duties connected with the Risale-i Nur. And perhaps no need remains for me to do so. It is as though, due to being poisoned many times and because of extreme old age and illness, I do not have the endurance to continue living. Even if death, which I so long for, does not come to me, it is as though I have died outwardly." "Since I am no longer needed at all in regard to the Risale-i Nur, to go to the Intermediate Realm [beyond the grave] is a source of joy for me. As for you, do not be sad. Congratulate me, rather, for I am going from hardship and difficulties to mercy." [^111]

[^111]:Nursi, Emirdağ Lahikası, ii, 187-8, 204-5, 206.

#### Bediuzzaman's Trips to Ankara, Istanbul, and Konya

Bediuzzaman's Trips to Ankara, Istanbul, and Konya

In December 1959 and January 1960, Bediuzzaman embarked on a series of trips to Ankara, Konya, and Istanbul, which in the light of the above descriptions of his health and state of mind show more than anything his extraordinary perseverance and self-sacrifice in continuing to uphold the cause of the Risale-i Nur in the midst of all the difficulties it was facing. To visit his students and the Risale-i Nur study centres (dershane), which was his immediate reason for the trips, when not only meeting with people and being held in esteem was such torment for him, but also his health was so poor, was truly a feat of endurance which only someone of the will and determination of Bediuzzaman could have achieved.

Bediuzzaman was now receiving repeated and insistent invitations from his students all over Turkey for him to visit them, and his trips were in response to these. At the same time they had the character of farewell visits. Ankara and Istanbul were the main centres of publication, and Konya was both an important centre of activity and where his brother, Abdülmecid, now lived, whom he had seen only once in forty years. He visited Istanbul once during this two months, Konya, three times, and Ankara, four times. His trips to Ankara had a further important purpose; he wanted to warn Menderes and the Democrats of the dangers looming before them and to suggest ways of averting them.

The clouds of disaster and revolution were gathering in Turkey. A coup attempt had already been uncovered and forestalled in 1958. [^112] Unable to abide the liberalism, religious freedoms, and resurgence of Islam which were the fruits of Democrat rule, supporters of the former regime, now represented by İnönü and the RPP, were preparing to regain power by force. They could not do so by the vote or legal means. Mentioned above was

[^112]:Türkiye Tarihi, iv, 184-5.