A Fruit of Denizli Prison
This is a defence of the Risale-i Nur against atheism and absolute disbelief. It is our true defence in this imprisonment of ours, for it is only this we are working at. This treatise is a fruit and souvenir of Denizli Prison, and the product of two Fridays.
S a i d N u r s i
The Fruits of Belief
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
And he languished in prison for a number of years more. (1)
According to an inner meaning of this verse, Joseph (Peace be upon him) is the patron of prisoners and prison is a sort of ‘School of Joseph.’ Since this is the second time the Risale-i Nur students have been sent to prison in large numbers, it is necessary to study and teach in this school, which has been opened to give this training, the brief summaries of a number of matters connected with prison that the Risale-i Nur proves, and to benefit from them thoroughly. We shall explain five or six of those summaries.
1 Qur’an, 12:42 (Go back ↑)
The First Topic
As is explained in the Fourth Word, everyday our Creator bestows on us the capital of twenty-four hours of life so that with it we may obtain all the things necessary for our two lives. If we spend twenty-three hours on this fleeting worldly life and neglect to spend the remaining one hour, which is sufficient for the five obligatory prayers, on the very lengthy life of the hereafter, it may be understood what an unreasonable error it is, and what a great loss to suffer distress of the mind and spirit as the penalty for the error, and to behave badly because of the distress, and to fail to rectify one’s conduct due to living in a state of despair, indeed, to do the opposite. We may make the comparison.
We should think of what a profitable ordeal it is —if we spend the one hour on the five obligatory prayers— each hour of this calamitous term of imprisonment sometimes becoming a day’s worship and one of its transient hours becoming many permanent hours, and our despair and distress of the spirit and heart in part disappearing, and its being atonement for the mistakes that led to the imprisonment and the cause of their being forgiven, and being trained and improved, which is the purpose of imprisonment; we should think of its being instruction and a pleasant and consoling meeting with our companions in disaster.
As is said in the Fourth Word, it may be understood how contrary it is to a person’s interests to give five or ten liras out of his twenty-four to a lottery in which a thousand people are taking part in order to win the thousand-lira prize, and not give a single lira out of the twenty-four for a ticket for an everlasting treasury of jewels, and to rush to the fomer and flee from the latter, —although the chance of winning the thousand liras in the worldly lottery is one in a thousand because there are a thousand people taking part, while in the lottery of man’s destiny which looks to the hereafter the chance of winning for the people of belief, who experience happy deaths, is nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, as has been stated by one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets and confirmed by incalculable numbers of truthful informers from among the saints and purified scholars as a result of their illuminations.
Prison governors and chief warders, and indeed the country’s administrators and the guardians of public order, should be grateful at this lesson of the Risale-i Nur, for the government and disciplining of a thousand believers who constantly have in mind the prison of Hell is far easier than that of ten who have no belief and do not perform the obligatory prayers, only think of worldly prisons, do not know what is licit and what is illicit, and are in part accustomed to living undisciplined lives.
A Summary of the Second Topic
As is well explained in A Guide For Youth from the Risale-i Nur, it is as definite and obvious that death will befall us as the night will follow today and winter, this autumn. Just as this prison is a temporary guest-house for those who continuously enter it and leave it; so the face of the earth is a hostel on the road of the swiftly travelling caravans which alight for one night then pass on. Surely death, which has emptied all the cities into the graveyard a hundred times over, has demands greater than life. The Risale-i Nur has solved the riddle of this awesome truth and discovered its answer. A short summary of it is this:
Since death cannot be killed nor the door of the grave be closed, if there is a way of being saved from the executioner of the appointed hour and the solitary confinement of the grave, it is a question, an anxiety, for man of greater importance than anything. Yes, there is a solution, and through the mystery of the Qur’an, the Risale-i Nur has proved it as certainly as two plus two equals four. A brief summary of it is as follows:
Death is either eternal annihilation, a gallows on which will be hanged both man and all his friends and relations; or it comprises the release papers to depart for another, eternal, realm, and to enter, with the document of belief, the palace of bliss. The grave is either a bottomless pit and dark place of solitary confinement, or it is a door opening from the prison of this world onto an eternal, light-filled garden and place of feasting. A Guide For Youth has proved this truth with a comparison.
