids and Abdurrahmans from among you, it is you I am now telling.
When I was ten years old I used to have great pride in myself, which sometimes even took the form of boasting and self-praise; although I myself did not want to, I used to assume the air of someone undertaking some great work and mighty act of heroism. I used to say to myself: "You're not worth tuppence, what's the reason for this excessive showing-off and boasting, especially when it comes to courage?" I did not know and used to wonder at it, Then, a month or two ago (1944) the question was answered: the Risale-i Nur was making itself felt before it was written: "Although you were a seed like a common chip of wood, you had a presentiment of those fruits of Paradise as though they were actually your own property, and used to boast and praise yourself!"
Both my old students and the people from the region know that our village of Nurs loved exceedingly to make a show and used to boast about their superior courage. They wanted to assume a heroic stance as though about to conquer some great country. I used to be astonished at both myself and them. Now I have understood thanks to a true admonition that the village of Nurs and its people had a premonition that they were going to win tremendous acclaim through the light of the Risale-i Nur and that their unknown province and district and village would be recognized as important, and they displayed their gratitude for that divine bounty in the form of boasting.
Also, in the district of Hizan, our district, through the influence of Shaykh Abdurrahman Taği, known as Seyda, so many students, teachers, and scholars emerged I was sure all Kurdistan took pride in them and their scholarly debates and wide knowledge and Sufi way. These were the people who would conquer the face of the earth! When I was nine or ten years old I used to listen when they talked about famous ulema, saints, learned men, and spiritual masters. I used to think to myself that those students and scholars must have made great conquests in religion to speak in that way. Also, if one of them was a little more intelligent than the others, he was made much of. And when one won an argument or debate, he would be held in great esteem. I used to wonder at it because I felt the same way. Indeed, in our district and province there were such astonishing contests among the Sufi shaykhs and their circles as I never saw in other regions.
Now, in consequence of an admonition I am completely certain that those student friends of mine, those teachers who were like masters, those guides of mine, and those saints and shaykhs perceived with their spirits through a premonition without their minds realizing, that at a critical time a brilliant light would appear among those students and those teachers' pupils and those guides' followers and come to the aid of the believers. Now, despite the extremely severe and testing conditions, confronted with innumerable opponents and encompassed by the plots of suspicious and vindictive enemies, this extraordinary victory of the Risale-i Nur in the lengthy investigations of two gruelling court cases, and its spreading lights concealed from view, and winning its freedom in spite of its enemies shows that it is worthy of that position. For just as Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) and the Gawth al-A'zam (May his spirit be sanctified) foretold it; so did they perceive, like my village, district, province and I myself unwittingly perceived, that it would appear and they rejoiced in it.
I have told you of this private matter because I hold you to be Abdülmecids and Abdurrahmans, my old students and friends, my brother and nephew.
It means that forty-four years ago I myself and my village and district perceived through a premonition the coming of the Risale-i Nur's rain of
mercy, just like due to the dampness in the atmosphere my nerves and sensitivity perceive the coming of the divine mercy of rain twenty-four hours before it falls.
I send greetings to all my brothers and sisters and offer prayers for them, and request that they pray for me.