Twenty Fifth Flash
“In this Flash, we summarily elucidate Twenty Five Remedies that can be a real consolation and useful salve for those who are afflicted with tribulation and for the sick, who constitute a tenth of the humankind.”
You can access the podcast episodes based on this treatise by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi from the following links: Episode 01 (1st-4th Remedies), Episode 02 (5th-6th Remedies, Episode 03 (7th-8th Remedies), Episode 04 (9th-10th Remedies), Episode 05 (11th-12th Remedies), Episode 06 (13th-15th Remedies), Episode 07 (16th-17th Remedies), Episode 08 (18th-19th Remedies), Episode 09 (20th-22nd Remedies), and Episode 10 (23rd-25th Remedies).
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ROUGH TRANSLATION from the RISALE-I NUR
translated by Dr. Mustafa Tuna
This is a work in progress and should not be considered a finalized translation. It is only meant to help with understanding the recorded discussion.
Twenty Fifth Flash
Consists of Twenty-Five Remedies
It is written as a salve, consolation, metaphysical prescription, sick visitation, and get well wish for the sick.
Warning and apology: In addition to being authored faster than all that we have written in the past (side note), contrary to the usual practice, this metaphysical prescription was reviewed for correction only once, quickly as in the case of its writing, due to not being able to find time for correction and careful attention. Thus, it is left somewhat disorganized like a first draft. In order not to spoil the thoughts that came to the heart in a natural way with artfulness and attention, we did not consider a careful review to be necessary. Those who read it, especially the sick ones, should not be distressed and offended by some unpleasant expressions or heavy words and statements. They should make dua for me.
Side note: This treatise was authored within four and a half hours. Yes (Rüştü), Yes (Re’fet), Yes (Hüsrev), Yes (Said)
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
اَلَّذِينَ اِذَآ اَصَابَتْهُمْ مُصِيبَةٌ قَالُوۤا اِنَّا ِللهِ وَاِنَّآ اِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
وَالَّذِى هُوَ يُطْعِمُنِى وَيَسْقِينِ وَاِذَا مَرِضْتُ فَهُوَ يَشْفِينِ
Those who say, when afflicted with tribulation, ‘We belong to God and to Him we shall return’ (Qur’an, 2: 156). He who gives me food and drink; // He who cures me when I am sick (Qur’an, 26: 79-80).
In this Flash, we summarily elucidate Twenty Five Remedies that can be a real consolation and useful salve for those who are afflicted with tribulation and for the sick, who constitute a tenth of the humankind.
First Remedy
Oh helpless sick person! Do not worry, be patient. Your sickness is not a problem but in fact, a kind of cure for you. This is because, the span of one’s life is a capital; it is moving away. If it is fruitless, it will be wasted. Furthermore, when lived in comfort and heedlessness, it moves away very fast. Sickness is rendering that capital of yours fruitful with huge profits. Furthermore, it is not giving life the opportunity to move fast, it is holding and lengthening it—so that it bears fruits and only then, moves away. See! As an indication of the lengthening of life with sickness, this saying has become famous: “The time of tribulation is very long, and the time of ease is very short.”
Second Remedy
Oh impatient sick person! Be patient, in fact, be grateful. This sickness that you have can turn each minute of the span of your life into an hour of worship. This is because, worship is of two kinds. One is actively positive, such as the known forms of worship like prayer and supplication. The other is passively negative that by means of sicknesses and tribulations, one who is afflicted with tribulation feels his impotence and weakness and takes refuge in his Mercy-giving Creator, beseeches him. He is blessed with a metaphysical worship that is pure and non-ostentatious.
Yes, there are sound narrations indicating that the times of life spent in sickness are considered as worship for a believer, on condition that he does not complain about God. It is even established by sound narrations and sound unveilings that one minute of some patient and grateful sick people are judged as an hour of worship and that of some perfect ones as a day. Do not complain about the sickness that turns one minute of your life into a thousand minutes and earns a long life for you; be grateful for it.
Third Remedy
Oh the sick person who lacks forbearance! That those who come to this world consistently leave it, the young become older, and they consistently fall into extinction and separation bears witness that man does not come to this world to enjoy life and derive pleasure from it. Moreover, although man is the most perfect of animate beings, the most elevated among them, the wealthiest in terms of equipment, and in fact, like the sultan of animate beings, compared to animals, he lives a life at the lowliest level, full of concerns and difficulties as a result of thinking about past pleasures and future calamities. In that case, man has not come to this world only to live a beautiful life and spend his time in a state of comfort and ease. In fact, the human being who has a tremendous capital in his hand is here for business, to work toward the felicity of an eternal and continual life. The capital that is put in his hand is the span of his life.
In the absence of sickness, health and wellbeing lead to heedlessness, show the world as agreeable, makes one forget the Hereafter. It does not want you to remember the grave and death. It is making you spend the capital of your life on useless and empty things. Sickness opens your eyes all of a sudden. It tells to your body and corpse: “You are not immortal. You are not left alone. You have a duty. Leave vainglory. Think about the One Who created you. Know that you will enter the grave. Prepare accordingly.”
Yes, from this point of view, sickness is a never-deceiving counselor and a reminding guide. One should not complain about it but thank it with this consideration in mind. And if its burden is too heavy to carry, one should ask for patience.
Fourth Remedy
Oh the habitually complaining sick person! Your share is not complaint but gratitude and patience. Because your body, your organs and bodily equipment are not your property. You have not made them. You have not purchased them from some shops. In that case, they are the property of someone else. Their Owner disposes of His property as He wills.
