77.975
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("In accordance with the verse,But the bounty of your Sustainer rehearse and proclaim,(93:11)I shall cite the bounties Almighty God has bestowed on me, and give a few examples by way of thanks. To do so is thanks, but I am still frightened that it will induce hypocrisy and pride, and that blessed plenty will be cut. For to make known a secret divine gift of plenty causes it to cease. But what can I do? I have to describe them." içeriğiyle yeni sayfa oluşturdu) |
("------ <center> The Fifteenth Letter ⇐ | The Letters | ⇒ The Seventeenth Letter </center> ------" içeriğiyle yeni sayfa oluşturdu) |
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(Aynı kullanıcının aradaki diğer 67 değişikliği gösterilmiyor) | |||
103. satır: | 103. satır: | ||
In accordance with the verse,But the bounty of your Sustainer rehearse and proclaim,(93:11)I shall cite the bounties Almighty God has bestowed on me, and give a few examples by way of thanks. To do so is thanks, but I am still frightened that it will induce hypocrisy and pride, and that blessed plenty will be cut. For to make known a secret divine gift of plenty causes it to cease. But what can I do? I have to describe them. | In accordance with the verse,But the bounty of your Sustainer rehearse and proclaim,(93:11)I shall cite the bounties Almighty God has bestowed on me, and give a few examples by way of thanks. To do so is thanks, but I am still frightened that it will induce hypocrisy and pride, and that blessed plenty will be cut. For to make known a secret divine gift of plenty causes it to cease. But what can I do? I have to describe them. | ||
'''The First:''' This six months one bushel (kile)(*<ref>*36.5 lbs. (Tr.)</ref>)of wheat, consisting of thirty-six loaves of bread, has sufficed me. There is still some left, it is not finished. How much longer(*<ref>*It lasted a year.</ref>)it will last, I do not know. | |||
''' | |||
'''The Second:''' This blessed month of Ramadan I was given food by only two houses, and both of them made me ill. I understood that I am prohibited from eating other people’s food. The rest of the time, in the whole of Ramadan, three loaves of bread and one okka(*<ref>*About 2.8 lbs. or 1,300 grammes.</ref>)of rice were enough for me, as was witnessed and told by | |||
''' | Abdullah Çavuş, the owner of a blessed house and a loyal friend who saw my economizing. In fact, the rice was finished two weeks after the end of Ramadan. | ||
</ | |||
'''The Third:''' For three months on the mountain one kıyye(*<ref>*About 2.8 lbs.</ref>)of butter was enough for me and my guests, eating it every day together with bread. On one occasion even I had a blessed visitor called Süleyman. Both his bread and my bread were about to be finished. It was Wednesday. I told him to go and get some more. For two hours’ distance on every side of us there was no one from whom he could have got any. He said that he wanted to stay with me on the mountain on Thursday night so that we could pray together. I declared: “Our reliance is on God,” and told him to stay. | |||
''' | |||
Later, although it had no connection with this and there was no reason for it, we both began walking till we reached the top of the mountain. There was a little water in the ewer, and we had a small piece of sugar and some tea. I told him: “Brother! Make some tea!” He set about making it and I sat down under a cedar-tree overlooking a deep ravine. I thought regretfully to myself: we have a bit of mouldy bread which will only just be enough for us this evening. What shall we do for two days and what shall I say to this ingenuous man? While thinking this, I suddenly turned my head involuntarily and I saw a huge loaf of bread on the cedar-tree in among the branches; it was facing us. I exclaimed: “Süleyman! Good news! Almighty God has sent us food.” We took the bread, and looking at it saw that no bird or wild animal had touched it. And for twenty or thirty days no one at all had climbed to the top of that mountain. The bread was sufficient for us for the two days. While we were eating and it was about to be finished, righteous Süleyman who had been the most loyal of loyal friends for four years, suddenly appeared from below with more bread. | |||
'''The Fourth:''' I bought this sack coat I’m wearing seven years ago second-hand. In five years I have spent only four and a half liras on clothes, underwear, slippers, and stockings. Frugality and divine mercy and the resulting plenty have sufficed me. | |||
''' | |||
