The Twenty-First Point
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. "Indeed, the soul is an inciter to evil." 1
Meaning: FOOTNOTE "The soul always incites to evil" verse is also a hadith of the noble meaning of "Your worst enemy is your own soul." 2
Provided that one has not been purified from the corrupting nature of the soul, a person who likes and loves his own soul cannot love others. Even if he appears to love them outwardly, he cannot love them sincerely; perhaps he only loves the benefits and pleasures they offer. He always tries to please and be loved by himself. He does not take his faults to heart, perhaps defending and justifying himself like a lawyer. With exaggerations, perhaps even lies, he praises and purifies his soul, almost sanctifying it, and according to his degree, 3 he falls into the trap of the verse "Who took his god as his own desire."
His hesitation and desire to be loved, on the contrary, attract and cool him down. He loses sincerity in spiritual acts and mixes in hypocrisy. Being defeated by the desires and illusions of the soul, which do not see the consequences and are obsessed with the pleasure of the moment, he loses his way and, with the false rulings of this mistaken feeling, spends a year in prison for the pleasure of an hour. For a moment of pride or revenge, he suffers ten years of punishment. Like a foolish child who sells the chapters he studied only for candy, he treats his good deeds, which are as precious as diamonds, as means to stroke his feelings, satisfy his illusions, and fulfill his desires, exchanging them for insignificant pieces of glass-like pleasures and vanity, and thus suffers losses in profitable matters.
O Allah, protect us from the evil of the soul, the evil of Satan, and from the evil of jinn and mankind. 4
Lem'alar
·Yirmi Sekizinci Lema
·machine translation (qwen3-32b-sre)
These are some of the short jokes I wrote for my brothers in front of me for comfort during the time I was forbidden from revolting and speaking in Eskişehir Prison. 1
First Joke
The Second Aleviyye Miraculous Work, Reporting on the Risale-i Nur 2
Second Joke
A genuine comfort
These jokes were written for the Risale-i Nur students in the detention center in Eskişehir.
Dear brothers,
I was very worried about you, and grief was tormenting me. But I was informed that in your destiny and fate, it was necessary to drink this prison's water and eat its bread. Seeing this water and this bread to be eaten and drunk together as a divine act of mercy and a divine act of care, the easiest, lightest, most beneficial, and most rewarding way, as the most beneficial school and the most fruitful place of asceticism for the students of the Risale-i Nur, and as the most sensitive testing ground to teach how careful one must be against enemies, and as the most luminous school to benefit from the good qualities and virtues of each of these friends and to learn lessons from each other through the establishment and renewal of brotherhood, I was grateful not only with my condition but perhaps with my whole soul. Yes, our profession is gratitude. And it is to see in everything a way of mercy and a direction of blessings.
Your grieving brother Said Nursî, who is concerned about the grief of most of you.
Lem'alar
·Yirmi Sekizinci Lema
·machine translation (qwen3-32b-sre)
Third Point
(On a witty conversation with the renowned for sincerity and distinguished in purity of heart, Süleyman Rüştü)
It is a small point of a great verse.
Namely: In the spring season, near the time when flies are released, some people in the prison room used a remedy to eliminate the flies for the sake of minor annoyances. It had affected my excessive sensitivity. There was a clothesline in my room. Eventually, despite these people's efforts, the flies multiplied even more. In the evening, those little birds (flies) were lined up very regularly on that line. I told Rüştü, who was hanging laundry, "Don't touch those little birds; hang them elsewhere." He, with utmost seriousness, said: "This line is needed for us; let the flies find a place elsewhere."
Whatever the case may be... Because of this witty incident, the topic of small creatures like flies and ants was brought up at dawn. I said to him:
Such species, which multiply in numbers, have important duties and value. Indeed, a book is valued in proportion to the number of its copies. Therefore, the species of flies must have an important duty and great value, for the All-Wise Creator has greatly multiplied the copies of those tiny fateful letters and words of power.
Lem'alar
·Yirmi Sekizinci Lema
·machine translation (qwen3-32b-sre)