The Fourteenth Ray (14.Sua, Englisch)

The Fourteenth Ray

A Short Addendum to My Statement

I say this to Afyon Court:

As is said in my statement, which has been presented to you and been put before the law and its justice: to raid my house three times illegally, summon me for questioning, and arrest me has violated the dignity of three high courts and cast aspersions on their justice, indeed insulted it. For three courts and three ‘committees of experts’ have scrutinized closely over two years my books and letters of twenty years, and both we have been acquitted, and our books and letters returned. Moreover, living in complete seclusion under the most rigorous surveillance for three years after having been acquitted, I was able to write only one harmless letter a week to some of my friends. It was as though all my relations with the world had been cut, for although I had been given my freedom, I could not return to my native region. It tramples the honour of those three courts to bring up the same question again now, as though completely disregarding their just decisions. I make a plea to your court to preserve the honour of those courts, which acted justly towards me. You should find some matter with which to blame me other than “the Risale-i Nur,” “organizing a political society,” “founding a sufi order,” and “the possibility of breaching security and disturbing public order,” for they constitute the same case! I have many faults. I have decided to help you concerning my blameworthiness, for I have suffered far more outside prison than inside it. I would find more comfort now in either the grave or prison. Truly I am fed up with life. Enough now of these twenty years of torment in solitary confinement, intolerable surveillance and humiliation. It will provoke Divine wrath. It will put this country to shame. I am reminding you. Our firmest refuge and shield is:

For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs.1 * God suffices me, there is no god but He; in Him do I place my trust — He the Sustainer of the Throne [of Glory] Supreme!2

* * *

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

And from Him do we seek help

[This petition, which after eighteen years’ silence I am compelled to present to the court and a copy of which I am sending to Ankara, comprises my written objections concerning the indictment, which I am obliged to put forward.]

This is a summary of a short defence speech: it should be known that it is exactly what I twice told the public prosecutor and police inspector, and on the third occasion the police chief and six or seven inspectors and police, who three times came to search my house in Kastamonu; and what I said in reply to the questions of the public prosecutor in Isparta, and the Courts of Denizli and Afyon. It is like this:

I told them: I have been living alone for eighteen to twenty years. I lived for eight years in Kastamonu opposite the police station, and in other places for twenty years, under constant surveillance and supervision, and the place where I was staying was searched on several occasions, but not the slightest hint or sign of anything related to this world or politics was found. If there had been anything irregular on my part and the police and judiciary did not know, or they did know but ignored it, then surely they are answerable to a greater extent than me. And if not, why, although nowhere in the world recluses are bothered who are preoccupied with their lives of the hereafter, do you bother me unnecessarily to this extent, to the detriment of the country and nation?

We students of the Risale-i Nur do not make the Risale-i Nur a tool of worldly currents, nor even of the whole universe. Furthermore, the Qur’an severely prohibits us from politics. For the Risale-i Nur’s duty is to serve the Qur’an through the truths of belief and through extremely powerful and decisive proofs, which in the face of absolute unbelief —which destroys eternal life and also transforms the life of this world into a ghastly poison— induce even the most obdurate atheist philosophers to believe. Therefore we may not make the Risale-i Nur a tool of anything.

Firstly: In order not to reduce to the value of fragments of glass in the view of the heedless, the diamond-like truths of the Qur’an by giving the false idea of political propaganda, and not to betray those precious truths.

Secondly: Compassion, truth and right, and conscience, the fundamental way of the Risale-i Nur, severely prohibit us from politics and from interfering in government. For dependent on one or two irreligious people fallen into absolute unbelief and deserving of slaps and calamities are seven or eight innocents — children, the sick and the elderly. If slaps and calamities are visited on the one or two, those unfortunates suffer also. Therefore, since the result is doubtful, we have been severely prohibited from interfering in the life of society by way of politics, to the harm of government and public order.

Thirdly: Five principles are necessary, essential, at this strange time in order to save the social life of this country and nation from anarchy: respect, compassion, refraining from what is prohibited (haram), security, the giving up of lawlessness and being obedient to authority. The evidence that when the Risale-i Nur looks to the life of society it establishes and strengthens these five principles in a powerful and sacred fashion and preserves the foundation-stone of public order, is that over the last twenty years the Risale-i Nur has made one hundred thousand people into harmless, beneficial members of this nation and country. The provinces of Isparta and Kastamonu testify to this. This means that knowingly or unknowingly the great majority of those who try to hamper the Risale-i Nur are betraying the country and nation and dominance of Islam on account of anarchy. The great good and benefit for this country of the one hundred and thirty treatises of the Risale-i Nur cannot be refuted by the imaginary harms of two or three of its parts, which are fancied to be harmful in the superficial view of the deluded heedless. Anyone who refutes the former with the latter is an exceedingly unfair and tyrannical.

