بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ وَ الصَّلاَةُ وَ السَّلاَمُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَ عَلَى آلِهِ وَ صَحْبِهِ اَجْمَعِينَ

RAMADHAN - SAWM - 1

(Please also refer to the Risale on Ramadhan, Twenty-Ninth Letter, The Second Section, Which is The Second Risale.)

1. Ramadhan is a shaâ’er:

The sawm in the noble Ramadhan is one of the foremost of the five pillars of Islam. It is also one of the greatest of the shaâ’er of Islam.1

The Risale on Ramadhan-1st Subtle Point

(Please also refer to the compilation on Shaâ'er.)

2. Ramadhan is the time to understand the honour, value and hikmah of sawm with the mind and perceive and appreciate it with the heart. It is the time to offer ma’nawî shukr , which means recognising the meaning and value of ni’mahs and the reasons for their being given:

The sawm in the noble Ramadhan is the key to a true and sincere, immense and universal shukr, because, at other times, most people, who are not under the condition of constrained necessity, cannot understand the value of many ni’mahs when they do not experience real hunger. The degree of ni’mah within a piece of dry bread is not understood by people who are full, especially if they are rich. But at the time of iftâr, the sense of taste of a mu’min testifies that dry bread is an extremely precious ni’mah of Allah for him. Everyone from the sultân to the poorest man, through understanding the value of those ni’mahs, offers a ma’nawî shukr during the noble Ramadhan. 2 Furthermore, since he is prohibited from eating during the day, he says, "Those ni’mahs are not my possession. I am not free to eat them; it means that they are someone else’s property and bestowal. I await His command." He recognises the ni’mah to be ni’mah and offers a ma’nawî shukr. Thus, in many aspects, sawm in this way is a key to shukr, which is the true duty of man.

The Risale on Ramadhan-2nd Subtle Point

3. Compassion and respect, which are the fundamental and strongest bonds between classes, can only be established through sawm:

Concerning livelihood, mankind has been created differently. As a consequence of those differences, Janâb-i Haqq invites the rich to assist the poor.3 Whereas the rich can only understand completely the hunger of the poor and their conditions worthy of being pitied through the hunger experienced in sawm. If there was no sawm, many rich, who perform ‘ibâdah to their nafs, would be unable to understand how grievous hunger and poverty are and how needy of compassion those who suffer them are.

As for the compassion present in humanity for one's fellow man in this aspect, it is a fundamental principle of true shukr.4 No matter who a person is, he can find someone poorer than himself in one respect. He is responsible for being compassionate towards that person. If there is no compulsion to cause the nafs to suffer hunger, he cannot render the bestowal and assistance for which he is responsible because of compassion; even if he does, it will be deficient because he does not truly experience that state in his nafs.

The Risale on Ramadhan-3rd Subtle Point

4. Ramadhan is the month of the Qur’an:

Since Al-Qur’an Al-Hakîm was sent down in the month of Ramadhan, by waiting for the time of the Qur’an being sent down and abandoning eating and drinking and divesting of useless states and low needs of the nafs in the noble Ramadhan in order to greet well that samâwî address, one is honoured with a sacred state, such as resembling the state of malâikah, reciting and listening to the Qur’an as if it has just been sent down, listening to the address of Allah within the Qur’an as though at the moment of its being sent down, listening to that address like hearing it from Ar-Rasûl Al-Akram ‘Alayhissalâtu Wassalâm, rather from Hazrat Jabrâil or from the Azalî Mutakallim, and being an interpreter and causing others to listen to it and displaying the hikmah of the Qur'an being sent down to an extent.5

Yes, it is as though, in the noble Ramadhan, the world of Islam becomes a masjîd. It is such a masjîd that, in every corner of that mighty masjîd, millions of hâfidhes cause the inhabitants of the earth to hear the Qur’an, that samâwî address.

Every Ramadhan demonstrates the âyah شَهْرُ رَمَضَانَ الَّذِى اُنْزِلَ فِيهِ الْقُرْآنُ6 in a luminous and shining manner. It proves that Ramadhan is the month of the Qur'an. Some members of that vast jamâ’ah, some of them listen to those hâfidhes by assuming a humble manner before the grandeur and glory of Allah (khushû’), while others recite it themselves.

