This is the first of eight pieces confirming the Risale-i Nur's acceptance and giving news of it through signs from the Unseen.
This treatise contains twenty-nine signs indicating this same question. Together with the other pieces, the nearly one thousand signs, indications, symbols, hints, and allusions to this same matter and mission are virtually explicit. By reason of there being only one question, all those signs confirm and corroborate each other. Three of the eight pieces show that Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) gave news of the Risale-i Nur through wondrous predictions (kerâmet-i gaybiye).
The Ankara experts' committee studied these eight treatises and did not object to them; they just said that people with the power to perform marvels (kerâmet) should not put them down in writing. So I replied to them saying that they were not my wonders but those of the Risale-i Nur, and the Risale-i Nur belongs to the Qur'an and is a commentary on it. They remained silent at this, which means they accepted it. Actually, it would have been more appropriate if divine bestowals of this sort had not been written, but it became a definite necessity in order to strengthen our morale, resolve and constancy with assistance from the Unseen, since we are so few and weak and wanting, and are confronted by innumerable, powerful enemies. So I wrote them down, Even if it causes my decline due to self-advertisement and egotism, that is not important. For I consider it most fortunate to sacrifice both my worldly life if necessary, and the next life, for this service; that is, to save the believers from absolute misguidance. I would happy to go to Hell so that my thousands of friends and brothers might go to Paradise.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
I have now to tell you about a state of mind I have so that you are not offended for the wrong reason. It is this:
I suffer from a severe, chronic indisposition resulting from the oppression I have suffered these last twenty years. I have anway suffered from its symptoms for a long time. It is unsociability; that is, aloofness from people and avoiding having contact with them and being upset at being in touch with them. Now, even, my spirit cannot abide meeting with even the most sensitive of my brothers and students if it is not about the Risale-i Nur's service. People looking at me in a friendly way also affects me badly. One cause of this meaningful condition is the tyranny and persecution people have subjected me to, but it is also a chief means of divine grace being manifested and the justice of divine determining, and of preserving sincerity in our serving belief, which reduce to nothing the tyranny and human cruelty and make me love the sickness, and induce in me patience and forbearance. Due to their baseless suspicions, people constantly prevented me from having contact with others, producing a nervous condition. So through His grace, Almighty God gave me this illness so that sincerity in our work for belief should not be damaged, and so that I should not be forced to adopt an artificial, self-advertising stance, or to be insincere or pretentious towards those who think excessively well of me, and to save me from the love and regard for my person which affects me very badly at this time, and from having to show myself as enjoying a spiritual rank, which would be detrimental to our service, and not to reduce to the value of pieces of glass by ascribing them to myself, the diamond-like truths of the Risale-i Nur, which proceed from the Qur'an. So I offer thanks to Almighty God. And for your part, you should not be offended, but pleased. But still I need your prayers so that I may endure the completely natural distress.
My dear brothers! I had a look at some of the books that were handed over to us, the large collections with the gilded covers, and I saw that the treatises written out by the diamond pens of the Light and Rose Factories and some of those collections containing fifteen or twenty treatises between the gilded covers, were each like diamond swords defending themselves against their enemies in the high courts and in high positions. I have no doubt that it was a great instance of divine favour, because for absolutely no reason we suddenly started putting the treatises of the Risale-i Nur into collections five months before we were sent to prison, and we understood the reason for the scientists' defeat. For especially when on the defensive, the power born of coming together and co-operating is far greater than the power of the individual parts.
My brothers! I should have told you long ago but I forgot: the wondrous Twenty-Ninth Word is only that Word's first station. It's second station, owing to its importance, is the Arabic Twenty-Ninth Flash, which in a way Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) called the Supreme Sign, too. It elucidates the lights in the degrees of the other tesbihat, as in "Allahu akbar," and is a source of the Hizb-i Nuriye.
I send my greetings to each and every one of my brothers and pray for them. I congratulate you on the Night of Power, which, concealed, may be any night now.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
For our part, we also congratulate you on Ramadan. Your dream was indeed blessed. God willing it is a sign that He will bestow abundant grace on you. The greatest bestowal and duty at the present time is saving belief. But, beware! Avoid things that provoke egotism and pride. It is absolutely essential that at the present time the people of reality practise humility and self-abnegation, and renounce egotism. For the greatest danger this age arises from egotism and self-advertisement. The people of truth and reality, therefore, have always to humbly see their faults and accuse their own souls. The heroic defence of belief and worship under these severe conditions people such as yourselves perform is a high station.
