My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I always used to wonder why, although it should have been people from the religious schools (medrese) who embraced the Risale-i Nur more than anyone, it has been those of them who have assumed official duties that have held themselves most aloof from it.

It is now necessary to explain a small part of the answer that occurred to me.

Firstly: Because covert dissemblers have used certain people in high places against us and conducted intense propaganda officially, the officials have been perturbed and compelled to keep their distance. The hojas from among them who are egotistical, suspicious, and have embraced the innovations, started to be even cooler towards us and to seek pretexts and excuses. And because The Seven Signs (İşarât-ı Seb'a) from the Risale-i Nur deals fierce slaps at the innovators, and in the ode Arjuza in the Eighth and Eighteenth Flashes, Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) deals awesome blows at the misguided ulema (ulema-i su'), and the piece in the Twenty-Eighth Letter about Wahhabism, which is in one respect and to an extent conducive to innovations, deals a blow at those who have secretly embraced it, and the Risale-i Nur deals fierce slaps at the translator of the Qur'an and those who permit the Qur'an's translation to be recited in place of it, and the hojas who think of their needs and livelihoods and their social standing, and even some of the Istanbul hojas who are old friends, began to evade us and a few of them, to try to criticize us even. On account of extreme Wahhabism and its enmity towards the Prophet's (UWBP) family and Imam 'Ali, they even began to object to the Risale-i Nur's being a spiritual gift and work of the Prophet's (UWBP) family and Imam 'Ali. But we are not indignant at the Istanbul scholars; in a way we are pleased, because compared with others, they do not bother us.

More than this, for the sake of fair-minded, esteemed, deceased persons like the late Fetva Emini Ali Rıza, Ahmed Şirani, Şevket Efendi, and Mehmed Âkif, who greatly appreciated and applauded the Risale-i Nur, we consider ourselves to be friends of the Istanbul hojas and are not offended by them. God willing, the Twentieth Flash on sincerity will be given to them to read sometime, which will turn the old friends into new ones.

My brothers! Not everyone can be as staunch as you are. Certain hojas

are being used to covertly break the Nurjus' morale, so don't be deceived or shaken. Don't argue with them, and as far as you can, behave in a friendly way. We're your brothers, say. And don't forget the points made in this note lest they mislead you.

Hatice and Rabia, the new Nur students who entered the fold of the Risale-i Nur through Husrev's efforts and wrote me a letter, have been included among the select students. Their working enthusiastically at the lessons of the Risale-i Nur in Barla, with which I am closely concerned, through the efforts of Bahri and his children, and Eyûb, Ali, Mehmed, and Süleyman, made me weep for joy. I send endless greetings to all the people of Barla, especially the Süleymans and Bahri and the Mehmeds and Mustafas, and Şamlı Hâfız Tevfik, who performed such valuable services for the Risale-i Nur in earlier years, and blessed Hâfız Halid, and Imam Hakkı Efendi, and Muhâjir Hâfız Ahmed and his children and grandchildren, and Şem'i, and Abdullah Çavuş who assisted me greatly, and all my neighbours there, men and women, and I pray for them and request their prayers during these blessed [three] months.

I have just heard that Bahri and his children have written out three copies of The Staff of Moses; they may pass to the account of Muhâjir Hâfız Ahmed and our other brothers in Barla. And the serious, sincere letters of Kâzım and the barber Mehmed have won the right to be included in The Additional Letters. While Bahri's fine verses may pass to the account of his small Nur School.

