Islamic UnityLettersRisale-i NurWorld News

An occurrence worthy of note by Ustad Bediüzzaman Said Nursi

When once a judge showed signs of anger while cutting off the hand of a thief, the just ruler who chanced to observe him dismissed him from his post. For if he had cut the hand in the name of the Shari‘a, his soul would have felt pity for the victim; he should have cut it off in a manner devoid of both anger and mercy. Since the inclinations of his soul had had some share in his deed, he did not perform the act with justice.
A regrettable social condition and an awesome disease affecting the life of society, fit to be wept over by the heart of Islam: To forget and abandon internal enmities when foreign enemies appear and attack is a demand of social welfare recognized and enacted even by the most primitive peoples. What then ails those who claim to be serving the Islamic community that at a time when numberless enemies are taking up positions to attack, one after the other, they fail to forget their petty enmities, and instead prepare the ground for the enemies’ attacks? It is disgraceful savagery, and treason committed against the social life of Islam.
A story to be pondered over: There were two groups of the Hasanan, a tribe of nomads, hostile to each other.

Although more than maybe fifty people had been killed on each side, when another tribe such as the Sibgan or Haydaran came out against them, those two hostile groups would forget their enmit y and fight together, shoulder to shoulder, until the opposing tribe had been repelled, without ever once recalling their internal dissensions.
O Believers! Do you know how many tribes of enemies have taken up position to attack the tribe of the people of belief? There are more than a hundred of them, like a series of concentric circles. The believers are obliged to take up defensive positions, each supporting the other and giving him a helping hand. Is it then at all fitting for the people of belief that with their biased partisanship and hostile rancour they should facilitate the attack of the enemy and fling open the doors for him to penetrate the fold of Islam? There are maybe seventy circles of enemies, including the misguided, the atheist, and the unbeliever, each of them as harmful to you as all the terrors and afflictions of this world, and each of them regarding you with greed, anger and hatred. Your firm weapon, shield and citadel against all of them is none other than the brotherhood of Islam. So realize just how contrary to conscience and to the interests of Islam it is to shake the citadel of Islam on account of petty hostilities and other pretexts! Know this, and come to your senses!
According to a noble Hadith of the Prophet (UWBP), noxious and awesome persons like Sufyan and the Dajjal will come to rule over the godless at the end of time, and exploiting the greed, discord and hatred amongst the Muslims and mankind, they will need only a small force to reduce humanity to anarchy and the vast world of Islam to slavery.[10]

[10] al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, iv, 529-30; Ibn Hibban, Sahih, viii, 286.
O people of faith! If you do not wish to enter a humiliating condition of slavery, come to your senses and enter and take refuge in the citadel of:

Indeed the believers are brothers,(49:10)

to defend yourselves against those oppressors who would exploit your differences! Otherwise you will be able neither to protect your lives nor to defend your rights. It is evident that if two champions are wrestling with each other, even a child can beat them. If two mountains are balanced in the scales, even a small stone can disturb their equilibrium and cause one to rise and the other to fall. So O people of belief! Your strength is reduced to nothing as a result of your passions and biased partisanships, and you can be defeated by the slightest forces.

If you have any interest in your social solidarity, then make of the exalted principle of “The believers are together like a well-founded building, one part of which supports the other”[11] your guiding principle in life! Then you will be delivered from humiliation in this world and wretchedness in the hereafter.

[11] Bukhari, Salat, 88; Adab 36; Mazalim, 5; Muslim, Birr, 65; Tirmidhi, Birr, 18; Nasa’i, Zakat, 67; Musnad, vi, 405, 409.

Back to top button