THE TENTH FLASH

The Treatise on the Merciful Warnings

بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحٖيمِIn the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

يَوْمَ تَجِدُ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَا عَمِلَتْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ مُحْضَرًا وَمَا عَمِلَتْ مِنْ سُوۤءٍ تَوَدُّ لَوْ اَنَّ بَيْنَهَا وَبَيْنَهُ اَمَدًا بَعِيدًا وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ اللّٰهُ نَفْسَهُ وَاللّٰهُ رَؤُوفٌ بِالْعِبَادِOn the Day when every soul will find whatever good it has done brought before it, and whatever evil it has done, it will wish that there were a great distance between itself and that evil. Allah warns you of Himself, and Allah is Most Compassionate toward His servants. — The Qur’an 3:30

This treatise explains one mystery of this verse by setting forth the merciful warnings that my friends in the service of the Qur’an underwent as a result of their lapses and mistakes arising from human nature. It also describes a series of karāmātMiraculous events granted by Allah through righteous believers who are not prophets. of the service of the Qur’an, as well as a particular karāmahA miraculous event granted by Allah through a righteous believer who is not a prophet. of Abd al-Qādir GīlānīThe celebrated Muslim scholar and Sufi master, founder of the Qādiriyyah order., who, with Divine permission, spiritually oversees this sacred service and supports it through his spiritual help and supplications. All of this is so that those engaged in this sacred service may remain steadfast in their seriousness and devotion.

The karāmātMiraculous events granted by Allah through righteous believers who are not prophets. of this sacred service are of three kinds.

The first kind concerns the preparation of this service and the directing of its servants toward it.

The second kind concerns the removal of obstacles and the repelling of the evil of harmful people, whereby they are, as it were, struck with punishment. The events belonging to these two kinds are many and lengthy. We shall leave them for another occasion; here we shall speak of the third kind, which is the lightest.

The third kind concerns the merciful warnings that strike sincere servants of this service when they show slackness, so that they awaken and return once more to the service. The events belonging to this category are more than a hundred. Among these cases, thirteen or fourteen received a merciful warning, while six or seven received a severe warning.

The First Case

This poor Said himself. Whenever I grew slack in the service and said, “What concern is it of mine?” and occupied myself with personal matters, I received a merciful warning. I became convinced that this warning came as a result of my negligence. For whatever aim had led me into negligence, I was struck precisely by its opposite.

With careful observation, we also saw among my other sincere friends that they, like me, received merciful warnings in direct opposition to the aim for which they had become negligent. Thus we became convinced that these events belong to the karāmahA miraculous event granted by Allah through a righteous believer who is not a prophet. of the service of the Qur’an.

For example, as long as this poor Said was occupied in the city of VanA city in eastern Turkey where Bediuzzaman Said Nursi lived and taught for many years before his exile to western Turkey. with teaching the truths of the Qur’an, the suspicious government left me completely alone during the events surrounding Shaykh SaidA religious scholar and Naqshbandī shaykh who led an uprising against the Turkish government in 1925 and was subsequently executed. and could not touch me in any way. But when I said, “What concern is it of mine?”, thought only of myself, and withdrew to a ruined cave on Mount ErekA mountain near Van in eastern Turkey, where Bediuzzaman Said Nursi spent periods in retreat and taught students before his exile to western Turkey. in order to save my own Hereafter, I was arrested without any reason and exiled to BurdurA city in southwestern Turkey where Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was sent into exile in 1925 and continued teaching the truths of īmān..