There are many other things like these examples and numerous sorts of divine blessings. The people of this village know most of them. But do not suppose I am mentioning them out of pride, I have been forced to, rather. And do not think they were due to my goodness. These instances of plenty were either bestowal to the sincere friends who have visited me, or a bestowal on account of service of the Qur’an, or an abundance and benefit resulting from frugality, or they have been sustenance for the four cats I have which recite the divine names “O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!”, which comes in the form of plenty and from which I benefit too. Yes, if you listen carefully to their mournful miaowings, you will understand that they are saying, “O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!” | |||
We have arrived at the subject of cats and it has recalled the hen. I have a hen. This winter every day almost without exception she brought me an egg from the treasury of mercy. Then one day she brought me two eggs and I was astonished. I asked my friends “How can this be?” They replied: “Perhaps it is a divine gift.” The hen also has a young chick she hatched in the summer. It started to lay at the beginning of Ramadan and continued for forty days. Neither I nor those who assist me have any doubt that, both its being a pullet, and the season being winter, and Ramadan, this blessed situation was a divine gift and bestowal. And whenever the mother stopped laying, it immediately started, never leaving me without eggs. | |||
< | <span id="İkinci_vehimli_sual:"></span> | ||
=== | ===Second Suspicious Question:=== | ||
The worldly ask: How can we be sure you won’t meddle in our world? If we set you free, you may interfere in it. Also, how do we know that you aren’t being cunning? How do we know that it isn’t a stratagem, pretending to have abandoned the world and taking things from the people not openly, but secretly? | |||
'''The Answer:''' My attitude in the Court Martial and in the period before the proclamation of the Constitution, which are known by many, and my defence in the Court Martial at that time called The Testimony of Two Schools of Misfortune, show decisively that the life I lived was such that I would not resort to the tiniest wiles, let alone cunning and subterfuge. | |||
''' | |||
If I had resorted to trickery this last five years, I would have made application to you in sycophantic manner. A wily man tries to ingratiate himself. He does not hold back; he always tries to deceive and hoodwink. Whereas I have not condescended to respond to the severest attacks and criticisms levelled at me. Saying, “I place my trust in God,” I turned my back on the worldly. | |||
Moreover, if he is sensible, a person who discovers the reality of this world and knows the hereafter, is not sorry; he does not turn back to the world and struggle with it again. After the age of fifty, a person who has no connection with anything and is alone, will not sacrifice eternal life for one or two years of the chatter and deception of this world. If he does, he is not cunning but foolish and crazy. What can a crazy lunatic do so that anyone should bother with him? | |||
As for suspecting me of outwardly abandoning the world while inwardly seeking it, in accordance with the verse,Nor do I absolve my own self [of blame]; the [human] soul is certainly prone to evil,(12:53)I do not exonerate my soul, for it wants everything bad. But in this fleeting world, this temporary guest-house, during old age, in a brief life, it is not reasonable to destroy eternal life and everlasting happiness for a little bit of pleasure. Since it is not profitable for the reasonable and the aware, willy-nilly my soul has had to follow my reason. | |||
< | <span id="Üçüncü_vehimli_sual:"></span> | ||
=== | ===The Third Suspicious Question:=== | ||
The worldly say: Do you like us? Do you approve of us? If you do like us, why are you stand-offish and have nothing to do with us? | |||
If you don’t like us, that means you object to us and we crush those who object to us. | |||
'''The Answer:''' Not you, if I had loved your world, I would not have withdrawn from it. I don’t like either you or your world, but I don’t interfere with them. For I have different goals; my heart is filled with different things, leaving no room for anything else. Your duty is to look to a person’s hand, not to his heart. For you seek your government and your public order. So long as his hand does not interfere, what right do you have to interfere in his heart and tell him, “your heart should love us too,” although you are in no way worthy of it? | |||
''' | |||
Yes, just as I desire the spring during this winter and long for it but cannot will it or make it come; so too I long for the world to be righted and I pray for it and I want the worldly to be reformed, but I cannot will these things because I do not have the power. I cannot bring them about, because it is neither my duty, nor do I have the capacity. | |||
< | <span id="Dördüncü_şüpheli_sual:"></span> | ||
=== | ===Fourth Suspicious Question:=== | ||
The worldly say: we have experienced so many calamities, we no longer have confidence in anyone. How can we be certain that given the opportunity you won’t interfere like you want to? | |||
