I saw that the World of Similitudes is all the time taking innumerable photographs without confusing them, and that each photograph contains innumerable events occurring in this world. I understood that it was a gigantic camera, and a vast cinema of the hereafter thousands of times larger than the world for showing in eternal theatres the fruits of the transient, impermanent states and lives of ephemeral beings, for showing to those enjoying everlasting bliss in Paradise scenes from their old memories and adventures in this world.

While the faculties of memory and imagination, which are two proofs, two small examples, and two points of both the Preserved Tablet and the World of Similitudes situated in man's head, are as tiny as lentils, within

them are written in perfect order and without being mixed up as much information as may be contained in a large library. This proves decisively that the World of Similitudes and the Preserved Tablet are large examples of those faculties.

It is definite and as certain as the knowledge of certainty (ilmelyakîn) that the elements air and water, particularly seminal fluid and the air, are far superior to the element earth and are written with more wisdom and will, and with the pen of divine determining and power, and that it is completely impossible for chance, blind force, deaf nature, and lifeless and aimless causes to interfere in them, and that they are a page of the pen of power and the wisdom of the All-Wise One of Glory. This was known with the knowledge of certainty.

The rest of this was not written for now.

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; You are indeed All-Knowing, All-Wise! (Q 2:32)

My Dear, Loyal Brothers and Active, Steadfast Friends in the Service of the Qur'an!

Firstly: We congratulate you with all our life and spirit on the first ten nights of Dhu'l-Hijja, which this year bear the meaning of the Greater Hajj.

Secondly: The Risale-i Nur's conquests continue both at home and abroad. But the people of vice and misguidance, our covert enemies, alarm the Nur students by causing minor incidents, and making mountains out of molehills, unnerve them. Recently, an incident occurred close to the house of a leading student, where most of my books and my letters of three years were openly found, There was a strong, ninety per cent, possibility of this being taken advantage of and his house being searched, but through Almighty God's providence, protection, and preservation, it was saved from this. If that morning I had not sternly admonished two of our ingenuous brothers and got them to remove them from there, once again the Risale-i Nur and its circle would have been in an awkward situation. It appears that a sort of fear of politics caused the incident that did occur. It is true that divine providence preserved us, but at present the collections are being published and are circulating so we are obliged to be calm and circumspect;

any such commotion allows our enemies to blow up things out of all proportion and to dismay and alarm us. Divine providence repulsed their scheme and protected us. But thinking of the considerable harm that would come to the Risale-i Nur's work and due to the trepidations and blows I felt in my spirit arising from that uncustomary and unforeseen event, I felt a distress I had never before experienced in my life and my nerves felt all afflicted with wounds. I was crushed by the involuntary grief I felt. Then out of His perfect compassion, on the second day the Most Merciful of the Merciful sent the truly devoted Nuri Benli, and Sadık Bey, the hero of Kastamonu, and Ismail, one of the İnebolu heroes, as a perfect salve for the distress of those spiritual wounds and a total remedy. And I received the good news in a letter from our brother Emin, who had gone to his native region, that Molla Hamza was alive although fifteen years ago I heard he had fallen as a martyr, and for whom I have prayed continually together with my other martyr students like Ubeyd, and who printed both Isharat al-I'jaz and the Tenth Word, and that he was now living in Iraq and was searching for the Risale-i Nur. This healed my wounds completely. I offered endless thanks to Almighty God.

We send numberless greetings to all our brothers.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: The time has come to relate to you a both strange, and sad, and subtle story from my life, to describe my enemies' slanders which are both vile and with which no Satan even could deceive anyone, and to show that absolutely no weapon remains to them to utilize against the Risale-i Nur. It is like this:

It is well-known by those who are familiar with the story of my life that fifty-five years ago when I was in my twenties, I stayed for two years in the residence of the governor of Bitlis, Ömer Pasha, on his insistence and because of his extreme respect for learning. He had six daughters. Three of them were small and three of them were older. Although I stayed in the same house as them for two years, I could not tell the three older ones apart. I paid them so little attention, how could I have done? Another scholar came and stayed together with me as a guest, and within two days he knew them and could tell them one from the other. They were all perplexed at my attitude and asked me: "Why don't you look at them?" I replied: "Preserving the dignity of learning does not allow me to look at them."

Also, forty years ago on the day of the Kâğıthane fair in Istanbul and the two sides of the Golden Horn from the bridge as far as Kağıthane were lined with thousands of unveiled Greek, Armenian, and Istanbul women and girls, I boarded a rowing-boat with the late deputy Molla Seyyid Tâha and the deputy Haji İlyas and we passed by all those women. I was not aware of it, but Molla Tâha and Haji İlyas had decided to test me and they observed me in turn. At the end of the hour-long trip, they confessed what they had done, and said: "We are astonished at your behaviour; you didn't look at them at all!" I replied: "Unnecessary, fleeting, sinful pleasures yield only pains, so I have no desire for them!"

Also, all those who have been companions to me know that throughout my life I have avoided accepting gifts and becoming beholden to people and accepting their charity and benefactions. Also, it has become absolutely clear in the two court cases in the course of my twenty years of torturous captivity that in order to defend the honour and benefits of the Risale-i Nur and its services to belief and the Qur'an, I have evinced no curiosity about the material, social, and political matters of this world and I have renounced all their pleasures, and that I attach not the slightest importance to any of the threats of our malicious enemies, including the gallows.

