Dokuzuncu Mektup/en

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

[Again part of a letter he sent to the same sincere student of his.]

Secondly: Your success, endeavour, and eagerness in spreading the lights of the Qur’an are a divine bestowal, a wonder of the Qur’an, a dominical (rabbânî) favour. I congratulate you! Now that we have come to a discussion of wonder- working, bestowal, and favour, I shall tell you one of the differences between wonder- working and bestowal. It is like this:

So long as there is no necessity for it, to display wonder-working is harmful. Whereas to make known bestowal is to make known a divine bounty.

If someone honoured with wonder-working knowingly manifests an extraordinary matter and his evil-commanding soul is persistent, then since he relies on himself and on his soul and what he has disclosed and falls into pride, it may be that Almighty God is drawing him on by at first granting him success.

If he displays a wondrous act unknowingly; for example, a person has an unvoiced question and involuntarily he gives an appropriate answer and afterwards realizes this, it increases his confidence, not in himself but in his Lord and Sustainer. He says: “I have a Preserver who is training me better than I could myself,” and this increases his reliance on God. It is a harmless sort of wonder-working. He is not obliged to conceal it but should not advertize it intentionally, because of pride. For since it is apparently associated with the human power to act, he may ascribe it to himself.

When it comes to bestowal, it is sounder than the second sort of wonder-working, the sound sort, and in my opinion is more elevated. To make it known it is to make known a bounty. The power to act has no connection with it, and the soul does not ascribe it to itself.

My brother! The divine bounties received by both you and me, particularly in our service of the Qur’an, which for a long time past I have seen and written about, are bestowals, and to make them known is to make known a divine bounty. This is why – to make known the divine bounty – I am mentioning the success of both of us in our service. I always knew that it would encourage you to offer thanks and not make you proud .

Thirdly: I observe that the most fortunate person in this worldly life is he who sees the world as a military guest-house, and submits himself and acts accordingly. Seeing it in this way, he may rise swiftly to the rank of winning God’s pleasure, the highest rank. Such a person will not give the price of a lasting diamond for something as valueless as glass, doomed to be broken. He will pass his life uprightly and with pleasure.

Yes, matters to do with this world are like pieces of glass that will be broken, while the lasting matters of the hereafter are as precious as flawless diamonds. The intense curiosity, fervent love, terrible greed, stubborn desires, and other intense innate human emotions were given to gain the matters of the hereafter. To direct them fervently towards the transitory things of this world is to give the price of eternal diamonds for doomed fragments of glass. A point has occurred to me in connection with this, so I shall recount it. It is like this:

Passionate love is an ardent sort of love. When it is directed towards transitory objects, it either causes its owner perpetual torment and pain, or, since the ephemeral (mecazî) beloved is not worth the price of such fervent love, it causes the lover to search for an eternal one. Then passing love is transformed into true love.

Man possesses thousands of emotions, each of which has two degrees, one worldly (mecazî), the other, true.

For example, everyone feels anxiety about the future. A person is intensely anxious about the future, but then sees that he has no guarantee that he will reach the future he is so anxious about. Also, if it is his livelihood he is worried about, anyway it is promised, and the brief future is not worth such terrible anxiety. So he turns away from the future towards the true future beyond the grave, which is long-lasting and which for the heedless has not been promised.

Man also displays intense ambition for possessions and rank, then he sees that the transient property which has been put temporarily under his supervision, and calamitous fame and high rank, which are dangerous and lead to hypocrisy, are not worth such intense ambition. He turns away from them towards spiritual rank and degrees in closeness to God, which constitute true rank, and towards provisions for the hereafter, and good works, which are true property. Worldly ambition, which is a bad qualit y, is transformed into true ambition, a lofty quality.

