truths in the fast-changing conditions of the times. He had withdrawn from public life of every sort and given himself over to an intense inner life of worship, thought, and contemplation. Thus, what was to be known as the Tenth Word, the Treatise on Resurrection and the Hereafter, was the first fruit of those five or six years of inner search, the answer to his prayers and supplications.
On revisiting Barla in 1954 with some of his students, Bediuzzaman described to them how it was written. They had gone to the fields and orchards on the slopes to the east of Barla down towards Lake Egridir when Bediuzzaman rose to his feet and pointing to the orchards, told them:
"My brothers! It was about thirty years ago and just the same season. I was walking through these orchards and the almond trees were in blossom. Suddenly the verse, `So think on the signs of God's Mercy, how He gives life to the earth after its death; indeed, He it is Who will give life to the dead and He is powerful over all things’ came to mind. It became clear to me that day. I was both walking and repeating that verse over and over again at the top of my voice. I recited it forty times. Then in the evening I returned and together with Samli Hafiz Tevfik wrote the Tenth Word. That is, I dictated and Hafiz Tevfik wrote it down.”
Unlike most subsequent parts of the Risale-i Nur when they were first written, Bediuzzaman was able to have the Tenth Word printed. Immediately it was written, a local merchant, Bekir Dikmen, took the manuscript to Istanbul and gave it to one of Bediuzzaman's old students from the East, Müküslü Hamza Efendi, who had a thousand copies printed. When the sixty-threepage books were ready, Bekir Dikmen brought them back to Egridir, from where they were taken by boat to Barla, and there handed over to Bediuzzaman. Bediuzzaman then corrected each copy and had them distributed.'
A number of these copies Bediuzzaman had sent to Ankara and distributed among the Deputies in the National Assembly and top