While this has been my principle in life for seventy-five years, a man who occupies an official position calumniated me in a way that devils even could not dream up in order to denigrate the extraordinary value of the Risale-i Nur. He said: "He is being visited at night by prostitutes and other evildoers with trays of baklava!" But my door is locked on both the inside and the outside at night, and on the orders of that wretch a watchman was posted at the door till the morning. And my neighbours here and all my friends know that I receive no one at all from after the late-evening prayer until the morning. An idiotic fool, or an ass, or even Satan could not utter such slander. The man understood this and gave up such schemes, and left here and went elsewhere, to Hell, With this scheme which he devised, not in his official capacity, in order to smear the Nurjus, not me, he was the cause of this new incident and intended to blacken the students' reputation. But in wondrous fashion, divine protection, preservation, and providence confounded it. I am not exonerating my own soul with these explanations; I want to say rather that the sacred service for belief induced my soul to give up all its desires and that the spiritual (mânevî) pleasures in that service suffice it. I am making clear too the Nurjus' need for caution and vigilence.

Secondly: I am sending to you my private scribe, who is experienced and capable, with the duplicating machines. I write only with difficulty and will henceforth write to you briefly. So don't be offended.

Thirdly: I send my greetings to the preacher Mehmed and Tevfik, who are in the whereabouts of Eflâni; his dream is auspicious.

Fourthly: I have this minute received the fine letter of Mehmed Feyzi, the Husrev of Kastamonu, containing the good news of the Risale-i Nur's conquests and his congratulations. And with all my life and spirit, I congratulate foremost that valuable brother of ours, and Hilmi, Emin, and the Beşkardeş's, and our Nurju sisters the Ulviyes, Zehras, and Lütfiyes, on both the Ten Nights, and the festival. Also, we are sending attached the letters of both Hulûsi and Feyzi.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: A leading, most worthy Nur student asked me in the name of many of them: "A number of sincere, leading Nur students persistently suppose you to be the supreme guide who is to come at the end of time and will belong to the Prophet's (UWBP) family. They insist on this despite your holding back so much. You do not accept this idea of theirs that they so insist upon and you shrink from it. For sure, they have decisive proof and are in possession of some truth, yet you do not concede to it for some reason or owing to some truth. This is a contradiction and come what may we want to solve it."

I say in reply to the many matters that this person represents: Those select Nurjus are in possession of some truth, but it has to be defined and interpreted in two respects:

The First Respect: As I have indicated in many of my letters, the collective personality of the sacred community that the Mahdi of the Prophet's (UWBP) family will represent, has three functions. We may await from divine mercy that if the end of the world does not happen soon and humankind does not stray from the path completely, his community and the community of sayyids will perform those functions. He will have three major functions.

His First Function: Since science and philosophy are now dominant and the plague of materialism and naturalism has spread among the human race, before everything belief should be saved in such a way that it silences philosophy and materialism. Since preserving the people of belief from misguidance necessitates leaving aside both this world and everything in it and demands prolonged and devoted study, neither the Mahdi's time nor his situation would permit him to perform this duty himself; preoccupation

with the rule of the Caliphate of Muhammad (UWBP) would not leave him the time. Most probably a group preceding him will perform it in some respect. He will take the work which that group wrote as a result of lengthy study as a pre-prepared programme for himself, and with it will find the first duty to have been performed to the full, The force or spiritual army which has undertaken this duty consists only of a number of students who possess fully the attributes of sincerity, loyalty, and mutual support. However few they are in number, in meaning they should be deemed as powerful and valuable as an army.

His Second Function: With his title pertaining to the Caliphate of Muhammad (UWBP), this is to revive the marks of Islam, and making the unity of the Islamic world his source of support, to save humanity from material and spiritual dangers and from divine wrath. This function will require armies with millions of men to support it and serve it.

His Third Function: Since many Qur'anic precepts have suffered harm with the vicissitudes of the times, and the Shari'a of Muhammad (UWBP) has been suspended to an extent, the person in question will try to perform that mighty task with the moral assistance of all the believers, the help of Islamic unity, and with the participation of all the scholars and saints, particularly the millions of devoted sayyids, who are descended from the Prophet (UWBP) and every century are numerous and powerful.

Although the reality of the matter is this, since the duty of saving belief, the primary duty and highest way, and instructing the people generally in certain, affirmative belief and even making the belief of the common people thus, is guidance and instruction both in spirit and in fact - since the Nur students have beheld this duty fully in the Risale-i Nur, they rightly consider the collective personality of the Risale-i Nur to be a sort of Mahdi, and the second and third duties to be in second and third place. And since they suppose one representative of that collective personality to be a collective personality arising from the mutual support of the Risale-i Nur students, and a sort of representative of that collective personality to be the unfortunate interpreter, they sometimes give him that name too. This is actually a point of confusion and an error, but they are not responsible. For since early days he has been looked on too favourably, and this was never objected to. So I look on those excessively good opinions of my brothers as a sort of prayer and good wish and a manifestation of the perfect belief of the Risale-i Nur students, and I do not rebuke them. In fact, some of the saints of olden times foresaw with their wondrous predictions that the Risale-i Nur would be the guide at the end of time, and this is understood

through these verifications. This means that there are two points of confusion, which need to be explained.

The First Point: For sure in reality the second two functions are not equal in degree to the first, but in the general view, particularly in the view of the the mass of people and of politicians in particular, and especially in contemporary thought, pursuing Islamic rule on the face of the earth with the armies of the Caliphate of Muhammad (UWBP) and Islamic unity appear a thousand times more extensive than the first function. And when someone is given that name, the latter two functions come to mind and it is given a political meaning; indeed, it may infer self-advertisement, or even hint at the wish for fame, glory, and high standing. There always have been, and still are, many ingenuous rank-seeking people desiring and claiming to be the Mahdi. It's true that a guide, a sort of Mahdi and Renewer appears every century, and has appeared, but because each has performed only one of the Mahdi's three functions, none has been accorded the title of the Supreme Mahdi of the end of time.

