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wisdomrays · 5 years

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THE GUIDE FOR THE YOUTH: The Twenty-Third Word.Part11

They are teaching us the value of the time. They prevent us from wasting our times in idle games or on the streets instead of working on work-hours. They teach us that we should schedule our jobs. And even they instill us that we should work when we can rest.

It is not possible to explain exactly the value of the Risale-i Nur. The readers’ hearts will be filled with the appreciation of their value and there are such devoted persons that even if all the humans try to make them abandon Risale-i Nur, yet they cannot succeed.

I would like to become the servant of the TEACHER who was charged with composing the Risale-i Nur and It is an honour for me to become the servant of His servant. This loyalty is not exaggerated at all. When we read a valuable book we feel some kind of devotion for its author. For example, people feel a certain admiration for the works of Molliere, Shakespeare and Victor Hugo.

I wonder what should be the level of devotion for the person who is the Interpreter of the HOLY QUR’AN which is the Guide of the Religion of ISLAM?

If the works of Famous Goethe are printed on paper, the works of Bediuzzaman, idest, the TREATISES OF LIGHT (Risale-i Nur) are worthy to emboss on the golden and silver tablets. If it is normal to study the works of Socrates – the teacher of Plato – and Aristoteles until midnights, it is not an exaggeration to spend some sleepless nights for the sake of reading the works of Bediuzzaman. If one spends five Dollars for the book of a World–famous author, one can spend a whole wealth for such a sacred work like Risale-i Nur which deserve the greatest fames and highest ranks in both Worlds, and one should.If our devotion to Truthful Books is graded as ten, our connection to a MIRACLE OF THE QUR’AN like RISALE-I NUR which guide us in this World and in the Hereafter, must be infinitely strong.Therefore, Brothers, Let us embrace them, to get illuminated by their Lights. Let us turn our faces and eyes at the Library of Risale-i Nur which are the spiritual miracles of the HOLY QUR’AN. Let us make them the source of Point of View. And let us repeat the sacred words of the Holy Qur’an with all our Power and Strength.The Risale-i Nur which are Genuine Interpretation of the Holy Quran, are our Souls, Our Hearts, and our Lives. We accept them as the Goal of our Lives and the Capital of our Life-times.Yes, my Brothers, the features inside the Risale-i Nur, are not existing in any book composed until now. You can ask me how I know this? Some genuine scholars who dedicated their lives to reading hundreds of volumes have announced this Truth after reading the Treatises of Light. And these people have come to the conclusion that these contemporary humans however great knowledge they might have, they are in need of studying the Treatises of Light.

The Learned, the virtuous and the intellectuals who are afraid of becoming addicted to diseases such as vanity, haughtiness and selfishness have been embracing the Risale-i Nur immediately. Some of them have been trying to become students for The Light even if they are 60 – 70 years old.

The author of the Risale-i Nur mentioned one of the most important features of his works as follows:

“Any book will be read and will give some information. But the Risale-i Nur will give a spiritual pleasant lesson to the intellect and the heart and the soul as well.”

This feature of the Risale-i Nur can be observed on the readers visually. The Turkish Muslim Youth want to become scientists and scholars with belief and enlightenment, not with dark thoughts. The university students at the departments of Law, Medicine and Science can achieve to obtain the essential truths of various social, scientific and spiritual branches of knowledge through the Risale-i Nur.

Those who want to learn the facts of the Religion are reading the Risale-I Nur. Those who are searching the Truth are reading the Risale-i Nur. Those with the nature of struggling and striving are reading the Risale-i Nur. Those who want to reach the summit of heroism and bravery are reading the Risale-i Nur.

Nation-lovers are reading the Risale-i Nur. The scholars of Art and Scientists are reading the Risale-i Nur. The Sufis are reading the Risale-i Nur. The fans of Literature, too, are reading the Treatises of Light (Risale-i Nur). Their capacity of oratory and poetry has been increasing ten-folds after studying the Risale-i Nur. Thus every segment of human society feel the great need in their souls for the Risale-i Nur.

Those who study the Risale-i Nur (Treatises of Light) certainly come out victorious from the scholarly discussions and debates, and they express the Truth with ultimate clarity. The judges who study the Risale-i Nur with full acceptance do not decree wrongfully.

The source and the foundation of the true civilization and high social principles and humanitarian laws is the QURAN.

