On Altıncı Mektup/en

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Men said to them: “A great army is gathering against you,” and frightened them. But it [only] increased their belief; they said: “For us God suffices, and He is the best Disposer of Affairs.”(3:173)

This letter manifested the meaning of the verse, “But speak to him mildly,”(20:44) and was not written vehemently.

It is the answer to a question asked me explicitly and implicitly by many people.

[To reply is not agreeable to me and I do not want to, for I have bound everything to reliance on God. But since I have not been left in peace to myself in my own world and since they have turned my attention towards the world, I am compelled to propound five points in the language of the Old Said in order to explain the reality of the situation both to my friends, and to the worldly,(*)and to those in authority, so as to save not myself, but my friends and my Words, from the suspicions and ill-treatment of the worldly.]

FIRST POINT

I am asked: “Why have you withdrawn from politics and now have nothing to do with them?”

The Answer: The Old Said of nine or ten years ago was involved in politics to a degree; indeed, thinking he would serve religion and learning by means of politics, he was wearied for nothing. He saw that it is a dangerous way which is dubious and full of difficulties, and for me superfluous as well as forming an obstacle to the most necessary duties. It is mostly lies and may be exploited by foreigners without one being aware of it.

Furthermore, a person who enters politics either wins or is in opposition. As for winning, since I am neither an official nor a deputy, to work in politics is unnecessary and nonsense for me. Politics has no need for me that I should meddle in them for nothing. If I join the opposition, I would do so either with ideas or with force. If it was with ideas there is no need for me, for the questions are all clear and everyone knows them as I do. To wag one’s chin for nothing is pointless. If I join the opposition intending to use force and to provoke an incident, I might commit thousands of sins to reach one doubtful goal. Numerous people would be struck by disaster on account of one. So saying that in all conscience he could not commit sins and cause the innocent to commit them for a one or two in ten possibility, the Old Said gave up cigarettes together with the newspapers, politics, and worldly conversation about politics.

Decisive evidence for this is the fact that for the past eight years I have not read a single newspaper nor listened to one being read. Let someone come forward and say that I have read one or listened to one. Whereas eight years ago the Old Said used to read perhaps eight newspapers every day.

Furthermore, for the past five years I have been under the closest scrutiny and surveillance. Anyone who has observed the slightest hint of political activity should say so. For someone like me who is nervous, fearless, and without attachment, who considers the best stratagem to be without stratagem, his ideas will not remain secret for eight days, let alone eight years. If he had had any appetite or desire for politics, there would have been no need for investigation and scrutiny, for he would have given voice like the firing of a cannon.

SECOND POINT

Why does the New Said avoid politics with such vehemence?

The Answer: He avoids it so vehemently in order to serve belief and the Qur’an, which is of the greatest importance, the greatest necessity and is most pure and most right, and so as not to sacrifice unnecessarily and officiously for one or two doubtful years of worldly life the work of gaining more than millions of years of eternal life.

For he says: I am growing old and I do not know how much longer I shall live, so for me the most important question should be working for eternal life. The prime means of gaining eternal life and the key to everlasting happiness is belief (êma\n), so I have to work for that.

But since I am obliged by the Shari‘a to serve people in respect of learning so that they may profit too, I want to perform that duty. However, such service will either concern social and worldly life, which I cannot do, and also in stormy times it is not possible to perform such service soundly. I therefore gave up that side of it and chose the side of serving belief, which is the most important, the most necessary, and the soundest. I leave that door open so that the truths of belief I have gained for myself and the spiritual remedies I have myself experienced may be acquired by others. Perhaps Almighty God will accept this service and make it atonement for my former sins.

Apart from Satan the Accursed, no one, be it a believer or an unbeliever, one of the veracious or an atheist, has the right to oppose this work. For unbelief resembles nothing else. In tyrannizing, vice, and grievous sins there may be an inauspicious diabolical pleasure, but in unbelief there is no sort of pleasure at all. It is pain upon pain, darkness upon darkness, torment upon torment.

