Yirmi Altıncı Lem'a/en

Treatise For The Elderly

[This Flash consists of twenty-six hopes, lights, and solaces.(*) ]

REMINDER: The reason I have described my sorrows and afflictions at the beginning of each Hope in a truly grievous way that will sadden you is in order to show the extraordinary efficaciousness of the remedies proceeding from the All-Wise Qur’an.

This Flash, concerning the elderly, has been unable to preserve its beauty of expression in three or four respects:

The First: It is about my life the events of which I revisited in my imagination; it was written in the state of mind of those times. It was not possible, therefore, to preserve an orderly arrangement in the way it is set out.

The Second: It was written at a time I felt extreme fatigue, after the morning prayers, and I was also compelled to write it at speed; its manner of expression therefore became confused.

The Third: There was not always someone with me to write, and the scribe who generally accompanied me had four or five other duties connected with the Risale-i Nur. We therefore could not find sufficient time to correct it and it remained in a disordered state.

The Fourth: We were both tired after its composition, and not thinking carefully of the meaning, made do with correcting it only superficially; so there are bound to be faults in the manner of expression. I request the generous elderly to look tolerantly on such errors and to include us in their prayers when they raise their hands to the divine court, since divine mercy does not reject the prayers of the blessed elderly.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Kaf. Ha. Ya. ‘Ain. Sad. * [This is] a recital of the mercy of your Sustainer to His servant Zakariya.

Behold! he cried to His Sustainer in secret, * Praying: “O my Sustainer! Infirm indeed are my bones, and the hair of my head glistens with grey; but I am never unblest, O my Sustainer, in my prayer to you.”(19:1-4)

This Flash consists of twenty-six hopes

FIRST HOPE

Respected elderly brothers and sisters who have reached maturity! Like you, I am elderly. I am going to write the ‘hopes’ I have found in my old age and some of the things that have befallen me, out of the desire to share with you the lights of consolation they contain. Of course the lights I have seen and the doors of hope I have encountered have been seen and opened in accordance with my defective and confused abilities. God willing, your pure, sincere dispositions will make those lights shine more brightly and strengthen the hopes I have found.

Thus, the spring, source and fount of the following hopes and lights is belief in God.

SECOND HOPE

One day as I was entering upon old age, in the autumn at the time of the afternoon prayer, I was gazing on the world from a high mountain. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by a plaintive, sorrowful and in one respect dark state of mind. I saw that I had become old. The day too had grown old, and so had the year; so too had the world become old. As the time of departure from the world and separation from those I loved was drawing close within these instances of old age, my own old age shook me severely. Suddenly divine mercy unfolded in such a way that it transformed that plaintive sadness and separation into a powerful hope and shining light of solace.

Yes, you who are elderly like myself! The All-Compassionate Creator presents himself to us in a hundred places in the All-Wise Qur’an as the Most Merciful of the Merciful, and always sends His mercy to the assistance of living creatures on the face of the earth who seek it, and every year fills the spring with innumerable bounties and gifts from the Unseen, sending them to us who are needy for sustenance, and manifests His mercy in greater abundance relatively to our weakness and impotence.For us in our old age, therefore, His mercy is our greatest hope and most powerful light.

It may be obtained by forming a relation with the Most Merciful One through belief, and performing the five daily prayers, by being obedient to Him.

THIRD HOPE

One time when I awoke in the morning of old age from the sleep of the night of youth I looked at myself and saw that my life was hastening towards the grave as though racing down a slope. As Niyazi Misri said:

Each day a stone from the building of my life falls to the ground;

Heedless one! You slumber, unaware that the building is in ruins!

My body, my spirit’s dwelling, was becoming dilapidated with every day a stone of it falling away. My hopes and ambitions which bound me strongly to the world had begun to be broken off from it. I felt that the time I would be separated from my innumerable friends and those I loved was drawing near. I searched for a salve for that deep and apparently incurable spiritual wound, but I could not find one. Again like Niyazi Misri I said:

While my heart desired its immortality, Reality required the passing of my body;

I am afflicted with an incurable ill, which even Luqman could not cure!(*)

Then suddenly the light and intercession of the Glorious Prophet (UWBP), the tongue, model, exemplar, herald, and representative of divine compassion, and the gift of guidance he brought to mankind, soothed and healed the wound I had supposed to be incurable and endless.

Yes, respected elderly men and women who feel their old age like I do! We are departing, there is no use in deceiving ourselves. Even if we close our eyes to it, we will not remain here. There is a mobilization. The land of the Intermediate Realm, which appears to us to be dark and full of separation due to the gloomy delusions which arise from heedlessness and in part from the people of misguidance, is the meeting-place of friends. It is the world where we shall meet with foremost God’s Beloved (Upon whom be blessings and peace), and with all our friends.

We are going to the world of the one who every year for one thousand three hundred and fifty years has been the ruler of one thousand three hundred and fift y million people, and the trainer of their spirits, the teacher of their minds, and the beloved of their hearts; to whose book of good works, in accordance with the meaning of “the cause is like the doer,” is every day added the equivalent of all the good works performed by his community; who is the means by which the elevated divine purposes in the universe are accomplished and the high value of beings are realized.When he came into the world, according to authentic narrations and accurate divining of reality, he exclaimed: “My community! My community!” So too at the Last Judgement when everyone thinks only of themselves, he will again declare: “My community! My community!”, and with sacred, elevated self-sacrifice hasten with his intercession to its assistance. We are going to such a world, illuminated by the stars of countless saints and purified scholars revolving around that Sun (UWBP).

Thus, the way to share in that Being’s (UWBP) intercession and profit from his light, and be saved from the darkness of the Intermediate Realm, is to follow his glorious practices.

FOURTH HOPE

At the time I approached old age, my physical health, which perpetuates heedlessness, was broken. Old age and illness attacked me in concert. Hitting me over the head, they chased away sleep. I had nothing to bind me to the world like family, children, and possessions. Having wasted the fruits of my life’s the capital on the giddiness of youth, I saw them to consist only of sins and mistakes. Crying out like Niyazi Misri, I said:

I had concluded no trade; the capital of life was all lost;

I came to the road to find the caravan had moved on, unaware.

Lamenting, I continued down the road, all alone, a stranger;

My eyes weeping, my heart in anguish, my mind bewildered, unaware.

I was in exile at the time; I felt a despairing sorrow, a regretful penitence, a longing for assistance. Suddenly, the All-Wise Qur’an came to my aid. It opened a door of hope so powerful and afforded a light of consolation so true that it could have dispelled despair and darknesses a hundred times more intense than mine.

Yes, respected elderly men and women whose attachment to the world has begun to be sundered and the ties binding them to be broken! Is it possible that the All- Glorious Maker who creates this world as a perfectly ordered city or palace would not speak with his most important guests and friends or not meet with them? Since He knowingly made the palace and ordered and adorned it through His will and choice, certainly as one who makes knows, so one who knows will speak. Since He made this palace and city into a fine guesthouse and place of trade for us, He will surely have a book, a file, to explain His relations with us and what He desires from us.

The most holy of such Books is the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition; it is a miracle in forty respects and is every instant on the tongues of at least a hundred million people; it scatters light, and every letter of it affords at least ten merits and rewards, and fruits of Paradise and lights in the Intermediate Realm, and sometimes ten thousand, and sometimes – through the mystery of the Night of Power – thirty thousand. There is no book in the universe to compete with it in this respect and no one could put one forward.

Since this Qur’an which we have is the Word of the All-Glorious Creator of the heavens and earth, proceeding from His absolute dominicality, the tremendousness of His Godhead, and His all-encompassing mercy, and is His decree and a source of His mercy; adhere to it. In it are found a cure for every ill, a light for every darkness, and a hope for all despair.

And the key to this eternal treasury is belief and submission to God, and listening to the Qur’an and accepting it, and reciting it.

FIFTH HOPE

One time at the start of my old age when I desired solitude, I retired to Yuşa Tepesi, Mount Joshua, away up the Istanbul Bosphorus. My spirit was seeking ease in loneliness. One day on that high hill, I gazed around me at the broad horizon, and I cast a glance from the high position of the forty-fifth branch, that is, the forty-fifth year of the tree of my life to its lower levels. I saw that down on the lower branches of each year were the countless corpses of those I had known and had loved and with whom I had been connected. I felt a truly piteous sorrow at their parting and separation, I wept like Fuzuli Baghdadi for the friends from whom I was parted:

As I recall their company I weep,

So long as there is breath in this dry body, I cry out.

I sought a solace, a light, a door leading to hope. Suddenly belief in the hereafter came to my assistance, shedding an inextinguishable light, offering an indestructible hope.

Yes, my brothers and sisters who are elderly like me! Since the hereafter exists and it is everlasting, and it is a better world than this; and since the One who created us is both All-Wise and All-Compassionate; we should not complain and regret our old age. On the contrary, we should be happy at it in so far as with age one reaches perfect maturity through worship and belief, and it is a sign one will be released from the duties of life and depart for the world of mercy in order to rest.

According to narrations, some relying on witnessing and some on ‘absolute certainty’, mankind’s most eminent individuals, the one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets,(*)have unanimously given news of the existence of the hereafter, and that men will be sent there and the universe’s Creator will bring it about in accordance with His certain promise. Similarly, affirming through illumination and witnessing in the form of ‘certainty at the degree of knowledge’ the reports of the prophets, the one hundred and twenty-four million saints have testified to the hereafter’s existence. And through the manifestations they display in this world, all the names of the universe’s All-Wise Maker self-evidently necessitate an everlasting realm. So too the infinite pre-eternal power and the boundless eternal wisdom which allowing nothing to be vain and purposeless ever y year in the spring, raise to life with the command of “‘Be!’ and it is”(36:83, etc.) the incalculable corpses of the dead trees on the face of the earth, making them manifest life after death, and revivify three hundred thousand species of plants and animals as thousands of samples of the resurrection of the dead. These observedly necessitate the existence of the hereafter, as does the eternal mercy and perpetual favour which with perfect compassion and in wondrous fashion provide the livelihoods of all living beings needy for sustenance and in a brief time in spring display their uncountable sorts of adornment and decoration; they too necessitate the existence of the hereafter. Together with man, the most perfect fruit of the universe and its Creator’s most loved creature, who of all beings is the most closely concerned with the beings in the universe, and the clear indications and certain evidence of his intense, unshakeable, constant desire for immortality and his hopes which extend to eternity – all these prove so decisively that after this transient world there will be an eternal world, a realm of the hereafter and everlasting happiness that they self-evidently necessitate acceptance of the hereafter’s existence.(*)

Since the most important thing the All-Wise Qur’an teaches us is belief in the hereafter, and since this belief is thus powerful and it yields such hope and solace that if a person was overwhelmed by old age a hundred thousand times over, the consolation arising from this belief would be sufficient to face it; for sure we elderly people should love our old age and say: “All praise be to God for perfect belief!”

SIXTH HOPE

One time during my distressing captivity, I was alone on the top of Pine Mountain, in the mountains of Barla, having withdrawn from the company of men. I was searching for a light in my loneliness. One night on the small platform at the top of a tall pine-tree on the summit of that high mountain, old age recalled to me three or four exiles, one within the other.

As is described in the Sixth Letter, the melancholy sound of the rustling, murmuring trees on that lonely, silent, distant night affected me grievously in my old age and exile. Old age gave me the following thought: like the day changed into this black grave and the world donned its black shroud, the daytime of your life, too, will turn into night, and the daytime of the world turn into the night of the Intermediate Realm, and summertime of life will be transformed into the winter nighttime of death. It whispered this in my heart’s ear. My soul was then obliged to say: Yes, I am far from my native land, but being separated from all those I have loved during my fifty years’ lifetime who have died, and remaining weeping for them, is a far more grievous and sorrowful exile than the exile from my country. Moreover, I am drawing close to a much sadder and more painful exile than the melancholy exile of the night and the mountain: old age informs me that I am approaching the time of separation from the world.

I then sought a light, a hope from these sorrowful exiles one within the other. Suddenly belief in God came to my assistance and afforded such a familiarity that even if the compounded desolation in which I found myself increased a thousandfold, its consolation would have been sufficient.

Elderly men and women! Since we have a Compassionate Creator, there can be no exile for us! Since He exists, everything exists for us. Since He exists, the angels exist. The world is not empty. Lonely mountains and empty deserts are full of Almighty God’s servants. Apart from His conscious servants, stones and trees become like familiar friends when seen through His light and on His account. They may converse with us and give us enjoyment.

Yes, evidences and witnesses to the number of beings in the universe and to the number of the letters of this vast book of the world testify to the existence of our All- Compassionate, Munificent, Intimate, Loving Creator, Maker, and Protector; they show us His mercy to the number of living creatures’ members, foods, and bounties, which may be a means of receiving His compassion, mercy, and favour, and indicate His court. Impotence and weakness are the most acceptable intercessor at His court. And old age is precisely the time of impotence and weakness. So one should not feel resentful at old age, which is thus an acceptable intercessor at a court, but love it.

SEVENTH HOPE

One time at the start of my old age when the laughter of the Old Said was being transformed into the weeping of the New Said, supposing me still to be the Old Said, the worldly in Ankara invited me there, and I went. At the close of autumn I climbed to the top of the citadel, which was far more aged, dilapidated, and worn out than me. It seemed to me to be formed of petrified historical events. The old age of the season of the year together with my old age, the citadel’s old age, mankind’s old age, the old age of the glorious Ottoman Empire, and the death of the Caliphate’s rule, and the world’s old age all caused me to look in a most grieved, piteous and melancholy state in that lofty citadel at the valleys of the past and the mountains of the future. As I experienced an utterly black state of mind in Ankara encompassed by four or five layers of the darknesses of old age one within the other,(*) I sought a light, a solace, a hope.

As I sought consolation looking to the right, that is, to the past, my father and forefathers and the human race appeared in the form of a vast grave and filled me with gloom rather than consoling me.

Seeking a remedy I looked to the future, which was to my left. I saw that it appeared as a huge, dark grave for myself, my contemporaries, and future generations; it produced horror in place of familiarity.

Feeling desolate in the face of the left and right, I looked at the present day. It appeared to my heedless, historical eye as a coffin bearing my half-dead, suffering and desperately struggling corpse.

So despairing of that direction too, I raised my head and looked at the top of the tree of my life, and there was my corpse; it stood at the top of the tree and was watching me.

Feeling horror at this direction, too, I bowed my head. I looked to the foot of the tree of my life, to its roots, and saw that the soil there, the earth which was the source of my creation and the dust of my bones mixed together, was being trampled underfoot. That was no remedy, it only added further pain to my affliction.

Then I was forced to look behind me. I saw that this unstable, transient world was tumbling, disappearing, into the valleys of nothingness and the darkness of non-existence. I was seeking a salve for my pain, but it only added poison.

Since I could see no good in that direction I looked in front of me, I sent my view forward to the future. I saw that the door of the grave was open right in the middle of my path; it was watching me with its mouth agape. The highway beyond it which stretched away to eternity, and the convoys travelling that highway, struck the eye from the distance.

But apart from a limited will as my support and defensive weapon in the face of the horrors coming from these six directions, I had nothing. The faculty of will, man’s only weapon against those innumerable enemies and endless harmful things, is both defective, and short, and weak, and lacks the power to create, so he is capable of nothing apart from ‘acquisition.’ It could neither pass to the past in order to silence the sorrows which came to me from there, nor could it penetrate the future to prevent the fears which arose from there. I saw that it was of no benefit for my hopes and pains concerning the past and future.