As it is mentioned in the Twenty Sixth Word, assume that in order to show his beautiful arts and precious wealth, an utterly wealthy and skillful artist puts a shirt or a suit that he sews with utmost art and ornaments with precious gems on a poor man to have him serve as a paid model for an hour. He works on the outfit while it is on this man and puts it into various forms. To show the wondrous varieties of his arts, he cuts it, alters it, makes it longer or shorter… Now, if this paid poor man says to that person: “You are causing me trouble. You are distressing me by putting me in these positions as I bend down and stand up.” Would he have the right to say that? Can he say: “You have been merciless and unfair.”?
Just as it is in this example, oh the sick person, to show the embroideries of His Beautiful Divine Names on the body shirt, which is ornamented with gems like the eye, the ear, the intellect, and luminous senses like the heart, that the Majestic Artful Maker has put on you, He changes you from state to state and gives you many forms. As you recognize His name the Provider with hunger, know His name the Healer with your sickness. Since pains and tribulations show the rulings of some of His names, in them, there are flashes of wisdom, rays of mercy, and in those rays, many beauties. If the veil is lifted, behind the veil of sickness that you are bewildered by and loathe, you shall find amiable and beautiful meanings.
Fifth Remedy
Oh the disease-stricken sick person! Through my experience at this time I have reached the conviction that for some, sickness is a divine bestowal, a gift from the Merciful. Although I do not merit it, some young people reached out to me seeking prayers in relation to sickness during these past eight to nine years. When I looked carefully, I noticed that relative to other young people, each sick young person I met would begin to think about their Hereafter more. The inebriety of youth is gone. They save themselves from the animalistic desires of a state of heedlessness. I would consider the matter and remind them that their sicknesses that remained within endurable limits were divine bestowals. I would say:
“My brother, I am not against this sickness of yours. I do not feel compassion or pity for you because of the sickness, so that I should pray for you. Try to have patience until sickness awakens you completely. Once sickness finishes its duty, the Mercy-giving Creator will give healing to you God willing.”
Further, I would say: “Because of the calamity of health, some of your peers fall into heedlessness, leave prayer, do not think about the grave, forget God, and shake, harm, and in fact, ruin their eternal lives for the apparent pleasures of one hour of worldly life. Through the eye of sickness, you see your grave where you will stop anyhow, you see other stops of the Hereafter beyond it, and thus, you adjust your actions accordingly. In that case, sickness is a kind of health for you, and health is a kind of sickness for some of your peers.
Sixth Remedy
Oh the sick person who complains of pain! I ask you: Think of your past life and remember the delightful days of enjoyment and the times of calamity and pain that are gone now.
You will certainly say either “Oh!” or “Ah!” That is, your heart and tongue will either say “All praise and gratitude is due to God! Thanks!” or “Oh, my grief! Oh, my regret!”
Think carefully, what makes you say “Oh! All praise and gratitude is due to God! Thanks!” are the pains you have experienced. The contemplation of tribulations is digging up a metaphysical pleasure, and as a result, your heart expresses gratitude. This is because, there is pleasure in the termination of pain. Those pains and tribulations have bequeathed a pleasure to the spirit through their termination, and therefore, if the spirit is dug up, a pleasure pours forth, expressions of gratitude drip out.
What makes you say “Oh, my grief! Oh, my regret!” are the pleasurable and enjoyable states you have experienced in olden times. They have bequeathed a continuous pain to your spirit through their termination, and therefore, whenever you think about it, that pain is dredged up and pours out regret and grief.
Since one day of illicit pleasure sometimes causes a year of metaphysical pain, and since there are many days of pleasure and spiritual rewards for the pain that is caused by a day of temporary sickness, as well as a metaphysical pleasure that comes from deliverance and survival, consider the consequence of this temporary sickness that afflicts you for now as well as the spiritual reward in its inner dimension. Say: “This too will pass, oh the One!” Express gratitude instead of complaint.
Sixth Remedy (side note)
Side note: As this flash came to mind in a natural manner, it was written twice at the sixth level. We left it as is in order not to spoil its naturalness. We did not change it thinking that perhaps, there might be a secret in this.
Oh my brother who suffers the agony of sickness by thinking about the world’s pleasures! Had this world been continuous, had death not been standing on our path, had the winds of separation and termination not been blowing, and had there not been metaphysical seasons of winter in a future filled with storms and tribulations, I too would pity your state with you. However, since one day, the world will tell us: “Out! It is over,” since it will plug its ears to our wailings, we should give up on its love from now, heeding the warnings of these sicknesses, before it expels us. Before it abandons us, we should try to abandon it in our hearts.
Yes, sickness reminds us about this meaning and says: “Your body is not made up of stone or iron. In fact it is composed of various materials that are continuously capable of separation. Leave your vainglory, understand your impotence. Recognize your Owner, know your duty, learn why you have come to the world.” It silently whispers to the heart’s ear.
Moreover, since the world’s pleasures and delight do not continue, and especially if they are not licit, they are discontinuous, painful, and sinful at the same time, then, do not cry for having lost that pleasure by means of sickness. To the contrary, think about the aspects of metaphysical worship and otherworldly rewards in sickness, and try to find delight in it.
Seventh Remedy
Oh the sick person who has lost the delight of his health! Your sickness does not drive out the delight of divine blessing that is in sickness; to the contrary, it causes you to taste that delight and increases it. Because, if something keeps continuing, it loses its effect. The people of truth even agree in saying that:
اِنَّمَا اْلاَشْيَاۤءُ تُعْرَفُ بِاَضْدَادِهَا
That is, “Everything is known through its opposite.” For example, light is not known without darkness and is left bereft of its delight. Heat cannot be comprehended without coldness and is left bereft of pleasure. Food does not give delight without hunger. Drinking water does not yield pleasure without the heat of thirst in the stomach. Wellbeing is not pleasurable without affliction. Health is delightless without sickness.