Also, in Denizli Court, the experts' committee said to me in connection with this belief of some of the students: "If he claims to be the Mahdi, all his students will accept it." So I told them: "I don't know whether or not I'm a sayyid People's genealogies aren't known today. But that great figure of the end of time will belong to the Prophet's (UWBP) family. For sure, I'm a sort of spiritual son of Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) and have received instruction in the realities from him, and since in one meaning the family of Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace) encompasses true Nur students, I too may be counted among his family. But the present is the time of the collective personality, and in the way of the Risale-i Nur there can be no egotism of any sort, or personalities, or the desire for personal rank or for winning fame and renown. And since it would totally opposed to the mystery of sincerity, and since, endless thanks be to God Almighty, He did not make me fond of myself, I would not fasten my sights on personal positions and ranks infinitely higher than my due such as that. Even if I were to be given high rank in the hereafter, I would consider myself obliged to refuse it so as not to spoil the sincerity of the Risale-i Nur." I said this, and the experts' committee were silent.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: We congratulate both all the Nurjus on their holy festival, and the Nur students who are making the Hajj and the supporters of the Risale-i Nur who are also on the Hajj. The festival brings us good news, for it is celebrating the preliminaries of the Islamic world's great festival of the coming together in unity as Islamic states of such large countries in the Islamic world as India and Arabia, which have for a long time past lost their independence and been in subjection - an Islamic state in India with its population of one hundred million, and an Islamic state in Java with its population of more than fifty million, and four or five governments in Arabia coming together in Arab unity as united republics and forming Islamic unity.

Secondly: According to what Re'fet Bey and Mustafa Oruç have written, in Istanbul, over the portal of the splendid building that served as the Ministry of War and headquarters of the army, from which for years the army of Islam was commanded and was subsequently handed over to the university, are inscribed in the Qur'anic script the meaningful verses: «Verily We have granted thee a manifest victory ... And that God may help thee with powerful help.» (Q 48: 1, 3) These verses were later covered with marble slabs and their lights were concealed. Now, as an example of the Qur'anic script once again being permitted, the marble slabs have been removed, which assists the objectives the Risale-i Nur follows and is a sign that in the future the university will be a Nur School. And in a passage the Denizli Nurju Ahmeds have taken from one of the works of Bismarck, {[*]:} who was one of the nineteenth century's most eminent social philosophers and a great genius, he says: "I have studied the Qur'an from every angle, and I have seen wisdom in every one of its words. It is unequalled and for the government of humankind there is no work to match it." And addressing the Prophet (UWBP), he says: "O Muhammad! I am indeed sad that I am not your contemporary. Only once has humanity seen a power as outstanding as yours. I therefore bow in reverence in your presence." Bismarck put his signature to this. He so belittled the corrupted, abrogated revealed scriptures in the piece he wrote, those sentences should not have been written; I indicated this too.

The facts that Bismarck was the most brilliant and eminent philosopher

of the nineteenth century and one of its most illustrious and powerful figures in political and social life; and the Islamic world is now winning its independence to an extent; and foreign governments are searching for the Qur'anic truths; and there is a powerful current favouring the Qur'an in the west and north-west; and just like Bismarck, Mister Carlyle, America's most eminent and famous philosopher, has said categorically that none of the scriptures can compare with the Qur'an, and that what it says is true so they should listen to it; {[*]:} and the Risale-i Nur is progressing and making conquests - these are all auspicious signs that many Bismarcks and Carlyles will appear in Europe and America. We present these to you as a festival gift and send attached the piece written by Bismarck.

I took a look at the beautifully written letter sent by the innocent son of the barber Ali Osman, who is one of the İnebolu heroes, and it suddenly occurred to me that in three important centres of the Risale-i Nur, three barbers are performing great services for it in such a way that they all resemble each other, together with their children, and I felt most happy. Burhan, Hıfzı, and Ali Osman, each a valuable champion of the Risale-i Nur! May Almighty God grant them happiness together with their children in this world and the next. Amen!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

With a firm conviction and corroborated by numerous signs, we give the good news that in return for the light one-month prison sentence the three students of the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ received and their suffering the judge's extremely unwarranted, meaningless, and cold anger, the spirit beings, angels, and coming generations will applaud them exceedingly in place of that man's trifling penalty and meaningless anger, and they congratulate such students. And because harrassment and torments of this sort are means of being saved from millions of years' punishment in everlasting

imprisonment, they are as nothing and do not have the importance of a fly's wing; indeed, they make one pleased and proud.

The self-important and famous Prince Bismarck, who a century ago was considered to be the world's most intelligent and scrupulous philosopher and imperious ruler, and although a Christian belittled all the former religions and their scriptures and was even so bold as to deny them, affirmed in writing that he had bowed before the All-Wise Qur'an and assented to it with all his strength, and he announced in the newspapers to all the world that he had renounced his obstinacy, egotism, and irreligion and surrendered to the Qur'an. Just when this was being published, the present terrible government to the north-east, which denies all the revealed religions, is sending many of its Muslim population to the Hajj to make a show before the Islamic world as though it has given up its irreligion, obduracy, and hostility, and no longer denies the Qur'an and as though it recognizes the Qur'an's importance better than the people here and is surrendering to its greatness and having recourse to it in a sort of way. They say that the authorities here are lagging behind them in this question and do not send as many people to the Hajj as they do. In the face of this, at a time our authorities are allowing complete freedom in the question of the Hajj and political propaganda of this type is being carried out, and the Nur students of the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ are publishing with their pens those vast and splendid truths of the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition with such wondrous treatises as Zülfikar and The Staff of Moses, and compelling the most obdurate atheists to affirm them - at such a time, the assaults of the people of misguidance surely cause not only the people of truth to weep, but also the spirit beings and angels, and even enrage the earth and the heavens.

