If you say: “What keeps me from the prayers and worship and causes me to be lax is not unnecessary things like that, but essential matters like earning a livelihood,” then my answer is this: if you work for a daily wage of one hundred kurush, and someone comes to you and says: “Come and dig here for ten minutes, and you will find a brilliant and an emerald worth a hundred liras.” If you reply: “No, I won’t come, because ten kurush will be cut from my wage and my subsistence will be less,” of course you understand what a foolish pretext it would be. In just the same way, you work in this orchard for your livelihood. If you abandon the obligatory prayers, all the fruits of your effort will be restricted to only a worldly, unimportant, and unproductive livelihood. But if you spend your rest periods on the prayers, which allow your spirit to relax and heart to take a breather, you will discover two mines which are an important source, both for a productive worldly livelihood, and your livelihood and provisions of the hereafter.

First Mine: Through a sound intention, you will receive a share of the praises and glorifications offered by all the plants and trees, whether flowering or fruit-bearing, that you grow in the garden. (Note:This First Station was a lesson for someone in a garden, so it was explained in this way.)

Second Mine:  Whatever is eaten of the garden’s produce, whether by animals or man, cattle or flies, buyers or thieves, it will become like almsgiving from you.² But on condition you work in the name of the True Provider and within the bounds of what He permits, and see yourself as a distribution official giving His property to His creatures.

So see what a great loss is made by one who abandons the prescribed prayers. What significant wealth he loses, and he is deprived of those two results and mines which would otherwise cause him to work eagerly and ensure his morale is strong; he becomes bankrupt. Even, as he grows old, he will grow weary of gardening and lose interest in it, saying, “What is it to me? I am anyway leaving this world, why should I put up with this much difficulty?” He will sink into idleness. But the first man says: “I shall work harder at both worship and licit activities in order to send even more abundant light to my grave and procure more provisions for my life in the hereafter.”

Source: 21st Word, The Risale-i Nur Collection

http://www.erisale.com/index.jsp?locale=en#content.en.201.278

Just as through crying or asking or looking unhappy, a child subjugates the strong to himself, and is so successful in getting what he wants that he could not obtain one thousandth of it with a thousand times his own strength. That is to say, since weakness and impotence excite compassion and a sense of protection towards him, the child can subjugate heroes to himself with his tiny finger. Now, should such a child with foolish conceit deny the compassion and accuse the protection saying: “I subjugate these with my own strength”, of course he will receive a slap.

In the same way, if, like Qarun, man says:

اِنَّمَۤا اُوتِيتُهُ عَلٰى عِلْمٍ

that is, “I gained this through my own knowledge and my own power” in a way that demonstrates ingratitude and denies his Creator’s mercy and accuses His wisdom, he will of course deserve a punishing blow. This means that man’s domination and human advances and the attainments of civilization, which are to be observed, have been made subject to him not through his attracting them or conquering them or through combat, but due to his weakness. He has been assisted because of his impotence. They have been bestowed on him due to his indigence. He has been inspired with them due to his ignorance. They have been given him due to his need. And the reason for his domination is not strength and the power of knowledge, but the compassion and clemency of the Sustainer and Divine mercy and wisdom: they have subjugated things to him. Yes, what clothes man, who is defeated by vermin like eyeless scorpions and legless snakes, in silk from a tiny worm and feeds him honey from a poisonous insect is not his own power, but the subjugation of the Sustainer and the bestowal of the Most Merciful, which are the fruits of his weakness.

O man! Since the reality of the matter is thus, give up egotism and arrogance. With the tongue of seeking help proclaim your impotence and weakness at the Divine Court, and with the tongue of entreaty and supplication, your poverty and need. Show that you are His slave. Say:

حَسْبُنَا اللهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ

Allah is enough for us, for He is the Best Disposer of Affairs,

and rise in degree.

Source: Risale-i Nur Collection, 23rd Word, 4th Remark

http://www.erisale.com/index.jsp?locale=en#content.en.201.336

The First: “Once my stomach is full, what do I care if others die of hunger?”

