the cure or medicine for the "six dire sicknesses" which Bediuzzaman had diagnosed as having arrested the development of the Islamic world. He described it as follows:

In the conditions of the present time in these lands, I have learnt a lesson in the school of mankind's social life and I have realized that what has allowed Europeans to fly towards the future on progress while it arrested us and kept us, in respect of material development, in the Middle Ages are six dire sicknesses. The sicknesses are these:

Firstly, the coming to life and rise of despair and hopelessness in social life. Secondly, the death of truthfulness in social and political life. Thirdly, love of enmity. Fourthly, not knowing the luminous bonds that bind the believers to one another. Fifthly, despotism, which spreads like various contagious diseases. And sixthly, restricting endeavour to what is personally beneficial. [^219]

[^219]:Nursi, Hutbe-i Şamiye, 16-17 (Eng. tr.: Damascus Sermon, 26-7).

Bediuzzaman had started by quoting the verse: "Do not despair of God's mercy" (Qur'an, 39:53), and the Hadith: "I came to perfect good moral qualities", which provide the theme of the six Words of which the Sermon is composed. The First Word is Hope, and we shall describe it in some detail for in it he sets forth the reasons for his optimism concerning the future of the Islamic world. It consists of "one and a half preliminary arguments" to support his "firm conviction" that "the future shall be Islam's, and Islam's alone, and the truths of the Qur'an and belief shall be sovereign." The premises of his arguments are that "the truths of Islam are able to progress both materially, and in moral and non-material matters, and possess a perfect capacity to do so." [^220] The first aspect is progress in moral and non-material matters, and contains five or six main points.

[^220]:Nursi, Hutbe-i Şamiye, 18 (Eng. tr.: Damascus Sermon, 28).

Quoting the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army, who in 1905 had defeated Russia at war, Bediuzzaman begins by making this point:

History shows that the Muslims increased in civilization and progressed in relation to the strength of the truths of Islam; that is, to the degree that they acted in accordance with that strength. And history also shows that they fell into savagery and decline, and disaster and defeat amidst utter confusion to the degree of their weakness in adhering to the truths of Islam.

He then points out:

As for other religions, it is quite to the contrary. That is to say, history shows that just as they increased in civilization and progressed in relation to