As for my own unimportant personal faults, I am unwillingly obliged to say, this: I am someone who has lived alone and in solitude in an exile resembling solitary confinement. During that time I have not gone once of my own will to the market and well-attended mosques. Despite suffering much persecution and distress, I have not once applied to the Government for my own comfort, unlike all my fellow exiles. In twenty years have not read a single newspaper, nor listened to one, nor been curious about one. As is testified to by all my close friends and those I met with, for a full two years in Kastamonu and seven years in other places I knew nothing of the conflicts and wars in the world, and whether or not peace had been declared, or who else was involved in the fighting, and was not curious about it and did not ask, and for nearly three years did not listen to the radio that was playing close by to me. But I triumphantly confronted with the Risale-i Nur absolute unbelief, which destroys eternal life and transforms the life of this world even into compounded pain and suffering; and with the Risale-i Nur, which issued from the Qur’an, have saved the belief of a hundred thousand such people, as has been attested by them, and for a hundred thousand people have transformed death into discharge papers. Is there any law demanding that such a person is harassed to this degree, and made to despair, and by making him weep to make hundreds of thousands of those innocent brothers of his weep too? What advantage is there in it? Is it not unprecedented tyranny in the name of justice? Is it not an unprecedented miscarriage of justice on account of the law?

If you accuse me like some of the officials who searched my house, saying: “You and one or two of your treatises oppose the regime and our principles...”

T h e A n s w e r , Firstly: These new principles of yours have absolutely no right to enter the retreats of recluses.

Secondly: To reject something is one thing, not to accept it wholeheartedly is something else, and not to act in accordance with it is something quite else. Those in authority look to the hand, not to the heart. All governments have vehement opponents who do not interfere in government and public order. In fact, the Christians who were under the Caliph ‘Umar’s (May God be pleased with him) rule were not interfered with although they rejected the law of the Shari‘a and the Qur’an. According to the principles of freedom of thought and conscience, so long as they do not upset the government, if some of the Risale-i Nur students do not accept the regime and your principles on scholarly grounds and act in opposition to them, and even if they are inimical to the regime’s chief, they may not be touched legally. As for the treatises, I said they were confidential and prevented their publication. In fact, in regard to the treatise that was the cause of this affair, only once or twice in eight years in Kastamonu did someone bring me a copy. The same day I put it away somewhere. Now you are forcibly publicizing it, and it has become famous.

It is well-known that if there is some fault in a letter, only the faulty words are censored, and the rest are permitted. As a result of the four months of close investigation in Eskishehir Court, only fifteen words were found in a hundred treatises of the Risale-i Nur that were the cause of criticism, and now on only two pages of the four-hundred-page Zülfikâr are explanations of Qur’anic verses about inheritance and the veiling of women, which were written thirty years ago and do not now conform to the Civil Code. This proves decisively that they have no worldly aim, and everyone is in need of them. The four-hundred-page Zülfikâr, which everyone has need of, may not be confiscated because of two pages. Those two pages should be excised and the collection returned to us; it is our right that it is returned.

If you say like those who suppose irreligion to be politics of a sort and in this episode have said: “You are spoiling our civilization and our pleasure with these treatises of yours...”

I reply: It is a universal principle accepted worldwide that no nation can continue in existence without religion. Particularly if it is absolute unbelief, it gives rise to torments more grievous in this world than Hell, as has been proved with complete certainty in A Guide For Youth. That treatise has now been printed officially. If, God forbid, a Muslim apostasizes, he falls into absolute disbelief; he cannot remain in a state of ‘doubting unbelief,’ which keeps him alive to an extent. He also cannot be like irreligious Europeans. And in respect of the pleasure of life, he falls infinitely lower than the animals, for they have no sense of the past and future. Because of his misguidance, the deaths of all past and future beings, and his being eternally separated from them, overwhelm his heart with continuous pain. If belief enters his heart and he comes to believe, those innumerable friends are suddenly raised to life. They say through the tongue of disposition: “We did not die and we were not annihilated,” transforming his hellish state into Paradise-like pleasure. Since the reality is this, I warn you: do not contest the Risale-i Nur, for it relies on the Qur’an. It cannot be defeated. It would be most regretable for this country.3 It would go somewhere else and illuminate there. Also, if I had heads to the number of the hairs on it and every day one was cut off, I would not bow this head, which is devoted to the Qur’an, to atheism and absolute disbelief, I would not and could not give up this service of belief and the Risale-i Nur.

Certainly, any faults in the statement of someone who has been a recluse for twenty years will be disregarded. He is defending the Risale-i Nur, so it cannot be said he deviated from the subject. Eskishehir Court found nothing after studying its hundred treatises, both confidential and otherwise, for four months, apart from one or two points touching on a subject necessitating a light penalty, and it gave six-month sentences to fifteen people out of one hundred and twenty. I served the sentence as well. And since a few years ago all the parts of the Risale-i Nur came into the hands of the Isparta authorities, who after studying them for several months, returned them to their owners; and since after serving that sentence, nothing was found to concern the police and judiciary during my eight years in Kastamonu despite the minute searches; and since during the last search in Kastamonu some of my treatises came to light, in a condition they could never have been published, having been hidden under piles of firewood several years previously, as was verified by the group of police; and since although the Kastamonu Police Chief and judiciary gave their certain word to return those harmless books of mine that had been hidden, I was moved on without receiving those trusts, since on the second day the order suddenly came from Isparta for my arrest; and since the courts of Denizli and Ankara acquitted us and returned all my treatises; certainly and without doubt, as a consequence of the above six facts, it is demanded by their positions that Afyon Court and its public prosecutor take into consideration this very important right of mine, as did Denizli Court and public prosecutor. I am hopeful that the public prosecutor, who defends the rights of the people, will also defend my personal rights, which due to my relation with the Risale-i Nur are like important public rights; and I await this from him.

