Risale-i Nur

Phase 5 · Kader and Vesvese

Week 20

Learning from a Life Lived

The Flashes · The Twenty-Sixth Flash · The Letters · The Sixteenth Letter

01

Story

  1. 01A prisoner of war far in the north-east of Russia. The Tatars of the town take him, on their surety, to their small mosque on the bank of the Volga, and he sleeps there alone.

  2. 02The northern nights are long. The river, the rain and the wind keep him awake. He is forty and feels eighty, far from home (gurbet), and his hope runs out.

  3. 03His tongue says the words of trust (tevekkül), “God is enough for us” (Hasbunallah). His heart weeps: I am a stranger, I have no one, I am weak, I am powerless.

  4. 04Days later he escapes, alone, without a word of Russian, across a country a year wide on foot. His weakness (acz) has been his intercessor.

  5. 05Years later he says that night was the dark pupil of his life’s eye: it saw. The bright days of Istanbul were the white of the eye, which sees nothing.

Nursi’s own account from the Ninth Hope of the Twenty-Sixth Flash, retold in our words. The course plan names Emirdağ Lahikası, his letters from a later exile; it has no English edition on Risale Global, so this week reads the places where he tells his exile in the English Risale. A facilitator can add Emirdağ letters in Turkish. The night on the pine tree is in Explore below.

02

Meaning

Nursi wrote down his own nights of captivity and exile, the pain first and then the help that came. They show the ideas of this course lived out under pressure and isolation, which speaks to anyone far from home.

For five weeks we read about Divine Determining and the whispers of the self. This week we watch a man live it. Nursi spent most of his adult life as a prisoner or an exile, and he did not hide what it cost him. He says he tells the pain first on purpose (ihtar), so that the strength of the remedy can be seen. The remedy was never a change of place. It was belief: that the Merciful is here too, that His mercy runs towards weakness, and that when everyone else goes, He remains. Anyone in London a long way from home (gurbet) can read these pages as letters addressed to them.

Six things a life in exile shows

From the Treatise for the Elderly and the Sixteenth Letter. Try each picture with your own hands.

  1. the remedy · ilâç“all fine here”told as it was · ihtar

    The same small lamp either way. How bright is it?

    01 / 06

    He tells the pain first, on purpose

    At the start of the Treatise for the Elderly Nursi adds a warning (ihtar): he has described his inner pain at the head of every Hope so grievously that it may sadden you, and he did it deliberately, to show how strong the remedy from the Qur’an is. He weeps, despairs, feels his hope cut off. Only then does the light come. Even the word for each chapter, rica, means both a hope and a request: every Hope is also a plea.

  2. far from home · vatanfar from those who have gonesoon, from the whole worldnot empty · ünsiyet

    One man on a mountain at night. How far is he from home?

    02 / 06

    Exile within exile, and no exile for us

    On the pine tree Nursi counts his exiles (gurbet) one inside another: far from his homeland; further from everyone he has loved who has died; and soon, with old age, parted from the whole world. He feels desolate (vahşet). The remedy is not a ticket home but belief in God, which gives a familiarity (ünsiyet) beyond measure. Since we have a Merciful Creator, he says, exile cannot touch us. The mountains are full of His servants, and seen in His light, stones and trees become friendly companions (munis arkadaş).

  3. mercy, at workweak · âciz“go and find your own”

    A chick in a nest at the top of a tree, too small to fly.

    03 / 06

    Weakness is the intercessor

    By the Volga, Nursi looked at his powerlessness and loneliness and his hope was cut. Yet his weakness and impotence (acz ve zaaf), he says, became so great an intercessor (şefaatçi) at God’s court that years later he still wondered at it. His picture is a nestling at the top of a tree: its helplessness puts its mother to work like an obedient soldier, back and forth with food. When its wings grow strong and it forgets its weakness, she tells it to go and find its own.

  4. the white · Istanbul’s bright daysthe pupil · the night of exileglare, nothing seenit sees

    An eye, white and dark. Which part does the seeing?

    04 / 06

    The dark night is the pupil of the eye

    The Volga night made Nursi decide to spend the rest of his life alone with God, since he would enter the grave alone anyway. Then came Istanbul: many friends, a glittering life, fame far beyond his due, and he forgot. His image is exact. That night in exile was the luminous black (nurlu siyahlık) in the eye of his life; the bright days of Istanbul were its lightless white (nursuz beyaz). The white of the eye sees nothing; only the dark pupil sees.

  5. ties cut, one after anotherthe heart · kalbonce · surgerytwice · ointmentat the door

    Ties to the world, cut one after another. The wounds are real.

