he had two identities: the Old Said and the New Said, and that these were distinct. At the end of the first of nine collections of the Risale-i Nur, which contains around twenty treatises, he writes in a letter to the Nur students in Isparta that it is an error to condescend to dabble in politics.

2. In a supplication in the work called The Decisive Proof (Hüccetü'l-Bâliğa), one of Said Nursi's most important books, he writes: "This world is transitory; the most pressing matter is to gain the everlasting world. A person loses the case or lawsuit if his belief is not firm. This is the true case; it is harmful to become involved in cases other than this. Anyone who becomes preoccupied with politics neglects more important duties. Moreover, people who get carried away by political struggles lose their purity of heart.

3. In the Twenty-Sixth Flash he writes: "My true duty in this aging world is spreading the mysteries of the Qur'an..." [^3] "What I am concerned with in this country is Islamic zeal, for I have neither home nor children." [^4]

[^3]:The Flashes Collection. New edn. (Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 2011), 309.

[^4]:Flashes, 318-19.

4. In the Twenty-First Flash, the first principle I told my brothers when offering them advice was this: "In your actions divine pleasure should be your aim, not material benefits." [^5] While in these writings, it is said: "I'm not a Sufi … our way is not the Sufi way." [^6] "Desire for rank and position and attracting attention towards oneself is a psychological illness; it is known as 'hidden shirk (association of partners with God)'." [^7] "If our way had been that of a shaykh, there would have been only one rank and many people would have been after it But our's is the way of brotherhood and brothers can neither be fathers to each other nor assume the position of spiritual guide." [^8]

[^5]:Flashes, 214

[^6]:Flashes, 217-18.

[^7]:Flashes, 220

[^8]:Flashes, 221

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