The Twenty-Eighth Flash — Pieces from Eskişehir Prison

Yirmi Sekizinci Lem'a

A gathering of short pieces Nursî wrote to console his fellow prisoners in Eskişehir when he was forbidden to speak with them — small reflections on Qur'anic verses, defences, and meditations (from the kindness owed to a line of flies to the discipline of the soul) that turn a prison into a place of light.

~30 min companion read

Companion notes — a map of the Flash, not Nursî’s own words.

Short pieces written in Eskişehir Prison (1935) as consolation for the brothers in the ward opposite, at a time Nursî was barred from mixing or speaking with them. A varied collection rather than a single treatise.

Outline

Our structural map of the Flash.

A small point on an important verse — the line of flies

Forbidden to harm the flies that gathered on his washing-line, Nursî reads in those "miniature birds" a lesson in the worth God gives even the smallest creatures.

Reflections on verses and on creation

Short meditations — on the element of air, on divine names, on points of eloquence — each opening a door from a prison cell onto the wider order of things.

Fragments of defence

Pieces of the defence Nursî made before the court, and answers to the charges, set down among the consolations.

Disciplining the soul; sleep, festivals, and the inner life

Brief counsels — on the evil-commanding soul, on the "times of sleep," on what to do at festival times — for keeping the heart awake under hardship.

Companion summary

The Twenty-Eighth Flash is not a single treatise but a sheaf of short pieces Nursî wrote in Eskişehir Prison in 1935, as consolation for the brothers held in the ward opposite his — at a time when he was forbidden to mix or even speak with them. Read together, they show a particular gift: the ability to turn a cell into a window.

It opens, characteristically, with something tiny. Autumn has come, the flies are near the end of their season, and the prisoners are using chemicals to be rid of them — which stirs in Nursî “a sharp pity.” Watching the flies line up “in most orderly fashion,” like miniature birds, on his washing-line, he draws from them a point about a verse and about the dignity God lends even the least of His creatures. From there the pieces range widely: brief meditations on the element of air, on the divine names, on points of Qur’anic eloquence; fragments of the defence he made before the court; and a run of short counsels for the inner life under pressure — on the evil-commanding soul (nefis), on “the times of sleep,” on what to do at festival times when one is cut off from family.

What holds the miscellany together is its setting and its purpose. These are the notes of a man keeping his own and his friends’ hearts awake in confinement, practising the contemplation (tefekkür) that finds the order and mercy of creation legible even from behind bars, and steadying belief (îmân) where it is most tested. Because the pieces are occasional and personal, they reward reading in Nursî’s own words far more than any summary; the full text is linked above.

Key concepts

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