    05 / 06

    You alone are everlasting

    The death of his nephew and student Abdurrahman hit Nursi harder than captivity, exile, old age and illness together. A verse opened to him, “Everything perishes except His face” (28:88), and he said twice, “O Everlasting One, You alone are everlasting” (Yâ Bâkî, Ente’l-Bâkî). The first time began a kind of surgery on his wounds; the second was ointment and antidote for all that passes (fânî). In plain Turkish: let whoever goes, go; You are enough (giden gitsin, sen yetersin). Then he walked back to the village and found a young man waiting at his door.

  6. his heartan insult, behind his backa scorpion pointed out · thank himfalse fame broken · şöhret-i kâzibehanded to its Ownerleft with those who hold him

    An official spoke about him with contempt. The Old Said was hurt for an hour. Then he sorted it.

    06 / 06

    When someone harms you, the scorpion

    In the Sixteenth Letter friends ask how the once fiery Nursi bears every insult in silence. An official mocked him behind his back, and the Old Said in him was hurt for about an hour. Then he sorted it. If the faults are mine and true, he helps me train my self (nefs). If false, he saves me from showing off (riya) and false fame. If someone tells me there is a scorpion on my neck, I should thank him. If it is aimed at my service of belief, I leave him to its Owner. If it is only abuse, my honour is the business of those who hold me. So he forgave him (helâl etti) and counted it as not having happened.

03

Read

حَسْبِيَ اللّٰهُ لَا اِلٰهَ اِلَّا هُوَ عَلَيْهِ تَوَكَّلْتُ

“God is enough for me; there is no god but He; in Him I put my trust.” (Qur’an 9:129) The verse that came to Nursi’s help after Abdurrahman’s death.

Once, in a painful captivity, shy of people (tevahhuş), I stayed alone at the top of Pine Mountain above Barla. In the loneliness I was looking for a light. One night I was in the little open room at the top of a tall pine on that summit, and old age reminded me of three or four exiles, one inside another. Then belief in God came to the rescue. It gave such a warmth that even if the desolation I was in had grown a thousandfold, that comfort would have been enough. Since we have a Merciful Creator, exile cannot be ours. Since He is, everything is ours. The empty mountains and bare plains are full of His servants.

In those dark nights, in that dark exile, the sad murmur of the Volga, the soft patter of the rain and the wind of parting woke me for a while from a deep sleep of heedlessness. I looked at my weakness and my aloneness, and my hope was cut. While I was in that state, help came from the Qur’an. My tongue said, “God is enough for us, and the best One to trust.” My heart, weeping, said: I am a stranger, I have no one, I am weak, I am powerless; I ask for safety, I seek pardon, I seek help from Your door, my God.

The first time I said “O Everlasting One, You alone are everlasting,” a kind of surgery began on the countless wounds left by the passing of the world and of friends like Abdurrahman, and by the breaking of my ties. The second time, the same words were both ointment and antidote for all of them. That is: You are lasting. Let whoever goes, go; You are enough. Since You last, one glimpse of Your mercy is worth everything that passes. Passing away and death are a veil, a renewal, like travelling from one stopping-place to another.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Flashes, the Twenty-Sixth Flash (Treatise for the Elderly), the Sixth, Ninth and Twelfth Hopes. Emirdağ Lahikası, named in the course plan, is not yet on Risale Global in English; a facilitator can add letters from it in Turkish.Working translation from the Turkish, made for this draft. Check against a published edition before release.Read the Treatise for the Elderly in full, in English with the Turkish original

04

Explore

A night on Pine Mountain

In exile in Barla, Nursi climbed to a small open room at the top of a tall pine on the mountain and stayed there alone. Scrub through one night as he tells it, from dusk to the moment the mountain was no longer empty.

DuskAlone on the summit, withdrawn from people (tevahhuş), the village far below. He is looking for a light in the loneliness.

Night fallsThe day turns into a black grave and the world puts on its black shroud. The trees rustle and murmur, and old age whispers: so will the day of your life turn into night.

Exile within exileFar from home (gurbet). Further from all he loved who have died. And soon, parted from the whole world. Exiles one inside another, sorrow inside sorrow.

Belief comesThen belief in God comes to the rescue, and gives a warmth (ünsiyet) that would be enough even if the loneliness were a thousand times worse.

The mountain is fullThe mountain is not empty. It is full of God’s servants, and seen in His light, the stones and trees become friends. Weakness, he says, is the most welcome intercessor at His door.

The Sixteenth Letter puts the same night into a pun. The world is a guesthouse (misafirhane); if its Owner’s mercy is your friend (yâr), everyone is a friend and every place will do (her yer yarar). And a closed door is not the end of the road: you closed the door of the world on me, he told those who held him, so I knocked on the door of the hereafter, and mercy opened it.