Hüsnü and Yılmaz, and to the İnebolu heroes, Ali Osman and his two Nurju sons, and I offer prayers for their success. ∗∗∗

► (210) ◄

My Dear, Loyal Brother, Re'fet Bey!

Firstly: I received an acute warning in my spirit that I should explain a matter in connection with a number of minor incidents that have slightly affected us. It is like this:

Of course, you select Risale-i Nur students know that the Risale-i Nur can be made the tool of nothing, nor be made the means of anything other than God's pleasure, and that before everything it teaches the truths of belief and saves the belief of the weak and unfortunate, and those who have fallen to doubt.

Secondly: The Risale-i Nur's most powerful force in the face of so many opponents is sincerity, and just as it can be made the tool of nothing in the world, so it cannot be concerned with any currents based on feelings of partisanship, particularly currents connected to politics. For partisanship destroys sincerity and distorts the truth. In fact, the reason I have given up politics these last thirty years is this: because of his feelings of bias towards the political current he supported, a revered scholar of religion insulted another prominent, sound scholar to the extent of calling him a depraved sinner because he held opposing views, while at the same time he praised and applauded a famous and aggressive dissembler who agreed with his ideas. It caused me to shudder to the very depths of my being. Thinking, when involvement in politics is combined with feelings of bias, it gives rise to quite extraordinary mistakes, I declared: "I seek refuge with God from Satan and from politics," and from that time I gave up politics.

In consequence of that state of mind, brothers like yourself know that for the last twenty-five years I have neither read a newspaper, nor listened to one being read, nor have I been curious. And for the past ten years, I have evinced no interest or curiosity in the World War, nor have I known about it. You know too that, apart from my court defences, in the twenty- two years of this distressing captivity, so as to avoid having any contact with politics and partisanship and to prevent marring the sincerity of the Risale-i Nur, I have never applied to the government for my own wellbeing. You also know that, as I wrote and told you while in prison, if those who condemn me to death and torment and maltreat me save their belief through the Risale-i Nur, bear witness that I forgive them. And so that no