As I was struggling in the horror, desolation, darkness and despair proceeding from these six directions, the lights of belief which shine in the sky of the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition suddenly came to my assistance. They lit up and illuminated those six directions to such a degree that if the terrors and darkness I had seen increased a hundredfold, the light would still have been sufficient to meet them. One by one it transformed all those horrors into solace and the desolation into familiarity. It was as follows:

Belief rent asunder the desolate view of the past as a vast grave, and showed it with utter certainty to be a familiar, enlightened gathering of friends.

And belief showed the future, which had appeared in the form of a huge grave to my heedless eyes, to be most certainly a banquet of the Most Merciful One in delightful palaces of bliss.

And belief rent the view of present time as a coffin, as it had appeared to my heedless view, and showed it with certaint y to be a place of trade for the hereafter and a glittering guesthouse of the All-Merciful One.

And belief showed with utter certainty that the only fruit at the top of the tree of life was not a corpse as had appeared to my neglectful eye, but that my spirit, which would manifest eternal life and was designated for eternal happiness, would leave its worn-out home to travel around the stars.

And through its mystery, belief showed that my bones and the earth that was the source of my creation were not valueless pulverized bones trampled underfoot, but that the earth was the door to divine mercy and veil before the halls of Paradise.

And through the mystery of the Qur’an, belief showed that the world which had appeared to my heedless eye as tumbling behind me into nothingness and non-existence to consist of missives of the Eternally Besought One and pages of decorations and embroideries glorifying God which had completed their duties, stated their meanings, and left their results in existence in their place. It made known with complete certainty the true nature of the world.

And through the light of the Qur’an, belief showed that the grave which would open its eyes and look at me in the future was not the mouth of a well, but that it was the door to the world of light, and that the highway which stretched to eternity beyond it led not to nothingness and non-existence, but to existence, a realm of light, and eternal bliss. Since belief demonstrated this to a degree which afforded utter conviction, it was both a remedy and a salve for my afflictions.

And in place of a very minor ability to receive, belief puts a document into the hand of the limited faculty of will through which it may rely on an infinite power and be connected to a boundless mercy in the face of those innumerable enemies and layers of darkness.

Indeed, belief is a document in the hand of man’s will, and although this human weapon of will is in itself both short, powerless, and deficient, just as when a soldier utilizes his partial strength on account of the state, he performs duties far exceeding his own strength, so too through the mystery of belief, if the limited faculty of will is used in the name of Almighty God and in His way, it may gain also a paradise as broad as five hundred years.

And belief takes from the hands of the body the reins of the faculty of will, which cannot penetrate to the past and future, and hands them over to the heart and spirit. Since the sphere of their life is not restricted to present time like the body, and included within it are a great many years from the past and a great many years from the future, the will ceases being limited and acquires universality. Through the strength of belief it may enter the deepest valleys of the past and repel the darkness of its sorrows; so too with the light of belief it may rise as far as the farthest mountains of the future, and remove its fears.

My elderly brothers and sisters who are suffering the difficulties of old age like myself! Since, praise be to God, we are believers, and in belief are found this many luminous, pleasurable, agreeable, and gratifying treasures; and since our old age impels us even more to the contents of the treasure, for sure, rather than complaining about old age accompanied by belief, we should offer endless thanks.

EIGHTH HOPE

At a time grey hairs, the sign of old age, were appearing in my hair, the turmoil of the First World War, which made even heavier the deep sleep of youth, the upheaval of my captivity as a prisoner-of-war, the position of great fame and honour accorded to me on my return to Istanbul, and the kind treatment and attention far exceeding my due I received from everyone, from the Caliph, even, Shaykh al-Islam, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army to the students of religion, the intoxication of youth, and the mental state produced by my position all made the sleep of youth so heavy that I quite simply saw the world as permanent and myself in a wonderful undying situation cemented to it.

Then one day in Ramadan I went to Bayezid Mosque to listen to the sincere Qur’an reciters. With their tongues, the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition was proclaiming with its exalted heavenly address the decree of:Every living creature shall taste death,(3:185, etc.) which powerfully gives news of man’s death and that of all animate creatures. It entered my ear, penetrated to the depths of my heart and established itself there; it shattered my profound sleep and heedlessness. I went out of the mosque. Because of the stupor of the sleep which for a long time had settled in my head, for several days a tempest raged in it, and I saw myself as a boat with smoking boilers and compass spinning. Every time I looked at my hair in the mirror, the grey hairs told me: “Take note of us!” And so the situation became clear through the warnings of my grey hairs.

I looked and saw that my youth which so captivated me with its pleasures and in which I so trusted was bidding me farewell, and that this worldly life which I so loved and with which I was so involved was beginning to be extinguished, and that the world with which I was closely connected and of which I was quite simply the lover was saying to me: “Have a good journey!”, and was warning me that I would be leaving this guesthouse.

It too was saying “Good-bye,” and was preparing to depart. The following meaning was unfolding in my heart from the indications of the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition’s verse,Every living creature shall taste death: the human race is a living creature; it shall die in order to be resurrected. The globe of the earth is a living creature; it also will die in order to take on an eternal form. The world too is a living creature; it will die in order to assume the form of the hereafter.

While in this state, I considered my situation. I saw that youth, which is the source of pleasure, was departing; while old age, the source of sorrow, was approaching; that life, which is so shining and luminous, was taking its leave; while death, which is terrifying and apparently darkness, was preparing to arrive; and that the lovable world, which is thought to be permanent and is the beloved of the heedless, was hastening to its decease.

In order to deceive myself and again plunge my head into heedlessness I considered the pleasures of the social standing I enjoyed in Istanbul, which was far higher than I deserved, but there was no advantage in it at all. All the regard, attention, and consolation of people could only accompany me as far as the looming door of the grave; there it would be extinguished. Since I saw it to be a tedious hypocrisy, cold conceit, and temporary stupefaction under the embellished veil of glory and renown, which is the illusory aim of those who chase fame, I understood that these things which had until then deceived me could provide me with no solace, there was no light to be found in them at all.

I again started to listen to the reciters in Bayezid Mosque in order to hear the Qur’an’s heavenly teaching, and to awaken once more. From its sublime instruction I heard good news through sacred decrees of the sort, And give glad tidings to those who believe.(2:25, etc.) With its effulgence, I sought consolation, hope, and light, within the points at which I had felt horror, desolation and despair, not outside them. Endless thanks be to Almighty God, I found the cure within the malady itself, I found the light within the darkness itself, I found the solace within the horror itself.

Firstly, I looked in the face of death, which is imagined to be most terrible and terrifies everyone. Through the light of the Qur’an I saw that although its veil is black, dark, and ugly, for believers its true face is luminous and beautiful. We have proved this truth decisively in many parts of the Risale-i Nur. For example, as we explained in the Eighth Word and the Twentieth Letter, death is not annihilation and separation, but the introduction to eternal life, its beginning. It is a rest from the hardships of life’s duties, a demobilization. It is a change of residence. It is to meet with the caravan of one’s friends who have already migrated to the Intermediate World; and so on. I saw death’s true, beautiful face through truths like these. I looked at death’s face not with fear, but with a sort of longing. I understood one meaning of the Sufis’ contemplation of death.

Then I considered my departed youth – youth, which makes everyone weep on its passing, which infatuates them and fills them with desire, causing them to pass it in sin and heedlessness. I saw that within its beautiful embroidered garb was an ugly, drunken, stupified face. Had I not learnt its true nature, it would have made me weep for a hundred years if I remained in the world that long, instead of intoxicating and amusing me for a few years. Just as one such peson said lamenting:

“If only one day my youth would return, I would tell it of the woes old age has brought me.”

Indeed, elderly people like the above who do not know the true nature of youth, think of their own youth, and weep with regret and longing.

But when youth belongs to believers with sound minds and hearts, it is a most powerful, agreeable and pleasant means of securing good works and trade for the hereafter, so long as they spend it on worship, and that trade and those good works. For those who know their religious duties and do not misspend their youth, it is a precious and delightful divine bounty. But when it is not spent in moderation, uprightness, and fear of God, it contains many dangers; it damages eternal happiness and the life of this world. In return for the pleasures of one or two years’ youth, in old age it causes many years of grief and sorrow.

Since for most people youth is harmful, we elderly people should thank God that we have been saved from its dangers and harm. Like everything else, the pleasures of youth depart. If they have been spent on worship and good works, the fruits of such a youth remain perpetually in their place and are the means of gaining youth in eternal life.

Next, I considered the world, with which most people are infatuated and to which they are addicted. Through the light of the Qur’an, I saw that it has three faces, one within the other:The First looks to the divine names; it is a mirror to them Its Second Face looks to the hereafter, and is its tillage. Its Third Face looks to the worldly; it is the playground of the heedless.

Moreover, everyone has his own vast world within this world. Simply, there are worlds one within the other to the number of human beings. The pillar of each person’s private world is his own life. If his body gives way, his world collapses on his head, it is doomsday for him. Since the heedless and neglectful do not realize that their world will be so quickly destroyed, they suppose it to be permanent like the general world and worship it.

I thought to myself: “I too have a private world that will swiftly collapse and be demolished like the worlds of other people. What value is there in this private world, this brief life of mine?”

Then, through the light of the Qur’an, I saw that both for myself and everyone else, this world is a temporary place of trade, a guesthouse which is every day filled and emptied, a market set up on the road for the passers-by to shop in, an ever-renewed notebook of the Pre-Eternal Inscriber which is constantly written and erased, and every spring is a gilded letter, and every summer a well-composed ode; that it is formed of mirrors reflecting and renewing the manifestations of the All-Glorious Maker’s names; is a seed-bed of the hereafter, a flower-bed of divine mercy, and a special, temporary workshop for producing signboards which will be displayed in the world of eternity.I offered a hundred thousand thanks to the All-Glorious Creator who had made the world in this way.

And I understood that while love for the beautiful, inner faces of the world which look to the hereafter and divine names had been given to mankind, since they spent it on its transient, ugly, harmful, heedless face, they manifested the meaning of the Hadith: “Love of this world is the chief of all errors.”(*)

Elderly people! I realized this truth through the light of the All-Wise Qur’an, and the warnings of my old age, and belief opening my eyes. And I have demonstrated it with decisive proofs in many places in the Risale-i Nur. I experienced a true solace, powerful hope, and shining light. I was thankful for my old age, and I was happy that my youth had gone. You too do not weep, but offer thanks. Since there is belief and the truth is thus, it should be the heedless who weep and the misguided who lament.

NINTH HOPE

In the First World War, as a prisoner, I was in the distant province of Kosturma in north-eastern Russia. There was a small mosque belonging to the Tatars beside the famous River Volga. I used to become wearied among my friends, the other officers. I craved solitude, yet I could not wander about outside without permission. Then they took me on bail to the Tatar quarter, to that small mosque on the banks of the Volga. I used to sleep there, alone. Spring was close. I used to be very wakeful during the long, long nights of that northern land; the sad plashing of the Volga and the mirthless patter of the rain and the melancholy sighing of the wind of those dark nights in that dark exile had temporarily roused me from a deep sleep of heedlessness.

I did not yet consider myself old, but those who had experienced the Great War were old. For those were days that, as though manifesting the verse:A day that will turn the hair of children grey,(73:17) made even children old. While I was forty years old, I felt myself to be eighty. In those long, dark nights and sorrowful exile and melancholic state, I despaired of life and of my homeland. I looked at my powerlessness and aloneness, and my hope failed. Then, while in that state, succour arrived from the All-Wise Qur’an; my tongue said:

God is enough for us; and how excellent a guardian is He.(3:173)

And weeping, my heart cried out: “I am a stranger, I am alone, I am weak, I am powerless: I seek mercy, I seek forgiveness, I seek help from You, O my God!”

And, thinking of my old friends in my homeland, and imagining myself dying in exile there, like Niyazi Misri, my spirit poured forth these lines:

Fleeing the world’s grief,

Taking flight with ardour and longing, Opening my wings to the void, Crying with each breath, Friend! Friend!

It was searching for its friends. Anyway, my weakness and impotence became such potent intercessors and means at the divine court on that melancholy, pitiful, separation-afflicted, long night in exile that now I still wonder at it. For several days later I escaped in the most unexpected manner, on my own, not knowing Russian, across a distance that would have taken a year on foot. I was saved in a wondrous fashion through divine favour, which was bestowed as a consequence of my weakness and impotence. Then, passing through Warsaw and Austria, I reached Istanbul, so that to be saved in this way so easily was quite extraordinary. I completed the long flight with an ease and facility that even the boldest and most cunning Russian-speakers could not have accomplished.

That night in the mosque on the banks of the Volga made me decide to pass the rest of my life in caves. Enough now of mixing in this social life of people. Since finally I would enter the grave alone, I said that from now on I would chose solitude in order to become accustomed to it.

But regretfully, things of no consequence like my many and serious friends in Istanbul, and the glittering worldly life there, and in particular the fame and honour accorded me, which were far greater than my due, made me temporarily forget my decision. It was as though that night in exile was a luminous blackness in my life’s eye, and the glittering white daytime of Istanbul, a lightless white in it. It could not see ahead, it still slumbered. Until two years later, Ghawth al-Geylani opened my eyes once more with his book Futuh al-Ghayb.

O elderly men and women! Know that the weakness and powerless of old age are means for attracting divine grace and mercy. The manifestation of mercy on the face of the earth demonstrates this truth in the clearest fashion, just as I have observed it in myself on numerous occasions. For the weakest and most powerless of animals are the young. But then it is they who receive the sweetest and most beautiful manifestation of mercy. The powerlessness of a young bird in the nest at the top of a tree attracts the manifestation of mercy to employ its mother like an obedient soldier. Its mother flies all around and brings it its food. When with its wings growing strong the nestling forgets its impotence, its mother tells it to go and find its own food, and no longer listens to it.

Just as this mystery of mercy is in force for the young, so is it in force for the elderly, who resemble young in regard to weakness and impotence. I have had experiences which have led me to form the unshakeable conviction that just as the sustenance of infants is sent to them in wondrous fashion by divine mercy on account of their impotence, being made to flow forth from the springs of breasts; so too the sustenance of believing elderly, who acquire innocence, is sent in the form of plenty. This truth is also proved by the Hadith which says: “If it were not for your elderly folk with their bent backs, calamities would have descended on you in floods.”(*)It states both that a household’s source of plenty is its elderly inhabitants, and that it is the elderly that preserve the household from the visitation of calamities.

Since the weakness and impotence of old age are thus the means of attracting divine mercy to this extent; and since with its verses: Whether one or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honour. * And out of kindness, lower the wing of humility, and say: “My Sustainer! Bestow on them Your mercy even as they cherished me in childhood,”(17:23-4) the All-Wise Qur’an summons children most miraculously in five ways to be kind and respectful towards their elderly parents; and since the religion of Islam commands respect and compassion towards the elderly; and since human nature also requires respect and compassion towards the aged; we elderly people certainly receive significant, constant mercy and respect from divine grace and human feeling in place of the fleeting physical pleasures and appetites of youth, as well as the spiritual pleasures arising from respect and compassion.

Since this is the case, we would not exchange this old age of ours for a hundred youths. Yes, I can tell you certainly that even if they were to give me ten years of the Old Said’s youth, I would not give one year of the New Said’s old age. I am content with my old age, and you too should be content with yours!

