zaman's main places of exile, Barla Lahikası, Kastamonu Lahikası, and Emirdağ Lahikası.

The way the Risale-i Nur was written and disseminated was unique, like the work itself. Bediuzzaman would dictate at speed to a scribe, who would write down the piece in question with equal speed; the actual writing was very quick. Bediuzzaman had no books for reference and the writing of religious works was of course forbidden. They were all written therefore in the mountains and out in the countryside. Handwritten copies were then made, these were secretly copied out in the houses of the Risale-i Nur students, as they were called, and passed from village to village, and then from town to town, till they spread throughout Turkey. Only in 1946 were Risale-i Nur students able to obtain duplicating machines, while it was not till 1956 that The Words and other collections were printed on modern presses in the new, Latin, script. The figure given for hand-written copies is 600,000.

It may be seen from the above figure how the Risale-i Nur movement spread within Turkey, despite all efforts to stop it. After 1950, the period of what Bediuzzaman called the Third Said, there was a great increase in the number of students, particularly among the young and those who had been through the secular education system of the republic. At the same time the number of students outside Turkey increased. It is no exaggeration to say that with its conveying the Qur'anic message in a way that addresses and answers modern man's needs, the Risale-i Nur played a major role in keeping alive the Islamic faith in Turkey in those dark days, and in the resurgence of Islam that has occurred subsequently.

The Flashes Collection

The Flashes Collection

To return to The Flashes Collection, a look at its contents shows that in accordance with the Qur'anic way described above, it proves and explains the main truths of belief. At the same time, it answers criticisms of these truths and of Qur'anic verses made by atheists. Examples of this are parts of the Twelfth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth Flashes, which were written in reply to questions put to Bediuzzaman by his students. Others of the Flashes, particularly the Twenty-Third, the celebrated Treatise on Nature, and in the Sixth Point of the Thirtieth, the discussion on Divine Self-Subsistence, refute in readily understable manner Naturalist and Materialist philosophy.

It is also in the face of attempts to substitute Islam with such philosophy and the enforced innovations that accompanied these attempts, that Bediuzzaman's stress on adherence to the Practices (Sunna) of the Prophet