Since the fact that the All-Wise Who creates from nothing equips humans with so much equipment that enables them taste and recognize an unlimited variety of different blessings in this cosmos shows that He wants to make them notice His bestowals through their senses, have them taste each one of His blessings, and guide them to continuous gratitude… of course, as He gives health and wellbeing, He will also give sicknesses, afflictions, and troubles. I ask you: “Had this sickness not been in your head or hand or stomach, would you notice the delightful and pleasurable divine blessing in the health of your head, hand, or stomach?” Of course, you would not even think of them, let alone have gratitude for them. Unconsciously, you would have spent that health in a state of heedlessness or in fact, dissipation.
Seventh Remedy
Oh the sick person who has lost the delight of his health! Your sickness does not drive out the delight of divine blessing that is in health; to the contrary, it causes you to taste that delight and increases it. Because, if something keeps continuing, it loses its effect. The people of truth have even agreed in saying that:
اِنَّمَا اْلاَشْيَاۤءُ تُعْرَفُ بِاَضْدَادِهَا
That is, “Everything is known by its opposite.” For example, light is not known without darkness; it is left bereft of delight. Heat cannot be noticed without coldness; it is left bereft of pleasure. Food does not give delight without hunger. Drinking water does not yield pleasure without the heat of thirst in the stomach. Wellbeing is not pleasurable without affliction. Health is delightless without sickness.
Since the fact that the All-Wise Who creates from nothing equips humans with so much equipment that enables them to taste and recognize an unlimited variety of different blessings in this cosmos shows that He wants to make them notice His bestowals with their senses, have them taste each one of His blessings, and guide them to continuous gratitude… of course, as He gives health and wellbeing, He will also give sicknesses, afflictions, and troubles. I ask you: “Had this sickness not been in your head or hand or stomach, would you notice the delightful and pleasurable divine blessing in the health of your head, hand, or stomach?” Of course, you would not even think of them, let alone have gratitude for them. Unconsciously, you would have spent that health in a state of heedlessness or, in fact, dissipation.
Eighth Remedy
Oh the sick person who is thinking about his Hereafter! Sickness washes away and cleanses the dirt of sins like soap. It is established by sound prophetic tradition that sicknesses offer expiations for sins. Furthermore, it is mentioned in a prophetic tradition that “As the fruits fall upon shaking a ripened tree, likewise, the shivering of a believing sick person shakes the sins off.”
Sins are continuous sicknesses in eternal life; they are metaphysical sicknesses for the heart, the conscience, and the spirit in this worldly life. If you be patient and do not complain, you are being saved from many continuous sicknesses through this temporary sickness. If you are not thinking about the sins, or if you do not know about the Hereafter or recognize God, you have such a dreadful sickness that it is a million times bigger than this small sickness that you have; wail for that. This is because your heart, spirit, and lower self are related to the existent beings of the entire world. As a result of separation and termination, those relations are continuously being severed, thereby opening innumerable wounds on you. Especially since you do not know the Hereafter and you imagine death to be eternal extinction, it is as if you have a black and blue wounded body that is as big as the world. Thus, first, it is necessary to look for the medicine of faith that is a definitive medicine and definitively healing antidote for the innumerable sicknesses of this big metaphysical body with innumerable wounds and sicknesses and to correct your beliefs. And the shortest path to finding that medicine is in recognizing the power and mercy of a Majestic All-Powerful One through the window of your impotence and weakness that this material sickness shows to you beneath the veil of heedlessness, which it tears apart.
Yes, a worldful of troubles afflict the one who does not recognize God. The world of the one who recognizes God is filled with light and metaphysical joy, which are felt in accordance with the strength of their faith. Under the metaphysical joy, the healing, and delight that arise from this faith, the pain of particular material sicknesses melt away; they are crushed.
Ninth Remedy
Oh the sick person who knows his Creator! The pain, bewilderment, and fear in sicknesses owe to the fact that sickness sometimes leads to death. Since death is dreadful in the eye of heedlessness and appearances, the sicknesses that can lead to it cause fear and anxiety.
First of all, know and have definite faith that the appointed time is determined; it does not change. Many in perfect health who cried beside the seriously sick have died, while those seriously sick people have found healing and lived on.
Second, death is not dreadful in the way that it outwardly appears to be. In many treatises, we have proven with the light that emanates from the All-Wise Qur’an in an utmostly certain way beyond doubt and suspicion that for the people of faith, death is discharge from the burden of the duty of life. In the trial that is taking place on the world’s arena, it is a respite from the instruction and training that worshipful slavehood is. It is a means of joining the ninety-nine percent of one’s beloveds and relatives who have departed to the other realm. It is a means to enter one’s true homeland and eternal station of felicity. It is an invitation from the dungeon of the world to the gardens of Paradise. It is one’s turn to receive a payment that corresponds to his service from the outpouring of the Merciful Creator. Since this is the quiddity of death from the point of view of reality, it behooves to see it not with dread but to the contrary, as the beginning of mercy and felicity
That some people of God fear death is not due to death’s dreadfulness. In fact, it is for the good deeds that they could earn from the continuation of the duty of life; it is to earn more good deeds.
Yes, death is the gate of mercy for the people of faith and a pit of eternal darkness for the people of misguidance.
Tenth Remedy
Oh the sick person who worries unnecessarily! You are worrying about the difficulty of sickness. Your worry increases the difficulty of sickness. If you want your sickness to become lighter, try not to worry. That is, think about the benefits and spiritual rewards of sickness and that it will go away quickly, thus remove the worry and cut the sickness’ roots.
