The Twenty-ninth Letter

 

Fourth section: Human and Satanic intrigues

(A warning to the Qur’an’s students and servants against delusions.)

 

In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.

Do not incline toward those who do wrong lest the Fire should touch you. (11:113)

 

This fourth section negates the six human and Satanic intrigues and blocks six routes of assault.

FIRST  INTRIGUE: Having learned their lessons from Satan, human devils seek to delude the Qur’an’s self-sacrificing servants through love of fame, post and position, hoping that this will cause them to abandon that exalted service and spiritual holy struggle.

Everyone has some ambition for fame, love of position, desire to acquire status. They may even sacrifice their lives if they can gain some fame thereby. This desire is dangerous for the people of the afterlife and destructive for the people of this world. It engenders many bad morals and is the weakest point in the human character. By exciting this desire for public recognition, human devils can subdue people and attach them to themselves. What I fear most for my followers is that the unbelievers will attack that weak spot. This troubles me greatly, for already they have deceived some of my insincere friends and put them in danger.388

O fellow servants of the Qur’an, tell such intriguing worldly agents, heralds of misguidance, and disciples of Satan: “God’s approval, the All-Merciful’s compliments, and the Lord’s acceptance is so great a station or position that, in comparison, people’s favor and commendation mean almost nothing. If God likes and approves us, people’s approval or commendation may be accepted—provided it reflects God’s approval. Otherwise it should not be desired, for it will not benefit us at the grave’s gate.”

If you still cannot overcome these desires, try to direct them toward a spiritual reward or use them to earn other people’s prayers (by helping them) and so that our service for the Qur’an and belief may have a good effect on others. The following comparison clarifies this, as follows:

Imagine the Hagia Sophia mosque full of pious worshippers, some idle children and vagabonds standing at the gate or the ante-chamber, and some foreigners, seeking amusement, looking through the windows. If someone enters and beautifully recites a page of the Qur’an, all pious, truth loving worshippers in the mosque will welcome, approve, and commend that person, who will gain spiritual reward by their calling God’s blessing upon him. Only those on the outside would disapprove of this person. But if he or she chants obscenities or dances violently in the mosque, idle children will be amused, vagabonds delighted (and incited to more indecencies), and foreigners pleased to witness the misery of Islam and Muslims. But each member of that huge blessed congregation will dislike and condemn such a person and consider him or her to be of the lowest rank.

The mosque corresponds to the whole Muslim world in Asia and Africa (and even in Europe). The believers and people of truth are the congregation. The idle children represent foolish people, the immoral vagabonds stand for the irreligious and heretical imitators of the West, and the foreigners are journalists who spread foreign [un-Islamic] ideas.

Every Muslim, especially those of piety and perfection, has a place in the mosque and a position in the eyes of Muslims according to how well he or she observes Islam. If such people sincerely adhere to Islam’s sacred truths and the Qur’an’s commands for God’s good pleasure, the basis of Islamic life, and display the meaning of Qur’anic verses through their conduct, they are included in the supplication: “O God, forgive all believers,” always said by all Muslims. This establishes brotherly and sisterly relations with all of them. Only some people of misguidance far below the rank of humanity, or simple-minded people who may be regarded as bearded children (adults in appearance but children in mind and character), disapprove of them.

But if people break with their (righteous Muslim) ancestors (the means of honor and pride) and from the illustrious way of righteous precedents (a spiritual source of support) to follow whims and fancies, and pursue irreligious novelties for show and fame, people of belief and truth view them as the lowest of the low. All believers, regardless of their ignorance and ordinariness, unconsciously turn away in disgust from such vainglorious people due to: “Fear the believer’s insight, for he [or she] looks with the light of God.”389

Those who try to please worldly people and unbelievers for such reasons fall to the lowest level in the eyes of most Muslims. Their transient and inauspicious position is limited to a very small minority of deluded and ridiculed people. According to: Friends on that day will be foes one to another, except the pious who refrain from disobedience to God (43:67), they find false friends who will harm them here, cause them torment in the Intermediate World of the grave, and be their foes in the Hereafter.