And, for example, with wilful obstinacy man expends his emotions on trivial, fleeting, transient things. Then he sees that he pursues for a year something not worth even a minute’s obstinacy. Also, just to be obstinate, he persists in something damaging and harmful. Then he sees that this powerful emotion was not given to him for such things and that to expend it on them is contrary to wisdom and truth. So he utilizes his intense obstinacy, not on those unnecessary transient matters, but on the elevated and eternal truths of belief and essentials of Islam and service and duties pertaining to the hereafter. Worldly obstinacy, a base quality, is transformed into true obstinacy; that is, ardent steadfastness and constancy in what is right, a fine and good quality.

As these three examples show, if man uses the faculties given to him on account of the soul and this world, and behaves heedlessly as though he were going to remain here for ever, they will be the cause of bad morals and will be misspent and futile. But if he expends the lesser of them on the matters of this world and the more intense of them on spiritual duties and tasks pertaining to the hereafter, they become the source of laudable morals and the means to happiness in this world and the next in conformity with wisdom and reality.

My guess is that one reason the advice and admonitions given at the present time have been ineffective is that those offering them say: “Don’t be ambitious! Don’t be greedy! Don’t hate! Don’t be obstinate! Don’t love the world!” That is, they propose something that is apparently impossible for those they address like changing their inborn natures. If only they would say: “Turn these emotions towards beneficial things, change their direction, their channel,” both their advice would be effective, and they would be proposing something within those persons’ will power.

Fourthly:The differences between Islam and belief (or faith–êma\n) have been frequently discussed by Islamic scholars. One group has said that they are the same, while another has said that they are not the same but that you cannot have one without the other. They have expressed various ideas similar to this. I myself have understood the following difference:

Islam is a preference, while belief is a conviction. To put it another way, Islam is to take the part of the truth and is submission and obedience to it, and belief is acceptance of and assent to the truth. Long ago I saw certain irreligious people who fervently supported the injunctions of the Qur’an. That is to say, by taking the part of the truth, such people were in one respect Muslim and were called “irreligious Muslims.” Then later I saw certain believers who did not evince support for the injunctions of the Qur’an nor take the part of them, and they reflected the epithet “non-Muslim believers.”

Can belief without Islam be the means of salvation?

The Answer: Neither can Islam without belief be a means of salvation, nor can belief without Islam be a means.

All praise and bounty is God’s, through the grace of the Qur’an’s miraculousness the comparisons of the Risale-i Nur have shown the fruits of the religion of Islam and results of the Qur’anic truths in such a way that even if someone without religion does not understand them, he cannot be unsympathetic towards them. And they have demonstrated proofs of belief and Islam in such powerful fashion that if even a non-Muslim understands them, he is sure to assent to them. While being a non-Muslim, he would believe.

Yes, the Words show that the fruits of belief and Islam are as delectable as the fruits of the Tuba-tree of Paradise, and that their results are as agreeable as the pleasures of happiness in this world and the next. They therefore induce in those who see them and know them a feeling of infinite partiality, support, and surrender. Demonstrating proofs as powerful as the chains of beings and numerous as minute particles, they give rise to infinite submission and strength of belief.

On certain occasions even, when testifying to belief while reciting the invocations of Shah Naqshband, and when saying: “In accordance with that we live, in accordance with it we shall die, and in accordance with it shall we be raised up on the morrow,” I have experienced an infinite feeling of partiality. If the whole world were given me, I would not sacrifice a single truth of belief. It causes me extreme distress to imagine the reverse of a single truth for a minute even.

Were the whole world to be given me, my soul would renounce it unhesitatingly for the existence of a single truth of belief. I feel an infinite strength of belief when I say, “We believe in what You have sent through the Prophet, and we believe in what You have revealed through the Book, and we assent to it.” I consider the opposite of any of the truths of belief to be rationally impossible, and I look on the people of misguidance as infinitely foolish and crazy.

I send many greetings to your parents and offer them my respects. Let them pray for me. They are mother and father to me since you are my brother. And I send greetings to the people of your village, especially all those who listen to you reading the Words.

اَل۟بَاقٖى هُوَ ال۟بَاقٖى

Said Nursî

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