'''The Answer:'''The previous points should assure you. In addition, I did not interfere in your world while in my native region among my students and relatives, with those who heeded me in the midst of volatile events. So for someone who is alone in exile, with no one, a stranger, weak, powerless, turned with all his strength towards the hereafter, cut off from all social relations and communication, who has found only a few friends from far afield who also look to the hereafter, and who is a stranger to everyone else and whom everyone else regards as a stranger – for such a person to interfere in your fruitless, dangerous world would surely be compounded lunacy. | |||
''' | |||
< | <span id="Beşinci_Nokta"></span> | ||
== | ==FIFTH POINT== | ||
This concerns five small matters. | |||
< | <span id="Birincisi:"></span> | ||
=== | ===The First:=== | ||
The worldly ask me: Why don’t you practise the principles of our civilization, our style of life, and our manner of dressing? Does this mean you oppose us? | |||
'''My reply:'''Sirs! What right do you have to propose to me the principles of your civilization? For as though casting me outside the laws of civilization, you have wrongfully forced me to reside in a village for five years and prohibited me from having any social relations or communication. You left all the exiles in the town with their friends and relatives, then gave them the papers granting them an amnesty, but without reason you isolated me and did not allow me to meet with anyone from my native region, except for one or two. That means you do not count me as a member of this nation or a citizen. How can you propose that I apply your civil code to myself? You have turned the world into a prison for me. Such things cannot be proposed to someone in prison. You closed the door of the world on me, so I knocked on the door of the hereafter and divine mercy opened it to me. How can the confused customs and principles of the world be dictated to someone at the door of the hereafter? Whenever you set me free and return me to my native region and restore my rights, then you can require me to conform to your principles. | |||
''' | |||
< | <span id="İkinci_Mesele:"></span> | ||
=== | ===Second Matter:=== | ||
The worldly say: “We have an official department for | |||
instructing in the precepts of religion and truths of Islam. On what authority do you publish religious works? Since you are a convicted exile, you have no right to meddle in these matters.” | |||
'''The Answer:'''Truth and reality cannot be restricted. How can belief and the Qur’an be restricted? You can restrict the principles and laws of your world, but the truths of belief and Qur’anic principles cannot be forced into the form of worldly dealings or be given an official guise in return for a wage. Those mysteries, which are divine gifts, those blessings, come rather through a sincere intention and giving up the world and carnal pleasures. Moreover, that official department of yours accepted me and appointed me as a preacher while I was in my home region. I accepted the position, but rejected the salary. I have the document in my possession. With it I can act as an imam and preacher everywhere, because my being exiled was unjust. Also, since the exiles have been returned, my old documents are still valid. | |||
''' | |||
'''Secondly:'''I addressed the truths of belief I have written directly at my own soul. I do not invite everyone. Rather, those whose spirits are needy and hearts wounded search out and find those Qur’anic remedies. Only, to secure my livelihood I had printed a treatise of mine about the resurrection of the dead before the new script was introduced. And the former governor, who was unfair to me, studied the treatise, but did nothing against it since he could find nothing in it to criticize. | |||
< | <span id="Üçüncü_Mesele:"></span> | ||
=== | ===Third Matter:=== | ||
Some of my friends remain apparently aloof from me because the worldly look on me with suspicion and in order to curry favour with the worldly, indeed, they criticize me. But the cunning worldly attribute their aloofness and avoiding me not to their loyalty to the worldly but to a sort of hypocrisy and lack of conscience, and they look on those friends of mine coldly. | |||
So I say this: O my friends of the hereafter! Don’t hold back from me as a servant of the Qur’an and run away. God willing, no harm will come to you from me. Suppose some calamity is visited on you or I am oppressed, you still cannot be saved by avoiding me. By doing that you will make yourselves more deserving of being visited by a calamity and receiving a blow. And what is there, that you should have these groundless fears? | |||
< | <span id="Dördüncü_Mesele:"></span> | ||
=== | ===Fourth Matter:=== | ||