The Risale on Ramadhan-6th Subtle Point

5. Preserving the hudhur of the heart in the Ramadhan:

Although I have been very much in need of avoiding the âfâkî7 matters and forgetting the world in this noble Ramadhan, unfortunately, they are compelling us to look at the world occasionally. InshâAllah, since our intention for looking is the service to îmân, that too is considered a form of ‘ibâdah.

 Kastamonu Addendum-182

 

On condition that there is ikhlas, the du'âs offered during this blessed noble Ramadhan are, InshâAllah, acceptable. However, unfortunately, ikhlas and complete hudhur are harmed to a degree due to certain attacks that are mostly made in order to turn the Risale-i Nur students’ attention to the world and spoil the hudhur of their hearts. Do not worry; refer all matters and everything to Janâb-i Haqq and pay no importance to such attacks.

 Kastamonu Addendum-265

 

My ‘Azîz, Siddîq Brothers!

We congratulate your blessed, noble Ramadhan with all our hearts and souls. In this noble Ramadhan’s night of Qadr, may Janâb-i Haqq give the khayr of more than a thousand months’ khayr to all of you and accept it as an eighty-year accepted lifetime. Amîn.

Secondly: I believe that our being here until ‘Eid has numerous benefits and khayr for us. If we were to be released now, we would be deprived of all the khayr of this Madrasa of Yûsuf; due to worldly occupations, our being released would also harm our ma’nawî hudhur and harm the noble Ramadhan, which looks purely to the âkhirah. According to the mystery of   اَلْخَيْرُ فِى مَا اخْتَارَهُ اللّٰهُ8, InshâAllah, there will be great joy full of khayr in this.

The Fourteenth Ray

 

How should be a mu’min’s best du'â for another mu’min?

The Answer: It has to be within the sphere of the causes of acceptance because du'â is acceptable under certain conditions; its acceptability increases as the conditions of acceptance are gathered together. 

For instance, when a person will offer du’â, he should be cleaned in a ma’nawî manner with istighfâr; then as a shafî’, he should recite a noble salawât, which is an accepted du’â; at the end, he should again recite a salawât because a du'â that is offered between two accepted du'â becomes acceptable. Furthermore, بِظَهْرِ الْغَيْبِ , that is, it is to offer du'â for him when he is absent; to offer du'â with the du’âs from the Qur'an and hadiths.

For example, it is strongly hoped from the rahmah of Allah that comprehensive du’âs like these,

اَللّٰهُمَّ اِنِّى اَسْئَلُكَ الْعَفْوَ وَ الْعَافِيَةَ لِى وَ لَهُ فِى الدِّينِ وَ الدُّنْيَا وَ اْلآخِرَةِ

رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِى الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِى اْلآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَ قِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ9

and du’âs offered with ihlas, khushû’ and hudhur of heart, after the salâh, fajr salâh in particular, in blessed places, masjîds in particular, on Juma, particularly during 'the hour when du’âs are answered in Juma', during the three months10, on the well-known nights11 in particular, in Ramadhan, particularly on the night of Qadr are close to being accepted. The result of such an accepted du’â is either seen exactly in this world, or it is accepted in respect of the eternal life and the âkhirah of the one for whom du’â is offered. That is to say, if what was sought does not occur, it cannot be said that the du'â was not accepted, but rather that it was accepted in a better form.

The Twenty-Third Letter-Your First Question

6. If the du'â of one loyal student of the Risale-i Nur offered in the Ramadhan is accepted, all loyal students will have their share:

The noble Ramadhan of this year is of great importance and is extremely valuable for both the Islamic World and the Risale-i Nur students. The rewards of those who enter the circle of the Risale-i Nur with loyalty and ikhlas are so great and universal through the mystery of partnership in deeds of the âkhirah, which is a fundamental principle of Risale-i Nur students, and as a consequence of the requirement of that principle and of the rahmah of Allah, the same amount of the gains of each of them is recorded in the book of good deeds of each of his brothers. Each one of them gains thousands of shares. InshâAllah, without being divided or diminished like the collective shares in material worldly gains, it will be recorded in the book of good deeds of each in exactly the same amount. Just like a single lamp that was brought by a man will enter each of the thousands of mirrors as the same lamp without being divided. In this way, we strongly hope from the vastness of the rahmah of Allah that if one loyal student of the Risale-i Nur were to gain the haqiqah of the night of Qadr and the high level of Ramadhan, truly loyal students, in general, would earn and have their share from it.