TENTH HOPE

For a year or two in Istanbul after returning from being held as a prisoner-of-war, I was overcome by heedlessness. The politics of the day directed my attention away from myself and scattered it on the outside world. Then one day I was sitting on a high spot overlooking the valley of the Eyüb Sultan graveyard in Istanbul when I was overcome by a state of mind in which, while I was looking down on it, it seemed my private world was dying and my spirit was withdrawing. I said: “I wonder if it’s the inscriptions on the gravestones that are giving me such illusions?”, and I drew back my gaze. I looked not at the distance, but at the graveyard. Then the following was imparted to my heart: “This graveyard around you holds Istanbul a hundred times over, for Istanbul has been emptied here a hundred times.

You cannot escape from the command of the All-Wise and Powerful One who has poured all the people of Istanbul into here; you are no exception; you too will depart.”

I left the graveyard and with those awesome thoughts entered a small cell in Sultan Eyüb Mosque where I had stayed many times before. I thought to myself, I am a guest in three respects: I am a guest in this tiny room, I am also a guest in Istanbul, and a guest in this world. A guest has to think of the road. Just as I shall leave this room, so one day I shall leave Istanbul, and yet another day I shall depart from this world.

While in this state of mind, I, my heart, was overwhelmed by a most pitiful, grievous sorrow. I was not losing only one or two friends; I would be parted from the thousands of people I loved in Istanbul, and I would also part from Istanbul, which I also loved much. And just as I would be parted from hundreds of thousands of friends in this world, so I would leave the beautiful world, with which I was captivated and I loved. While pondering over this, I climbed once more to that spot in the graveyard.

I had been to the cinema from time to time to take lessons, and just then all the dead of Istanbul appeared to me to be walking around, like the cinema shows in the present the images of the past. And all the people I could see at that time appeared to be corpses walking around. My imagination told me: some of the dead in the graveyard appear to be walking around as though on the cinema-screen, so you should see the people of the present, who are bound to enter the graveyard in the future, as having entered it; they too are corpses, walking around.

Suddenly through the light of the Qur’an and through the guidance of Ghawth al- A‘zam, Shaykh Geylani, my grievous state was transformed into a joyful one. It was like this:

The light proceeding from the Qur’an gave me the following thought: you had one or two officer friends while a prisoner-of-war in exile in Kosturma in the north- east. You knew that they would in any event go to Istanbul. If one of them had asked you: “Do you want to go to Istanbul, or to stay here?” For sure if you had had a jot of intelligence, you would joyfully have chosen to go to Istanbul. For out of a thousand and one friends, nine hundred and ninet y-nine were already in Istanbul. Only one or two remained there, and they too would leave. Going to Istanbul for you would not be a sad departure and sorrowful separation. Moreover you have come here and were you not happy to do so? You were delivered from the long, dark nights and cold, stormy winters in that enemy country. You came to Istanbul, a worldly paradise.

In just the same way, from your childhood to your present age, ninety-nine out of a hundred of those you love have migrated to the graveyard, which terrifies you. You have one or two friends still in this world, and they too will depart. Your death in this world is not separation; it is union; it is to be reunited with all those friends. I was reminded that they, that is those immortal spirits, have left behind under the earth their worn-out dwellings, and some of them are travelling about the stars and some in the levels of the Intermediate Realm.

Yes, the Qur’an and belief proved this truth so certainly that you should believe it as though seeing it if you are not entirely lacking heart and spirit, and misguidance has not suffocated your heart. For most certainly and self-evidently the All-Generous Maker who adorns this world with innumerable sorts of gifts and bounties, and demonstrates His dominicality munificently and compassionately, and preserves even the least significant things like seeds, would not annihilate or send to nothingness or waste man as unkindly and purposelessly as it superficially appears, for he is the most perfect, comprehensive, important, and beloved among His creatures. Rather, like the seeds a farmer scatters on the earth, the Compassionate Creator temporarily casts that beloved creature of His under the ground, which is a door of mercy, in order to produce shoots in another life.(*)

After receiving this reminder of the Qur’an, the graveyard became more familiar to me than Istanbul. Solitude and retirement became more pleasurable to me than conversation and company, and I found a place of seclusion for myself in Sar›yer on the Bosphorus. There, Ghawth al-A‘zam (May God be pleased with him) became a master, doctor, and guide for me with his Futuh al-Ghayb, while Imam Rabbani (May God be pleased with him) became a companion, sympathetic friend, and teacher with his Maktubat (Letters). Then I was extremely happy I had approached old age, withdrawn from civilization, and slipped free of social life. I thanked God.

O respected persons who have entered upon old age and who frequently recall death through its warnings! In accordance with the light of the teachings of belief taught by the Qur’an, we should look favourably on old age, death, and illness, and even love them in one respect. Since we have an infinitely precious bounty like belief, old age, and illness, and death are all agreeable. If there are things that are disagreeable, they are sin, vice, innovations, and misguidance.

ELEVENTH HOPE

After my return from captivity, I was living together with my nephew Abdurrahman(*) in a villa on the hill at Çamlıca in Istanbul. From the point of view of worldly life, my situation could have been thought to be the most fortunate for people like us. For I had been saved from being a prisoner-of-war and in the Darü’l-Hikmet we were being successful in propagating knowledge in an elevated way suitably to my profession, the learned profession. The honour and esteem afforded me were far greater than my due. I was living in Çamlıca, the most beautiful place in Istanbul. Everything was perfect for me. I was together with the late Abdurrahman, my nephew, who was extremely intelligent and self-sacrificing, and was both my student, and servant, and scribe, and spiritual son.

But then, knowing myself to be more fortunate than anyone else in the world, I looked in the mirror and I saw grey hairs in my hair and beard. Suddenly, the spiritual awakening I had experienced in the mosque in Kosturma while in captivity recommenced. I began to study the circumstances and causes to which I felt geniune attachment and which I supposed were the source of happiness in this world. But whichever of them I studied, I saw that it was rotten; it was not worth the attachment; it was deceptive. Around that time, I suffered an unexpected and unimaginable act of disloyalty and unfaithfulness at the hands of a friend whom I had supposed to be most loyal. I felt disgust at the world. I said to myself: “Have I been altogether deceived? I see that many people look with envy at our situation, which in reality should be pitied. Are all these people crazy, or is it me that has gone crazy so that I see all these worldly people as such?”

Anyway, as a result of this severe awakening caused me by old age, first of all I saw the transitoriness of all the ephemeral things to which I was attached. Then I looked at myself, and I saw myself to be utterly impotent. So then my spirit declared, which desires immortality and was infatuated with ephemeral beings imagining them to be immortal: “Since I am a transient being with regard to my body, what good can come of these ephemeral things? Since I am powerless, what can I await from these powerless things? What I need is one who is Eternal and Enduring, one who is Pre- Eternal and All-Powerful, who will provide a remedy for my ills.” And I began to search.

Then, before everything, I had recourse to the learning I had studied of old, I began to search for a consolation, a hope. But unfortunately, up to that time I had filled my mind with the sciences of philosophy as well as the Islamic sciences, and quite in error had imagined those philosophical sciences to be the source of progress and means of illumination. However, those philosophical matters had greatly dirtied my spirit and been an obstacle to my spiritual development.

Suddenly, through Almighty God’s mercy and munificence, the sacred wisdom of the All-Wise Qur’an came to my assistance. As is explained in many parts of the Risale-i Nur, it washed away and cleansed the dirt of those philosophical matters.

For instance, the spiritual darknesses arising from science and philosophy plunged my spirit into the universe. Whichever way I looked seeking a light, I could find not a gleam in those matters, I could not breathe. And so it continued until the instruction in divine unity given by the phrase from the All-Wise Qur’an “There is no god but He” dispersed all those layers of darkness with its brilliant light, and I could breathe with ease. But relying on what they had learnt from the people of misguidance and philosophers, my soul and Satan attacked my reason and my heart. All thanks be to God, the ensuing debate with my soul resulted in the victory of my heart.

Those exchanges have been described in part in many parts of the Risale-i Nur. So deeming them to be sufficient, here I shall explain only one proof out of thousands in order to show one thousandth part of that victory of the heart. In this way it may also cleanse the spirits of certain elderly people which have been dirtied in their youth, and their hearts sickened and souls spoilt, by matters which though called Western philosophy or the sciences of civilization, are in part misguidance and in part trivia. And through divine unity, they may be saved from evil of Satan and the soul. It is as follows:

My soul said in the name of science and philosophy: “According to the nature of things, the beings in the universe intervene in other beings. Everything looks to a cause. The fruit has to be sought from the tree and seed from the soil. So what does it mean to seek the tiniest and least insignificant thing from God and to beseech Him for it?”

Through the light of the Qur’an, the meaning of divine unity then unfolded in the following way:

like the greatest thing, the tiniest and most particular proceeds directly from the power of the Creator of the whole universe and emerges from His treasury. It cannot occur in any other way. As for causes, they are merely a veil. For in regard to art and creation, sometimes the creatures we suppose to be the smallest and least important are greater than the largest creatures. Even if a fly is not of greater art than a chicken, it is not of lesser art. In which case, no difference should be made between great and small. Either all should be divided between material causes, or all should be attributed at once to a single Being. And just as the former is impossible, the latter is necessary and imperative.

For if beings are attributed to a single Being, that is to a Pre-Eternal All-Powerful One, since His knowledge, the existence of which is certain by reason of the order and wisdom in all beings, encompasses everything; and since the measure of all things is determined in His knowledge; and since observedly beings which are infinitely full of art continuously come into existence from nothing with infinite ease; and since in accordance with innumerable powerful evidences that All-Knowing All-Powerful One is able to create anything whatever through the command of “‘Be!’ and it is” as simply as striking a match, and as is explained in many parts of the Risale-i Nur and proved particularly in the Twentieth Letter and at the end of the Twenty-Third Flash, He possesses unlimited power – since this is the case, the extraordinary ease and facility which we observe arises from that all-encompassing knowledge and vast power.

For example, if a special solution is applied to a book written in invisible ink, that huge book suddenly demonstrates its existence visibly and makes itself read. In just the same way, the particular form and appointed measure of everything is determined in the all-encompassing knowledge of the Pre-Eternal All-Powerful One. Through the command of “‘Be!’ and it is” and with that limitless power of His and penetrating will, like spreading the solution on the writing, the Absolutely All-Powerful One applies a manifestation of His power to the being which exists as knowledge and with utter ease and facility gives it external existence; He displays and makes read the embroideries of His wisdom.

If all things are not all together attributed to that Pre-Eternal All-Powerful One, the One Knowing of All Things, then as well as having to gather together in a particular measure from most of the varieties of beings in the world the body of the tiniest thing like a fly, the particles which work in that tiny fly’s body will have to know the mysteries of the fly’s creation and its perfect art in all its minutest details.

For as all the intelligent agree, natural causes and physical causes cannot create out of nothing. In which case, if they do create, they will gather the being together. And since they will gather it together – whatever animate being it is, there are within it samples of most of the elements and most of the varieties of beings, for living creatures are quite simply like a seed or essence of the universe – it will of course be necessary for them to gather together a seed from the whole tree and an animate being from the whole face of the earth sifting them through a fine sieve and measuring them with the most sensitive balance.

And since natural causes are ignorant and lifeless, and have no knowledge with which to determine a plan, index, model, or programme according to which they can smelt and pour the particles which enter the immaterial mould of the being in question, so they do not disperse and spoil its order, it is clear how far it is from possibility and reason to suppose that, without mould or measure, they can make the particles of the elements which flow like floods remain one on the other in the form of an orderly mass without dispersing, for everything has a single form and measure amid possibilities without calculation or count. For sure, everyone who does not suffer from blindness in his heart will see it.

Yes, in consequence of this truth, according to the meaning of the verse, Those on whom you call besides God cannot create [even] a fly, if they all met together for the purpose,(22:73)(*)if all material causes were to gather together and if they possessed will, they could not gather together the being of a single fly and its systems and organs with their particular balance. And even if they could gather them together, they could not make them remain in the specified measure of the being. And even if they could make them remain thus, they could not make those minute particles, which are constantly being renewed and coming into existence and working, work regularly and in order. In which case, self-evidently, causes cannot claim ownership of things. That is to say, their True Owner is someone else.

Indeed, their True Owner is such that, according to the verse,Your creation and your resurrection is as a single soul,(32:28) He raises to life all the living beings on the face of the earth as easily as He raises to life a single fly. He creates the spring as easily as He creates a single flower. For He has no need to gather things together. Since He is the owner of the command of “‘Be!’ and it is;” and since every spring He creates from nothing the innumerable attributes, states, and forms of the innumerable beings of spring together with the elements of their physical beings; and since He determines the plan, model, index, and programme of everything in His knowledge; and since all minute particles are in motion within the sphere of His knowledge and power; He therefore creates everything with infinite ease as though striking a match. And nothing at all confuses its motion so much as an iota. And minute particles are like a regular, disciplined army in the same way that the planets are an obedient army.

Since they are in motion relying on that pre-eternal power and function in accordance with the principles of that pre-eternal knowledge, those works come into existence in accordance with the power. They therefore cannot be deemed insignificant by considering their unimportant individualities. For through the strength of being connected to that power, a fly can kill off Nimrod, and an ant can destroy the Pharaoh’s palace, and the minute seed of the pine bears on its shoulder the burden of the pine-tree as tall as a mountain. We have proved this truth in numerous places in the Risale-i Nur: just as through his enlistment in the army and being connected to the king, an ordinary soldier can take another king prisoner, exceeding his own capacity a hundred thousand times; so too, by being connected to pre-eternal power, all things can manifest miracles of art exceeding the capacity of natural causes hundreds of thousands of times.

In Short: The fact that all things come into existence with both infinite art and infinite ease shows that they are the works of a Pre-Eternal All-Powerful One possessing all-encompassing knowledge. Otherwise, let alone coming into existence with a hundred thousand difficulties, leaving the bounds of possibility and entering those of impossibilit y, nothing could even come into existence, indeed, their coming into existence would be impossible and precluded.

Thus, through this most subtle, powerful, profound, and clear proof, my soul, which had been a temporary student of Satan and the spokesman for the people of misguidance and the philosophers, was silenced, and, all praise be to God, came to believe completely. It said:

Yes, what I need is a Creator and Sustainer who possesses the power to know the least thoughts of my heart and my most secret wishes; and as He will answer the most hidden needs of my spirit, so he will transform the mighty earth into the hereafter in order to give me eternal happiness, and remove this world and put the hereafter in its place; and create the heavens as He creates a fly; and as He fastens the sun as an eye in the face of the sky, so he can situate a particle in the pupil of my eye. For one who cannot create a fly cannot intervene in the thoughts of my heart and cannot hear the pleas of my spirit. One who cannot create the heavens, cannot give me eternal happiness. In which case, my Sustainer is He who both purifies my heart’s thoughts, and like He fills and empties the skies with clouds in an hour, so he will transform this world into the hereafter, make Paradise, and open its doors to me, bidding me to enter.

My elderly brothers who as a result of misfortune, like my soul, have spent part of their lives on lightless Western materialist philosophy and science! Understand from the sacred decree of “There is no god but He” perpetually uttered by the tongue of the Qur’an, just how powerful, true, unshakeable, undamageable, unchanging, and sacred a pillar of belief it is, and how it disperses all spiritual darkness and cures all spiritual wounds!

