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In His Name, be He glorified! And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.(17:44)

May God’s peace and His mercy and His blessings be upon you and upon your brothers so long as day and night continue and the ages follow on in succession and the sun and moon endure and the two stars in Ursa Minor are in opposition.

My hard-working brothers, zealous friends, and means of consolation in these lands of exile known as the world!

Seeing that Almighty God has made you shareholders in the notions He has imparted to my mind, it is surely also your right to share in my feelings. So as not to sadden you unduly, I shall skip the excessively grievous part of my loneliness in exile and tell you about another part, as follows:

These last two or three months I have been very much alone. Sometimes, once every two or three weeks or so, I have a guest with me; the rest of the time I am alone. For nearly three weeks now there has been no one working in the mountains near me; they have all dispersed.

One night in these foreign mountains, silent and alone amid the mournful sighing of the trees, I saw myself in five exiles of different hues.

The first: because of old age I was alone and a stranger far from most of my friends, relations, and those close to me; I felt a sad exile at their having left me and departed for the Intermediate Realm.

Then another sphere of exile was disclosed within that one: I felt a sad sense of separation and exile at most of the beings to which I was attached, like last spring, having left me and departed.

Then within that one a further sphere of exile opened u, which was that I had been parted from my native land and relatives, and was alone. I felt a sense of separation and exile arising from that too.

Then because of it, the loneliness of the night and the mountains made me feel another pitiable exile.

And then I beheld my spirit in an overwhelming exile: it was ready to journey to eternity both from this exile and from the temporary guest-house of this world.

I exclaimed to myself suddenly: My God! How can I endure these exiles and layers of darkness? My heart cried out:

My Lord! I am a stranger, I have no one, I am weak, I am powerless, I am impotent, I am old;

I am without will; I seek recourse, I seek forgiveness, I seek help from Your Court, O God!

Suddenly the light of belief, the effulgence of the Qur’an, and the grace of the Most Merciful came to my aid. They transformed those five dark exiles into five luminous, familiar spheres. My tongue declared: God is enough for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs.(3:173) While my heart recited the verse: And if they turn away, say: God is enough for me, there is no god but He; in Him do I place my trust, for He is the Lord of the Mighty Throne.(9:129) My mind too addressed my soul, crying out in such distress and terror, saying:

Cry not out at misfortune, O wretch, come, trust in God! For know that complaint compounds the misfortune and is a great error.

Find misfortune’s Sender, and know it is a gift within gifts, and pleasure.

So leave complaint and offer thanks; like the nightingale, smile through your tears!

If you find Him not, know the world is all pain within pain, transience and loss.

So why lament at a small misfortune while upon you is a worldful of woe?

Come trust in God! Trust in God! Laugh in misfortune’s face; it too will laugh. As it laughs, it will diminish; it will be changed and transformed.

As Mawlana Jalal al-Din,(*)one of my masters, addressed his soul, I said:

He said: “Am I not your Lord?”, and you assented. So what is thanks for that “Yes”? It is to suffer tribulation.

And what is the true meaning of tribulation? It is to be the door-knocker on the abode of poverty and annihilation.(*)

So then my soul declared: “Yes, yes, through impotence and reliance on God, and poverty and seeking refuge with Him, the door of light is flung open and the layers of darkness are dispersed. All praise be to God for the light of belief and Islam!” I understood the elevated truth expressed by the following lines of the famous Hikam Ata’iyya:

What does he who finds God lose? And what does he who loses Him find?(*)

That is, the person who finds Him finds everything, while the person who fails to find Him, can find nothing.

If he does find something, it will only bring him trouble. I understood the meaning of the Hadith, “Tuba (happiness) for strangers in exile,”(*)and I offered thanks.

My brothers! Those dark exiles were lit up through the light of belief, yet they still affected me somewhat, provoking the following thought: “Seeing that I am a stranger and in exile and shall go to another exile, have my duties in this guesthouse been completed? Should I hand over the Words to my brothers and completely sever all my ties?” This is why I asked you whether the Words that have been written will suffice or whether they are lacking something. That is, have I accomplished my duty so that with an easy heart I can cast myself into a light-filled, pleasurable, true exile, forget the world and say like Mawlana Jalal al-Din,

Do you know what the sama’ is?

To become unconscious of existence, To taste eternity in absolute annihilation?

Asking, “Can I search for an elevated exile?”, I troubled you with these questions.

The Eternal One, He is the Eternal One!

Said Nursî

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