The Longest ‘LETTER’ from the Most ‘BELOVED’

The little child that seemed to be about five years old looked at the senior people around him in turn who were reading a book silently. After a time, he became meditative and burst into tears all of a sudden, asking this question:

“Why can I not read?”

His seniors tried to console him affectionately.

As a matter of fact, no mention could be made of any fault or neglect either of him or of his seniors as to that matter, for children generally learn how to read and write in the first year of the elementary school, which they start when they are seven. On the other hand, men who have not attended school become literate while they are doing their military service and women at literacy courses.

Nevertheless, that the little child’s sobbing asking:

“Why can I not read?” affected everyone and, meanwhile, gave a message.

They say a village primary school teacher would ever give the following advice to his students in order to inculcate in them the ability to read and write:

“Read whatever writing you find and fill with your writing whatever blank paper you find…”

Many know that the first Order of Islam is “Read!”: “Read: In (and to) the Name of your Lord Who creates.”[Surah Al-Alaq (Chapter of Blood-clot), Ayah (Verse) 96/1]. As there is no object of the Command ‘Read’ in the mentioned verse, it is also inclusive of all the readings that are in accordance to His Consent. On the other hand, one may not thereby conclude that one’s reading whatever writing he/she finds is included the Decree of Allah the Most High: “Read!” However, this advice might help with the elimination of the resistance against literacy and the reluctance of village children therein.

All the possessions, influences, acts, etc. belong to Allah the Most High. The sole thing in one’s hand, whereby one is tested throughout one’s worldly life, is: “To Choose” (through inclination, with one’s free will). One is not to read everything. Reading is filling the stomach of the mind. Needless to mention, one must not fill his stomach with junk food at random. In truth, one is to be selective in nutrition, for although the things wherewith the stomach is filled are foods, some of them might be toxic, some difficult to digest while, again, some might cause obesity.

The written text that one is most willing to read is: “The Letter from the Beloved One”. If one is literate, this letter is read with the fast heartbeat, as if sipping water or as if breathing, whereby smelling it, kissing it and holding it in high esteem. Consider the utter joy of an illiterate mother when she has received the letter posted by her beloved son from the army or from a distant place: She holds it, kisses it, smells it, looks across the lines and immediately goes and finds someone to read it to her and thereafter listens to it in tears of love. It is true that a great number of elderly mothers go to literacy courses in order that they can read by themselves the letters coming from their beloved ones.

Yes,  the  beauty,  bounty,  and  perfection  in  beings,  which   excite  love,  are  generally  signs  of  the  Truly  Enduring  One’s  beauty  and  bounty  and  perfections, and  passing  through  many  veils,  are  pale  shadows  of  them;  indeed,  they are  the  shadows  of  the  shadows  of  the  manifestations  of  His  most  beautiful    names.        (Risale-i Nur Collections, Third Flash)

Now if we ponder over the matter, is it not great contradiction, injustice, disloyalty, hardheartedness and incivility that we love the Mathiwah (those things other than Allah the Most Great), which in fact are the shadows of the shadows of the Beauty, Perfection and Favours of Allah the Most High, for the figurative and minute reflections thereof; and that we neglect to love Allah the Most High, Who possesses the Origins of those Attributes, which are the real Reasons for Love, at the highest degree and that we are indifferent towards the Glorious Qur’an, which is the Long Letter of the ‘True Beloved One’, which He has revealed to us?

By the way…

Have you read of the Noble Qur’an today?

Prof Dr. Mustafa NUTKU

www.NurNet.Org