I see during this time of exile that certain boastful people who have fallen into the swamp of politics regard me in a partisan manner, with rivalry, as though I were connected with the worldly movements like they are. | |||
Sirs! I am in the current of belief. Before me is the current of unbelief. I have no connection with other currents or movements. Perhaps some of those who work for a wage consider themselves excused to a degree. But to assume a stance opposing me in rivalry in the name of patriotism for no wage, and to harass me and oppress me, is truly a grievous error. For as was proved above, I have no connection at all with world politics. I have dedicated all my time and my life to the truths of belief and the Qur’an. Since it is thus, the person who torments and harasses me in rivalry should realize that to do so is like harming belief in the name of atheism and unbelief. | |||
< | <span id="Beşinci_Mesele:"></span> | ||
=== | ===Fifth Matter:=== | ||
Since this world is transitory, | |||
and life is short, | |||
and one’s essential duties are many, | |||
and eternal life is gained here; | |||
and since this guest-house of the world is not without an owner, | |||
indeed, has a most wise and generous director, | |||
and neither good nor bad will remain without recompense; | |||
and since according to the verse, On no soul does God place a burden greater than it can bear(2:286) | |||
there is no obligation that is insupportable, | |||
and a safe way is preferable to a harmful one, and since friends and ranks last only till the door of the grave; | |||
then surely the most fortunate person is he who does not forget the hereafter for this world, nor sacrifice the hereafter for this world, nor destroy the life of the hereafter for worldly life, nor waste his life on trivial things, but considers himself to be a guest and acts in accordance with the commands of the guest-house’s Owner, then opens the door of the grave in confidence and enters upon eternal happiness.(*<ref>*The reason for these ‘sinces’ is this: I take no notice of the wrongs and tyranny perpetrated against my person and give them no importance. I say, “They are not worth worrying about,” and I do not interfere in the world.</ref>) | |||
* * * | * * * | ||
< | <span id="On_Altıncı_Mektup’un_Zeyli"></span> | ||
== | ==An Addendum to the Sixteenth Letter== | ||
In His Name! And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.(17:44) | |||
Without reason the worldly became suspicious of a powerless stranger like myself, and imagining me to have the power of thousands, put me under numerous restrictions. They did not give permission for me to stay a night or two in Bedre, a district of Barla, or on one of the mountains of Barla. | |||
I heard that they say: “Said possesses the power of fifty thousand soldiers, so we can’t set him free.” | |||
“Said | |||
So I say: You unhappy people whose view is restricted to this world! How is it that you do not know the matters of the world, despite working for it with all your strength, and govern it like lunatics? If it is my person you fear, one soldier even could do more than me, let alone fifty thousand. That is, he could be posted at the door of my room and tell me: “You can’t go out!” | |||
But if it is my profession and my being herald of the Qur’an and the moral strength of belief that you fear, then you are wrong; you should be aware that in that respect, I have the strength of fifty million soldiers, not fifty thousand! For through the strength of the All-Wise Qur’an, I challenge all Europe including your irreligious people. Through the lights of belief I have published I have razed the sturdy bastions they call the physical sciences and nature. I have cast down lower than animals their greatest irreligious philosophers. If all Europe were to gather, of which your irreligious people are a part, through God’s assistance, they could not make me recant a single matter of that way of mine. God willing, they could not defeat me! | |||
Since the matter is thus, I do not interfere in your world, so don’t you interfere in my hereafter! If you do, if it will be of no avail. | |||
What is determined by God cannot be turned by force; | |||
A flame that if lit by God, cannot be extinguished by puffing. | |||
The worldly are exceptionally and excessively suspicious of me; quite simply, they are frightened of me. Imagining about me non-existent things that even if they did exist would not constitute a political crime and could not be the cause of accusation, like being a shaikh, or having high rank or belonging to a powerful family, or being a tribal leader and influential and having numerous followers, or meeting with people from my native region, or being involved in the affairs of the world, or even entering politics or the opposition; imagining such things about me, they have been carried away by groundless fears. At a time they are discussing pardoning those in prison and outside, that is, those that according to them cannot be pardoned, they have quite simply barred me from everything. A bad and ephemeral person wrote the following good and enduring words: | |||