The New Said has for twenty-two years withdrawn from social life, and does not know the present laws and how defences should be carried out, and is presenting to this new court the irrefutable hundred-page defence he presented to Eskishehir and Denizli Courts; he paid the penalty for his errors up to that time, and after that in Kastamonu and Emirdag lived in a sort of solitary confinement under constant surveillance; he is therefore now falling silent and leaving it to the Old Said to speak. And the Old Said says this:

Since the New Said has turned away from the world, he does not speak with ‘the worldly’ unless absolutely compelled to defend himself, and considers it unnecessary. But numerous innocent artisans and tradesmen being arrested in this affair due to some slight connection with me aroused my extreme sympathy, since at this busy time they have been unable to earn livelihoods for their families. It upset me deeply. I swear that if it had been possible, I would have taken all their difficulties upon myself. Anyway, if there is any fault, it is mine. They are innocent. Because of this grievous situation, I say, despite the New Said’s silence: since the wretched New Said answered the hundreds of unnecessary questions of the public prosecutors of Isparta, Denizli, and Afyon, it is my right to ask of the present Ministry of Justice, with the intention of defending my rights, the three questions I asked the Ministry of Home Affairs, and chiefly Kaya Shükrü, thirteen years ago.

The First: Which law states that one hundred and twenty people including myself should be arrested because of the merely verbal argument with a gendarme sergeant of a man from Egirdir, who though not a Risale-i Nur student was carrying an unimportant letter of mine? Then with the exception of fifteen, the innocence of all of them was established by their being acquitted after four months of investigation by the court. According to what principles is it to cite such possibilities instead of occurrences? According to what rule of justice is it to cause loss of thousands of liras to seventy unfortunates who had previously been acquitted by Denizli Court after nine months of investigations?

Second Question: According to the fundamental principle, No bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another,4 even a blood-brother cannot be held responsible for his brother’s faults, so under which law of justice was it to arrest me in Ramadan because of a short treatise whose publication I had prevented, which had passed into my hands once or twice in eight years, was originally written more than twenty-five years ago, saves believers from doubting a number of important points and prevents them denying some misunderstood allegorical Hadiths, —because this treatise was found on someone I did not know a long way away from me, and the wrong meaning was given to this, and an offensive letter was found in Kütahya and Balikesir; and to arrest now in this freezing cold numerous artisans and tradesmen for having in their possession some old, commonplace letter written by me, or for having driven me around in their carriage, or because of their friendship towards me, or for having read one of my books, and to ruin them, and cause them, and the country and nation, material loss and immaterial loss of thousands of liras,— what law demands this? Which article of which law necessitates it? I request to learn of these laws so I do not take any false step.

Yes, one reason for our arrests at both Denizli and Afyon was this: even if to suppose the impossible the Fifth Ray did look to this world and politics, —although it was written long ago while I was in the Darü’l-Hikmeti’l-Islâmiye,5 and the original was written even before that, with the idea of saving the belief of the ordinary people in the face of those who denied some Hadiths because they thought they were irrational, since they did not known how they should be interpreted— and even if it had been written at this time, since it was private, and was not found with me in the searches, and its predictions about the future turned out to be true, and it dispels doubts on questions of belief, and does not disturb public order, and is not confrontational, and only gives news of things, and does not specify any individuals, and sets out a scholarly truth in general form, — since this is the case, surely even if the Hadith’s meaning is seen to conform to certain persons at this time, and before it was exhibited and made public in the courts it had been held to be confidential in order not to give rise to dispute, it cannot in any way constitute a crime. I also do not consider it possible that in any court of law in the world it is considered a crime to say “to reject something is one thing, and not to accept it on scholarly grounds or not to act in accordance with it is something completely different. That treatise does not accept on scholarly grounds a regime that was going to emerge in the near future.”

In Short: The Risale-i Nur has for thirty years killed at the root absolute disbelief, which destroys eternal life, turns the life of this world into a ghastly poison, spoiling all its pleasures; it has successfully killed the atheistic ideas of the Naturalists; has proved brilliantly with wonderful arguments the principles that will bring happiness to this nation in both this life and the next; and is based on the Qur’an’s reality, from the Divine Throne. I claim, and am ready to prove it, that not one or two points of a short treatise such as that, but if it contained a thousand errors, its thousand significant good aspects would cause them to be forgiven.

Third Question: It is the rule that if in a letter of twenty words five are considered reprehensible, the five are censored and the rest are permitted. So since after scrutinizing it for four months Eskishehir Court could find only fifteen words out of a hundred thousand that to the superficial view were imagined to be harmful; and since the Cabinet questioned only the explanations of two Qur’anic verses, because they contravened the present law although they had been written thirty years previously, on two of the four hundred pages of Zülfikâr; and the Denizli and Ankara Committees of Experts questioned only fifteen errors; and since up to the present it has been the means of reforming the characters of hundreds of thousands of people, the Risale-i Nur has brought to pass a thousand things widely beneficial for this country and nation; —since this is so, which principle of the Government of the Republic does it conform to, to arrest in this work-season and bitter winter unfortunates like the Çaliskan’s who serve me seeking God’s pleasure, because they have performed some small service for the Risale-i Nur, or written out one of its treatises because it had saved their belief, and were brotherly towards me out of kindness because I was elderly and a stranger in Emirdag? Which of its laws would permit such a thing?

