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

One was the heartless principle of politics: “Individuals may be sacrificed for the welfare of the government and preservation of public order.”

The Second was the cruel rule of nationalism: “Everything may be sacrificed for the well-being of the nation.” For his opponents’ rule was based on racialism and nationalism.

The Third: The traditional vein of rivalry between the Umayyads and the Hashimites was present in some people like Yazid, and he displayed a merciless ability to be cruel.

A Fourth Reason: The Umayyads made Arab nationalism the basis of their rule, and they looked on the members of other nations – who were found among Hadhrat Husain’s supporters – as slaves. This had wounded their national pride. So, since the other nations had joined Hadhrat Husain’s community with mixed intentions and to take revenge, they felt excessively affronted at the Umayyad’s fanatic nationalism and were the cause of that terrible well-known tragedy.

The four reasons mentioned above are outward and apparent. When considered from the point of view of divine determining, the results pertaining to the hereafter and spiritual rule and spiritual progress that the tradegy won for Hadhrat Husain and his relatives were of such high worth that the distress they suffered due to it was made easy and cheap. It resembled a soldier who dies after an hour’s torture and becomes a martyr: he attains a rank so high that anyone else could reach it only if they strove for ten years. If the soldier were to be asked about it after he had died, he would reply that he had gained much for very little.

A story to be pondered over: There were two groups of the Hasanan, a tribe of nomads, hostile to each other. Although more than maybe fifty people had been killed on each side, when another tribe such as the Sibgan or Haydaran came out against them, those two hostile groups would forget their enmity and fight together, shoulder to shoulder, until the opposing tribe had been repelled, without ever once recalling their internal dissensions.

O Believers! Do you know how many tribes of enemies have taken up position to attack the tribe of the people of belief? There are more than a hundred of them, like a series of concentric circles. The believers are obliged to take up defensive positions, each supporting the other and giving him a helping hand. Is it then at all fitting for the people of belief that with their biased partisanship and hostile rancour they should facilitate the attack of the enemy and fling open the doors for him to penetrate the fold of Islam? There are maybe seventy circles of enemies, including the misguided, the atheist, and the unbeliever, each of them as harmful to you as all the terrors and afflictions of this world, and each of them regarding you with greed, anger and hatred. Your firm weapon, shield and citadel against all of them is none other than the brotherhood of Islam. So realize just how contrary to conscience and to the interests of Islam it is to shake the citadel of Islam on account of petty hostilities and other pretexts! Know this, and come to your senses!

Source: 22nd Letter, Risale-i Nur Collection

Seeds of Reality, Risale-i Nur Collection

One fifth of mankind, three hundred million people, together declaring: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar – Allah is Most Great!”; and in relation to its size the globe broadcasting to its fellow planets in the skies the sacred words of “Allahu Akbar!”; and the more than twenty thousand pilgrims performing the Hajj, on ‘Arafat and at the Eid, together declaring: “Allahu Akbar!” are all a response in the form of extensive, universal worship to the universal manifestation of Divine dominicality through Allah’s sublime titles of Sustainer of the Earth and Sustainer of All The Worlds, and are a sort of echo of the Allahu Akbar! spoken and commanded one thousand three hundred years ago by Allah’s Noble Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) and his Family and Companions. This I imagined and felt and was certain about.

Then I wondered if the sacred phrase has any connection with our matter. It suddenly occurred to me that foremost this phrase and many others of these marks of Islam like La Ilahe Illalah – There is no god but Allah, Alhamdulillah – All praise be to Allah!, and Subhanallah – Glory be to Allah!, which bear the title of “enduring good works,” recall particular and universal points about the matter we are discussing, and infer its realization.

For example, one aspect of the meaning of Allahu Akbar! is that Divine power and knowledge are greater than everything; nothing at all can quit the bounds of Allah’s knowledge, nor escape or be saved from the disposals of His power. He is greater than the things we fear most. This means He is greater than bringing about the resurrection of the dead, saving us from non-existence, and bestowing eternal happiness. He is greater than any strange or unimaginable thing, so that, as explicitly stated by the verse,

مَا خَلْقُكُمْ وَلاَ بَعْثُكُمْ إِلاَّ كَنَفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ

Your creation and your resurrection are but as a single soul (Qur’an 31:28),

the resurrection of mankind is as easy for His power as the creation of a single soul. It is in connection with this meaning that when faced by serious disasters or important undertakings, everyone says: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”, making it a source of consolation, strength, and support for themselves.