If those who desire public recognition prefer to recite the Qur’an in the mosque, they achieve a considerable and beneficial spiritual position that gratifies this desire—but only if they act sincerely and for God’s good pleasure, and do not see the resulting fame and position as their main aim. Compared to what they win, what they lose is insignificant. They may lose a few snakelike people, but will find so many blessed friends supplicating for them that Divine blessings will flow to their souls, like the water of life, from all over the Muslim world. Such blessings are added to their record of deeds.

Once a public figure assumed a very important worldly post and became a laughing-stock in the eyes of Muslims because of the grave errors he committed in his quest for fame. I preached this lesson to him most forcefully. It shook him, but since I could not rid myself of the love of position, my warning was ineffective.

SECOND INTRIGUE: Fear is a most basic human emotion. Intriguing wrongdoers, agents of the worldly, and heralds of misguidance play upon it to inculcate fear and anxiety within ordinary people and particularly religious scholars. Suppose such a person goads an anxious, fearful person on the roof, through groundless suspicions and anxieties, until he falls and breaks his neck. Similarly, worldly people cause Muslims to sacrifice many important things by arousing groundless fears and anxieties.

An important man (may God’s mercy be upon him) was afraid to travel by boat. One evening, we went to Galata bridge to take the ferry to Eyup. He did not want to get on, saying that he feared he would drown. When I asked him how many boats were in the Golden Horn, he replied that there might be as many as one thousand. When I asked him how many boats sank each year, he replied usually one or two, and sometimes none.

I made this analogy: “Since a year has 365 days, your chance of drowning is 1:365,000. Why does such a small chance scare you?” I asked: “How much longer do you expect to live?” He answered: “Maybe 10 years; I am old already.” I continued: “As there are 3,650 days in 10 years, your chance of dying today is 1:3,650. But since we do not know when we will die, you could die at any time. So repent and weep! Write your last will and testament!”

Seeing the truth in my words, he got on the boat even though trembling. On the boat, I told him: “God Almighty placed fear in our nature so that we might preserve our life, not ruin it. He did not give us fear to make life an unbearable burden full of pain and torment. If there is a risk of 1:2 or 1:3 or 1:4, or at most 1:5 or 6, it may be permissible and tolerable to fear and avoid the risk. But to fear a chance of 1:20, 1:30, or 1:40 is groundless suspicion, a sort of paranoia that changes life into a torment.”

Therefore, dear brothers [and sisters]! If sycophants and unbelievers use fear to tempt you into abandoning your struggle in His cause, say: “We are people of the Qur’an, and, according to God’s declaration: We sent down the Qur’an and We will guard it (15:9), we are within its stronghold. God is sufficient for us. How good a Being He is to trust in and rely on, and our trust is a strong citadel around us. Your urging us to fear a danger, even though there is only a 1:1,000 chance that it will affect us during this short transient life cannot lead us to follow a way that is 100 percent harmful to our eternal life in the Hereafter.”

Also tell them: “Has Said Nursi ever harmed anyone belonging to the people of truth? He is our companion in serving the Qur’an, our teacher in carrying out this sacred service. Has one of his sincere disciples ever suffered such a misfortune that we should worry about ourselves? He has thousands of brothers [sisters] and friends in religion. Before, when he spent more than 20 years in active public life, we never heard of any of his friends suffering harm. They claim that his participation in the March 31 [1925] revolt led to some of his friends being crushed.390

But this soon was proven false, for he had nothing to do with the revolt. His friends were harmed only because of what they had done by themselves. In fact, he saved many of them from misfortune. At that time he held the “mace” of politics, which he threw away a long time ago in order to hold the light of the truth. Thus such human devils like you should not think that you can deprive us of an eternal treasury for fear of a danger that has only a 1:1,000 chance of happening.”

Talk like this to those who fawn on the people of misguidance, and tell them: “We do not fear a misfortune that has almost no chance of happening. Even if this way held a danger, we would never desert him, for misfortune happens first to those who betray their master in a time of danger. Such people are pitilessly punished, condemned as base people, and some suffer physical as well as spiritual death. Their punishers feel no compassion for them, for they think: “Since they betrayed their faithful and affectionate master, they must be of the basest character and so deserve this.”

