regret that my crime was to make my serving the Qur'an the means to my progress, material and spiritual, and to my attainment of perfection.

I understand this now and feel it, and I offer Almighty God a thousand thanks that for long years outside my will powerful immaterial obstacles prevented me from making my serving belief a means to my spiritual and material progress, and to my being saved from Hell and torment, and even to my eternal happiness; they prevented my making it a tool of anything at all. These deep-seated feelings and inspirations left me in amazement. I was being prevented both in my spirit and heart from trying to attain spiritual rank and the happiness of the hereafter, which everyone wants, and from taking such a way, although it is a lawful right and causes no harm to anyone. I was shown that, driven by the innate desire for knowledge, I should only serve belief for God's pleasure alone. For at this time, a way of teaching the Qur'an is necessary which, having no other purpose at all, can be the tool of nothing and will effectively impart the truths of belief together with the worship which is innate to man, to those who do not know them and need to learn them. These have to be taught in a way that will save belief in this confused world and afford certainty to the obdurate; that is, in such a way that they are exploited for nothing. Only in this way can absolute disbelief and obstinate misguidance be smashed, and everyone gain complete certainty, At this time, in these conditions, this certainty may be gained through knowing that religion is being made the tool of nothing, be it personal, worldly, for the hereafter, material or immaterial. For an individual person who confronts the awesome collective personality of irreligion, proceeding from certain covert organizations and political societies, cannot dispel the doubts it gives rise to, even if he is at the highest spiritual rank. For the ego and soul of an obdurate person who wants to believe may say: "With his brilliance and extraordinary spiritual rank, that person has deceived us," and he will therefore continue to doubt.

Endless thanks be to Almighty God that for twenty-eight years, being accused of exploiting religion for politics, divine determining dealt me blows purely justly, through man's oppressive hand, so that involuntarily I exploited religion for nothing personal. It was warning me, "Beware! Do not exploit the truths of belief for your own person so that those needy for belief may understand that it is only the truth that speaks. Let all whisperings of the soul and diabolical suggestions cease, let them be silent!"

This, then, is the reason for the fervour the Risale-i Nur has given rise to in people's minds, like the towering waves of mountainous seas, and for the effect it has on their spirits and hearts; it is nothing else. Thousands of scholars have published hundreds of thousands of books about the same