Get hold of a copy of the part of the Risale-i Nur about the reality of the Sufi paths (tarikat) called The Nine Allusions (Telvihat-ı Tis'a), and take a look at it. Staunch, faithful, and sincere persons like yourselves should enter into the Risale-i Nur's fold. For the Risale-i Nur is undefeated this age in the face of all attacks. It has made even its most obdurate enemies accept its freedom. In fact, following their investigations over the last two years, the judiciary and high-ranking officials have confirmed its free publication and given the decision for all its parts, both general and confidential, to be returned to their owners.
The Risale-i Nur's way has not been defeated like the Sufi orders and other ways; indeed, it has been victorious and brought numerous obstinate people to belief, which proves that it is a miracle of the Qur'an's meanings (bir mu'cize-i mâneviye-i Kur'aniye) as is testified to by many incidents. Events have given me the firm conviction that outside the Risale-i Nur's
fold, service of religion is mostly deficient in this country, and either is partial, minor, or just personal; or defeated and underground; or condones innovations; or utilizes forced interpretations and corruptions of the holy texts.
Since you possess powerful belief and strong spiritual influence, you should become staunch students of the Risale-i Nur with complete sincerity and humility, so that you may share in the spiritual partnership of thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of students which looks to the hereafter, and your good works and virtues may become universal rather than particular, and your trade for the next life may be truly profitable.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
Today I took a look at a large gilded and bound collection containing the pieces sent to me as a memento by the innocent children and community of unlettered elderly, which was one of the books handed over to me by the court after two years' investigation. It occurred to me to send you a short piece included at the beginning of the collection, which I had written for Kastamonu. Perhaps a copy was sent to you before. I felt certain that this collection written with innocent sincerity by the children and unlettered had played an important part in defeating the philosophers and the obdurate; it had broken their obduracy and caused the unjust to be fair-minded. We had gathered together in three volumes the pieces sent to me by the unlettered, and I am sending you the piece that I saw had been written at the beginning.
I am sending together with this, a collection composed of eight pieces indicating the Risale-i Nur's acceptance, and a piece that deserves to be written at the beginning of the collection, which in addition to The Wonders of the Gawth al-A'zam, The Wonders of Imam 'Ali, and The Qur'anic Signs, has had added to it three or four pieces consisting of additional letters and so on.
I send my greetings to my brothers and especially to the innocents and the unlettered, and I pray for them and await their prayers. And I ask God to bless them. Whoever sees their writings, applauds them delightedly.
They sent me the copies written by fifty to sixty innocent young students, and I have collected them together in three volumes. Below are some of them as an example:
Ömer, 15 years old; Mustafa, 13; Hâfız Nebi, 14; Hicret, 15; Hüseyin,
11; Ahmed Zeki, 13; Ayşe, Il; Hâfız Ahmed, 12; Mustafa, 14; Bekir, 9; Ali, 12; Ayşe, 11.
The treatises in this collection are just some that the innocent children have written and taken lessons from, from the Risale-i Nur. Their serious efforts at this time shows that the Risale-i Nur provides greater pleasure, joy, and zeal than all the amusements and incentives they have thought up in the secular schools to encourage the children to study. This shows that the Risale-i Nur is taking root. God willing, nothing will be able to root it out and it will continue down forthcoming generations.
Just like these innocent young students, the illiterate elderly who enter the inviting fold of the Risale-i Nur learn to read and write after the age of forty or fifty for the Risale-i Nur's sake. The forty or fifty pieces they have written are included in two or three collections. The way these elderly untaught people and some shepherds and mountain folk are working for the Risale-i Nur in preference to anything in the extraordinary conditions of the times, shows that the need for it is greater than the need for bread, and that the harvesters, farmers, shepherds, and foresters consider the truths of the Risale-i Nur to be a need more essential than other essential needs.
I had the greatest difficulty correcting what the innocents and elderly untaught people had written in this and the other six volumes; I did not have the time. But then it occurred to me and I was as though told: Don't get fed up! Since what they have written can't be read quickly, hasty people have to read it slowly, and the intellect, and the heart, and the spirit, and the soul, and the emotions may receive their share of the Risale-i Nur's truths, which are like food and sustenance. Otherwise, only the intellect receives a partial share and the other faculties remain without sustenance.
