of believers.
"Certainly, for such universal breaches and awesome wounds, proofs and equipment of the utmost certitude and the strength of mountains, and wellproven medicines and numberless drugs of the effectiveness of a thousand remedies are necessary. Emerging at this time from the miraculousness of the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition, the Risale-i Nur performs this function, and is also the means of advancing and progressing through the infinite degrees of belief.”
Thus, in the course of time the belief of the mass of believers in the fundamentals of Islam had lost its vitality, primarily as a result of the doubts and scepticism planted in the common mind by Western philosophy. This process had received a powerful impetus with the deliberate policy of Westernization favoured since the establishment of the Republic. It was the Risale-i Nur with its concentration on developing belief from being merely imitative into "certain" belief, and into the degrees beyond this, that had the ability to reverse the decline and help rebuild the structure of Islam. While in Kastamonu Bediuzzaman wrote the Supreme Sign, to which he attached great importance as one of the parts of the Risale-i Nur most effective at developing "certain belief'. We can look at it briefly in order to learn both what Bediuzzaman meant by belief of this kind, and the new method he put forward in the Risale-i Nur by which it could be attained.

• The Supreme Sign

The Supreme Sign is a key to understanding Bediuzzaman's own view of existence and his way of worshipping, for he said of it that he wrote it for himself according to his own understanding. The treatise comprises "the observations of a traveller questioning the universe about his Maker", and describes a journey in the mind through the universe made by a traveller most curious to learn about and become acquainted with "the Owner of this fine guest-house, the Author of this vast book, the Monarch of this mighty realm." He questions first the heavens with their suns and stars and heavenly