It is an astonishing and subtle instance of divine grace that I tried to forget Abdurrahman's death on its being imparted to my heart that Mustafa the Elder (May God have mercy on him) would, with his loyalty, pen, and power, serve the Risale-i Nur as the late Abdurrahman had. In truth, with his pen, Küçük Ali affirmed exactly that reminder from the Unseen. He took over his brother's pen and transformed an old (yellow) knife into a diamond sword. That is to say, I discerned him too in blessed Mustafa's spirit. Also, with my heart, I discerned Muhâjir Hâfız Ahmed, the Risale-i Nur's first student and devoted publisher, by virtue of his loyalty and attachment to myself and the Risale-i Nur. He did not manage to serve it with his pen, but subsequently, his son Kâzım, son-in-law Bahri, and his other son-in-law the barber Mehmed started to work with extraordinary devotion and loyalty and to perform fully and steadfastly the service I had felt and hoped from him. His grandchildren even joined the innocent young students. I send my greetings to all.

In His Name, be He glorified!

May God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you!

My Dear, Loyal, Blessed, Dutiful, Active, Steadfast Brothers!

Firstly: We again congratulate you on the month of Rajab and Night of Regâib, and in response to the congratulations of our brothers in Safranbolu, we congratulate them on the three months and the four blessed nights {[*]:} as well as their most serious concern for the Risale-i Nur. I wanted to change the titles and praise accorded my person in the letter of congratulation written in the name of the students there to refer to the Risale-i Nur, the same way that we modified some of Halil İbrahim's letters. I was going to include it in The Additional Letters, but since it so explicitly refers to my person, I could not manage it, so for now it has been left aside.

My brothers, you should know certainly that I shrink from fame and renown, self-advertisement, self-dependence, and seeking the good opinion of others; I flee from them and I take no pleasure in praise and acclaim. Only, in so far as they are signs of loyalty to the Risale-i Nur and of sufficing with it, I accept some excessive epithets, and either for the sake of certain people or not to offend them, I alter them a little and keep silent. However, the two Flashes on sincerity and the principles of our way, that is, friendship, sincerity, and brotherhood, do not permit praise of this sort. Moreover, in this age of egotism and selfishness, fame may damage the unalloyed purity of the Risale-i Nur in the eyes of fameseekers.

Secondly: The Staff of Moses, Guide for Youth, and Short Words written by Hıfzı's two innocent children filled me with joy. What wonders God has willed! Thousands of innocent Nurju children like them will illuminate the future.

In His Name, be He glorified!

May God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

God willing, during these three blessed months abundant sacred wealth will be added to the Nurjus' spiritual partnership. Each of them will win profit as though working with thousands of tongues and hundreds of pens. Fortunate indeed are those working with pens at the Zülfikâr Collection these fruitful months, which may counted as worship in five ways. However, it is absolutely essential that attention is paid to accuracy, rather than just writing, Today I saw two meaningful coincidences and I realized that in return for the difficulties I am suffering these days in correcting The Staff of Moses, divine providence is giving me recompense and rations in pleasing fashion.

One of them: Every day I was eating two or three of the sweets the heroic Tahirî had brought as a courtesy, and extraordinarily they never came to an end. I was astonished. Today, as was my habit, I was going to take two when I saw there were only two left, so economizing I took only one of them. That very hour, in a box beneath the copies Hıfzı's two innocent children had written out were sweets just like Tahirî's made of sugar and bread, and the same amount. While enjoying this sweet coincidence yesterday at the same time, I was very thirsty and was drinking a lot of water. I had a yearning for stewed plums. I did not know and had forgotten that long ago I often used to assuage my thirst with plums. I had an intense desire for some. Then suddenly I was given some in a box together with some sugar from the Nurju Şerife Hanım, a close friend of Âsiye. For the sake of this truly sweet coincidence I accepted a hundred times over both the childrens' gifts and theirs. Thousands of greetings to you all.

My Dear, Loyal, Unshakeable, Indefatigable, Constant, Steadfast Brothers!

Firstly: I declare to those who say that the struggle for livelihood this summer and the worship performed these three months may cause some slackness in the writing out of the Risale-i Nur: on the contrary, it will encourage the writing and it should do so. For serving the Risale-i Nur

both augments through its blessings means of support and peace of heart, and since it is worship in the form of reflective thought, it augments the rewards of the blessed months.