The Second: “You work, and I’ll eat.”

    That which perpetuates these two is the prevalence of usury and interest on the one hand, and the abandonment of zakat on the other. The only remedy able to cure these two awesome social diseases lies in implementing zakat as a universal principle and in forbidding usury. Zakat is a most essential support of happiness not merely for individuals and particular societies, but for all of humanity. There are two classes of men: the upper classes and the common people. It is only zakat that will induce compassion and generosity in the upper classes toward the common people, and respect and obedience in the common people toward the upper classes. In the absence of zakat, the upper classes will descend on the common people with cruelty and oppression, and the common people will rise up against the upper classes in rancour and rebellion. There will be a constant struggle, a persistent opposition between the two classes of men. It will finally result in the confrontation of capital and labour, as happened in Russia.

    O people of nobility and good conscience! O people of generosity and liberality!

    If acts of generosity are not performed in the name of zakat, there are three harmful results. The act may have no effect, for if you do not give in the name of Allah, you are in effect imposing an obligation, and imprisoning some wretched pauper with a sense of obligation. Then you will be deprived of his prayer, a prayer which would be most acceptable in the sight of Allah. In reality you are nothing but an official entrusted with the distribution of Almighty Allah’s bounties among His servants; but if you imagine yourself to be the owner of wealth, this is an act of ingratitude for the bounties you have received. If, on the contrary, you give in the name of zakat, you will be rewarded for having given in the name of Almighty Allah; you will have offered thanks for bounties received. he needy person too will not be compelled to fawn and cringe in front of you; his self-respect will not be injured, and his prayer on your behalf will be accepted. 

 
Source: Risale-i Nur Collection, 22nd Letter

The unity of belief necessitates also the unity of hearts, and the oneness of our creed demands the oneness of our society. You cannot deny that if you find yourself in the same regiment as someone, you will form a friendly attachment to him; a brotherly relation will come into being as a result of your both being submitted to the orders of a single commander. You will similarly experience a fraternal relation through living in the same town with someone. Now there are ties of unity, bonds of union, and relations of fraternity as numeous as the divine names that are shown and demonstrated to you by the light and consciousness of belief.

Your Creator, Owner, Object of Worship, and Provider is one and the same for both of you; thousands of things are and the same for you. Your Prophet (UWBP), your religion, your qibla are one and the same; hundreds of things are one and the same for you. Then too your village is one, your state is one, your country is one; tens of things are one and the same for you. All of these things held in common dictate oneness and unity, union and concord, love and brotherhood, and indeed the cosmos and the planets are similarly interlinked by unseen chains. If, despite all this, you prefer things worthless and transient as a spider’s web that give rise to dispute and discord, to rancour and enmity, and engage in true enmity towards a believer, then you will understand – unless your heart is dead and your intelligence extinguished – how great is your disrespect for that bond of unity, your slight to that relation of love, your transgression against that tie of brotherhood!

Source: 22nd Letter, Risale-i Nur Collection

If the day that is past held misfortune, the distress is now gone, and only tranquillity remains; the pain has vanished and the pleasure in its cessation remains; the trouble is gone, and the reward remains. Hence one should not complain but give thanks for enjoyment. One should not resent misfortune, but love it. The transient life of the past comes to be counted as an eternal and blessed life because of misfortune. To think upon past pain with one’s fancy and then to waste part of one’s patience is lunacy.

As far as days yet to come are concerned, since they have not yet come, to think now of the illness or misfortune to be borne during them and display impatience, is also foolishness. To say to oneself “Tomorrow or the day after I will be hungry and thirsty” and constantly to drink water and eat bread today, is pure madness. Similarly, to think of misfortunes and sicknesses yet in the future but now non-existent, to suffer them already, to show impatience and to oppress oneself without any compulsion, is such stupidity that it no longer deserves pity and compassion.