I included this long story among the doors of hope of my old age as though involuntarily. I did not want to include it, indeed, I held back from doing so because I thought it would be tedious. But I have to say that I felt compelled to write it. Anyway, to return to the main topic:

In consequence of grey hairs appearing in my hair and beard and of a loyal friend’s unfaithfulness, I felt a disgust at the pleasures of Istanbul’s worldly life which was so glittering and superficially agreeable and gilded. My soul searched for spiritual pleasures in place of the pleasures with which it was obsessed. It wanted a light, a solace, in this old age which in the view of the heedless is cold, burdensome, and disagreeable. And all praise be to God and a hundred thousand thanks, just as I found true, lasting, and sweet pleasures of belief in “There is no god but He” and in the light of divine unity in place of all those false, disagreeable, fleeting worldly pleasures, so through the light of divine unity, I saw old age which in the view of the heedless is cold and burdensome to be most light, and warm, and luminous.

O you elderly men and women! Since you have belief and since you pray and offer supplications which illuminate and increase belief, you can regard your old age as eternal youth. For through it you can gain eternal youth. The old age which in truth is cold, burdensome, ugly, dark, and full of pain is the old age of the people of misguidance, indeed, their youth as well. It is they who should weep with sighs and regrets. While you, respected believing elderly people, should joyfully offer thanks saying: “All praise and thanks be to God for every situation!”

TWELFTH HOPE

One time, I was being held in the district of Barla in the province of Isparta in a distressing captivity called exile, in a truly wretched state suffering both illness, and old age, and absence from home, and in a village alone with no one, barred from all company and communication. Then, in His perfect mercy, Almighty God bestowed a light on me concerning the subtle points and mysteries of the All-Wise Qur’an which was a source of consolation for me. With it, I tried to forget my pitiful, sad state. I was able to forget my native land, my friends and relations, but alas, there was one person I could not forget and that was Abdurrahman, who was both my nephew, and my spiritual son, and my most devoted student, and my bravest friend. He had parted from me six or seven years previously. Neither he knew where I was so that he could hasten to help and console me, nor did I know his situation so that I could correspond with him and we could confide in each other. Now in my old age, I was in need of someone loyal and self-sacrificing like him.

Then out of the blue someone gave me a letter. I opened it and saw it was from Abdurrahman, written in a way which showed his true self. A part of it that clearly shows three instances of wonder-working has been included among the pieces of the Twenty-Seventh Letter. It made me weep, and it still makes me weep. The late Abdurrahman wrote in the letter seriously and sincerely that he was disgusted with the pleasures of the world and that his greatest desire was to reach me and look to my needs in my old age just as I had looked to his when he was young. He also wanted to help me with his capable pen in spreading the mysteries of the Qur’an, my true duty in this world. He even wrote in his letter: “Send me twenty or thirty treatises and I’ll write out twenty or thirty copies of each and get others to write them.”

His letter made me feel very hopeful in respect of the world. With the thought that I had found a bold student who was so intelligent as to be a genius and would assist me more loyally and with greater attachment than a true son, I forgot my torturous captivity, loneliness, exile, and old age. He had obtained a copy of the Tenth Word about belief in the hereafter before writing the letter. It was as if it had been a remedy for him curing all the spiritual wounds he had received during those six or seven years. He then wrote the letter to me as if he was awaiting his death with a truly strong and shining belief.

Then one or two months later while thinking of once again passing a happy worldly life together with Abdurrahman, alas, I received news of his death. I was so shaken that five years later I am still under its effect. It afflicted me with a grief, sorrow, and sense of separation far exceeding the torturous captivity, aloneness, exile, old age, and illness I was then suffering. Half of my private world had died with the death of my mother, and now with Abdurrahman’s death, the other half died. My ties with the world were now completely cut. For if he had lived, he could have been both a powerful help in my duties which looked to the hereafter, and a worthy successor to fill my place completely after me, and a most self-sacrificing friend and consolation. He would have been my cleverest student and companion, and a most trustworthy protector and owner of the Risale-i Nur.

Yes, in regard to humanity, such losses are extremely distressing and painful for people like me. It’s true outwardly I was trying to endure it, but a fierce storm was raging in my spirit. If from time to time solace proceeding from the Qur’an’s light had not consoled me, I would not have been able to endure it. At the time I used to wander alone in the mountains and valleys of Barla. Sitting in lonely places amid my sorrows, pictures of the happy life I had spent in former times with my loyal students like Abdurrahman passed through my imagination like the cinema; since due to old age and exile I was swiftly affected, they broke my resistance.

Suddenly the sacred meaning of the verse,Everything shall perish save His countenance; His is the command, and to Him shall you return(28:88) was unfolded to me. It caused me to declare: “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal! O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!”, and truly consoled me.Then, inspired by this verse’s meaning as is described in the treatise, The Highway of the Practices of the Prophet (UWBP), I saw myself while in that lonely valley and sad state, at the head of three vast corpses:

One was the sight of myself as a gravestone on the grave of the fifty-five dead Said’s of my fifty-five years who had been buried in the course of my life.

The second corpse was the vast corpse of all my fellow-men who had died since the time of Adam (UWP) and had been buried in the grave of the past. I saw myself as a miniscule ant-like living creature at the head of that corpse, wandering over the face of this century, which was like its gravestone.

The third corpse was the greater world which, like human beings and the travelling worlds which every year die, would also – in accordance with the above verse – die; this was embodied before my imagination. Then the verse, But if they turn away, say: “God suffices me, there is no god but He; in Him do I place my trust—He the Sustainer of the Throne [of Glory] Supreme!”(9:129)

illuminated with its true solace and inextinguishable light that awesome vision arising from my grief at Abdurrahman’s death; it came to my assistance with its allusive meaning, which states:

since Almighty God exists, He takes the place of everything. Since He is Eternal, He is surely sufficient. A single manifestation of His grace takes the place of the whole world.

One manifestation of His light infuses with life the three vast corpses mentioned above, showing that they are not corpses but having completed their duties, have departed for other worlds.

This mystery has been explained in the Third Flash, so that sufficing with the above, here I only say that the two repetitions of the phrase:

“O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal! O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!”, which illustrates the meaning of “Everything shall perish save His countenance [to the end of the verse],”(28:88) saved me from that distressing, sad state. It was like this:

The first time I uttered “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!”, it began to cure me like a surgical operation on the endless spiritual wounds arising from the passing of the world and of the friends in this world to whom I was attached, and from the ties binding me being broken.

The second time, the phrase “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!” was both a salve and an antidote for all those innumerable wounds. That is to say: “You are eternal. If the rest depart, let them; You are enough for me. Since You abide for ever, a single manifestation of Your mercy is sufficient in place of all transient things. Since You exist, everything exists for the person who knows of the connection with Your existence established through belief and Islam acts in accordance with that relation. Transience and decline, death and non-existence are a veil, a renewal; like travelling through different domains.” Thinking this, my painful, sad, grievous, dark, awesome, separation-stained state of mind was transformed into a happy, joyful, pleasurable, luminous, lovable, familiar state. My tongue and heart, indeed all the particles of my being through the tongue of disposition, exclaimed: “All praise be to God!”

One thousandth of that manifestation of mercy is this: I returned to Barla from that sorrowful valley and melancholy state of mind, where I saw that a young man called Kuleönlü Mustafa had come to ask me some questions about the five daily prayers and ablutions. Although I did not accept visitors at that hour, my spirit perceived as though with foresight his sincerity of spirit and the future valuable services he would perform for the Risale-i Nur,(*)and I did not turn him away, I accepted him.(*)It later became clear that Almighty God sent Mustafa to me as a sample in place of Abdurrahman, who as a worthy successor would carry out completely the duty of a true heir in the work of the Risale-i Nur, as though saying:

“I took one Abdurrahman from you, but I shall give you thirty like the Mustafa you see in return, who will be both students, and nephews, and spiritual sons, and brothers, and self-sacrificing comrades in this duty for religion.” Yes, praise be to God, He gave me thirty Abdurrahman’s.

So I told myself: “O weeping heart! Since you have seen this sample and through him He has healed the most serious of your spiritual wounds, be assured that He will heal all the rest of them.”

My elderly brothers and sisters who like me have lost at the time of their old age a child or relative they love dearly, and who have to bear the searing sorrows of separation together with the burdens of old age! You have understood from my situation that although it was much harsher than yours, it was cured and healed by a verse of the Qur’an. This being so, there are remedies in that sacred pharmacy to heal all your difficulties. If you have recourse to it through belief and make use of those remedies through worship, the heavy burdens of your old age and your sorrows will be alleviated considerably.

The reason for writing this long piece was to seek more prayers for Abdurrahman, not to weary you. Also, my purpose in showing my worst wound in an extremely grievous and unpleasant way which may upset you unduly and put you off, is to demonstrate what a wondrous remedy and brilliant light is the sacred antidote of the All-Wise Qur’an.

THIRTEENTH HOPE

(*)

In this Hope I shall describe an important scene from my life; it is bound to be somewhat lengthy, so I hope you will not become bored or be offended.

After being saved from captivity in Russia during the Great War, my serving religion in the Darü’l-Hikmet kept me in Istanbul for two or three years. Then through the guidance of the All-Wise Qur’an and spiritual influence of Ghawth al-A’zam and the awakening of old age, I felt a weariness at the civilized life of Istanbul and a disgust at its glittering social life. A feeling of longing for my native land drove me there, I went to Van with the thought that since I am bound to die, I’ll die in my own country.

First of all, I went to visit my medrese in Van, the Horhor. The Armenians had razed it during the Russian occupation, like the rest of the buildings. It was right under and adjacent to Van’s famous citadel, which is a great monolith like a mountain. My true friends, brothers, and close students of the medrese were embodied before my eyes. Some of those devoted friends had become actual martyrs, while others had died due to that calamity and had in effect become martyrs.

I could not restrain myself from weeping. I climbed to the top of the citadel which overlooking the medrese, towers above it to the height of two minarets, and I sat down. I went back in my imagination seven or eight years. Having a powerful imagination, I wandered all around that time in my mind. There was no one around to distract me and draw me back. For I was alone. As my view of those seven or eight years expanded, I saw enough to fill a century. I saw that the town at the foot of the citadel had been completely burnt and destroyed. It was as though two hundred years had passed from when I had seen it previously to them, it seemed so infinitely sad. Most of the houses’ inhabitants had been my friends and acquaintances. The majority of them had died in the migrations, may God have mercy on them, or had gone to a wretched exile. Only the Armenian quarter remained, all the Muslim houses of Van had been levelled. My heart was lacerated. I was so affected, if I had had a thousand eyes they would have all wept together.

I had returned to my homeland from exile; I had supposed that I had been saved from exile. But alas! the most lamentable exile I experienced was in my homeland. I saw that hundreds of my students and friends to whom I had been closely attached, like Abdurrahman in the Twelfth Hope, had entered the grave and that their places were all ruins. There were some lines that had long been in my mind but I had not understood their true meaning. Now before that sad scene I gained a full understanding of them. The lines were these:

“If there was no separation from friends, death could find no way to our spirits to seize them.”(*)

That is to say, what kills man most is separation from those he loves. Yes, nothing had caused me as much suffering and sorrow as that situation. If assistance had not come from the Qur’an and from belief, my grief and sorrow and suffering would have made my spirit fly away.

Since early times in their verses, poets have lamented the destruction with time of the places they have been together with their beloveds. I had seen this most painfully with my own eyes. With the sorrow of someone passing by the dwellings of beloved friends after two hundred years, my heart and spirit joined my eyes in weeping. Then one by one the happy scenes of the life I had passed for nearly twenty years in study with my valuable students, when the places which were now in ruins were flourishing and happy, sprang to life before me like pictures at the cinema, then died away and vanished. This continued before the eye of my imagination for some time.

Then I felt astonished at the state of the worldly, how is it that they deceive themselves? For the situation there showed clearly that this world is transitory and that human beings are guests within it. I saw with my own eyes how true are the constantly repeated words of the people of reality:

“The world is cruel, treacherous, bad; don’t be deceived by it!” I also saw that just as man is connected with his own body and household, so is he connected with his town, his country, and with the world. For while weeping with my two eyes at the pitifulness of old age in respect of my body, I wanted to weep with ten eyes not only at my medrese’s old age, but at its death. And I felt the need to weep with a hundred eyes at the half-death of my beautiful homeland.

Rivayet-i hadîste vardır ki her sabah bir melâike çağırıyor:

لِدُوا لِل۟مَو۟تِ وَاب۟نُوا لِل۟خَرَابِ yani “Ölmek için tevellüd edip dünyaya gelirsiniz, harap olmak için binalar yapıyorsunuz.” diyor. İşte bu hakikati, kulağımla değil gözümle işitiyordum.

Evet, o vaziyetim o vakit beni nasıl ağlattırmış; on senedir hayalim, o vaziyete uğradıkça yine ağlıyor. Evet, binler sene yaşamış o ihtiyar kalenin başındaki menzillerin harap olması ve onun altındaki şehrin sekiz sene zarfında sekiz yüz sene kadar ihtiyarlanması ve kale altındaki gayet hayattar ve mecma-ı ahbap olan medresemin vefatı, umum Osmanlı Devleti’nde bütün medreselerin vefatını gösteren cenazesinin manevî azametine işareten koca Van Kalesi’nin yekpare taşı, ona bir mezar taşı olmuş. Âdeta o medresedeki sekiz sene evvel benimle beraber bulunan merhum talebelerim, kabirlerinde benimle beraber ağlıyorlar. Belki o kasabanın harabe duvarları, dağılmış taşları benimle beraber ağlıyorlar ve onları ağlıyor gibi gördüm.

Ben o vakit anladım ki vatanımdaki bu gurbete dayanamayacağım, ya ben de kabre onların yanına gitmeliyim veyahut dağda bir mağaraya çekilip ecelimi orada beklemeliyim diye düşündüm. Dedim: Madem dünyada böyle tahammül edilmez, sabır-şiken, mukavemetsûz, yandırıcı firkatler var. Elbette mevt, hayata râcihtir. Hayatın bu ağır vaziyeti çekilir dertlerden değildir.

O vakit cihat-ı sitte denilen altı cihete nazar gezdirdim, karanlıklı gördüm. O şiddet-i teessürden gelen gaflet bana dünyayı korkunç, boş, hâlî, başıma yıkılacak bir tarzda gösterdi. Ruhum ise düşman vaziyetini alan hadsiz belalara karşı bir nokta-i istinad ararken ve ruhta ebede kadar uzanan hadsiz arzuları tatmin edecek bir nokta-i istimdad taharri ederken ve o hadsiz firak ve iftiraktan ve tahrip ve vefattan gelen hüzün ve gama karşı teselli beklerken, birden Kur’an-ı Mu’cizü’l-Beyan’ın سَبَّحَ لِلّٰهِ مَا فِى السَّمٰوَاتِ وَال۟اَر۟ضِ وَهُوَ ال۟عَزٖيزُ ال۟حَكٖيمُ ۝ لَهُ مُل۟كُ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَ ال۟اَر۟ضِ يُح۟يٖى وَ يُمٖيتُ وَ هُوَ عَلٰى كُلِّ شَى۟ءٍ قَدٖيرٌ âyetinin hakikati tecelli etti. O rikkatli, firkatli, dehşetli, hüzünlü hayalden beni kurtardı, gözümü açtırdı.

