Whenever, these last five years, I have gone out around Emirdağ in the phaeton for some fresh air, young children from the age of one to seven have come running up more eagerly than they do to their own parents, and have clung onto my hands. They have even fallen under the phaeton once or twice but extraordinarily have been unhurt. Some two or three-year-old children who have never even seen me before have come rushing up over the thistles in bare feet. Then saluting me like grown-ups, have tried to kiss my hands. This situation astonished both myself and my brothers and those who witnessed it. It happened not only in one place, but everywhere and even in the villages I passed through round about.

A sudden, and undeceiving, thought occurred to me due to which both I myself and my friends felt certain that owing to their innocence, the children around here had a premonition, or instinctive perception, that, although they were not conscious of it with their minds, the Risale-i Nur would be very beneficial for themselves and other innocent children in this region, and that instinctive urge drove them to race more eagerly than if their mothers' had urged them to the person who in respect of its meanings interpreted the Risale-i Nur.

For our part, we had a presentiment and felt that in the future leading Nurjus would appear from among these young innocent creatures, and that their present behaviour indicated that they would be select Nur students. Since I have no children, I included all of them in my prayers as spiritual offspring, and I mention them every morning together with the Nur students.

Also, there must be a truth which causes a one-year-old innocent child to prefer a forty-year-old unconcerned man and show him sinless, heartfelt

interest. It is also for this reason that I respond sincerely to their greetings, the same as I salute grown-ups. And I used to say to them that due to both their innocence, and the fact that in the future they would be true Nurjus, their prayers for me would be acceptable: "You are now my spiritual off- spring, so just as I pray for you, your prayers for me will be acceptable, God willing, since you are without sin. So you pray for me too, for I am seriously ill."

I and the brothers who are with me concluded that there is a strong possibility that in the face of the plans of the Masons and atheists to open schools to educate the youth according to communism and then trying to corrupt the youth with the changing schools, the innocent young children of the Turkish nation, which is the standard-bearer of Islam, receiving lessons from the Risale-i Nur with a luminous awakening, is a response to that calamity being visited on the youth. God willing, it is a sign that both the children and the youth will be saved from the evils of the Masons and atheists, owing to which they display that strange behaviour,

In His Name, be He glorified!

And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise! (Q 17:44)

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings, for ever and ever!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers and Nur Students of the Medresetü' z-Zehrâ!

When I arrived in Isparta, I received the news that a school for prayer-leaders and preachers was going to be opened. This gave me the idea that since most of the pupils who would register for the school would be Nurjus, a Nur School should be opened unofficially in the vicinity of the official school and that the latter should be made into a sort of Nur School. A day or two later, a rumour spread that I was going to teach, and it was understood from the streams of men and women from all around who came to listen that if such a semi-official, general Nur School were to be opened, such a thronging crowd would form that it would become impossible. So the idea was abandoned due to the possibility of unnecessary crowds gathering, as they did when we went to the court in Afyon. A second truth was imparted to my heart. It was this:

If anyone has a household of four or five people, he should make his house into a small Nur School. If he does not have such a household and is alone, he should foregather with three or four of his neighbours who show interest, and they should make the house they gather in a small Nur School. If, at least when they are not working, they spend even five or ten minutes reading or writing out the Risale-i Nur, or listening to it, they will receive the rewards and honour of true students of the religious sciences, and they will also be performing the five sorts of worship described in the Treatise on Sincerity. It was imparted to my heart that like true students of the religious sciences, even their commonplace dealings when working for their livelihoods may become a sort of worship. So I am telling my brothers of this.

In His Name, be He glorified!

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings, for ever and ever!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: I congratulate you with all my life and spirit on the services you perform for the Qur'an and belief. We are sending you this letter in order to consult you and learn your opinion concerning a subtle matter. Is it appropriate? If it is not, you may correct it.

Secondly: It is proved in the Risale-i Nur that divine determining acts justly within the unjust acts of men. That is, sometimes people act wrong- fully for some reason and they throw a person into prison, but in that very imprisonment divine determining acts justly due to some other reason, and condemns him to prison for a crime he has committed. Something strange that happened to us elucidates this truth: the imaginary crime of which they could find not the slightest sign yet for twenty-eight years presented in numerous courts and provinces as the reason for accusing and convicting me and unjustly sentencing me to imprisonment, was this:

They said: "Said wants to exploit religion for political ends and he is

doing so." But they could find no evidence for these allegations in my calamitious new life and the thirty large collections of my writings. Since no court could find anything in these matters and could not convict me, for other courts to insistently seize on the same matter, is completely opposed to the law, reason, and customary practice. Indeed, those who exploit politics for irreligion direct these accusations at us as a screen for themselves. Whereas my sixty-year life of scholarship in the service of religion is certain proof and a decisive argument that throughout my life I have followed the principle of making politics, this world, and all social currents the tools, servants, and followers of religion. I have claimed and proved with decisive evidence in the courts that I would not exchange a single truth of belief for rule over the whole world, let alone exploit religion for politics. Although this is the case, certain members of the judiciary and politicians who occupy high places have imagined the accusation, which is in twenty ways opposed to the truth, to be the truth, and for twenty-eight years have acted unjustly towards me. Recently, I have understood the true reason for this, which is as follows:

The gravest danger that faced me in serving belief at this time of egotism, and my most serious offence and crime, was the possibility of exploiting the work I did in serving the Qur'an for my own material and spiritual progress and attainment. I offer endless thanks to Almighty God that outside my will over this long period of time I perceived a powerful, non-material obstacle preventing me from making my service a tool of anything at all, let alone of my spiritual progress and attainments, and a means of being saved from the torments of Hell, and even gaining everlasting happiness. I was always astonished at this. Why was I being prevented in my spirit from winning through good works the spiritual ranks and the happiness of the hereafter that everyone wants, although it is licit and harmful in no way? Then it was shown to me that to serve belief, seeking divine pleasure alone and as an innate, scholarly duty, was itself the wage.

For at the present time, such Qur'anic instruction is necessary as is the tool of nothing, and follows nothing, and teaches the truths of belief effectively to those in need, with innate worship and affording complete certainty to everyone, and following no other aim. This is the sole solution in these terrible times. Only in this way may it smash absolute disbelief and obdurate, perverse misguidance, A person may feel completely confident in such instruction in present conditions by knowing that it is being exploited for nothing, neither personal, worldly, or pertaining to the hereafter, or material or spiritual. For even if he has attained the highest spiritual rank, the person cannot counter the diabolical whisperings issuing

from the atheistic collective personality born of secret revolutionary and other societies. An if his soul and ego are perverse, a person who wants to believe may say: "This holy person is deceiving us with his brilliance and wondrous station." And he may remain in doubt.

Thanks be to God, beneath the accusations of exploiting religion for politics these last twenty-eight years and outside my will, divine determining has been striking me totally justly with the tyrannous hand of man so as not to make religion the tool of anything personal. That is, it was warning me: "Beware! Beware! Don't exploit the truths of belief for your own person! Then those needy for belief may understand that it is only the truth that speaks, and the anxiety of the soul and tricks of Satan may be silenced and cease!"

In truth, millions of books write eloquently about the truths that the Risale-i Nur discusses and thousands of true scholars have taught them, yet they have been unable to halt fully the awesome flood of absolute disbelief in this country. Whereas by reason of the above, the Risale-i Nur has overcome it to an extent, as even its enemies agree. Yes, the Risale-i Nur has performed this task against absolute disbelief in these taxing conditions. That is to say, its power arises from this might mystery.

So with my whole spirit I felt resigned towards the torments and calamities I had suffered for the past twenty-eight years. I forgave all of them and I told just divine determining that I deserved its compassionate slaps. For if I had taken the completely licit, harmless way that everyone takes for God's sake and had not sacrificed entirely my physical and spiritual feelings, I would have lost this extraordinary non-material power which is found in serving belief. A strange example of the power was that someone read a book about the truths of belief by certain persons of whom I could be only the lowest student, and then read a page of the Risale-i Nur, and declared that that one page of the Risale-i Nur had saved his belief to a great extent than the other book.

Our Master says that it is good that the trials have been postponed. The fact that upto now the troubles inflicted on the Risale-i Nur and on the Nurjus have been transformed into mercy shows that there must be

some instances of good in their postponement, one of which may be as follows:

With the Risale-i Nur beginning to show its effect abroad in the Islamic world and to spread, and with the politicians here inclining towards westernization a little as a bribe to Europe, to grant the Risale-i Nur complete freedom as is supposed, would cause doubts abroad in the Islamic world concerning its true sincerity. This would either force the Nurjus to be hypocritical, or would seriously diminish the Risale-i Nur's value due to the idea that they show no concern about those inclining to westernization and thus display weakness. The postponement allays such suspicions and proves that for the past thirty years the Nurjus have not bowed before anything that is opposed to the marks of Islam.

In His Name, be He glorified!