The Risale-i Nur should not be read like other books and sciences, for the sciences of certain affirmative belief (îmân-ı tahkikî ilimleri) that it contains do not resemble other sorts of knowledge. They are the sustenance and light of numerous subtle human faculties besides the reason.
In Short: There are two advantages in the deficient writings of innocent children and the illiterate elderly:
The First is that they force one to read slowly and carefully.
The Second is listening from their innocent, sincere, sweet tongues the glorious, profound matters of the Risale-i Nur and taking lessons from them,
All praise be to God, this year preoccupation with worldly matters has not caused your students in Isparta to be more negligent; our serious efforts to serve the Risale-i Nur continue. The feelings in our hearts of attraction to the Light is read on our faces, as though the hearts of these students of yours are filled with joy.
Our beloved Master! Of one accord, all your students declare: We can never thank Almighty God enough for bestowing on us all at once the incomparable beauties of being both students, scribes, and addressees of an incomparable Master in the service of the Risale-i Nur in which we are sincerely employed although we are nothing and undeserving, and being both publishers of it, and strivers in His way, and admonishers of the people, and worshippers of Himself. We recall that these thanks that we wish to offer, are a bestowal on our hearts through our Creator's grace, which fills our hearts with joy and happiness. The thankful life that the innocent people of Nurs passed during our Master's youth may be observed in our states of mind and behaviour. Endless thanks and praise be to the All- Glorious One, who through His grace and munificence saved us from the pits of absolute ignorance and the bogs of rebellion and ingratitude, and made us students of the most dazzling and shining light.
If our beloved Master had not previously explained to us the term "association (iktiran)," which refers to two bounties arriving together, he would have read much more about our gratitude from our pens, which interpret what is in our hearts.
Beloved Master! We look at ourselves and see that we are unable to receive what the Risale-i Nur tells us. Yet as our need increases, we observe the Compassionate Creator's merciful manifestations. Our Master's heart is a shining mirror, a place of manifestation and reflection.
Our Master's tongue is an elevated herald, a teacher, a guide.
Our Master's conduct is exemplary and offers the finest example and model. It displays what all types of people need.
Wrongful mankind, which for the past seven years has been emitting fire and brimstone, is today in an even more woeful and distressing state. Anxious at what tomorrow will bring, all the aware are glued to their radios in bewilderment. While expecting on the defeat of Japan in the east that the world would at last find peace and security, a threatening, corrupting movement appeared in the north. This has aroused fear and consternation in everyone. Imagining that they are going towards a dark future, they follow the radio with interest. But all praise be to God, with its elevated explanations and true instruction, the Risale-i Nur reassures our hearts.
It is suggested that that fearsome movement which has appeared today, will be defeated only through a heavenly strength obtained from the uniting of the Christian world with Islam; that is, from the Gospels uniting with the Qur'an and following it, which indicates that the time has come to await the second coming of Jesus (Upon whom be peace).
According to what we have heard, one of the four commissions America has sent these days to all corners of the earth has been ordered to find a religion that will bring the human race happiness and prosperity. It is our powerful belief that it is the Risale-i Nur, which courts of law have announced to all and sundry is the regenerator of religion, that will bring the greatest happiness to wretched humanity.
Beloved Master! Our joy is boundless so long as we have the Risale-i Nur, which contains the highest truths and is an elevated, blessed commentary on the Qur'an. If all its truths were openly available, they would make themselves read with pleasure and enthusiasm. There are numerous evidences of this, particularly the printed copies of the Tenth Word, which refuted denial of the resurrection of the dead; and especially The Supreme Sign, which although it was printed secretly makes itself read openly and is truly wondrous in strengthening belief; and such treatises of the Risale-i Nur as The Conclusive Proof and The Fruits of Belief, which overturned the concept of atheism.
God willing, the Risale-i Nur will destroy the very foundations of the heartless ramparts of disbelief with which they want to encircle the Qur'an, and will extinguish the cruel fires of unbelief, and by imparting merciful belief will give the water of life to drink to the whole world.
I can accept your favourable opinions, which far exceed what I deserve, only in the name of the Risale-i Nur's collective personality; it would be to overstep the mark to see myself in such stations.
