In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I am going to relate to you a question and answer of forty years ago which resembles that of yesterday. In those days of long ago, since the Old Said’s students’ passionate attachment to their Master was such they would sacrifice their very lives for him, the Old Said was able to halt the Armenian Tashnak revolutionaries around Van and Bitlis, where they were very active, and was able to silence them to a degree. He found Mauser rifles for his students, and for a while his medrese was like a barracks with guns and books side by side. Then a General from the army came and saw them and said: “This isn’t a medrese, it’s a barracks.” Because of the Bitlis Incident he became suspicious, and ordered that they collected up our rifles. A month or two later, the Great War broke out and I reclaimed my rifles. Anyway...

They asked me in connection the above: “The Armenian revolutionaries, among whom are fervent devotees ready to sacrifice their lives, are frightened of you, so that when you climb the mountain Erek Dagi near Van, they withdraw and go elsewhere. What force do you have that makes them do that?”

In reply I told them: “Since the Armenian devotees display this wondrous self-sacrifice for the fleeting life of this world and the temporary interests of trifling, negative nationalism, and attack us, surely the students, who strive for everlasting life and the positive interests of vast, sacred Islamic nationhood and believe that the appointed hour cannot be changed, will not lag behind those devotees.89 If necessary, they unhesitatingly and proudly sacrifice the certain appointed hour and few years of illusory outward life for millions of years of true life and the well-being and interests of thousands of millions of their fellow believers.”

S a i d N u r s i

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