My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Hadiths of this sort are allegorical. They are not particular and do not look to general places. As for others, of the religious differences that would afflict the Umma, they point out a single time, citing the Hijaz and Iraq as examples. Anyway in the ‘Abbasid period, numerous misguided sects came into being which harmed Islam, like the Mu‘tazila, the Rawafid, Jabariyya, and atheists and heretics under various guises. At a time there were serious upheavals regarding the Shari‘a and tenets of belief, numerous leading figures of Islam like Bukhari, Muslim, Imam-i A‘zam, Imam Shafi‘i, Imam Malik, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Imam Ghazali, Gawth al-A‘zam, and Junayd al-Baghdadi, emerged and quelled the religious dissension. The victory continued for around three hundred years, but the sects of the people of misguidance covertly, by way of politics, brought down on the Muslims the dissension of Hulagu and Jenghiz. Both Hadiths, and Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) explicitly indicate this dissension together with its date. Then since the dissension of the present time is one of the most serious, both numerous Hadiths, and numerous Qur’anic allusions give news of it, together with the date. Making an analogy with this, when a Hadith mentions in general fashion the stages the Umma will pass through, it sometimes points out the date of a particular event within the generality, by way of an example. Various parts of the Risale-i Nur have made certain interpretations of allegorical Hadiths such as these, the meanings of which are not completely understood. The Twenty-Fourth Word and Fifth Ray elucidate this truth by means of principles.

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My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

It was imparted to me that I should explain a truth so that you do not accuse one another of egotism or disloyalty.

At one time I observed that some of the great saints who had given up egotism and none of whose evil-commanding souls remained, complained bitterly about them and I was astonished. I later understood perfectly that on the death of the evil-commanding soul, its implements are handed over to veins of temperament and emotions, so that the striving of the soul can continue to the end of the