My Dear, Loyal Brothers, and Leading Students of the Medresetü'z‑ Zehrâ, and Publishers of the Risale-i Nur!
Firstly: I considered the following matter to be appropriate: it occurred to me that as the leading members of the Medresetü'z‑Zehrâ are the main people who have a say concerning the Risale-i Nur, I should refer it to them for their approval, It is like this:
Recently, because three of our friends who serve me wanted to receive instruction from me temporarily for a few days, and because I felt a desire to revive a valuable lesson I had taught my students formerly, I was teaching from one page of the printed Lemeât (Gleams) every day. Both I and they met it with astonishment and appreciation. I had the idea that the reason no copies of the treatise remained, as with the other old printed treatises, was that enemies who understood their value prevented their publication, while friends did not want to part with their copies owing to their worth.
And we saw that Lemeât comprised in the form of fine aphorisms a number of essential seeds of the Risale‑i Nur, and in brief maxims encapsulated an extensive social truth in a style so clear and plain that no literary figure or thinker had previously achieved it. It was written in semi-verse and read as easily as prose, and thirty-seven years ago had been composed in twenty days in Ramadan by working for only one or two hours a day. It was as long as a book and was written as a sort of Mathnawi. We marked in the copy we obtained the points where in twenty places, it had made predictions which thirty to forty years later turned out to be true. It gave us the idea that the work was foretelling the Risale-i Nur, and was a sort of index of it and seedbed.
Secondly: I am leaving to the discretion of the Nur hero, Husrev, and the other leading students of the Medresetü'z‑Zehrâ whether or not to include Lemeât at the end of The Words as the Thirty-Third Word. I send my greetings to all my brothers and sisters, and pray for them, and request their prayers.
The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!Saîd Nursî