Yes, worry doubles sickness. Beneath the material sickness, it introduces a metaphysical sickness to your heart. The material sickness gets support from that and continues. If that worry departs as a result of submission, contentment, and reflecting upon the wisdom of sickness, an important root of that material sickness is cut. It becomes lighter and departs partly. Sometimes, especially with obsessive thoughts, a dirham of material sickness grows ten times as a result of worry. Once worry stops, nine-tenths of that sickness goes away.
In addition to increasing the sickness, because worry accuses divine wisdom, criticizes divine mercy, and is in effect a complaint about the Mercy-Giving Creator, it becomes the cause of a slap in the form of the opposite of its purpose and increases your sickness. Yes, as gratitude increases blessings, complaint increases sickness and tribulation.
Moreover, worry itself is a sickness too. Its medicine is to know the wisdom of sickness. Since you came to know its wisdom and benefit, apply that salve on worry and be saved from it. Say “Oh!” instead of “Ah!” Recite اَلْحَمْدُ ِللهِ عَلٰى كُلِّ حَالِ (All praise and gratitude is to God under all circumstances!) instead of “Wa asafā!” (Oh, my regret!).
Eleventh Remedy
Oh impatient sick brother! Besides the present pain, sickness is giving you the spiritual delight of its spiritual rewards and a metaphysical delight due to the termination of the sickness that you have had before this day. Sickness does not exist after today, or in fact, after this hour. Of course, no pain comes from that which is nonexistent. If there is no pain, there shall be no distress. Impatience arises from your delusional misconception. This is because, with the passage of the times of material sickness before this day, its pain has also passed after all. What is left is the spiritual reward in it and the delight in its termination. It is lunacy to be pained with their thought and show impatience while these should give profit and happiness to you. The future days have not come yet. What is it if not lunacy to think of them already from now and taint three layers of nonexistence with the color of existence as a result of being pained with the delusional thought of the nonexistent pain of a nonexistent sickness on a nonexistent day already?
Since the times of sickness before this hour give happiness, and since the time, the sickness, and the pain after this hour are nonexistent, do not squander all the power of patience that the Sublime Real has given to you left and right in the way that you are doing. Muster it against the pain of this hour. Say “Oh the Patient One!” and endure it.
Twelfth Remedy
Oh the sick person who is deprived of his worship and customary devotions because of sickness and who regrets that deprivation! Know that it is established in the prophetic tradition that “As long as sickness lasts, a God-conscious believer receives the spiritual reward of his continual customary devotions that he cannot do because of sickness.” For a sick person who fulfills what is obligatory as much as possible, as a result of patience and reliance on God and of the fulfillment of what is obligatory, sickness takes the place of other sunnah performances during that heavy sickness and does so in a state of sincerity.
Furthermore, sickness causes a person to notice his impotence and weakness. It makes him supplicate through his state and words with the tongue of impotence and weakness. The Sublime Real has given humans boundless impotence and endless weakness so that they would continuously take refuge in the Divine Court and beseech and supplicate.
قُلْ مَا يَعْبَؤُا بِكُمْ رَبِّى لَوْلاَ دُعَاۤؤُكُمْ
“Say, ‘What are you to my Lord without your supplication?’… (Qur’an, 25: 77)
That is, “What significance do you have if not for your supplication?” According to the secret of this verse, since sickness is one of the causes of sincere supplication and beseechment, which constitute the wisdom in the creation of humans and the reason for their worthiness… from this point of view, it is necessary not to complain but to offer gratitude to God and to avoid turning off the tap of supplication that sickness turns on through the acquisition of wellbeing.
Thirteenth Remedy
Oh the helpless person who complains about sickness! Sickness is a treasure of critical importance for some; it is an utmostly precious divine gift. Each sick person can think of his sickness as being of that kind.
Since the appointed time is not known; the Sublime Real has hidden the appointed time with his wisdom to save man from absolute despair and absolute heedlessness, to keep him between fear and hope and on the task of preserving both the world and the Hereafter… Since the appointed time can arrive at any moment and if it seizes man in a state of heedlessness, that can harm his eternal life… Sickness dispels heedlessness, brings the Hereafter to mind, reminds of death, and so, man prepares accordingly… Sometimes this begets such gain that in twenty days, one earns the station that one cannot earn in twenty years.
For example, there were two young men among our friends – may God have mercy on them: one, Sabri from Ilama, and the other, Vezirzade Mustafa from Islamkoy. I used to see in a state of wonder that although these two persons could not write, they stood in the furthest line ahead of others from the point of view of sincerity and in the service of faith. I did not know the wisdom in this. I understood after they passed away that they both had a serious sickness. Thanks to the guidance of that sickness, as different from the other heedless youth who leave the obligatory acts of worship, they obtained a most important level of God-consciousness, rendered a most precious service, and assumed a state that would benefit the Hereafter. Insha’Allah, the distress of two years of sickness became the cause of happiness in millions of years of eternal life. I now understand that the supplications I made for their health from time to time were in fact, becoming maledictions in terms of the world. Insha’Allah, may that supplication of mine have been accepted for the health of the Hereafter.
So, according to my conviction, these two persons found a profit that amounts to a gain that can be acquired with ten years of God-consciousness. Had they trusted their health and youth and thrown themselves into heedlessness and debauchery like some young people and had death followed and caught them right in the filth of their sins, they were going to make their graves a nest of scorpions and snakes instead of that treasury of lights.
Since sicknesses have such benefit, it is due not to complain about them but in fact, to be grateful and have trust in the divine mercy in a state of reliance on God and patience.