Just how contrary to reason it would be for someone like me who is unattached, alone, and compelled to atone for his former sins to leave aside working for an endless eternal life and serving a sacred light like belief, and to cast himself in old age into the unnecessary, perilous games of politics – just how contrary to wisdom, just what a lunacy it would be even lunatics would understand!

But if you ask why service of the Qur’an and belief prohibit me, I would say this: the truths of belief and the Qur’an are each like diamonds. If I were polluted by politics, the ordinary people who are easily deceived, would wonder about those diamonds I was holding: “Aren’t they for political propaganda, to attract more supporters?” They might regard the diamonds as bits of common glass. Then, by being involved with politics I would be wronging the diamonds by as though reducing their value.

O you whose view is restricted to this world! Why do you struggle against me? Why do you not leave me to myself?

If you say: The shaikhs sometimes interfere in our business, and they sometimes call you a shaikh.

I reply: Good sirs! I am not a shaikh, I am a hoja (teacher). The evidence is this: I have been here four years and if I had taught a single person the Sufi way, you would have had the right to be suspicious. But I have told everyone who has come to me: Belief is necessary, Islam is necessary; this is not the age of Sufism.

If you say: They call you Said-i Kurdi; perhaps you have some nationalist ideas and that doesn’t suit our interests.

I would reply: Sirs! The things the Old Said and the New Said have written are clear. I cite as testimony the certain statement, “Islam has abrogated the tribalism of Ignorance.”(*)For years I have considered negative nationalism and racialism to be fatal poisons, since they are a variety of European disease. And Europe has infected Islam with it thinking it would cause division, and Islam would break up and be easily swallowed. My students and those people who have had anything to do with me know that for years I have tried to treat that disease.

Since it is thus, good sirs, why you make every incident a pretext to harass me? According to what principle do you cause me distress at every worldly incident, which is like punishing and inflicting trouble on a soldier in the West because of a mistake made by a soldier in the East because they both belong to the army, or convicting a shopkeeper in Baghdad because of a crime committed by a tradesman in Istanbul due to their being in the same line of business? Who could do this in all conscience? What advantage is there that could require it?

THIRD POINT

My friends who wonder how I am and are astonished at my meeting in patience every calamity, silently ask the following question: “How can you endure the difficulties you’re faced with, when formerly you were very proud and angry and could not endure even the least insult?”

The Answer:Listen to two short stories about two incidents and you will receive your answer:

The First Story: Two years ago an official spoke insultingly and contemptuously about me behind my back. They told me about it later. A vein of temperament remaining from the Old Said made me feel upset about it for about an hour. Then through Almighty God’s mercy the following occurred to me; it dispelled the distress and made me forgive the man. It was this:

I addressed my soul saying: if his insults and the faults he described concerned my person, may God be pleased with him, because he recalled the faults of my soul. If he spoke the truth, he prompted me to train my soul and helped to save me from arrogance. If he spoke falsely, he helped to save me from hypocrisy and undeserved fame, the source of hypocrisy. No, I am not reconciled with my soul, for I have not trained it. If someone tells me there is a scorpion on my neck or breast or else points it out to me, I should be grateful to him, not offended.

But if the man’s insults were directed at my belief and my being a servant of the Qur’an, it does not concern me. I refer him to the Qur’an’s Owner, who employs me.

He is mighty, He is wise. And if it was merely to curse at me, insult me, and blacken my character, that does not concern me either. For I am an exile, a prisoner, a stranger, and my hands are tied; it does not fall to me to try to restore my honour myself. To do so is the business of the authorities of this village where I am a guest and under surveillance, then of the district, then of the province. Insulting a person’s prisoner concerns the person; he defends the prisoner.

Since that was the reality of the matter, my heart became easy. I declared: “My [own] affair I commit to God; for God [ever] watches over His servants.”(40:44) I thought of the incident as not having happened. But unfortunately it was later understood that the Qur’an had not forgiven the man.