Since a thousand copies of The Supreme Sign (Âyetü'l-Kübrâ) printed in the old letters and all the treatises of the Risale-i Nur have been unanimously acquitted and returned having been scrutinized for two years, to deem it a crime to duplicate in the old letters a number of treatises that have been returned and impose a sentence is a matter of serious concern for the judiciary and insults its honour.

Secondly: I do not have a personal scribe now and the other scribes do not understand my language at all well. Also I am unwell and can only write slowly and with difficulty. Since yesterday, close on twenty letters have arrived and they contain the names of very many of our brothers and sisters. So I congratulate all of them on the festival and with all my life and spirit accept those who wish to be new students. May God Almighty be pleased with both them and those who so prompted them, and may He grant them success in whatever their hearts wish for.

Thirdly: Both myself and the whole Nur circle have been made pleased and happy by the fine letter of Sabri, the Nur Power Station, which will be added to The Additional Letters; and the sacred services of Ali Osman and Çilingir Ali in publishing the Risale-i Nur; and by İbrahim Edhem's effective activities in Balıkesir and that region and many people entering the fold of the Risale-i Nur through his guidance; and similarly to Hasan Feyzi, by Ahmed Fuad's activity and devotion in the vicinity of Eflâni; and by Sabri from Konya's efforts to induce students of the secular schools to enter the fold of the Risale-i Nur in large numbers; and by the good will and ratifying stance towards the Risale-i Nur of foremost Hoja Vehbi Efendi, the Qur'anic exegetist, and other Konya ulema; and by the teacher Abdurrahman İhsan's sincere and earnest devotion in his letter; and by the two or three people described in the preacher Osman of Tavşanlı's letter who have with the utmost earnestness become Nur students; and by truly sincere Nurjus emerging in the villages of Eğirdir, as affirmed by Ali Osman and Halil İbrahim; and by Abdullah from Araç, who was the first of the Kastamonu secular-school students to embrace the Risale-i Nur and has performed many services for it in Ankara University and has described in his heartening letter which shows his firm adherence to belief and religion, his efforts to protect and defend Abdurrahman's son Vahdet in Ankara, and that due to the many readers of the Risale-i Nur there, they have insufficient copies of it, and that he is spreading it among the young people there together with his friend Mehmed from Konya; and by the prayers and descriptions of the Risale-i Nur's effectiveness in the sincere letter sent by Ali Akdağ, who is closely concerned with it and, God willing, will be a second Ahmed Feyzi in the region of Aydın: all these messages have filled both us and all the Nur circle with joy, and by implication are a vast gift this festival. May Almighty God be pleased with all of them. They should not be offended that I have been unable to write personally and separately to each of them.

I have approved without altering it Husrev's petition to the Court of Appeal; you may send your copy of it to the court. Since you have a copy, you can also add it to The Additional Letters without my sending this letter. You know better than I do concerning the price of A Guide for Youth, which you asked about in the letter that has just arrived, It shouldn't be less than one or one-and-a-half liras. We say, may God grant blessings on Husrev's pen, which has started on the Fourth Word. May God grant him success. Amen!

I send in return for their festival congratulations, congratulations to the barber Hıfzı, the hero of Safranbolu, and his two innocent Nurju sons,

Hüsnü and Yılmaz, and to the İnebolu heroes, Ali Osman and his two Nurju sons, and I offer prayers for their success.

My Dear, Loyal Brother, Re'fet Bey!

Firstly: I received an acute warning in my spirit that I should explain a matter in connection with a number of minor incidents that have slightly affected us. It is like this:

Of course, you select Risale-i Nur students know that the Risale-i Nur can be made the tool of nothing, nor be made the means of anything other than God's pleasure, and that before everything it teaches the truths of belief and saves the belief of the weak and unfortunate, and those who have fallen to doubt.

Secondly: The Risale-i Nur's most powerful force in the face of so many opponents is sincerity, and just as it can be made the tool of nothing in the world, so it cannot be concerned with any currents based on feelings of partisanship, particularly currents connected to politics. For partisanship destroys sincerity and distorts the truth. In fact, the reason I have given up politics these last thirty years is this: because of his feelings of bias towards the political current he supported, a revered scholar of religion insulted another prominent, sound scholar to the extent of calling him a depraved sinner because he held opposing views, while at the same time he praised and applauded a famous and aggressive dissembler who agreed with his ideas. It caused me to shudder to the very depths of my being. Thinking, when involvement in politics is combined with feelings of bias, it gives rise to quite extraordinary mistakes, I declared: "I seek refuge with God from Satan and from politics," and from that time I gave up politics.