For example; gallows have been set up in this prison yard, and behind the wall immediately beyond them a huge lottery office has been opened in the lottery of which the whole world has taken part. We five hundred people in this prison are certain to be summoned one by one without exception to that arena; to avoid it is not possible. Everywhere announcements are being made: “Come and receive your decree of execution, and mount the gallows!”, or: “Take the note for everlasting solitary confinement, and take that door!”, or: “Good news for you! The winning ticket worth millions has come up for you. Come and receive it!” We see with our own eyes that one after the other they are mounting the gallows. We observe that some are being hanged, while others are making the gallows a step, and moving onto the lottery office beyond the wall. Just at that point, which we know as though we have seen it from the certain information given by the high-ranking officials there, two groups have entered our prison.
One group are holding musical instruments, wine, and apparently sweet confections and pastries which they are trying to make us eat. But the sweets are in fact lethal, for satans in human form have laced them with poison.
The second group are carrying instructive writings, licit foods, and blessed drinks. They present them to us and all together say to us with great earnestness: “If you take and eat the gifts the first group gave you by way of testing you, you shall be hanged on these gallows before us like the others you have seen. Whereas if you accept the gifts we have brought you on the command of this country’s Ruler in place of them, and recite the supplications and prayers in the instructive writings, you shall be saved from execution. Believe as though you were seeing it that each of you shall receive the winning ticket worth millions in the lottery office as a royal favour. These decrees say, and we ourselves say the same thing, that if you eat those illicit, dubious, and poisonous sweets, you shall suffer terrible pains from the poison until you go to be hanged.”
Like this comparison, for the people of belief and worship —on condition they have happy deaths— the ticket for an everlasting and inexhaustible treasury will come up from the lottery of man’s destiny beyond the gallows of the appointed hour, which we always see. For those who persist in vice, unlawful actions, unbelief, and sin, however, there is a hundred per cent probability that on condition they do not repent, they will receive the summons to either eternal annihilation (for those who do not believe in the hereafter), or to permanent, dark solitary confinement (for those who believe in the immortality of man’s spirit, but take the way of vice) and eternal perdition. Certain news of this has been given by the hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets (1) with their innumerable miracles, which confirm them; and by the more than one hundred and twenty-four million saints, who see in their illuminations the traces and shadows —as though on a cinema screen— of what the prophets have told, and put their signatures to it, affirming it; and by the more than thousands of millions of investigative scholars, (2) interpreters of the law, and veracious ones who, with decisive proofs and powerful arguments, prove according to reason and absolutely certainly the things told by those two eminent groups of mankind, and have set their signatures to them. The situation then of someone who does not heed the news given unanimously by the decrees of these three vast and elevated communities and groups of the people of reality, who are the suns, moons, and stars of mankind and the sacred leaders of humanity, and does not take the straight path which they have pointed out, and disregards the awesome ninety-nine per cent danger, and abandons that way due to one person saying there is danger on it and takes another, lengthy, way — his situation is as follows:
The wretch who since he has abandoned, according to the certain news of innumerable well-informed observers, the shortest and easiest of the two ways, which with a hundred per cent certainty will lead to Paradise and eternal happiness, and has chosen the roughest, longest way, which is most fraught with difficulties and is ninety-nine per cent certain will lead to incarceration in Hell and everlasting misery, and leaves the short way because, according to the false information of a single informer, there is a one per cent chance of danger and the possibility of a month’s imprisonment, and chooses the long way, which is without benefit, just because it holds no danger, like drunken lunatics, —such a wretch has lost his humanity, mind, heart, and spirit to the extent that he ignores the terrible dragons which are seen from afar and are pestering him, and struggles against mosquitoes, attaching importance to them alone.
Since this is the reality of the situation, so that we avenge ourselves totally for this calamity of prison, we prisoners should accept the gifts of the second, blessed, group. That is to say, just as the pleasure of a minute’s revenge or a minute or two, or an hour of two, of vice, or this calamity, has put us in this prison for fifteen, five, ten, or two or three years, and made our worlds into a prison; so to spite it, we should avenge ourselves on this calamity by transforming an hour or two of our prison lives into a day or two of worship, and our two or three-year-sentences —through the gifts of the blessed group— into twenty or thirty years of permanent life, and our prison sentences of twenty or thirty years into a means of forgiveness from millions of years of incarceration in the dungeons of Hell. In the face of our transitory worlds’ weeping, we should make our everlasting lives smile. We should show prison to be a place of training and education, and each of us try to be well-behaved, reliable, useful members of our nation and country. While the prison officers, administrators, and governors should see that the men they supposed to be criminals, bandits, layabouts, murderers, depraved, and harmful to the country are students studying in this blessed place of instruction, and should proudly offer thanks to God.