If tyranny has cannon, shot, and forts, | |||
Right has an untwistable arm, a constant face. | |||
And I say: | |||
If the worldly have rule, power, and strength, | |||
Through the Qur’an’s effulgence, its servant | |||
Has unfaltering knowledge, an unsilenceable voice; | |||
He has an unerring heart, an unquenchable light. | |||
Many friends, as well as a military commander under whose surveillance I was, repeatedly asked: | |||
“Why don’t you apply for the release papers and present a petition?” | |||
'''The Answer:''' I do not apply and I cannot apply for five or six reasons: | |||
''' | |||
'''The First:''' I did not interfere in the worldly’s world that I should have been convicted and so apply to them. I was convicted by divine determining; my faults are before it, and I apply to it. | |||
''' | |||
'''The Second:'''I believe and have certain knowledge that this world is a swiftly changing guesthouse. It is not the true homeland and everywhere is the same. Since I will not remain permanently in my home region, it is pointless to struggle for it; it is not worth going there. Since everywhere is a guesthouse, if the mercy of the guesthouse’s Owner befriends one, everyone is a friend and everywhere is familiar. Whereas if it does not befriend one, everywhere is a load on the heart and everyone is hostile. | |||
''' | |||
'''The Third:''' Application should be within the framework of the law, but the way I have been treated these six years has been arbitrary and outside the law. The Exiles’ Law was not applied to me. They looked on me as being stripped of all the rights of civilization and even of all worldly rights. It is meaningless to apply in the name of the law to those whose treatment of me has been thus outside the law. | |||
''' | |||
'''The Fourth:'''This year, the local official applied in my name for me to stay for a few days in the village of Bedre, which is a sort of district of Barla, for a change of air. How can those who reject such an unimportant request be applied to? To apply to them would be a futile, degrading abasement. | |||
''' | |||
'''The Fifth:''' To claim a right before those who claim a wrong to be right, and to apply to them, is a wrong. It is disrespectful towards right. I do not want to perpetrate such a wrong and show disrespect for right. And that’s that! | |||
''' | |||
'''The Sixth:'''The distress and difficulty the worldly have caused me has not been due to politics, because they know I do not meddle in politics but flee from them. Rather, knowingly or unknowingly, they torment me on account of aggressive atheism because I adhere to religion. In which case, to apply to them infers regretting religion and flattering the cause of aggressive atheism. | |||
''' | |||
Moreover, divine determining, which is just, would punish me through their tyrannical hand if I applied to them and had recourse to them, for they oppress me because I am religious. As for divine determining, from time to time it represses me due to my hypocrisy before the worldly, because I am deficient in religion and in sincerity. | |||
Since this is so, for the time being I cannot be saved from this distress. If I apply to the worldly, divine determining would say: “Hypocrite! Pay the penalty for applying!” And if I do not apply, the worldly say: “You don’t recognize us, go on suffering difficulties!” | |||
'''The Seventh Reason:''' It is well-known that the official’s duty is to allow harmful individuals no opportunity to cause harm and to assist those who are beneficial. Whereas the official who took me into custody approached me, an elderly guest at the door of the grave, when I was expounding a subtle aspect of belief contained in the phrase “There is no god but God,” as though I were perpetrating some misdemeanour, although he had not been to me for a long time previously. He caused the sincere unfortunate who was listening to be deprived of the instruction, and made me angry. But there were other people there, and he gave them no importance. Then when they acted discourteously in a way that would poison the life of the village, he started to be gracious and appreciative towards them. | |||
''' | |||
Furthermore, it is well-known that someone in prison who has committed a hundred crimes can meet with the official supervising him whether he be of high rank or low. But during this last year, although two people important in the eyes of the national government who were charged with supervising me have passed by my house several times, they have absolutely neither met with me nor asked after me. At first I supposed that they avoided me out of enmity, then it transpired that it was due to their fearful suspicions; they were fleeing from me as though as I were going to gobble them up. | |||