In short, just as gratitude increases divine bounty, so too complaint increases misfortune, and removes all occasion for compassion.

During World War One, a blessed person in Erzurum was afflicted with an awesome disease. I went to visit him and he said to me complaining bitterly: “I have not been able to place my head on the pillow and sleep for a hundred nights.” I was much grieved. Suddenly a thought came to me and I said:

“Brother, the hundred difficult days you have spent are now just like one hundred happy days. Do not think of them and complain; rather look at them and be grateful. As for future days, since they have not yet come, place your trust in your Compassionate and Merciful Lord. Do not weep before being beaten, do not be afraid of nothing, do not give non-being the colour of being. Think of the present hour; your power of patient endurance is enough for this hour. Do not act like the maddened commander who expects reinforcement on his right wing by an enemy force deserting to join him from his left, and then begins to disperse his forces in the centre to the left and the right, before the enemy has joined him on the right. The enemy then destroys his centre, left weak, with a minimal force. Brother, do not be like him. Mobilize all your strength for this present hour, and think of divine mercy, reward in the hereafter, and how your brief and transient life is being transformed into a long and eternal form. Instead of complaining bitterly, give joyful thanks.”

Much relieved, he said, “Praise and thanks be to Allah, my disease is now a tenth of what it was before.”

Philosophy accepts ‘force’ as its point of support in the life of society. It considers its aim to be ‘benefits’. The principle of its life it recognizes to be ‘conflict’. It holds the bond between communities to be ‘racialism and negative nationalism’. Its fruits are ‘gratifying the appetites of the soul and increasing human needs’. However, the mark of force is ‘aggression’. The mark of benefit – since they are insufficient for every desire – is ‘jostling and tussling’. While the mark of conflict is ‘strife’. And the mark of racialism –since it is nourished by devouring others– is ‘aggression’. It is for these reasons that it has negated the happiness of mankind.

As for the Qur’anic wisdom, its point of support is ‘truth’ instead of force. It takes ‘virtue and Allah’s pleasure’ as its aims in place of benefits. It takes the principle of ‘mutual assistance’ as the principle of life in place of the principle of conflict. And it takes ‘the ties of religion, class, and country’ to be the ties bonding communities. Its aim is to form a barrier against the lusts of the soul, urge the spirit to sublime matters, satisfy the high emotions, and urging man to the human perfections, make him a true human being. And the mark of ‘the truth’ is accord. The mark of virtue is ‘solidarity’. The mark of mutual assistance is ‘hastening to assist one another’. The mark of religion is ‘brotherhood’ and ‘attraction’. And the mark of reining in and tethering the soul and leaving the spirit free and urging it towards perfections is ‘happiness in this world and the next’.

Source: 12th Word, Risale-i Nur Collection

Image: An example bird house in Ottoman society.

“For fifty days now —and now seven years have passed— (this refers to 1946) you have asked nothing at all about this ghastly World War, which has plunged the whole world into chaos and is closely connected with the fate of the Islamic world, nor have you been curious about it. Whereas some religious and learned persons are leaving the congregation in the mosques and racing to listen to the radio. Is there some event more momentous than the war? Or is it harmful in some way to be preoccupied with it?”

I replied to them: Life’s capital is very little and the work to be done is much. There are spheres one within the other like concentric circles, from the sphere of man’s heart and stomach, and that of his home and body, and that of the quarter in which he lives and his town, and his country and land, and the globe and mankind, to the spheres of animate beings and the world. Each person may have duties in each of those spheres, but the most important and permanent of these are those in the smallest sphere. While his least important and temporary duties may be in the largest sphere. According to this analogy, the largest and smallest are in inverse proportion. But because of the attractiveness of the largest sphere, it causes the person to neglect his important, necessary duties in the small sphere, busying him with unnecessary, trivial, peripheral matters. It destroys the capital of his life for nothing. It kills his precious life on worthless things. Sometimes, the one following curiously the struggles of the war comes to earnestly support one side. He looks favourably on their tyranny, and becomes a partner in it.