Baktım ki meyvedar ağaçların başlarındaki meyveleri tebessüm eder bir tarzda bana bakıyorlar “Bize de dikkat et, yalnız harabezara bakıp durma.” diyorlardı. Bu âyet-i kerîmenin hakikati böyle ihtar ediyordu ki: Van sahrasının sahifesinde misafir olan insanların eliyle yazılan ve şehir suretini alan sun’î bir mektubun, Rus istilası denilen dehşetli bir sel belasına düşüp silinmesi neden seni bu kadar müteessir ediyor? Asıl Mâlik-i Hakiki ve her şeyin sahibi ve Rabb’i olan Nakkaş-ı Ezelî’ye bak ki bu Van sahifesinde mektubatı, kemal-i şaşaa ile eski zamanda gördüğün vaziyeti yine devam edip yazılıyorlar. O yerler boş, harap, hâlî kalmış diye ağlamaların, Mâlik-i Hakiki’sinden gaflet ve insanları misafir tasavvur etmemekten ve mâlik tevehhüm etmek yanlışından ileri geliyor.

Fakat o yanlışlıktan ve o yakıcı vaziyetten bir hakikat kapısı açıldı. Ve o hakikati tam kabul etmeye nefis hazırlandı. Evet, nasıl ki bir demir ateşe sokulur tâ yumuşasın, güzel ve menfaattar bir şekil verilsin. Öyle de o hüzün-engiz halet ve o dehşetli vaziyet ateş oldu, nefsimi yumuşattı. Kur’an-ı Mu’cizü’l-Beyan, mezkûr âyetin hakikatiyle, hakaik-i imaniyenin feyzini tam ona gösterdi, kabul ettirdi.

Evet, lillahi’l-hamd şu âyetin hakikati, iman feyziyle (Yirminci Mektup gibi risalelerde kat’î ispat ettiğimiz gibi) herkesin kuvvet-i imaniyesi nisbetinde inkişaf eden öyle bir nokta-i istinad ruha ve kalbe verdi ki o vaziyetin dehşetinden yüz derece ziyade korkunç, zararlı musibetlere karşı gelebilir bir kuvveti, iman-ı billahtan verdi. Ve şöyle ihtar etti ki senin Hâlık’ın olan şu memleketin Mâlik-i Hakiki’sinin emrine her şey musahhardır, her şeyin dizgini onun elindedir, ona intisabın yeter.

O Hâlık’ıma dayanıp tanıdıktan sonra, düşman suretini alan bütün şeyler, düşmanlıklarını terk ettiler; ağlattıran hazîn haller, beni neşelendirmeye başladılar. Hem çok risalelerde kat’î bürhanlarla da ispat ettiğimiz gibi o hadsiz arzulara karşı iman-ı bi’l-âhiretten gelen nur ile öyle bir nokta-i istimdad verdi ki değil küçücük ve muvakkat, kısa, dünyevî ahbaplara karşı arzu ve rabıtalarıma belki ebedü’l-âbâdda, âlem-i bekada, saadet-i ebediyede hadsiz uzun arzularıma kâfi gelebilir bir nokta-i istimdad verdi.

Çünkü bir cilve-i rahmetiyle, muvakkat bir misafirhanesi olan bu dünyanın bir menzili olan şu zeminin yüzünde, o misafirlerini bir iki saat sevindirmek için bahar sofrasında hadd ü hesaba gelmez sanatlı, şirin nimetlerini, her baharda ihsan edip bir kahvaltı hükmünde o misafirlere yedirdikten sonra, mesken-i ebedîlerinde sekiz daimî cenneti hadsiz bir zamanda, hadsiz enva-ı nimetiyle doldurup ibadına ihzar eden bir Rahmanu’r-Rahîm’in rahmetine iman ile istinad edip, intisabını bilen elbette öyle bir nokta-i istimdad bulur ki en edna derecesi, hadsiz ebedî emellere meded verip idame eder.

Hem o âyetin hakikatiyle, imanın ziyasından gelen nur öyle parlak bir surette tecelli etti ki o zulümatlı olan cihat-ı sitteyi gündüz gibi aydınlattırdı. Çünkü bu medresem ve bu şehirde talebe ve dostlarımın arkalarında kalıp ağlamak vaziyetini şöyle aydınlattırdı ki: Ahbabın gittikleri âlem karanlıklı değil, yalnız yerlerini değiştirdiler; yine görüşeceksiniz diye ihtar etti. Ağlamayı tamamen kestirdi. Ve dünyada onların yerine geçecek ve benzeyecek olanları bulacağımı ifham etti. Evet, lillahi’l-hamd hem vefat eden Van medresesini Isparta medresesiyle ihya edip, oradaki ahbapları dahi daha çok, daha kıymettar talebeler ve ahbaplarla manen ihya etti.

Hem bildirdi ki dünya boş, hâlî olmadığını ve harap olmuş bir memleket suretini yanlış tasavvur ettiğimi, belki Mâlik-i Hakiki hikmetinin iktizasıyla, sun’î insanların levhasını değiştiriyor, mektubunu tazelendiriyor. Bir ağacın bir kısım meyvelerini kopardıkça yerine yine başka meyvelerin geldiği gibi nev-i beşerde bu zeval ve firak dahi bir teceddüddür, tazelenmektir. İman noktasında, ahbapsızlıktan gelen elîmane bir hüzün değil belki başka güzel bir yerde görüşmek üzere ayrılmaktan gelen, lezizane bir hüzün veren bir tazelenmektir.

Hem o dehşetli vaziyetten, kâinatın mevcudatının karanlıklı görünen yüzünü aydınlattı. Ben de o vakit o halete şükretmek istedim, Arabî şu fıkra geldi, tam o hakikati tasvir etti. Şöyle ki dedim:

اَل۟حَم۟دُ لِلّٰهِ عَلٰى نُورِ ال۟اٖيمَانِ ال۟مُصَوِّرِ مَا يُتَوَهَّمُ اَجَانِبَ اَع۟دَاءً اَم۟وَاتًا مُوَحِّشٖينَ اَي۟تَامًا بَاكٖينَ ؛ اَوِدَّاءَ اِخ۟وَانًا اَح۟يَاءً مُونِسٖينَ مُرَخَّصٖينَ مَس۟رُورٖينَ ذَاكِرٖينَ مُسَبِّحٖينَ

Yani “O şiddetli haletin tesirinden gelen gaflet ile kâinatın mevcudatı bir kısmı düşman ve ecnebi (Hâşiye), bir kısmı müthiş cenazeler, diğer kısmı ise kimsesizlikten ağlayan yetimler suretinde; gafil nefsime tevehhüm ile gösterilen bu korkunç levhayı, nur-u iman ile aynelyakîn gördüm ki o ecnebi, düşman görünenler birer dost kardeştirler. Ve o müthiş cenazeler ise kısmen hayattar ve ünsiyetkâr ve kısmen vazifeden terhis edilenlerdir. Ve o ağlayan yetimlerin vaveylâları ise zikir ve tesbihin zemzemeleri olduğunu nur-u iman ile gördüğümden, o hadsiz nimetlerin menbaı olan imanı bana veren Hâlık-ı Zülcelal’e hadsiz hamdediyorum. Ve bu dünyada, bu dünya kadar büyük hususi dünyamdaki bütün mevcudatı, hamd ve tesbihat-ı İlahiyede tasavvur ve niyetim ile istimal etmek bir hakkım olduğu nokta-i nazarından, bütün o mevcudatın her birisinin ve umumunun lisan-ı halleriyle beraber Elhamdülillahi alâ nuri’l-iman deriz.” demektir.

Hem o gafletkârane halet-i müthişeden hiçe inen ezvak-ı hayat ve bütün bütün çekilip kuruyan emeller ve en dar bir daire içinde sıkışıp kalan belki mahvolan şahsıma ait nimetler, lezzetler birden (başka risalelerde kat’î bir surette ispat ettiğimiz gibi) nur-u iman ile kalbin etrafındaki o dar daireyi öyle genişlettirdi ki kâinatı içine aldı ve o Horhor bahçesinde kurumuş ve lezzetini kaçırmış nimetler yerinde, dâr-ı dünya ve dâr-ı âhireti birer sofra-i nimet ve birer tabla-i rahmet şekline getirdi. Göz, kulak, kalp gibi on değil, yüz cihazat-ı insaniyenin her birini, gayet uzun bir el suretinde, her mü’minin derecesi nisbetinde o iki sofra-i Rahman’a uzatıp, her tarafından nimetleri toplayacak bir tarzda gösterdiğinden hem bu ulvi hakikati ifade hem o hadsiz nimete şükür için o vakit böyle demiştim:

اَل۟حَم۟دُ لِلّٰهِ عَلٰى نُورِ ال۟اٖيمَانِ ال۟مُصَوِّرِ لِلدَّارَي۟نِ مَم۟لُوؤَتَي۟نِ مِنَ النِّع۟مَةِ وَ الرَّح۟مَةِ لِكُلِّ مُؤ۟مِنٍ حَقًّا يَس۟تَفٖيدُ مِن۟هُمَا بِحَوَاسِّهِ ال۟كَثٖيرَةِ ال۟مُن۟كَشِفَةِ بِاِذ۟نِ خَالِقِهٖ

Yani “Dünya ve âhireti nimet ve rahmetle doldurmuş bir surette, hakiki mü’minlerin nur-u iman ve İslâmiyet’le inkişaf ve inbisat etmiş bütün hâsselerinin elleriyle o iki muazzam sofradan istifadeyi temin eden ve gösteren nur-u iman nimetinin mukabiline, o imanı bana veren Hâlık’ıma, bütün zerrat-ı vücudumla dünya ve âhiret dolusu hamd ve şükür, elimden gelse yaparım.” demektir.

Madem iman bu âlemde bu tesirat-ı azîmeyi yapar, elbette dâr-ı bekada öyle semerat ve füyuzatı olacak ki bu dünyadaki akıl ile onlar ihata edilmez ve tarif edilmez.

İşte, ey benim gibi ihtiyarlık münasebetiyle pek çok dostların firak acılarını çeken ihtiyar ve ihtiyareler! Sizin en ihtiyarınız her ne kadar zâhiren benden yaşlı ise de manen ben onlardan daha ziyade ihtiyarlığımı tahmin ediyorum. Çünkü fıtratımda rikkat-i cinsiye ile acımak hissi ziyade bulunduğundan, kendi elemimden başka binler kardeşlerimin elemlerini de o şefkat sırrıyla çektiğimden, yüzler sene yaşamış gibi ihtiyarım. Ve siz ne kadar firak belasını çekmiş iseniz benim kadar o belaya maruz kalmamışsınız.

Çünkü oğlum yoktur ki yalnız oğlumu düşüneyim. Bendeki fıtrî olan bu ziyade acımaklık ve şefkat, binler Müslüman evlatlarının, hattâ masum hayvanların teellümlerine karşı dahi bir rikkat, bir elem, o sırr-ı şefkat ile hissediyordum. Hususi bir hanem yoktur ki fikrimi yalnız ona hasredeyim; belki bu memleket ile ve belki âlem-i İslâm’ın kıtasıyla hanem gibi hamiyet-i İslâmiye noktasında alâkadarım. Ve o iki büyük hanedeki dindaşlarımın elemleriyle müteellim ve firaklarıyla mahzun oluyorum!

İşte bütün ihtiyarlığımdan ve firak belalarından gelen teessüratıma, bana nur-u iman tam kâfi geldi; kırılmaz bir rica, kopmaz bir ümit, sönmez bir ziya, bitmez bir teselli verdi. Elbette sizlere ihtiyarlıktan gelen karanlık ve gaflet ve teessürat ve teellümata, iman kâfi ve vâfidir. Asıl en karanlıklı ve en nursuz ve tesellisiz ihtiyarlık ve en elîm ve müthiş firak, ehl-i dalaletin ve ehl-i sefahetin ihtiyarlıklarıdır ve firaklarıdır.

O rica ve ziya ve teselli veren imanı zevk etmek ve tesiratını hissetmek için ihtiyarlığa lâyık ve İslâmiyet’e muvafık ubudiyetkârane bir tavr-ı şuurdarane takınmakla olur. Yoksa gençlere benzemeye çalışmak ve onların sarhoşça gafletlerine başını sokup ihtiyarlığını unutmakla değildir.

خَي۟رُ شَبَابِكُم۟ مَن۟ تَشَبَّهَ بِكُهُولِكُم۟ وَشَرُّ كُهُولِكُم۟ مَن۟ تَشَبَّهَ بِشَبَابِكُم۟ – اَو۟ كَمَا قَالَ – mealindeki hadîsi düşününüz. Yani “Gençlerinizin en iyisi, temkinde ve sefahetlerden çekilmekte ihtiyarlara benzeyenlerdir. Ve ihtiyarlarınızın en fenası, sefahette ve başını gaflete sokmakta gençlere benzeyenlerdir.”

Ey kardeşlerim ihtiyarlar ve hemşire ihtiyareler! Hadîs-i şerifte vardır ki: “Altmış yetmiş yaşlarında ihtiyar bir mü’min, dergâh-ı İlahiyeye elini kaldırıp dua ederken, rahmet-i İlahiye onun elini boş döndürmeye hicab ediyor.” Madem rahmet size karşı böyle hürmet ediyor, siz de rahmetin bu hürmetini ubudiyetinizle ihtiram ediniz.

On Dördüncü Rica

Dördüncü Şuâ olan Âyet-i Nuriye-i Hasbiye’nin başının hülâsası diyor ki: Bir zaman ehl-i dünya beni her şeyden tecrit ettiklerinden beş çeşit gurbetlere düşmüştüm. Sıkıntıdan gelen bir gaflet ile Risale-i Nur’un teselli verici ve meded edici nurlarına bakmayarak doğrudan doğruya kalbime baktım ve ruhumu aradım.

Gördüm ki gayet kuvvetli bir aşk-ı beka ve şedit bir muhabbet-i vücud ve büyük bir iştiyak-ı hayat ve hadsiz bir acz ve nihayetsiz bir fakr, bende hükmediyordu. Halbuki müthiş bir fena, o bekayı söndürüyor. O haletimde, yanık bir şairin dediği gibi dedim:

Dil bekası, Hak fenası istedi mülk-ü tenim

Bir devasız derde düştüm, âh ki Lokman bîhaber.

Meyusane başımı eğdim, birden حَس۟بُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِع۟مَ ال۟وَكٖيلُ imdadıma geldi “Beni dikkatle oku!” dedi. Ben de günde beş yüz defa okudum. Okudukça yalnız ilmelyakîn ile değil, aynelyakîn ile çok kıymettar envarından dokuz mertebe-i hasbiye bana inkişaf etti.

Birinci Mertebe-i Nuriye-i Hasbiye: Bendeki aşk-ı beka; bendeki bekaya değil belki sebepsiz ve bizzat mahbub olan kemal-i mutlak sahibi, Zat-ı Zülkemal’in ve Zülcelal’in bir isminin bir cilvesinin mahiyetimde bir gölgesi bulunduğundan, fıtratımda o Kâmil-i Mutlak’ın varlığına ve kemaline ve bekasına müteveccih olan muhabbet-i fıtriye, gaflet yüzünden yolunu şaşırmış, gölgeye yapışmış, âyinenin bekasına âşık olmuştu. حَس۟بُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِع۟مَ ال۟وَكٖيلُ geldi, perdeyi kaldırdı.

Gördüm ve hissettim ve hakkalyakîn zevk ettim ki bekamın lezzeti ve saadeti, aynen ve daha mükemmel bir tarzda Bâki-i Zülkemal’in bekasına ve benim Rabb’im ve İlah’ım olduğuna, tasdik ve imanımda ve iz’anımda vardır. Bunun edillesi, zevi’l-ehsası hayrette bırakacak gayet derin ve dakik on iki hemhemler ve şuur-u imanlar ile Risale-i Hasbiye’de beyan edilmiştir.

