My Brothers!

You should repeatedly and carefully read the pieces in the treatise containing the short letters, which are a means of consolation and enjoin forbearance and patient endurance. I am the weakest of you and I have the greatest share of this distressing calamity. Thanks be to God, I am enduring it and I have not been vexed by those who have piled all the blame on me, nor annoyed at those who because it is the same matter have defended themselves alone, and implying we have formed a political association, put the blame on me. I request that since we are brothers, you imitate me in this patience.

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In His Name, be He glorified!

My Dear, Loyal Brothers and Friends in this Hostel of the World!

I thought tonight of our being led handcuffed together to the court by soldiers with bayonets fixed. The Old Said’s proud vein of temperament made me feel exceedingly angry. But it was suddenly imparted to me that we should respond to this situation not with anger, but with pride, thanks, and joy, for in the eyes of the intelligent, and of incalculable numbers of angels and spirit beings and the people of reality and those among men with consciences and certain, verified belief, we appear as a caravan of heroes on the way of truth, reality, the Qur’an, and belief, challenging this century. In the face of their elevated regard, applause, and appreciation, which is indicative of dominical acceptance and Divine mercy, the insulting looks of a limited number of dissolute layabouts, can be of no importance. One day, even, when I went by car because of illness, I felt a constrictedness. But then when I went together with you with my hands bound, I felt an expansiveness and joy of the spirit. That is to say, my state of mind arose from this meaning.

I have said it many times and I shall repeat it: none have been seen in history who have performed as great service on the way of truth and have earned so much reward while suffering so little difficulty, as the Risale-i Nur students. However much hardship we suffer, it is still not costly.

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