The Fourth Letter

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

May God’s peace and mercy and blessings be upon you, and upon my brothers especially...

My Dear Brothers!

I am now on a high peak on Çam Dağı (Pine Mountain), at the top of a might y pine-tree in a tree-house. In lonely solitude far from men, I have grown accustomed to this isolation. When I wish for conversation, I imagine you to be here with me, and I talk with you and find consolation. If there is nothing to prevent it, I would like to remain alone here for a month or two. When I return to Barla,(*)I shall search for some means for the verbal conversation with you I so long for, if you would like it. For now I am writing two or three things that come to mind here in this pine-tree.

The First: This is somewhat confidential, but no secrets are concealed from you. It is as follows:

Some of the people of reality manifest the divine name of Loving One, and with its manifestations at a maximum degree look to the Necessarily Existent One through the windows of beings. In the same way – but only when he is employed in service of the Qur’an and is the herald of its infinite treasuries – this brother of yours who is nothing, but nothing, is given a state whereby he manifests the divine names of All- Compassionate and All-Wise. God willing, the Words manifest the meaning of the verse: “He who has been given wisdom, has been given great good.”(2:269)

The Second:This excellent saying about the Naqshbandi Order suddenly occurred to me:

“On the Naqshbandi way one has to abandon four things:

the world, the hereafter, existence, and abandoning itself.

It gave rise to the following thought:

On the way of impotence four things are necessary:

absolute poverty, absolute impotence, absolute thanks, and absolute ardour, my friend.

Then the rich and colourful poem you had written, “Look at the multicoloured page of the book of the universe, etc.” came to mind. I gazed at the stars on the face of skies in the light of it, and I said to myself: If only I could have been a poet and completed it! Then I set about it although I have no ability to write poetry or verse, and what I wrote was not poetry. I wrote it as it occurred to me. You, my heir, may convert it into poetry and put it into verse. This is what occurred to me:

Then listen to the stars, listen to their harmonious address!

See what wisdom has emblazed on the decree of its light.

Altogether they start to speak with the tongue of truth,

They address the majesty of the All-Powerful, All-Glorious One’s sovereignty:

We are each of us light-scattering proofs of the existence of our Maker,

We are witnesses to both His Unity and His Power,

We are subtle miracles gilding the face of the skies

for the angels to gaze upon.

We are the innumerable attentive eyes of the heavens

which watch the earth, which study Paradise.(*)

To the celestial portion of the tree of creation,

to all the branches of the Milky Way.

that the hand of wisdom of the All- Glorious and Beauteous One has fastened

We are the innumerable exquisite fruits

Şu semavat ehline birer mescid-i seyyar,

Birer hane-i devvar birer ulvi âşiyane

Birer misbah-ı nevvar birer gemi-i cebbar

Birer tayyareleriz biz.

Bir Kadîr-i Zülkemal’in, bir Hakîm-i Zülcelal’in

Birer mu’cize-i kudret birer hârika-i sanat-ı hâlıkane

Birer nadire-i hikmet birer dâhiye-i hilkat

Birer nur âlemiyiz biz.

Böyle yüz bin dil ile yüz bin bürhan gösteririz,

İşittiririz insan olan insana.

Kör olası dinsiz gözü, görmez oldu yüzümüzü,

Hem işitmez sözümüzü, hak söyleyen âyetleriz biz.

Sikkemiz bir, turramız bir, Rabb’imize müsebbihiz, zikrederiz abîdane.

Kehkeşan’ın halka-i kübrasına mensup birer meczuplarız biz.

اَل۟بَاقٖى هُوَ ال۟بَاقٖى

Said Nursî

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