Once
I Sat Near The Window Of The Eskisehir Prison
Once I sat near the window
of the Eskisehir prison watching outside. In the playground
of the High School opposite the prison the older girls were
dancing and laughing, but they seemed to me to be like the houris
of Hell in that worldly paradise. They suddenly appeared to
me as they would be in fifty years' time, and their laughter
had turned into piteous weeping. From this the following truth
became apparent. That is to say, I saw them as they would be
in fifty years on an imaginary cinema screen. I saw that fifty
of those sixty laughing girls were suffering the torments of
the grave and had become earth. While ten of them were ugly
seventy-year-olds attracting only looks of disgust. I too wept
for them.
The true nature of the
dissension at the end of time appeared to me. It seemed to me
that its most fearsome and seductive aspect would spring from
the shameless faces of women. Negating free choice, it would
cast people into the flames of debauchery, like moths, and make
them prefer one minute of the life of this world to years of
eternal life.
Another day while watching
the street, I noticed a powerful example of this. I felt great
pity for the young people I saw. While thinking: "These unfortunates
cannot save themselves from the fire of these seductive temptations
which attract like magnets," a sort of embodiment of all the
forces urging apostasy appeared before me, which fans the flames
of those temptations and that dissension, and gives instruction
in them. I said to it and to those apostates who follow its
lessons and deviate from Islam:
Oh you miserable creatures
who sacrifice their religion on the way of taking pleasure with
the houris of Hell, and loving it perpetrate depravity on the
way of misguidance, who accept irreligion and deviation on the
way of the pleasures and lusts of the soul, and worship life,
are terrified of death, do not want to remember the grave, and
have turned their faces towards apostasy! You should know definitely
that, by reason of your irreligion, this mighty world of yours,
the previous hour and the coming minute, all this universe of
yours and your past and your future, all your species and races
of the past and the creatures and generations of the future,
and all the worlds and nations that have gone and all the peoples
and communities that will come, all these are completely non-existent
and dead.
Therefore, because of
the form of your misguidance, all these traveling worlds and
flowing universes with which you are connected by reason of
your humanity and intellect continuously rain down on your head
the severe suffering of a worldful of terrible and innumerable
deaths. If you possessed consciousness, it would be searing
your heart. If you had a spirit, it would be scorching it. If
your reason had not been extinguished, it would be drowning
in grief. If one short hour of your drunken dissipation and
filthy pleasure can make up for this boundless grief, sorrow,
and pain, then remain in it. But if it does not, come to your
senses! In order to be saved from that hell, enter the paradise
which belief ensures in this world also, and taste the happiness
of life, take heed of the lessons of the Qur'an, exchange a
partial, transitory minute's worth of pleasure for the universal,
unending, eternal pleasures of belief2
Also do not say: "I shall
pass my life like an animal", because for an animal the past
and the future are hidden, as though non-existent. By not causing
them to realize this, the All-Wise and Compassionate One has
saved them from innumerable pains. A hen which is being held
down to be slaughtered, even, does not feel any pain or grief.
It wants to feel it as the knife cuts, but the feeling passes
and it is saved from that pain, too. That is to say, Allah Almighty's
most vast and perfect mercy, clemency, and compassion do not
make the unseen known to them. They are more complete for innocent
animals in particular. And so, in licentious pleasure you cannot
reach the level of the animals; you fall a thousand times lower.
For your intellect sees things that are hidden to animals, and
receives pain from them. You are altogether deprived of the
total ease to be found in the veiling of the unseen.
Also, since your good
qualities, like brotherhood, respect, and zeal, which are a
cause of pride for you, are restricted to a minute point of
time and the space of a finger out of a vast desert, and are
special to only the present hour out of limitless time, they
become artificial, temporary, contrived, baseless, and most
insignificant, and your humanity and achievements diminish propor-tionately,
and are reduced to nothing. Whereas, since the brotherhood,
respect, love, and zeal of the believers encompass the past
and the future, which are existent by reason of their belief,
they elevate their humanity and achievements proportionately.
Also, like a crazy Jewish
diamond merchant who gives the price of diamonds for pieces
of glass, for your worldly success, you have given the price
of a long, permanent, and broad life for a brief, short time
and life, so of course you will be dominant within those limits.
Since you address yourself to one minute with a year's worth
of such emotions as a fierce greed, love and revenge, you will
prevail temporarily over the people of religion.
Also, since your mind,
spirit, heart, and feelings have abandoned their exalted duties,
and shared and assisted in the vile doings of your base soul
and filthy lusts, you will be victorious over the believers
in this world. And superficially you will appear more lovable.
For your mind, heart, and spirit have declined, degenerated,
and fallen to an extreme degree, and have been transformed,
deformed, into filthy lust and despicable soul. For sure, in
this respect you will prevail temporarily, which will gain you
Hell, and the wronged people of belief Paradise.
* * * *
AN ARTICLE OF OUR MASTER WHICH
SHOULD BE ANNEXED TO THE GUIDE FOR THE YOUTH
It is appropriate to exclude the 23rd
and 24th pages which are called “An Important Issue” at the beginning of the
Guide for the Youth sent
from Mersin.