When a cruel, unjust person throws someone to the ground to trample him or her to death, the victim first will die spiritually by kissing the tyrant’s foot and then, after losing all honor and dignity, will die a degrading death. Displaying helplessness in such a situation encourages a tyrant to crush the person to death. But if the victim spits in the tyrant’s face, he or she dies as a martyr and remains spiritually alive in honor and dignity.

When British forces invaded Istanbul and destroyed the cannons at the Bosphorus, one of their religious representatives asked six questions of the office of the Shaykh al-Islam, then Turkey’s highest religious office. As I was a member of the House of Islamic Wisdom (Dar al-Hikma al-Islamiyya), they asked me to reply. This person wanted the questions answered in 600 words. I replied: “Not with 600, nor with 6, nor with even one word. I will answer them with a boo. For you see how, when a nation’s government puts its foot on our neck, its religious officer gets up to ask us some questions in a boastful way. Thus his due is a boo!”

Now I say: “Dear brothers [sisters], even though it was 100 percent dangerous to respond in that way to the tyrannical invaders of Istanbul, the Qur’an was enough to protect me. It will be enough to protect you against any danger that has only a slight chance of happening at the hands of those insignificant wrongdoers.”

Also, dear brothers, most of you have completed your military service. Those who have not joined the army must have heard—if they have not, let them hear it from me—that those who flee the battlefront receive many more wounds than those who persevere. The verse: The death from which you flee will meet you (62:8), hints that those who flee actually hasten to meet death.

THIRD INTRIGUE: Greed deceives many people. Based on decisive proofs from the Qur’an’s verses and clear explanations, I have written that lawful provision comes according to one’s poverty and impotence, not one’s capacity and willpower. I present only a few of this truth’s countless signs and evidences, as follows:

Trees are living creatures that need provision. As they are stationary, their needed provision comes to them. Animals are not provided with food in such a perfect manner, because they seek their food impatiently. Fish are fed perfectly and usually become fat, although they are the least intelligent animals, whereas such clever and strong animals as apes and foxes are mostly weak due to insufficient nutrition. This also shows that provision is based on need or destitution, not power or ability.

Animal and human infants are fed very well and extraordinarily via their mother’s breast milk, the best food and sweetest gift of Mercy’s treasury. It is bestowed on them in an unexpected way out of His concern for their weakness and incapability. In contrast, wild animals usually have to be content with the scarce food they obtain through tiring effort. This also illustrates how lawful provision is based on impotence and poverty, not intelligence and capability.

Among all people, the Jews are generally the most passionate pursuers of worldly provision and, as a result, are famous for their greed. No other people has suffered such privation, poverty, and humiliation. Even rich Jews live in misery and under stress. Their wealth does not refute this general argument, for they obtain it through such unlawful means as usury.

The poverty of many literary figures and scholars and the richness of many ignorant people also shows that weakness and need, and not intelligence and ability, attract provision. Other ways of attracting provision are relying upon God and petitioning Him verbally and through one’s disposition and lawful effort. The verse: God is the All-Provider, the Possessor of Strength, the Steadfast (51:58) is so strong and firm a proof that all vegetation, animals, and babies announce it. Every living species needing provision recites it through the tongue of their disposition.

Since God Almighty, the All-Compassionate and All-Munificent, predetermines and supplies all provision, it is extreme folly to humble oneself in a way that derides His Mercy and belittles His Munificence or to offer one’s conscience and sacred things in return for some wealth.

Worldly people, especially the misguided, loan money to get a high return. In exchange for some wealth that might contribute to a year’s livelihood, they may cause people to lose the Hereafter’s eternal life. Unfortunately, there are always some who attract Divine wrath through their disgusting greed and by trying to please the misguided.

Dear followers! If those who fawn on misguided worldly people and hypocrites seek to capture you through greed, consider my words and follow my example. Only thrift and contentment—not wages or salaries—allow you to preserve your life. If they lend you unlawful money, they will demand a high rate of return. Your involvement in their world may hinder your serving the Qur’an, each hour of which can open the gates of an eternal treasury. Being deterred from this service is so great a loss that no salary or wage can ever be a sufficient compensation.