As is shown in the Ninth Word, the above phrase and its two fellows, that is, Allahu Akbar!, and Subhanallah!, and Alhamdulillah!, form the seeds and summaries of the ritual prayers —the index of all worship— and in order to corroborate the meaning of the prayers, are repeated in the tesbihat following them. They provide the powerful answers to the questions arising from the wonderment, pleasure, and awe man feels at the strange, beautiful, extraordinary things he sees in the universe, which cause him to offer thanks and to feel awe at their grandeur. Moreover, at the end of the Sixteenth Word, it is described how at the festival a private soldier and a field marshal enter the king’s presence together, whereas at other times the soldier has contact with the field marshal only through his commanding officer. Similarly, somewhat resembling the saints (ewliya), a person making the Hajj begins to know Allah through His titles of Sustainer of the Earth and Sustainer of All the Worlds. With its repetition, it is again Allahu Akbar that answers all the feverish bewildered questions that overwhelm his spirit as the levels of grandeur unfold in his heart. Furthermore, at the end of the Thirteenth Flash, it is described how it is again Allahu Akbar that replies most effectively to Satan’s cunning wiles, cutting them at the root, as well as answering succinctly but powerfully our question about the hereafter.

The phrase Alhamdulillah – All praise be to Allah also reminds us of resurrection. It says to us: “I would have no meaning if there was no hereafter. For I say: to Allah is due all the praise and thanks that have been offered from pre-eternity to post-eternity, whoever they have been offered by and to whom, for the chief of all bounties and the only thing that makes bounty true bounty and saves all conscious creatures from the endless calamities of non-existence, is eternal happiness; it is only eternal happiness that can be equal to that universal meaning of mine.”

Yes, every day all believers saying at least one hundred and fifty times after the obligatory prayers: Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah!, as enjoined by the Shari‘a, and its being the expression of praise and thanks which extend from pre-eternity to post-eternity, can only be the advance price and immediate fee for Paradise and eternal happiness. They offer thanks since bounties are not restricted to the fleeting bounties of this world, which are tainted by the pains of transience, and see them as the means to eternal bounties.

As for the sacred phrase, Subhanallah!; with its meaning of declaring Allah free of all partner, fault, defect, tyranny, impotence, unkindness, need, and deception, and all faults opposed to His perfection, beauty, and glory, it recalls eternal happiness and the realm of the hereafter and Paradise within it, which are the means to His glory and beauty and the majesty and perfection of His sovereignty; the phrase alludes to them and indicates them. For, as has been proved previously, if there was no eternal happiness, both His sovereignty, and His perfection, glory, beauty, and mercy would be stained by fault and defect.

Like these three sacred phrases, Bismillah – In the Name of Allah and La ilahe illallah – There is no god but Allah and other blessed phrases are all seeds to the pillars of faith. Like the meat essences and sugar concentrates that have been discovered recently, they are summaries of both the pillars of belief, and the truths of the Qur’an. The three mentioned above are both the seeds of the five daily prayers, and they are the seeds of the Qur’an, sparkling like brilliants at the beginning of a number of shining suras. So too are they the true sources and bases of the Risale-i Nur, many of whose inspirations first came while I was reciting the tesbihat following the prayers; they are the seeds of its truths. In respect of the sainthood and worship of Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him), these phrases are the invocations of the Muhammadan (PBUH) way which, following each of the five daily prayers, more than one hundred million believers repeat together in a vast circle of remembrance. Their beads in their hands, they declare Subhanallah! thirty-three times, Alhamdulillah! thirty-three times, and Allahu Akbar! thirty-three times.

You have surely understood now the great value of reciting thirty-three times after the five daily prayers, in such a splendid circle for the remembrance of Allah, each of those three blessed phrases, which as explained above, are the summaries and seeds of both the Qur’an, and belief, and the prayers. You have understood too the great reward they yield.

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ عَلٰۤى اِنْعَامِهِ

سُبْحَانَكَ لاَعِلْمَ لَنَۤا اِلاَّ مَا عَلَّمْتَنَا اِنَّكَ اَنْتَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ

Praise be to Allah for His bounties.

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed You are All-Knowing, All-Wise. (Qur’an 2:32)

Source: The Risale-i Nur Collection, 11th Flash, A Summary of Eighth Topic, 

A story to be pondered over: There were two groups of the Hasanan, a tribe of nomads, hostile to each other. Although more than maybe fifty people had been killed on each side, when another tribe such as the Sibgan or Haydaran came out against them, those two hostile groups would forget their enmity and fight together, shoulder to shoulder, until the opposing tribe had been repelled, without ever once recalling their internal dissensions.

O Believers! Do you know how many tribes of enemies have taken up position to attack the tribe of the people of belief? There are more than a hundred of them, like a series of concentric circles. The believers are obliged to take up defensive positions, each supporting the other and giving him a helping hand. Is it then at all fitting for the people of belief that with their biased partisanship and hostile rancour they should facilitate the attack of the enemy and fling open the doors for him to penetrate the fold of Islam? There are may be seventy types of enemies, ranging from the people of misguidance and heresy to the realm of disbelief, to the conditions and calamities of the world. Each of these enemies have adopted a hostile attitude towards you, and regarding you with greed, anger, and hatred. Your firm weapon, shield and citadel against all of them is none other than the brotherhood of Islam. So realize just how contrary to conscience and to the interests of Islam it is to shake the citadel of Islam on account of petty hostilities and other pretexts! Know this, and come to your senses!

