[An answer that occurred to me in connection with a question asked both verbally and tacitly.]
My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
It Is Asked: Why don't you accept for yourself the powerful good opinions of the Nur students and their certain convictions concerning your self, or a rank or position that would further encourage them to serve the Risale‑i Nur? Why do you ascribe all these to the Risale-i Nur and show yourself to be a faulty servant?
The Answer: Endless thanks and praise be to Almighty God that the Risale‑i Nur contains supports so powerful and unassailable and proofs so brilliant and incisive that no need remains for the qualities or abilities imagined in my person. It does not look to its author's abilities and receive its power and acceptability from them, as with other works. It is clear for all to see; for twenty years, by virtue of its decisive proofs, it has forced the enemies of my person, both physical and non-physical, to submit.
If it had relied on my personality to any great extent, my irreligious enemies and cruel opponents could have dealt serious blows at it by discrediting my person. In their lunacy, they still tried to discredit me with every sort of stratagem and to destroy public regard for me, but they have been unable to halt the Risale‑i Nur's conquests or to diminish its value. Even if they confuse a few, new, weak adherents, they cannot make them give it up.
By reason of this fact, and also because egotism prevails at the present time, I cannot accredit myself with their good opinions, which far exceed my due. I anyway do not have a good opinion of myself as my brothers do. Also, if the station pertaining to the hereafter that my brothers ascribe to this wretched brother of theirs had truly been a high station of piety; and if, according to the rule at the end of the Second Letter, I had ascribed the spiritual gift of those perfections they attributed to my person, to myself, it would have proved that I was not as such; and if I do not recognise myself as such, I should not accept that gift of theirs. Moreover, egotism might interfere if one looked on oneself as having attained to some high spiritual station.
There is one more thing: it may be said that if, from the worldly point of view, the person charged with disseminating the truths of belief were to attain to some station, it would be more effective. There are two obstacles to this:
The First: Even if the person has the rank of sainthood (velâyet), to knowingly and covetously seek high stations is contrary to the sincerity and self‑abnegation which is intrinsic to sainthood. He cannot display or claim such things like the Companions, who were the heirs of prophethood, and may not be compared with them.
The Second Obstacle: The station may be refuted in many respects, and if its holder is a transitory, insignificant, ephemeral, and faulty person, it would be harmful for the Risale‑i Nur and for the conquests of the truths of belief. There is this point, though: it prompts thanks, for my enemies among the politicians did not know these facts, and thinking me to be the proud and self-esteeming Old Said, they have continually busied themselves with insulting and belittling my person rather than the Risale-i Nur. They have also turned some bigoted, egotistical hojas against me as though trying to extinguish the Risale-i Nur, but they have merely assisted in making it shine even brighter. Its lights are illuminated by the sun of the Qur'an, not by my inferior person‥