A Confidential Letter to Some of my Brothers

I shall mention a point concerning two Hadiths to my brothers who become bored of  writing,  and  prefer  other  recitations  during  the  Three  Months,  the  months  of worship,  to  writing  out  the  Risale-i Nur,  although to  do  this  is  worship  in  five

respects.1  The two Hadiths are these:

The First: “At the Last Judgement, the ink spent by the scholars of religion will weigh equally to the blood of the martyrs.”2

The Second: “Whoever adheres to my Sunna when my community is corrupted shall earn the reward of a hundred martyrs.”3  That is, those who adhere to and serve the  Prophet’s  (UWBP)  practices  and  the  Qur’an’s  truths  when  innovations  and misguidance are rife may gain the reward of a hundred martyrs.

O my brothers who weary of writing out of laziness! And O my brothers who lean to  Sufism! These two  Hadiths show that the black  light  flowing from  your blessed,  pure  pens  serving the  truths  of  belief  and  mysteries  of  the  Shari‘a  and practices of the Prophet (UWBP) at a time such as this – even a drop of their water- of-life-like ink – may win for you on the Day of Judgement reward equal to a hundred drops of martyrs’ blood. So try to win it!

If you say: It says scholars in the Hadith and some of us are only scribes.

The Answer: Anyone who reads these treatises for a year and comprehends and accepts them, may become a valuable, exacting scholar at this time. Even if he does not understand  them, since the Risale-i Nur students have a collective personality, doubtless it  is learned.  As for  your pens,  they are the immaterial fingers of that collective  personality.  With  your  good opinion of me,  you  have afforded me the position  of  Master  (Ustad)  and  religious  scholar,  and  attached  yourselves  to  me although in my view I am unworthy. I am unlettered and have difficulty in writing, so your pens may be thought of as mine; you will receive the  reward indicated in the Hadith.

S a i d   N u r s i

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1 We asked for an explanation of the five sorts of worship which our Master indicates in this valuable letter. The explanation we received is below:

i. To strive against the people of misguidance, the most important struggle. ii. To serve our Master in the form of helping him spread the truth.

iii. To serve Muslims in respect of belief.

iv. To obtain knowledge by means of the pen.

v. To perform worship in the form of reflective thought, one hour of which may sometimes be equal to a year’s worship.                                    

Signed: Rüştü, Hüsrev, Re’fet

2   al-Ghazali, Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din, i, 6; al-Munawi, Fayd al-Qadir, vi, 466; al-‘Ajluni, Kashf al- Khafa’, ii, 561; al-Suyuti, Jami‘ al-Saghir, No: 10026.

3   Ibn ‘Adiyy, al-Kamil fi’l-Du‘afa’, ii, 739; al-Mundhiri, al-Targhib wa’l-Tarhib, i, 41; Tabarani,

al-Majma‘ al-Kabir, 1394; ‘Ali ibn Husamuddin, Muntakhabat Kanz al-‘Ummal, i, 100; al-Haythami,

Majma‘ al-Zawa’id, vii, 282.