A seventh characteristic of Said, following the six listed on page 30 of the biography published by Eşref Edip, is his lifelong rule of not accepting unreciprocated gifts, and, with the idea of contentment and frugal living, his for sixty or seventy years paying for his students' livelihoods himself. Now the time has come to record at the end of his last will and testament a present example of this, the reason for which has for several years been understood.

Notwithstanding the fact that with his independence our Master does not accept gifts despite his extreme penury, all thanks be to God, the capital the Risale-i Nur produces by being copied out by typewriter, which is not prohibited, is extraordinarily plentiful and sufficient for the livelihoods of the devoted Nur students in four or five provinces who have dedicated their lives to the Risale-i Nur and cannot find the time to work to support themselves. These provinces may be deemed the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ. I enjoin as my will that after my death the blessed capital which accrues from the sale of copies of the Risale-i Nur be allotted to those sincere, dedicated students of mine and that they apply scrupulously the sixty-to- seventy-year-old rule of mine to my present principles, seventy years later. If, God willing, the Risale-i Nur is printed freely, the principle will be enacted more effectively. It is astonishing but the Old Said in Van in the former era received from Ministry of Pious Foundations the subsistence for five students, and although the numbers of students sometimes rose to twenty, thirty, or even sixty, he provided for them all himself. Through the plenty arising from frugality and contentment, he did not break his rule even when he bought five or six Mauser rifles. He never at that time broke this rule although there were many people to help him like the famous Tahir Pasha. In accordance with a hidden sign, one fruit of that frugality and contentment - his rule of sixty to seventy years - was bestowed through divine providence, which is that for several years now the Risale-i Nur has itself given the dedicated students of the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ their subsistence, despite there being so many court cases, prohibitions, and confiscations, and the lack of permission to print in the old letters. I am absolutely certain that although a large proportion of those copies have been distributed gratis as gifts and have been sent to the Islamic world and to

Europe and the cash in hand has been spent on duplicating copies, their being sufficient in extraordinary manner both for the Risale-i Nur itself and its dedicated devotees is a fine fruit of that prediction in the former era, and one purpose of it. Since this is so, I am making this declaration to be put at the end of my will:

Let this last will and testament be put among the money that remains when I die so that certain unjust persons should not say: "Said lived on five or ten kuruş a day and never took money from anyone, so how is it that he is leaving a legacy of hundreds of liras? Where does it come from?" To do this will be appropriate.

I now enjoin that this rule of mine be preserved under the supervision of my spiritual sons and devoted assistants like Zübeyir, Ceylân, Sungur, Bayram, Hüsnü, Abdullah, and Mustafa, and the select, sincere heroes of the Risale-i Nur like Husrev, Nazif, Tahirî, and Mustafa Gül.

[We are sending this for your information, to refute the libellous statements that have appeared in some newspapers.]

We have seen that a number of opposition newspapers are again accusing the Risale-i Nur students of founding a Sufi order. This accusation does not contain even a grain of truth as has been established by the ratified decisions of the nearly ten criminal courts that have tried cases involving the Risale-i Nur. Also, not the slightest sign of Sufism has been found in the books and letters of the Risale-i Nur when they have previously been seized and then unconditionally returned to their owners. In fact, it states explicitly in our Master Said Nursi's letters and defence speeches that "the present is not the time of the Sufi orders, but the time to save belief. There are many who enter Paradise without Sufism, but none who enter it without belief." Despite this open and explicit statement and the fact that not a shred of evidence has been found concerning Sufi practices, a clandestine group which is religiously lax or anti-religious, and wanting to extirpate religion is unable to abide the present flowering of Islam, calls true Islam "Sufism" in its attempts to prepare the ground in this country to sow its own ideas. Certainly, as always happens, the present campaign, instigated by the covert atheists and their intrigues, will finally be to the advantage of

the country and nation. And following their predecessors, the courts of Aydın and Nazilli will exonerate the Nur students.

At present there are numerous positive and relieving developments: the Risale-i Nur being very favourably received everywhere in this country and also in the Islamic world and Europe, and the Turks' moves towards rebuilding unity with the Islamic world successfully producing worldly results unintended by the Nur students, and the government according a high value to Islam, religion, and freedom of conscience and its endeavouring to repair the destruction caused by the former government, and to pass a law dismissing those who aggress against sacred matters. We have absolutely no doubt that this baseless matter, which has appeared at the same time as the above, has been instigated by persons opposed to the government and to Islam.

The evidence refuting some of their lies:

Those unprincipled persons clearly calumniated our Master Said Nursi by saying that he "lives like a king on charity and donations." Whereas he is someone who refused his uncle's soup even, has never become indebted to anyone, and attaching no importance to the five thousand liras he was given, refused it and returned it, and has never in his life broken his rule of independence even when suffering the severest oppression and deprivation, in this way intending to preserve the dignity of Islam and honour of religion.

Yes, our Master's rule of not accepting gifts has been established by both his eighty-year lifetime, and the documents presented in numerous courts of law over thirty years. It has been clearly observable by friend and foe alike, We leave it to everyone with conscience to judge just how malicious and ill-willed are those who make such accusations at a time everyone has become aware of this clear fact.

