The Fourth Issue

The Fourth Issue

The brothers that serve me once asked me a question that has also been clarified in A Guide for Youth:

‘It has been fifty days now and you have not once asked [for news] about the appalling World War [II] (in fact, it has now been over seven years and I have still not asked) (19) that has thrust the world into such chaos and that bears on the fate of Islām. It does not seem even to enkindle your interest. On the other hand, certain religious and scholarly individuals abandon the congregation and the mosque and rush to listen to the radio. Now we wonder, could there be an event more momentous than the War? Or is it that some harm lies in occupying oneself with it?

I said as an answer: Life’s capital is minimal, yet there are very many crucial matters [to take care of]. Many spheres exist in the world of a human being, like concentric circles; beginning with the sphere of heart and stomach, then the sphere of body and home, the sphere of neighbourhood and city, the sphere of homeland and country, the sphere of the earth and mankind, unto the sphere of living creatures and this world [itself].

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19. This note refers to the year 1946.

Every human being may to some degree have a role to play in each sphere, yet the greatest, most important and most permanent duty lies in the sphere that is smallest. Indeed, the smallest duty - [although] temporary and to be fulfilled only from time to time - may exist within the greatest of spheres. According to this logic, these duties may well correspond to spheres that are inversely proportional with respect to their greatness and littleness. Yet the greater spheres wield an attraction, and because of this, man occupies himself with useless, fruitless extraneous matters, leaving his crucial service in the smaller spheres. He futilely squanders the capital of his life itself. He wastes his precious life engaging in things of no value. Sometimes, the person who with curiosity follows the battles of this war, may well find himself siding in his heart with one of the two factions. He thus condones the tyrannies of one side. He thereby partakes in that same tyranny. (20)

The answer to the first point is as follows:

Yes, an event has taken place that concerns all people, and most especially Muslims - an event that is more momentous than the World War. This event and case is more important than the issue of the control of the entire world, such that were each man to have the power and wealth of the Germans and the English as well as a sound intellect, he would without hesitation spend it all in order to win this case alone.

The case is as follows: One hundred thousand of the most illustrious of humanity - an almost limitless number of the stars and guides of mankind relying upon thousands of promises and covenants of the Owner and Disposer of the universe

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20. Nursī explains this verse “And do not incline toward those who do wrong, lest you be touched by the Fire” (Qur’ān, Hūd, 11:113) in The Twenty-eighth Letter (Mektūbāt) and says that this noble verse with its Divine commandment severely and dreadfully threatens not only those who become a means of tyranny or a supporter of it but also those with even a very low level of inclination towards it. This is a very famous quote regarding this topic: “Just like consent to disbelief (kufr) is disbelief, similarly consent towards tyranny (ẓulm) is tyranny, too.” 

some of which they have seen with their own eyes - congruently report the following:

A case concerning each human being has been opened that involves, in return for faith, either the obtainment or the loss of an ever-abiding, endlessly eternal tillage and property, ornamented with gardens and palaces, the extent of which is as that of the entire earth. If he does not obtain full certification of his faith, he will lose! Many of the people of this time have lost their cases by reason of the plague of materialism. Indeed, only a few of the forty individuals who died in a particular township won this case during their death throes, whereas the rest of them lost it entirely. Now I wonder; if such a man were to be given the rulership of the entire world, would anything be able to compensate for the case that he had lost?

We as students of The Book of Light believe that it would be absolute madness for us to occupy ourselves with useless, extraneous matters which do not concern us, as if we were to remain forever in this world, and for us to leave the duties that cause that case to be won, and the services that ensure that we are represented by an outstanding lawyer under whose care ninety percent of people are able to avoid losing that case. For this reason, we have become convinced that were we each of us to become a hundred degrees more intelligent than we are now, we would have to apply it all in this case alone.

Thus, O new brothers of mine within this tribulation of prison! 

You have not studied The Book of Light to the same degree as the previous brothers who entered the prison with me have done so. I now say, with the previous fellow brothers [in the prison] and thousands of Students of Light as witnesses, and I prove just as I did prove [previously]:

It is The Book of Light that has won that weighty case for ninety percent of people and delivered verified faith - that constitutes the note, acquittal and certification of having won that case - into the hands of twenty thousand people within twenty years, [that The Book of Light that was] reared by the semantic miraculousness of the Qur’ān and gushes forth from it, and that is the foremost of the lawyers of this time.

Despite the fact that my enemies and the disbelievers and materialists have for the last eighteen years caused us to be imprisoned by deceiving certain senior officials in the government with singularly cruel tricks, and previously entered us into prison hoping to wipe us out just as they have done so on this occasion, they have been unable to interfere with any but two or three of the one hundred and thirty pieces of equipment existing within the steel castle of The Book of Light. Anyone, then, who wishes to appoint a lawyer need only get hold of it. Do not be troubled, for The Book of Light will not be banned. Apart from two or three of them, the most important epistles of The Book of Light are circulating totally freely in the hands of the deputies and senior officials of the Republic’s government.

If Allāh wills, a day will come when happy prison governors and staff will distribute its lights to prisoners, just as they now distribute bread and medicine in order to transform the prisons into places of reform and refinement.