the attention of the politicians" and had to migrate to Damascus. Descended from Hazret-i Osman, the third Caliph of Islam, he was brilliant and highly gifted and before reaching the age of twenty became the foremost scholar of his time. These points coincide with corresponding dates in Bediuzzaman's life in a way that cannot be attributed to chance. Bediuzzaman was born in 1293, in 1224 he went to Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, where he prepared for his struggle in the way of Islam. In 1238 he went to Ankara, saw that he could not work alongside the new leaders, and withdrew to Van, from where as a result of the baseless suspicions of the politicians, he was sent into exile. So too at the extraordinarily early age of fourteen Bediuzzaman received his diploma and started to teach. When it comes to the differences, the most important are that while Mevlana Halid's person was the `pole' and guide, Bediuzzaman "dismissed his own person, and showed only the Risale-i Nur", and while together with attaching great importance to and strengthening the Prophet's Sunna, Mevlana Halid's way was that of Sufism (ilm-i tarikat), Bediuzzaman, "due to the requirements of this fearsome age, favoured the science of reality (ilm-i hakikat) and the way of the truths of belief, and looked at Sufism as being third in importance."

• More on the Risale-i Nur's Function and Bediuzzaman’s Advice to his
Students Concerning This

While explaining the Risale-i Nur's functions and duties in his letters to his students, Bediuzzaman frequently stresses that these are concerned with belief and the strengthening and saving of it, and advises them, in the particular conditions of that time, to concentrate all their attention on matters related to these and not to become involved in any degree with political, social, and worldly matters.
This included the Second World War, which although Turkey did not take part in it, was the cause of great dissension in the country. Various reasons for this emerge from the letters like the preservation of absolute sincerity and the harm to service to religion of political bias, and although not expressed, this attitude was