Since in accordance with the law of freedom of conscience the principles of the Republic do not interfere with those without religion, surely it necessitates that they do not interfere with religiously-minded people who are not involved in the world as far as it is possible, and do not dispute with the worldly, and strive usefully for their lives in the hereafter, their belief, and their country too. I know that the politicians who govern in Asia, where the prophets appeared, will not, and cannot, ban taqwa and good works, which for a thousand years have been as essential for this nation as food and medicine. Humanity demands that anything not conforming to the current view in the above questions is overlooked, since, having lived in solitude for twenty years, they were asked with the head of the Said of twenty years ago.

I consider it my patriotic duty to recall the following, for the benefit of the country, nation, and public security: to arrest and make resentful in this way because of some slight connection with me and the Risale-i Nur, may turn against the Government numerous people who are religiously beneficial for the country and its security, thus opening up the way to anarchy. Yes, there are far in excess of a hundred thousand people who have saved their belief through the Risale-i Nur and have become harmless and highly beneficial for the nation. With their moderation and usefulness, they are perhaps to be found in every large department of the Government of the Republic and in every level of society. It is essential that these people are not offended but protected.

I feel a strong anxiety that certain official persons who do not heed our complaints nor allow us to speak out, and repress us on various pretexts are opening up the way to anarchy to the harm of this country.

Also, for the good of the Government I say this: since the courts of both Denizli and Ankara scrutinized the Fifth Ray, and did not object to it but returned it to us, it is essential for the Government that proceedings are not reopened officially, giving rise to rumours and gossip. Just as I concealed the treatise before it passed into the hands of the courts and they publicized it, so the Afyon authorities and Court should not make it the object of question and answer. For it is powerful and irrefutable. It made predictions, and they turned out right. Moreover, its aim is not this world, at the most one of its many meanings fits a person who is dead and gone. For the sake of the country, nation, public order, and government, I am bound by conscience to warn against making those predictions and meanings official due to bigoted friendship for him, and further publicizing it by reprimanding us.

* * *

To the Afyon Public Prosecutor and the Chairman

and Members of the Court

[i am presenting to you in order to protect my rights, exactly the same nine ‘Principles’ which I presented to the Denizli judicial authorities.]

Twenty years ago I abandoned social life, and especially official, refined, political life such as this. I do not know what position should be taken in such situations, and I do not think of it, and to think of it causes me acute distress. But I am compelled to present this disorganized defence and petition, which is the conclusion and summary of the answers I gave to the numerous, repetitious, and haphazard questions of an unfair member of another court of law. Perhaps it lacks order and contains irrelevant and unnecessary repetitions, vehement expressions which may act against me, and sentences opposed to the new laws, which I do not know. But since it proceeds on the truth, for the sake of the truth the faults should be disregarded. This petition and defence speech is based on nine ‘Principles’.

The First: Since in accordance with the Republic’s principle of freedom of conscience, the Government of the Republic does not interfere with the irreligious and dissipated, it certainly should not interfere with the religious and righteous; and since no irreligious nation can continue in existence, and with regard to religion Asia does not conform to Europe, and an irreligious Muslim does not resemble any other person without religion; and since no sort of progress or civilization can take the place of religion, or righteousness, or the learning of the truths of belief in particular, which are the innate need of the people of this country, who for a thousand years have illumined the world with their religion and heroically preserved their firmness of faith in the face of the assaults of the whole world, and cannot be made to forget that need; surely no government of this nation in this country can intervene in the Risale-i Nur in respect of justice and the law and public order.

Second Principle: Since it is one thing to reject something and something quite different not to act in accordance with it; and all governments have fierce opponents; and there were Muslims under Zoroastrian rule and Jews and Christians under the Islamic government of the Caliph ‘Umar; and all those who do not cause trouble to the government or disturb public order have personal freedom, and this may not be curtailed, and governments look to the hand and not to the heart; and since those who want to upset public order and the administration and interfere in politics will doubtless concern themselves with the newspapers and current affairs in order to learn about the movements, situations, and events that will assist them so they make no false moves; and since the Risale-i Nur so restrains its students that as my close friends know, for twenty-five years it has made me give up reading the newspapers and even asking about them or being curious and thinking about them; and since for ten years now I have withdrawn from social life to such an extent that apart from the German defeat and the spread of communism I have heard no news about what is happening in the world and the current situation; certainly and without doubt no one can attack me and my brothers like me on grounds of governmental wisdom, the laws of politics, and principles of justice; and if they do, it is bound to be due to delusions, or out of hatred or obduracy.

Third Principle: I am obliged to give the following lengthy details because of the meaningless and unnecessary objections of the public prosecutor of the former court, which he made due to a misunderstanding concerning not the law, but his bigoted love of a certain dead person.

Firstly: Before it fell into the hands of the Government, I treated the Fifth Ray as confidential. Moreover, it was not found in any of the searches. Also, its purpose was only to save the ordinary people from doubts concerning their beliefs and from denying allegorical Hadiths. It looks to worldly aspects of the Hadiths only indirectly, in third or fourth place. The predictions it makes are true. Moreover, it does not contest the politicians and worldly; it only makes predictions. Also, it does not specify anyone. It explains in general fashion a true meaning of a Hadith. But they applied that general truth to a fearsome person living in this century. They therefore objected to it, supposing it had been written in recent years. In fact, the original of the treatise was previous to the Darü’l-Hikmet. But it was set in order some time later, and included in the Risale-i Nur. It was like this:

Forty years ago, the year before the Proclamation of the Constitution,6 I came to Istanbul. The Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese army had asked some questions of the Istanbul ‘ulama at that time. The Istanbul hojas asked me about them. They asked me many things in that connection.