Thanks to the justice of the Ankara Court, our Master Said Nursi's Risale-i Nur is now being printed. He gives as subsistence to those Nur students who have dedicated their lives to the Risale-i Nur and are unable to support themselves, a share of the profits gained from the sale of its books. As everyone now knows, he himself lives with the maximum frugality and contentment. We put forward his eighty-year lifetime as truthful evidence that he has always lived extraordinarily thriftily and frugally.

Another obvious lie given out by those newspapers which pursue plans to turn the people against the Democrat government is their distortion of a conversation between two innocent men in Nazilli about Ramadan and their twisting it into something political like "establishing an Islamic state." It was a naive calumny cooked up by those political imposters that

could not deceive a child even. Everyone knows what they are trying to achieve by employing such fictions.

It is lacking in conscience a hundred times over to put in the public eye with politicking fabrications an Islamic author who has never been to Nazilli and knows no one there, and for forty years has declared: "I seek refuge with God from Satan and politics" and has severed all relations with politics; has dedicated his life to the cause of saving belief through the Qur'an and the truths of belief and is quite unconcerned with any worldly affairs outside that; and who is eighty-seven years old and virtually bedridden, and having been poisoned on numerous occasions has come close to death and declares himself to be at the door of the grave, and is in great need of rest and peace of mind. It is terrible cruelty to invent such lies, and a low-minded iniquity.

To impute prophethood to any religious scholar on false pretexts is a direct attack on Islam and treachery towards the Qur'an.

Throughout his life, our Master Said Nursi has adhered to the Prophet's (UWBP) practices (Sunna) and has defied the death sentence so as not to act contrarily to it and has composed a work of one hundred and thirty parts in order to revive the Sunna and preserve belief. Risking his life, he engaged in the struggle against the vicious enemies of religion, and was finally victorious. Yes, thousands of copies have been published of a work he wrote about following the Prophet's (UWBP) practices. And his book, The Miracles of Muhammad (UWBP), is an outstanding work about the Most Noble Messenger (UWBP), the Glory of the Universe, and his being the true and final prophet. While that is the truth, it is understood just how far from truth and right, and fairness and conscience are those who level such accusations at Said Nursi.

There is a strong possibility that another reason for this affair was that because the Risale-i Nur gives great importance to family life and ensures that women pass their lives chastely, honourably, modestly, and happily, it is very popular with them, For example, some people hostile to religion saw a few articles for women that had been published and they launched an attack on account of communism on some cooked up pretexts. But they will in no way succeed. For contrary to their expectations, the Risale-i Nur is spreading wondrously among both men and women.

In His Name, be He glorified!

"A Complaint to the Supreme Tribunal," my last word in a most important court case, has been published several times in the biography, and during the trial was sent to various offices in Ankara, the Court of Appeal, and to the chief judges. Now, because a strange, minor example of the incident that was the reason for the complaint has again happened to me, I am describing it as a short addendum to the complaint.

For three reasons, two days ago I visited Konya, which formerly was the medrese and learned centre of Anatolia, and I was very eager to go there. But this gave rise to a number of false allegations.

One: Despite their impecuniousness and the expenses, two of my true Nur brothers went to the court in Izmir. On their return, they visited me. So partly in order to save them from further expense, I took them in my private car as far as Konya.

The Second Reason: I intended to visit my brother and his children, who of all my brothers and relations is the only one still alive. He studied with me for fifteen years and worked as a mufti for nearly twenty years, and apart from once, I had not seen him for forty years.

The Third: I went to visit Mawlana Jalal al-Dîn, who, like Imam Rabbani and Imam al-Ghazali, is one of the chief masters of both the Old Said and the New Said and with whom I am closely concerned since his disciples, the Mevlevis, everywhere take an interest in the Risale-i Nur. However, as is written in the piece in the biography about my not meeting with people, just as Almighty God makes me ill to prevent my accepting gifts, so since visiting and being treated with great respect is a sort of gift, I lost my voice and through divine providence was prevented from speaking. As a result I did not go to my brother's house even, that I could have spoken.

I should have remained in Konya for at least two or three days, but in an hour I performed the prayers, and returned. While there, as though some- thing had happened, they published it in the newspapers. I was treated as though I had met with thousands of people, although I had not even been able to go to my brother's house to visit him and had anyway been unable to speak.

It is true that the orders given to the police were a serious mistake, because of that situation. But because those orders were congruent with my serious indisposition, I was not upset by the police; on the contrary, I for- gave them. "May God be pleased with you!" I said, and I thanked them.

I am very much in need of fresh air and in the summer I have to take trips around the mountains, and in the winter I stay in the various houses I have rented. I cannot remain in one place, because to do so aggravates my illness. I had intended to visit Konya again from time to time. I have two houses I rent in Emirdağ, and one in Eskişehir, but I felt that that meaningless situation in Konya was the reason I was prevented from visiting them for a change of air. I can meet with absolutely no one. I am subject to much illegal ill-treatment like this, contrary to my habits. These words of mine describing the situation there may be published as an addendum to the previously written "Complaint to the Supreme Tribunal."