In consequence of that state of mind, brothers like yourself know that for the last twenty-five years I have neither read a newspaper, nor listened to one being read, nor have I been curious. And for the past ten years, I have evinced no interest or curiosity in the World War, nor have I known about it. You know too that, apart from my court defences, in the twenty- two years of this distressing captivity, so as to avoid having any contact with politics and partisanship and to prevent marring the sincerity of the Risale-i Nur, I have never applied to the government for my own wellbeing. You also know that, as I wrote and told you while in prison, if those who condemn me to death and torment and maltreat me save their belief through the Risale-i Nur, bear witness that I forgive them. And so that no

harm should come to sincerity due to feelings of bias, I have had nothing to do with the stormy political currents that have emerged from home and abroad these last two or three years, and I have also warned my brothers about them, to an extent.

Thirdly: You know that I do not accept alms or charity, nor can I be an intermediary for such benefactions, Due to this, I am selling my clothes and other necessities, and buying with the money my own books from the brothers who wrote them out. In this way, no worldly benefits will impair the Risale-i Nur's sincerity and it will be an exemplary lesson for our other brothers so that they will avoid making it the tool of anything.

Fourthly: The Risale-i Nur suffices for its true students. They should be content with it and not set their sights on other honours or benefits, material or spiritual. Also, so as not to make people hostile and resentful towards the Risale-i Nur, one should not enter into arguments, disputes, or biased discussions on religious questions that are going to upset them. In fact, I had a premonition at exactly the same time that our brother Mustafa Oruç was disputing with someone in a fashion contrary to the Risale-i Nur's way, and I felt an intense anger and indignation at him my heart. I felt truly saddened and wanted to demote him from the high rank he had won from the Risale-i Nur. But he was an Abdurrahman for me, so why did I feel such anger towards him? Then he visited me this festival; thanks be to God, he had heeded a crucial lesson and understood that serious mistake of his; he had confessed to his error at the very time I was angry with him here. God willing, it was atonement for him and he was saved, completely purified.

Fifthly: For the past four or five months, a person has evidently been sending me a newspaper here. I have only just learned that it was being sent to me. My friends here know my habits, and they were scared and did not tell me, since apart from the Risale-i Nur I accept no book or magazine, let alone newspapers, and anyway I don't know a single letter of the new alphabet. Now, someone showed me a journalist's letter, who is friendly and from the same region, which contained a one-page interview with me. They told me that he had been sending a paper to me, but they were frightened to show it to me. So I told them: "Send that friend many greetings from me. The Old Said, who he knew, has changed and cut all ties with this world. He is also ill and cannot write a personal letter to that brother, so he should not be offended."

I send greetings to all the friends there, especially brothers like Hâfız Emin and Hâfız Fahreddin, and I again congratulate them on the festival.

For the past three years, our brother Ahmed Feyzi, who is the Risale-i Nur's lawyer and the Hasan Feyzi of Aydın and a Husrev of that region has affirmed the hundreds of allusions to the Risale-i Nur made by The Ratifying Stamp of the Unseen, and most powerfully and definitely proved - in agreement with the meaning of certain Hadiths and verses from the Qur'an and with the science of divination (cifir; jafr) - the Risale-i Nur's collective personality. He ascribes to the Risale-i Nur's Interpreter, a number of allusions made by Hadiths to the Nur students' collective personality, which is a representative of the Risale-i Nur's collective personality. The fact is, though, he is a sort of representative of that collective personality only in regard to the Risale-i Nur's composition. It is neither my right nor my due that I should be the object (lit. means, pivot - medâr) of that sacred allusion. In any event, I have not studied it very closely. If my time and indisposition permit me to do so and to modify the minute investigations over three-and-a-half years of that extraordinarily intelligent brother, I shall send them to you to write out and add as an addendum to The Mysteries Collection (Tılsımlar Mecmuası) or to The Flashes Collection, as a proof of the Risale-i Nur's authenticity. Send in my name a copy of The Ratifying Stamp of the Unseen to our brother, Ahmed Feyzi, the Risale-i Nur's lawyer, in return for his gifts of figs so that they will not upset me. For recently, numerous experiences have made it understood that unreciprocated presents make me ill.

In return for the sincere letters they have written me, I offer many prayers for that brother's blessed wife and respected mother and their children called Said and Nuri. With all my life and spirit I accept within the fold of the Nur innocents, the innocent children and respected, pious wife of such a heroic Nurju whom he has entrusted to the Risale-i Nur to serve it as devotees. And I send greetings to Mehmed Emin, Ali Akdağ, and Ahmed Feyzi, and to all our brothers, and we pray for them.

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Having sold some unnecessary foodstuffs and clothes, I am sending you as the price of The Flashes Collection a truly blessed hundred liras together with ten blessed liras, which is what remains of my salary from the Darü'l-Hikmet - with which I was going to go on the Hajj, and is left from what I have spent on food this last twenty-two years.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Endless thanks be to Almighty God, a sign of the Risale-i Nur's acceptance by Mecca and Medina is this: the Denizli hero Hâfız Mustafa obtained from Istanbul the Zülfikar, Staff of Moses, and Shining Lamp that were going to be sent to the Indian ulema, and on the road, read them to some people travelling to the Hajj. Then in Medina, they together handed them over to a very famous Kashmiri scholar and to someone who knew Turkish well. The two young Nurju hajis who had accompanied Hâfız Mustafa and read the Risale-i Nur on the journey, and some other hajis, brought me this good news, and that the person to whom they had given those collections thought very highly of them and undertook to send them to the centre of the Indian ulema, and also that the collections designated for Medina had arrived in good condition, as had those sent to other places; they brought the good news of the Risale-i Nur's spread and acceptance abroad. Only, of the three collections sent to al-Azhar University, Zülfikar remained here; we were unable to send it; only two of them went. The wisdom in this is that Zülfikar is an extensive, scholarly lesson. It would not have been appropriate to send it as instruction to al-Azhar University, which is the supreme medrese of the Islamic world. Also, there is a cholera epidemic there at the moment, so Zülfikar would not have received the attention it deserves.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: May God bless and bestow endless happiness on our brother Hâfız Mustafa, a leading Nur champion, who took the main Risale-i Nur collections to Mecca and gave them to the eminent Indian scholar Ahmad 'Ali Shimshiri, who assured him that they would be translated into Urdu (lit. Hintçe) and be sent to India. The Medresetü'z-Zehrâ should write a letter to that lofty scholar. His address is: Ahmad 'Ali Shimshiri, Bab al-Salam, Mecca.