Because : The important principle of the service
of Light is Compassion
–women are more seriously interested in the Treatises of Light than men, with sincerity and
cordiality.
The vehemence in these two pages should not upset
those blessed sisters who are the heroes of Compassion. Because
that issue was written to warn some Muslim girls who were trying to imitate indecent, half-nude
Greek and Armenian girls who
live in Istanbul.
Whereas the dissenters and freemasons in Istanbul and some
newspapers who oppose the Guide have been slandering
by misinterpreting this point in order to
weaken the interests of some
women in the Risale-i Nur
(Treatises of Light) . You’d better exclude these two pages for now. Instead you should
include the Guide for
the Women which is a conversation with women.
Said Nursi
AN IMPORTANT ISSUE REMINDED SUDDENLY
It is understood from
the narrations of certain Hadith that what will play the most
fearsome role in the dissension at the end of time will be women
and their dissension. Indeed, just as it is related in the histories
that in olden times a group of soldiers composed of warrior
women called “Amazons”
were extremely skilful in war. So in just the same way
at the present time, the most fearsome of the group in the war
of atheistic misguidance against Islam, the commandership of
which has been given to Satan through the scheming of the evil-commanding
soul, is half-naked women, who with their bare legs-those ghastly
knives-attack and assault the believers. By striving to close
the road to marriage and widen the road to houses of debauchery,
they take many people's souls captive, and wound their hearts
and spirits with grave sins. Indeed, they kill some of those
hearts.
As a perfect punishment
for displaying them to the desirous gazes of those who are canonically
strangers, those knife-like legs become the logs to fuel Hell
and will be the first to burn. And since such women have lost
confidence and faithfulness in this world, they are no longer
able to find suitable husbands, which by their natures they
want, and of which they are in great need. And even if they
do find one, it only brings them trouble. It is understood from
the narrations of some Hadith, even, that as a result of this
situation, at the end of time, because marriage will be neither
sought after nor observed in some places, the value of women
will fall to the degree at which one man looks after forty women.
Since the reality of the
matter is this; and since every beauty loves her beauty and
wants to preserve it as far as she can, and does not want it
to be spoilt; and since beauty is a bounty, and if bounty is
thanked for, it increases, while if it is not thanked for, it
changes and becomes ugly, for sure, if such a person is sensible,
she will flee with all her strength from committing sins, and
making her beauty and loyeliness commit sins, and making them
ugly and poisonous, and through ingratitude turning that bounty
into something that leads to punishment. And in order to make
permanent that fleeting five or ten years' beauty, she will
give thanks for the bounty by using it in a licit fashion. Otherwise
for the long period of her old age, she will be spurned and
will weep despairingly.
If her loveliness is made
beautiful with the adornment of Qur'anic conduct and manners
within the sphere of Islamic training, that fleeting beauty
will in effect become eternal, and in Paradise she will be given
a beauty more graceful and shining than that of the houris,
as is definitely established in some Hadiths. If such a beauty
has even the minutest amount of sense, she will not allow this
beautiful, shining, and everlasting result to slip from her
hand.
My
Dear Devoted Brothers
!
We are sending you an article named “A Warning
for the Youth in Danger”.
So it will prove that the way of the Young Students of Risale-i Nur in the right direction and in chastity and in the following
of the Sunnah of the Prophet is so much valuable for the Youth and
the true enjoyable youth is that of those fortunate youngmen
and it will show who the true Young-Turks are.
Your Brother
Said Nursi
AN
ADVICE, A LESSON AND A REMINDER GIVEN TO SOME YOUNGMEN
A Warning, Lesson and
Reminder Given to a number of Unhappy Youths
One day a number of bright
youths came to me, seeking an effective deterrent in order to
guard themselves against the dangers arising from life, youth,
and the lusts of the soul. Like I had told those who had previously
sought help from the Risale-i Nur, I also said to these youths:
Your youth will definitely
leave you, and if you do not remain within the sphere of the
licit, it will be lost, and rather than its pleasures, it will
bring you calamities and suffering in this world, in the grave,
and in the Hereafter. But if, with Islamic training, you spend
the bounty of your youth as thanks honorably, in uprightness
and obedience, it will in effect remain perpetually andwill
be the cause of gaining eternal youth.
As for life, if it is
without belief, or because of rebelliousness belief is ineffective,
it will produce pains, sorrows and grief far exceeding the superficial,
fleeting enjoyment and pleasure it brings. Because, since, contrary
to the animals, man possesses a mind and he thinks, he is connected
to both the present time, and to the past and the future. He
can obtain both pain and pleasure from them. Whereas, since
the animals do not think, the sorrows arising from the past
and the fears and anxieties arising from the future do not spoil
their pleasure of the present. And especially if the pleasure
is illicit; then it is like an altogether poisonous honey.