1 Mishkat al-Masabih, iii, 122. See also, Zad al-Ma’ad (tahqiq: al-Arna’ut), i, 43-4. (Go back ↑)
2 One of those investigative scholars is the Risale-i Nur, which for twenty years has been silencing the most obstinate philosophers and obdurate atheists. Its various parts are available; everyone may read them, and no one can object to them. (Go back ↑)
The Third Topic
The Fifth Topic
As is described in A Guide For Youth, there is no doubt that youth will depart; it will change into old age and death as certainly as the summer gives its place to autumn and winter, and the day changes into evening and night. All the revealed scriptures give the good news that if fleeting, transient youth is spent on good works, in chastity and within the bounds of good conduct, it will gain for the person immortal youth.
If, on the other hand, youth is spent on vice, just as murder resulting from a minute’s anger leads to millions of minutes of imprisonment, so quite apart from being called to account in the hereafter, and the torments of the grave, and the regrets arising from their passing, and sins, and the penalties suffered in this world, the unlawful pleasures of youth contain more pain than pleasure; every youth with sense will corroborate this from his own experience.
For example, the pains of jealousy, separation, and unreciprocated love transform the partial pleasure to be found in illicit love into poisonous honey. If you want to know how they end up in hospitals due to illnesses resulting from their misspent youth, and in prison due to their excesses, and in bars and dens of vice and the graveyard due to the distress arising from their unnourished hearts and spirits not performing their right functions, go and ask at the hospitals, prisons, bars, and graveyards. More than anything, you will hear the weeping and sighs of regret at the blows youths have received as the penalty for abusing their youth, and their excesses, and illicit pleasures.
Foremost the Qur’an, with numerous of its verses, and all the revealed scriptures and books, give the glad tidings that if spent within the bounds of moderation, youth is an agreeable Divine bounty and sweet, powerful means to good works, which yields the result of shining, immortal youth in the hereafter.
Since the reality is this, and since the bounds of the licit are sufficient for enjoyment, and since an hour of unlawful pleasure leads sometimes to a punishment of one, or ten, years’ imprisonment; surely it is absolutely necessary to spend the sweet bounty of youth chastely, on the straight path, as thanks for the bounty.
The Sixth Topic
The Seventh Topic
A Summary Of The Eight Topic
The Ninth Topic
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
The Messenger believes in what has been revealed to him from his Sustainer. As do the men of faith. Each one of them believes in God, His angels, His Books, and His Messengers. “We make no distinction they say between one and another of His Messengers...” to the end of the verse (1)
An awesome question and a state of mind arising from the unfolding of a vast Divine bounty were the causes of my explaining a universal, lengthy point about this comprehensive, elevated and sublime verse. It was like this: it occurred to my spirit: why does one who denies a part of the truths of belief become a disbeliever, and one who does not accept a part of them cannot be a Muslim? Surely belief in God and the hereafter dispels the darkness like the sun. Also, why does a person who denies one of the pillars and truths of belief become an apostate, falling into disbelief, and by not accepting it, quit Islam? Whereas if he believes in the other pillars of belief, it should save him from absolute disbelief?
T h e A n s w e r : Belief is a single truth, which, composed of its six pillars, cannot be divided up. It is a universal that cannot be separated into parts. It is a whole that cannot be broken up. For each of the pillars of belief proves the other pillars with the proofs that prove itself. They are all extremely powerful proofs of each other. In which case, an invalid idea that cannot shake all the pillars together with all their proofs, cannot in reality negate any one of the pillars, or even a single of their truths, and cannot deny them. Under the veil of non-acceptance one might only, by shutting his eyes, commit ‘obstinate unbelief;’ he would by degrees fall into absolute disbelief and lose his humanity, and go to Hell, both physically and mentally. In this station then, with God’s grace, we shall explain this supreme matter in six Points in the form of brief summaries, just as in the Fruits Of Belief when proving the resurrection of the dead, the other pillars of belief’s proofs of resurrection were propounded in the form of brief summaries.
FIRST POINT
Belief in God proves with its own proofs both the other pillars and belief in the hereafter, as is shown clearly in the Seventh Topic of the Fruits Of Belief. Yes, is it at all possible and can reason accept that a pre-eternal everlasting sovereignty of dominicality, a post-eternal Divine rule, which administers the boundless universe as though it were a palace, a city, or a country; and makes it revolve in balanced and ordered fashion; and changes it with wisdom; and equips and directs all together particles, planets, flies, and stars as though each were a regular army, and continuously drills them within the spheres of command and will in a lofty manoeuvre; and employing them in duties makes them act, and causes them to roam and travel, and to parade worshipfully; —is it at all possible that that eternal, everlasting, enduring rule would not have an eternal seat, a permanent and everlasting place of manifestation; that is, the hereafter? God forbid! That means the sovereignty of Almighty God’s dominicality and —as is described in the Seventh Topic— most of His Names and the proofs of His necessary existence, require the hereafter and testify to it. So see and understand what powerful support this pole of belief has, and believe in it as though seeing it!