Secondly: We learnt that the incident this time was due to their unfounded suspicions and making mountains out of molehills. A sign of it was this: on orders from the Minister of the Interior, the governor of Afyon and chief of police came here at night, intending to raid my house, but because the public prosecutor did not agree, they had to wait till morning. They then appointed two men who were most hostile to us and who without ado smashed the lock and entered. The same day when I went out in

the phaeton, {(*):} in a way that was quite unprecedented, five aeroplanes flew over us very low because they knew it was my phaeton, and twice returned. Then the next day, we went in a different direction, and while passing along a fairly concealed valley in the phaeton, we saw five planes flying very low as though they were searching for something. We understood that they were looking for us, Just like the previous day, those five planes flew over us and over the town, and when I returned to my room, they disappeared. This was a powerful sign that they had made a hundred mountains out of one molehill. You may convey my thanks and gratitude to the authorities and judiciary in Isparta, for here, I am subjected to this meaningless harassment due to groundless suspicions. The heroes of the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ there have been subjected in three years to only a tenth of it, so I forgive the Isparta authorities their persecution.

Thirdly: Concerning the present calamity, I considered as usual the justice of divine determining and outpouring of divine providence, and I saw that compared with other provinces, Kütahya had lagged behind in regard to the Risale-i Nur despite being close to its circle, so to awaken its interest and that of its judiciary and administration in the Risale-i Nur like those of Denizli and Kastamonu ... Yes, however much his ideas and duties are against us, he was sent to that province so that he might profit from the Risale-i Nur in respect of belief and win reward for the Nurjus. Divine determining also dealt me a compassionate slap because I told myself: the Interior Minister comes from Erzurum and my home region and the governor of Afyon (from Antalya) and uptil now they have not bothered me; I'm free now and I've found a fair-minded governor; I'm not going to leave Emirdağ; but in punishment for the sort of joy I felt and my lack of caution, divine determining dealt me a blow at the hands of those two men, and acted justly.

The governor of Afyon, the chief of police, and the committee here wrote to Ankara concerning our case: "There's no question of founding a Sufi order or political society, but there are two hundred thousand Nurju brothers who are ready to sacrifice themselves for anything Said Nursi says." They caused serious consternation to the government in another way. But there may possibly be an advantage for the Risale-i Nur and the Nurjus in that memo of theirs, as well as some harm for my person. One aspect of the advantage is this: the conditions are indeed harsh, but there is

a truth as unassailable as steel for which two hundred thousand Turks are eager customers, and to which they are ready to devote themselves and their spirits. It strengthens the belief of anyone whose belief is weak on this point. The politicians and those who have lost their belief are frightened to provoke it and will no longer swiftly attack it. As for the harm towards my person, Almighty God is the Preserver. They may try to damage my prestige with slanders that would not occur to Satan even, in order to denigrate me, induce my brothers to flee from me, and rupture our brotherhood.

Yûsuf Ziya, who was a member of the experts' committee and is a consultant at the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and the other hojas, have asked for a complete set of the Risale-i Nur from us. As a respectful request, they sent with Hasan Çalışkan, whom we had sent there, such pieces as the Thirtieth Word (Second Station), about the transformation of minute particles, the discussion about particles at the beginning of the First Stopping-Place of the Thirty-Second Word, the piece about the air (Hüve Nüktesi) and the parts about particles in the Treatise on Nature. It is as though they want to understand the meaning of the verse, «And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise» (Q 17:44), and it may be understand through those pieces. Those pieces also silence the materialists, who have now started to corrupt ideas freely.

Legally, they should have taken my statement but they neglected to do so, so I am now presenting my statement to the collective personality of the judiciary and for the information of the Interior Minister.

By reason of your job and duty, you are obliged and compelled to heed a person who has caused no harm to this country and nation this last forty years; indeed, has been most beneficial for them. In short, during the Thirty-First of March Incident, with one speech this person induced eight mutinying regiments to obey their officers and he saved many of those officers; and with his pamphlet The Six Steps in the midst of the national movement he turned the ulema, Şeyhülislam, and Istanbul away from supporting the foreign occupation forces; and performed courageous services during the First World War that were praised and applauded by the late Enver Pasha; and whom three awesome commanders did not dare to touch, although they were angry with him; and before the truth which he had followed, three courts of law were confounded and did not have the courage

to condemn him, although he could have been legally charged due to the calumnies of covert atheists; and whose treatises have been praised and commended by scholars of religion and science, and who speaks on account of those treatises.

I begin. Truth and right are with us! May Almighty God not compel us to seek our rights by force or in any other way. Amen!

