The Twenty-ninth Letter

 

Addendum: Six questions

 

(This addendum was written to prevent any future hostility and insult aimed at us, or any reproaches of: “Shame on the lazy fellows of that age,” and so that we can justify ourselves against such reproaches. Let the ears of certain pitiless European leaders, disguised under the mask of humanism, hear it! Let it be thrust under the blind eyes of tyrants who pester us with such cruel, unjust people! This addendum discloses one of the many troubles they give me in order to please those leaders of that “civilization of barbarity,” one which gives us countless reasons to shout: “Long live Hell!”).

 

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

Why should we not trust in God, seeing that He has guided us? We will endure patiently regardless of how you hurt us. Those who trust should trust in God. (14:12)

 

Along with their recent increasing and diverse attacks, such as their cruel assaults upon the poor people of belief, the heretics raided the little mosque that I personally repaired so that I could pray therein. They also interfered during the adhan and iqama while I was praying with a few brothers.391 They asked why we were reciting the adhan and the iqama secretly in Arabic (their original language).

My patience has been exhausted. So I now address not the unfair, unscrupulous, and vile fellows who can understand nothing, but rather the heads of the tyrannical committee that continues its arbitrary and despotic rule. O people of heresy and irreligious innovations! I demand answers to the following six questions:

FIRST QUESTION: Every people has its own style and constitution of government. Upon which law do you make such assaults? If you have one, show it! Or do you accept as a law the arbitrary acts of some officers, for no statutes or laws have been legislated in regard to prayer.

SECOND QUESTION: On what power do you base your breaking and disregarding the principles of freedom of religion and thought, which almost all nations have adopted in this century of freedoms? What power allows you to despise humanity and its general consensus? What power do you have that, although you follow secularism and claim not to interfere with religion or atheism, you dare to assault religion and believers in a way indicating that your own religion is fanatical irreligiousness? Such attacks will not remain secret. What will you say when questioned? How can you forcibly violate religious freedom in a manner that disregards the united objection of European states when you are afraid even to resist a single objection of the least of these states on any other matter?

THIRD QUESTION: On the basis of what principle do you try, following the wrong judgments of some so-called Hanafi scholars who have sold themselves and thereby destroyed their school’s purity and sublimity, to impose your unlawful decisions upon members of the Shafi‘i school? If you compel me to obey your decisions only after you formally outlaw the Shafi‘i school and force its members to become Hanafis, then your action might make some sense—albeit the sense of the irreligious. If not, what you are doing is vile and despicable. We will never submit to it.

FOURTH QUESTION: According to what principle do you compel members of a different nationality [Kurds] to use Turkish to announce the prayer’s beginning? Why do you follow a false judgment, one that is essentially opposed to religion and in the name of your sort of Turkish nationalism, which is absolutely contrary to the essential nature of the Turkish peoples, who are sincerely devoted to and deeply integrated with Islam? I have very friendly and close relations with true Turks, but have nothing to do with the Turkism who (show hostility to the religion of Islam) in blind imitation of the West.

If you forced your decisions on us after abolishing the other nationalities who have the same citizenship as Turks in this country, who number in the millions, who have never forgotten their language and original nationality, and who have fought for Islam side by side with Turks, this could be considered following government policy—albeit one of great barbarity.

FIFTH QUESTION: A government applies its laws to those whom it considers its subjects, but cannot do so to those whom it does not allow to be its subjects. Such people oppose that government, saying: “Since we are not your subjects, you are not our government.” Also, a government does not use two types of punishment concurrently. It punishes a murderer either by hanging or imprisonment, not both. No country’s legal system combines these two punishments.

Although I have never harmed this nation, for 8 years you have placed me under a surveillance that is so strict that no one could justify subjecting even the most hardened and wild criminal to it. You pardon proven criminals, yet deprive me of freedom and withhold my civil rights. Seeing that you do not accept me as a member of this nation, according to what law or principle do you subject me—a person foreign to you in every respect—to such despotic treatment against my consent?

You consider my personal sacrifices and my fighting for our country’s sake, as witnessed by the army’s commanders during WWI, as crimes. You consider my efforts to preserve our poor nation’s morals and secure the people’s happiness in both worlds as treason. You sentence me because I reject the un-Islamic lifestyle and dress on the grounds that it is harmful, indulgent, and dangerous as it leads to unbelief. In addition, you have placed me under surveillance and sometimes in prison for a total of 28 years, and have forced me to endure all of them despite my objections. Now, according to what law or principle do you double this (unjust) punishment by interfering in my prayer?

SIXTH QUESTION: Since we are on opposite sides, as your treatment of me shows, and since you sacrifice your religion and afterlife for the sake of this world, know that we are ready to sacrifice this world for the sake of our religion and afterlife. For us, sacrificing a few years of a life of subjection under your unjust and barbarous rule to attain a sacred martyrdom will be like drinking the water of Kawthar.392 But to make you tremble with fear, I say to you, basing myself on the Qur’an’s enlightenment:

If you kill me, you will not survive me for long. Removed from this world, which is your beloved and paradise, by an overwhelming hand, you will be thrown into an eternal abode of darkness. Following my martyrdom, your Nimrod-like chiefs will soon be killed and sent near me. Should they not consider that we will settle this matter in God’s Presence and that Divine Justice will cast them into Hell’s lowest pit?

 

O unfortunate ones who exchange the afterlife for this world. If you want to live, do not bother me! But if you do so, know and tremble with fear that I will be avenged in a far more dreadful way. I hope, through Divine Mercy, that my death will serve Islam better than my life, and that my martyrdom will explode like a bomb and eradicate you. If you have enough courage, molest me! Do your worst, then see what I will do! In the face of your threats, I recite: Those to whom the people said: “A great army has gathered against you, so fear them.” But this only increased their belief. They said: “God is enough for us, and He is the best Guardian.” (3:173)

 

Said Nursi

391 The formal Arabic words recited to call Muslims to prayer and to announce the prayer’s beginning, respectively. (Ed.)

392 Kawthar: A fountain in Paradise. (Ed.)