► (141) ◄ We are explaining an important fact to both officials, and our friends

We are explaining an important fact to both officials, and our friends:

Since his youth and even his childhood, our Master has exhibited independence from people and self-reliance so as to preserve the dignity of learning. He has never accepted zakat or charity, nor has he accepted gifts, as is explained in the Second Letter. In His mercy, Almighty God has transformed this principle of his into an illness so that he may continue to practise it in his old age and weakness. That is to say, an unreciprocated mouthful, even, immediately makes him ill. He cannot eat it. In his youth, our Master was not so needy. When he lived alone, he had very few expenses. But now he provides the subsistence of many of his students and he suffers from various illnesses, so Almighty God makes him ill from unreciprocated presents to preserve that principle of his.

Similarly, being held in high esteem resembles a non-material gift for our Master, so he shrinks from the people's veneration and from having his hand kissed. As testified to in his biography and in the Twenty-Sixth Flash for the elderly, in his youth exceptionally to his peers, he went into seclusion in the township of Tillo near Siirt; when a medrese student, he withdrew to the tomb of Ahmad Khani in the province of Ağrı, while a prisoner-of-war in Russia, he retreated into solitude in a tiny, unfrequented mosque of the Tatars near the camp, although ninety or so of his fellow-prisoner officers used to attend his religious homilies willingly; while enjoying a glittering social life as a member of the Darü'l-Hikmeti'l-İslamiye, he chose to withdraw into solitude on Mount Yuşa, on returning to Van, he rejected an enjoyable life among his numerous students, old and new, and retired to a cave on Mount Erek; and finally these past thirty years, when sent to various prisons as a result of appalling injustices, he never complained when he was held in solitary confinement for twenty months or throughout his imprisonment, despite the legal limit for such confinement being a fortnight.

All the events show that the desire for solitude has always one of his dominant innate characteristics. But so that this should persist in his old age when he is in much need of assistance, help, and conversation, he has been given a sort of illness. If he speaks for five minutes even, he is overcome by intense thirst and can emit no sound. In fact, since he follows the Shafi'i School, he should recite the Fatiha in the prayers loudly enough for himself to hear, but because he cannot emit any sound, he has to perform them following the Hanafi School. He has two reports from two leading doctors concerning this illness. They may be shown if required.

We have formed the opinion that now, when the Risale-i Nur is making