exceeding my due and owing to their inordinately good opinions of me, many Nurjus imagine in me, and I have offended them. But because for twenty-eight years the politicians have considered the Risale-i Nur's way, which pertains only to belief and the hereafter, to be incompatible with their ideas of civilizing the population, and because they have attempted to prevent the Risale-i Nur's spread for twenty-eight years by intimidating the Nurjus with imprisonment, court cases, surveillance, and baseless accusations, and maligning my person, I have fallen into unprecedented circumstances. Semi-literate and the object of false allegations, I reject the acclaim of my person and so as not to lose the Nur students completely, tell them that it may be due to the Risale-i Nur. It is a commentary on one true aspect of the All-Wise Qur'an. And just as renewers have appeared every century who have served religion and belief to the full, so at this strange time of aggressive secret societies and the collective personalities of misguidance, a renewer is needed in the form of a collective personality. The present does not resemble former times. However wondrous an individual person is, he may be defeated in the face of a collective personality. Since there is a strong possibility that the Risale-i Nur is a sort of renewer in this respect, those attributes could not be mine; rather, as I have written repeatedly, my life may be a sort of seed of the Risale-i Nur. Through the Qur'an's emanations and divine grace, out of that seed the Risale-i Nur became a fruit-bearing, valuable tree through divine creation. I was a seed; I rotted and departed. All the value belongs to the Risale-i Nur, which is the All-Wise Qur'an's meaning and is a genuine commentary on it.

The Third Doubt of that person who neglected to make himself known:

As published by Büyük Cihad [^48] and Sebilürreşad, [^49] I stated that I have not exploited the services we have performed for religion and belief and the Risale-i Nur for world politics, or even for elevated spiritual ranks and attainments, or making it a means of winning eternal happiness and being saved from Hell, which everyone deems licit. I was compelled at this time to make it a tool of nothing save the seeking of divine pleasure and complying with the divine command, so that we might preserve the essence of true sincerity, which is the Risale-i Nur's true strength. As Abu Bakr, the supremely veracious one (May God be pleased with him), said: "I beseech

[^48]:Büyük Cihad was an Islamist paper published in Samsun, 1951-1953. [Tr.]

[^49]:Sebilürreşad: the journal founded by Eşref Edip (1882-1971) following the Constitutional Revolution of July 1908, initially under the name of Sırat-ı Müstakîm. Sebilürreşad resumed publication in 1948 after 23 years of closure, Eşref Edip published several articles about Bediuzzaman. He also published several books about him in the 1950s and 1960s. [Tr.]