The Kastamonu Addendum- 94

7. Gaining great benefits in Ramadhan:

The sawâb for deeds during the noble Ramadhan is thousandfold. According to the nass12 of hadith, each letter of Al-Qur’an Al-Hakîm has ten sawâbs; each is counted as ten good deeds and yields ten Jannah fruits.13 In the noble Ramadhan, each letter is not ten but a thousand, and each letter of âyahs like Âyah al-Kursi are thousands, and it is even more on Jum’as of the noble Ramadhan, and on the night of Qadr, they are counted as thirty thousand good deeds. Yes, Al-Qur’an Al-Hakîm, each of whose letters yields thirty thousand eternal fruits, becomes such a luminous Tree of Tûbâ that it causes mu’mins to gain millions of those eternal fruits in the noble Ramadhan. Thus, come and look to this sacred, eternal and profitable trade; behold and think that those who do not appreciate the value of those letters lose to what extent.

Thus, the noble Ramadhan is, in fact, an extremely profitable exhibition and a market for the trade of the âkhirah, and it is an extremely fertile land for the crops of the âkhirah, and it is the month of April in the spring for growing and flourishing deeds.

The Risale on Ramadhan-7th Subtle Point

 

My ‘Azîz, Siddîq Brothers!

Today, due to a ma’nawî warning, I felt anxiety and grief for you. Just at the moment when I was deeply grieving and suffering the pain of our brothers, who are anxious about their livelihoods and want to be released quickly, a blessed memory, a haqiqah and some good tidings came to my heart: after five days, the truly blessed three months, which are the months of ‘ibâdah that contain great sawâb, will begin. As for the sawâb of each good deed, it is tenfold at other times; in the month of the noble Rajab, it is more than a hundredfold; in the mighty Sha'ban, it exceeds three hundredfold; and in the blessed Ramadhan, it reaches a thousandfold; while on Juma nights in Ramadhan, it reaches thousands, and on the night of Qadr, it reaches thirty thousand. It is certainly very profitable to spend those three months, which are thus a sacred market for the trade of the âkhirah that causes one to earn plentiful benefits and an exceptional exhibition for the people of haqiqah and the people of ‘ibâdah, and which secure a life of eighty years for the people of îmân in three months, in this Madrasa of Yûsuf (as), where the profits multiply tenfold. All the hardships suffered are pure rahmah. Just as regarding ‘ibâdah, it is thus, so regarding the service of the Nur — with respect not to quantity but quality — it is fivefold because people who continuously enter and are released from this guest house are the means of the Nur’s lessons being disseminated. Sometimes one man's ikhlas gives the benefits of twenty men. Furthermore, according to the Nur's mystery of ikhlas, it is of no importance if there is a little hardship and trouble within the dissemination of the Nur's solace among the helpless prisoners, who are much in need of those solaces and possess the vein of political heroism. Regarding the trouble of livelihood: since these three months are a market for the âkhirah, each of you entered this place in place of numerous others and some of you entered this place in place of a thousand men, they will help in your works outside; I felt perfectly at ease and understood that being here until 'Eid is a great ni’mah.

              Said Nursî

The Fourteenth Ray

 

Since the haqiqah is this, it is a great happiness to try not to give importance to these minor temporary hardships with our lessons of ‘ilm and to busy ourselves with our awrâd, the khayr of which increases from one to a thousand in the noble Ramadhan, without anxiety and with caution, through perfect patience and shukr, with submission and tawakkul to Ilahî qadar and qadhâ14 that have been decreed for us and to the ‘inâyah of Allah that protects us, with consoling, sincere, mutually supporting and genuine friendship, love and conversation with our brothers here. The Nur's effective lessons in its most important examination and trial and making the enemies read them are a significant victory for Nur.

The Fourteenth Ray

8. Completing a full reading (khatmah) of the Qur’an in the Ramadhan by sharing the portions (juz) of it:

My ‘Azîz, Siddîq Brothers!

