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We come now to the last ten years of Nursi’s life and the last of its three main stages—in Nursi’s own words, that of the Third Said. The Third Said is generally defined in terms of changes Nursi made in the way he had patterned his life over many years, the expansion of his work with the Risale-i Nur, and also in his involving himself more closely with social and political developments. The emergence of the Third Said roughly coincided with the defeat of the Republican People’s Party in the general elections of May 1950 and the coming to power of the Democrat Party under Adnan Menderes, although while still in Afyon Prison Nursi wrote that he “surmised” that “a Third Said” would emerge.1 Here he is referring to an inner development or “unfolding” whereby there arose in him the desire to withdraw entirely from the world and leave the running of all the affairs of the Risale-i Nur to his leading students. In the event, he was unable to do this, and with what must have been considerable self-sacrifice continued to direct its activities. With the end of repressive RPP rule, the restrictions on Nursi’s movements were lifted and he spent these years mostly in Emirdag¨ and Isparta, with visits to Istanbul, Ankara, and other places as was required by either the ever-expanding activities connected with the Risale-i Nur or to make court appearances. For despite the new government , the bureaucracy and governing structure of the country were still largely in the hands of supporters of the former regime. Thus, copies of the Risale-i Nur continued to be seized, Nursi and his students continued to suffer repression, and the court cases continued. In the early 1950s, in numerous villages and towns in many regions of Turkey, Nur students continued to write out copies by hand and distribute and read them, while in Isparta and ÿnebolu it was reproduced on the duplicating machines and distributed in the form of collections. Then, in 1956, on Afyon Court reaching a final decision and lifting all legal restrictions on the Risalei Nur, a new generation of young Nur students set about printing and publishing the entire Risale-i Nur Collection on modern presses in the new letters. This took place in four places, but primarily in Istanbul and Ankara. This further expanded the number of its readers and students, so that they now ran into many hundreds of thousands. 305 C H A P T E R 16 Consolidation of the Nur Movement and “Jiha\d of the Word” Together with these developments, the Nur movement itself became established as a cohesive movement during these years, and some of the changes in Nursi’s life can be seen to be directed toward training the new generation of students who would lead it after he himself would be no longer there to do so. Of these, a number had visited Nursi and become involved with the work of the Risale-i Nur in the 1940s and as a consequence had served terms in Afyon Prison along with him. Following this, which served as a crucible refining this new generation for their work in the cause of the Qur’a\n, such students as Zübeyir Gündüzalp, Mustafa Sungur, and Ceylan Çalıs*kan devoted themselves entirely to the Risale-i Nur, and it was for them, among others, that Nursi changed a number of his habitual practices. Afyon served the cause of the Risale-i Nur in other ways, too, as had Eskis*ehir and Denizli before it. For one thing, it was a means of unifying the Nur movement. On the days of the court hearings, its students from all over Turkey flocked to Afyon to observe the proceedings and give moral support to their fellows being tried, and in this way they both got to know each other and establish firm relations, and become better informed about Nursi and the Risale-i Nur and its method of service. Afyon thus formed an important step in consolidating the movement.2 The main apparent change in Nursi, due to which this period of his life is known as that of the Third Said, was a closer involvement with social and political life. This aspect of the Third Said was directly connected with the coming to power of the Democrat Party in 1950. However, his involvement took the form of support...

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