or, as Bediuzzaman interpreted them:

"O you unfortunate! As a member of the Darü'l-Hikmeti'l-İslamiye, you are as though a doctor curing the spiritual sicknesses of the people of Islam, whereas it is you who is sicker than anyone. You first of all find a doctor for yourself then try to cure others !" He continued:

So I said to the Shaykh: "You be my doctor!" And I took him as my doctor and read the book as though it were addressing me. But it was most severe. It smashed my pride in the most fearsome manner. It carried out the most drastic surgery on my soul. I could not stand it. I read half of it as though it were addressing me, but did not have the strength and endurance to finish it. I put the book back on the shelf. Then a week later the pain of that curative operation subsided and the pleasure came in its place. I again opened the book and read it right through; I benefited a lot from that book of my first master. I listened to his prayers and supplications, and profited abundantly. [^337]

[^337]:Nursi, Mektûbat, 330 (Eng. tr.: Letters, 418-9); Nursi, Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybî, 116-7.

The second work which was instrumental in transforming the Old Said into the New Said was the Maktubat of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi Imam Rabbani. Some time after his "cure" through the mediation of Gawth al-A'zam, Bediuzzaman opened Imam Rabbani's Maktubat to take an omen from this too. He wrote:

It is strange, but in the whole of Maktubat, the word Bediuzzaman appears only twice. And those two letters fell open for me at once. I saw that written at the head of them was: "Letter to Mirza Bediuzzaman", and my father's name was Mirza. Glory be to God! I exclaimed, these letters are addressing me. At that time the Old Said was also known as Bediuzzaman. Apart from Badi'uz-Zaman Hamadani, I knew of no one else in the last three hundred years famous with the name. Whereas in the Imam's time there was such a person and he wrote him these two letters. This person's state must have been similar to mine, for I found these letters to be the cure for my ills. Only, the Imam persistently recommended in many of his letters what he wrote in these two, which was: 'Take only one qibla.' That is, take one person as your master and follow him; do not concern yourself with anyone else.' [^338]

[^338]:Nursi, Mektûbat, 330-1 (Eng. tr.: Letters, 419).