For instance, they asked me about a Hadith which says: “At the end of time, a fearsome individual will rise in the morning and on his forehead will be written: ‘This is an infidel.’”7 I told them: “This extraordinary person will come to lead this nation; he will rise in the morning, put a [brimmed] hat on his head, and make others wear it.”

After receiving this answer, they asked me: “Won’t those who wear it be infidels?” I said: “They will be made to wear the brimmed hat and be forbidden to prostrate in prayer. But the belief in the heads of those wearing the brimmed hat will make the hat prostrate, and God willing, will make it Muslim.”

They then said: “This person will drink water and his hand will be pierced, and it will be known through this that he is the Sufyan.” I said to them in reply: “It is commonly said about someone who is very extravagant that he has a hole in his hand. That is, he cannot hold onto anything; it flows from him and is lost. Thus, this fearsome man will be addicted to raki, it will make him ill, he will become excessively extravagant and accustom others to being the same.”

Then someone asked: “When he dies, Satan will proclaim loudly to the world from ‘Dikili Ta_’ in Istanbul that so-and-so has died.” So I said: “The news will be broadcast by telegraph.” However, I heard shortly afterwards that the radio had been invented, and I realized that my answer had not been completely accurate. Eight years later while in the Darü’l-Hikmet, I said: “Satan will broadcast it to the world by radio.”

They then asked me questions about the Barrier of Dhu’l-Qarnayn, Gog and Magog, the Beast (Dabbat al-Ard), the Antichrist (Dajjal), and the second coming of Jesus (Peace be upon him), and I replied to them. In fact the answers are written in part in my old treatises. Some time later, Mustafa Kemal twice summoned me to Ankara8 by code by means of the former governor of the province of Van, my old friend, Tahsin Bey, in recognition of my published work The Six Steps (Hutuvât-i Sitte). I went. Since Shaykh Sanusi9 did not know Kurdish, it was proposed I should take his place as ‘general preacher’ of the Eastern Provinces on a salary of three hundred liras. I was also offered a position as a deputy, and my former post together with the other members of the Darü’l-Hikmet within the Directorate of Religious Affairs. Moreover, being endorsed by one hundred and sixty-three out of two hundred deputies, one hundred and fifty thousand liras were allotted for the Medresetü’z-Zehra, my university in the East, the foundations of which I had laid in Van, and this was accepted. However, since I saw that the predictions of the original of the Fifth Ray were in part realized in a person there, I was compelled to forgo those most important duties. Telling myself that the person could not be opposed or confronted, I gave up the world, and politics, and the life of society, and dedicated all my time to saving religious belief. However, a number of tyrannical and unjust officials forced me to write two or three treatises which looked to the world.

Later, in connection with some questions asked by some persons about allegorical Hadiths which give news of the events at the end of time, I rearranged that old treatise. It received the name of the Fifth Ray. The Risale-i Nur is not numbered chronologically. For example, the Thirty-Third Letter was written before the First Letter, and the original of the Fifth Ray and some other parts were written previously to the Risale-i Nur itself. Anyway... the illegal, unnecessary, and inaccurate objections and questions of a public prosecutor, asked out of bigoted love of Mustafa Kemal, forced me to provide these explanations outside the subject. I am giving here as an example some of the entirely personal and unlawful things he said in the name of the law. He said:

“Aren’t you sincerely sorry that you insulted him in the Fifth Ray with expressions like ‘swilling down raki and wine like a water pump’?” I say in reply to the completely meaningless and mistaken bigotry arising from his love: “The victory and honour of the heroic army cannot be ascribed to him; he can have only a share of it. Like it would be tyrannical and an awesome injustice if the booty, possessions, and rations of an army were all given to its commander. Yes, just as he accused me of not loving that unjust and extremely faulty man, quite simply accusing me of being a traitor, so I accuse him of not loving the army, for he ascribes all its honour and moral booty to the man he loves, depriving the army of all glory. The reality is that positive things, and instances of good and virtue, should be distributed among the community and army, and the negative things, destruction, and faults ascribed to the chief. For the existence of ssomething is dependent on the existence of all its conditions and elements, and the commander is only one of the conditions. While the non-existence of the thing and its falling apart, occurs through the non-existence of one of its conditions and one of its elements being spoilt and destroyed. Instances of good and virtues for the most part are positive and pertain to existence. The leaders cannot lay claim to them. Instances of bad and faults are destructive and pertain to non-existence, and the leaders are answerable for them. While the reality is thus, just as if a tribe is mocked if, when it wins victories ‘Hasan Aga’ is applauded, and when it is defeated it is blamed, and this is judged to be the reverse of the truth; in just the same way, in the name of the court the public prosecutor imputed a fault to me that was completely the reverse of the truth and reality.

Similarly to his mistake, a little previously to the Great War while I was in Van, a number of religious, God-fearing persons came to me. They told me: “Some of the military commanders act contrarily to religion. Come and join us, we are going to rebel against them.”

