Celebrating Eid-ul Adha

Please remember two important points: 1. During the day of Arafat (Arefe) this Saturday, if you are able, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi recommends that we recite 1,000 Ikhlas (Surah 112). Inshallah, this will bring us abundant rewards. 2. The importance of Tekbirat: after each Fard prayer we say one Tekbir. This practice starts with the morning (Fajr) prayer on Saturday, the day of Arefe, and it ends after afternoon (Asr) prayer on the fourth (last) day of Eid-ul Adha, a total of 23 times. For further insight, we are including Ustad Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s words from the Fourth Ray of the Sixteenth Word: “FOURTH RAY  And so, O my lazy soul! Like the soldier in the previous comparison was received into the royal presence as a pure favour, the reality of the five daily prayers, which are like a sort of Ascension, are a being received into the presence of the All-Glorious One of Beauty, the Beauteous One of Glory, Who is the True Object of Worship, as an instance of pure mercy. Declaring, God is Most Great!, it is to traverse the two worlds either in fact, or in the imagination, or by intention, be divested of the restrictions of materiality, pass to a universal degree of worship or a shadow or form of universality, and being honoured with a sort of presence, it is to manifest the address, You alone do we worship (everyone according to his own capacity); it is a most elevated attainment. Through repeating, God is Most Great! God is Most Great! in the actions of the prayers, it is an indication to rising through the degrees, to spiritual progress, and to ascending from minor particulars to universal spheres, and is a concise title to the perfections of Divine Sublimity which are beyond our knowledge. It is as if each God is Most Great is an indication to traversing a step in the Ascension. To attain to a shadow or a ray of this reality of the prayers either in fact, or by intention, or with the imagination, is a great happiness. The frequent declaring of God is Most Great! during the Hajj is for the above reason. For the blessed Hajj is worship at a universal level for everyone. Just as on a special day like a festival a soldier goes to the king’s celebrations like a General in the sphere of General, and receives his favours, in the same way, a Hajji, no matter how lowly, is turned towards his Sustainer under the title Mighty Sustainer of every region of the earth, like a saint who has traversed all the degrees. He is honoured with universal worship. For sure, the universal degrees of Dominicality opened with the key of the Hajj, and the horizons of the tremendousness of Godhead which are visible to his eye through its telescope, and the spheres of worship which gradually unfold to his heart and imagination through its observances, and the heat, wonder, awe, and dread of Dominicality caused by the levels of sublimity and last stage of manifestation, can only be quieted by, God is Most Great! God is Most Great!, and those observed or imagined unfolded degrees can only be proclaimed by it. After the Hajj, this meaning is found in various exalted and universal degrees in the Festival (‘Eid) Prayers, the prayers for rain, and on the occasions of solar and lunar eclipses, and in prayers performed as a congregation. Thus, the importance of the marks and observances of Islam, also even if of the category of Sunna, lies in this reason.” -B. Said Nursi Dr. Osman Birgeoglu ]]>