In His Name, be He glorified! Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings, for ever and ever!
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
Firstly: I congratulate you with all my life and spirit on the services you perform for the Qur'an and belief. We are sending you this letter in order to consult you and learn your opinion concerning a subtle matter. Is it appropriate? If it is not, you may correct it.
Secondly: It is proved in the Risale‑i Nur that divine determining acts justly within the unjust acts of men. That is, sometimes people act wrong- fully for some reason and they throw a person into prison, but in that very imprisonment divine determining acts justly due to some other reason, and condemns him to prison for a crime he has committed.
Something strange that happened to us elucidates this truth: the imaginary crime of which they could find not the slightest sign yet for twenty‑eight years presented in numerous courts and provinces as the reason for accusing and convicting me and unjustly sentencing me to imprisonment, was this:
They said: Said wants to exploit religion for political ends and he is doing so. But they could find no evidence for these allegations in my calamitious new life and the thirty large collections of my writings. Since no court could find anything in these matters and could not convict me, for other courts to insistently seize on the same matter, is completely opposed to the law, reason, and customary practice. Indeed, those who exploit politics for irreligion direct these accusations at us as a screen for themselves.
Whereas my sixty‑year life of scholarship in the service of religion is certain proof and a decisive argument that throughout my life I have followed the principle of making politics, this world, and all social currents the tools, servants, and followers of religion. I have claimed and proved with decisive evidence in the courts that I would not exchange a single truth of belief for rule over the whole world, let alone exploit religion for politics. Although this is the case, certain members of the judiciary and politicians who occupy high places have imagined the accusation, which is in twenty ways opposed to the truth, to be the truth, and for twenty-eight years have acted unjustly towards me. Recently, I have understood the true reason for this, which is as follows:
The gravest danger that faced me in serving belief at this time of egotism, and my most serious offence and crime, was the possibility of exploiting the work I did in serving the Qur'an for my own material and spiritual progress and attainment. I offer endless thanks to Almighty God that outside my will over this long period of time I perceived a powerful, non‑material obstacle preventing me from making my service a tool of anything at all, let alone of my spiritual progress and attainments, and a means of being saved from the torments of Hell, and even gaining everlasting happiness. I was always astonished at this. Why was I being prevented in my spirit from winning through good works the spiritual ranks and the happiness of the hereafter that everyone wants, although it is licit and harmful in no way?
Then it was shown to me that to serve belief, seeking divine pleasure alone and as an innate, scholarly duty, was itself the wage. For at the present time, such Qur'anic instruction is necessary as is the tool of nothing, and follows nothing, and teaches the truths of belief effectively to those in need, with innate worship and affording complete certainty to everyone, and following no other aim. This is the sole solution in these terrible times. Only in this way may it smash absolute disbelief and obdurate, perverse misguidance, A person may feel completely confident in such instruction in present conditions by knowing that it is being exploited for nothing, neither personal, worldly, or pertaining to the hereafter, or material or spiritual. For even if he has attained the highest spiritual rank, the person cannot counter the diabolical whisperings issuing from the atheistic collective personality born of secret revolutionary and other societies. An if his soul and ego are perverse, a person who wants to believe may say: “This holy person is deceiving us with his brilliance and wondrous station.” And he may remain in doubt.
Thanks be to God, beneath the accusations of exploiting religion for politics these last twenty‑eight years and outside my will, divine determining has been striking me totally justly with the tyrannous hand of man so as not to make religion the tool of anything personal. That is, it was warning me: “Beware! Beware! Don't exploit the truths of belief for your own person! Then those needy for belief may understand that it is only the truth that speaks, and the anxiety of the soul and tricks of Satan may be silenced and cease!”
In truth, millions of books write eloquently about the truths that the Risale‑i Nur discusses and thousands of true scholars have taught them, yet they have been unable to halt fully the awesome flood of absolute disbelief in this country. Whereas by reason of the above, the Risale-i Nur has overcome it to an extent, as even its enemies agree.
Yes, the Risale‑i Nur has performed this task against absolute disbelief in these taxing conditions, That is to say, its power arises from this might mystery.
So with my whole spirit I felt resigned towards the torments and calamities I had suffered for the past twenty‑eight years. I forgave all of them and I told just divine determining that I deserved its compassionate slaps. For if I had taken the completely licit, harmless way that everyone takes for God's sake and had not sacrificed entirely my physical and spiritual feelings, I would have lost this extraordinary non-material power which is found in serving belief. A strange example of the power was that someone read a book about the truths of belief by certain persons of whom I could be only the lowest student, and then read a page of the Risale-i Nur, and declared that that one page of the Risale-i Nur had saved his belief to a great extent than the other book.
The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!Your brother who is in need of your prayers,Saîd Nursî