These twenty years, hundreds of experiences have shown that divine providence has protected us and saved us from ghastly oppression; we should therefore feel quite certain that it will save us from this new, completely illegal and cruel injustice. We nourish powerful hopes from divine mercy that even if we suffer some minor difficulties, troubles, and harms, we shall receive divine mercy and grace and rewards far greater than the troubles, which will be transformed into another form of the sacred service of saving the wretched believers' belief.

I declare that the incident in question was illegal in ten ways:

The First: For two years the Risale-i Nur was in the possession of the judiciary, and was scrutinized and investigated by three courts and three committees of experts, and was passed around seven government offices in Ankara; and all the treatises of the Risale-i Nur were unanimously and without objection acquitted together with Said and his seventy-five friends, with not even a single day's penalty being given; so anyone the tiniest bit fair-minded would know just how contrary to the law it is to again seize them as though they were dangerous documents.

The Second: Accusing him of involvement in politics, detectives smashed the lock on the door of a man who, after his acquittal has lived for three and a half years as a recluse and stranger in Emirdağ, with his door locked on both the outside and the inside, who has received only one person in a hundred to perform his necessary tasks, and has even given up composing works, which he had previously done for twenty years, but they could find nothing except a poster with some words about belief. Surely anyone with even a grain of intelligence would understand how contrary to the law this torment was.

The Third: To raid a man's house as though he were a monstrous politician or political conspirator, although as testified to by seventy witnesses in court he has neither known about the World War, nor asked about it or been curious about it - and now the same situation has continued for ten years, and for twenty years has neither read a newspaper nor listened to one being read, and for thirty years, exclaiming "I seek refuge with God from Satan and politics," has fled from politics with all his might, and despite suffering torturous distress has not applied once to the government

for his own comfort so as not to attract attention to himself or interfere in politics; with which law does it accord to raid his retreat and cause unimaginable distress to his spirit while he lies ill? Anyone with an atom's conscience would pity him.

The Fourth: Although a number of judicial authorities were prompted against him due to groundless fears concerning the founding of a Sufi order and political society, and due to the personal grudges of a great leader, he was acquitted of the charges after six months of investigations by Eskişehir Court and of charges connected with the Risale-i Nur. Only, on the pretext of a short part of the Risale-i Nur about the veiling of women, the court imposed a sentence of six months on five or ten students out of a hundred, not as dictated by the law, but at its discretion. They had already been under arrest for four months by the time the investigation commenced; that is, they had been held in prison for one-and-a-half months; then ten years later Denizli Court scrutinized all the letters and writings of twenty years, and they remained in prison during the investigations conducted by Ankara and Denizli. Then the courts passed down a unanimous decision for their acquittal regarding the Sufi order and political society {(*):} and the other pretexts, and they acquitted Said and his friends and returned that book and all the letters to their owners. So to now look on them as a political society and accuse him of being a political intriguer, and to incite the officers of the law against them as though they were members of a political society and Sufi order, is totally opposed to the law, as anyone who has not lost his humanity would know.

The Fifth: It is like this: owing to the compassion which is the basis of the Risale-i Nur's way and has been a guiding principle of my life for thirty years, so that no harm should come to any innocent, I do not vex the criminals who persecute me, let alone curse them. I feel anger at the depraved sinners who oppress me with terrible hatred, indeed, irreligious tyrants, yet that compassion prevents me from responding physically, or even with curses. For those cruel evildoers have wretched elderly parents or innocent children; lest they suffer any blows, I refrain from annoying

them for the sake of those innocents, and sometimes I even forgive them. It is owing to this compassion that just as we have done nothing to infringe public order and security, so too, I have advised all our friends to such an extent that some fair-minded police in three provinces have admitted that the Nur students are moral police and preserve public order and security. This fact has been corroborated by the students' lives over twenty years by thousands of witnesses, and by no incident at all being recorded by the police despite there being thousands of students. So which law would permit the house of that person to be raided as though he were a lawless revolutionary, and for unscrupulous men to insult him, and although they were unable to find anything incriminating, to seize his Qur'an and the posters on his wall as though they were dangerous papers and he was a multiple lawbreaker?

The Sixth: Thirty years ago, that person realized through the grace of God and the effusions of the Qur'an just how harmful, just how profitless, just how meaningless are fleeting honour and renown in this world, and egotistical self-advertisement and love of fame. From that time he has struggled with all his strength with his evil-commanding soul and has striven as far as he possibly can to abnegate himself and renounce egotism and to act without artificiality and hypocrisy. Although his companions and those who serve him know this; and although contrarily to everyone else, for the past twenty years he has fled with all his strength from the excessively good opinions of people and their regard and praise for his person, which everyone wants for themselves, and from looking on himself as a holder of high spiritual rank; and although he has rejected the favourable opinions of his select brothers and offended them, and in his replies to their letters has rebuffed their praises for him and broken their excessively high opinions, and has shown himself to be bereft of virtue, and has ascribed all virtue to the Risale-i Nur, which is a commentary on the Qur'an, and thus indirectly to the collective personality of the Nur students, and that he considers himself to be a common servant; and although this proves decisively that he has not tried to make himself liked, and has not wanted this, and has rejected it; and although without his consent, some of his friends a long way off evinced an excessively favourable opinion of him and applauded him and accorded him a high rank; according to which law could he be indicted due to some things a preacher in the region of Kütahya said and due to a letter bearing my forged signature, although I have never sent a letter to Kütahya, and due to an inflamatory book being found in Balıkesir whose author is unknown? Is there any law in the world, any policy, that would permit the smashing of the lock on the door of a wretched, ill, very

elderly recluse who is a stranger as though he had committed some crime, and for detectives to search it but then could find nothing but a book of invocations and some posters?