Firstly: We congratulate you for your night of Barâ’at and your upcoming Ramadhan, and we beseech Janâb-i Haqq that this upcoming night of Qadr provides us with the khayr of more than a thousand months and that it be recorded in our book of good deeds as such. So, we have made the intention to offer this du'â until ‘Eid

اَللّٰهُمَّ اجْعَلْ لَيْلَةَ قَدْرِنَا فِى هذَا الرَّمَضَانَ خَيْرًا مِنْ اَلْفِ شَهْرٍ لَنَا وَ لِطَلَبَةِ الرَّسَائِلِ النُّورِ الصَّادِقِينَ15

Also, your sending two miraculous Qur'ans to us during these blessed months will, InshâAllah, become the means of barakah, sawâb, merit and such conquests that we hope from the rahmah of Allah for each day of this Ramadhan to be like that of the night of Qadr for us.

We have planned from now on that: each of the elect students of the Risale-i Nur here will read a juz of those two Qur’ans every day during the noble Ramadhan together with you and complete a khatmah of the Quran on each day of Ramadhan. We seek success from the rahmah of Janâb-i Haqq for reading and completing that sacred khatmah within a very broad ma’nawî assembly that the Risale-i Nur students will form a circle encompassing Isparta and Kastamonu, all the Risale-i Nur students will form a circle and you will be at the centre in the manner of the khatmah performed by Naqshîs, on the other hand, on a much larger scale, by carrying the intention and imagining all the Risale-i Nur students are present in that circle in a ma’nawî manner.

Kastamonu Addendum-91

9. All Nur students offering du'â for each other during the Ramadhan:

Through the mystery of the blessed Ramadhan’s night of Qadr, the mystery and hikmah of it causing a person to gain an eighty-three-year ma’nawî life, and through the principle of solidarity with the mystery of ikhlas and the principle of partnership in deeds of the âkhirah among the Risale-i Nur students, each loyal student will gain that extraordinary ma’nawî reward. A very strong proof of this is as follows: within this circle, amongst forty thousand, or rather a hundred thousand sincere and true mu’mins, there will be not one or two, ten or twenty, but rather hundreds, who will highly likely gain the haqiqah of the night of Qadr.

By being attentive to this haqiqah, with the mystery of ikhlas and the mystery of the principle of partnership in deeds of the âkhirah, during this noble Ramadhan, each of us should consider ourselves as acting on behalf of all and as being amongst our friends, and within the نَ of the first person plural included in 16 نَا, that is, within words such as

اَجِرْنَا اِرْحَمْنَا وَاغْفِرْلَنَا وَوَفِّقْنَا وَاهْدِنَا17

وَاجْعَلْ لَيْلَةَ الْقَدْرِ فِى هذَا الرَّمَضَانَ خَيْرًا فِى حَقِّنَا مِنْ اَلْفِ شَهْرٍ18

we should at all times intend to have all brothers included in نَا . Especially with that particular intention, it is to assist this weakest brother of yours in his difficult duty.

Kastamonu Addendum (181)

 

Its second result is that, in the circle of the Risale-i Nur, regarding the ma’nawî corporation of the âkhirah that has been established and bestowed upon us without our will and outside of our knowledge, its each true and loyal student offers du'â with thousands of tongues and hearts, offers istighfâr, performs ‘ibâdah and offers tasbîh with forty thousand tongues, like some malâikah. And with thousands of hands, it is to search for the sacred and lofty haqiqahs like the haqiqah of the night of Qadr in the noble Ramadhan. It is due to such results that the students of the Risale-i Nur prefer the service of the Nur to the rank of walâyah. They do not seek kashf and karâmât and do not attempt to pick the fruits of the âkhirah in this world; they do not interfere with matters that are Allah’s duty and are outside of their duties, such as success, making people accept, making it in demand, making victorious and granting fame, honour, azwaq and ‘inayah that they deserve; they do not base their actions on them. They work purely and sincerely and say, “Our duty is service and that is sufficient.”

And Secondly: In order to gain the haqiqah of the night of Qadr, which is worth more than eighty years and is hidden in the totality of the noble Ramadan, and as a requirement of the Risale-i Nur students’ ma’nawî corporation of the âkhirah, each student should intend the loyal students of the Risale-i Nur when they say us with first-person plural within the expressions such as أَجِرْنَا إِرْحَمْنَا وَاغْفِرْ لَنَا . So that each student will beseech and work on behalf of all students. And I kindly request your help, like the previous Ramadhan, for this helpless brother of yours, who can only work very little and who has so much expected of him in service, in order to not spoil the good opinions for me.

 Kastamonu Addendum (263)