Old Age: Consoling Hopes

For when I uttered

يَا بَاقِى أَنْتَ الْبَاقِى

for the first time, a process of healing began, like a spiritual operation, amid the countless spiritual wounds arising from the transience of the world and my separation from so many beloved friends, such as Abdurrahman.

And when I uttered the words

يَا بَاقِى أَنْتَ الْبَاقِى

for the second time, they became both a balm and an antidote for all those countless spiritual wounds.

For they convey the following meaning:

“You are the Eternal One. Let whoever will pass away; You are sufficient. Because You are Eternal, a single glimmer of Your mercy is enough to make up for everything that perishes.

“And because You exist, every person who acknowledges his bond with You through īmān and lives in accordance with that bond through the mystery of Islam possesses everything in reality. Transience and death are merely veils, a renewal; they are like moving from one dwelling place to another.”

Through this realisation, my painful, lonely, sorrowful, dark, and frightening condition was completely transformed into a joyful, luminous, pleasant, and comforting state. My tongue and my heart, and even every atom of my body, seemed to say: “Alhamdulillah.”

One thousandth part of that glimmer of mercy was as follows:

I returned to Barla from the place where I had experienced that sorrowful state of mind. There I met a young man named Mustafa, from the village of Kuleönü. He had come to ask me a few questions about īmān and matters such as ablution and prayer.

It was as though my soul sensed his sincerity and the valuable service he would later render to the Risale-i Nur. Although I was not receiving visitors at that time, I did not turn him away, but welcomed him.

Later, it became clear to me that Allah had sent me Mustafa as an example of those who would take the place of Abdurrahman, who would have fully fulfilled his role as my true successor in the service of the Qur’an after me. It was as though He were saying to me:

“I have taken one Abdurrahman from you, but in return I shall grant you, in this service of the Qur’an, thirty Abdurrahmans like this Mustafa—students, nephews, spiritual sons, brothers, and devoted friends.”

Indeed, all praise be to Allah, He has granted me thirty Abdurrahmans.