Secondly: One of the Nur students said to me: "You said last year before the copies of the Risale-i Nur had been handed over to us and as a result of some copies being returned privately - through which divine mercy had showed itself to a degree, that if and when the Risale-i Nur is read and written completely freely and it is returned to us, divine mercy will be manifested fully with the coming of rain. Thus, I feel quite certain that the unprecedented mercy this spring is a consequence of The Staff of Moses now being written out and read everywhere in earnest, and Zülfikar too is being copied enthusiastically.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: Heroic Rüştü, who with Husrev is one spirit in two bodies and together with his courageous brother holds a key position in the service of the Risale-i Nur, is trying to get hold of a remarkable machine for that service, which marks the commencement of new conquests for the Risale-i Nur. God willing, it will continue to be printed and published by Nurjus with worthy hands like pens, without needing strangers and the unworthy. But before everything, it should be written for the duplicating machine correctly and without errors, if possible firstly [by hand] in the old letters, and later [on the typewriter] in the new ones. That would be best. I leave it to your discretion and good judgement.

Secondly: I have seen the letter Konyalı Sabri wrote Re'fet and I understood from it that like the other Sabri this Sabri is a truly sincere, devoted, and hardworking Nurju. May God's blessings be upon him and upon the religious scholars of Konya who have encouraged and motivated him and have vindicated the hojas. I send many greetings to them and foremost the esteemed exegetist Hoja Vehbi and to the Nur students there, and I request their prayers these blessed Three Months.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

The late Muhâjir Hâfız Ahmed together with his children and family served me loyally for eight years; worked earnestly at the Risale-i Nur together with his children, grandchildren, wife, and sons-in-law; and took all his sermons and teaching from the Risale-i Nur. As his will and testament looking to this world, ten minutes before his death he requested Şamlı Hâfız to complete the pieces he was writing out. Two days earlier he had written me a letter sensing as a wonder of loyalty that just at that very time I was writing to you my preference for Sava over Barla and wish to be buried in the Sava graveyard. In response to me and objecting, he wrote in his letter: "Why although you call Barla your second home, don't you come here and why do you prefer other places? Barla is the first Nur medrese; your grave ought to be there." Two days later before my letter had reached you, Muhâjir Hâfız Ahmed's letter reached me, which gave Şamlı Hâfız's news of his death on its second page. His departure from this world shook me severely, like Abdurrahman's, and made we weep and declare: «We belong to God, and to Him is our return» (Q 2:156). May endless mercy descend on his spirit! Amen! May his grave be a dwelling for the Qur'an and Risale-i Nur, like his house! Amen! I have no doubt that this clear wonder resulting from his loyalty proves that the Nurjus will enter the grave in a state of belief and will manifest happy deaths. Convey my condolences to his relations and tell them that I am assigning him a share of all my prayers.

Secondly: Our brother Re'fet wrote to me saying that there is much need in Istanbul for the Risale-i Nur and that everyone there needs it as they need bread; and that Yeşil Şemseddin, who is one of our brothers and takes much interest in the Risale-i Nur and has read it and is a Nurju, derives his sermons and instruction, which are attended by large numbers of people, from its truths.

Re'fet also says that it is understood from the above that the Risale-i Nur is necessary every day for this nation, like bread. He also gave some of its treatises to people in high places, and he asks me for a copy of Zülfikar which I myself have corrected.

I send my greetings to each and every one of you and offer prayers for you, and request that you pray for me.

We congratulate Husrev on the correcting, distribution, organization, and communications, and on the publication and conveyance of the Risale-i Nur, and we pray for his success, And despite all these crucial tasks, we see his fine and shining pen's writing in many copies. And we understood from his letter, that he writes copies of single treatises too.

