My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
I am writing this appendix to describe how the lives of some of the Risale-i Nur's select (hâs) students show that they were destined to per- form a service like the Risale-i Nur, as they themselves have confessed; just as premonitions about it's appearance were experienced universally.
For sure, everyone, even animals, may have premonitions, which may be particular or universal. A significant number of true dreams are premonitions of this sort, while in some people - by virtue of their sensitivity they may be so extra-ordinary as to be wonders (kerâmet). Due to a sensitivity in my nerves caused by dampness in the air, I perceive that rain will fall twenty-four hours before it does, which may or may not be said to be a sort of premonition.
I have studied the lives of my brothers who perform important services for the Risale-i Nur and how they have lived, and I have seen that just like the course of my own life, theirs have been equipped and driven to produce a result like the Risale-i Nur.
Yes, many of my brothers like Husrev, Feyzi, Hâfız Ali, and Nazif have themselves noticed that the lifestyle they have (lit. they have been given) is conducive to serving the Risale-i Nur. I too have noticed in my very closest students that their lives, like mine, have been regulated so as to produce such a luminous fruit. If any of them who have not perceived this, study theirs carefully, they will do so. I used to consider all the wondrous parts of my life to be firstly a sequence of wonders of Gawth al-A'zam, but now it has become clear that it was a chain of wonders of the Risale-i Nur.
In Short: While I was travelling to Istanbul before the proclamation of the constitution, some books on theology (ilm-i kelâm) came into my possession, one or two of which turned out to be extremely useful. I studied them carefully, Then after I had arrived, I invited both ulema and teachers
of the secular schools to debate, and challenged them to ask whatever questions they wished. It was quite extraordinary but all the questions asked by those of them who came to debate, were matters I had studied on the road and had stuck in my memory. And all the questions the scientists asked were matters I had memorized. Now it is understood that my extraordinary success and excessive self-advertisement and showing off was to pave the way for the future acceptance by Istanbul and its ulema of the Risale-i Nur and their acknowledgement of its importance.
Secondly: As it is described in my biography, although I am poor and needy and not ascetic or given to mortifying the flesh like the Sufis, and although I do not have the honour of belonging to a noble family; since my childhood I have never accepted the people's gifts and charity; I have never condescended to show my need. I used to be astonished at this, as were those who knew me. Now, and especially these last few years, it has become clear that this state of mind was given to me so that I should not be defeated by greed and love of possessions during the awesome struggles of the Risale-i Nur, and so as not to give rise to criticism and objection. For my enemies might otherwise have dealt heavy blows in such matters.
In Short: Although the Old Said was deeply involved in politics and the New Said too had much need of followers, I have evinced absolutely no interest in the storms and political upheavals engulfing humanity, which this last five or six years have preoccupied everyone; for five years I have felt no curiosity to learn about them, so they have not defeated me due to curiosity.
Both those who know me and I myself were astonished at this. In fact, I used to say to myself: I wonder if I have gone mad since I pay no attention to these events that are busying the whole world, and attach no importance to them. Or is it that other people are crazy? I was bewildered. Now, due to a sort of warning and the above-mentioned premonition and the clear victories and freedom of the Risale-i Nur, it is established that that remarkable state of mind was bestowed on me to prove that the true sincerity of the Risale-i Nur can be made the tool of nothing nor follow anything apart from divine pleasure, and that it has no point of support other than the Qur'an.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers,
As a result of the Old Said's tendency to dwell on worldly matters, and affected by an incident in the east, the scribe who assists me describing excitedly, at the beginning of Ramadan, the signs of the festival at its end, and so that he should not waste the valuable time of Ramadan listening to trivia on the radio, I several times received an inner warning to explain briefly the harms of a lengthy, confused truth which is included in the Fourth Topic of The Fruits of Belief. So I am explaining it with the intention of moderating the Risale-i Nur students' curiosity. But because it is very extensive and I have little time and I am in a wretched situation, you may have difficulty understanding it, so I am relying on your perspicacity,
In the Fourth Topic of The Fruits, it is said: The reason I evince no interest in world politics is that although one has few and insignificant obligations in that extensive sphere, it preoccupies the curious because of its attractions and makes them forget their true, onerous obligations, or at least makes them perform them deficiently. In any event, it engenders in them feelings of partisanship so that they condone the wrongdoing of tyrants and so participate in it.