NOTE: People of misguidance and hypocrites cannot present viable alternative ideas and arguments or defend themselves against the Qur’an’s truths and their dissemination. Thus they try to deceive my friends through love of position, greed, and fear. They also conjure up false imputations to present me as unreliable. Although we always act positively in our service, we occasionally have to act negatively to remove obstacles put in the way of our service. And so I warn my followers against these three mentioned above, and try to repel the attacks made on them.

They also attack me personally, saying: “Said is a Kurd. How can you hold him in such high esteem and follow him so warmly?” To silence them, I feel compelled to add a fourth Satanic intrigue in the language of Old Said.

FOURTH INTRIGUE: Instigated by Satan and inspired by the people of misguidance, some high-level unbelievers accuse me falsely and, trying to deceive and arouse my followers’ national zeal, say: “You are Turkish. The Turks, God bless them, have many scholars in every field and people of perfection. Said is a Kurd. How can you reconcile cooperating with a non-Turk with your national zeal?”

ANSWER: O unfortunate heretics! Praise be to God, I am a Muslim and belong to the holy nation of Islam, which has hundreds of millions of members. I take refuge in God from sacrificing those brothers and sisters, among whom are most Kurds, for the sake of racism and negative nationalism. There is an eternal bond between all of them and me, and they help me through their prayers. I seek refuge in God from securing the support of a few Kurdish atheists or heretics at the expense of those countless blessed Muslim brothers and sisters.

O unfortunate unbelievers, your corrupt logic dictates that the eternal bonds of a huge, illustrious community composed of hundreds of millions of true brothers and sisters should be sacrificed for the sake of a temporary, useless friendship with a few apostates who are considered as belonging to the Turkish race.

I refer the reader to The Twenty-sixth Letter for my discussion of the nature and injuries of negative nationalism. Here, I elaborate upon a truth briefly discussed therein, as follows:

To those unbelievers who, although enemies of the Turks, hide behind Turkish nationalism. I have a deep and true connection with this country’s believers through a genuine bond and belonging to the same Muslim nation. In the name of Islam I support, love, and take pride in the children of this country who carried the flag of the Qur’an victoriously for nearly 1,000 years.

As for you, O hypocrites who falsely claim Turkish nationalism! Your ulterior motives involve displaying a short-lived bond with the Turkish people to make them forget their true national honors! Is the Turkish nation made up of only fanciful and heedless young people between 20 and 40 years old? Does their interest lie in, and the service to be given to them in the name of nationalism require, a system of education which will increase their heedlessness, habituate them to immorality, and encourage them to commit sinful acts? Does serving them mean amusing them so that later in life they will wail and suffer?

If your version of nationalism, progress, and happiness require such things, and if you call yourselves Turkish nationalists of this sort, know that I have nothing in common with you and do not desire your company. If you have a trace of conscience left, some true national zeal, and even a little fair-mindedness, consider the following discussion and then answer me:

The Turkish nation comprises six groups of people: the people of piety and righteousness, the afflicted and the ill, the elderly, the children, the poor and weak, and the youth. Are the first five groups somehow undeserving of your brand of national zeal? Would true nationalism wound their feelings and deprive them of their means of consolation to amuse the sixth group? According to the principle of “The majority is considered when rendering a judgment,” one who harms the majority is an enemy to them, not a friend.

I ask you: Where does the interest of the people of piety and righteousness lie? In blindly imitating the corruptions of civilization, or in finding true consolation through the way of the truth, to which they are attached passionately because of their belief in eternal happiness? Your misguided and false claim of national zeal would extinguish their light, deprive them of their consolation, and present death as absolute annihilation and the grave as a gate to infinite separation.

Will the interests of the afflicted, the ill, and the hopeless be served by imitating the irreligious and immoral aspects of the modern civilization? Rather, they hope for consolation and desire some return for their suffering. They seek vengeance upon those who wronged them and wish to enter the grave happily. Nevertheless, your false nationalism wounds the feelings of those in dire need of care, hope, and consolation. You restrain them and drive them without pity to absolute despair. Is this what national zeal really requires?

