the stratagems of the destructive atheists, are acts so tremendously good they would cause even — to suppose the impossible — a thousand evils to be forgiven. In which case, nothing those leading students, and foremost Husrev, does should be criticized, and everyone should co-operate with them as true brothers with genuine, heartfelt sincerity. The lesson had this meaning. God willing, Haji Sabri and Hoja Sabri and Rüştü and those like them will be as firmly attached to Husrev as brothers, and differences in temperament will no longer affect them.

Your ill brother,

S a i d   N u r s i ∗∗∗

► (042) ◄

My Dear, Loyal Brothers, and Leading Students of the Medresetü'z- Zehrâ, and Publishers of the Risale-i Nur!

Firstly: I considered the following matter to be appropriate: it occurred to me that as the leading members of the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ are the main people who have a say concerning the Risale-i Nur, I should refer it to them for their approval, It is like this:

Recently, because three of our friends who serve me wanted to receive instruction from me temporarily for a few days, and because I felt a desire to revive a valuable lesson I had taught my students formerly, I was teaching from one page of the printed Lemeât (Gleams) every day. Both I and they met it with astonishment and appreciation. I had the idea that the reason no copies of the treatise remained, as with the other old printed treatises, was that enemies who understood their value prevented their publication, while friends did not want to part with their copies owing to their worth. And we saw that Lemeât comprised in the form of fine aphorisms a number of essential seeds of the Risale-i Nur, and in brief maxims encapsulated an extensive social truth in a style so clear and plain that no literary figure or thinker had previously achieved it. It was written in semi-verse and read as easily as prose, and thirty-seven years ago had been composed in twenty days in Ramadan by working for only one or two hours a day. It was as long as a book and was written as a sort of Mathnawi. We marked in the copy we obtained the points where in twenty places, it had made predictions which thirty to forty years later turned out to be true. It gave us the idea that the work was foretelling the Risale-i Nur, and was a sort of index of it and seedbed.

Secondly: I am leaving to the discretion of the Nur hero, Husrev, and