to spend his last years there among his numerous students. The house he took had garden on two sides and was spacious, with sufficient rooms for both himself and those of his students who now stayed permanently with him.

Bediuzzaman's having four or five of his closest students living with him was an important change in the way he had ordered his life over many years. It had also been his unchanging rule to admit no one into his room from sunset, the time of the evening prayers, till the following morning, and had had his door locked on both the outside and the inside. Now his students, most usually Zübeyir Gündüzalp, Tahiri Mutlu, Mustafa Sungur, Bayram Yüksel, and Ceylan Çalışkan saw to his personal needs, and were allowed to enter his room if the need arose. Nevertheless, it was still Bediuzzaman's practice to be constantly occupied, and their room and activities remained separate. Thus, on the one hand they saw to all his needs, for Bediuzzaman was now approaching eighty years of age, and on the other, he was training these students for their important future roles in the Nur movement.

It was at this time that Bediuzzaman starting holding readings and study of the Risale-i Nur (ders) as a group. This practice was followed by Risale-i Nur Students all over the country and became the hallmark and central feature of the Risale-i Nur movement. Bediuzzaman and his students held these readings after the morning prayers and very often they would continue for as much as five or six hours. All present would read out loud in turn from one of the books of the Risale-i Nur, and Bediuzzaman would explain and illustrate it. Bayram Yüksel, who has provided the most details of these years, writes that he "had the energy and youth of someone of twenty, growing younger the more he read", while his young students lacked the endurance to keep going for that length of time. [^64]

[^64]:Bayram Yüksel, in Son Şahitler, i, 398; 406.

In his account, [^65] Bayram Yüksel gives many personal details about Bediuzzaman, about his food, his dress and his cleanliness, the awe-inspiring manner in which he performed the five daily prayers — always just as the time for each had been entered, how he was never idle, the importance he attached to the prompt and efficient carrying out of any matter in hand, and to the correction of proofs and handwritten copies of the Risale-i Nur. He describes his extreme frugality, and also his kindness to animals. In connection with the latter he describes how when going for excursions in the countryside, Bediuzzaman would study "the great book

[^65]:Ibid., 386-461.