You will find what you were looking for inside the Risale-i Nur which are genuine and blessed commentaries and interpretations of the HOLY QURAN, and you will become eager to read them again and again with feelings of admiration.

There is a great benefit in studying the Risale-i Nur completely before starting a University Degree. Otherwise it is strongly probable to fall into terrible disasters.

The style of the Risale-i Nur is unique all by itself and is not comparable to any other style.

This fluent and attractive style stirs up the ardour of reading regularly. Then this ardour turns into desire to read the Collection of the Light completely as soon as possible due to the enjoyment given by the sweet and different style of this unmatched original work.

The Holy Quran has a spiritual effect on its readers even if they don’t understand the meanings. The Risale-i Nur has also spiritual influence for it is a spiritual miracle of the Holy Quran, even if you cannot understand some of the Arabic words in it.

Yes, an appreciative intellectual who reads a little bit from the Risale-i Nur, arrives at the opinion that Risale-i Nur is a masterpiece. Risale-i Nur has such an unmatched explanatory style that just like all, learned-scholarly people understand its truths, all readers and listeners - even if they are uneducated - can understand and relate its truths too.

Risale-i Nur is the treasure of epigrams and aphorisms. If we can learn by heart some of the aphorism and sentences in the Risale-i Nur, we will notice that they will come out of our hearts and tongues like precious stones and jewellery.

Bediuzzaman is giving a goodnews at the last section of the Treatise of Sincerety. We believe no other author has been granted to give the goodnews of such a wonderful facility. Our Great master says in that Treatise :

“The person who reads these Treatises in understanding and acceptance for one year, can become a Genuine Scholar of this era.”

A scholar is a person who owns the power of Knowledge and Science. Young or old age does not matter. The Risale-i Nur turn those Young man and Young women who read them with dedication for a year into Scholars. Would a Youngman with sound mind and heart waist his five minutes even, when he hears the existence of such a Knowledge which can be obtained so easily and quickly as a merciful favour of our Allah Almighty to the contemporary humans ? No, Certainly he would not !

The youth of this country and this nation have been awakening. This awakening youth have an aptitude for serving the nation to reach true Progress and Happiness through the Risale-i Nur. However, they need the spiritual help and the protection of the Community of the Risale-i Nur in order to obtain extraordinary accomplishment within the narrow circle of friends and family and large circle of social life as well.

And to this end, it is necessary to get connected in a serious and sincere way to the spiritual community of the Risale-i Nur (Treatises of Light).

My dear brothers ! I am sure that you’ll work hard with diligence in order to read such precious books as soon as possible.

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smokefalls · 6 years

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Title: The Golden House Author: Salman Rushdie First Published: 2017 Genre: fiction Content Warning: parental death, suicide, shooting, alcohol/drug abuse, mentioned police brutality, infidelity, threat of sexual assault

Hooooo boy. Where do I even begin with this book?

For one, The Golden House is a hot mess. I really don’t know how else to put it. It’s a departure from Rushdie’s usual fiction layered with magic realism, which takes place in India… Though like his other novels, there are plenty of passages scattered throughout to ruffle plenty of readers. (He’s not very subtle about comparing Trump to the Joker, for one.)

While I have not read The Bonfire of the Vanities, I have seen from other reviews that there are striking similarities between it and The Golden House. I would definitely agree with the comparison to The Great Gatsby, though, as you’ll discover in this review.

The Golden House highlights the opulence and absurdities of the filthy rich. Know that you’re in for a ride through soap-opera level drama and characters. The closest touch of that Rushdie Magic Realism™ we get is when we meet Vasilia, the “sleek Russian expat” (to quote the dust cover), who quite literally has Baba Yaga inside of her and is a level of cunning that throws quite the wrench into the Golden household. Speaking of, this mysterious family of expats from India is equally as bizarre. We have the three sons: Petya (an agoraphobic alcoholic most likely with autism), Apu (a disaster artist of sorts with flamboyance like no other), and “D” (who I’ll get into, because his character was most interesting). Oh, and of course, the shady as hell father, who happily adopts the name Nero. Yeah, you read that correctly. To quote Nero Golden on this name choice:

Yes! Compare me, if you will, to that monster who doused Christians in oil and set them alight to provide illumination in his garden at night! Who played the lyre while Rome burned (there actually weren’t any fiddles back then)! Yes: I christen myself Nero, of Caesar’s house, last of that bloody line, and make of it what you will. Me, I just like the name.

