The Thirteenth Word
A footnote
In His Name, All-Glorified is He.
Prisoners are in great need of the Risale-i Nur’s consolation; especially those who suffered the blow of youth and spend the prime of their lives in prison need the Risale-i Nur as much as they need bread. Youths are driven by emotion rather than reason. Emotion and desire are blind; they cannot see consequences and prefer an ounce of immediate pleasure to tons of future pleasure. They kill for a minute’s satisfaction of revenge, and then suffer uncountable hours of painful imprisonment. One hour of dissolute pleasure spent raping a woman may destroy a lifetime’s contentment through the fear of prison and enemies.
Young people meet many pitfalls that cause them to transform life’s sweetness into a most bitter and remorse-laden existence. In particular, a huge and mighty state to the north is misusing its youths’ passions and shaking this century with its storms. For it has made lawful for its blind-emotion driven young people the beautiful daughters and wives of upright, innocent people. By allowing men and women to go together to public baths, it encourages immorality. It also allows the vagabond and the poor to use freely, even plunder, the property of the rich. Everyone trembles in the face of this calamity.
During this age, all Muslim youths must act heroically and respond to this two-pronged attack with “sharp swords” like the Risale-i Nur’s “Fruits (of Belief)” and “A Guide for Youth.” Otherwise, those unfortunate youths will destroy their future, their happiness in both worlds, their eternal afterlife, and transform both into torment and suffering. They will wind up in hospitals due to their abused energy and dissipation, in prisons due to their excesses, and be full of regret when they are old. But if they protect themselves with Qur’anic training and the Islamic truths, some of which the Risale-i Nur expounds, they will become truly heroic youths, perfect human beings, prosperous Muslims, and in some ways masters over the rest of animate beings.
If young people in prisons spend just one hour a day on the five Prescribed Prayers, and while imprisonment prevents the perpetration of many sins, avoid other painful sins and seek God’s forgiveness for the crime that led them to their present state, both their own future and their relatives, nation, and country will benefit. In addition, the Qur’an of miraculous exposition and all other revealed Scriptures give the certain, glad tidings that their fleeting ten to fifteen years of youth will gain them an eternal, brilliant youth. If young people act in gratitude for the delightful blessing of youth by following the Straight Path in obedience to God, the blessing increases and becomes eternal and even more pleasurable. If they do not, they are pursued by calamity, pain, and grief. Their lives become nightmarish and then disappear. They live aimlessly, and so harm both their relatives and their nation and country.
If those who have been imprisoned unjustly perform the Prescribed Prayers will find that each hour spent behind bars equals one day of worship. Their cells will become like a place of retreat for them, and they themselves may be considered among the pious people of old times who retreated to caves to devote themselves to worship. If they are poor or aged or ill and seek to learn the truths of belief, will find that each hour spent in prison will equal twenty hours of worship, provided they seek God’s forgiveness for the crime they committed and perform the religious obligations. The prison will resemble a rest house, a place of friendliness owing to those who compassionately care after them, and a place of training, and education. Staying in prison may even bring them greater happiness than they could find on the outside, for there they would be perplexed and assaulted by sin. If they receive proper education while in prison, former murderers or revenge-seekers would be released as repentant, mature, and well-behaved people who can benefit their nation. Those who saw the Denizli prisoners attain this rank quickly through the moral instruction of the Risale-i Nur remarked: If, instead of fifteen years of imprisonment, they receive a fifteen-week instruction from the Risale-i Nur, this will reform them much better.
Since death does not die and the appointed hour is unknown, it may come at any time; since the grave cannot be closed, and people enter it in successive convoys; and since the Qur’an declares that believers experience death as a discharge from worldly duties and that belief saves them from eternal punishment, while unbelievers experience death as an execution leading to everlasting torment and unending separation from their loved ones and all other creatures, for sure, the happiest people are those who thank God in patience and, benefiting from their time in prison, take the necessary moral and religious teaching to serve the Qur’an and belief on the Straight Path.
O addicts of enjoyment and pleasure! I am now seventy-five years old. I have come to know with utmost certainty from thousands of experiences and proofs that true enjoyment, pure pleasure, grief-free joy, and happiness are found only in belief and the sphere of its truths. One worldly pleasure yields many pains, as if delivering ten slaps for a single grape, and thus mars the pleasure of life.
O you unfortunate people suffering imprisonment! Since you are mourning here and your life is bitter, benefit from your time in prison so that you may not mourn in the Hereafter and so that your eternal life may be sweet. Just as an hour’s watch under severe battle conditions sometimes equals a year of worship, the hardship of each hour spent worshipping in prison multiplies and changes hardship into mercy.
In His Name, All-Glorified is He.
Upon you be peace and God’s mercy and blessing!
My dear, truthful brothers and sisters!
I will offer an effective solace for prisoners and for those who kindly help them and supervise their food, which comes from outside.
FIRST POINT: Each day spent in prison may gain as much reward as ten days of worship, and with regard to their fruits, may transform these transient hours into enduring hours, and a few years of punishment may be the means of being saved from millions of years of eternal imprisonment. Imprisoned believers can gain this most significant and valuable advantage by praying five times a day, asking God’s forgiveness for the sins that led to their imprisonment, and thanking God in patience. Prison is an obstacle to certain sins; it prevents them.
