now written. Because I am his Master (Üstad), he has beheld in my ordinary person, the truly weighty, sacred duty of the Risale-i Nur's collective personality and a manifestation of the truly elevated functions of the legacy of prophethood, and so wants to look on me as bearing the manifestation of that spiritual legacy.
Firstly: Eternal truths may not be built on transitory persons. To do so is a transgression against the truth. A duty that is in every way perfect and perpetual should not be tied to persons who suffer decline and may be defeated; to do so causes the duty considerable harm.
Secondly: The Risale-i Nur appeared from the Qur'an only through its interpreter's thought and the tongue of his spiritual needs; the emanations through which it appeared do not look to his capabilities; indeed, the Nur treatises' appeared in a way far exceeding their interpreter's ability on account of the sincere, steadfast, and loyal people he was addressing, his companions in study, and their desiring with their spirits those emanations and their accepting, affirming, and applying them. It is they who constitute the reality of the collective personality of the Risale-i Nur and its students. Its interpreter has a share in it too. If not spoiled by insincerity, this may confer on him the honour of seniority.
Thirdly: The present is the time of the community or social collectivity. No matter how wondrous an individual's intelligence, it may be defeated in the face of the collective intelligence of the community. For this reason, as that blessed brother of ours wrote, a task or duty in the way of belief which proceeds from the lights of a sacred genius, and will in some respect illuminate the world of Islam, should not be laid on a wretched, weak, defeated person who has innumerable obdurate enemies striving to discredit him with insults and treachery. If it is laid on him and his faulty person is shaken by those treacherous blows, the burden will fall and break up.
Fourthly: Since early times, the excessively good opinions of people towards their masters or guides or teachers or chiefs was deemed acceptable to a degree and not criticized as unjustifiable since it enhanced their benefiting from their teaching and guidance. And now, the Risale-i Nur students seeing in my wretched faulty person the elevated rank and virtue befitting a master worthy of them may be acceptable since it causes them to exert themselves with zeal and enthusiasm, although their good opinion of me is far higher than I deserve. However, it should be understood that I hold it only as the property of the Risale-i Nur's collective personality. But since chiefly the atheists and people of misguidance, the politicians, the heedless, and even ingenuous men of religion attach great importance to