Now I say this: You unfortunates who are gratified by the curiosity and drunken heedlessness caused by preoccupation with the events of the outside world! If you say that the curiosity and fellow-feeling that are intrinsic to human nature drive you to be interested in those conflicts and events to the detriment of your essential, obligatory duties, and that it is natural and an inner need, then I say the following:
Know certainly that some people do not notice or are not curious about the miraculous creation of the human being, yet if they see someone with two heads or three legs they gaze at him, transfixed by curiosity; and if you disregard mankind's far-reaching, temporary, transitory, destructive events this century, and take a look at just the bee nation and grape species in the springtime, out of the hundred thousand nations and species on the face of the earth, which like the human species manifest innumerable wondrous happenings, you will see events that give rise to spiritual, non-material, pleasures and are a hundred times more curiosity-arousing than those events among mankind. To disregard those true pleasures and to become attached with such abounding curiosity and gratification to mankind's harmful, evil, temporary affairs might be possible if one were going to remain permanently in this world and everyone was going to reap some harm or benefit from those events and the people who were the apparent cause of them were the true agents and cause. But they are ephemeral, like atmospheric conditions. The actual effects of those who apparently cause
them are negligible. They cannot send those harms or benefits from the east or the Pacific Ocean. So it is indescribably crazy to disregard the dominicality and wisdom of the Most Pure and Holy One who is nearer to you than yourself and has disposal over your heart and who creates and controls your body, and to await harm or benefit from the very ends of the earth.
Moreover, curiosity and interest of this kind are extremely harmful with regard to belief and reality. For politics is the most extensive sphere and it causes heedlessness; it plunges people into this world and makes them forget the true human obligations and the next world. Particularly events like this that take the form of universal struggles, they suffocate the heart, too. One has to have belief as brilliant as the sun to be able to see the traces and works of divine determining and dominical power in everything, in every situation and every action, so that the heart should not be plunged into the darkness of tyranny and belief be extinguished, nor the reason deviate into nature and chance.
In fact, the people of reality try to forget the spheres of multiplicity in their search for truth and knowledge of God, lest their hearts are dissipated, and curiosity, enthusiasm, and pleasure, which should be directed towards necessary valuable things, are wasted on unnecessary transient things. It is due to this important reason that apart from some of the Prophet's (UWBP) Companions who served the principles of religion and had belief like the sun and the mujahids and righteous people of early Islam who resembled them, for the most part politicians are not completely God-fearing and religious. People who are completely God-fearing and religious do not become involved in politics. That is to say, for people who make politics their primary aim, religion remains in second place and is as though subsidiary. The truly religious, however, consider humankind's worship of God and servitude to Him to be the highest aim of the cosmos, and regard politics not with passionate interest but in second or third place and if possible try to make it the tool of religion and the truth. Otherwise, politics resembles making everlasting diamonds the tool of common, frangible pieces of glass.
In Short: Just as drunkenness temporarily causes one to forget the pains and needs arising from true duties and yields inauspicious, fleeting pleasures; so too, following transitory struggles and conflicts inquisitively is a sort of drunkenness which produces an unpropitious pleasure since it temporarily makes one forget the needs arising from true duties and the pains arising from not performing them. It also causes one to fall into a perilous despair, which is opposed to the divine command of the verse «Despair not of the mercy of God» (Q 39:53), and so to deserve a slap. Similarly, one
may be the object of the severe divine threat contained in the verse, «And incline not to those who do wrong, or the Fire will touch you!» (Q 11:113), and receive its slap. For you will in effect be participating in the tyranny of oppressors, and so rightfully suffer punishment in this world and the next.