Fourteenth Remedy
Oh the sick person whose eyesight is veiled! If you knew what kind of a light and what a metaphysical eye are to be found beneath the veil that blinds the eyesight of the people of faith, you would say: “A hundred thousand gratitudes be to my Merciful Lord!” To explain this salve, I will narrate an incident. It is as follows:
Once, cataract blinded the eyesight of the aunt of Süleyman from Barla, who served me for eight years with perfect loyalty, without ever disobliging me. That righteous woman, whose good opinion of me was a hundred times more than what I deserve, caught me at the gate of the mosque, asking: “Pray for the restoration of my eyesight.” And I made the righteousness of that blessed and divinely captivated woman an intercessor for my supplication and beseeched: “Oh my Lord, open her eye for the sake of the sanctity of her righteousness.” Two days later, an eye doctor from Burdur came and restored her eyesight. Then she was blinded again after forty days. I was extremely distressed and supplicated a lot. Insha’Allah may that supplication have been accepted for her Hereafter. Otherwise, that supplication of mine would have been an utterly false malediction for her. Because, she had forty days to her appointed time. She passed away – may God have mercy on her – after forty days.
Thus, instead of looking at the sorrowful orchards of Barla for forty days with the tender eyes of old age, that deceased woman attained in her grave forty thousand days that she will be gazing at the orchards of Paradise. Because her faith was strong and righteousness was intense.
Yes, if a believer’s eyesight is veiled and he enters the grave blinded, in accordance with his degree, he may watch that realm of light much more than the people of the grave. As we see many things in this world yet the blind believers do not see them, to that extent, those blind ones see in the grave, if they go there with faith, more than the people of the grave. As though looking through the most powerful binoculars, they see the orchards of Paradise and watch them in their graves, in accordance with their degrees.
Thus, with patience and gratitude, you can find beneath the veil on your eye such an utmostly luminous eye that will see Paradise above the heavens and watch it from under the earth. And the eye doctor that will lift that veil from your eye and have you look with that eye is the Wisdomful Qur’an.
Fifteenth Remedy
Oh the moanings sick person! Do not look at the outward appearance of sickness and moan saying “Ah!” Look at its meaning and say “Oh!” If the meaning of sickness was not a beautiful thing, the Merciful Creator would not give sicknesses to His most beloved slaves. Yet, it is mentioned in the prophetic tradition that:
اَشَدُّ النَّاسِ بَلاَءً اَ ْلاَنْبِيَاۤءُ ثُمَّ اْلاَوْلِيَاۤءُ، ثُمَّ اْلاَمْثَلُ فَاْلاَمْثَلُ
Those who are most severely afflicted with troubles among people are the prophets, then saints of God, then their likes, and their likes (or as he (ﷺ) said).
That is, “Those who are afflicted with tribulations and difficulties most are the best and most perfect ones among humans.” First Our Master Ayyub greetings of peace be upon him, all prophets, then saints of God, then the righteous have considered the sicknesses they suffered as a pure form of worship, as a gift from the Merciful One, and they have shown gratitude in a state of patience. They have seen it as a surgical operation originating from the mercy of the Merciful Creator.
Oh you, the sick person who is moaning pitifully! If you want to join this luminous convoy, show gratitude in a state of patience. Otherwise, if you complain, they will not admit you into their convoy. You will fall into the pits of the people of misguidance. You will proceed on a path full of darkness.
Yes, there are some sicknesses that, if it results in death, it is judged as metaphysical martyrdom, it causes the attainment of a degree of sainthood that is like martyrdom. For example, in the way that those who die from sicknesses resulting from child delivery (side note), abdominal pain, drowning, fire, and plague are judged as metaphysical martyrs, likewise, there are many blessed sicknesses that cause the attainment of the degree of sainthood with death. Furthermore, since sickness lessens love of the world and attachment to it, for the people of the world, it alleviates the utmostly painful and bitter separation from this world, and sometimes even endears it.
Side note: The attainment of metaphysical martyrdom by this sickness is up to forty days, which is the postpartum period.
Sixteenth Remedy
Oh the sick person who complains of distress! Sickness inculcates esteem and charitable kindness, which are most essential and utmostly beautiful in the social life of human beings. This is because, it saves man from the sense of self-sufficiency that leads to estrangement and lack of charitable kindness. Because, per the secret of:
اِنَّ اْلاِنْسَانَ لَيَطْغٰى اَنْ رَاٰهُ اسْتَغْنٰى
Indeed man exceeds all bounds // by thinking that he is self-sufficient (Qur’an, 96: 6-7),
an evil commanding soul in the state of feeling self-sufficient as it originates from health and well-being does not feel the esteem in relation to many forms of fraternity that are worthy of esteem. Nor does it feel charitable to those who are calamity-stricken and to sicknesses that deserve to be approached with charitable kindness and compassion. Once a person gets sick, he recognizes his impotence and poverty in that sickness and shows esteem to his brethren who are worthy of esteem. He is filled with a sense of esteem toward his believing brothers who visit or assist him. He feels humane compassion that originates from tender feelings toward one’s kind and charitable kindness toward the calamity-stricken, which is a most essential character trait in Islam. By comparing them to himself, he pities them in the true meaning of the word, shows compassion to them, helps them if he can, supplicates for them in the least, or visits them to inquire about them in the least, which is sunnah according to the Shariah, and thus, earns spiritual rewards.
Seventeenth Remedy
Oh the sick person who complains of not being able to perform good deeds because of sickness! Be grateful. It is sickness that opens the gates of the purest form of good deeds for you. In addition to causing both the sick person and the caregivers of the sick person to earn spiritual rewards continuously, sickness is a most important means for the acceptability of supplications.
