But belief in the Hereafter tells them: "Do not fret. You have an eternal youth that is yet to come. A luminous and infinite life awaits you. You will be joyously reunited with the children and relatives you have lost. All of the good deeds you have performed have been kept for you; you will be rewarded for them." Belief in the Hereafter thus gives them such consolation and relief that if each of them is weighed down suddenly by hundredfold dotage he will still not despair.
As for the young who make up one third of humanity, their passsions are in tumult and their tempestuous minds are often unquiet. If they lose belief in the Hereafter and fail to remember the torment of Hell, the property and honour of respectable people, the tranquillity and dignity of the weak and the old, all this will be endangered in the life of society. Sometimes a youth will destroy the happiness of a household for the sake of a minute of pleasure, and then suffer four or five years in prison for his crime, descending to the level of a wild beast.
If belief in the Hereafter comes to his aid, he will swiftly come to his senses. He will say-to himself: "It is true that the spies of the government cannot see me and that I can hide from them, but the angels of that Glorious Monarch whose jail is Hell-fire see me and record all my evil deeds. I have not been left to my own devices; rather I am a traveller entrusted with a certain mission and duty. Moreover, I too will become old and weak like others." He will begin to feel compasión and respect for those he wished unjustly to attack. Since this matter too is set forth with various proofs elsewhere in the Risale-i Nur, we curtail our discussion of it here.
Another important segment of humanity is made up of the sick and the oppressed, of those like us who are poor, and who have suffered misfortune and been sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour.¹ Were belief in the Hereafter not to come to their aid, the death that appears to them through the constant reminder of sickness, the arrogant treachery of the oppresssor upon whom they are unable to avenge themselves and from whom they are unable to protect their honour, the painful despair that comes from fruitlessly losing one's property and offspring in great misfortunes, the gloomy affliction that arises from suffering the torment of five or ten years of prison for the sake of one or two minutes or hours of pleasure — all of this would of a certainty tum the world into a prison for those wretches, and life into a tortuous pain. But if belief in the Hereafter comes to their aid, they will breathe a deep sigh of relief; their affliction, despair, anxiety and desire for revenge will disappear either partialy or totally, in accordance with their degree of belief.
I can even say that if belief in the Hereafter had not come to the aid of myself and some of my brothers, to tolerate for a single day this unjust imprisonment and appalling misfortune would have affected us as much as death itself and inclined us to resignation from life. But thanks be to God without limit that although I have suffered the pain endured in this misfortune by many of my brothers who are as dear to me a my own self; although I have suffered regret for thousands of copies of the Risaie-i Nur and my precious gilded and ornamented books, weeping as they were destroyed; although in the past I could never swallow the least insult or offence — I can swear to you that the light and strength of belief in the Hereafter has endowed me with such patience and endurance, with such consolation and fortitude, indeed with such an aident desire to win through struggle a still greater reward in this trial and test, that I consider myself to be in a fine and beneficial school that deserves the title of Josephian School.²
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1. At the time these lines were written in 1944, Bediuzzaman was imprisoned in Denizli, awaiting trial on various false charges, [Tr.]
2. An allusion to the beneficial imprisonment of Joseph (Upon whom be peace) after the false accusation made by the wife of the Pharaoh. Тт.