Nevertheless, I felt a meaningful disquiet in my heart and was then consoled. It occurred to my heart that in consequence of these widespread struggles, a danger more harmful than that resulting from the First World War would be born and an antichrist-like savagery would emerge in Europe, which is the source and prop of civilization. The consolation for this anxiety was that with the full awakening of the Islamic world, and the New World and Christianity following the authentic principles of their religion and their uniting with Islam, and with the Gospels uniting with and following the Qur'an, together and with heavenly assistance they might withstand those two awesome future currents and overcome them, God willing.
I send my greetings to each and every one of my brothers, and congratulate you on the Night of Power, which is to come or has passed.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
I have received through you the long, detailed letter written by the Husrev of Denizli, Hasan Feyzi, and I understood that just as a seed is planted in the ground so that it may produce numerous shoots; so the late martyr Hâfız Ali entered under the ground in the field there, where he has produced and will produce the shoots of thirty or forty Hâfız Alis. I felt certain of this. Write the following to Hasan Feyzi and to those who are striving to serve the Risale-i Nur:
In the space of one or two years, the Denizli heroes have performed twenty years' service for the Risale-i Nur. We Nur students can never forget this good act of theirs, and in our view Denizli has become a second Isparta, just as its prison even is a sort of Nur School.
The people mentioned in Feyzi's letter and especially the just judge and those working with him to establish true justice like (C. H. M.) and the lawyer Ziya have made not only ourselves, but also Anatolia and the Islamic world, indebted to them. They took it on themselves to protect the Risale-i Nur, like us. If necessary, I can send to them on trust the collections that have been handed over to me so they may read them to others. If necessary, the books that remain there can be kept, on condition they are not left unused. Anyone who has the large collections may keep them on condition
they do not neglect them and they read them to others, if possible, including the prison. If further copies are wanted, we can send them there.
Since Denizli has in a short time produced for us and for the Risale-i Nur heroic devotees and brothers, if I could I would pass the rest of my days in their blessed prison, perfectly happily. I send my greetings to all the friends who are concerned with us and whom we met in prison or assisted us like Beylerbeyi Süleyman and Tavaslı Mehmed Çavuş. They are always included in our spiritual gains and prayers. And I congratulate particularly all those named in Feyzi's letter and everyone on Ramazan and the Night of Power.
Truly, Milaslı Halil İbrahim is a Risale-i Nur student as firm and unshakeable as steel. His town should be proud of him. Also, the two brilliant versified pieces he and Hasan Feyzi wrote out of their regard for me which is a hundred times greater than I deserve, address the Risale-i Nur, and I accept them as their having composed them as a screen and incidental title to my unimportant self. How could I possess such qualities? I send many greetings to him, and to the Risale-i Nur's lawyer Ahmed Feyzi, and to their friends, and to our old heroic brother, Şefik, and I pray for them.
My brothers! Just as The Supreme Sign was composed in Ramadan, and as far as I know was printed in Ramadan and arrived in Isparta, and in Ramadan was read freely and entered the mosques to be read publicly; so this Ramadan, the Hizb-i Nuriye, which bears the meaning of "An hour's reflection is equal to a year's superorogatory worship," emerged from The Supreme Sign. Similarly, through the effulgence and blessings of The Supreme Sign, around two pages were imparted to my heart through the light of Ramadan which express the true meaning of the phrase "There is no god but God," which is recited thirty-three times in our (Shafi'î) tesbihat following the five daily prayers. Now I can read the whole of The Supreme Sign in ten minutes, and as it says in the introduction, at each degree in my imagination the universal tongue of the globe of the earth becomes my tongue and utters: "There is no god but God!" And the seas and mountains, the tongues of the elements and the classes of humanity become my tongues, proclaiming: "There is no god but God!" And as each declares "There is no god but God!" I declare it in the tongue of either the
earth, or the heavens, or the atmosphere, or the elements. God willing, it shall br sent to you.