Yes, there is an important spiritual reward for the believers in taking care of the sick. It is a praised sunnah to inquire about the sick and visit them on condition that one does not cause distress for them; it is a cause for the expiation of sins. It is mentioned in the prophetic tradition: “Receive the supplications of those who are sick. Their supplications are acceptable.”
Especially if the sick person is a relative, especially if it is one’s father or mother, serving them is an important form of worship, an important cause of spiritual reward. Pleasing the hearts of sick people and consoling them is judged as an important charity. Happy is that child who, when his father and mother are sick, pleases their easily-touched hearts and receives their supplications.
Yes, even the angels applaud saying “mā shaʾ Allah, baraka Allah” in the face of that tableau of fidelity which reveals the state of a good child who, in return for his father’s and mother’s compassion, which is a most esteemed reality in human social life, responds with perfect esteem and compassion as becomes a child, as well as revealing the loftiness of humanity.
Yes, during sickness, there are utterly pleasant and joyous delights that will reduce the pain of sickness to naught, that originate from the instances of compassion, pity, and charitable kindness. The acceptability of a sick person’s supplication is a matter of importance. For thirty to forty years, I have been supplicating to be healed from a shoulder pain that I have. I understood that the sickness is given for supplication. Since supplication does not remove supplication, that is itself, I understood that its consequence relates to the Hereafter (side note), it is a form of worship. With it, the sick person understands his impotence and takes refuge in the divine court. This is why, even though I have been supplicating for healing for thirty years and, in appearance, my supplication has not been accepted, it did not occur to my heart to stop supplication. This is because, sickness is the time of supplication; healing is not the consequence of supplication. If the Sublime All-Wise Merciful One gives healing, He does so out of His outpouring mercy.
Furthermore, if a supplication is not accepted in the way that we ask, we do not say that it was not acceptable. The All-Wise Creator knows better; whatever is better for our benefit, He gives that. Sometimes, He turns our supplications about the world to our Hereafter for our benefit and accepts as such.
At any rate, a supplication that acquires the purity of sincerity with the secret of sickness, especially a supplication that issues from weakness, impotence, humility, and need, is very close to acceptance. Sickness is the locus of such a pure supplication. Both the pious sick person and the believers who care for that person should take advantage of this supplication.
Side note: Yes, for some sicknesses, since it is the cause for the existence of supplication, if the supplication caused the nonexistence of the sickness, the existence of the supplication would be causing its own nonexistence, and this is not possible.
Eighteenth Remedy
Oh the sick person who gives up gratitude and slides into complaint! Complaint arises from a right. You have not lost a right to complain. In fact, there were many occasions of gratitude that were incumbent upon you, and you have not fulfilled them. You are complaining as if you are unfairly demanding a right without first fulfilling the right that is due to the Sublime Real. You shall not complain looking at those who are healthier than you. In fact, you are accountable for looking at the helpless sick people whose health is worse than yours. If your hand is broken, look at those whose hand is cut off. If you do not have one eye, look at the blind ones who have lost both eyes. Show gratitude to God.
Yes, nobody has the right to look at those who are above them in blessings and complain. And when it comes to tribulations, everybody’s right is to look at those who are worse off in tribulations, so that they would show gratitude. This secret is explained in some treatises with an allegory. A summary is as follows:
Once a person takes a helpless man to the top of a minaret. He bestows him with a separate favor, gives him a different gift at each step of the minaret. Then, he gives the biggest gift exactly at the top of the minaret. Although he asks for thanks and a sense of indebtedness in return for those various gifts, what a denial of blessings and how unfair it would be if that ill-tempered man forgets about all the gifts he received on each of those steps, does not show gratitude, looks up, and starts complaining: “If only this minaret was taller and I climbed higher! Why is it not high like that mountain or like that other minaret?” In the same way, although a human being is brought from nonexistence into existence, becomes not a stone, not a tree, not an animal but a human being, experiences much health and wellbeing while a Muslim and acquires such a high level of blessings, if he complains, shows impatience, and puts himself in a situation that is like casting aspersions on the divine lordship saying, “So what did I do to deserve this?” upon losing or not being able to attain some blessings such as health and wellbeing because he does not deserve them or because of his own bad choice or bad actions, that is a metaphysical sickness that contains a tribulation worse than the material sickness. Like fighting with a broken hand, he increases his sickness with his complaint. The intellect entails that, he submits and shows patience with the secret of:
اَلَّذِينَ اِذَآ اَصَابَتْهُمْ مُصِيبَةٌ قَالُوۤا اِنَّا ِللهِ وَاِنَّآ اِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
Those who say, when afflicted with calamity, “We belong to God and to Him we shall return” (Qur’an, 2: 156),
so that the sickness finishes its duty and leaves.
Nineteenth Remedy
As the expression of the “Beautiful Names” that becomes the Eternally Besought One shows, all of the names of the Beautiful One of Majesty are beautiful. The most subtle, most beautiful, and most comprehensive mirror of Eternal Besoughtedness among existent beings is life. The mirror of that which is beautiful is beautiful. The mirror that shows the beauty of excellence of a beautiful one becomes beautiful. In the way that whatever comes from that beautiful one and happens to that mirror is beautiful, whatever happens to life is beautiful from the point of view of reality. Because, it shows the beautiful embroideries of those Beautiful Names that are beautiful.
If life remains monotonously in a state of health and wellbeing, that mirror would be deficient. In fact and in a sense, it makes nonexistence, absence, and nothingness to be felt, reduces the value of life, and transforms the delight of life into boredom. Out of boredom, one throws himself either into dissipation or entertainment while trying to make time move fast. He feels enmity toward his life, like time served in prison, and wants to kill and let it pass fast.
