patience and thanks fully benefits from his time in prison, and studying the Risale-i Nur works to serve the Qur’an and his belief on the straight path.

O man who is addicted to enjoyment and pleasure! I am seventy-five years old, and I know with utter certainty from thousands of experiences, proofs, and events that true enjoyment, pain-free pleasure, grief-free joy, and life’s happiness are only to be found in belief and in the sphere of the truths of faith. While a single worldly pleasure yields numerous pains; as though dealing ten slaps for a single grape, it drives away all life’s pleasure.

O you unfortunates who are experiencing the misfortune of prison! Since your world is weeping and your life is bitter, strive so that your hereafter will not also weep, and your eternal life will smile and be sweet! Benefit from prison! Just as sometimes under severe conditions in the face of the enemy, an hour’s watch may be equivalent to a year’s worship, so in the severe conditions you are experiencing, the hardship of each hour spent as worship becomes the equivalent of many hours, it transforms that hardship into mercy.

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My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

I offer you not my condolences but my congratulations. Since for some instance of wisdom Divine Determining has sent us to this third School of Joseph (Medrese-i Yusufiye),63 and has specified that we should eat some of the sustenance allotted us here and it is that sustenance that has summoned here; and since as we have understood certainly from our past experiences, Divine favour has manifested on us the meaning of the verse, It is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you;64 and since our new brothers here in this School of Joseph are in more need of the solace of the Risale-i Nur than anyone, and the members of the judiciary are more in need of the rules and other sacred laws set out in the Risale-i Nur than other officials; and since the very numerous copies