The Seventh: What law would permit such an assault on a person who, at this time when there are so many lively internal and external political currents in this country and the time is ripe to profit from them; - that is, to win to his side many high-ranking politicians instead of his few friends, he wrote and warned his friends not to get carried away on any of the political currents or enter politics or disturb public order, solely not to interfere in politics or harm sincerity or attract the government's attention to himself or to busy himself with this world; and although the two main currents caused him trouble and difficulties due to his avoidance of them, the former one out of their groundless fears, the new one because he does not assist it, he does not meddle in the world of the worldly at all but is busy with his life in the next world, and in twenty-two years has not written a single letter to his own brother in his home region and the village of Nurs, and in twenty years has not written ten letters to his friends in those provinces. So which law would permit such harassment of so wretched a man and his preoccupation with the hereafter? Although the law allowing freedom of speech and ideas does not intervene in the dissemination of the books of the irreligious and the communists' publications, which are most damaging to this country, nation, and morality, would any law, any conscience, any fair-mindedness permit the seizure as though they were dangerous documents of such parts of the Risale-i Nur as Zülfikar and The Staff of Moses, which contain nothing indictable as has been proven by three courts, and for twenty years has been striving to hold together society for this nation and country and to maintain its morality and security, and to restore the Islamic world's brotherhood and friendship for this nation, which is its true source of support, and to strengthen it effectively, and the value of which was recognized by the scholars of the Directorate of Religious Affairs on their scrutinizing them for three months on the orders of the Interior Minister, although their intention had been to find fault with it; what law and conscience would permit their being handed over to the courts?

The Eighth: This person has not departed for his native region where he has thousands of relations and friends, although he has been given his complete freedom after twenty years of distressing exile without cause; he has preferred to remain alone and in exile so that he should have no contact with this world, and the life of society, and politics; he has eschewed the rewards of performing the prayers in congregation in the mosque, and preferred

to perform them alone in his room, that is, his state of mind causes him to shrink from the people's esteem; and as testified to by his life of twenty years and affirmed by hundreds of thousands of valuable Turkish people, prefers one religious and pious Turk to numerous negligent Kurds; in fact, has proved in court that he would not change his sincere Turkish brothers whose belief is as powerful as that of Hâfız Ali for hundreds of Kurds; and if not obliged to, does not meet with people or go to the mosque so as not to be acclaimed and be treated with reverence; and for forty years has striven with all his strength and his works for the brother- hood of Islam and to strengthen love between Muslims; and who does not act negatively towards fierce enemies and does not even busy himself with them or curse them; and who loves the Turkish nation since it is the Qur'an's standard-bearer and has been praised by the Qur'an, and has passed his life among them. Which law would permit such a person to be insulted in officialese saying: "He's a Kurd, you're Turks; he's a Shafi'i, you're Hanafis!" just for propaganda and to scare his friends and to make the people avoid him; and permit a brimmed hat to be forced on the head of that recluse, although in twenty-two years and two courts he has not been compelled to change his dress, and the peaked cap for soldiers even has been partially modified?

The Ninth: This is very important {(*):} and very powerful, but I am remaining silent since it touches on politics.

The Tenth: This was an assault that would be permitted by no law and in which there were no benefits; it was covered by no law and resulted from making mountains out of a molehill due to unfounded suspicions. So keeping silent so as not to look to politics as is demanded by our way, we merely say in the face of such treatment that was illegal in ten respects: «God suffices us, and He is the best Disposer of Affairs!» (Q 3: 173)

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Endless thanks be to Almighty God that this last attack, and very extensive and suspicious assault, has lessened considerably. The day before yesterday, they took my statement in court for four hours. I replied exactly as I had explained in the statement I sent you before. May God be pleased with the Isparta judiciary, for the notification in our favour that they sent here helped us immensely, We would otherwise have had considerable difficulties due to the baseless suspicions of Afyon and some officials here helping our covert enemies.

They sent our Qur'an, which they had confiscated, to the Head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs. So we wrote a letter to the Head together with the two portions of the Qur'an we had sent to Istanbul and some of the portions from the beginning. We said in the letter that we were trying to have it printed photographically and were hoping that he would approve of this and assist us.

Among the futile questions they asked me this time in court was about what I lived on. I told them that I lived on the plenty resulting from living frugally, and that one Ramadan while in Isparta I had lived on one loaf of bread, a one-kilo-bag of yoghurt, and a kilo of rice. A person who lives thus would not condescend to worldly preoccupations for his livelihood, nor be obliged to accept gifts.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Firstly: I congratulate you with all my life and spirit on your success, and steadfastness, and for the wonder of the alifs in the Twenty-Ninth Word being preserved when written on the waxed paper, and on your never slacking in your work.

Secondly: The fact that the fire at the Ministry of Education, which caused two million liras' worth of damage, occurred at virtually the same time (ten hours later) as the unprecedented anguish I felt on giving my statement for four hours, showed that the Risale-i Nur is a means of calamities being repulsed, and if it is attacked, the calamities find a way and descend.

Thirdly: The piece written about the fire to show an instance of the Risale-i Nur's wonder-working, had been waiting for a week to be sent to you. They watch the post offices very closely due to their unfounded suspicions, so we did not send it by post. You are curious as to what your position

is vis-à-vis the court. Our brother Burhan writes that he has suffered a small setback, what was it? I was curious. May Almighty God repulse it. I was very pleased to receive the letters of Re'fet Bey and Abdullah Çavuş. I send them greetings in particular. Greetings to all.