The Answer to the first point: Yes, an event more momentous than this World War and a case more important than that of world supremacy has been opened over the heads of everyone and especially Muslims, so that if everyone had the wealth and power of the Germans and English and sense as well, they would unhesitatingly spend all of it to win that single case. The case is this: relying on the thousands of promises and pledges of the universe’s Owner, Who has disposal over it, hundreds of thousands of the most eminent of mankind, and uncounted numbers of its stars and guides, have unanimously given news —and some of them have actually seen— that for everyone the case has opened by which they may either win, in return for belief, or lose, eternal properties as broad as the earth set with palaces and gardens. If they do not secure the document of belief, they will lose. And this age, many are losing the case because of the plague of materialism. One of the diviners of reality and investigators of truth observed in one place that out of forty people who died, only a few won; the others lost. Can anything take the place of that lost suit, even rule over the whole world?

Since we Risale-i Nur students know it would be pure lunacy to give up the duties which will win the case and abandon the wondrous lawyer who saves ninety per cent from losing it and the task which the lawyer employs us in, and become involved with peripheral trivia as though we were going to remain in the world for ever, we are certain that if each of us had intelligence a hundred times greater than what we have, we still would use it only on this task.

Source: 11th Ray, Fourth Topic, Risale-i Nur Collection

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 Allah, and listening to the Qur’an and accepting it, and reciting it.

Source: Twenty Sixth Flash, Fourth Hope 

Yes, no one has any right to look to those superior to themselves in regard to bounties and complain. And in times of calamity, everyone’s right is to look those above themselves in terms of calamity in order to offer thanks (shukr). This mystery has been explained in some risales with a representation; a summary of it is as follows:

A person takes a destitute man to the top of a minaret. On every step of the minaret he gives the man different favours and different gifts. And right at the top of the minaret he gives the greatest present. Although the person asks for thanks and gratitude in return for all those various gifts, the peevish man forgets the presents he has received on each of the steps, or considers them to be of no importance, and offering no thanks, looks above him. He starts to complain, saying, “If only this minaret had been higher, I could have climbed even further; why isn’t it as tall as that mountain over there or that other minaret?” If he begins to complain like this; what great ingratitude it would be, what a wrong!

In just the same way, a person comes into existence from nothing; not as a rock or a tree or an animal, but as a human being and as a Muslim, and, for most of the time, lives in good health and receives a high degree of bounty. Despite all this, to complain and display impatience due to lacking worthiness for the bounties of good health and wellness, or for losing them due to wrong choice or abuse, or for not being able to obtain them; and to criticise Divine lordship (rububiyyah) saying, “What have I done that this has happened to me?” is a condition and spiritual sickness more calamitous than the physical one. Like fighting with a broken hand, a person only worsens the illness by complaining.

The wise person is one who submits with patience in accordance with the mystery of

لِكُلِّ مُصٖيبَةٍ اِنَّا لِلّٰهِ وَاِنَّٓا اِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

so that the illness serves its purpose and leaves.

Source: Twenty Fifth Flash: Eighteenth Remedy.

Because, the physical aspect of your time of illness prior to today has gone and its pain has departed with it; only its reward and the pleasure of its passing remain. While it should give you profit and happiness, to think of past days and feel grieved and become impatient is lunacy. As for future days, they have not yet come. To think of them now and be grieved and display impatience by imagining a day that does not exist and an illness that does not exist and grief that does not exist, is to give the colour of existence to three degrees of non-existence –if that is not lunacy, what is?

Since, the times of illness prior to today produce joy; and since the time subsequent to the present hour is non-existent, the illness is non-existent, and the grief is non-existent; do not scatter the power of patience given to you by Almighty Allah to right and left; muster it in the face of the pain in the present hour, say: “Ya Sabur” (O Most Patient One!) and endure it.

Source: Twenty Fifth Flash: Eleventh Remedy.