The Words | GLEAMS | 749
(724-779)

As zakat, He wanted either a fortieth or a tenth of the property He had given us, but out of stinginess we did wrong: we mixed the illicit with our property, and did not give it voluntarily.

So He had our accumulated zakat taken from us, and saved us from what was unlawful. The deed fitted the punishment. The punishment fitted the deed.

Righteous acts are of two sorts: one positive and voluntary, the other negative and enforced. All pains and calamities are good works; but negative and enforced. The Hadith offered consolation.24

This sinful nation took its ablutions with its blood; it repented actively. As an immediate reward, four million, a fifth of this nation, were raised to the degree of sainthood. It gave them the ranks of martyrdom and ghazis; it obliterated the sin.

The lofty dream assembly appreciated these words.

I awoke suddenly; rather, with awakening I went to sleep. I think the waking state is a dream and the dream state a sort of wakefulness.

There was this age's deputy, and here is Said-i Nursi!

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The Ignorant Suppose Metaphors To Be Fact

If figures of speech fall from the hand of knowledge to that of ignorance, they are transformed into fact, opening the door to superstition.

When small I saw an eclipse of the moon. I asked my mother, and she said: "A snake has swallowed it." I asked her: "Why is it visible, then?" She said: "The snakes there are semi-transparent." She thought a metaphor was reality. At a Divine command, on the earth interposing between "the head" and "the tail", which are the points of intersection of the moon and circuit of the sun, the moon is eclipsed. The two hypothetical arcs were called "Tinnin", it was named with a fanciful simile. Tinnin means the Serpent.25


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24. See, Bayhaqi, Dala'il al-Nubuwwa, vi, 383; SuyutI, al-Khasa'is al-Kubra, ii, 477-8; Musnad, iv, 195-6. See also, Bukhari, i, 167.
25. For a fuller explanation, see, Nursi, The Flashes Collection, Istanbul, Sozler Publications 1995,128.

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The Words