I told them: “Bad conduct and irreligion like that is particular to commanders like them; the army cannot be held responsible for it. There are perhaps a hundred thousand saints in the Ottoman Army; I shall not draw my sword against it. I will not join you.” They left me, drew their swords, and the fruitless Bitlis Incident occurred. A short time later war broke out. The army took part in it in the name of religion; it entered the jihad, and a hundred thousand martyrs from it rose to the degree of sainthood. They confirmed what I had said, signing the decrees for their sainthood with their blood. Anyway... I was compelled to relate this at some length. The extraordinary attitude of a public prosecutor who acted derisively towards myself and the Risale-i Nur due to unimportant, mistaken feelings and partiality, in the name of justice, one incontrovertible mark of which is imperviousness to all feelings and outside influences, drove me to make this long statement.

Fourth Principle: After scrutinizing for four months hundreds of copies of treatises and letters, Eskishehir Court could only give sentences of six months to fifteen men out of one hundred and twenty, and one year to myself for fifteen words in one or two treatises out of a hundred. They acquitted us of founding a sufi order and organizing a political society and in the hat question. We anyway had served the sentence. Then in Kastamonu they found nothing in numerous searches. And a number of years ago in Isparta all the parts of the Risale-i Nur without exception, both confidential and otherwise, fell into the hands of the authorities. They were all returned to their owners after three months of scrutiny. A few years later, all the parts of the Risale-i Nur remained for two years in the Courts of Denizli and Ankara, then they were all returned to us. Since the fact is that, those who accuse myself and the Risale-i Nur students emotionally, maliciously, and unlawfully in the name of the law like him, are accusing before us both Eskishehir Court, and Denizli Court, and Ankara Criminal Court, making them partners in our crime, if there is one. For if we had been guilty, those three or four authorities did not see it despite their close scrutiny or they disregarded it, and two courts did not see it having studied it minutely for two years, or they disregarded it, which makes them more guilty than us. However, if we had had any desire to interfere in the world, it would not have been with the buzzing of a fly, it would have exploded and boomed like a cannon.

Yes, anyone who accuses of political intrigue a person who defended himself vehemently and without restraint in the Military Court after the Thirty-First of March Incident10 and in the Speaker’s Office in the face of Mustafa Kemal’s anger, saying he was hatching his schemes for eighteen years without allowing anyone to detect it, surely does so for some malicious purpose. We are hopeful that like the Denizli public prosecutor, the Afyon public prosecutor will save us from the malice and accusations of such people and demonstrate true justice.

Fifth Principle: A fundamental principle of the Risale-i Nur students is that as far as is possible they do not interfere in politics, or matters of administration, or government activities, because for them, working seriously for the Qur’an is worth everything, and is sufficient.

Also, no one who enters politics, among the overwhelming currents that now prevail, can preserve his independence and sincerity. He is bound to become subject to one of the currents, and it will exploit him for worldly ends. It will corrupt the sacredness of his duty. Also, in the material struggle, due to the utter tyranny and despotism that is the rule this century, he would have to crush numerous innocent supporters of a person because of the error that person had made. He would otherwise be defeated. It would also seem in the view of those who had given up their religion for the world, or who exploited it, that the Qur’an’s sacred truths, which can be the tool of nothing, were being exploited for political propaganda. Also, every class of people, supporters and opposers, officials and common people, should have a share of those truths and all are in need of them. The Risale-i Nur students have therefore to avoid politics and the material struggle completely, and not be in any way involved in them, so that they may remain completely impartial.

Sixth Principle: The Risale-i Nur should not be attacked in this matter because of my personal faults or those of some of my brothers. It is bound directly to the Qur’an, and the Qur’an is bound to the Supreme Throne. Who has the ability to stretch out his hand and unfasten it? Also, as is indicated by thirty-three Qur’anic verses, Imam ‘Ali’s (May God be pleased with him) three miraculous prophecies and the certain pronouncements of Gawth al-A‘zam (May his mystery be sanctified), the Risale-i Nur has performed an extraordinary service for this country and is a source of material plenty and spiritual effulgence for it, and cannot therefore be held responsible for our petty, personal faults, and it should not be held responsible. Otherwise both material and spiritual loss will be caused to this country which it will impossible to repair.

God willing, the assaults and diabolical machinations against the Risale-i Nur of the atheists hostile to us will be foiled, for its students cannot be compared with others, they cannot be scattered nor be made to give it up; through God’s grace, they will not be defeated. If the Qur’an had not prohibited them from physical defence... those students, who are everywhere and have won public favour, which is like the life-blood of this nation, would never get involved in petty and fruitless incidents like the Shaykh Said11 and Menemen incidents.12 If, God forbid, they were persecuted to the point they were compelled and the Risale-i Nur attacked, the atheists and dissemblers who deceive the Government would regret it a thousand times over.

In Short: Since we do not interfere in the worlds of the worldly, they should not interfere in our work for the hereafter and our service of religious belief.

[i am relating here by way of defence an old memory and pleasant anecdote which was not divulged in Eskishehir Court and was not written in the official records, nor has been included in my defence speeches.]

They asked me there: “What do you think about the Republic?” I replied: “As my biography which you have in your hands proves, I was a religious republican before any of you, with the exception of the Chairman of the Court, was born. A summary is this: like now, I was living at that time in seclusion in a remote tomb. They used to bring me soup, and I would give breadcrumbs to the ants. I used to eat my bread having dipped it in the soup. They asked me about it and I told them: the ant and bee nations are republicans. I give the breadcrumbs to the ants out of respect for their republicanism.”