Also, just as there could be no belief in God without the hereafter; so —as is explained with brief indications in the Tenth Word— is it at all possible and could reason accept that God, the True Object of Worship, should create the universe, in order to manifest His Godhead and fitness to be worshipped, as an embodied book every page of which expresses a book of meanings and every line of which states a page of meanings, and as an embodied Qur’an all the creational signs and words, and even points and letters of which are miracles, and as a magnificent mosque of His mercy the inside of which is decorated with numberless inscriptions and adornments, and in every corner of which are species of beings each preoccupied with the worship dictated by its nature —is it at all possible He should create it in this way and not send masters to teach the meanings of that vast book, and commentators to expound the verses of that Qur’an, and not appoint prayer-leaders to that huge mosque to lead all those worshipping in their myriad ways, and that He should not give decrees to those masters, commentators, and leaders of worship? God forbid, a hundred thousand times!
Also, is it at all possible and could reason accept that the Most Compassionate and Munificent Maker, Who in order to display to conscious beings the beauty of His mercy and the goodness of His compassion and the perfection of His dominicality, and in order to encourage them to praise and thank Him, creates the universe as a banqueting hall, exhibition, and place of excursion in which are displayed infinite varieties of delicious bounties and priceless, wondrous arts, is it at all possible that He should not speak with those conscious beings at the banquet and not inform them by means of envoys of their duties of thanks for the bounties, and their duties of worship in the face of the manifestations of His mercy and His making Himself loved? God forbid, a hundred thousand times!
Also, is it at all possible that although the Maker loves His art and wants others to love it, and as is shown by His having taken into account the thousand pleasures of the mouth, wants it to be met with appreciation and approval, and has adorned the universe with priceless arts in a way that shows He wants through all His arts both to make Himself known, and loved, and to display a sort of His transcendent beauty, is it at all possible that He should not speak to men, the commanders of living beings in the universe, through some of the most eminent of them, and send them as envoys, and that His fine arts should not be appreciated and the exquisite beauty of His Names not be valued, and His making Himself known and loved be unreciprocated? God forbid, a hundred thousand times!
Also, is it at all possible or reasonable that the All-Knowing Speaker Who answers clearly by act and deed through His infinite bounties and gifts, which indicate intention, choice, and will, at exactly the right time, all the supplications of living beings for their natural needs, and their desires and recourse through the tongue of disposition, that He should speak by deed and by state with the most insignificant living creature and remedy its woes and heed its troubles with His bounties, and know its needs and meet them, then not meet with the spiritual leaders of men, who are the choicest result of the universe, vicegerents of the earth, and the commanders of most of the creatures on the earth? Although He speaks with them and with all living beings, should He not speak with men verbally and send them scriptures, books, and decrees? God forbid, innumerable times!
That is to say, with its certainty and innumerable proofs, belief in God proves belief in the prophets and sacred scriptures.
Also, is it at all possible or reasonable that in response to the One Who makes Himself known and loved through all His creatures and seeks thanks by deed and state, Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) should have known and made known, loved and made loved that Glorious Artist through the Qur’anic reality, which brings the the universe to tumult, and with his declarations of “Glory be to God!” “All praise be to God!” and “God is Most Great!” should have caused the globe to ring out so that it could be heard by the heavens, and have brought the land and seas to ecstasy; and that in one thousand three hundred years he should have taken behind him numerically a fifth of mankind and qualitatively a half of it, and responded with extensive, universal worship to all the manifestations of the Creator’s dominicality; that in the face of all the Divine purposes he should have called out with the Qur’an’s suras to the universe and the centuries, and taught them and proclaimed them; that he should have demonstrated the honour, value, and duties of man; and that he should have been confirmed through his thousand miracles — and that he should not have been the most choice creature, the most excellent of envoys, and the greatest prophet? Is this at all possible? God forbid! A hundred thousand times, God forbid!
That is to say, with all its proofs, the truth of “I testify that there is no god but God” proves the truth of “I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”
Also, is it at all possible that the universe’s Maker should cause creatures to speak with one another in myriad tongues, and that He should listen to their speech, and know it, and Himself not speak? God forbid!
Also, is it at all reasonable that He should not proclaim through a decree the Divine purposes in the universe? That He should not send a book like the Qur’an which will solve its riddles and provide the true answers to the three awesome universally-asked questions: “Where do they come from?”, “Where are they going?”, and “Why do they follow on caravan after caravan, stop by for a while, then pass on?” God forbid!