According to a noble Hadith of the Prophet (UWBP), noxious and awesome persons like Sufyan and the Dajjal will come to rule over the godless at the end of time, and exploiting the greed, discord and hatred amongst the Muslims and mankind, they will need only a small force to reduce humanity to anarchy and the vast world of Islam to slavery.¹

O people of faith! If you do not wish to enter a humiliating condition of slavery, come to your senses and enter and take refuge in the citadel of:

اِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ اِخْوَةٌ

Indeed the believers are brothers,(49:10)

to defend yourselves against those oppressors who would exploit your differences! Otherwise you will be able neither to protect your lives nor to defend your rights. It is evident that if two champions are wrestling with each other, even a child can beat them. If two mountains are balanced in the scales, even a small stone can disturb their equilibrium and cause one to rise and the other to fall. So O people of belief! Your strength is reduced to nothing as a result of your passions and biased partisanships, and you can be defeated by the slightest forces. If you have any interest in your social solidarity, then make of the exalted principle of

اَلْمُؤْمِنُ لِلْمُؤْمِنِ كَالْبُنْيَانِ الْمَرْصُوصِ يَشُدُّ بَعْضُهُ بَعْضًا 

“The believers are together like a well-founded building, one part of which supports the other” your guiding principle in life! Then you will be delivered from humiliation in this world and wretchedness in the hereafter.

Source: Twenty Second Letter, Letters, Risale-i Nur Collection

T h e  A n s w e r : Yes, if a person who loves with passing love the transitory face of the world sees the ugliness of the decline and transience on that face and turns away from it; if he searches for an immortal beloved and is successful in seeing the world’s other two, beautiful, faces, of being a mirror to the divine names and the tillage of the hereafter, his illicit passing love then starts to be transformed into true love. But on the one condition that he does not confuse with the outside world his inner fleeting, unstable world, which is bound to his life. If like the people of misguidance and heedlessness he forgets himself, plunges into the outside world, and supposing the general world to be his private world comes to love it, he will fall into the swamp of nature and drown. Unless, extraordinarily, a hand of favour saves him. Consider the following comparison which will illuminate this truth.

For example, if on the four walls of this finely decorated room are four full-length mirrors belonging to the four of us, then there would be five rooms. One would be actual and general, and four, similitudes and personal. Each of us would be able to change the shape, form, and colour of his personal room by means of his mirror. If we were to paint it red, it would appear red, if we were to paint it green, it would appear green. Likewise, we could alter it by adjusting the mirror; we could make it ugly, or beautiful, or give it different forms. But we could not easily adjust and change the outer, general room. While in reality the general and personal rooms are the same, in practice they are different. You could destroy your own room with one finger, but you could not make one stone of the other stir.

Thus, this world is a decorated house. The life of each of us is a full-length mirror. Each of us has a world from this world, but its support, centre, and door is our life. Indeed, that personal world of ours is a page and our life is a pen; many things that are written with it pass to the page of our actions. We love our world, but later see that since it is constructed on our life, like it it is fleeting, transitory, and unstable. We perceive and understand this, and our love for it is redirected to the beautiful impresses of the divine names to which our personal world is the mirror and which it reflects; it switches from our world to the manifestations of the names. Moreover, if we are aware that that personal world of ours is a temporary seed-bed of the hereafter and Paradise, and if we direct our feelings for it like intense desire, love, and greed, towards the benefits of the hereafter, which are its results, fruits, and shoots, then that passing love is transformed into true love. Otherwise, manifesting the meaning of the verse,

نَسُوا اللهَ فَاَنْسٰيهُمْ اَنْفُسَهُمْ اُولٰۤئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ

a person will forget himself, not think of life’s fleeting nature, suppose his personal, unstable world to be constant like the general world, and imagine himself to be undying; he will fix himself on the world and embrace it with intense emotions; he will drown in it and depart. Such love will be boundless torment and tribulation for him. For an orphan-like compassion, a despairing softness of heart will be born of that love. He will pity all living beings. Indeed, he will feel sympathy for all beautiful creatures which suffer decline, and the pain of separation, but he will be able to do nothing, he will suffer in absolute despair.

However, the first man, who is saved from heedlessness, finds an elevated antidote for the pain of that intense compassion. For in the death and decline of all the living beings he pities, he sees that the mirrors of their spirits are immortal, for in them are depicted the perpetual manifestations of the enduring names of an Ever-Enduring One; his compassion is transformed into joy. He also sees behind all beautiful creatures, which are subject to death and transience, an impress, a making beautiful, an art, adornment, bestowal, and illuminating that are permanent and that make perceived a transcendent beauty, a sacred loveliness. He sees the death and transience to be renewal, the purpose of which is to increase the beauty, refresh the pleasure, and exhibit the art, and this augments his pleasure, his ardour, his wonder.