So to recognize a government whose members and officials are like them and have recourse to it and apply to it, is not sensible but a futile abasement. If it had been the Old Said, he would have said like ‘Antara: | |||
< | The very water of life becomes Hell through abasement, Whereas Hell with dignity becomes a place of pride.(*<ref>*Majid Tarrad (ed.), Diwan ‘Antara (n.p., n.d.), 135.</ref>) | ||
</ | |||
The Old Said no longer exists and the New Said considers it meaningless to talk with the worldly. Let their world be the end of them! They can do what they like. He is silent, saying, we shall be judged together with them at the Last Judgement. | |||
The Eighth Reason for my not applying: According to the rule, “The result of illicit love is merciless torment,” divine determining, which is just, torments me through the tyrannous hand of the worldly, because I incline towards them and they are not worthy of it. So saying, “I deserve this torment,” I remain silent. | |||
For in the Great War I fought as the commander of a volunteer regiment. Applauded by the Commander-in-Chief of the army and Enver Pafla, I sacrificed my valuable students and friends. I was wounded and taken prisoner. Returning from captivit y, I cast myself into danger through such works as The Seven Steps, aiming them at the heads of the British, who had occupied Istanbul. I assisted those who now hold me without reason in this torturous captivity. As for them, they punish me in this way for that help. Those friends here cause me in three months the hardship and distress I suffered in three years as a prisoner-of-war in Russia. | |||
Nor did the Russians prevent me from giving religious instruction, although they regarded me as a Kurdish militia commander, a cruel man who had slaughtered Cossacks and prisoners. I used to instruct the great majority of my ninety fellow-officer prisoners. One time, the Russian commander came and listened. Because he did not know Turkish, he thought it was political instruction and put a stop to it. Then later he gave permission. Also, in the same barracks we made a room into a mosque and I used to lead the prayers. They did not interfere at all. They did not prevent me from mixing, or from communicating, with the others. | |||
Whereas my friends here, my fellow citizens and co-religionists and those for whose benefits in the form of religious belief I have struggled, have held me in distressing captivity not for three years but for six, for absolutely no reason and although they know I have severed all my relations with the world. They have prevented me mixing with others. They have prevented me from giving religious instruction despite my having a certificate, and even from giving private instruction in my room. They have prevented me from communicating with others. They have even barred me from the mosque which I repaired and where I acted as prayer-leader for four years, although I had the necessary certificate. And now, to deprive me of the merit of performing the prayers in congregation, they do not accept me as prayer- leader even for three private individuals, my permanent congregation and brothers of the hereafter. | |||
Furthermore, if, although I do not want it, someone is to call me good, the official who holds me in surveillance is jealous and angry. Thinking he will destroy m y influence, he entirely unscrupulously takes precautions and pesters me in order to curry favour with his superiors. | |||
Who can someone in such a position have recourse to anyone other than God Almighty? If the judge is also the claimant, of course he cannot complain to him. Come on, you say, what can we say to this? You say what you like, I say this: there are many dissemblers among these friends of mine. A dissembler is worse than an unbeliever. That is the reason they make me suffer what the infidel Russian did not make me suffer. | |||
You unfortunates! What have I done to you and what I am doing? I am trying to save your belief and am serving your eternal happiness! It means that my service is not sincere and purely for God’s sake so that it has the reverse effect. In return, you torment me at every opportunity. For sure, we shall meet at the Last Judgement. | |||
I say:God is enough for us and the best of protectors.(3:173) * The best of lords and the best of helpers.(8:40; 22:78) | |||
The Eternal One, He is the Eternal One! | |||
'''Said Nursî''' | '''Said Nursî''' | ||
------ | ------ | ||
<center> [[On Beşinci Mektup]] ⇐ | [[Mektubat]] | ⇒ [[On Yedinci Mektup]] </center> | <center> [[On Beşinci Mektup/en|The Fifteenth Letter]] ⇐ | [[Mektubat/en|The Letters]] | ⇒ [[On Yedinci Mektup/en|The Seventeenth Letter]] </center> | ||
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