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 enmity 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 may be seventy types of enemies, ranging from the people of misguidance and
heresy to the realm of disbelief, to the conditions and calamities of the world.
Each of these enemies have adopted a hostile attitude towards you, and
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.
1
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:
اِنَّمَا
الْمُؤْمِنُونَ اِخْوَةٌ
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
اَلْمُؤْمِنُ لِلْمُؤْمِنِ كَالْبُنْيَانِ الْمَرْصُوصِ يَشُدُّ بَعْضُهُ بَعْضًا
“The believers are together like a well-founded building, one part of which
supports the other” your guiding principle in life! Then you will
be delivered from humiliation in this world and wretchedness in the hereafter.
Source:
Twenty Second Letter, Letters, Risale-i Nur Collection
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