I suddenly thought just now of the Sava students of the Nur School: Haji Hâfız Mehmed, the late Hâfız Mehmed and his brothers, and the Mehmeds and Ahmeds and the innocent Nurju children and the blessed elderly and the other heroes. I felt a desire to be near there all my life and to be buried in its graveyard after I died. Suddenly it was imparted to me that it is certainly useful in many ways to be physically present in Isparta Province, the centre of the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ, but by virtue of the way of the Risale-i Nur and the Nurjus' custom, you are always together, Time and space cannot conceal this. Wherever you are, in east or west, north or south, in this world or the Intermediate Realm, you may be deemed together in spirit in a council. The Nurjus' spiritual aid constantly reaches each other, and you. I thought of this and it soothed me.

I said: Since everywhere now numerous powerful hands are stretched out to protect the Risale-i Nur and publish it, surely it won't be laziness if I rest up a little now.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: We congratulate you on the blessed Night of Acquittal {[*]:} and the coming month of Ramadan. I was astonished to see a sign that for the Nurjus, the Night of Acquittal this year is going to be full of blessings and wonders. It was like this:

Shortly before that Night while busy with correcting The Staff of Moses, a pigeon came to the window and looked at me. I asked it: "Have you brought some good news?" It came in and as though we were old friends, was not the least afraid and perched on The Staff of Moses. {(*):} It sat there for three hours. I gave it some bread and rice, but it did not eat them. It stayed there till the evening, then flew off, and returned. On the Night of Acquittal it stayed with me till morning. As I was lying down, it came to me, rubbed my head as though bidding me farewell, then flew off and disappeared.

The second day I was feeling sorry, then it reappeared. It stayed another night. That is to say, the blessed bird wanted to congratulate both The Staff of Moses and the Night of Acquittal.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

The reason I have accepted the biography of my Kastamonu life written by Kastamonu's Husrev and Süleyman Rüştü, Mehmed Feyzi and Emin, without altering the excessive, undeserved praise it contains, is this: recently a high-ranking official and a sergeant in Afyon insulted me, as though by destroying the public's good opinion of me, the people here would not embrace the Risale-i Nur as they have in Denizli and Isparta, and those lights would not shine out. I endured it, but I was saddened because the new students here were upset. While I was pondering over this, Mehmed Feyzi's sincere, learned, and respectful letter thrust those wretched officials' insults in their faces reducing them to nothing, and completely dispelled my distress. The exact coincidence with those wretches' bullying insults of those two Nurjus' praise and respect, who are infinitely more elevated they are, makes me feel certain that it was wonder of Feyzi and Emin's loyalty.

My Brothers!

It has now become clear that their intention in summoning me to the police station and government offices unnecessarily on false pretexts, was only to insult and belittle me in front of people and make me look guilty. I can't stand it any longer. As far as is possible they should not summon me. Go and see the criminal judge. Find me someone to act as my lawyer so that if necessary he can go to the police station in my place. It is torment and torture for a person who has lived in isolation for twenty-five years to see such offensive people. During eight years in Kastamonu I met only once with the governor on his insistence and went twice to the police station. Here, I have had to go more than ten times. I can't go anymore. Get a note from the doctor, otherwise this town will suffer material and spiritual harm.

The four severe earthquakes last night, which confirmed the matter of

the four earthquakes in my defence written by Husrev, occurred at the same time as the police sergeant, who leans on a high official, bawled at my assistant in the government building and with humiliating abuse told him to go and get me, and compelled by the kaymakam, {[*]:} ordered the watchmen and gendarmes to bring me there even if ill, which was certainly a conspiracy against myself, the Risale-i Nur, and this country. This unprecedently severe earthquake coinciding with this assault on the Nur students' enthusiasm and the Risale-i Nur's being written here and causing me such distress, shows that the Risale-i Nur is a means of repulsing disasters, and if its service is interrupted, the calamities seize the opportunity and occur.

Mustafa Osman has performed many services for the Risale-i Nur in a short time, and his truly modest and self-abnegating letter proves his earnest loyalty and sincerity and shows he is on a par with the select students of fifteen years' standing. The Staff of Moses Collection he wrote is anyway clear proof of this. Even while writing this, the earth tremors have again begun.