The Fourth Word

[Haaraahur.]

Unfortunately, I belong to those foolish people the parable below speaks of. Please send a prayer my way.

 

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The Fourth Word.

 

The worth of the prescribed prayers.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The prescribed prayers are the pillars of Islaam.

 

If you would really like to understand with certainty that two plus makes four how valuable and important prescribed prayers (salat) are, and with what slight effort is their reward gained, and how foolish and harmful is the one who does not pray, then listen attentively to this parable:

 

Once upon a time an important ruler sends to of his servants to a beautiful farm, giving each twenty four gold coins. The farm is 2 months’ away. He gives them these orders: ‘Use this money for the ticket and other necessities for the journey and after arrival. There is a station one day away where trains, ships, cars and planes are available, any of which you may take according to your capital.’

 

The two leave after receiving these instructions. One is so fortunate that he spends only a little of his money before he arrives at the station. He makes such a profitable use of his capital that his lord likes him. So his property is increased a thousand fold. The other man, being unfortunate and ****** spends twenty three out of his twenty four coins in gambling and the like before he arrives at the station. He has only one coin left.

 

His friend says to him: ‘Spend this coin on the ticket, if you don’t, you’ll have to go on foot and suffer hunger. Our lord is generous, maybe he will pity and forgive you. They may let you take the plane, so we can reach our plan, so we can reach our farm in a day. If not, you’ll have to go on foot and endure two months of hunger while crossing the desert.’

 

If that unfortunate one doesn’t listen to his friend and spend his last coin on the valuable ticket, if he chooses, instead, to spend it on a vice for passing pleasure, even the most unintelligent person will agree what great folly and loss the man stands in.

 

Now, O man who does not pray, and O soul of mine which doesn’t incline to prayer, listen to the explanation!

 

The important ruler is our Lord, our Creator. Of the two travellers, one is religious and performs his prayers with fervour. The other, unmindful, represents the people who don’t like praying. The twenty four coins stand for the twenty four hours of a day. The farm is the Paradise, while the station so near is the grave. The journey is from the grave to the eternal life. People cover that long journey at different times according to their deed according to their deeds and conduct. Some of the truly devout pass the span of a thousand years in a day like lightening, some fifty years in an hour with the speed of imagination: the Qur’an alludes to this truth in two of its verses (al-Hajj,22.47; al-Sajda,32.5)

 

 

The ticket is the salat, the prescribed prayer. An hour is enough for the prayers of the day. If you spend twenty three hours of each day of your short life in this world on the affairs this world and don’t reserve the remaining hour for the important prayers necessary for the other world, it shows your foolishness, and stands you in a condition of a grave loss. You maybe tempted to pay over a half of your money on a lottery in which one thousand people are participating, although the possibility of wining one is one in a thousand. Whereas, if you pray, the possibility of winning is ninety nine percent, if, then, you do not use one of your twenty four coins to obtain this chance, to gain an inexhaustible treasure, would not anyone who considers himself to be sensible understand how contrary to reason and wisdom such conduct is, and how far from reason you have wondered?

 

Moreover, in prayer, there is comfort for the soul and mind. Nor is it difficult for the body. Furthermore, with the right intention, all the deeds and conduct of one who prays become like worship. In this way, his little lifetime is spent for the sake of the eternal life in the other world. And his transient life gains a kind of permanence.

 

Source: THE WORDS 1, pages 23-25

Author: Said Nursi

 

About the author

 

Said Nursi Quotes:

 

“I can bear my own sorrows, but the sorrows arising from the calamities visiting Islam have crushed me. I feel each blow delivered at the world of Islam to be delivered first at my own heart. That is why I have been so shaken. But I see a light; it will make those sorrows be forgotten, God willing.

 

"During my whole life-time of over eighty years, I have tasted nothing of the wordly pleasures. My life has either passed on either battlefields or in prisons or other places of suffering. There has been no persecution which I have not tasted or no oppression which I have not suffered. I care neither for Paradise nor Fear Hell. If I see the faith of all Muslim nation secured, I will not care even burning the flames of Hell. For while me body is burning, my heart will as if in a rose garden”

 

 

Writing the Risale-i Nur

 

THE EMERGENCE OF THE RISALE-I NUR

 

In reality, the dissemination of the truths of faith was nothing to be alarmed about, nor was it a crime that would be the cause of plots against a man's life. However, it was an unforgiveable crime under the circumstances of the time! For those were the days when despotism had fallen down over the nation with all its darkness and awesomeness; a ban had been put over adhan; hundreds of mosques were being used for nonreligious purposes; the plans to cut off all that connects the nation with its past and its moral values were in process; and the mere mention of religion was a matter of great courrage.