Moveover, the Risale-i Nur's way is not that of Sufism (tarikat); it is reality (hakikat); it is a manifestation of the Companions' way. The present is not the time of the Sufi way, but the time to save belief. All praise be to God, the Risale-i Nur has performed and is performing this task in the most difficult and taxing times. The sphere of the Risale-i Nur is, according to
their predictions, a sphere at the present time of Imam 'Ali, and Hasan and Husayn (May God be pleased with them) and Gawth al-A'zam (May his mystery be sanctified). For just as through three wondrous predictions Imam 'Ali gave news of the Risale-i Nur, so in powerful fashion Gawth al-A'zam (May his mystery be sanctified) gave news of it and gave encouragement to its interpreter. God willing, these four confidential treatises about the wonders of Imam 'Ali and the Gawth will be sent to you. The experts' committee appointed by the court could not object to them; it only criticized them slightly, saying that they should not have been written. I replied to them and they were silent. In any event, I received my instruction in reality directly in an Uwaysi fashion from the Gawth al-A'zam (May his mystery be sanctified) and from Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) through Zayn al-'Abidin and Hasan and Husayn (May God be pleased with them). So the sphere in which we serve is their sphere.
Endless thanks be to Almighty God that thanks to your prayers two days ago the dangerous illness from poison and high fever I had been suffering for more than two weeks passed. Since an hour's worship performed when ill is the equivalent of a day's worship, God willing this illness was a substitute for the many good works I have hitherto been unable to perform and has been atonement for my many faults. But the sickness and weakness continue.
A subtle and meaningful coincidence occurred yesterday when I received the innocents' collection and opened it. I saw that The Short Words had been put at the beginning, and had been written most decoratively and carefully by Marangoz Ahmed, a commander of those innocents and one of the heroes of the Nur School. I exclaimed: "Congratulations! Marangoz Ahmed has become the sergeant of the innocent children." The same day I received a letter, and I saw that when Marangoz Ahmed was reading at night the letters we had sent to his companions, two grasshoppers had come and perched on the letter and had listened until he had finished. Several days earlier when we had been writing the letter, two pigeons affirmed both its acceptance and the good news of the sparrow and kuddûs bird; and now the carpenter's two grasshoppers affirmed the pigeons and the good-news birds, saying through the tongues of their beings that they too recognize the Risale-i Nur and making it a subtle and meaningful coincidence,
In this connection, a passage struck my attention on the page before the Eighth Sign of the Eighth Ray which Hâfız Ahmed wrote, who is a young Abdurrahman and the innocent nephew of Küçük Ali and one of the blessed heroes in that collection. I realized that this passage was related to the piece that explains what I have been saying in the letters sent to you this last couple of months about the Risale-i Nur's acceptability, that my person has no share in its honour and art and that it is purely a divine bestowal. So I am sending it to you; you can include it whereever you deem suitable. The passage is about my person having no part, not a flash, in the extraordinary importance accorded the Risale-i Nur by al-Jaljalutiyya. It is like this. I said:
I confess that in no way at all am I worthy of having such an acceptable work bestowed on me, but it is the mark and practice of divine power to create trees the size of mountains from miniscule seeds, and to do so is proof of its sublimity. I swear that my intention in praising the Risale-i Nur is to affirm, prove, and publicize the Qur'an's truths and the pillars of belief. Endless thanks be to my Compassionate Creator that he did not make me fond of myself and He showed me my soul's faults and sins so that no desire remains to make others look favourably on me. It is pitiful stupidity and a ghastly loss for someone waiting at the door of the grave to look hypocritically behind himself at this transitory world. May Almighty God preserve me from such loss! Amen.
I send greetings to each and every one of my brothers and I pray for them and request their prayers.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
I congratulate you with all my heart and spirit on Ramadan, the Night of Power, and the festival, and wish you all happiness. May the Most Merciful of the Merciful bestow many more on you! Amen.
It is true that I have suffered extreme distress this Ramadan due to the poisoning, but endless thanks be to Almighty God, He bestowed patience and fortitude on me. And the considerable reward for illness dispelled the feelings of heedlessness caused by the distress. So thanks to the blessings of your prayers, I was completely saved this time too from the poisoning.
Nevertheless, the weakness and shock it caused continues to upset me from time to time.
