First Addendum
Second Part
As in the comparison above, in the former period at the beginning of the Second Constitutional Period, a number of religiously-minded deputies said to the Old Said:
“You make politics the tool of religion and the Shari‘a in every way possible and make it serve religion. You only support freedom on account of the Shari‘a. And you favour constitutionalism in so far as it is in conformity with the Shari‘a. That means one cannot have freedom and constitutionalism without the Shari‘a. It is for this reason that they included you among those who said ‘We want the Shari‘a’ during the Thirty-First of March Incident.”
The Old Said told them: “Yes, it is only through the truths of Islam that the Islam will prosper and flourish. Islamic society can function only through the Shari‘a of Islam and its worldly happiness be achieved. Otherwise justice will disappear, public security be overturned, immorality and base qualities prevail, and everything be run by liars and sycophants. As a small proof out of thousands of this truth, I offer the following story for your attention:
One time in the desert, a man was the guest of a nomad who was one of the people of reality. He saw that the desert-dwellers did not concern themselves with guarding their belongings. His host had even left some money openly in the corner of the room. The guest asked him:
“Aren’t you frightened of thieves, just throwing your belongings in the corner like that?”
His host answered: “We do not have any thieves here.”
The guest said: “We put our money in safes and lock them, but it is still frequently stolen.”
His host told him: “We cut off the hands of thieves as a Divine command and on account of the justice of the Shari‘a.”
Whereupon the guest exclaimed: “Then most of you must be lacking a hand!”
His host told him: “I am fifty years old, and yet in my whole life I have only seen one person with their hand cut off.”
The guest was ashamed and said: “Although everyday in my country we put fifty people in prison for theft, it does not have one hundredth of the effectiveness of your justice here.”
The host said: “You have been unmindful of an important truth and have ignored a strange and powerful fact, as a result of which true justice has escaped you. In place of general good, under an apparent justice, hatred and vicious and partisan currents intervene, destroying the effect of the judgements. The truth is as follows: With us, the moment a thief stretches out his hand to seize another’s property, he recalls the punishment of the Shari‘a. The command revealed from the Divine Throne comes to his mind. Through the sense of belief and ear of the heart, he as though hears the verse:
As to the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands,1
which calls for “the execution of the thief’s hand,” and his belief and elevated emotions are stirred into action. From around his spirit and the depths of his conscience a state of mind is given rise to which as though attacks the inclination to steal. The inclination, which arises from the instinctual soul and lust, is stifled and recedes; by degrees it is completely extinguished. For not only the mind and imagination, but also the inner faculties, the intellect, heart, and conscience, together attack that desire and emotion. By recalling the punishment of the Shari‘a the thief’s conscience restrains and prohibits him, confronting that desire and silencing it.
Yes, belief places in the heart and mind a permanent ‘prohibitor;’ when sinful desires emerge from the soul, it repulses them, declaring: “it is forbidden!”
Man’s actions result from the inclinations of his heart and emotions. They come from the sensibilities of the spirit and its needs. The spirit is stirred into action through the light of belief. If an act is good, he does it; if it is evil, he tries to restrain himself. Blinder emotions will not drive him down the wrong road and defeat him.
In Short: When the punishments are carried out in the name of the Divine commands and dominical justice, both the spirit, and the intellect, and the conscience, and man’s innate subtle faculties are affected and influenced. It is for this reason that the execution of a punishment once in fifty years is more effective than your imprisoning numerous people every day. Your penalties affect only your imaginations, for when one of you decides to steal something, suffering a penalty on account the country and nation and its benefits seems imaginary; or he thinks others will condemn him if they know about it; or it occurs to him that if it turns out unfavourably the government will send him to prison. So only his power of imagination feels minor discomfort. And the powerful desire issuing from his instinctual soul and emotions -particularly if he is needy as well- will overpower him. Then the penalty will be ineffective in making him refrain from committing the bad deed. Anyway, because they are not a Divine command, the penalties are not justice. They are vain and futile like performing the prayers without taking ablutions and not facing the qibla. That is to say, true justice and effective penalties are those which are in accordance with the Divine command and executed in its name. Others can have only a minimal effect.
Other universal and all-embracing Divine injunctions may be compared with this small question of theft, so that it may be understood that man’s happiness and well-being in this world are possible only through justice. As for justice, it can be achieved only through direct application of the way shown by the Qur’an.
(This marks the end of the summary of the story)
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It was imparted to my heart that if mankind does not come swiftly to its senses and open courts in the name of Divine justice and in accordance with the truths of Islam, calamities both material and non-material will break over men’s heads and they will surrender to anarchy and lawlessness.
The Old Said related the above story to some religious deputies of that time, and it was included forty-five years ago in the Addendum to the Damascus Sermon.
Now, since the story and previous comparison are instruction relevant to the present time rather than that time, we offer it to the deputies who sincerely support religion so they may take note of it.
S a i d N u r s i
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1. Qur'an, 5:38.
2. Because we do not know Arabic, we requested of Ustad that he should teach us concerning his Arabic treatise which was published under the title of The Damascus Sermon (Hutbe-i Şamiye). He did so for several days and we wrote down what he said. He used to repeat some of the things he taught so that they would stick in our minds. We found the story and comparison at the end useful in explaining the question. And the reason we have offered them first of all for the attention of members of universities and deputies who support religion is because when Ustad [Bediuzzaman Said Nursi] began to explain this subject, he said: "I put you in the place of the two teachers from the modern schools in the railway train, and the sincerely religious deputies of the present time in the place of the deputies of forty-five years ago who asked the question about the Shari'a." If they wish we can show them all our notes about the Damascus Sermon, and if needed, we can publish them.
We wanted Ustad to teach us about the politics of the Islamic world. But since he had given up politics thirty-five years previously, he explained to us instead this translation of the Damascus Sermon of the Old Said, which touches on Islamic politics. It is a lesson on account of the Old Said.
Signed: His students, Tahiri, Zübeyr, Bayram, Ceylan, Sungur, Abdullah, Ziya, Sadık, Hüsnü, Hamza