“As for the main duties of the holy ones, it is to bring people to the light of faith by saving them from the darkness of disbelief and wrongdoing, to warn the souls and to announce the truth to the hearts, to remove the doubts and hesitations in the minds by showing the front and back of the curtains as they are, to shed light on the face of existence and to read it like a book. It is to make it contemplate like a landmark, to interpret and paint it as a work of art, then to sing it according to the horizon of understanding of the age, and to turn this mortal route into a step, a bridge, a hamlet, a bazaar of the eternal realms”.
We can say that these expressions, which are put forward while explaining the prophetic stance in the face of events, are the summary of the idea of ”Hizmet” as a whole. It is a movement and lifestyle in which continuous results are envisaged, such as making the principles revealed by the Qur’an dominant over life, spreading the expectations of religion regarding morality and human beings to the general public and making them livable. Although it is seen that this discourse differs in form in different social formations in different geographies that interpret the general principles of Islam in their own way, they are united in the same ideal in spirit.
Service (Hizmet) to Religion
In the Risale-i Nur Collection,“the three major issues in the entire human world and in Islam are faith, sharia and life. Since the most magnificent of them is the truths of faith. This truth of the Qur’an is not to be subjected to and used by other currents, other forces, and not to let the truths of the Qur’an like diamonds fall into pieces of glass in the eyes of men who sell religion to the world or make a tool. In order to fully fulfill the duty of saving faith, the true and loyal students of Risale-i Nur are fleeing politics with extreme violence and hatred”.
It has been emphasized many times that the service of faith should be given priority, that the Qur’an and the truths of faith should not be reduced to the worthlessness of “glass pieces” due to method and procedural errors, and the motto “I beg God to be protected from the devil and politics” has been put forward as a service guide.
Historical processes such as the social base affected by the sects/cults, dervish lodges and zaviyes in the Ottoman Empire and the problems that they developed over time by their relationship with politics and the state, and the further clarification of the distanced stance of the “sectarian tradition” from the State during the revolutions/revolutions that aimed to strengthen the Republic by spreading it all over the world. Although it is a separate and detailed topic of discussion, its effects extending to the present are also certain.
If we get rid of the historical approach and return to the concrete event, we see that sociology operating around the idea of ”Hizmet” inevitably experiences its own historical transformations. The point we want to draw attention to is the process of transformation into a “network” where the initial discourse/action balance gets complicated over time, the basic principles are moved away, and the tools are used without hesitation for the purpose without questioning religious principles or with maslahadist/opportunist and licensing approaches.
The idea of ”we too should be able to exist in every field/place” has turned into the ambition of “we should be the most in every area”, and then “we should be the only one” for some State institutions. Various training/preparation processes developed on the determination of “They do not recognize the right to life for Anatolian people” which seems to be a sociological remnant, first evolved into a staffing frenzy, and then inactivating and ultimately eliminating “others”. While the initial aim was to eliminate a sociological remnant, it gained a political and legal dimension with many wrong and arbitrary practices that can be counted in the process, and eventually it became a sociological/political/legal problem itself.
As for the title of the article, “Goodbye Miss Mahmure” ın an old Turkish movie (Three Friends-1971) three friends can not obtain the money they need to have a blind girl operated on by working and demanding from others. It symbolizes that the main boy of the movie, Kadir İnanır, taking the first step towards evil by flying the pigeon named Miss Mahmure, whom he loves very much, out of his cage, with the rebellion of “We will take it by force, we will find that money”.
Yes, these are the questions we should ask ourselves with conscience and good judgment, right? When we said “Goodbye Miss Mahmure”, when we slid on the straight path, when we only knew ourselves as the truth, when we brought power-number-dominance as a goal, what mentality brought human rights and harams into us. How did we become an army of the proud when we said humility and modesty before, will no one put an end to all this madness, will there be no lessons from the recent past, will there be no return to our essence and purification, when will people choose to be honorable individuals over this parasitic mentality?
How will those who lose the test they take with power, personnel dominance and money lead Islam wherever the sun rises and sets, and how will they represent the truth with all these contradictions?