of a fearsome, covert atheistic organization which has deceived some leaders of the Government, turning them against us, possibly attacking us directly on behalf of absolute disbelief, we were made to write the treatise of The Fruits of Belief, which is as clear as the sun and dispels all doubts and is as firm and unshakeable as a mountain, as the most powerful defence against them and to silence them.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Brothers!

Your place is very constricted, but the expansiveness of your hearts does not allow this to distress you; it is also relatively freer than my place. Know that our firmest strength and support is solidarity. Beware! Do not let irritability caused by these tribulations make you find fault with one another. Complaining and blaming each other and saying “If such-and-such had not happened it would not have been like this” is the equivalent of complaining about fate and Divine Determining; do not do this. I have realized that there was no way we could have been saved from their assaults, whatever we did they would have attacked us. For the short time till Divine grace comes to our assistance, we must respond with patience and thanks, and resignation towards the Divine Decree and submission to Divine Determining, and try to gain plentiful reward and merit with few acts.

I pray for the well-being of our brothers there.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

A significant solace in the face of the swift changes of this worldly life and its decline, and its fleeting, fruitless pleasures, and its blows of separation, is meeting with true friends. Yes, sometimes one travels for twenty days and spends a hundred liras to see a single friend for an hour or two. So now in these strange, friendless times, our seeing forty to fifty friends all together for one or two months and our speaking together for God’s sake and receiving and giving true consolation, make these difficulties and financial losses that have befallen us extremely cheap and unimportant. I myself would