Note On Fair Copy And Correspondence

NOTE

Since the other parts of the Risale-i Nur were not available in the place that saw the composition of the foregoing treatise, which was of necessity written down here, certain important matters of The Words and The Flashes have been mentioned also in The Supreme Sign, in what is an apparent repetition. In order to have the students of the Risale-i Nur in this area write a complete Risale-i Nur in miniature, we nonetheless had them write down all the present treatise.

The revised copy of this rough draft was written by a certain blessed person. Even though he was ignorant of such matters, we saw in the copy prepared by him a subtle and profound correspondence of the letters: there were six hundred and sixty-six alifs {[*]: Alif: the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, written as a vertical stroke, and the numerical value of which is one. [Tr.]} written at the beginning of the lines in his copy. This number corresponds fully with the value according to the abjad of the title given to this treatise by Imam 'Ali (May Allah be pleased with him), Ayat al-Kubra (The Supreme Sign), and thus demonstrates the suitability of this title for the treatise. We also understood this numerical correspondence to be an indication that this treatise is a flash derived from the light of the verses of the Qur'an for they are six thousand six hundred and sixty-six in number.

Said Nursi