service."
It was in order to develop a `collective personality', a characteristic of the modem age, that the Students of the Risale-i Nur had to renounce all the demands of the ego; to "transform the `I' into `We', that is, give up egotism, and work on account of the collective personality of the sphere of the Risale-i Nur..."
"This time is not the time for egotism and the personality for those who follow the path of reality (ehl-i hakikat); it is the time of the community (cemaat). A collective personality emerging from the community rules, and may persist. In order to have a large pool, the ego and personality, which are like blocks of ice, have to be cast into the pool and melted..."
While in the past, `the age of individuality', individuals of great stature like Abdülkadir Geylani, Imam-i Gazali, and Imam-ı Rabbani had been sent to guide the Muslim community in accordance with Divine wisdom, the unprecedented difficulties and conditions of the present time demanded a collective personality to undertake such duties.

• More Glimpses of Bediuzzaman’s Life in Kastamonu

Despite the harassment Bediuzzaman received at the hands of certain officials and his being under constant surveillance, he was held in great respect by the majority of the inhabitants of the town, and a number used to visit him as far as they were permitted. We learn from one of his students, Tahsin Aydin, that among these was the Head of the Town Council. He also tells of an occasion when Bediuzzaman refused the offer of money for his students, even though sent by one of the heroes of the War of Independence. Bediuzzaman never broke this fundamental rule of his life, that of never accepting money under any circumstance, even though his situation was so difficult at one point in Kastamonu that he was