deserve to await it from you. By Almighty God's grace and munificence, you participate in accordance with the law of the division of labour in an exceedingly sacred, important, valuable service which is of great benefit to the believers. The extraordinary importance, value, mastership, and guidance afforded by the collective personality born of our solidarity is sufficient for us.

Since at this time, serving religious belief is a sacred duty surpassing everything, quantity is relatively less important than quality, and temporary, unstable political matters are relatively unimportant compared with the eternal service of belief, and may not be the criteria for it. We must content ourselves with the effulgent stations bestowed on us in the sphere of the Risale-i Nur's instruction. What are needed are the greatest fidelity and resolve and immense attachment and sincerity, not according me unwarranted lofty ranks due to excessively good opinions. (End of quoted piece)

And truly, you have progressed in this. ∗∗∗

► (041) ◄

My Dear, Loyal, Staunch, Sincere Brothers !

Both in fact and in meaning, both my soul and those who are in touch with me ask a question of the greatest importance:

Why is it — as no one else has done — that contrarily to everyone else, you do not look to the significant forces that could assist you, and you disdain them? And why don't you accept the high ranks that the select Risale-i Nur students agree upon, which would greatly assist in the spread of the Risale-i Nur and its triumphing, which everyone longs for and seeks? Why do you shrink from them so violently?

The Answer: At this time, the people of belief are in need of a truth that will teach the truths of belief in such a way that those truths are made the tool of, or subsiduary to or the steps to nothing; and no motives or purposes can sully them; and no doubt or philosophy can defeat them. In this way the belief of all the believers may be preserved against the attacks of the misguided currents that have been accumulating over the past thousand years.

It is due to this fact that the Risale-i Nur attaches no importance to helpers from home and abroad and their considerable forces, and it does not seek them out or follow them, lest in the view of the mass of believers it is being utilized as a step to achieving the aims of worldly life. Then, as the