On the other hand, life that revolves from state to state in transformations and action makes its value to be felt and causes the importance and delight of life to be known. Even in a state of difficulties and tribulations, one does not want life to pass. He does not keep complaining out of boredom saying, “Alas, the sun has not set,” or “The night is not finishing.”
Yes, ask a gentleman who is utmostly rich and idle, resting in the lap of luxury in perfect possession of everything: “How are you?” Of course, you will hear from him: “Alas time is not passing. Come let’s play a round of backgammon. Or let’s find an entertainment to pass time,” as if in a state of agony. Or else, you will hear complaints like: “I am missing this thing. If only I had done that,” which are expressions issuing from the extension of expectations beyond limits.
Ask a person struck by calamity, a worker, or a poor person in hardship: “How are you?” If he is sensible, he will say: “Abundant gratitude be to my Lord. I am fine. I am working. If only the sun did not set so fast, so that I could finish this task too. Time is passing fast. Life is not stopping but moving away. It is true that I am having hardship, but this too will pass. Everything is moving away fast like this.” And with the regret he shows in the face of the passage of time, he will inform you about the metaphysical value of life. In that case, through hardship and work, he understands the delight of living and the value of life. Rest and health, on the other hand, embitter the moments of life and make one desire their passage.
Oh the sick brother! Know that as it is proven definitively and in detail in some other treatises, nonexistence is the origin and leavening of tribulations, evil, and even sins. Nonexistence is evil, it is darkness. Monotonous states such as rest, silence, stillness, and stopping make the darkness in nonexistence felt and give distress because of their closeness to nonexistence and nothingness. As for action and transformation, it is existence, it makes existence to be felt. As for existence, it is pure good, it is light.
If this is the truth, then that sickness of yours is sent to your body as a guest to fulfill many duties such as to purifying, strengthening, and improving your precious life, directing other human faculties in your body to gathering around that sick organ with assistance, and showing the embroideries of the All-Wise Artful Maker’s distinct names. Insha’Allah, may it finish its duty fast and leave. And may it address wellbeing saying: “You come, stay in my place continually, and fulfill your function. This is your home. Stay in a state of wellbeing.”
Twentieth Remedy
Oh the sick person who is looking for a cure for his sickness! Sickness is of two types. One is real, the other is delusional. As for the real type, the Majestic and All-Wise Healer has stored up a remedy for every affliction in His great pharmacy, which is this sphere of the earth. Those remedies call for afflictions. He has created a cure for every affliction. It is licit to obtain and use medicines for therapy, but it is necessary to know that effect and healing is from the Sublime Real. As He is the One Who gives affliction, He is the One Who gives healing too.
Following the recommendations of competent and pious physicians is a significant medicine. Because most sicknesses come from abuses, lack of proper diet, wastefulness, mistakes, dissipation, and carelessness. A pious physician will of course give recommendations and instructions within the circle of that which is licit. He forbids abuses and wastefulness and offers consolation. The sick person trusts those instructions and consolation and his sickness becomes lighter; this replaces distress with a kind of joy.
As for the delusional type of sickness, the most effective medicine for it is not to pay attention to it. If one pays attention, it grows and inflates. If one does not pay attention, it becomes smaller and dissipates. In the way that the more bees are bothered the more they swarm around a person, yet they disperse away if you don’t bother with them; or as the image of a piece of rope dangling before your eye in darkness grows as you pay attention to it, and sometimes, it even scares a person away like a lunatic, yet if he does not pay attention, he notices that an ordinary piece of rope is not a snake and laughs at the anxiety that his mind produces…
Likewise, if delusional sickness continues for too long, it becomes real. It is a terrible sickness that obsessively delusional and nervous people have that they make a mountain out of a molehill and their morale collapses. Especially, if he falls in the hands of merciless half physicians or heartlessly unfair doctors, they further aggravate his delusions. If he is rich, he loses his property; otherwise, he loses either his wits or his health.
Twenty-first Remedy
Oh sick brother! There is material pain in your sickness. However, an important metaphysical delight that can eliminate the effects of that material pain encompasses you. This is because, if you have your father, your mother, and relatives, their utmostly delightful compassion that you have long forgotten becomes awakened around you and you see those agreeable gazes that you used to see in your childhood once again. Furthermore, being attracted by sickness, many friendships surrounding you yet have become hidden and veiled turn to you once again with love. And your material pain is indeed a very cheap price to pay in return for these. Moreover, now that the sickness rules, the people that you proudly served and tried to earn their favors serve you mercifully, and you became a master over your masters. Moreover, out of nowhere, you found many helpful beloved companions and compassionate friends, as you attracted toward yourself the human feelings of tenderness and compassion toward one’s kind. Moreover, from your sickness, you received an instruction to take a break from many difficult tasks, and now you are resting. Of course, in the face of these metaphysical delights, your minor pain should lead you not to complaint but to thanks.
Twenty-second Remedy
Oh brother who is afflicted with heavy sicknesses like paralysis! First of all, I am giving you the glad tidings that paralysis is considered to be blessed for believers. I had long been hearing about this from saintly people yet did not know its secret. One of those secrets appears to my heart as follows:
In order to attain union with the Sublime Real, be saved from the tremendous metaphysical dangers of the world, and attain eternal felicity, the people of God have followed two fundamental principles by choice.
One is connecting with death. That is, they have worked for their eternal life by thinking that as the world is temporal, they too are dutiful yet temporal guests in it.
Second: In order to be saved from the dangers of the evil commanding soul and blind feelings, they have worked to kill the evil-commanding soul through solitary retreats and regimens of abstinence.
