whether one will appear again in the future [that is, another will not appear]. I have no doubt that he is the Regenerator of Religion. [^168]

[^168]:Mustafa Ramazanoğlu, in Son Şahitler, iv, 225, 229.

It is also recorded that Bediuzzaman's mission as Renewer was foretold in the year of his birth, and this was not by someone in his native East, but by one of the leading figures of the Naqshbandi tarikat in the region of Isparta, Beşkazalızade Osman Halidi. The shaykh gave certain news in the year of his death, 1293, that is, 1876 or 7, or possibly the previous year, that "A Renewer who will save belief in God will appear, and he was born this year." He added that one of his four sons would have the honour of seeing him. And indeed, some fifty years later Bediuzzaman was exiled to the province of Isparta, and his youngest son, Ahmed Efendi, met him. And it was here that Bediuzzaman wrote the greater part of the Risale-i Nur and from this centre that it was spread. [^169]

[^169]:See, Nursi, Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybî, 41-2.

#### Mawlana Khalid Baghdadi's Jubba

*Mawlana Khalid Baghdadi's Jubba***

Probably in 1940, Asiye Hanım, the wife of the Governor of Kastamonu Prison, brought a hundred-year-old jubba, that is, the gown worn by religious scholars, to give to Bediuzzaman. Knowing that he would not accept it as a gift, she consulted Mehmed Feyzi, and they decided on presenting it to him as a trust. Bediuzzaman however accepted it readily as though receiving his own property.

Asiye Hanım had inherited the jubba from her father, who in turn had received it from his father, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Khalidi, well-known by the name Küçük Aşık. From Afyonkarahisar, he had made his way to Baghdad when still of tender years to study under the famous founder of the Naqshbandi/Khalidi order, Mawlana Khalid Baghdadi. On completing his studies he was sent by the Master as a khalifa to Anatolia, who gave him the jubba as a gift. Küçük Aşık later went on to Egypt where he died in 1884. His family preserved the jubba, and even when they were forced to abandon their home in Afyon in the face of the Greek invasion during the War of Independence, this was the first thing they took with them. Finally Asiye Hanım married an official called Tahir Bey. On his being posted to Kastamonu as Governor of the Prison, Asiye Hanım came to know of Bediuzzaman, and realized that the jubba they had so carefully guarded all these years as a trust had found its true owner, and she handed it over to him. [^170] Bediuzzaman recalled in a letter that when he had received

[^170]:Şahiner, Son Şahitler, i, 234-5; iv, 351-4; Nurs Yolu, 111-3.