through religion. [^62] Even if only the modern sciences are taught in other provinces, in the east, for the good of the country and nation, the religious sciences should be made the basis. Otherwise, the Muslims who are not Turks will not feel themselves to be true brothers to the Turks. We have to co-operate in solidarity now in the face of so many enemies."

[^62]:Previously to this I had a student who was not Turkish. In my old medrese, thanks to the lessons in patriotism he had received from the religious sciences, that very patriotic and intelligent student used to say: "A righteous Turk is more of a relative and brother to me than my own sinful father and brother!" As fate would have it, that same student studied only the materialist modern sciences. Then when I met him four years later, there was conversation about patriotic zeal. He said: "I now prefer a heretic Kurd to a righteous Turkish hoja!" "Alas I said, "You have been corrupted!" I worked at him for a week and saved him and restored him to his former patriotic self. So I told the deputies who were opposing me in the Parliament: "You can see how much the Turkish nation is in need of the former attitudes of that student, and how opposed to the country's benefits, is his second state. That is to say, even if politics do not demand attaching importance to religion in other provinces and give precedence to this world over religion, it is essential that in the eastern provinces religious instruction is given paramount importance. The deputies who were opposing to me then complied and one hundred and sixty-three deputies signed the bill. Surely twenty-seven years of absolute despotism has not nullified a bill that carried so many signatures. [Author]

Now, due to my extreme incapability arising from illness from poison and old age, I am deprived both of following this, my life's aim of fifty- five years, and seeing it, and of going to Ankara to congratulate in heartfelt manner those who are working at the project, which is the key to the east's progress.

Certainly, my works entitled Münâzarat and al-Ṣaykal al-Islāmiyya, which were printed thirty-five years ago by the Ebüzziya Press, have not escaped the notice of the Education Minister. They should speak in my place. I have just about given up hope for life. But I appoint as deputies, the one hundred and fifty treatises of the Risale-i Nur, which may form the foundations, principles, and sort of curricula for the university's consequential education. I present this to this country and nation's self-sacrificing young university students and Education Ministry, and beseech from divine mercy that Tevfik İleri, who has been granted success in this question, will take on himself the Risale-i Nur in place of this wretched Said.

The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!

S a i d   N u r s i,

who is very ill, very old,

and alone in isolation ∗∗∗