In His Name, be He glorified!
The Answer to a Question Asked on Behalf of Many People By a Very Young Risale‑i Nur Student Who Assists Me
Question: Master! The prayers for rain have not been any use; they have yielded no result. Three times clouds gathered and then dispersed without producing rain. Why is this?
The Answer: Drought marks the time for prayers of this sort; they are not the cause or purpose of rain. Just as the prayers known as khusūf and kusūf are performed at lunar and solar eclipses, and the evening prayer is performed at sunset; so times of drought are when the supplications and prayers for rain are offered. The reason for prayer and supplication, and their result, is divine pleasure; their benefits look to the hereafter. If worldly aims are intended in prayer and worship and they are performed for that purpose alone, such prayers are null and void. For example, the evening prayers are not performed so that the sun should not set and the khusūf prayers are not performed for the moon's reappearance. Similarly, if the prayers in question are offered for rain, it would be wrong. The sending of rain is Almighty God's business. We did our duty; we may not interfere in His concerns.
It is true that the coming of rain is the apparent result of the prayers for rain, but the actual, true and most beneficial result, and its finest and sweetest fruit is this, that from those circumstances everyone understands that it is not his father or his house or his shop that provides his livelihood and food, but a Being who has disposal over the clouds as though they were sponges and the face of the earth as though it were an arable field; it is He who gives him his sustenance and nurtures him. A small child even, while pleading with his mother when he is hungry, understands in his tiny mind from that prayer for rain that the One who administers this world as though it were a house feeds him together with all the other children and their mothers. If He does not provide it, no one else can. In which case, the child tells himself that they should beseech Him. He becomes a full believer. Six points will now be explained in connection with this:
First Point: The price for divine bounties and mercy is thanks. We have not offered thanks as we should have done. Not only have we not paid the price of divine mercy; we have attracted divine wrath with our sins and wrongdoing. At the present time, the human race has earned a dreadful blow with its wrongdoing, destruction, disbelief and rebellion, and it has received such blows. For sure we too will receive our share.
Second Point: It says in a Hadith: “Even the fishes at the bottom of the sea complain about sinners and the iniquitous; it is due to this that the rains cease and our livelihoods diminish even.” Indeed, at the present time such sins and iniquities are perpetrated on the face of the earth that we are ashamed to seek divine mercy; innocent animals even are in torment.
Third Point: It says in a verse: “Beware the calamity which when it descends will not afflict only the wrongdoers; the innocent and oppressed will also be destroyed” For the wisdom in religion would be nullified if in the midst of a general calamity the innocent were to remain untouched by the conflagration. Religion is a test, an examination. Otherwise evil people like Abu Jahl would affirm it, the same as those like Abu Bakr the Veracious (May God be pleased with him). This is the reason innocents suffer in general disasters.
Fourth Point: Since at the present time due to trickery, exploitation, and bribery, numerous illicit matters have become admixed in possessions and sustenance, and farmers cannot really lay claim to their own produce, and out of ten people only two or three truly deserve divine mercy, and out of those who profit from the farmer's produce, five or six lose their right to divine mercy due to wrongdoing and mixing in illicit things, or neglecting to offer thanks.
Fifth Point: The Risale‑i Nur is a significant means of warding off calamities from this land of Anatolia. Just as almsgiving repulses calamities, so it has become clear through numerous signs and indications that its spreading and being read repulses heavenly and worldly disasters as a sort of universal almsgiving. This is a truth indicated by the Qur'an, Four times earthquakes occurred when its being written out and spread were being prevented, and when it was published again, they ceased. Then when it was being read almost throughout Anatolia, as indicated by Sura Wa'l‑'Aṣr , it was a means of the Second World War not reaching Anatolia. Then during this two‑month drought when we were awaiting the totally free spread of the Risale-i Nur in confirmation of the Appeal Court's decision for its acquittal since it was beneficial for the country, it was blocked entirely contrarily to our expectations and the treatises held by the court were not returned to their owners. As a consequence, this universal nonmaterial almsgiving which is a means of repulsing calamities was not realized and the drought began as a result of our sins.
Sixth Point: Drought is a calamity and the punishment for actions, and should be met with grief and sorrowful beseeching and supplication, and earnest repentance and prayers for forgiveness, and seeking refuge at the divine court within the bounds of the Sunna while shunning innovations, in the way specified by the Shari'a, and with the prayers and worship particular to the situation.
Also, since general calamities such as this result from the errors of the majority of people, they are repulsed by the majority of them repenting and seeking forgiveness.
We Risale‑i Nur students do not attach much importance to this world and only look to the world for the sake of the Risale-i Nur, and therefore regard the present drought from this point of view, Thus, at the same time that a small part of the Risale-i Nur was returned to its owners in accordance with the decision given in Denizli Court, and here too a small number of people started writing out pieces from it, a small amount of rain fell. But because the freedom given the Risale-i Nur was partial, the divine mercy also was minimal. God willing, in the near future, my copies will be returned too, and it will spread freely and fully and divine mercy will also be universal.