into alms-giving. It is also pure mercy in many other respects, like attracting attention from all quarters to the treatises the brothers have written out; and not allowing worldly possessions and children and comfort, which are temporary, fleeting and which one day they will be bound to leave behind when they enter the grave, to damage their lives in the hereafter; and making them accustomed to patient endurance; and their being heroic models for the believers of the future, and even their leaders. But there is one aspect that caused me some thought, which is that if a finger is wounded, the eye, mind, and heart neglect their important duties and become preoccupied with it. Similarly, our lives, which reach this pitch of distress, busy our hearts and spirits with their wounds. Then just when I should be forgetting the world, the situation took me to the Masons’ council, and busied me with dealing them blows. I was consoled by the possibility that Almighty God might accept this state of heedlessness as a sort of intellectual striving.

I received the greetings of Ali Gül, the brother of Hafiz Mehmed, the Risale-i Nur’s esteemed teacher. I send greetings and prayers both to him, and to all his fellow villagers, and to all the people of Sava,15 both living and dead.

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

Your constancy and steadfastness foil all the plans of the Masons and dissemblers. Yes, my brothers, there is no need to hide it, those atheists draw comparisons between the Risale-i Nur and its students, and the sufi orders and particularly the Naqshbandi Order, and with the idea of refuting us and scattering us, attack us with the schemes with which they defeated the sufis.

Firstly: To intimidate and scare, and show up the abuses of the