İkinci Mertebe-i Nuriye-i Hasbiye: Fıtratımdaki hadsiz aczimle beraber, ihtiyarlık ve gurbet ve kimsesizlik ve tecridim içinde; ehl-i dünya desiseleriyle, casuslarıyla bana hücum ettikleri hengâmda kalbime dedim: “Elleri bağlı, zayıf ve hasta bir tek adama ordular taarruz ediyor. Benim için bir nokta-i istinad yok mu?” diye حَس۟بُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِع۟مَ ال۟وَكٖيلُ âyetine müracaat ettim. Bana o âyet bildirdi ki:

İntisab-ı imanî vesikasıyla Kadîr-i Mutlak öyle bir Sultan’a intisap edersin ki zemin yüzünde her baharda dört yüz bin milletten mürekkeb nebatat ve hayvanat ordularının bütün cihazatlarını kemal-i intizam ile vermekle beraber, başta insan olarak hayvanatın muazzam ordusunun bütün erzaklarını, değil medeni insanların son zamanlarda keşfettikleri et ve şeker ve sair taamların hülâsaları gibi belki yüz derece o medeni hülâsalardan daha mükemmel ve bütün taamların her nevinden tohum ve çekirdek denilen Rahmanî hülâsalara koyup ve o hülâsaları dahi onların pişirmelerine ve inbisatlarına dair kaderî tarifeler içinde sarıp, muhafaza için küçük sandukçalara koyup tevdi eder. O sandukçaların icadı “Kün” emrinde bulunan “kâf-nun” fabrikasından o kadar çabuk ve kolay ve çoklukla olur ki Kur’an der: “Hâlık emreder, meydana gelir.” Madem sen, intisab-ı imanî tezkeresiyle böyle bir nokta-i istinad bulabildiğinden, hadsiz bir kuvvete ve kudrete dayanabilirsin.

Ben de âyetten bu dersimi aldıkça öyle bir kuvve-i maneviyeyi buldum ki değil şimdiki düşmanlarıma, belki dünyaya meydan okuyabilir bir iktidar-ı imanî hissederek, bütün ruhumla beraber حَس۟بُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِع۟مَ ال۟وَكٖيلُ dedim.

Üçüncü Mertebe-i Nuriye-i Hasbiye: Ben o gurbetler ve hastalıklar ve mazlumiyetlerin tazyikiyle dünyadan alâkamı kesilmiş bularak, ebedî bir dünyada ve bâki bir memlekette daimî bir saadete namzet olduğumu iman telkin ettiği hengâmda; tahassür akıtan “Of, of!”tan vazgeçip, beşaşet izhar eden “Oh, oh!” dedim.

Fakat bu gaye-i hayal ve hedef-i ruh ve netice-i fıtratın tahakkuku ancak ve ancak bütün mahlukatının bütün harekâtlarını ve sekenatlarını ve ahval ve a’mallerini, kavlen ve fiilen bilen ve kaydeden ve bu küçücük ve âciz-i mutlak nev-i insanı kendine dost ve muhatap eden ve bütün mahlukat üstünde bir makam veren bir Kadîr-i Mutlak’ın hadsiz kudretiyle ve insana nihayetsiz inayet ve ehemmiyet vermesiyle olabilir diye düşünürken bu iki noktada, yani böyle bir kudretin faaliyeti ve zâhiren bu ehemmiyetsiz insanın hakikatli ehemmiyeti hakkında imanın inkişafını ve kalbin itminanını veren bir izah istedim. Yine o âyete müracaat ettim. Dedi ki: “ حَس۟بُنَا daki نَا ya dikkat edip senin ile beraber lisan-ı hal ve lisan-ı kāl ile حَس۟بُنَا yı kimler söylüyorlar, dinle!” emretti.

Birden baktım ki hadsiz kuşlar ve kuşçuklar olan sinekler ve hesapsız hayvanlar ve nihayetsiz nebatlar ve gayetsiz ağaçlar dahi benim gibi lisan-ı hal ile حَس۟بُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِع۟مَ ال۟وَكٖيلُ manasını yâd ediyorlar ve herkesin yâdına getiriyorlar ki bütün şerait-i hayatiyelerini tekeffül eden öyle bir vekilleri var ki birbirine benzeyen ve maddeleri bir olan yumurtalar ve birbirinin misli gibi katreler ve birbirinin aynı gibi habbeler ve birbirine müşabih çekirdeklerden kuşların yüz bin çeşitlerini, hayvanların yüz bin tarzlarını, nebatatın yüz bin nevini ve ağaçların yüz bin sınıfını yanlışsız, noksansız, iltibassız, süslü, mizanlı, intizamlı, birbirinden ayrı, farikalı bir surette gözümüz önünde, hususan her baharda gayet çok, gayet kolay, gayet geniş bir dairede, gayet çoklukla halk eder, yapar bir kudretin azamet ve haşmeti içinde beraberlik ve benzeyişlik ve birbiri içinde ve bir tarzda yapılmalarıyla vahdetini ve ehadiyetini bize gösterir ve böyle hadsiz mu’cizatı ibraz eden bir fiil-i rububiyete, bir tasarruf-u hallakıyete müdahale ve iştirak mümkün olmadığını bildirir diye anladım.

Her mü’min gibi benim hüviyet-i şahsiyemi ve mahiyet-i insaniyemi anlamak isteyenler ve benim gibi olmak arzu edenler حَس۟بُنَا daki نَا cemiyetinde bulunan enenin, yani nefsimin tefsirine baksınlar. Ehemmiyetsiz, hakir ve fakir görünen vücudum –her mü’minin vücudu gibi– ne imiş, hayat ne imiş, insaniyet ne imiş, İslâmiyet ne imiş, iman-ı tahkikî ne imiş, marifetullah ne imiş, muhabbet nasıl olacakmış? Anlasınlar, dersini alsınlar!

Dördüncü Mertebe-i Nuriye-i Hasbiye: Bir vakit ihtiyarlık, gurbet, hastalık, mağlubiyet gibi vücudumu sarsan arızalar, bir gaflet zamanıma rast gelip şiddetle alâkadar ve meftun olduğum vücudumu, belki mahlukatın vücudlarını “Ademe gidiyor.” diye elîm bir endişe verirken yine bu Âyet-i Hasbiye’ye müracaat ettim. Dedi: “Manama dikkat et ve iman dürbünüyle bak!”

Ben de baktım ve iman gözüyle gördüm ki: Bu zerrecik vücudum, her mü’minin vücudu gibi hadsiz bir vücudun âyinesi ve nihayetsiz bir inbisat ile hadsiz vücudları kazanmasına bir vesile ve kendinden daha kıymettar bâki, müteaddid vücudları meyve veren bir kelime-i hikmet bulunduğunu ve mensubiyet cihetiyle bir an yaşaması, ebedî bir vücud kadar kıymettar olduğunu ilmelyakîn ile bildim.

Çünkü şuur-u iman ile bu vücudum, Vâcibü’l-vücud’un eseri ve sanatı ve cilvesi olduğunu anlamakla, vahşi evhamdan ve hadsiz firaklardan ve hadsiz müfarakat ve firakların elemlerinden kurtulup mevcudata, hususan zîhayatlara taalluk eden ef’al ve esma-i İlahiye adedince uhuvvet rabıtalarıyla münasebet peyda eylediğim bütün sevdiğim mevcudata muvakkat bir firak içinde daimî bir visal var olduğunu bildim.

İşte iman ile ve imandaki intisap ile her mü’min gibi bu vücudum dahi hadsiz vücudların firaksız envarını kazanır, kendi gitse de onlar arkada kaldığından kendisi kalmış gibi memnun olur.

Hülâsa: Ölüm firak değil, visaldir, tebdil-i mekândır, bâki bir meyveyi sümbül vermektir.

Beşinci Mertebe-i Nuriye-i Hasbiye: Yine bir vakit hayatım çok ağır şerait ile sarsıldı ve nazar-ı dikkatimi ömre ve hayata çevirdi. Gördüm ki: Ömrüm koşarak gidiyor, âhirete yakınlaşmış. Hayatım dahi tazyikat altında sönmeye yüz tutmuş. Halbuki Hay ismine dair risalede izah edilen hayatın mühim vazifeleri ve büyük meziyetleri ve kıymettar faydaları böyle çabuk sönmeye değil belki uzun yaşamaya lâyıktır diye müteellimane düşündüm. Yine üstadım olan حَس۟بُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِع۟مَ ال۟وَكٖيلُ âyetine müracaat ettim. Dedi: “Sana hayatı veren Hayy-ı Kayyum’a göre hayata bak!”

Ben de baktım, gördüm ki hayatımın bana bakması bir ise Zat-ı Hayy-ı Kayyum’a bakması yüzdür ve bana ait neticesi bir ise Hâlık’ıma ait bindir. Şu halde marzî-i İlahî dairesinde bir an yaşaması kâfidir, uzun zaman istemez.

Bu hakikat dört mesele ile beyan ediliyor. Ölü olmayanlar veyahut diri olmak isteyenler, hayatın mahiyetini ve hakikatini ve hakiki hukukunu o dört mesele içinde arasınlar, bulsunlar ve dirilsinler!..

Hülâsası şudur ki: Hayat, Zat-ı Hayy-ı Kayyum’a baktıkça ve iman dahi hayata hayat ve ruh oldukça beka bulur hem bâki meyveler verir hem öyle yükseklenir ki sermediyet cilvesini alır, daha ömrün kısalığına ve uzunluğuna bakılmaz.

Altıncı Mertebe-i Nuriye-i Hasbiye: Müfarakat-ı umumiye hengâmında olan harab-ı dünyadan haber veren âhir zaman hâdisatı içinde müfarakat-ı hususiyemi ihtar eden ihtiyarlık ve âhir ömrümde bir hassasiyet-i fevkalâde ile fıtratımdaki cemal-perestlik ve güzellik sevdası ve kemalâta meftuniyet hisleri inkişaf ettikleri bir zamanda, daimî tahribatçı olan zeval ve fena ve mütemadî tefrik edici olan mevt ve adem, dehşetli bir surette bu güzel dünyayı ve bu güzel mahlukatı hırpaladığını, parça parça edip güzelliklerini bozduğunu fevkalâde bir şuur ve teessür ile gördüm. Fıtratımdaki aşk-ı mecazî, bu hale karşı şiddetli galeyan ve isyan ettiği zamanda bir medar-ı teselli bulmak için yine bu Âyet-i Hasbiye’ye müracaat ettim. Dedi: “Beni oku ve dikkatle manama bak!”

Ben de Sure-i Nur’daki اَللّٰهُ نُورُ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَال۟اَر۟ضِ ... اِلٰى اٰخِرِ âyetinin rasathanesine girip imanın dürbünüyle bu Âyet-i Hasbiye’nin en uzak tabakalarına ve şuur-u imanî hurdebîni ile en ince esrarına baktım, gördüm:

Nasıl ki âyineler, şişeler, şeffaf şeyler, hattâ kabarcıklar; güneş ziyasının gizli ve çeşit çeşit cemalini ve o ziyanın elvan-ı seb’a denilen yedi renginin mütenevvi güzelliklerini gösteriyorlar ve teceddüd ve taharrükleriyle ve ayrı ayrı kabiliyetleriyle ve inkisaratlarıyla o cemal ve o güzellikleri tazeleştiriyorlar ve inkisaratlarıyla güneşin ve ziyasının ve elvan-ı seb’asının gizli güzelliklerini güzel izhar ediyorlar.

Aynen öyle de Şems-i ezel ve ebed olan Cemil-i Zülcelal’in cemal-i kudsîsine ve nihayetsiz güzel esma-i hüsnasının sermedî güzelliklerine âyinedarlık edip cilvelerinin tazelenmesi için bu güzel masnûlar, bu tatlı mahluklar, bu cemalli mevcudat, hiç durmayarak gelip gidiyorlar; kendilerinde görünen güzellikler ve cemaller, kendilerinin malı olmadığını, belki tezahür etmek isteyen sermedî ve mukaddes bir cemalin ve daimî tecelli eden ve görünmek isteyen mücerred ve münezzeh bir hüsnün işaretleri ve alâmetleri ve lem’aları ve cilveleri olduğunun pek çok kuvvetli delilleri Risale-i Nur’da tafsilen izah edilmiş. Burada o bürhanlardan üç tanesi, kısaca gayet makul bir surette zikredilmiştir diye beyana başlar.

Bu risaleyi gören her bir zevk-i selim ashabı hayrette kalmakla beraber kendilerinin istifadelerinden başka, gayrılarının da istifadelerine çalışmayı lâzım buluyorlar. Hususan ikinci bürhanda beş nokta beyan ediliyor. Aklı çürük, kalbi bozuk olmayan, herhalde takdir ve tahsin ve tasvip ile “Mâşâallah, fetebârekellah” diyecek; fakir, hakir görülen vücudunu teali ettirecek hârika bir mu’cize olduğunu derk ve tasdik edecek.

On Beşinci Rica

(Hâşiye)

Bir zaman Emirdağı’nda ikamete memur ve tek başıma bir menzilde âdeta bir haps-i münferid ve bana çok ağır gelen tarassudlar ve tahakkümler ile bana işkence vermelerinden hayattan usandım, hapisten çıktığıma teessüf ettim. Ruh u canımla Denizli Hapsini arzuladım ve kabre girmeyi istedim. Ve “Hapis ve kabir, bu tarz-ı hayata müreccahtır.” diye ya hapse veya kabre girmeye karar verirken, inayet-i İlahiye imdada yetişti; kalemleri teksir makinesi olan Medresetü’z-Zehra şakirdlerinin ellerine, yeni çıkan teksir makinesini verdi. Birden Nur’un kıymettar mecmualarından her tanesi, bir kalem ile beş yüz nüsha meydana geldi. Fütuhata başlamaları, o sıkıntılı hayatı bana sevdirdi “Hadsiz şükür olsun.” dedirtti.

Bir miktar sonra Risale-i Nur’un gizli düşmanları fütuhat-ı Nuriyeyi çekemediler. Hükûmeti aleyhimize sevk ettiler. Yine hayat bana ağır gelmeye başladı. Birden inayet-i Rabbaniye tecelli etti. En ziyade Nurlara muhtaç olan alâkadar memurlar, vazifeleri itibarıyla müsadere edilen Nur risalelerini kemal-i merak ve dikkatle mütalaa ettiler. Fakat Nurlar onların kalplerini kendine taraftar eyledi. Tenkit yerinde takdire başlamalarıyla, Nur dershanesi çok genişlendi; maddî zararımızdan yüz derece ziyade menfaat verdi, sıkıntılı telaşlarımızı hiçe indirdi.

Sonra gizli düşman münafıklar, hükûmetin nazar-ı dikkatini benim şahsıma çevirdiler. Eski siyasî hayatımı hatırlattırdılar. Hem adliyeyi hem Maarif Dairesini hem Zabıtayı hem Dâhiliye Vekâletini evhamlandırdılar. Partilerin cereyanları ve komünistlerin perdesinde anarşistlerin tahrikatıyla o evham genişlendi. Bizi tazyik ve tevkif ve ellerine geçen risaleleri müsadereye başladılar. Nur şakirdlerinin faaliyetine tevakkuf geldi. Benim şahsımı çürütmek fikriyle, bir kısım resmî memurlar, hiç kimsenin inanmayacağı isnadlarda bulundular. Pek acib iftiraları işaaya çalıştılar. Fakat kimseyi inandıramadılar.