As I wrote and told you, just as the Hizb-i Nuriye is a summary of the Risale-i Nur and of The Supreme Sign; so like the newly Ramadan-published Supreme Sign, a summary of the Hizb-i Nuriye was written in Ramadan through its effulgence, as a manifestation of the thirty-three universal tongues of the thirty-three degrees of the divine necessary existence and unity. My spirit, imagination, and heart so expanded and unfolded that when I uttered the testimony "There is no god but God!" at each degree, I felt as though I was affirming divine unity on a vast scale and that that tongue was mine. The Supreme Sign may, therefore, impart lights of belief as effulgent as the sun to spirits. I was indubitably certain of this and saw it and understood the importance Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) had given it.
The letter Husrev wrote this time reflecting the feelings of all the Isparta students accords me a share greater than my due, but since it shows the degree of those heroic students' devotion and the Risale-i Nur's true value, it deserves a place among my letters and The Additional Letters and to be sent to any other high offices you deem suitable. A copy is being sent to you in the new letters. In acting as an intermediary between the Isparta students and Kastamonu and its leading students, with whom I am closely concerned, Mustafa Osman has performed a most important task in a short time, so earning the right to enter among the select students of the first rank. He must possess complete sincerity to have done so much in so short a time. May Almighty God multiply those like him in that area and grant them success and well-being. Amen!
I send greetings to each and every one of my brothers and sisters, and I congratulate them and pray for them.
The First
Arising from his high opinion of me, which is a thousand times higher than I deserve, a true, genuine student of the Risale-i Nur and scribe of the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition asks about something in the letter he has
now written. Because I am his Master (Üstad), he has beheld in my ordinary person, the truly weighty, sacred duty of the Risale-i Nur's collective personality and a manifestation of the truly elevated functions of the legacy of prophethood, and so wants to look on me as bearing the manifestation of that spiritual legacy.
Firstly: Eternal truths may not be built on transitory persons. To do so is a transgression against the truth. A duty that is in every way perfect and perpetual should not be tied to persons who suffer decline and may be defeated; to do so causes the duty considerable harm.
Secondly: The Risale-i Nur appeared from the Qur'an only through its interpreter's thought and the tongue of his spiritual needs; the emanations through which it appeared do not look to his capabilities; indeed, the Nur treatises' appeared in a way far exceeding their interpreter's ability on account of the sincere, steadfast, and loyal people he was addressing, his companions in study, and their desiring with their spirits those emanations and their accepting, affirming, and applying them. It is they who constitute the reality of the collective personality of the Risale-i Nur and its students. Its interpreter has a share in it too. If not spoiled by insincerity, this may confer on him the honour of seniority.
Thirdly: The present is the time of the community or social collectivity. No matter how wondrous an individual's intelligence, it may be defeated in the face of the collective intelligence of the community. For this reason, as that blessed brother of ours wrote, a task or duty in the way of belief which proceeds from the lights of a sacred genius, and will in some respect illuminate the world of Islam, should not be laid on a wretched, weak, defeated person who has innumerable obdurate enemies striving to discredit him with insults and treachery. If it is laid on him and his faulty person is shaken by those treacherous blows, the burden will fall and break up.
Fourthly: Since early times, the excessively good opinions of people towards their masters or guides or teachers or chiefs was deemed acceptable to a degree and not criticized as unjustifiable since it enhanced their benefiting from their teaching and guidance. And now, the Risale-i Nur students seeing in my wretched faulty person the elevated rank and virtue befitting a master worthy of them may be acceptable since it causes them to exert themselves with zeal and enthusiasm, although their good opinion of me is far higher than I deserve. However, it should be understood that I hold it only as the property of the Risale-i Nur's collective personality. But since chiefly the atheists and people of misguidance, the politicians, the heedless, and even ingenuous men of religion attach great importance to
that person, they try deal blows at those truths by discrediting him, and supposing him to be their source, to extinguish those lights and to get the ingenuous to believe what they say, In short, the event described in the Second Matter illustrates this fact.
The Second Matter
On the second day of the festival when I went out into the countryside, I was attacked by a high-ranking official in a way that was in unlawful in five ways. In His mercy and munificence, Almighty God bestowed an extraordinary patience and restraint on me so that He might protect the pieces of the Risale-i Nur that were loaded on my back and head, and preserve the honour, dignity, and ease of its students, which were loaded on my heart and spirit. For it transpired that the authorities had planned to anger me and draw a veil over the triumphs of the Risale-i Nur and particularly The Supreme Sign.