Then they said to me: “You are opposing the righteous early generations of Islam.” I told them in reply: “The four Rightly-Guided Caliphs were both Caliphs and Presidents of the Republic. Abu Bakr the Veracious (May God be pleased with him), the Ten Promised Paradise, and the Companions of the Prophet were like presidents of the republic. But not as an empty name and title, they were heads of a religious republic which bore the meaning of true justice and freedom in accordance with the Shari‘a.”

I told them: Mr. Prosecutor and Members of the Court! You are accusing me of holding an idea opposite to that which I have held for fifty years. If you ask me about the secular republic, what I understand by it is that ‘secular’ (laic) means to be impartial; that is, a government which, in accordance with the principle of freedom of conscience, does not interfere with the religiously-minded and pious, the same as it does not interfere with the irreligious and dissipated. I withdrew from political and social life twenty-five years ago, and what form the Government of the Republic has taken, I do not know. If, I seek refuge with God, it has assumed a fearsome form whereby, on account of irreligion, it passes and accepts laws to incriminate those who work for their belief and lives in the hereafter, then I announce to you fearlessly and warn you that if I had a thousand lives, I would be ready to sacrifice all of them for belief and life in the hereafter. Do whatever you will! My last word is For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs! In response to your wrongfully condemning me to capital punishment or hard labour, I say: as the Risale-i Nur has discovered and shown with absolute certainty, I am not being executed; I am being discharged and departing for the world of light and happiness. As for you, our covert enemies, wretches who oppress us on account of misguidance! Since I know you are condemned to eternal extinction and everlasting solitary confinement, and I have seen this, I have taken my revenge on you totally, and am ready to surrender up my spirit with a perfectly easy mind!

Seventh Principle: In consequence of superficial investigations held in other places, Afyon Court looked on us as a political society. My reply is this:

Firstly: As is testified to by all those who have befriended me, I have read no newspaper for nineteen years, nor listened to one, nor asked about one, and for the past ten years five months have received no news except about the German defeat and the terror of communism, and I have not been curious, and have not known. Such a person surely has no connection whatsoever with politics, and no relations with any political society.

Secondly: The one hundred and thirty parts of the Risale-i Nur are there for all to see. Understanding that they contained no worldly goal and no aim other than the truths of belief, Eskishehir Court did not object to them with the exception of one or two of the parts, and Denizli Court objected to none at all, and despite being under constant surveillance for eight years the large Kastamonu police force could find no one to charge apart from my two assistants and three others, and those charges were merely pretexts. This is a decisive proof that the students of the Risale-i Nur are in no way a political society. If what is intended by ‘society’ in the indictment is a community concerned with religious belief and the hereafter, in reply we say this:

If the name ‘community’ is given to university students and tradesmen, it may also be applied to us. But if you call us a community that is going to breach internal security by exploiting religious feelings, in response we say:

The facts that in no place over a period of twenty years in these stormy times Risale-i Nur students have breached internal security or disturbed public order, and no such incident has been recorded by either the Government or any court, refutes this accusation. If the name community is given meaning it might breach internal security in the future through strengthening religious feelings, we say this:

Firstly, foremost the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and all preachers, perform the same service.

Secondly, it is not disturbing the peace and breaching security, the students of the Risale-i Nur protect the nation from anarchy with all their strength and conviction, and maintain public order and guard security. The evidence for this has been cited in the First Principle.

Yes, we are a community, and our aim and programme is to save firstly ourselves and then our nation from eternal annihilation and everlasting solitary confinement in the Intermediate Realm, and to protect our compatriots from anarchy and lawlessness, and to protect ourselves with the firm truths of the Risale-i Nur against atheism, which is the means to destroying our lives in this world and in the next.

Eighth Principle: Saying its treatises contain some sharp expressions, they accuse us as a result of deficient and superficial study of the Risale-i Nur carried out in other places. In reply I say this: since our aim is belief and the hereafter, it is not confrontation with the worldly. And since the sharpness particular to these very insignificant one or two treatises was not intentional —we bumped against the worldly while advancing towards our goal— it certainly does not infer political prejudice. And since possibilities are one thing and occurrences are something else, and what we have been accused of is “possibly” disturbing public order, not having disturbed it, it is meaningless, for anyone may kill someone else. And since over a period of twenty years in their scrupulous investigations into twenty thousand people and thousands of copies and letters, and in their searches, neither Eskishehir, nor Kastamonu, nor Isparta, nor Denizli could find anything constituting a real crime, Eskishehir Court was compelled to find us guilty because of one short treatise under one article of an ‘elastic’ law, and could only give six-month sentences to fifteen people out of a hundred in such a way that they should have sentenced all who teach religion. I wonder if the twenty confidential letters one of your people had written over a year were scrutinized, wouldn’t they contain twenty incriminating sentences which would shame him? But the fact that in twenty thousand copies of the treatises and letters from twenty thousand people they could not find twenty truly incriminating sentences shows that the Risale-i Nur’s aim is solely the hereafter. It has no business with this world.