Sonra pek âdi bahanelerle, zemheririn en şiddetli soğuk günlerinde beni tevkif ederek, büyük ve gayet soğuk ve iki gün sobasız bir koğuşta tecrid-i mutlak içinde hapsettiler. Ben küçük odamda günde kaç defa soba yakar ve daima mangalımda ateş varken, zafiyet ve hastalığımdan zor dayanabilirdim. Şimdi, bu vaziyette hem soğuktan bir sıtma hem dehşetli bir sıkıntı ve hiddet içinde çırpınırken bir inayet-i İlahiye ile bir hakikat kalbimde inkişaf etti.

Manen: “Sen hapse Medrese-i Yusufiye namı vermişsin hem Denizli’de sıkıntınızdan bin derece ziyade hem ferah hem manevî kâr hem oradaki mahpusların Nurlardan istifadeleri hem büyük dairelerde Nurların fütuhatı gibi neticeler, size şekva yerinde binler şükrettirdi, her bir saat hapsinizi ve sıkıntınızı, on saat ibadet hükmüne getirdi; o fâni saatleri bâkileştirdi. İnşâallah bu Üçüncü Medrese-i Yusufiyedeki musibetzedelerin Nurlardan istifadeleri ve teselli bulmaları, senin bu soğuk ve ağır sıkıntını hararetlendirip, sevinçlere çevirecek ve hiddet ettiğin adamlar eğer aldanmışlarsa bilmeyerek sana zulmediyorlar. Onlar hiddete lâyık değiller. Eğer bilerek ve garazla ve dalalet hesabına seni incitiyorlar ve işkence yapıyorlarsa onlar pek yakın bir zamanda, ölümün idam-ı ebedîsiyle kabrin haps-i münferidine girip, daimî sıkıntılı azap çekecekler. Sen onların zulmü yüzünden hem sevap hem fâni saatlerini bâkileştirmeyi hem manevî lezzetleri hem vazife-i ilmiye ve diniyeyi ihlas ile yapmasını kazanıyorsun!” diye ruhuma ihtar edildi.

Ben de bütün kuvvetimle “Elhamdülillah” dedim. İnsaniyet damarıyla o zalimlere acıdım. “Yâ Rabbî! Onları ıslah eyle!” diye dua ettim.

Bu yeni hâdisede, ifademde Dâhiliye Vekâletine yazdığım gibi on vecihle kanunsuz olduğu ve kanun namına kanunsuzluk eden o zalimler –asıl suçlu onlar olması gibi– öyle bahaneleri aradılar; işitenleri güldürecek ve hakperestleri ağlattıracak iftiraları ve uydurmalarıyla ehl-i insafa gösterdiler ki Risale-i Nur’a ve şakirdlerine ilişmeye, kanun ve hak cihetinde imkân bulamıyorlar, divaneliğe sapıyorlar.

Ezcümle: Bir ay bizi tecessüs eden memurlar, bir şey bahane bulamadıklarından bir pusula yazıp ki: “Said’in hizmetkârı bir dükkândan rakı almış, ona götürmüş.” O pusulayı imza ettirmek için hiç kimseyi bulamayıp sonra yabani ve sarhoş bir adamı yakalamışlar, tehditkârane “Gel bunu imza et!” demişler. O da demiş: “Tövbeler tövbesi olsun, bu acib yalanı kim imza edebilir?” Onları, pusulayı yırtmaya mecbur etmiş.

İkinci bir numune: Bilmediğim ve şimdi dahi tanımadığım bir zat, atını beni gezdirmek için vermiş, ben de rahatsızlığım için teneffüs kasdı ile ekser günlerde, yazda bir iki saat gezerdim. O at ve araba sahibine elli liralık kitap vermeye söz vermiştim. Tâ kaidem bozulmasın ve minnet altına girmeyeyim. Acaba bu işte hiçbir zarar ihtimali var mı? Halbuki “O at kimindir?” diye elli defa bizlerden hem vali hem adliyeciler hem zabıta ve polisler sordular. Güya büyük bir hâdise-i siyasiye ve asayişe temas eden bir vakıadır. Hattâ bu manasız soruşların kesilmesi için iki zat hamiyeten biri “At benimdir.” diğeri “Araba benimdir.” dedikleri için ikisini de benimle beraber tevkif ettiler.

Bu numunelere kıyasen, çok çocuk oyuncaklarına seyirci olup gülerek ağladık ve anladık ki: Risale-i Nur’a ve şakirdlerine ilişenler, maskara olurlar.

O numunelerden latîf bir muhavere: Benim tevkif kâğıdımda sebep, emniyeti ihlâl suçu yazıldığından, ben daha o pusulayı görmeden müddeiumuma dedim: “Seni geçen gece gıybet ettim.” Emniyet Müdürü hesabına beni konuşturan bir polise: “Eğer bin müddeiumumî ve bin emniyet müdürü kadar bu memlekette emniyet-i umumiyeye hizmet etmemiş isem –üç defa– Allah beni kahretsin!” dedim.

Sonra bu sırada, bu soğukta, en ziyade istirahate ve üşümemeye ve dünyayı düşünmemeye muhtaç olduğum bir hengâmda, garazı ve kasdı ihsas eder bir tarzda, beni bu tahammülün fevkinde bu tehcir ve tecrit ve tevkif ve tazyike sevk edenlere, fevkalâde iğbirar ve kızmak geldi. Bir inayet imdada yetişti. Manen kalbe ihtar edildi ki:

İnsanların sana ettikleri ayn-ı zulümlerinde, ayn-ı adalet olan kader-i İlahînin büyük bir hissesi var ve bu hapiste yiyecek rızkın var. O rızkın seni buraya çağırdı. Ona karşı rıza ve teslim ile mukabele lâzım.

Hikmet ve rahmet-i Rabbaniyenin dahi büyük bir hissesi var ki bu hapistekileri nurlandırmak ve teselli vermek ve size sevap kazandırmaktır. Bu hisseye karşı, sabır içinde binler şükretmek lâzımdır.

Hem senin nefsinin bilmediğin kusurlarıyla onda bir hissesi var. O hisseye karşı istiğfar ve tövbe ile nefsine “Bu tokada müstahak oldun!” demelisin.

Hem gizli düşmanların desiseleriyle bazı safdil ve vehham memurları iğfal ile o zulme sevk etmek cihetiyle, onların da bir hissesi var. Ona karşı Risale-i Nur’un o münafıklara vurduğu dehşetli manevî tokatlar, senin intikamını tamamen onlardan almış. O, onlara yeter.

En son hisse, bilfiil vasıta olan resmî memurlardır. Bu hisseye karşı, onların Nurlara tenkit niyetiyle bakmalarında, ister istemez şüphesiz iman cihetinde istifadelerinin hatırı için وَال۟كَاظِمٖينَ ال۟غَي۟ظَ وَال۟عَافٖينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ düsturuyla onları affetmek, bir ulüvv-ü cenablıktır.

Ben de bu hakikatli ihtardan kemal-i ferah ve şükür ile bu yeni Medrese-i Yusufiyede durmaya, hattâ aleyhimde olanlara yardım etmek için kendime mûcib-i ceza zararsız bir suç yapmaya karar verdim.

Hem benim gibi yetmiş beş yaşında ve alâkasız ve dünyada sevdiği dostlarından, yetmişten ancak hayatta beşi kalmış ve onun vazife-i nuriyesini görecek yetmiş bin nur nüshaları bâki kalıp serbest geziyorlar. Ve bir dile bedel, binler dil ile hizmet-i imaniyeyi yapacak kardeşleri, vârisleri bulunan benim gibi bir adama kabir, bu hapisten yüz derece ziyade hayırlıdır. Ve bu hapis dahi haricinde hürriyetsiz tahakkümler altındaki serbestiyetten yüz derece daha rahat, daha faydalıdır. Çünkü haricinde, tek başıyla yüzer alâkadar memurların tahakkümlerini çekmeye mukabil, hapiste yüzer mahpuslarla beraber yalnız müdür ve başgardiyan gibi bir iki zatın, maslahata binaen hafif tahakkümlerini çekmeye mecbur olur. Ona mukabil, hapiste çok dostlardan kardeşane taltifler, teselliler görür. Hem İslâmiyet şefkati ve insaniyet fıtratı, bu vaziyette ihtiyarlara merhamete gelmesi, hapis zahmetini rahmete çeviriyor, diye hapse razı oldum.

Bu üçüncü mahkemeye geldiğim sırada zafiyet ve ihtiyarlık ve rahatsızlıktan ayakta durmaya sıkıldığımdan, mahkeme kapısının haricinde bir iskemlede oturdum. Birden bir hâkim geldi, hiddet etti: “Neden ayakta beklemiyor?” ihanetkârane dedi. Ben de ihtiyarlık cihetinden, bu merhametsizliğe kızdım. Birden baktım; pek çok Müslümanlar, kemal-i şefkat ve uhuvvetle merhametkârane bakıp etrafımızda toplanmışlar, dağıtılmıyorlar. Birden iki hakikat ihtar edildi:

Birincisi: Benim ve Nurların gizli düşmanlarımız, benim istemediğim halde hakkımdaki teveccüh-ü âmmeyi kırmak ile Nur’un fütuhatına set çekilir, diye bazı safdil resmî memurları kandırıp şahsımı millet nazarında çürütmek fikriyle, ihanetkârane böyle muameleye sevk etmişler. Buna karşı inayet-i İlahiye, Nurların iman hizmetine mukabil, bir ikram olarak, o bir tek adamın ihanetine bedel, bu yüz adama bak! Hizmetinizi takdir ile şefkatkârane acıyarak alâkadarane sizi istikbal ve teşyi ediyorlar.

Hattâ ikinci gün, ben müstantık dairesinde müddeiumumun suallerine cevap verirken, hükûmet avlusunda mahkeme pencerelerine karşı bin kadar ahali kemal-i alâka ile toplanıp lisan-ı hal ile “Bunları sıkmayınız!” dediklerini, vaziyetleriyle ifade ediyorlar gibi göründüler. Polisler onları dağıtamıyordular. Kalbime ihtar edildi ki:

Bu ahali, bu tehlikeli asırda tam bir teselli ve söndürülmez bir nur ve kuvvetli bir iman ve saadet-i bâkiyeye bir doğru müjde istiyorlar ve fıtraten arıyorlar ve Nur risalelerinde aradıkları bulunuyor diye işitmişler ki benim ehemmiyetsiz şahsıma, imana bir parça hizmetkârlığım için haddimden çok ziyade iltifat gösteriyorlar.

İkinci hakikat: Emniyeti ihlâl vehmiyle bize ihanet etmek ve teveccüh-ü âmmeyi kırmak kasdıyla tahkirkârane aldanmış mahdud adamların bed muamelelerine mukabil, hadsiz ehl-i hakikatin ve nesl-i âtinin takdirkârane alkışlamaları var diye ihtar edildi.

Evet, komünist perdesi altında anarşistliğin, emniyet-i umumiyeyi bozmaya dehşetli çalışmasına karşı, Risale-i Nur ve şakirdleri iman-ı tahkikî kuvvetiyle bu vatanın her tarafında o müthiş ifsadı durduruyor ve kırıyor. Emniyeti ve asayişi temine çalışıyor ki pek çok bir kesrette ve memleketin her tarafında bulunan Nur talebelerinden, bu yirmi senede alâkadar üç dört mahkeme ve on vilayetin zabıtaları, emniyeti ihlâle dair bir vukuatlarını bulmamış ve kaydetmemiş. Ve üç vilayetin insaflı bir kısım zabıtaları demişler:

“Nur talebeleri manevî bir zabıtadır. Asayişi muhafazada bize yardım ediyorlar. İman-ı tahkikî ile Nur’u okuyan her adamın kafasında bir yasakçıyı bırakıyorlar, emniyeti temine çalışıyorlar.”

Bunun bir numunesi Denizli Hapishanesidir. Oraya Nurlar ve o mahpuslar için yazılan Meyve Risalesi girmesiyle, üç dört ay zarfında iki yüzden ziyade o mahpuslar öyle fevkalâde itaatli, dindarane bir salah-ı hal aldılar ki üç dört adamı öldüren bir adam, tahta bitlerini öldürmekten çekiniyordu. Tam merhametli, zararsız, vatana nâfi’ bir uzuv olmaya başladı. Hattâ resmî memurlar, bu hale hayretle ve takdirle bakıyordular. Hem daha hüküm almadan bir kısım gençler dediler: “Nurcular hapiste kalsalar biz kendimizi mahkûm ettireceğiz ve ceza almaya çalışacağız, tâ onlardan ders alıp onlar gibi olacağız. Onların dersiyle kendimizi ıslah edeceğiz.”

İşte bu mahiyette bulunan Nur talebelerini, emniyeti ihlâl ile ittiham edenler, herhalde ve gayet fena bir surette aldanmış veya aldatılmış veya bilerek veya bilmeyerek anarşistlik hesabına hükûmeti iğfal edip bizleri eziyetlerle ezmeye çalışıyorlar.

Biz bunlara karşı deriz: Madem ölüm öldürülmüyor ve kabir kapanmıyor ve dünya misafirhanesinde yolcular gayet sürat ve telaşla kafile kafile arkasında, toprak arkasına girip kayboluyorlar; elbette pek yakında birbirimizden ayrılacağız. Siz zulmünüzün cezasını dehşetli bir surette göreceksiniz. Hiç olmazsa mazlum ehl-i iman hakkında terhis tezkeresi olan ölümün idam-ı ebedî darağacına çıkacaksınız. Sizin dünyada tevehhüm-ü ebediyetle aldığınız fâni zevkler, bâki ve elîm elemlere dönecek.

Maatteessüf gizli münafık düşmanlarımız, bu dindar milletin yüzer milyon veli makamında olan şehitlerinin, kahraman gazilerinin kanıyla ve kılıncıyla kazanılan ve muhafaza edilen hakikat-i İslâmiyet’e bazen “tarîkat” namını takıp ve o güneşin tek bir şuâı olan tarîkat meşrebini, o güneşin aynı gösterip, hükûmetin bazı dikkatsiz memurlarını aldatıp hakikat-i Kur’aniyeye ve hakaik-i imaniyeye tesirli bir surette çalışan Nur talebelerine “tarîkatçı” ve “siyasî cemiyetçi” namını vererek aleyhimize sevk etmek istiyorlar. Biz hem onlara hem onları aleyhimizde dinleyenlere, Denizli mahkeme-i âdilesinde dediğimiz gibi deriz:

“Yüzer milyon başların feda oldukları bir kudsî hakikate, başımız dahi feda olsun. Dünyayı başımıza ateş yapsanız hakikat-i Kur’aniyeye feda olan başlar, zındıkaya teslim-i silah etmeyecek ve vazife-i kudsiyesinden vazgeçmeyecekler inşâallah!”

İşte ihtiyarlığımın sergüzeştliğinden gelen ağrılara ve meyusiyetlere, imandan ve Kur’an’dan imdada yetişen kudsî teselliler ile bu ihtiyarlığımın en sıkıntılı bir senesini, gençliğimin en ferahlı on senesine değiştirmem. Hususan hapiste farz namazını kılan ve tövbe edenin her bir saati, on saat ibadet hükmüne geçmesiyle ve hastalıkta ve mazlumiyette dahi her bir fâni gün, sevap cihetinde on gün bâki bir ömrü kazandırmasıyla, benim gibi kabir kapısında nöbetini bekleyen bir adama ne kadar medar-ı şükrandır, o manevî ihtardan bildim. “Hadsiz şükür Rabb’ime!” dedim, ihtiyarlığıma sevindim ve hapsime razı oldum.

