services for the Risale-i Nur when he returned there eighteen months later. He formed a very close bond with Bediuzzaman identifying completely with `The Words', and "his zeal and seriousness was the most important cause for the last of The Words (Sözler) and most of the Letters (Mektubat) being written." More than this, Bediuzzaman considered him to be successor to his nephew, Abdurrahman.
Yes, together with all the other hardships he suffered at this time, Bediuzzaman was struck too by this heavy blow: the death of his spiritual son, companion, and helper, Abdurrahman. Let us hear it from Bediuzzaman's own pen:
"One time I was being held in the district of Barla in the province of Isparta in a distressing captivity under the name of exile, in a truly wretched state suffering both illness, and old age, and absence from home, and in a village alone and with no one, barred from all social intercourse and communication. Then, in His perfect, mercy, Almighty God bestowed a light on me concerning the subtle points and mysteries of the All-Wise Qur'an which was a means of consolation for me. With it, I tried to forget my pitiful, grievous, sad state. I was able to forget my native land, my friends and relations, but, alas, there was one person I could not forget, and that was Abdurrahman, who was both my nephew, and my spiritual son, and my most self sacrificing student, and my bravest friend. He had parted from me six or seven years previously.... Then, out of the blue someone gave me a letter. I opened it, and saw that it was from Abdurrahman, written in a way showing his true self....It made me weep, and it still makes me weep. The late Abdurrahman wrote in the letter seriously and sincerely that he was disgusted with the pleasures of this world and that his greatest desire was to reach me and look to my needs in my old age just as I had looked to his when he was young. He also wanted to help me with his capable pen in spreading the mysteries of the Qur'an, my true duty in this world.