distributed in the form of collections. Then, in 1956, on Afyon Court reaching a final decision and lifting all legal restrictions on the Risale-i Nur, in four places but primarily Istanbul and Ankara, a new generation of young Students set about printing and publishing the entire Risale-i Nur Collection on modem presses in the new letters. This further expanded the number of its readers and students, so that they now ran into many hundreds of thousands.
Together with these developments the Risale-i Nur movement itself became established as a cohesive movement during these years and some of the changes in Bediuzzaman's life can be seen to be directed towards training the new generation of Students who would lead it after he himself would be no longer there to do so. Of these, a number had visited Bediuzzaman and become involved with the work of the Risale-i Nur in the 1940's and as a consequence had served terms in Afyon Prison along with Bediuzzaman. Following this, which served as a crucible refining this new generation for their work in the cause of the Qur'an, such students as Zübeyir Gündüzalp, Mustafa Sungur and Ceylan Caliskan devoted themselves entirely to the Risale-i Nur, and, among others, it was for them that Bediuzzaman changed a number of his habitual practices. For example, after 1953. he had them living in the same house as himself, whereas previously he had lived alone allowing no one into his presence from the time of the evening prayers to the following morning.
Afyon served the cause of the Risale-i Nur in other ways, too, as had Eskisehir and Denizli before it, one of which was that it was a means of unifying the Risale-i Nur movement. For on the days of the court hearings, Risale-i Nur Students from all over Turkey flocked to Afyon to observe the proceedings and give moral support to their fellows being tried, and in this way they both got to know each other and establish firm relations, and also become better informed about Bediuzzaman and the Risale-i Nur and its method of service. Afyon thus formed an important step in consolidating the movement.
The main apparent change in Bediuzzaman. due to which this period of his life is known as that of the Third Said. was a closer involvement with social and political life. This aspect of The Third