Evidence that their plans and conspiracy against me last winter, which were thwarted as a result of the patience and endurance I showed through divine providence and your prayers, were very extensive was the President announcing recently in Afyon that he surmised that a disturbance connected with religion would break out in the province. That is to say, a secret society wanted to provoke an incident by harassing me. But their completely illegal and arbitrary ill-treatment and treacherous persecution, which rile me excessively and intended to provoke foreign intervention to the harm of Muslims and this country, gain for them only harm in this world and Hell in the next, and for us reward and victory in this world, and Paradise in the next, God willing. Evidently, the Cabinet and President
perceived this secret plan, because all the officials around here, and even the governor, kaymakam, and police avoid me and are scared. I was amazed at this. But anyone with a grain of sense has understood that we have nothing but light and the Risale-i Nur, and that we do not wield the club of politics. It is strange, but the officials who should have worked most in our favour, were employed and used against us.
The Nurjus have to be extremely circumspect, careful, and calm-headed, for there are storms in the air and cunning dissemblers insinuate themselves everywhere. They infiltrate the liberty-seeking parties although they are anti-religious and support absolute despotism, so that they might corrupt them and learn their secrets and divulge them.
Also, in connection with Salâhaddin giving The Staff of Moses to the American we say this: It is essential that missionaries and pious Christians, as well as Nurjus, are extremely careful, for certainly, with the idea of defending itself against the attacks of the religions of Islam and Christianity, the current from the north will try to destroy the accord of Islam and the missionaries. Making concessions to the lower classes, and inviting the middle classes to assist the common people through the obligatory payment of the purification tax and the prohibition of interest and usury, and preventing them from tyrannizing them, they may deceive the Muslims, and giving them privileges may draw them over to their side.
However, this time I have broken my rule for your sake, and considered worldly affairs.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
I am compelled to reply to your very relevant letters with a single short one.
Firstly: Re'fet's questions have led to the emergence of numerous luminous truths. His both teaching the Qur'an and the Risale-i Nur to innocent children, and himself being busy with the Flashes (Lem'alar), and his helping me and Husrev with the corrections, and his endeavouring to give fair-minded scholars in Istanbul copies of The Staff of Moses deserve congratulation. But for now his new question cannot be answered, for the time has not yet come.
The heroic Burhan gave a fine answer to the leader of the Free Party. The Nurjus are not concerned with politics; their whole lives are tied to the
truths of belief alone. Uptil now, members of a secret society who have exploited politics for irreligion and atheism have crushed the Nurjus with absolute despotism. God willing, a cause will emerge which will break that despotism and deliver the innocent, oppressed Nurjus. However, one has to be extremely careful and cautious. Since the Risale-i Nur is superior to all the currents in the world and belongs to everyone, it cannot follow or enter one side. It rather assists the just side against the aggressively anti-religious; it is friendly towards the just side and is like a point of support and reserve force for it. But this is not on account of politics. Nevertheless, some of the brothers may enter politics in their own name, not that of the Risale-i Nur, in order to secure its publication and interests. Especially since up to the present blessed Isparta has been the Nur Medrese and its opponents have not caused too much harm, not to take sides internally might be a means of those opponents repenting and returning to the truth. But you know this better than I do.
Salâhaddin's letter is important in several respects; of course the American scholars will not be indifferent towards The Staff of Moses, It will make conquests if those who love religion for religion's sake obtain copies of it, for if others get hold of it, it is doubtful that they will try to publish and spread it, due to feelings of jealousy like our egotistical hojas. However, we assign the matter to divine providence.
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
Firstly: God willing it is a good thing that Tahirî has gone to Istanbul. It occurred to me that the extraordinary divine grace and assistance that were apparent when, in Barla, I performed all the duties connected with the composition and correction of the written pieces, and now this is to be observed in Husrev and his helpers, as he carries out so many tasks to the full.
Secondly: Tahirî's unforgetable, sincere service while in Denizli Prison, and his unshakeable loyalty to the Risale-i Nur, unerring intelligence, and unassailable courage, which have accorded him a high position in the Nur circle, have led us to include his last letter in The Additional Letters in its entirety. I send my greetings firstly to his mother, Zübeyde, a Nur student, and to his wife and all his relatives. May Almighty God be pleased with them for ever! Amen.
Thirdly: Since Ahmed Kureyşî, a member of the Kureyş tribe from Nis, together with his respected father and cousin, is one of the select publishers and students of the Risale-i Nur, his fine versified pieces about the Risale-i Nur have been added to The Additional Letters in the name of the students of that area.
Fourthly: There are some outstanding brothers in the town of Eğirdir, but I cannot write their names. I received a letter from our hardworking and serious brother Çilingir Ali, which referred to them and to Mehmed Sabri, the main Power House, which was well-phrased and carefully written in a script that resembled Sabrî's. As he wished, we added it as it is to The Additional Letters. And we congratulate himself and the person who is getting him to write, and wish them both success.
My Dear, Loyal, Magnanimous, Old and New Brother, Yeşil Salih!