 

The head of the press department of the government could order the editors of newspapers to cut within ten days all the serials that directly or indirectly. mentioned religion, as "it was considered harmful to lead to the emergence of the concept of religion in the minds of youths."

 

Such were the circumstances under which Bediuzzaman Said Nursi entered the second part of his life which he called the New Said and which was dedicated to the waiting and dissemination of the truths of faith. Taking as the aim the revival of faith, which is the first and most important truth of the cosmos, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, "I will demonstrate to the world that the Qur'an is a spiritual sun that shall never set and shall never be extinguished." And indeed so he did.

 

Bediuzzaman did not die in Barla, where he had been sent to die alone, but a new Said emerged there, and with it emerged a sun over the world of science and culture, .one that has since been illuminating millions. In Barla too, an awesome oppression and surveillance were waiting for Bediuzzaman.

 

It appeared that his enemies had not yet come to know him, who, in the World War had been the fear of the Russians, in Istanbul had spat at the face of the British who were in his pursuit, and had several times returned from the gallows. Nevertheless, they later had enough time to know him and in the end found themselves having to say, "Despite all we have done in the past twenty-five years, we have not been able to prevent Said Nursi from his activities." During the eight years and a half that he spent under absolute oppression in Barla, Bediuzzaman wrote three quarters of the Risale-i Nur collection:

 

The treatises were being multiplied by handwriting, as neither the author nor his students could afford the printing costs. Even if they had been able to, then again they did not have the freedom. Handwriting was also a dangerous task, for the scribes were being tortured in prisons and police stations, and every attempt was being made to prevent people from contact with Bediuzzaman.

 

600.000 COPIES WRITTEN BY HAND

Here it must be noted that at that time the writing or dissemination of even a single religious treatise was not anything that anybody dared try, let alone the firm, courageous and continuous struggle that Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and his students carried out.

 

When these circumstances under which the Risale-i Nur was written and spread all over Anatolia are taken into consideration, one cannot find difficulty in realizing how right was Maryam Jameelah, the well-known American Muslim writer, when she said, "It is no exaggeration to claim that whatever Islamic faith remains in Turkey is due to the tireless efforts of Bediuzzaman Nursi." Indeed, those instructed by the Risale-i Nur in lessons of the faith of realization strengthened, in so doing, their beliefs and attained an impregnable Islamic courage and heroism.

 

With Bediuzzaman, who represented in his person the spiritual personality of the Risale-i Nur, as their leader, those hundreds of thousands-now millions-of students of Nur set a pattern for other Muslims and constituted a support for them in those perilous days like brave commanders encouraging an army with their states.

 

The strength of their beliefs and their continuous struggle against irreligion had wide effects on people, and they thus removed the fears and misgivings from the hearts, rallied the morale of the nation, brought about hope and relief and delivered the Muslims from desperation.

 

Bediuzzaman was arrested in 1930 with 125 students of his and tried at the Eskiþehir Criminal Court.

 

In Eskiþehir prison where they spent eleven months during the trial, they had to put up with unbearable torments. They were released the next spring but not Ieft in peace. This time, ,again escorted by gendarmes, Bediuzzaman was sent into exile in another city , Kastamonu. There he spent the first three months at a police station, then was transferred to a house opposite to the police station.

 

Bediuzzaman lived in Kastamonu for seven years and countinued to write and disseminate the Risale-i Nur. Because he and his students were deprived of almost all kinds of freedom, they therefore formed their own postal organization called the "Nur postmen." Through the "Nur postmen," 600,000 copies of treatises were multiplied by handwriting.

 

In 1943, he was arrested again and tried at the Denizli Criminal Court together with 126 students of his. The main reason for this was that Bediuzzaman had recently had a treatise concerning the existence of God printed secretly in Istanbul. In prison too he did not shrink from continuing his service, just as he never did when he was in exile. He was now reforming the criminals who were considered lost for society. He was also writing new treatises.

 

Paper and pen were not allowed into the prison, so the treatises were written on small pieces of paper torn from paperbags and smuggled out in matchboxes: This way Fruits from the Tree of Light came out. The trial ended in a unanimous acaquittal. But that did not mean that Bediuzzaman would be given back his freedom-upon an order from Ankara, he was sent to another town, Emirdað.

 

Sources:

A Brief Biography of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi

 

First full length biography