opposite the police station. On two floors, it was a traditional wooden house with the ground floor used as a store for logs and an outside staircase leading to the two upstairs rooms. Bediuzzaman remained here for the seven years he was in Kastamonu.
It was during his first weeks in Kastamonu that he attracted the first of those who were to be his closest students here, Çaycı Emin. He was an exile the same as Bediuzzaman. A Kurdish tribal chief, he had been exiled to Kastamonu some ten years previously and now made his livelihood by running a tea-stall in the courtyard of the Nasrullah Mosque. It was here that he first saw Bediuzzaman. Bediuzzaman won his heart when he warned him against approaching him, but Çaycı Emin was not one to be deterred by any possible harm from officialdom and thereafter did all he could to assist him. [^140] Of Bediuzzaman's other close students in the town of Kastamonu was Mehmed Feyzi, [^141] who had a scholarly background. These two most constantly attended Bediuzzaman — as far as they were able, securing his daily needs, and Mehmed Feyzi in particular acting as his scribe and assistant with the Risale-i Nur.
[^140]:See, Çaycı Emin Bey, in Şahiner, Nurs Yolu, 100-3; and, Son Şahitler, i, 108-116.
[^141]:Mehmed Feyzi Pamukçu, in Son Şahitler, ii, 158-164.
Bediuzzaman was virtually confined to his house, going out only once or twice a week either up into the surrounding mountains or climbing up to the citadel which dominates the town. He spent his time either writing the Risale-i Nur or correcting the handwritten copies of existing parts, or in worship, prayer and supplication, or in contemplation. The nights he spent in prayer. He was busy with the same activities when he went out into the mountains, and on the way there even; he never passed an idle moment, Mehmed Feyzi tells how when accompanying him, Bediuzzaman on horseback would be correcting copies of the Risale-i Nur or listening to himself reading them out, or else teaching him and Çaycı Emin and any other of his students who were present. Although Bediuzzaman corrected the copies with the greatest care, he never consulted the originals; they were all in his head.
The high altitude of Kastamonu makes the winters very cold. In several letters Bediuzzaman mentions the bitter cold together with the illnesses he suffered. He was afflicted with chronic lumbago and rheumatism, in addition to which he was poisoned on several occasions. He writes that despite suffering these tribulations in addition to all his other hardships, "I offer endless thanks to my Creator that He has sent me belief, the most sacred remedy for every ill, and the medicine of resignation to the Divine Decree,