Also, is it at all possible that the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition, which has illuminated thirteen centuries; every hour is uttered with complete veneration by a hundred million tongues; is inscribed through its sacredness in the hearts of millions of hafizes; in effect governs through its laws the greater part of mankind and trains, purifies, and instructs their souls, spirits, hearts, and minds; and forty aspects of whose miraculousness is proved in the Risale-i Nur and explained in the wondrous Nineteenth Letter, which demonstrates an aspect of its miraculousness towards each of forty classes of men, and as one of the thousand miracles of Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) is proved decisively to be the true Word of God; —is it at all possible that it should not be the word and decree of the Pre-Eternal Speaker and Eternal Maker? God forbid! A hundred thousand times, God forbid!
That is to say, with all its proofs, belief in God proves that the Qur’an is the Word of God.
Also, is it all possible that the Glorious Monarch Who continuously fills and empties the earth with living beings and inhabits this world of ours with conscious creatures in order to make Himself known and worshipped and glorified, should leave the heavens and earth empty and vacant, and not create inhabitants suitable to them and settle them in those lofty palaces, that in His most extensive lands he should leave the sovereignty of His dominicality without servants, functionaries, envoys, and majesty; without lieutenants, supervisors, spectators, worshippers, and subjects? God forbid! To the numbers of the angels, God forbid!
Also, is it at all possible that the All-Wise Ruler, the All-Knowing and Compassionate One, should write the universe in the form of a book; inscribe the entire life-stories of trees in all their seeds, and write in the seeds of grasses and plants all their vital duties, and record precisely the lives of conscious beings in their memories, as tiny as mustard seeds, and preserve with innumerable photographs all the actions and events in all His dominions and all the eras of His sovereignty, and create mighty Heaven and Hell and the supreme scales of justice for the manifestation and realization of justice, wisdom and mercy, the basis of His dominicality, then not have written down the acts of men connected with the universe, nor have their deeds recorded so they may meet with reward or punishment, nor write their good and bad deeds on the tablets of Divine Determining? God forbid! To the number of letters inscribed on them.
That is to say, with its proofs, the truth of belief in God proves the truth of both belief in the angels, and belief in Divine Determining. The pillars of belief prove each other as clearly as the sun shows the daylight, and daylight shows the sun.
SECOND POINT
All the teachings and claims of foremost the Qur’an, and all the revealed books and scriptures, and foremost Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him), and all the prophets, are based on five or six points. They have continually striven to teach and prove those basic teachings. All the proofs and evidences which testify to their messengership and truthfulness look to those bases, corroborating their veracity. And those fundamentals are belief in God and belief in the hereafter and in the other pillars of belief. That is to say, it is not possible to separate the six pillars of belief. Each proves all of them, and requires them, and necessitates them. The six are a whole, a universal, which cannot be broken in parts and whose division is outside the bounds of possibility. Like the Tuba-tree whose roots are in the heavens, each branch, fruit and leaf of that mighty tree relies on its universal, inexhaustible life. A person unable to deny that powerful life which is as clear as the sun, cannot deny the life of a single of its leaves, attached to it. If he does deny it, the tree will refute him to the number of its branches, fruits, and leaves, and silence him. Belief, with its six pillars, is similar to this.
At the beginning of this ‘Station,’ I intended to expound the six pillars of belief in thirty-six points, as six ‘Points,’ each with five sub-sections. I also intended to reply to and explain the awesome question at the beginning. But certain unforeseen circumstances did not permit this. I reckon, the first Point being sufficient, for the intelligent no need remained for further explanation. It was understood perfectly that if a Muslim denies one of the pillars of belief, he falls into absolute disbelief. For in the face of the summary explanations of other religions, Islam expounds and elucidates them completely, and the pillars of belief are bound together. A Muslim who does not recognize Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) and does not assent to him, will also not recognize God, or His attributes, and will not know the hereafter. A Muslim’s belief is based on such powerful, unshakeable and innumerable proofs that there is no excuse for denial; they quite simply compel the reason to accept them.
THIRD POINT
One time, I said “All praise be to God!,” and searched for a bounty that would be equal to its infinitely broad meaning. Suddenly, the following sentence occurred to me:
“All praise be to God for belief in God, and for His unity, and necessary existence, and attributes, and Names, to the number of the manifestations of His Names from pre-eternity to post-eternity.”
I looked and saw it was completely appropriate. As follows....
1 Qur’an, 2:285. (Go back ↑)
The Tenth Topic
The Eleventh Topic
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