Çünkü ömür durmuyor, çabuk gidiyor. Lezzetle, ferahla gitse lezzetin zevali elem olmasından hem teessüf hem şükürsüzlükle, gafletle, bazı günahları yerinde bırakır, fâni olur gider. Eğer hapis ve zahmetli gitse zeval-i elem bir manevî lezzet olmasından hem bir nevi ibadet sayıldığından, bir cihette bâki kalır ve hayırlı meyveleriyle bâki bir ömrü kazandırır. Geçmiş günahlara ve hapse sebebiyet veren hatalara keffaret olur, onları temizler. Bu nokta-i nazardan, mahpuslardan farzı kılanlar, sabır içinde şükretmelidirler.

On Altıncı Rica

Bir zaman ihtiyarlık vaktinde, Eskişehir Hapsinden –bir sene cezayı çekip– çıktım. Beni Kastamonu’ya nefyettiler. Polis karakolunda iki üç ay misafir ettiler. Benim gibi sadık dostlarıyla görüşmekten sıkılan bir münzevi ve kıyafetinin tebdiline tahammül etmeyen bir adam, böyle yerlerde ne kadar azap çeker, anlaşılır.

İşte ben bu meyusiyette iken, birden inayet-i İlahiye ihtiyarlığımın imdadına geldi. O karakoldaki komiser, polislerle beraber sadık dost hükmüne geçtiler. Hiçbir vakit şapkayı başıma koymayı ihtar etmedikleri gibi benim hizmetçilerim misillü, istediğim zaman beni şehrin etrafında gezdiriyordular.

Sonra o karakolun karşısında Kastamonu’nun Medrese-i Nuriyesine girdim, Nurların telifine başladım. Feyzi, Emin, Hilmi, Sadık, Nazif, Salahaddin gibi Nur’un kahraman şakirdleri, Nurların neşri, teksiri için o medreseye devam ettiler. Gençlikte eski talebelerimle geçirdiğim kıymettar müzakere-i ilmiyeyi daha parlak bir surette gösterdiler.

Sonra gizli düşmanlarımız bazı memurları ve bir kısım enaniyetli hocalar ve şeyhleri aleyhimize evhamlandırdılar. Bizi, Denizli Hapsine beş altı vilayetlerden gelen Nur talebelerini, o Medrese-i Yusufiyede toplanmaya vesile oldular. Bu On Altıncı Rica’nın tafsilatı, Kastamonu’dan gönderip Lâhika’ya geçen ve Denizli Hapsinde oradaki kardeşlerime gizli gönderdiğim küçük mektuplar ve mahkemesindeki Müdafaa Risalesi’dir ki bu ricanın hakikatini parlak gösteriyorlar. Tafsilatını lâhikaya, müdafaama havale edip gayet kısa işaret edeceğiz.

Ben mahrem ve mühim mecmuaları, hususan Süfyan’a ve Nur’un kerametlerine dair risaleleri kömür ve odunlar altında sakladım; tâ benim vefatımdan veya baştaki başlar hakikati dinleyip akıllarını başlarına aldıktan sonra neşredilsinler diye müsterihane dururken, birden taharri memurları ve müddeiumumun muavini, menzilimi bastılar. O gizli ve ehemmiyetli risaleleri, odunların altından çıkardılar. Hem beni tevkif edip Isparta Hapishanesine, sıhhatim muhtell bir halde gönderdiler.

Ben pek çok müteellim ve Nurlara gelen o zarardan dehşetli müteessir iken, bir inayet-i İlahiye imdadımıza yetişti. O gizlenmiş ve ehl-i hükûmet onları okumaya çok muhtaç olan o ehemmiyetli risaleleri kemal-i merak ve dikkatle okumaya başlayıp, büyük resmî daireler âdeta bir Dershane-i Nuriye hükmüne geçti. Tenkit fikriyle takdire başladılar. Hattâ Denizli’de, hiç haberimiz yokken, fevkalâde perde altında matbu Âyetü’l-Kübra’yı resmî ve gayr-ı resmî pek çok adamlar okudular, imanlarını kuvvetlendirdiler. Bizim hapis musibetimizi hiçe indirdiler.

Sonra bizi Denizli Hapsine aldılar. Beni tecrid-i mutlak içinde ufunetli, rutubetli soğuk bir koğuşa soktular. İhtiyarlık, hastalık ve benim yüzümden masum arkadaşlarımın zahmetlerinden bana gelen çok teellüm ve Nurların tatil ve müsaderesinden gelen çok teessüf ve sıkıntı içinde çırpınırken, birden inayet-i Rabbaniye imdada yetişti. Birden o koca hapishaneyi bir Dershane-i Nuriyeye çevirip bir Medrese-i Yusufiye olduğunu ispat ederek, Medresetü’z-Zehra kahramanlarının elmas kalemleriyle Nurlar intişara başladı. Hattâ o ağır şerait içinde Nur’un kahramanı, üç dört ay zarfında yirmiden ziyade Meyve ve Müdafaat Risalesi’nden yazdı. Hem hapiste hem hariçte fütuhata başladılar. O musibetteki zararımızı büyük menfaatlere ve sıkıntılarımızı sevinçlere çevirdi. عَسٰٓى اَن۟ تَك۟رَهُوا شَي۟ئًا وَهُوَ خَي۟رٌ لَكُم۟ sırrını tekrar gösterdi.

Sonra birinci ehl-i vukufun yanlış ve sathî zabıtlara binaen aleyhimizde şiddetli tenkitleri ve Maarif Vekili’nin dehşetli hücumuyla beraber aleyhimizde bir beyanname neşretmesiyle, hattâ bazı haberlerle bir kısmımızın idamına çalışıldığı hengâmda, bir inayet-i Rabbaniye imdadımıza yetişti.

Başta Ankara ehl-i vukufunun şiddetli tenkitlerini beklerken takdirkârane raporları, hattâ beş sandık Nur risalelerinde beş on sehiv buldukları halde, mahkemede onların sehiv ve yanlış gösterdikleri noktalar ayn-ı hakikat olduğunu ve onların sehiv ve yanlış dedikleri maddelerde kendileri sehiv ettiklerini ispat ettiğimiz gibi beş yaprak raporlarında beş on sehiv ve yanlışlarını gösterdik. Ve yedi makamata gönderdiğimiz Meyve ve Müdafaaname Risaleleri ve Adliye Vekâletine gönderilen Nur’un umum risaleleri, hususan mahremlerin dokunaklı ve şiddetli tokatlarına mukabil tehditkârane şiddetli emirler beklerken gayet mülayimane, hattâ tesellikârane Başvekilin bize gönderdiği mektubu gibi musalaha tarzında ilişmemeleri kat’î ispat etti ki:

Risale-i Nur’un hakikatleri, inayet-i İlahiye kerametiyle onları mağlup edip kendini onlara irşadkârane okutturmuş, o geniş daireleri bir nevi dershane yapmış, çok mütereddid ve mütehayyirlerin imanlarını kurtarmış ve bizim sıkıntılarımızdan yüz derece ziyade manevî ferah ve fayda verdi.

Sonra gizli düşmanlar beni zehirlediler ve Nur’un şehit kahramanı merhum Hâfız Ali benim bedelime hastahaneye gitti ve benim yerimde berzah âlemine seyahat eyledi, bizi meyusane ağlattırdı. Ben bu musibetten evvel Kastamonu’nun dağında bağırarak mükerrer defa dedim: “Kardeşlerim! Ata et, arslana ot atmayınız.” Yani her risaleyi herkese vermeyiniz tâ bize taarruz edilmesin. Yaya gidilse yedi gün uzakta Hâfız Ali rahmetullahi aleyh, manevî telefonuyla işitiyor gibi aynı vakit bana yazıyor ki: “Evet Üstadım, Risale-i Nur’un bir kerametidir ki ata et, arslana ot atmaz. Belki ata ot, arslana et atar ki o arslan hocaya İhlas Risalesi’ni verdi.” Yedi gün sonra mektubunu aldık, hesap ettik; aynı zamanda, ben dağda bağırırken o da garib sözleri mektubunda yazıyormuş.

İşte Nur’un böyle bir manevî kahramanının vefatı ve gizli münafıkların aleyhimizde desiselerle bizi cezalandırmaya çalışmaları ve benim zehirli hastalığımdan dolayı beni de hastahaneye resmî emirle mecbur etmek endişesi bizi sıkarken, birden inayet-i İlahiye imdada geldi.

Mübarek kardeşlerimin hâlis dualarıyla zehirin tehlikesi geçmiş ve o merhum şehidin kuvvetli emarelerle, kabrinde Nurlarla meşgul olması ve sual meleklerine Nurlar ile cevap vermesi ve onun bedeline ve onun sisteminde Nurlara çalışacak Denizli Kahramanı Hasan Feyzi rahmetullahi aleyh ve arkadaşları perde altında tesirli bir surette hizmetleri ve düşmanlarımızın dahi mahpusların birden Nurlarla ıslah olmaları cihetinde hapisten çıkmamıza taraftar olması ve Ashab-ı Kehf misillü Nur şakirdleri o sıkıntılı çilehaneyi Ashab-ı Kehf ve eski zaman ehl-i riyazatının mağaralarına çevirmesi ve istirahat-i kalple Nurların neşrine ve yazmasına sa’yleriyle, inayet-i Rabbaniyenin imdadımıza yetiştiğini ispat etti.

Hem kalbime geldi ki madem İmam-ı A’zam gibi eâzım-ı müçtehidîn hapis çekmiş ve İmam-ı Ahmed İbn-i Hanbel gibi bir mücahid-i ekbere, Kur’an’ın bir tek meselesi için hapiste pek çok azap verilmiş. Ve şekva etmeyerek kemal-i sabır ile sebat edip o meselelerde sükût etmemiş. Ve pek çok imamlar ve allâmeler, sizlerden pek çok ziyade azap verildiği halde, kemal-i sabır içinde şükredip sarsılmamışlar. Elbette sizler Kur’an’ın müteaddid hakikatleri için pek büyük sevap ve kazanç aldığınız halde, pek az zahmet çektiğinize binler teşekkür etmek borcunuzdur.

Evet zulm-ü beşer içinde kader-i İlahînin bir cilve-i adaleti ve ihtiyarlığımdaki şiddetli sıkıntılar içinde bir cilve-i inayet-i Rabbaniyeyi kısaca beyan edeceğim:

Ben yirmi yaşlarında iken tekrar ile derdim: “Eski zamanda mağaralara çekilen târikü’d-dünyalar gibi âhir ömrümde ben de bir mağaraya, bir dağa çekilip insanların hayat-ı içtimaiyesinden çıkacağım.” Hem Eski Harb-i Umumî’de şark-ı şimalîdeki esaretimde karar vermiştim ki: “Bundan sonra ömrümü mağaralarda geçireceğim. Hayat-ı siyasiyeden ve içtimaiyeden sıyrılacağım. Artık karışmak yeter.” derken, inayet-i Rabbaniye hem adalet-i kaderiye tecelli ettiler. Kararımdan ve arzumdan çok ziyade hayırlı bir surette ihtiyarlığıma merhameten o mutasavver mağaralarımı hapishanelere ve inzivalara ve yalnızlık içinde çilehanelere ve tecrid-i mutlak menzillerine çevirdi. Ehl-i riyazet ve münzevilerin dağlardaki mağaralarının çok fevkinde “Yusufiye Medreseleri” ve vaktimizi zayi etmemek için tecrithaneleri verdi. Hem mağara faide-i uhreviyesini hem hakaik-i imaniye ve Kur’aniyenin mücahidane hizmetini verdi.

Hattâ ben azmetmiştim ki arkadaşlarımın beraetlerinden sonra bir suç gösterip hapiste kalacağım. Hüsrev ve Feyzi gibi mücerredler benim yanımda kalsın ve bir bahane ile insanlarla görüşmemek ve vaktimi lüzumsuz sohbetlerle ve tasannu ve hodfüruşluk ile geçirmemek için tecrit koğuşunda bulunacağım.

Fakat kader-i İlahî ve kısmetimiz, bizi başka çilehaneye sevk ettiler.

اَل۟خَي۟رُ فٖى مَا اخ۟تَارَهُ اللّٰهُ ۝ عَسٰٓى اَن۟ تَك۟رَهُوا شَي۟ئًا وَهُوَ خَي۟رٌ لَكُم۟ sırrıyla, ihtiyarlığıma merhameten ve hizmet-i imaniyede daha ziyade çalıştırmak için ihtiyar ve tedbirimizin haricinde bu üçüncü Medrese-i Yusufiyede vazife verildi.

Evet inayet-i İlahiye, ihtiyarlığıma merhameten kuvvetli ve gizli düşmanı bulunmayan gençliğime mahsus olan mağaralarımı, hapishanenin tecrid-i münferid menzillerine çevirmesinde üç hikmet ve hizmet-i Nuriyeye üç ehemmiyetli faydası var:

Birinci hikmet ve fayda: Nur talebelerinin bu zamanda toplanmaları, zararsız olarak Medrese-i Yusufiyede olur. Ve birbirini görüp sohbet etmek, hariçte masraflı ve şüpheli olur. Hattâ benimle görüşmek için bazıları kırk elli lirayı sarf ederek gelip, ya yirmi dakika veya hiç görüşmeden döner giderdi. Ben bazı kardeşlerimi yakından görmek için hapsin zahmetini severek kabul ederdim. Demek, hapis bizim için bir nimettir, bir rahmettir.

İkinci hikmet ve fayda: Bu zamanda Nurlarla hizmet-i imaniye, her tarafta ilanatla ve muhtaç olanların nazar-ı dikkatlerini celbetmekle olur. İşte hapsimizle Nurlara nazar-ı dikkat celbolunur, bir ilanat hükmüne geçer. En ziyade muannid veya muhtaç olanlar onu bulur, imanını kurtarır ve inadı kırılır, tehlikeden kurtulur ve Nur’un dershanesi genişlenir.

Üçüncü hikmet ve fayda: Hapse giren Nur talebeleri birbirinin hallerinden, seciyelerinden, ihlas ve fedakârlıklarından ders almalarıyla beraber, Nurlar hizmetinde dünyevî menfaatleri daha aramazlar. Evet, Medrese-i Yusufiyede çok emarelerle her sıkıntı ve zahmetin on, belki yüz misli maddî ve manevî faydalar ve güzel neticeler ve imana geniş ve hâlis hizmetler, gözleriyle gördüklerinden, tam ihlasa muvaffak olurlar, daha cüz’î ve hususi menfaatlere tenezzül etmezler.

Bu çilehanelerin bana mahsus bir letafeti ve hazîn fakat tatlı bir vaziyeti var. Şöyle ki:

Ben gençlik zamanında bizim memlekette gördüğüm eski medresenin aynı vaziyetini görüyorum. Çünkü vilayet-i şarkiyede eski âdet, medrese talebelerinin bir kısmının tayinatları dışarıdan geliyordu. Ve bazı medreseler, içinde pişiriyorlardı. Ve daha kaç cihette bu çilehaneye benziyorlardı. Ben de lezzetli bir tahassür içinde buraya baktıkça o eski gençlik ve şirin zamana hayalen gidiyorum ve ihtiyarlık vaziyetlerini unutuyorum…

Yirmi Altıncı Lem’a’nın Zeyli

Yirmi Birinci Mektup olup Mektubat mecmuasına idhal edildiğinden buraya dercedilmedi.

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Yirmi Beşinci Lem'a ⇐ Lem'alar | ⇒ Yirmi Yedinci Lem'a

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