Although at various times Bediuzzaman stated where he wished to be buried, for instance, in one letter saying that he would prefer the graveyard in the village of Sav near Isparta to Barla, [^107] and in one of his wills that if he died in Emirdağ, his students should bury him in the Upper Graveyard, and if in Isparta, in the Middle Graveyard, [^108] he also said he would like to die in Urfa in south-eastern Turkey, where the Patriarch Abraham lies, and which is where in fact he did die. He told this to Salih Özcan, who recounted it like this:
[^107]:Nursi, Emirdağ Lahikası, i, 166.
[^108]:Kâmil Acar, in Son Şahitler, ii, 256.
It was in 1954. In Emirdağ, Mustafa Acet, Sadık and myself went up into the hills with Ustad. When we came to a tree, Ustad stopped at it for half an hour, deep in contemplation. Then he called us to him and said:
Keçeli! Keçeli! No one will know my grave. You won't know it either. I want to die in your home region [Urfa]. I want to die near the Friend of the Most Merciful [Abraham]." [^109]
[^109]:Salih Özcan, in Son Şahitler, iii, 131-2.
In 1950 Bediuzzaman had sent some of personal belongings to Urfa with one of his students saying that he himself would be going there. These included Mawlana Khalid Baghdadi's gown, given to him in Kastamonu. The student later handed them over to Abdullah Yeğin, [^110] Bediuzzaman's close student since his schooldays, who stayed some eight years in Urfa. He opened a dershane there which became an important centre of Risale-i Nur activities. Bediuzzaman was unable to visit it until the time of his death.
[^110]:Vahdi Gayberi, in Son Şahitler, iv, 12-13.
He also wrote three additional wills directing his closest students to continue his practice of paying an allowance to those Risale-i Nur Students who had dedicated themselves to its service and who could not otherwise provide for themselves. These were probably written in 1959. It had been the Old Said's practice to provide for his students. He describes how through "the abundance resulting from frugality and contentment", he had been able to provide for the needs of twenty, thirty, and sometimes sixty students without breaking his principle of self-sufficiency. Now, the Risale-i Nur had begun to produce sufficient profit to do likewise. One fifth of the money obtained from selling copies of it was sufficient to pay an allowance to fifty to sixty students.
Bediuzzaman wrote that he was making plain these wishes of his in a will because, "Personally I no longer have the strength to carry out the