Beware! Don't be dismayed, anxious, or sad! Also, don't feel sorry for me! Without any doubt, by protecting us beneath the veil, divine grace will make manifest the verse, «It may be that you detest a thing, yet it is good for you» (Q 2:216).
Their stratagems again came to nothing. Nevertheless, there are some people in this province who, having received direct support from the powers that be, are struggling against my person. The air here does not agree with me, so I need to try to get Denizli Court and the Ankara Court of Appeal to have me transferred somewhere more suitable, if possible. I have not been able to do this myself, so it would be a good thing if the friends in Denizli tried to, since they are more concerned with me than I am myself. At least they could put me back in the prison there on some pretext.
My Dear, Loyal, Very Blessed, Very Active, Very Sincere, and Most Worthy Brother, Husrev!
Your letter, which I received on the second day of the festival after a pigeon had as though given news of it, was a salve for the pains and sorrows arising from the assault I had suffered, which affected me so grievously. It gave me this idea: the extraordinary respect and veneration shown by the heroes of the Rose and Light Factories in the face of the nonentities who insult you, would counteract the treachery of millions of
enemies, let alone the abuse of a couple of unconscionable villains, and would rebut their claims. Then I looked at myself and saw that although I am a dessicated dried up date seed whose functions have been fulfilled, you had seen the magnificant fruit-bearing tree that had appeared from it in the Risale-i Nur garden. I saw that your enormously good opinion was due to the tree and since the seed was a sort of means to it, it was the object of your favourable opinions.
The letter's first page is good; I agree with it. I put a few marks on the second page and moderated it so that it might read: Hasan's (May God be pleased with him) Caliphate lasted only six months. But since through the power and effulgence the Risale-i Nur has received from Jaushan al-Kabir and Jaljalutiyya, it disseminates the truths of belief, which is the Caliphate's chief duty, we may look on it as turning Hasan's (May God be pleased with him) brief Caliphate into a lengthy one, and see him as the fifth Caliph. For it is the Risale-i Nur that has the capability to bring people happiness this age through the application of true justice, and its collective personality may be seen as a sort of assistant, complement, and spiritual son to Hasan (May God be pleased with him). Deputizing for you, I marked a few places similarly to this. However, I saw that of the letters and rough copies in among my books that the court had handed over to me, which they evidently considered important since they had marked it in green ink, a part was missing from the one I had written to you. I understood that it was telling me to answer your letter with it. Perhaps it has been included in The Additional Letters. I am writing it out here exactly. It is this:
You should look to my very faulty person only with regard to duty and service, not the ranks you have accorded me out of your good will towards me. If the veil were to be raised, my true nature would be revealed, stained from top to bottom with faults; it would cause you to flee from me. Lest you refuse my brotherhood or regret it, do not fasten your attachment to my person or to imaginary stations that far exceed my due. My brother! I am neither guide nor master to you; our relationship is that of fellow students. I am in need of your kindly prayers in the face of my faults, and your saintly influence. You should not await such influence from me; I
deserve to await it from you. By Almighty God's grace and munificence, you participate in accordance with the law of the division of labour in an exceedingly sacred, important, valuable service which is of great benefit to the believers. The extraordinary importance, value, mastership, and guidance afforded by the collective personality born of our solidarity is sufficient for us.
Since at this time, serving religious belief is a sacred duty surpassing everything, quantity is relatively less important than quality, and temporary, unstable political matters are relatively unimportant compared with the eternal service of belief, and may not be the criteria for it. We must content ourselves with the effulgent stations bestowed on us in the sphere of the Risale-i Nur's instruction. What are needed are the greatest fidelity and resolve and immense attachment and sincerity, not according me unwarranted lofty ranks due to excessively good opinions. (End of quoted piece)
And truly, you have progressed in this.
My Dear, Loyal, Staunch, Sincere Brothers!
Both in fact and in meaning, both my soul and those who are in touch with me ask a question of the greatest importance:
Why is it - as no one else has done - that contrarily to everyone else, you do not look to the significant forces that could assist you, and you disdain them? And why don't you accept the high ranks that the select Risale-i Nur students agree upon, which would greatly assist in the spread of the Risale-i Nur and its triumphing, which everyone longs for and seeks? Why do you shrink from them so violently?
