Seventeenth Point
My Brothers!
I have understood certainly the last two or three days that unfortunately we suffered a blow from divine mercy. I understood even that one of the many indications of a verse concerning the people of rebellion looks to us. It is this:
But when they forgot the warning they had received… on a sudden We called them to account.
That is, “When they forgot the instruction and advice with which we have warned them and did not act in accordance with it, We took hold of them and afflicted them with disaster.”
Yes, recently we were prompted to write a treatise on the meaning of sincerity. In truth, it was a most luminous and exalted rule of brotherhood, a sacred principle which allows ten men to withstand calamities and events which normally could only be withstood with the strength of tens of thousands. But unfortunately we, and foremost myself, did not act in accordance with the warning. In accordance with the allusive meaning of the verse, according to the science of jafr, the value of We called them to account is one thousand three hundred and fifty‑two. We were arrested on the same date. Some of us suffered a slap dealt by divine compassion. Others suffered, not such a blow, but were included in these tribulations in order to be a solace to our brothers who did suffer it, so that it might be a means of earning reward and profit.
For three months I was barred from mixing with others, but for the past three days I have been able to learn my brothers’ states of mind. An unimaginable incident had occurred opposed to the meaning of sincerity involving brothers whom I had supposed to be the most sincere. I understood from this that an allusive meaning of the verse, But when they forgot the warning they had received… on a sudden We called them to account looked to us from afar. For the people of misguidance, for whom the verse was revealed, it is punishment, but for us it is a blow from divine compassion in order to train our souls, as atonement for sins, and so that we may raise our spiritual degrees. Evidence that we suffered this blow because we did not completely appreciate the value of the divine bounty we had received is that we were not contented with our sacred service of the Qur’an through the Risale‑i Nur, a most sacred striving in Allah the Most High’s way which receives the effulgence of ‘greater sainthood’ through the mystery of the legacy of prophethood and is a means to attaining the essence of the way of the Companions. Through my severe warnings on several occasions, the wish to join a Sufi order was forestalled, the advantages of which are very few for us at the moment and could possibly have caused us much harm in this situation. Otherwise, both our unity would have been destroyed, and it would have caused both differences in ideas which would have reduced the value of four alifs – which through solidarity is one thousand one hunded and eleven – to four, and mutual antipathy, which would have reduced our strength to nothing.
The author of the Gulistan, Shaykh Sa‘di Shirazi, relates: “I saw one of the people of the heart in a tekke while occupied with his spiritual journeying. Several days later I saw him among students in the medrese. I asked him why he had left the effulgent tekke and come to the religious school. He replied that there everyone could save themselves, if they were successful, whereas here in the religious school persons of high aspiration were trying to save many others besides themselves. Nobility and high endeavour were theirs; virtue and exertion were theirs; that was why he went there.
Shaykh Sa‘di wrote a summary of this in his Gulistan.
So if the small matter of students parsing verbs is superior to the recitations in the tekkes, since the Risale‑i Nur teaches in the clearest and most certain manner the sacred truths of belief of the confession of faith: I believe in Allah, and His angels, and His Books, and His prophets, and in the Last Day and silences the most obdurate atheists and obstinate philosophers, to abandon it, or cause its activities to come to a standstill, or not to be content with it, and desiring the Sufi way to enter the dissolved Sufi tekkes without asking permission of the Risale‑i Nur, is entirely wrong and shows how much we deserve this blow of divine compassion.
Said Nursi
A Warning
Two short stories
The First
Fifteen years ago when a prisoner‑of-war in the north of Russia I was being held together with ninety other officers in a large factory. Numerous arguments and disturbances arose due to the discomfort and oppressive conditions. I used to pacify them, since they all had great respect for me. I appointed four or five officers to keep the peace, telling them: “Whenever you hear an uproar, go there and help whichever side is in the wrong.” It is a fact that with this precaution a stop was put to the noise. They asked me why I helped those who were in the wrong.
In reply I told them: People in the wrong are unfair. They do not give up a single benefit for the sake of public peace forty times greater. Whereas the person who is in the right is fair. He sacrifices and waives his own right, worth little, for the advantage of his friend, which is part of the public peace and worth much. The disturbance ceases and peace is restored. The ninety people in this ward can be comfortable. If the person in the right is helped, the noise would increase even more. In communal life of this sort, the general good takes precedence.
And so, my brothers! In this communal life of ours, do not say: “I am fed up with my brother, for he’s been unfair to me.” To do so is a great error. If such a friend of yours has caused you a little harm, your being angry with him causes us harm of high cost. It is possible it would even cause excessive harm to the Risale‑i Nur. But praise be to Allah, with our friends being prevented from repeatedly going to be questioned, no harm came to our powerful and rightful defences. Otherwise like getting something as tiny a fly’s wing in one’s eye or a spark falling into gunpowder, due to a little pique, brothers who are vexed with one another can cause a great deal of harm.
Second Story
There was once an elderly woman who had eight sons. She gave each of them a loaf of bread from the loaves she had, but none remained for herself. So each of them gave her half his loaf. She then had four loaves, while theirs was reduced to half a loaf.
My brothers! I feel in myself half the pains of the share in this calamity of each of the forty of you. I take no notice of my own hardships. One day I felt excessively afflicted and studied my previous position wondering if I was paying the penalty for some error I had committed. I saw that I had no part at all in the fomenting and incitement of this calamity; on the contrary I had employed every possible means to avoid it. That means it is a divine decree. It has been planned against us by intriguers over the past year, and made inevitable. It was not possible to avoid it. It was inevitable that we should be embroiled in it. A hundred thousand thanks to Allah the Most High that He reduced the calamity from a hundred to one.
In consequence of this fact therefore, do not blame me saying “We are suffering this disaster because of you!” Forgive me rather, and pray for me. And do not criticize each other, saying: “If you had not done such‑and-such, this would not have happened.” For example, with one of our brothers mentioning two or three signatures, the plan the mischief-makers were hatching in order embroil numerous people in a calamity, was restricted and many were saved from it. It was the cause not of harm, but of great advantage. It resulted in many innocent people being saved from this disaster.
Said Nursi