The elderly are one-third of the nation’s population. Every day they move away from this world and toward death. They prepare for it by gradually breaking with this life. Does their interest or consolation lie in listening to the dreadful adventures of certain supposedly Turkish tyrants and your movement’s self-proclaimed progress, which is no more than your neglect of the Hereafter, attachment to this world, and inevitable spiritual decay? Can people at the movies find a light with which to illuminate their other world, or find true consolation at the theater?

I seek refuge in God from your type of national zeal, for you use it to deceive the elderly (who expect due respect from national zeal) into believing that death is absolute annihilation and the grave (which they consider a gate to mercy) resembles a dragon’s mouth into which they will be thrown. Is this true national zeal?

Children expect mercy and care from national zeal. Being feeble and impotent, they can become spirited and develop their potential only by recognizing an All-Merciful and Powerful Creator. They can look at life lovingly and hopefully only if inspired with belief in, reliance on, and submission to God. Only this way helps them resist the future’s awful circumstances and calamities.

Given this, does their interest and happiness lie in attaching themselves to a material progress in which they have only a superficial interest, and to the principles of materialistic philosophy that will demoralize and dispirit them? If we were only biological entities like animals, beings without intellect, that education you call a “national education for civilization” might meet some of their worldly interests and temporarily amuse them as a new toy amuses a child. But since these innocents are human beings, and since they will experience tumults while alive, they will cherish long-term desires and have great objectives.

To compensate for their weakness and impotence, we must care for them by establishing in their souls a strong belief in God and the Hereafter as a point of support and an inexhaustible source of help. This is what true mercy and care demands. Otherwise, like an insane mother slaughtering her child with a knife, we will kill them spiritually by intoxicating them with national zeal. Or we will commit a monstrous crime like feeding them their own brains and hearts.

National zeal cannot ignore the poor, whom poverty crushes under life’s heavy burdens, or the weak, who are affected by life’s terrible convulsions. Does their share in national zeal lie in your degenerative movements which you institute in the name of civilization but which only increase those poor ones in suffering and hopelessness, and serve some dissolute wealthy people to satisfy their lusts and fancies, and some powerful, tyrannical ones to gain notoriety and commit more crimes? Poor people’s poverty cannot be solved by racism, but only by the medicine in Islam’s sacred “medicine store.” Islamic zeal and sacred Islamic nationalism, not materialistic philosophy that attributes everything to coincidence and chance, give the poor and weak the resistance and strength they need to survive.

The sixth group is the young. If youth were permanent, your “wine” of negative nationalism might be of some temporary use for them. But when they recover in old age from the drunkenness of youth, when they awake in the morning of old age to life’s pains and realities, the wine-induced troubles will make them weep bitterly. The pain coming from that sweet dream’s end will drive them to regret, saying: “Alas! Youth has gone, life is almost ended, and I approach the grave without good deeds. If only I had been sensible and prepared for this event!”

Given this, does national zeal require that the youth should experience lengthy regret for a transient merriment? Or do happiness and pleasure lie in spending their youth on the Straight Path, thanking God for the blessing of youth, using their transient youth to gain permanence through worship, and securing eternal youth in the World of Happiness by spending their youth in belief and good deeds?

In short, if the Turkish nation were composed of only the young, and if youth were permanent and there was no other world, your imitation of the modern civilization in its dissipated aspects under the guise of Turkish nationalism might be considered true national zeal. You might have a right to say of me, a man who gives little importance to worldly life and gross nationalism, who tries to prevent the young from indulging in sins and who was born in another province: “He is Kurdish, so do not follow him!”

But since the people of this Turkish nation consist of six groups, it is sheer enmity for the nation to harm five groups in order to amuse the sixth for a limited period, intoxicating its members now so that their old age will be full of regret and despair.

They do not consider me a Turk, although I have spent my life working, with deep affection and brotherly feelings, for the benefit of righteous Turks, the old and afflicted, the poor and weak, and children. I have tried to direct the youth away from sinful acts that poison their worldly life and ruin their next life, that cause one to weep for a year in exchange for an hour’s pleasure. My publications, published over the last 20 years and all in Turkish, are all in the open. All praise be to God that, through these works derived from the source of the Qur’anic lights, the old are offered the light of which they are in such dire need.

