My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
The Risale-i Nur meets with you in my place and gives excellent instruction to the new brothers who are eager for it. We have seen from experience that to be occupied with the Risale-i Nur by either studying it, or reading it out loud, or writing it out, affords an expansiveness to the heart, an ease to the spirit, health to the body, and makes sustenance plentiful. Now a hero of the Risale-i Nur like Husrev has been bestowed on you. God willing, this School of Joseph will be another blessed place of study, part of the Medresetü’z-Zehra.1 Up to now, I had not shown Husrev2 to ‘the worldly,’ and I was hiding him. But the published collections have shown him up completely to the politicians, and nothing secret has remained. I have therefore described two or three of his tasks to my ‘special’ (has) brothers. But now before us among those who will listen to the truth are two awesomely obdurate people. One of them emerged in Emirdağ, on account of both atheism and communism, and the other here. They are trying with extreme cunning to alarm the officials and turn them against us with slander. At present we have therefore to act with the greatest caution and not be scared, and to bide our time relying on God till His grace comes to our assistance.
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In His Name, be He glorified!
And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.
My friends in prison and brothers in religion!
It occurred to me to explain a truth to you which will save you from both worldly torment and the torment of the hereafter. It is as follows:
For example, a person killed someone’s brother or one of his relatives. A murder which yields one minute’s pleasure of revenge causes millions
Medresetü’z-Zehrâ: the Islamic university Bediuzzaman had since his early youth endeavoured to found in eastern Anatolia, in which the modern and religious sciences would be taught side by side, and which he intended would play the central and unifying role in Asia that al-Azhar plays in Africa. Despite twice receiving funds for it and actually laying the foundations, it was never completed due to the vicissitudes of the times. Although it was not realized in the form he had originally foreseen, while in Kastamonu (1936-’43), he wrote: “Endless thanks be to Almighty God for He has made the province of Isparta into a Medresetü’z-Zehrâ, which has long been the goal of my dreams, —into an al-Azhar University.” See, Kastamonu Lahikase (1960), 172. [Tr.]
Husrev Altinbasak (1899-1977) was from Isparta and became one of Bediuzzaman’s leading students. With his fine handwriting he wrote out hundreds of copies of the treatises of the Risale-i Nur. He is reputed to written nine copies of the Qur’an showing the ‘coincidences’ of the name of ‘Allah’. He was together with Bediuzzaman in the prisons of Eskishehir, Denizli, and Afyon. [Tr.]