SECOND POINT: As pleasure’s disappearance causes pain, so pain’s disappearance gives pleasure. When thinking of past happy and enjoyable days, everyone feels regret and longing and utters a sigh of grief. When recalling past calamitous and painful days, everyone feels pleasure because they are gone, thanks God that such days are past and have left their reward, and sighs with relief. This means, an hour’s temporary pain leaves an immaterial pleasure in the spirit, while an hour’s pleasure leaves pain.
This is reality. Past hours of misfortune and their pain have disappeared, and the imagined distress of the future has not yet come. Since pain does not come from something inexistent, it is foolish to think now of past and future pains—pains that do not exist—and to be impatient, ignore one’s faulty self, and to act as though complaining about God. This would be like continually eating and drinking today because you fear hunger or thirst tomorrow. So, do not waste your patience on the past and future. Rather, use it to deal with present pain, for that will cause the existing pain to decrease tenfold.
This is not a complaint: During this third period of my imprisonment in the “school of Prophet Joseph,” a few days of the material and spiritual affliction and illness the like of which I had not experienced before, especially my despair and distress at being unable to serve the Qur’an, crushed me. However, after the Divine Favor showed me this truth, I accepted my distressing illness and imprisonment. Since it is a great profit for a poor man like me, who waits at the door of the grave, to turn an hour of possible heedlessness into ten hours of worship, I thanked God.
THIRD POINT: There is great reward in compassionately attending prisoners, providing their food, and soothing their spiritual wounds. Helping their food coming from outside reach them causes a spiritual reward equivalent to giving that food as alms to be added to the helpers’ records of good deeds, even to those of the guards. If the prisoners are old, sick, poor, or without support or protection, the reward of such alms-giving multiplies. To gain this valuable benefit, however, one must perform the Prescribed Prayers so that their help should be purely for God’s sake. In addition, one should hasten to help prisoners with sincerity, compassion, and cheerfulness, and in such manner that they do not feel themselves placed under obligation to you.
In His Name, All-Glorified is He.
There is not a thing but it glorifies Him with praise. Upon you be peace and His mercy and blessing everlastingly!
My friends in prison and brothers and sisters in religion!
I will explain a truth that will save you from torment here and in the Hereafter. Imagine that someone killed your sibling or relative. One minute of satisfaction derived from revenge will cause uncountable minutes of distress and imprisonment, and the fear of retaliation and the anxiety of always being pursued will drive all pleasure and enjoyment out of life. Thus you will suffer both fear and vexation. The only solution is the reconciliation which the Qur’an and right, truth, humanity, and Muslimness encourage.
Right, truth, and mutual advantage require reconciliation. As each one’s death comes at its fixed time, the victim would not have lived any longer anyway. God’s decree was executed via the murderer. Unless they are reconciled, both parties will continue to suffer from fear and vindictiveness. This is why Islam says that a believer should not be angry or hold a grudge against another believer for more than three days.
If the murder was not the result of a grudge or enmity, and a hypocritical one instigated it, the parties must make peace without delay so that this minor disaster will not grow and persist. If they do so, and the murderer repents and prays continually for the victim, both parties gain and become like siblings. In compensation for a lost family member, they gain several new ones. Submitting to the Divine Destiny and Decree, they abandon enmity. Especially if they have taken part in the Risale-i Nur’s teachings, individual and collective peace and brotherhood in the Risale-i Nur’s circle require that they put aside all grudges.
In Denizli prison, all prisoners who had been enemies became brothers via the Risale-i Nur. This was one of the reasons for our acquittal. Even the irreligious criminals said about us: “How wonderful! How blessed they are!” All prisoners began going out for fresh air. However, I have seen here that a hundred men suffer because of one man, and do not go out to enjoy the fresh air together. Believers with sound consciences do not harm other believers because of some insignificant and minor error or advantage. If they make a mistake and cause harm, they should repent immediately.
In His Name, All-Glorified is He.
There is not a thing but it glorifies Him with praise. Upon you be peace and God’s mercy and blessing.
My dear new brothers and old prisoners!
I am convinced that Divine Favor placed us among you for a specific purpose relating to you: The Risale-i Nur, with its consolation and the truths of belief, is meant to save you from imprisonment’s distress and a great deal of the worldly harm thereof. It is also meant to save your life, which otherwise would be wasted in grief and sorrow, to save you from moaning in both worlds.
If this is so, you obviously should be brothers to each other, after the example of the Denizli prisoners and the Risale-i Nur students. You see that guardians search through everything—food, bread, and so on—coming to you from the outside, so that you cannot use a slipped-in knife to attack each other. Besides, the guards who faithfully serve you suffer much trouble. You are not allowed to go outside together for fresh air because they think that you may attack each other like wild beasts.
Now, you new friends who are by nature heroic and courageous, you should display an example of spiritual valor and tell the prison’s administrative board: “Even if we were given guns and revolvers, instead of knives, and ordered to use them, we would not hurt our unfortunate friends who suffer as we do. We are determined to forgive them and not to offend them, regardless of our former reasons for hostility, for these are requirements of belief and Islamic brotherhood, in our interests, and commanded by the Qur’an.
By this means and attitude, you may transform this prison into a blessed place of study.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi