O sons of this land, who are the people of the Qur’an! Challenging the whole  world,  you have proclaimed  the Qur’an  as its standard-bearers,  not for six hundred years, but for a thousand years since the time of the ‘Abbasids. You have made your nationhood a citadel to the Qur’an and Islam. You have silenced the whole world and repulsed awesome attacks. You have confirmed the verse:

Soon God will produce a people whom He will love as they will love Him, lowly with the believers, mighty against the rejecters, fighting in the way of God.(5:54)

Now  you  must  refrain  from  succumbing  to  the  stratagems  of  Europe  and  the dissemblers who imitate them, thus corroborating the passage above; you must be frightened of doing such a thing!

A  Noteworthy  Situation:  The  Turks  are  the  most  numerous  of  the  Islamic peoples, and wherever they are found, they are Muslims. They have not divided into Muslims and non-Muslims like other peoples. Wherever there are Turks, they are Muslims. Turks who have abandoned Islam or who are not Muslims are no longer Turkish, like the Hungarians. But even small races consist of both Muslims and non- Muslims.

O my Turkish brother! You watch out in particular! Your nationhood has fused with Islam and may not be separated from it. If you do separate them, you will be finished! All your  glorious deeds of the past are recorded  in the book of Islam’s deeds, and cannot be effaced from the face of the earth by any power. So don’t you efface them from your heart at the evil suggestions and devices of Satan!

Fifth Matter

The  peoples  awakening  in  Asia  are  embracing  the  idea  of  nationalism  and imitating Europe precisely in every respect, and on the way are sacrificing many of the things they hold sacred. However, every nation requires a dress suitable to its particular stature. Even if the material is the same [for all nations], the styles have to be different. A woman cannot be dressed in a gendarme’s uniform, nor can an elderly hoja be clothed in a tango-dancer’s outfit. Moreover, blind imitation very often makes people into laughing-stocks. This is so for the following reasons:

F i r s t l y : If Europe is a shop, a barracks, Asia is an arable field and a mosque. A shopkeeper can go to the ball, but a peasant cannot. The situation of a barracks and that of a mosque cannot be the same.

Moreover, the appearance of most of the prophets in Asia, and the emergence of the majority of philosophers in Europe is a sign, an indication, of pre-eternal divine determining that what will arouse the Asian peoples and cause them to progress and to govern, are religion and the heart. As for philosophy, it should assist religion and the heart, not take its place.