The most useful remedy for the afflicted and the ill is shown to be found in the Qur’an. The grave is shown to be a gate opening onto infinite mercy, not eternal annihilation. The Qur’an offers children a strong point of support against life’s misfortunes and satisfies their desires and ambitions. In addition, the Qur’anic truths of belief relieve the weak and the poor of life’s crushing burdens.

I feel a heartfelt unity with righteous youth. However, I do not recognize as Turks those who embrace heresy and want to break with the Muslim nationality, the real source of Turkish national pride. I consider them hostile foreigners disguised as Turks. They cannot deceive the people of truth even if they claim repeatedly that they are Turks and Turkish nationalists, for their acts and attitudes contradict them.

Now, O you who try to make my true brothers [sisters] chilly in their relations with me! How do you benefit this nation? You extinguish the light of the people of piety and righteousness. You deepen the injuries of the ill and afflicted, who deserve compassion and attention. You deprive the elderly of their means of consolation and drive them to despair. You demoralize the children, who so need such care, and extinguish their humanity. By destroying the hopes of the poor and weak, who are in such need of help and consolation, and by drying up their source of help, you make them see life as more dreadful than death.

Lastly, you intoxicate the youth, who should be warned and awakened from the sleep of youth, with such a “wine” that the resulting drunkenness is extremely painful and dreadful. Thus your national zeal sacrifices many of this nation’s sacred things! Does your Turkish nationalism benefit the Turks in the ways mentioned? I seek refuge in God from your Turkism or Turkish nationalism!

Gentlemen! I know you resort to force when you are defeated on a point of truth. According to the principle that “right is might” and not “might is right,” I will never bow my head before you, for I am ready to sacrifice it for the Qur’an’s truths. Also, I inform you that even if thousands of such people like you, all of whom the people dislike, were to antagonize me, I would not care about them or give them any more importance than I do to harmful creatures.

What can you do to me? You can kill me or impede my service. I have relations only with my life and my service of the belief and the Qur’an. The appointed hour of death never changes. So if I am martyred by your hands, this is what I have been expecting eagerly. As I am already old and probably will not live more than another year, it is the most exalted objective and aim of those like me to exchange one year of life for eternal life through martyrdom.

As for my service, all praise be to God Almighty, He has provided me with such friends and followers in this task, now done in only one center, that they will carry it out in many other centers after my death. If death silences me, many others will speak—and speak louder—on my behalf and continue this service. A seed dying underground grows into an elaborate tree yielding thousands of seeds in exchange for one. I hope that the same will be true of my death, much more so than of my life.

FIFTH INTRIGUE: Supporters of the misguided desire to use human egotism to separate my brothers [sisters] from me. A person’s most dangerous temperament and weakest spot is egotism. By exciting this sentiment, they urge people to do very bad things.

Dear brothers [sisters], do not let them captivate you through egotism. Know that the people of misguidance, carried by their ego, have gone astray. The people of truth must forsake their ego to serve the truth, even if sometimes they are justified in using it, for using their ego will make them resemble the people of misguidance. Serving the Qur’an, which is our purpose, has no room for egotism; rather, it demands cooperation in sincere unity.

You must have been convinced that I did not come forward to satisfy my ego or to invite you to serve it; rather, I presented myself to you as an egoless servant of the Qur’an. I have chosen self-denial and altruism, and have proven to you that the works put forward for the people’s benefit are derived from the Qur’an and belong to everyone. No one can claim to own them or attribute them to himself or herself.

Imagine the inconceivable—that they belong to me. Then, as one of my followers said, once this gate of Qur’anic service is opened, the people of perfection and knowledge should not hesitate to follow these works, giving no consideration to my defects and shortcomings.

The works of righteous precedents and scholars of truth are a great treasury that benefit everyone and cure every intellectual or spiritual disease. But regardless of such greatness, sometimes one key can open several treasuries. Those who have a forceful ego based on knowledge understand that each treatise of The Words is a key to the Qur’an’s truths and a “diamond sword” with which to strike those who deny these truths. Those people of knowledge and perfection who boast of their knowledge should know that following my works will make them disciples of the Qur’an, not of me, and that I am their fellow student.

