I can accept your favourable opinions, which far exceed what I deserve, only in the name of the Risale‑i Nur's collective personality; it would be to overstep the mark to see myself in such stations.
Moveover, the Risale‑i Nur's way is not that of Sufism (tarikat); it is reality (hakikat); it is a manifestation of the Companions' way. The present is not the time of the Sufi way, but the time to save belief. All praise be to God, the Risale-i Nur has performed and is performing this task in the most difficult and taxing times. The sphere of the Risale-i Nur is, according to their predictions, a sphere at the present time of Imam 'Ali, and Hasan and Husayn (May God be pleased with them) and Gawth al‑A'zam (May his mystery be sanctified). For just as through three wondrous predictions Imam 'Ali gave news of the Risale-i Nur, so in powerful fashion Gawth al-A'zam (May his mystery be sanctified) gave news of it and gave encouragement to its interpreter. God willing, these four confidential treatises about the wonders of Imam 'Ali and the Gawth will be sent to you. The experts' committee appointed by the court could not object to them; it only criticized them slightly, saying that they should not have been written. I replied to them and they were silent. In any event, I received my instruction in reality directly in an Uwaysi fashion from the Gawth al-A'zam (May his mystery be sanctified) and from Imam 'Ali (May God be pleased with him) through Zayn al-'Abidin and Hasan and Husayn (May God be pleased with them). So the sphere in which we serve is their sphere.
Endless thanks be to Almighty God that thanks to your prayers two days ago the dangerous illness from poison and high fever I had been suffering for more than two weeks passed. Since an hour's worship performed when ill is the equivalent of a day's worship, God willing this illness was a substitute for the many good works I have hitherto been unable to perform and has been atonement for my many faults. But the sickness and weakness continue.
A subtle and meaningful coincidence occurred yesterday when I received the innocents' collection and opened it. I saw that The Short Words had been put at the beginning, and had been written most decoratively and carefully by Marangoz Ahmed, a commander of those innocents and one of the heroes of the Nur School. I exclaimed: “Congratulations! Marangoz Ahmed has become the sergeant of the innocent children.” The same day I received a letter, and I saw that when Marangoz Ahmed was reading at night the letters we had sent to his companions, two grasshoppers had come and perched on the letter and had listened until he had finished. Several days earlier when we had been writing the letter, two pigeons affirmed both its acceptance and the good news of the sparrow and kuddûs bird; and now the carpenter's two grasshoppers affirmed the pigeons and the good‑news birds, saying through the tongues of their beings that they too recognize the Risale-i Nur and making it a subtle and meaningful coincidence,
In this connection, a passage struck my attention on the page before the Eighth Sign of the Eighth Ray which Hâfız Ahmed wrote, who is a young Abdurrahman and the innocent nephew of Küçük Ali and one of the blessed heroes in that collection. I realized that this passage was related to the piece that explains what I have been saying in the letters sent to you this last couple of months about the Risale‑i Nur's acceptability, that my person has no share in its honour and art and that it is purely a divine bestowal. So I am sending it to you; you can include it whereever you deem suitable. The passage is about my person having no part, not a flash, in the extraordinary importance accorded the Risale-i Nur by al-Jaljalutiyya. It is like this. I said:
I confess that in no way at all am I worthy of having such an acceptable work bestowed on me, but it is the mark and practice of divine power to create trees the size of mountains from miniscule seeds, and to do so is proof of its sublimity.
I swear that my intention in praising the Risale‑i Nur is to affirm, prove, and publicize the Qur'an's truths and the pillars of belief. Endless thanks be to my Compassionate Creator that he did not make me fond of myself and He showed me my soul's faults and sins so that no desire remains to make others look favourably on me.
It is pitiful stupidity and a ghastly loss for someone waiting at the door of the grave to look hypocritically behind himself at this transitory world. May Almighty God preserve me from such loss! Amen.
I send greetings to each and every one of my brothers and I pray for them and request their prayers‥