The matters you asked about my biography will here be indicated very briefly and succinctly. God willing, at a later date others will reply in more explanatory fashion. But I neither want nor do I deserve to pass into history and to show my unimportant self to coming generations among the religious scholars of this century. I offer unending thanks to Almighty God that He did not make me fond of myself and showed me my awesome faults. Moreover, it is fame-seeking to make oneself known to people, and may lead to egotism, self-advertisement, and hypocrisy. This is excessively harmful for the likes of us.
Also, since I have been compelled this age to live on my own both physically and mentally, and to withdraw from social life, certainly I do not have the right to mount history among those who pass their lives in society, or to appear to the people of the future. There is only this, that the superlative benefits for this country and nation of the Risale-i Nur have been proved true by the unanimous decisions of courts of law and committees of experts. Considering this, I can point out a few matters in reply to your questions, but in the name of the Risale-i Nur, which belongs to the Qur'an alone and bears its meaning; not in the name of my unimportant, wretched, unfortunate, and very faulty self. Later the Risale-i Nur and its students may elucidate these matters.
Firstly: The late Abdurrahman wrote my biography thirty years ago, and had it printed.
Secondly: Your questions would be answered in detail by such parts of
the Risale-i Nur as the Defence Speeches of Eskişehir Prison, which are a sort of biography of the period the Risale-i Nur was emerging and were made the Twenty-Seventh Flash, and the defences of Denizli Prison, which are the Eleventh and Twelfth Rays, together with The Treatise for the Elderly (the Twenty-Sixth Flash), The Fourth Ray, The Sixteenth Letter, The Six Attacks, and The Three Indications (İşarât-ı Selâse -the Twenty-Second Flash), and The Seven Signs (İşârât-ı Seb'a -The Seventh Part of the Twenty-Eighth Letter). I do not now have them with me, although the court returned them to me, but I shall have. God willing, I shall never forget you. Your concern for me in this plight has alleviated my severe difficulties. May God be pleased with you, Amen!
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
An unfortunate sensitive man who suffers from scruples and has relations with the irreligious saw a Hadith about the famous supplication of the Prophet (UWBP), the Jaushan al-Kabir, and its inordinate merits and value, and he fell into doubt. He said: "It's narrated from the Imams of the Prophet's (UWBP) family, but it appears to be greatly exaggerated. For instance, it says that the supplication yields as many rewards as the Qur'an, and the great angels in the skies descend from the divine throne when they see someone reading it and bow before him in all humility. But this is contrary to reason and logic." He sought assistance from the Risale-i Nur. So I gave him an answer from the Qur'an, the Jaushan, and the Risale-i Nur that was completely certain and in accord with reason and wisdom. Here, I am writing an abbreviated summary of it. It was like this. I said to him:
Firstly: The Third Branch of the Twenty-Fourth Word sets out ten principles which demolish such doubts and dispel them. Take a look at it and find the answer.
Secondly: Muhammad (Zât-i Ahmediye) (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who every day receives the merits of the good deeds of all his community and assists in the happiness of each of its members, and who manifested the greatest name, was the original seed of the cosmos and its most perfect and comprehensive fruit. He saw the supreme degree of that supplication referring to himself and heard it from the Angel Gabriel (Upon whom be peace), who informed him of it, and compared others to himself or was compared. That is to say, that extraordinary merit accrued to the supplication from the supreme sainthood of Muhammad (Zât-i Ahmediye)
(UWBP). The merit is not universal and general; rather, the substance of the supplication holds such extraordinary value, and by following that Being (UWBP) who manifested the greatest name, such merits may be possible for others. However, there are a number of crucial conditions: it is not enough just to recite it, for it would spoil the balance of the precepts and damage obligatory acts.
Thirdly: Just as the supplication is exempt from exaggeration and is literally true when one looks to Muhammad (UWBP); so too, when one looks to the reality of the hundreds of divine names in the supplication, it is possible that the merit proceeds from their infinite manifestations. The Truthful Bringer of News (UWBP) spoke of a very small part in order to show the infinitude of the potential emanations, and left it vague and absolute for encouragement. Then, with the passage of time that potential and absolute matter came to be seen as actual and universal.
Fourthly: In the Twentieth Flash, about sincerity, there is a footnote about a person who is given a paradise with the breadth of five hundred years. Take a look at it and you will see that his being given that vast paradise does not mean he is given ownership of it in a way we do not understand. For just as a person's house belongs to him in many different ways and he owns it; so through his numerous senses he owns in a sort of way the things on the face of the earth, and has disposal over them, and can benefit from them. He can say: "The huge earth is my house; it was given to me; and the sun is my lamp." That is to say, some merits and rewards that appear extraordinary and irrational, look to this truth.
Furthermore, in Islam, Muhammad (UWBP) is the primary recipient of all the meritorious and virtuous actions of Muslims and he receives a mountain's worth of merit and reward from one of our prayers, for which we receive only an atom's worth. His private invocations and supplications make plain the highest rank accorded him in connection with his sainthood, in his private conversations, not in connection with the Shari'a and his messengership. By mentioning these points, he was encouraging his select heirs who follow him to the letter.
I declared: "None knows the Unseen save God!" and "God alone has knowledge of this!" Praise be to God, the man who was beset by doubts and scruples was saved from them and gained complete certainty. I am sending this with the thought that it might be useful for some of you. Endless greetings to you all.