Suppose the impossible—that I claim mastership. Since the Risale-i Nur removes all believers’ doubts about the truths of belief, those scholars either should find a better way to remove doubt or instruct people in the truths expounded by the Risale-i Nur. Many sound Traditions warn scholars who use knowledge or conceal the truths they know for selfish or worldly interests, so let them be careful.

Suppose that my enemies, who claim that I do this service to satisfy my egotism, are correct. Even so, at a time when many people forsake egotism to pursue worldly aims around a Pharaoh-like person with total loyalty and close cooperation, would I have the right to ask you to forsake egotism and form a strong unity around the Qur’an’s truths, instead of around me? Are even your greatest scholars correct in rejecting this request?

Dear brothers [sisters], envy is egotism’s most harmful aspect. If our service is not purely for God’s sake, envy intervenes and adulterates it. Just as your hands are not envious of each other, and your eyes do not envy your ears and your heart does not compete with your intellect, each of us is like a member or a sense of our collective body. Thus we should take pride and spiritual pleasure in each other’s merits, instead of entering into rivalry with each other.

Something else must be mentioned here, something that is most harmful to our service. Some of you or your friends might feel envious of me. Among you are some important scholars. Some scholars may boast of their knowledge. Even if they are humble, they find it hard to get rid of the egotism caused by being knowledgeable. However devout and faithful they are in heart and intellect, their carnal selves want others to know that they are knowledgeable and to be aware of their merits. Moreover, they might want to compete with the Risales (Treatises). Although they consciously like and approve of them, their carnal selves want to see them devalued so that their own works might become as widely read, or even more so, than the Risales.

I feel compelled to inform you that the Risale-i Nur comes directly from the Qur’an, and that that we, the students of the Risale-i Nur, are duty-bound to find out and pronounce the truth in matters of belief. Thus we should assume, according to the principle of the division of labor, that each person has a different duty. So, those following this way of learning from the Qur’an through the Risales, even if they may be scholars or jurists of the highest degree, should endeavor to offer these “drops of the water of life” to those in need by explaining and expounding, as well as by designing and arranging, the Risale-i Nur.

SIXTH INTRIGUE: This involves using laziness, exploiting each person’s fondness for comfort and ease, and giving new duties to the most active. Devilish people and jinn attack from every direction. When they see our friends who are steadfast, faithful, sincere, zealous, and persevering in service, they adapt a new strategy. To interrupt our service and abate our zeal, they exploit our laziness and natural desire for an easy life. They find jobs for some of us that will leave us no time for service, or give us extra work. They show some of us the world’s attractions to stir up our worldly desires and aspirations, hoping to make us lazy when it comes to the service. As it would take a long time to explain all of their methods, I refer the rest to your insight and understanding.

Dear brothers [sisters]! Be alert! Your duty is sacred, and the service is exalted. Each hour spent in the service is as valuable as a whole day’s worship. Be aware of this so that you do not miss this opportunity.

O you who believe! Be patient and vie and help each other in patience. Be steadfast and try to gain piety in awe of God so that you may prosper. (3:200)

 

Do not sell My revelations for a trifling price. (2:41)

 

Glorified be Your Lord, the Lord of Glory, above that they describe. Peace be upon the Messengers, and all the praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds. Glory be to You. We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.

 

O God, bestow blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad, the unlettered Prophet, Your beloved, most esteemed and noble, and of the highest rank, and on his Family and Companions. Amen!

 

Said Nursi

388 Mistakenly believing that they can be with their teacher in heart, they think they are not at risk. However, people carried along by unbelievers, open to being used as unwitting spies, and who even support such people are like those who, when praying, cannot help passing wind and say: “How can I be ritually impure, for my soul is purified!”

389 Tirmidhi, Tafsir Sura 15:6.

390 This was a revolt against Sultan Abdülhamid. Although some historians disagree, it was most probably instigated by the British and Germans, who supported the opposing Unity and Progress Party, although those who revolted voiced slogans in favor of Sharia. (Tr.)