My Brothers!
I have understood certainly the last two or three days that unfortunately we suffered a blow from divine mercy. I understood even that one of the many indications of a verse concerning the people of rebellion looks to us. It is this:
But when they forgot the warning they had received.... on a sudden We called them to account.(6:44; 7:165)
That is, “When they forgot the instruction and advice with which we have warned them and did not act in accordance with it, We took hold of them and afflicted them with disaster.”
Yes, recently we were prompted to write a treatise on the meaning of sincerity. In truth, it was a most luminous and exalted rule of brotherhood, a sacred principle which allows ten men to withstand calamities and events which normally could only be withstood with the strength of tens of thousands. But unfortunately we, and foremost myself, did not act in accordance with the warning. In accordance with the allusive meaning of the verse, according to the science of jafr, the value of “We called them to account” is one thousand three hundred and fifty-two. We were arrested on the same date. Some of us suffered a slap dealt by divine compassion. Others suffered, not such a blow, but were included in these tribulations in order to be a solace to our brothers who did suffer it, so that it might be a means of earning reward and profit.
For three months I was barred from mixing with others, but for the past three days I have been able to learn my brothers’ states of mind. An unimaginable incident had occurred opposed to the meaning of sincerity involving brothers whom I had supposed to be the most sincere. I understood from this that an allusive meaning of the verse, “But when they forgot the warning they had received.... on a sudden We called them to account” looked to us from afar. For the people of misguidance, for whom the verse was revealed, it is punishment, but for us it is a blow from divine compassion in order to train our souls, as atonement for sins, and so that we may raise our spiritual degrees. Evidence that we suffered this blow because we did not completely appreciate the value of the divine bounty we had received is that we were not contented with our sacred service of the Qur’an through the Risale-i Nur, a most sacred striving in God’s way which receives the effulgence of ‘greater sainthood’ through the mystery of the legacy of prophethood and is a means to attaining the essence of the way of the Companions. Through my severe warnings on several occasions, the wish to join a Sufi order was forestalled, the advantages of which are very few for us at the moment and could possibly have caused us much