My Dear, Esteemed Brother!
To think of and exacerbate the most grievous, the very worst, wound of the Islamic world, which for one thousand three hundred years has caused it to weep and all the people of reality to sigh at the pity of it, causes me distress greater than I can bear as a follower of my particular path, For twenty‑five years, serving the cause of belief sincerely and truly has held me back from every sort of politics and not allowed me to have the newspapers read to me. Similarly, the state of mind I have had to adopt has allowed me to apply to the government only with my court defences lest, while a prisoner, I concern myself with political life; and it has made me completely disregard the ghastly World War lest the work for belief be impaired or tainted by politics or sincerity marred. But although compliance with the Qur'anic command to save belief is obligatory since at the present time fearsome monsters are attacking the believers before our very eyes on the front of the truths of belief, and they have sunk their fangs into many of them, to turn one's back on the present and return to the past to gaze on the atrocities visited on the Prophet's (UWBP) family crushes my spirit and breaks my morale, and heaps on it torment after torment.
Numerous unjust events that were perpetrated in the name of the cruel principle of tyrannical politics, namely, that individuals may be sacrificed for the community, claimed to be the lesser of two evils and a sort of relative justice and advantageous for their rule. In this century, even, due to that cruel principle and on the deluded pretext that harm would come to their policies, five or ten men have ruined thousands and have wiped out a village because of one man's fault.
Since in early times this cruel principle was adopted to an extent by Muslims, the pious forefathers and the Sunni authorities felt compelled to remain silent and closed those doors. Saying: God did not involve us in their quarrels and kept our hands clean. So in gratitude for this, we shall keep our tongues clean by not talking about them, they did not open those doors.
Since those who inflicted such suffering on the Prophet's (UWBP) family are now suffering severe torments in the hereafter, there is no need for us to attack them in order to assist his family members. His family received so high a reward in return for that temporary oppression that we cannot comprehend it with our minds. We should not pity them but congratulate them on the infinite mercy they have received. For on the one hand, by suffering a few years' hardship they gained eternal bliss of infinite proportions in the hereafter, and on the other, they won the ranks of spiritual monarchs, shahs of the world of reality, in place of the petty, transient sovereignty and temporary rule, and confused politics of their time in this world. Instead of being governors, they became the commanders of saints and spiritual poles; their gain was not a thousandfold, but millions.
It is for this reason that from the New Said's special masters, Imam Rabbani, Gawth al‑A'zam, and Imam Ghazali — and especially from these two masters that I was taught the supplication Jaushan al-Kabir of Zayn al-'Abidin (May God be pleased with him), And through the instruction I received from Hz. Husayn and Imam 'Ali (May God exalt him), and especially in my constant spiritual link with them these last thirty years through the Jaushan al-Kabir, I received the former truth and the way that has now been imparted to us from the Risale-i Nur. To look to or even think about the tyrants' atrocities, let alone probe them, is opposed to our way. For they and the other victims have received reward and recompense far exceeding what we can conceive of. To dwell on those matters is detrimental to the Qur'anic duties with which we are now charged in the face of the present calamitous assaults on religion.
The rules of the science of the principles of religion (uṣūl al‑dīn) which the learned theologians of the science of theology (kalām) and erudite scholars of the principles of religion and of Sunnism agreed on after their minute studies and reasoned debates, and weighed up on the Qur'an's verses and Hadiths, about the Islamic articles of faith, command the preservation of the Risale-i Nur's way, and corroborate and strengthen it. No one anywhere, not even the innovators, have been able to criticize it. Since it preserves the true meaning of sincerity, Muslims of every shade enter its fold. Bigoted Shi'is, the most materialist and scientistic Wahhabi philosophers even, and the most egotistical narrow-minded hojas are beginning to enter its fold together, some in brotherly fashion. There are even signs that some missionaries and truly spiritual clergy of the religion of Jesus (Upon whom be peace) will enter it. Feeling the need for co-operation and reconciliation rather than attacking each other, they avoid putting forward matters that lead to dispute. That is to say, the Risale-i Nur, which Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) predicted almost explicitly with thirty to forty allusions, is an effective remedy for the awesome wounds of the present. Its sphere suffices us and we do not go beyond it.
It is one thing to attack and strike at Imam 'Ali's (May God sanctify his mystery) person and life and politics, which were founded on the way of true justice. But his collective personality, perfections of knowledge, rank of sainthood, and being heir of the Prophet (UWBP), which are thousands of times higher than his outward personality, worldly life, socio‑political activities, have not and cannot be struck. Who can be so bold as to attack them? In consequence, the attacks of those who oppose him imagining that they can unite his two sides, appear to be very fearsome. They cause bewilderment by asking how such events could have happened between the people of belief? Whereas with the exception of iniquitous persons like Yazid and Walid, the great majority of people were not trying to denigrate Imam 'Ali's (May God be pleased with him) perfections, wonders, and being heir of the Prophet (UWBP), but only to strike a blow at his government of society; and they were in error.
It is essential to break off minor internal hostilities when powerful external enemies are attacking. Otherwise it is tantamount to aiding the formidable enemy. For this reason, from early times within Islam, Muslims who had adopted partisan positions opposing one another, temporarily forgot their internal hostilities; the interests of Islam demand this‥