ing like this, but describing the way the modern world was taking, and the way they, too, had to take if they were not to remain outside the stream of time. Under the new order, leaders were the servants of the people and the nation. He continued:

O Kurds! If through relying on force their swords are sharp, your beys and ağas, and even your shaykhs, will of necessity fall. And they will deserve it. But if, relying on reason in place of compulsion, they employ love and make the emotions subject to the mind, they will not fall; indeed, they will rise. [^205]

[^205]:Nursi, Münâzarat (Ott. edn.), in Asar-ı Bedi'iyye, 412.

In another place in the work we learn of the main criticism Bediuzzaman was levelling at the chiefs, though here he specifies that it is at the former chiefs that he is "throwing his stone", and describes it as another of "the evils of despotism". This was that "certain chiefs, and some imposters who posed as patriots sacrificing themselves for the nation, and certain unqualified, phoney shaykhs who claimed exceptional spiritual powers" had drained the nation of material and moral resources, thereby extinguishing the sense of nationhood, and breaking up and destroying the collectivity of the nation. [^206] This idea of the collectivity, or the "collective personality" or "corporate identity" (şahs-ı mânevî) of a nation or social body, is frequently encountered in Bediuzzaman's writings. He described the modern age as "the age of the group or social body (T. cemaat; Ar. jama'a)... If the collective personality, which is the spirit of a social body, is righteous, it is more brilliant and complete [than that of an individual]. But if it is bad, it is exceedingly bad." [^207] That is to say, he is explaining to the people of eastern Anatolia that what falls to them now is to transcend their narrow traditional interests and loyalties, expand their ideas, and develop, or rather regain, a consciousness of Islamic nationhood. He told them:

[^206]:Nursi, Münâzarat, 46-7.

[^207]:Tarihçe, 127.

If only those who hold their lives in little account for some benefit, or minor matter of reputation, or imaginary glory, or to hear the words: 'So and so's a brave hero', or to uphold the honour of their ağas were to awake, would they not hold their lives in little account, and thousands of souls too if they possessed them, for the nation of Islam, which is worth treasuries; that is, the nation of Islam which gains them the brotherhood and moral assistance of three hundred million Muslims?

Bediuzzaman went on to say that the willingness to sacrifice one's life