You and the likes of you, oh brother who has lost the health of half of his body! Without your choice, two fundamental principles that are short and easy causes of felicity have been given to you that the state of your body continually reminds about the world’s transience and that man is temporal. The world cannot drown you and heedlessness cannot cover your eyes any longer. And of course, the evil-commanding soul cannot deceive a person in the state of half a human being with vile desires and the appetites of the lower soul; thus he is saved fast from the calamities of that lower soul.
And so, in a brief period of time, with the secret of faith and with submission and reliance on God, a believer can benefit from a heavy sickness like paralysis like the solitary retreats of the people of sainthood. When this happens, that heavy sickness becomes a very cheap price to pay.
Twenty-third Remedy
Oh the sick person who is lonely and helpless in foreign lands! If your sickness together with your loneliness in foreign lands arouses tender feelings even in the hardest hearts and attracts compassionate gazes, then your connection through faith to your Merciful Creator Who presents Himself with His attributes of the Merciful and the Mercy-giver at the beginning of all the chapters of the Qur’an, Who, with a flash of His compassion, has all mothers take care of all infants in a way that becomes His wonderful compassion, Who, with an instance of the reflection of his mercy, fills the face of the earth with blessings in every spring, and an instance of the reflection of Whose mercy all the excellent beauties of Paradise in eternal life are, your recognition of Him and entreaty through the tongue of impotence of your sickness, and surely your sickness of loneliness in these foreign lands attract His gaze of mercy to you.
If He exists and takes care of you, then you have everything. One who is truly lonely in foreign lands is that who does not connect to him with faith and subordination or does not give importance to his connection.
Twenty-fourth Remedy
Oh the caretakers who serve innocent sick children and the elderly who are in effect like innocent children! Before you is an important otherworldly trade. Earn that trade with enthusiasm and endeavor.
It is established by the people of truth that along with many wisdoms pertaining to the child’s worldly life such as being a workout and exercise for those delicate bodies and an injection and training from the Lord to build resistance against the world’s commotions to come… the spiritual rewards accruing from sicknesses, which are the grounds for the child’s spiritual life and the purification of his life, similar to and instead of the atonement for sins in adults, and which are like injections that become the grounds for metaphysical development in the future or in the Hereafter, are written in the book of deeds of the child’s father and mother, especially in the page of good deeds of the mother who, with the secret of compassion, prefers the child’s health over her health.
As for taking care of the elderly, it is established through sound narrations and many historical occasions that in addition to receiving tremendous spiritual reward, receiving the supplications of those elderly people – especially if it is the father and mother – pleasing their hearts, and serving them faithfully is the grounds for felicity in both this world and the Hereafter. It is established in many occurrences that as a fortunate child who shows full obedience to his father and mother sees the same from his own children, if an unfortunate child offends his parents, he receives his punishment with many tragedies in the world in addition to the torment of the Hereafter.
Yes, taking care of the elderly and innocent is not only for relatives. In fact, if a believer happens upon them, if an esteemed elderly sick person needs this believer, since there is true brotherhood established through the secret of faith, Islam entails serving them with heart and soul.
Twenty-fifth Remedy
Oh sick brothers (and sisters)! If you want an utmostly beneficial and all-curing remedy, a truly delightful and sacred antidote, improve your faith. That is, use the faith, which is a sacred antidote, and the medicine that comes from faith by returning to God with repentance, asking for His forgiveness, prayer, and worshipful slavehood.
Yes, because of the love of the world and attachment to it, it is as if the people of heedlessness possess a sick metaphysical body that is as big as the world. We have definitively proven in many treatises that faith gives immediate healing to that metaphysical body, which is wounded and bruised with the world-like blows of extinction and separation, that it gives true healing by saving from wounds. I am keeping it short in order not to give you headache.
The medicine of faith shows its effect by fulfilling obligatory deeds as much as possible. Heedlessness, dissipation, the desires of the lowly soul, and illicit imagery contradicts the effect of that antidote. Since sickness lifts away heedlessness, cuts appetites, and prevents from following illicit indulgences, take advantage of it. Use the sacred medicines and lights of true faith by returning to God in repentance, asking for His forgiveness, and supplicating and beseeching Him.
May the Sublime Real give you healing and make your sicknesses an atonement for sins for you. Amin, amin, amin.
وَقَالُوا الْحَمْدُ ِللهِ الَّذِى هَدٰينَا لِهٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهْتَدِىَ لَوْلاَ اَنْ هَدٰينَا اللهُ لَقَدْ جَاۤءَتْ رُسُلُ رَبِّنَا بِالْحَقِّ
And they say, ‘Praise and gratitude be to God, Who guided us to this: had God not guided us, we would never have found the way. Indeed, the messengers of our Lord have come with the Truth’ (Qur’an, 7: 43).
سُبْحَانَكَ لاَعِلْمَ لَنَاۤ اِلاَّ مَاعَلَّمْتَنَاۤ اِنَّكَ اَنْتَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ
Glory be to you. We have no knowledge other than that which you have taught us. Indeed you are All-knowing, All-wise (Qur’an, 2: 32).
اَللّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلٰى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ، طِبِّ الْقُلُوبِ وَدَوَاۤئِهَا وَعَافِيَةِ اْلاَبْدَانِ وَشِفَاۤئِهَا وَنُورِ اْلاَبْصَارِ وَضِيَاۤئِهَا وَعَلٰى اٰلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلِّمْ
Oh God, send blessings and greetings of peace to our master Muhammad, the medicine of hearts and their remedy, the wellbeing of bodies and their healing, the light of sight and its radiance, and on his family and companions.