students found ways of circumventing them and would go and assist him. If caught they were beaten or bastinadoed mercilessly.

Bediuzzaman's students willingly endured the appalling primitive conditions in the crowded wards in the way of serving the cause of the Qur'an and belief through the Risale-i Nur, facing also with equanimity the abuse and ill-treatment they frequently received. Their Ustad was a perpetual source of strength and consolation for them. Some tell of how the sound of his supplications at night would console them. [^310] They all tell of his kindness, even, tenderness towards them in prison. They would see him watching them from his ward on the upper floor when out for their exercise in the yard. He would drop down notes to them to cheer them up and enquire if anything appeared to be wrong. [^311]

[^310]:İbrahim Fakazlı, in Son Şahitler, v, 30.

[^311]:Ibid.; also Mustafa Sungur, in Şahiner, Aydınlar Konuşuyor, 382.

During these twenty months, Bediuzzaman also wrote numerous letters, mostly short, to his students in the prison, in addition to notes such as those mentioned above. These are about various matters concerning their life in the prison, like his letters in Denizli Prison. Most importantly they urge the students to look on their imprisonment in positive terms in the light of Divine wisdom, as a trial and test, which presented new possibilities for service to the Qur'an through the Risale-i Nur. Especially when the trial dragged on and they were held for months in those conditions, Bediuzzaman frequently pointed out the benefits in this, since it "expanded the field of the Risale-i Nur", and urged patience on them. Some of the letters concern the trial and direct the writing out of copies of the defence speeches and their being sent to various government offices and departments, and other aspects of the Students' 'service". Others warn them of informers and spies, and efforts to sow discord between them in order to break their solidarity. Also Bediuzzaman saw an important aspect of their "service" in prison to be the reform of the other prisoners, and a number of his letters address them. Again these showed their effect, for many of the prisoners did reform. These included hardened murderers like the famous Butcher Tahir. [^312]

[^312]:See, H. Pancaroğlu, in Son Şahitler, iii, 170; Şahiner,Nurs Yolu, 54-6.

As for the Students, they constantly sought ways of visiting Bediuzzaman, and they found various means of exchanging letters. The Students were dispersed through a number of wards. Each group formed its own 'medrese' to study together the Risale-i Nur and give instruction to any of the other prisoners who wished. The Students continuously wrote out vari-