method it employs to do this is reasoned argument and logical proof — since they had been attacked in the name of reason, and also in the manner of the Qur'an, through the use of comparison and allegory. That is to say, the Risale-i Nur answers the attacks made on the Qur'an and belief in the name of science and Western philosophy and civilization, and through comparisons of the two demonstrates the rationality of belief and logical absurdity of materialist philosophy, and that man's happiness and salvation lie only in the former.

Furthermore, with these comparisons it explains matters from the simplest to the most profound and abstruse in such a manner that everyone can grasp them in accordance with their level of understanding. This last point is of fundamental importance: the Risale-i Nur is populist. That is to say, just as the Old Said had striven to make his message heard to ordinary people and to involve them in the great movement of the time, so too the New Said in his new struggle strove to reach the ordinary people and to renew and strengthen their belief. The Risale-i Nur makes available in this age of mass communication the truths of belief, and even the most profound aspects of them which were hitherto available only to the few, to the whole community of believers, so that all may gain firm and true belief. For it is only through true belief that the assaults of the various forms of misguidance at the present time may be withstood. The many further points about the Risale-i Nur and the new way to the truth that it opened up will become clear in later chapters. Before examining the Tenth Word, the treatise on Resurrection and the Hereafter, which illustrates many of the points made above, let us return briefly to Bediuzzaman and his life in Barla.

Bediuzzaman lived the life of a recluse in Barla, thinking and writing. The first week he spent as a guest of one of the villagers, Muhajir Hafız Ahmed, who together with his family was later to perform great services for Bediuzzaman and the Risale-i Nur. [^44] On Bediuzzaman's request for somewhere quieter and less-frequented, a small, two-roomed house was suggested, that had formerly served as the village meeting-house. This humble dwelling was more suitable to Bediuzzaman's needs and he stayed there for the next eight years. In his own words it became his "first Nur Medrese", that is, "Risale-i Nur School". Beneath it ran a stream, summer and winter, and in front stood a truly majestic plane tree. Among its great boughs Bediuzzaman had made a small tree-house, which in spring and summer he used as a place for contemplation and prayer. His students and the people of Barla used to say that he would remain there all night, neither

[^44]:Muhacir Hafız Ahmed, in Son Şahitler, ii, 101-2.