The answer to a critical question.

‘The worldly’ ask: “Why are you angry with us? You have not made application to us even once, and are silent. You complain about us bitterly, saying that we are unjust towards you. But we have our principles, we have our particular rules, as demanded by this age, and you do not accept that they are applied to you. One who applies the law is not a tyrant, and one who does not accept the law is rebellious. For instance, in this age of freedom and new republican era which we have inaugurated, the principle—on the basis of equality—of abolishing oppression and subjugation of others is as though our fundamental law. However, it is understood from your open behaviour and your adventurous life in the former period that whether by assuming the position of hoja or of being an ascetic, you try to draw the public gaze on yourself and attract attention, so to secure a power and social position outside the government’s influence. This may appear desirable within—according to current terminology—the despotic tyranny of the bourgeouisie. But since the principles of pure socialism and bolshevism, which have emerged with the awakening and ascendancy of our common people, are more conformable with our interests, we have accepted them, and your position is disagreeable to us; it opposes our principles. For this reason you do not have the right to complain about and be angry at the distress we cause you.”

T h e A n s w e r : If one who opens up a new way in the life of human society does not act in conformity with the natural laws in force in the universe, he cannot be successful in beneficial works and in progress. All his acts become on account of evil and destruction. Since actions have to be in conformity with the natural laws, absolute equality can only be applied by changing human nature and removing the fundamental wisdom in the mankind’s creation. Yes, by birth and the way I have lived I am from the class of common people, and I am one of those who by temperament and intellectually have accepted the way of ‘equality of rights.’ And due to compassion and the justice proceeding from Islam, I am one of those who for a long time have opposed and worked against the despotism and oppression of the elite class called the bourgeouisie. I therefore support total justice with all my strength, and oppose tyranny, oppression, arbitrary power, and despotism.

However, human nature and the underlying wisdom in human kind are contrary to the law of absolute equality. Because, in order to demonstrate His perfect power and wisdom, the All-Wise Creator produces many crops from a single thing, causes many books to be written on a single page, and causes many functions to be performed by a single thing; and in the same way, He causes the duties of thousands of species to be carried out by human kind. It is because of this great mystery that Almighty God created mankind with a nature that would produce the shoots of thousands of species and display the levels of the thousands of other species of living creatures. No limit was placed on man’s powers, subtle faculties, and senses like the other animals; since He left him free and gave him a capacity whereby they could roam through endless degrees, while being one species, mankind became like thousands of species. And for this reason, man was God’s vicegerent on earth, the result of the universe, and monarch of the animals.

Thus, the most important leaven and mechanism for the variety in mankind is competition and the true virtue arising from belief. Virtue can only be removed through changing human nature, extinguishing the reason, killing the heart, and annihilating the spirit. Yes, this age with its awesome tyranny under the veil of freedom deserves to be struck in the face with the following masterly lines, which, written by a most important person, have been wrongly brandished in his face, although he deserved no slap:

It is not possible through tyranny and injustice to destroy freedom;

Try to remove consciousness, if you can, from human kind.

In place of these lines, I say, in order to strike this age in the face:

It is not possible through tyranny and injustice to destroy reality;

Try to annihilate the heart, if you can, in human kind.

Or,

It is not possible through tyranny and injustice to destroy virtue;

Try to annihilate the conscience, if you can, in human kind.

Yes, just as the virtue arising from belief cannot be the means of oppression, so too it cannot be the cause of despotism. Oppression and arbitrary despotism indicate the absence of virtue. And the most important way of the people of virtue in particular is to interfere in the life of society only through impotence, poverty, and humility. All praise be to God, my life has passed on this way, and is passing on it. I am not claiming this out of pride, saying that I possess some virtue. I say the following with the intention of offering thanks and making known a Divine bounty:

Through His grace and munificence, Almighty God bestowed on me the virtue of working for the sciences of belief and the Qur’an. All praise be to God, throughout my life I have spent this Divine bounty for the benefit and happiness of this Muslim nation, and just as at no time I have made it the means of dominating and oppressing others, so too for an important reason I detest public attention and being fêted by the people, which is sought after by the neglectful; I flee from it. Since twenty years of my former life were lost because of that, I consider it to be harmful for me. But since I know public attention to be a sign of the people liking the Risale-i Nur, I do not put them off.

And so, O you whose view is restricted to the life of this world! I have not meddled in any way in your world, nor have I had anything to do with your principles, nor as is testified to by my life during these nine years of captivity, have I had any intention or desire to meddle in the world again. So according to what law have you inflicted all this surveillance and oppression on me as though I was an old oppressor who was ever ready to seize an opportunity and supported the idea of tyranny and despotism? No government in the world permits such treatment over and above the law, which is recommended by no one. It is not only me who is sick of the ill-treatment I have had meted out to me so far, if they knew of it, all mankind would be disgusted, and even the universe!