our service that when you come to go to the past, pass by my grave, and place a few of those gifts of spring by the citadel of Van, which is the gravestone of my medrese and houses my bones, and is the custodian of the Horhor's earth. We shall warn the custodian; call, and you will hear the cry: 'Good health to you!'

If they wish, let the children who have sucked milk together with us at the breast of this age and whose eyes look behind them at the past, and whose imaginings are disloyal and alienated like themselves fancy the truths of this book to be delusions. Because I know that with you the matters in this book will prove to be true.

O my listeners! I am indeed shouting, for I am standing at the top of the minaret of the thirteenth century [of the Hijra], and calling to the mosque those who in ideas are in the deepest valleys of the past.

O you miserable two-footed mobile mausoleums who have left Islam, which is like the spirit of the two lives! Do not stop at the door of the generation that is coming. The grave awaits you. Retreat into it and let the new generation come forth, which will wave the reality of Islam over the universe in earnest! [^216]

[^216]:Nursi, Münâzarat, 39-41.

#### The Damascus Sermon

The Damascus Sermon

In the autumn of 1910, Bediuzzaman moved south and until the following spring, made "a winter journey through the Arab lands," continuing "to give lessons on constitutionalism." [^217] He visited Damascus in early 1911, where he stayed as a guest in the Salihiya district. It was during this stay that, on the insistence of the Damascus 'ulema, he gave his famous sermon in the Umayyad Mosque. Bediuzzaman's fame must have been considerable, for close on ten thousand people, including one hundred 'ulema, packed into the historic building to listen to him. [^218] The text of the sermon was afterwards printed twice in one week.

[^217]:Ibid. (Ott. edn.), in Asar-ı Bedi'iyye, 404.

[^218]:Şahiner, Said Nursi, 136-7; Tarihçe, 81.

If one considers the backwardness of the Islamic world at that time in relation to the West and its resulting subjection to the European Powers, and the accompanying feelings of hopelessness and helplessness on the part of the educated Muslims in particular, it is not difficult to see why Bediuzzaman's message of hope and certain predictions supported by argument of the future supremacy of the Qur'an and Islamic civilization met with the enthusiastic response that they did. The Sermon is in the form of "Six Words" taken from "the pharmacy of the Qur'an", which constitute