children to study in the new schools, so that the children do this. It also shows that the Risale-i Nur is taking root. God willing, nothing will be able to uproot it and it will continue in the coming generations."
In the same letter he writes that they had gathered together the forty or fifty pieces written by the illiterate elderly, who had learnt to write after the age of fifty. So too "harvesters, farmers, shepherds. and nomads" were all putting aside their own pursuits and working for the Risale-i Nur. He goes on to mention that the difficulties in correcting all these copies were compensated for by the fact that he was compelled to read them slowly and carefully, and by the pleasure he received from hearing the Risale-i Nur's lessons from "their sincere and innocent tongues."
In other letters, which encourage these Students of the Risale-i Nur so tactfully and kindly, Bediuzzaman mentions that they had made up five and seven volumes of these pieces, one of which included pieces written out by children which illustrated examples of the coinciding of letters (tevafukat). Women too, he said, had a close affinity with the Risale-i Nur and he had long expected them to respond warmly to it. He wrote:
"In fact, since the most important foundation in the way of the Risale-i Nur is compassion, and women are mines of compassion, I had long expected the true nature of the Risale-i Nur to be understood in the world of women. Thanks be to God, the women here are more active and work with greater enthusiasm than the men hereabouts... These two manifestations are a favourable sign at this time that [in the future] the Risale-i Nur will shine and make many conquests in those mines of compassion.”
Although it was while in the Darü’I-Hikmeti’l-Islamiye that Bediuzzaman had written the treatise on the wisdom in Islamic dress for women, which he renamed the twenty-fourth Flash while still in Barla, it was only during these years that he consented to receive women from time to time for the purpose of teaching them from the