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In His Name, be He glorified!
[Concerning the fact that belief has afforded me paradisaical pleasures in my life in this world too.]
I have not seen my kindly mother since I was nine years old and so have been unable to talk with her. I have been deprived of her respectful love, and because I have not seen my three late sisters since I was fifteen, and they have departed for the Intermediate Realm together with my mother, May God have mercy on them, I have been denied the compassion and respect of their delightful, pleasurable sisterly conversation. And because I have not seen two of my three brothers for fifty years, May God have mercy on them, I have been deprived the conversation of those two valuable, religious, learned brothers, and the joy of their respectful love and kindly compassion. However, just as the Risale-i Nur shows that a seed of Paradise is found in belief; so today, when making a trip with my four spiritual sons who devotedly serve me, a tiny part of the seed of Paradise found in belief was imparted to my spirit.
I have always remained single and have had no children in this world, but have never felt the lack of this despite being deprived of the tender pleasure and gratification enjoyed with children. In the face of these four wounds, Almighty God today bestowed a most pleasurable idea on me. It healed them in three ways.
The First: In accordance with an inner meaning of the Hadith: "Practise religion as elderly women do!" [^69] which is explained in the Risale-i Nur, in place of the pleasure of my late mother's solicitous personal compassion, divine mercy bestowed on me in general fashion the wondrous benefiting from the Risale-i Nur of thousands of mothers and elderly women and their spiritual pleasures. Similarly, in place of the caring, sisterly joy and pleasure of my three late sisters, it gave me through the Risale-i Nur hundreds of thousands of young women as sisters of a sort, and their prayers and attachment to the Risale-i Nur, and thousands of spiritual benefits in place of the three I had lost and a joyousness in my spirit. My brothers are aware of the numerous signs and evidences showing this second part to be true. Also, in place of my being deprived on my brother's death of devoted material and moral assistance in this world, and of his love and affection,
[^69]:al-Suyūṭī, al-Durar al-Muntathira, 115; al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā', iii, 75.
