Nurculuk; Islamic doctrines; Risale-i Nur; collection.

In the course of his twenty-five years of exile, Badī’uzzaman suffered three terms of imprisonment together with varying numbers of his students, and the treatises he wrote during each of these he later included in the Risāla-i Nūr. In The Rays Collection are “fruits” from all three of his sojourns in the Madrasa-i Yûsufiya, as he called prison, recalling the unjust imprisonment of Joseph (UWP) and that prison is essentially a place of education and training. The Second Ray was the final fruit of Eskişehir Prison (1935-’36), while The Eleventh Ray has as its name Meyve Risalesi, The Fruits of Belief, and was written for his fellow prisoners in Denizli Prison (1943-’44). It consists of eleven Topics, which offer irrefutable proofs of the six main pillars of faith. The last two of the Topics, however, were written in Emirdağ, Badī’uzzaman’s place of compulsory resi dence after Emirdağ.

Rays are among the largest fishes and evolved from shark-like ancestors nearly 200 million years ago. They share with sharks many life history traits: all species are carnivores or scavengers; all reproduce by internal fertilisation; and all have similar morphological and anatomical characteristics, such as skeletons built of cartilage. Rays of the World is the first complete pictorial atlas of the world’s ray fauna and includes information on many species only recently discovered by scientists while undertaking research for the book. It includes all 26 families and 633 valid named species of rays, but additional undescribed species exist for many groups. Rays of the World features a unique collection of paintings of all living species by Australian natural history artist Lindsay Marshall, compiled as part of a multinational research initiative, the Chondrichthyan Tree of Life Project. Images sourced from around the planet were used by the artist to illustrate the fauna. This comprehensive overview of the world’s ray fauna summarises information such as general identifying features and distributional information about these iconic, but surprisingly poorly known, fishes. It will enable readers to gain a better understanding of the rich diversity of rays and promote wider public interest in the group. Rays of the World is an ideal reference for a wide range of readers, including conservationists, fishery managers, scientists, fishers, divers, students and book collectors.

Vivid photographs help take readers on a virtual field study to observe the life cycle and behaviors of each featured mammal, bird, or reptile. Each book also looks at past and present scientific research and includes a unique storytelling element in the form of an animal tale drawn from mythology or folklore. Progressively complex text draws readers into this interdisciplinary life science series. A look at rays, including their habitats, physical characteristics such as their flat, flexible skeletons, behaviors, relationships with humans, and their wide range of hunting tactics in the world today.