The Fourteenth Remedy

O sick person whose eyes are veiled! If you knew what kind of light and what kind of spiritual eye lie beneath the veil that has covered the eyes of a believer, you would say, “A hundred thousand thanks to my Rabb-i RahīmAllah, the Merciful Lord Whose mercy encompasses everything..” To clarify this truth, which contains a healing balm, I shall relate an incident:

My brother Suleyman from BarlaA village in Isparta Province, where Said Nursi lived in exile from 1926 to 1934 and wrote many parts of the Risale-i Nur Collection., who served me with utmost loyalty for eight years without once causing me distress, had an aunt. One day, because of an eye condition, she lost her sight. Since that righteous woman held many good opinions about my spirituality, she stopped me at the door of the mosque and said: “Pray to Allah so that I may see again.” I made the righteousness of that blessed woman an intercessor for my supplication and prayed: “O my Lord, open her eyes in honour of her righteousness.” Two days later, an eye doctor from Burdur came and treated her eyes. Forty days later, however, she lost her sight again. This saddened me deeply, and I prayed much for her. She passed away forty days later. May Allah have accepted the supplication I had made for her sight in favour of her life in the Hereafter. Otherwise, my prayer for her would have been greatly misplaced. May Allah have mercy on her. In this way, instead of looking for forty days with her sensitive and elderly eyes upon the sorrowful gardens of BarlaA village in Isparta Province, where Said Nursi lived in exile from 1926 to 1934 and wrote many parts of the Risale-i Nur Collection., that blessed woman gained the opportunity to behold the gardens of Paradise in her grave for forty thousand days. For her īmānFaith; belief in the six articles of faith: Allah, His angels, His revealed scriptures, His prophets, the Hereafter, and divine decree (qadar). was strong and her righteousness was intense.

Indeed, if the eyes of a believer are veiled and he enters the grave blind, then according to his spirituality and the degree of his faith, he may perceive the Hereafter far more clearly than the other inhabitants of the grave. Just as in this world we see many things that blind believers cannot see, so too the blind—provided they have died as believers—may see more in their graves than the other deceased. In accordance with the degree of their faith, they may behold the gardens of Paradise like a moving picture, as though looking through the most powerful optical telescopes.

Truly, through patience and gratitude, you may gain beneath the veil of your covered eyes this wondrous eye, with which you can behold Paradise above the heavens while beneath the earth. Indeed, the eye specialist who will lift the veil from your eyes and enable you to see with that eye is the Qur’an.

The Fifteenth Remedy

O sick person who cries out in lament! Do not lament over the outward aspect of your illness; rather, look at the wisdom behind it and be at peace. If being ill did not contain a beautiful meaning, the Compassionate Creator would not have given illnesses to His most beloved servants. In an authentic hadithA report of the sayings, actions, or approvals of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). it is stated:

اَشَدُّ النَّاسِ بَلَاءً اَلْاَنْبِيَاءُ ثُمَّ الْاَوْلِيَاءُ اَلْاَمْثَلُ فَالْاَمْثَلُ – اَوْ كَمَا قَالَThe people who are tested most severely are the prophets, then the awliyā, then those who most closely resemble them.

That is, “Those who experience trials and hardships most are the best and most perfect among people.”