The Second Story: This year I heard that an incident had occurred. Although I only heard a brief account of it after it had happened, I was treated as though I had been closely connected with it. Anyway I hardly correspond with anyone, and if I do, I only write extremely rarely to a friend concerning some question of belief. In fact I have written only one letter to my brother in four years. Both I prevent myself from mixing with others, and the worldly prevent me. I have only been able to meet with one or two close friends once or twice a week. As for visitors to the village, once or twice a month perhaps one or two used to meet with me for one or two minutes concerning some matter to do with the hereafter.

In exile, a stranger, alone, with no one, I was barred from everything, from everyone, in a village that was unsuitable for someone like me to work for a livelihood. As a matter of fact, four years ago I repaired a tumble-down mosque. Although with the certificate I had from my own region to act an imam and preacher, I acted as imam in the mosque for four years (May God accept it), this past Ramadan I could not go there. Sometimes I performed the five daily prayers alone. I was deprived of the twenty-fivefold merit of performing the prayers in congregation.

I showed the same patience and forbearance in the face of these two incidents that befell me as I did in the face of that official’s treatment two years ago. God willing I shall continue to do so. I think like this, and say:

if this ill-treatment, distress, and oppression inflicted on me by the worldly is for my faulty soul, I forgive it. Perhaps my soul will be reformed by means of it, and perhaps it will be atonement for its sins. I have experienced many good things in this guest-house of the world; if I experience a little of its trials, I shall still offer thanks.

But if the worldly oppress me because of my service of belief and the Qur’an, it is not up to me to defend it. I refer it to the Mighty and Compelling One.

If their intention is to destroy the regard in which I am held generally, to expunge my undeserved fame, which is baseless and causes hypocrisy and destroys sincerity, may God bless them! For to be held in high regard by people generally and gain a name among them is harmful for people like me. Those who have dealings with me know that I do not want respect to be shown to me, indeed, I can’t abide it. I have even scolded a valuable friend of mine perhaps fifty times for show ing me excessive respect.

If their intention in slandering me, belittling me in the eyes of the people, and defaming me is aimed at the truths of belief and the Qur’an of which I am the interpreter, it is pointless. For a veil cannot be drawn over the stars of the Qur’an. A person who closes his eyes only himself does not see; he does not make it night for anyone else.

FOURTH POINT

The answer to a number of suspicious questions:

The First:

The worldly say to me: “How do you live? What do you live on since you do not work? We don’t want people in our country who sit around idly and live off the labour of others.”

The Answer: I live through frugality and the resulting plenty. I am not obliged to anyone other than the One who Provides for me and I have taken the decision not to become indebted to anyone else. Yes, someone who lives on a hundred para, or even forty para, does not become indebted to anyone. I do not want to explain this matter. To do so is most disagreeable to me, as it may make me feel a sort of pride or egotism. But since the worldly ask about it suspiciously, I reply as follows:

since my childhood, throughout my life, it has been one of my guiding principles not to accept anything from people, even zakat, and not to accept a salary – only I was compelled to accept one for one or two years in the Darü’l-Hikmeti’l- Islamiye on the insistence of my friends – and not to become obliged to people for a worldly livelihood. The people of my native region and those who have known me in other places know this. During these five years of exile, many friends have tried earnestly to make me accept their gifts, but I have accepted none of them.

And so, if it is asked me, “So how do you manage to live?”, I reply: “I live through divine bestowal and blessings.”

For sure, my soul deserves every sort of insult and contempt, but the plenty and blessings, a divine bestowal, I receive as sustenance are a wonder resulting from service of the Qur’an.

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)(*)of wheat, consisting of thirty-six loaves of bread, has sufficed me. There is still some left, it is not finished. How much longer(*)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(*)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(*)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.

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.

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.

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.

FIFTH POINT

This concerns five small matters.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.(*)

• * *

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.”

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.(*)

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

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The Fifteenth Letter ⇐ | The Letters | ⇒ The Seventeenth Letter

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