Pieces Written in Eskişehir Prison
as a True Solace for the Risale-i Nur Students
My Dear Brothers!
I was exceedingly unhappy for you; I was crushed by grief. But it was imparted to me that divine determining and your fate have given you this prison’s water to drink and bread to eat, all together. I saw that as a mark of divine mercy and manifestation of dominical favour, your eating this bread together and drinking this water was the easiest, lightest, best, and most meritorious of ways; that this prison was a most beneficial place of instruction for the Risale-i Nur students, and a most effulgent place of ordeal; that it was a most exacting place of examination teaching just how essential it is to act prudently in the face of one’s enemies. I saw it in the form of a luminous place of study and tekke for learning and benefiting from the elevated qualities and fine characteristics of our friends here, which are all different, and to establish and renew the brotherhood between them. I did not complain about this situation therefore, but offered thanks with all my spirit. Yes, our way is thanks. And it is to see an aspect of mercy, an aspect of bounty, in everything.
From your brother who is grieved at the pains of all of you,
S a i d N u r s i
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A Rule
Risale-i Nur students should not seek light outside the circle of the Risale-i Nur, and they cannot seek it. If they do so, they will find a lamp in place of the immaterial sun giving light through the window of the Risale-i Nur, and perhaps lose the sun.
Also, the pure and powerful way of friendship and brotherhood within the circle of the Risale-i Nur, which gains numerous spirits for each person and through the mystery of the legacy of prophethood depicts the Companions’ way of brotherhood, leaves no need for seeking a spiritual guide or father outside that sphere, in a way that is harmful to them in three respects; it provides many a€abeys that is, elder brothers, in place of a single father. The joint compassion of elder brothers reduces a father’s compassion to nothing.