Old Age: Consoling Hopes

I understood that although human beings have been endowed with love for the world on account of its beautiful aspects, which point towards the Hereafter and the Names of Allah, the heedless have misdirected that love towards the world's transient, ugly, and deceptive faces. As a result, they have fallen under the meaning of the narration:

حُبُّ الدُّنْيَا رَأْسُ كُلِّ خَطِيئَةٍ

O my brothers and sisters who have reached old age! Through the light of the Qur’an, the warning of old age, and the insight bestowed upon me by īmān, I have perceived this truth and demonstrated it with convincing proofs in many parts of the Risale-i Nur.

For me, it became a source of genuine consolation, powerful hope, and radiant light. Therefore, I am content with my old age and glad that my youth has passed.

You too should not grieve, but rather give thanks. Since we believe in Allah, and since this is the true nature of things, sorrow does not befit us. It belongs only to the heedless and the unbelievers.

The Ninth Hope

During the First World War, I was held as a prisoner of war in the far northeast of Russia, in the city of Kostroma, on the banks of the famous River Volga. There was a small Tatar mosque there. I felt oppressed among my fellow prisoners, who were officers, and longed for solitude. Since I was not permitted to move about freely, I sought the help of the Tatar community. With their guarantee, I was allowed to stay in that little mosque beside the river.

I lived there alone. Spring was approaching. In those northern regions, the nights are long, and I spent many of them awake. During those dark nights, amid my sorrowful solitude, the melancholy murmur of the Volga, the gentle patter of the rain, and the mournful sighing of the wind awakened me from the deep sleep of heedlessness.

Although I did not yet regard myself as old, I felt the weight of old age within me. For whoever has lived through a world war has grown old. It was as though I were experiencing within myself the truth of the verse:

يَوْمًا يَجْعَلُ الْوِلْدَانَ شِيبًا

I felt like a man of eighty, though I was only forty.

In that long, gloomy night, amid my sorrowful loneliness and distress, I lost hope of surviving and returning to my homeland. When I contemplated my weakness and solitude, all hope seemed to fade.

In that state, help came to me from the Qur’an. My tongue recited:

حَسْبُنَا اللّٰهُ وَ نِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ

And my heart wept and said:

غَرِيبَمْ بِيكَسَمْ ضَعِيفَمْ نَاتُوَانَمْ اَ ْلاَمَانْ كُوَيمْ عَفْوُجُويَمْ مَدَدْخَوٰاهَمْ زِدَرْكَاهَتْ اِلٰهِى