send Tahiri Mutlu to Istanbul, to have printed in the new letters, the Staff of Moses, and in the old, Zülfikar.2o However, their enemies got wind of this important step and prompted various authorities to move against them and seize copies of the Risale-i Nur. For this reason, these two collections were not printed at that time. In a further letter, Bediuzzaman explained "an important reason" for their decision to print part of the Risale-i Nur in the new letters, although, contrary to their intention, to do so "as though put the Risale-i Nur in an offensive position."
Bediuzzaman wrote that the time had come or would shortly come to print the Risale-i Nur, that is, publish it on a large scale, "in order to repulse two fearsome calamities which were threatening the eountry, of which it was "a sort of saviour".
One of these calamities was communism, against the racing tide of which the Risale-i Nur "could perfomi the function of a Qur'anic barrier", while the second was "the severe objections" levelled at the Turkish people by the Islamic world, from which since the founding of the Republic, it had drawn away; The Risale-i Nur was "a miracle of the Qur'an" that could be the means of restoring former love and brotherhood.2i
Bediuzzaman considered the threat to the 'Itirkish nation of these "calamities" to be so real that not only did he consider that rather than trying to suppress the Risale-i Nur, "patriotic politicians" should have it published of ficially in order to counter the threat, but also, unlike the previous twenty yeas of his exile and captivity, he wrote letters and petitions to high government offcials describing their nature and severity, and possible dire consequences, and urging them to counter them by returning to Islam and publishing the Risale-i Nur.
In essence this was a continuation of the same struggle he had been pursuing since his youth, for Islam and the Qur'an to be accepted by the country's rulers as the source of true progress and civilization, rather than the West and its philosophy. On coming to power after the War of Independence, Ataturk had adopted the path of Westemization, which had already been followed to some degree for over a century. Only, his