The Answer: At this time, the people of belief are in need of a truth that will teach the truths of belief in such a way that those truths are made the tool of, or subsiduary to or the steps to nothing; and no motives or purposes can sully them; and no doubt or philosophy can defeat them. In this way the belief of all the believers may be preserved against the attacks of the misguided currents that have been accumulating over the past thousand years.
It is due to this fact that the Risale-i Nur attaches no importance to helpers from home and abroad and their considerable forces, and it does not seek them out or follow them, lest in the view of the mass of believers it is being utilized as a step to achieving the aims of worldly life. Then, as the
tool of nothing except eternal life, its surpassing power and truth may dispel the assaulting doubts and queries.
Question: Although it would not harm your sincerity, you flee from the luminous stations and ranks of the hereafter - which are non-material, acceptable, and harmless and which all the believers and reality desire accorded through our sincere brothers' high opinions of you, and which are established through incontestable proofs. But you flee from such ranks, not with modesty and humility but angrily and violently, offending the brothers who confer them on you. Why is this?
The Answer: Just as a public-spirited person sacrifices his own life to save those of his friends; so too, thanks to the lessons in compassion I have received from the Risale-i Nur, in order to protect the eternal lives of the believers from dangerous enemies, I would if necessary - and it is necessary - sacrifice and renounce not only those ranks which anyway I don't deserve but also the ranks of true everlasting life.
Always, and particularly at this time, and especially as a consequence of the general heedlessness arising from misguidance and the prevalence of politics and philosophy, and in this age of egotism and self-advertisement, high ranks subordinate everything and exploit them. Some people exploit sacred matters even for worldly positions, and they make use of them to an even greater degree for spiritual ranks. In order to preserve their positions in the public view and make themselves appear deserving of them, they make some of their sacred service and truths steps and means to them. They are therefore exposed to criticism and this lessens the demand for the truths they disseminate. If this is one benefit for the person, the general loss is a thousandfold due to diminished demand.
In Short: The reality of sincerity bars me from things which may be a means to fame and renown for me and material and spiritual ranks. This may cause considerable harm to the service of the Risale-i Nur, but since quantity is unimportant relatively to quality, as a sincere servant, I consider it more important to teach with true sincerity the truths of belief, which are higher than anything, to ten people than to give thousands of people guidance as a supreme spiritual pole. For since those ten men look on those truths as higher than everything, they persevere and their seedlike hearts may grow into trees. But those thousands of men may look on the teachings of the spiritual pole with sceptical doubts arising from philosophy and the world, and may think that they proceed from his particular rank and personal feelings, and the thousands may be scattered and defeated. It is in this sense that I prefer service to high positions and ranks.
Even, I was alarmed that some disaster might be visited on that man we
know when, due to my enemies' schemes, he insulted me during the festival in a fashion that was illegal in five ways. The matter was blown up, and the people generally might have attributed some rank to me thinking that it was a marvellous instance of wonder-working. So I prayed: "O my Lord! Either reform him or punish him but not in a way that looks like wonder- working." Here, I am going to explain something in this connection. It is like this:
Among the students' letters that were handed over to me by the court this time I saw one that had a lot of signatures on it. Perhaps it has been included in The Additional Letters. It was about the plenty experienced by Risale-i Nur students in their livelihoods, and some were about the slaps they had received. No doubt remains here about the slaps, just like those in Kastamonu. Five people received them in exactly the same way.
Yes, we saw it with our own eyes and can no longer doubt it.
In the name of the students here, Ceylan, İbrahim
One of the Risale-i Nur scribes asked: "Why do friends receive slaps while aggressive enemies receive nothing comparable?"
The Answer: Someone who is not an official and is treacherous, privately or personally, receives a personal slap. There are numerous incidents of this sort. And there are very many people who are completely loyal and receive bestowals in the form of plentiful livelihoods and peace of heart. But if a person is an official and acts maliciously and illegally in the name of the law, it leads to a general slap being visited on the wretched people; general disasters occur, such as earthquakes, drought, epidemics, and storms. Apparently the official does not receive a personal slap. Also, according to the rule, "Tyranny is not permanent, but disbelief is," if the tyranny of those people who cause harm to the duties we perform for the cause of belief on account of irreligion, becomes downright disbelief and thus grave, it is postponed to the hereafter; mostly their punishment is not dealt out swiftly in this world like with lesser wrongdoing.