That is to say, from the
point of view of the pleasure of life, man falls to a level
a hundred times lower than the animals. In fact, life for the
people of misguidance and heedlessness, and indeed their existence,
rather their world, is the day in which they find themselves.
From the point of view of their misguidance, all the time and
universes of the past are non-existent, are dead. So their intellects,
which connect them to the past and the future, produce darkness,
blackness for them. And, due to their lack of belief, the future
is also non-existent. Furthermore, because they think, the eternal
separations resulting from this non-existence continuously produce
darkness for their lives.
Whereas, if belief gives
life to life, then through the light of belief, both the past
and the future are illuminated and find existence. Like present
time, it produces elevated and spiritual pleasures and lights
of existence for the spirit and heart in respect of belief.
There is an explanation of this truth in the 'Seventh Hope'
in the Treatise for The Elderly. You may refer to that. And
so, life is thus. If you want the pleasure and enjoyment of
life, give life to your life through belief, and adorn it with
religious duties. And preserve it by abstaining from sins.
Concerning the fearsome
reality of death, which is demonstrated by deaths every day,
in every place, at all times, I shall explain it to you with
a comparison, in the same way that I told the other youths.
For example, a gallows
has been erected here in front of your eyes. Beside it is a
lottery office, but one which gives tickets for truly huge prizes.
We people here are ten people, whether we like it or not, we
shall be summoned there; there is no other alternative. They
will call us, and since the time is secret, any minute they
may say either: "Come and collect the ticket for your execution!
Mount the gallows!" Or: "A ticket to win a prize of millions
of dollars' worth of gold has come up for you. Come and collect
it!" While waiting for them to say this, two people suddenly
appear at the door. One of them is a scantily dressed woman,
beautiful and deceiving. In her hand is some apparently extremely
delicious, but in fact poisonous, halva, which she has brought
wanting us to eat it. The other is an undeceiving and undeceivable
serious person. He enters behind the woman, and says:
"I have bought you a talisman,
a lesson. If you study it, and if you do not eat that halva,
you will be saved from the gallows. With this talisman, you
will receive your ticket for the matchless prize. Look, you
see with your own eyes that those who eat the honey mount those
gallows, and until that time they suffer dreadful stomach pains
from the poison of the halva. And who it is that will recieve
the ticket for the large prize is not apparent; it seems that
they too mount the gallows. But there are millions of witnesses
who testify that they can enter the prize arena easily. So,
look from the windows! The highest officials and the high-ranking
persons concerned with this business proclaim with loud voices:
'Just as you see with the clear certainty of your own eyes those
mounting the gallows, so also be certain as daylight, with no
doubt or misgiving, that hose with the talisman receive the
ticket for the prize.' "
Thus, like the comparison,
since the dissolute pleasures of youth in the sphere of the
illicit, which are like poisonous honey, lose belief, which
is the ticket for an eternal treasury and the passport for everlasting
happiness, a person who indulges in them descends to death,
which is like the gallows, and to the tribulations of the grave
which is like the door to eternal darkness. And since the appointed
hour is unknown, its executioner, not differentiating between
young and old, may come at any time to cut off your head. If
you give up illicit desires, which are like the poisonous honey,
and aquire belief and perform thr religious duties, which are
the Qur'anic talisman, one hundred and twenty-four thousand
prophets (upon whom be peace) together with innumerable saints
and people of truth have unanimously announced that you shall
recieve the ticket for the treasury of eternal happiness which
comes up from the extraordinary lottery of human destiny. And
they have pointed to traces of it.
IN SHORT: Youth will go.
And if it goes being squandered, it results in thousands of
calamities and pains both in this world and in the Hereafter.
And if you want to understand how the majority of such youths
end up in hospitals with imagined diseases arising from misspent
youth and prodigality, and in prisons or hostels for the destitute
through their excesses, and in bars due to the distress arising
from their pain and suffering, then go and ask at the hospitals,
prisons and graveyards.
For sure, just as you
will hear from most of the hospitals the moans and groans of
those ill from dissipation and debauchery resulting from the
drives of youth, so too will you hear from the prisons the regretful
sighs of unhappy youths who are being punished for illicit actions
mostly resulting from the excesses of youth. And you will understand
that most of the torments of the grave that Intermediate Realm
the doors of which continuously open and shut for those who
enter it are the result of misspent youth, as is testified to
by those who have divined the life of the grave, and is affirmed
by the people of truth.
Also, ask the elderly
and the sick, who form the majority of mankind. Certainly, the
great majority of them will say with sorrow and regret: "Alas! We wasted our youth on passion and fancy; indeed, harmfully.
Be careful, do not do as we did!" Because, as a consequence
of the illicit pleasures of five to ten years' youth, a person
suffers years of grief and sorrow in this world, torment and
harm in the Intermediate Realm, and the calamities of Hell in
the Hereafter. And although such a person is in a most piteable
situation, he in no way deserves pity. For those who freely
consent to indulge in harmful actions may not be pitied. They
are not worthy of it.
May Almighty Allah save
us and you from the al- luring temptations of this time, and
preserve us from them. Amen.
