of his students so that they should not be obliged to earn money by selling their knowledge and learning. Just as they succeeded in doing this at that time through practising frugality and contentment, so too, all thanks be to the Most Merciful of the Merciful, the Risale-i Nur has begun to produce through its publication the subsistence of its true students. One fifth of the profits of its copies that are sold is the right of the Risale-i Nur itself. This is just sufficient for its select students, especially those who are unable to meet their own needs. It now yields sufficient capital for fifty to sixty students. I — this wretched Said — have no right to be counted as one of them. It was only the Risale-i Nur's own value and the complete loyalty of the students' collective personality that gave rise to this festival of the Risale-i Nur.
I am now appointing as my absolute deputies four or five of the students who are with me and nearest to me and serve my person and know to an extent my practices and have seen how I act, but this is not to say that they are superior to the other students. If I die, or am alive but unconscious, they know my way of doing things and should carry out the Risale-i Nur's work to the letter. For now, I am appointing Tahirî, Sungur, Ceylân, Hüsnü, and one or two others as my absolute deputies. The capital accruing from the sale of copies of the Risale-i Nur belongs to the Risale-i Nur. Said is also a servant of it, and may receive his subsistence from it, Recently, death has seemed very near to me. The last two or three years, I intended firmly to provide the subsistence of fifty to sixty students in six provinces out of the Risale-i Nur's capital, but I gave this up thinking that perhaps certain obstacles would cause some of them to give up performing the services incumbent on the students. Now, however, I have written my will. [^75]
[^75]:With the phrase, "ta'īshu sa'īdan" (prosperous livelihood) in a section of the predictions the Gawth al-A'zam, Shaykh Geylani (May God be pleased with him) alluded to the Risale-i Nur and its author, he foretold that our Master would live comfort- ably and happily as regards his livelihood. We neverthless observed that his poverty and independence were apparently contrary to this. This prediction of the Gawth is now to be seen in our Master's life in fact, for as a child of ten he would not eat his uncle's soup to avoid becoming obliged to him, and then he himself would provide the livelihoods of the students he taught, and now, in just the same way, he is again providing for fifty to sixty of his students. All this shows that the prediction has been realized fully. Tahirî, Sungur, Ceylân
S a i d N u r s i ∗∗∗
