On whichever subject he was questioned, he would give the answer correctly and without hesitation. [^21]

[^21]:Tarihçe, 33-4; Şahiner, Said Nursi, 53-5.

While in Beyazid, Said passed much of his time, and even the nights, in the mausoleum of the Kurdish saint and literary figure Ahmad Khani, so that the people said he was specially privileged with Ahmad Khani's spiritual radiance. One night Said's friends from the medrese missed him and started searching for him. Finally they looked in the mausoleum and found him there studying by the light of a candle. But he rebuked them saying: "Why are you disturbing me in this way?" [^22] On the one hand Said thus plunged himself into studying, while on the other he started to follow the way of the Illuminist (Ishraqiyyun) philosophers and to practise extreme self-discipline and asceticism. The Illuminists had accustomed their bodies to such practices gradually, but Said ignored the necessary period of adjustment and suddenly undertook the most rigorous ascetic exercises. His body could not support it and he grew progressively weaker. He would make one piece of bread last three days, trying to emulate the Illuminists in their practice of the theory 'asceticism serves to expand the mind'.

[^22]:Ibid., 55.

Not being content with this, he followed Imam Ghazali's Sufistic interpretation of the Hadith, "Give up what you are doubtful about for that about which you have no doubts" from Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din, and for a time gave up eating bread, even, and existed on grasses and plants. Furthermore, he rarely spoke. [^23]

[^23]:Tarihçe, 34-5.

At the end of three months, Said obtained his diploma from Shaykh Muhammad Jalali, the Principal of the Beyazid medrese, and was then known as Molla Said. Having received it, he donned the simple garb of a dervish and set out for Baghdad, intending to visit its famous religious scholars and the tomb of Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani. Avoiding roads, travelling at night over mountain and through forest, he came after some time to Bitlis. There, for two days he attended the lectures of Shaykh Mehmed Emin Efendi. The Shaykh proposed that he wear the dress of a scholar. In eastern Anatolia at that time the turban and scholar's robe were not worn by students, but only presented when the diploma (icazet) was obtained. The scholar's dress was the right only of teachers (mudarris). But Molla Said did not accept the Shaykh's proposal, answering that since he was not yet mature, he did not think it was fitting for him to wear the