Listen, dude, the fact that you name yourself after one of the most (if not, the most) infamous Roman emperors—who you agree is a monster—and is a part of a dynasty known for being a disastrous hot mess… that says a lot. But hey, the sons also have names (of course, chosen by Nero) connected to the classical era: Petya, aka Petronius, aka a courtier during Nero’s rule (hmm…); Apu, aka Lucius Apuleius, aka the guy behind the novel, The Golden Ass (HMM…); and D, aka Dionysus, aka the beloved drunken god of the Greeks/Romans, aka involved in an array of myths including Hermaphroditus (HMMMM… by the way, I’ll get to why I’m HMM-ing this soon enough). I also assume that D was deliberately not named Bacchus to separate him from his older brothers, due to having a different mother. Oh by the way, they’re all fluent in Greek and Latin. Because why wouldn’t you be? But hey, while we’re still on the topic, the fact that dear Nero Golden named himself after the “last of that bloody line” also alludes to the crash and fall of the Golden family that they will have to face; the rise and fall of empires.

That said, as you’ve noticed with the extensive allusions to history/myth/etc., you’re going to see dozens of moments where Rushdie is going to show off, dropping: names of films, names in general, a slew of pop culture, obscure references to literature, obviously everything Ancient Roman/Greek, etc. Why? I really couldn’t tell you. Sometimes, they’re just… lists with no particular meaning, unless you want to sit around for the next several hours analyzing every bit of that. Except that would not only be excessive, but also a fruitless endeavor since it’s highly likely that there isn’t really any meaning to them. There’s almost an intense wish for these things to relate, but at the end of the day, no. Just… no.

Going to Dionysus, or D, I point him out in particular due to the fact that it’s not all that common to find a character dealing with major gender dysphoria thrown into novels like Rushdie’s. I did find Rushdie’s approach to this a bit odd; it felt that he didn’t entirely understand it and decided to analyze it while giving a bit of an Attenborough analysis, for a lack of a better description. It’s further emphasized when you realize that this is also done through D’s romantic partner, Riya. Through her, Rushdie seems to emphasize this wonder of how gender is a societal construct, almost as though he’s trying to comment on what these damn Millennials are saying these days… Oh, he also does this a lot for other #JustMillennialThings.

Whatever the case, I was most invested in D’s story, even if the execution was a bit off-putting at times. I actually found that his struggle with identity was the only thing that gave this novel the bare minimum of a foundation. After all, identity is a significant theme throughout the story for all of these characters (fake or not).

Then we have The Golden House’s version of Nick Carraway, an amateur filmmaker by the name of René Unterlinden (with parents as professors who also seem very adamant to boast about their Belgian heritage— God even knows what’s happening there). He’s seemingly level-headed at first, but perhaps unsurprisingly, goes from an observant of the Golden family for his film-in-making on the family to a participant in said family’s drama… in the stupidest way possible. Oh, René, you fucking fool.

Besides the predicaments of our idiotic narrator (seriously, you could have saved us so many pages), there is also the fact that René’s purpose is pretty much Rushdie’s need to ramble about… well, pretty much everything that’s happened between the Obama era and… err, essentially now (or rather, the time of this book’s publication, 2017). I can’t really even call it sociopolitical commentary.

I think my undergrad English advisor described The Golden House pretty well: “Rushdie really doesn’t care what he’s churning out at this point since he’s probably realized that he’s never going to win the Nobel.” (Ouch.) Can’t really comment on the latter part, but I think she does have a point about the fact that he doesn’t seem to care what it is that he’s writing about. There isn’t any structure in this novel; you get random bursts of bombastic absurdity (especially towards the end of Part 2) to hopefully take the readers’ mind off of the fact that nothing happens. And who knows, maybe you can read into that and say this is, in some ways, a commentary on the obscenity of the wealthy or whatever; that’s a stretch.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that the book was a terrible read. It’s just a lot of inconsequential tangents that can get exhausting after a while. It was engaging in the sense that there was a lot of top-notch drama, but otherwise, it just feels like Rushdie is showing off everything he knows, not really giving us anything substantial, and only wrote this to take jabs at the American political climate through the most absurd characters.

So yeah, take that as you will. And if you’ve never read Rushdie’s works before, for the love of all things holy, do not start with this book.

#salman rushdie #the golden house #book review #2018 reads #fiction #bookblr

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