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I will state a principle for brotherhood (ukhuwwah); you must take this principle into serious consideration. Life is the fruit of wahdah and unity (ittihâd). When harmonious unity is lost, ma’nawî life is also lost. As indicated by the âyah, 1 وَ لاَ تَنَازَعُوا فَتَفْشَلُوا وَ تَذْهَبَ رِيحُكُمْ if solidarity and mutual bonds are disrupted, the community (jamâ’ah) loses its zest and harmony.

You know that if three alifs2 are written separately, their value is three. Yet when they combine through numerical solidarity, they gain the value of one hundred and eleven. Similarly, if three or four servants of the haqq like you act separately without a division of labour, their strength is merely that of three or four men. Yet if they act with a genuine brotherhood (ukhuwwah), with a solidarity that takes pride and rejoices in one another's fadhîlah, and with the mystery of tafânî3 to the degree of becoming one another, those four men possess the value of four hundred men’s strength.

You are the machinists of the electric lights that will illuminate a vast country, not merely the huge Isparta. The wheels of a machine are obliged to assist one another. Far from being jealous of each other, they are, on the contrary, gladdened by each other’s surplus strength. If we suppose a wheel to be conscious, it would rejoice upon seeing a stronger wheel, for it lightens its duty. Those who bear on their shoulders a mighty and sublime treasury — which is the service to haqq, haqiqah, the Qur'an and îmân — feel honoured, are grateful and offer shukr as stronger shoulders step beneath the treasury to share its burden. Beware, do not open the door of criticism against one another. There are plenty of things to be criticised outside the circles of your brothers. Just as I take pride in your virtues, and even though I am deprived of those virtues, I am gladdened by your possessing them and regard them as my own. You, too, must look upon one another with the very perspective with which your Ustadh looks at you; each of you should be a means of spreading the virtues of one another.

Considering the sentiment of brotherhood (ukhuwwah) shown by our brother Hâfidh Ali Efendi from Islamkoy regarding another brother who might be a rival to him to be so valuable, I am expressing it to you:

That person came to me, and I told him that the other's handwriting was better than his own. I said that he would serve more. I looked and saw that Hâfidh Ali took pride and rejoiced with perfect sincerity and ikhlas in the other's superiority. He was also gladdened because he had attracted his Ustadh's affectionate gaze. I paid attention to his heart; I sensed that it was sincere, not for outward display. I offered shukr to Allah that among my brothers there are those who carry this sublime sentiment. InshâAllah, this sentiment will render a great service. Alhamdulillah, gradually this sentiment is spreading among the brothers nearby.

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