Ninth Principle: As with the matters which Denizli Court’s just prosecutor included in the indictment because of the unfair and superficial records of other places, so with Afyon Court —as indicated by what we experienced while being questioned— pretexts have been made so that we have been charged concerning the same matters, and undated letters, and correspondence over twenty, fifteen, and ten years, and the Fifth Ray —decisive answers about which are found in the Third Principle above and in the Second Question of my petition above— and four or five treatises out of the hundred and thirty of the Risale-i Nur, and a number of letters and treatises which were scrutinized by Eskishehir Court and for which the sentences were served, were later covered by the pardon and were acquitted by Denizli Court. Can it be said about someone who with a speech outside the War Ministry during the Thirty-First of March Incident brought to order eight battalions which had not heeded the Shaykh al-Islam and ‘ulama, that he strove for eight years —as stated by the police report— and only succeeded in deceiving twenty or thirty people? For instance, in the large town of Kastamonu he was able to hoodwink only five people? For during the Denizli affair, in Kastamonu they pulled out all my papers and books, both confidential and otherwise, from under the firewood, and after studying them for three months could find no one in that large town other than Feyzi, Emin, Hilmi, Tevfik, and Sâdik. Because Feyzi and the others had performed some personal services for me for God’s sake, they sent them to prison, together with the three brothers and three or four others they found in Emirdag, who had assisted me for three and a half years. If I had done what that superficial report stated, I would have deceived not five or ten people but five hundred or perhaps five thousand, or even five hundred thousand. As in Denizli Court I pointed out the many errors in the police reports, so too here I am pointing out one or two examples:

They accused us of “corrupting religion” because, following an Islamic custom practised since the age of the Prophet, I had compiled a Hizb al-Qur’ani like a large An‘am13 out of the hundreds of well-known verses which form the sources of the Risale-i Nur.

Also, they want to incriminate us by showing that the Treatise On Islamic Dress (Tesettür Risalesi) was written and published this year, whereas I have already served a year’s sentence for it, and I treated it as confidential, and as noted in the police report, it was pulled out from under piles of firewood. Also, although the well-known person did not respond and was silent in the face of the objections and harsh words I said to him in the Speaker’s Office in the Assembly in Ankara, with gross exaggeration the prosecution applied to him literally the natural, necessary, general, and confidential criticisms in my explanations of forty years previously concerning a Hadith which describes his errors, after his death, making it into an indictable offence for us. Can there be any comparison between the sake or memory of someone who is dead and gone and who no longer has any connection with the Government, and Almighty God’s laws of justice, which are a manifestation of His sovereignty?

Also, freedom of conscience which, of the principles adopted by the Government of the Republic, is the one we have most relied on and defended ourselves with, has been made something we have transgressed against, as though we are opposed to it.

Also, because I criticised the evils and faults of civilization, unimaginable things are ascribed to me in the police reports: as though I do not accept the use of the radio,14 aeroplane and railway, they accuse me of being opposed to modern progress.

Making a comparison with these examples, God willing, like the just and fair Denizli public prosecutor, Afyon Court will show how contrary to justice this treatment is, and will attach no importance to the delusions in those police reports.

The strangest error is this: in one place I said: although mankind should have responded with endless thanks to Almighty God’s supreme bounties of the aeroplane, railway, and radio, they did not respond in that way, so He rained down bombs on their heads from the ’planes. The radio is also a supreme bounty, and thanks for it may be shown by making it a universal reciter of the Qur’an with millions of tongues, allowing all the people on the face of the earth to listen to it. Also, I said when explaining in the Twentieth Word that the Qur’an makes predictions about the future wonders of civilization, that one of its verses indicates that the infidels will defeat the Islamic world with the railway. Although I had urged Islam to lay hold of these wonders, some of the prosecutors in previous courts, accused us of being against modern progress, and made the aeroplane, railway, and radio the basis of charges against us.

Also, although it is completely unrelated, someone said about the name ‘Risaletü’n-Nur,’ which is a second name of the Risale-i Nur, that “it is a message (risalet) from the light of the Qur’an, that is, it is inspired by it, and is an heir performing the function of Divine messengership, of the Shari‘a.” In another place in the indictment, it was given the wrong meaning and made the basis of other charges, as though I had said: “the Risale-i Nur is a Divine Messenger (resûl).”

I have also proved with decisive arguments in twenty places in my defence speeches that even if it was for the whole world, we would not exploit either religion, or the Qur’an, or the Risale-i Nur, and they may not be exploited, and that we would not change one of their truths for rule over the whole world, and that is how we are in fact. There have been thousands of indications of what I claim over the last twenty years. But from the way the interrogations at Afyon are going, and its indictment, we are being accused due to other police reports of expending all our efforts on worldly intrigues, and hastening to the hateful games of this world, and making religion the tool of lowly things and degrading its sacredness, and making these our aim. Since it is thus, with all my strength I say: For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs!

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

An Addendum to My Written Objections to the Charges

Made Against Us by Afyon Court

[Those I address in this objection are not the Afyon Prosecutor and Court, but the spiteful and suspicious officials who due to the false and defective reports of public prosecutors in other places and informers and detectives, have turned against us the extraordinary situation here and in the office of the examining magistrate.]

Firstly: Just how far from justice it is to call the Risale-i Nur students, who are innocent and have no connection with politics, a political society, which is completely baseless and never even occurred to us, and to accuse the unfortunates who embraced the Risale-i Nur and have no aim other than belief and the hereafter, of publishing works for that society, or being active officers or members of it, or of reading the Risale-i Nur or teaching it to others, or of writing it out, thus deeming them guilty of some crime, and to send them to court — a proof of how far this is from justice is as follows:

In accordance with the principles of freedom of thought and freedom of scholarship, those who read the harmful works written to oppose the Qur’an by Doctor Dozy and other atheists are not considered to have committed crimes, yet those who have great need to learn the truths of the Qur’an and belief and long to do so, and read and write out the Risale-i Nur, which teaches those truths as clearly as daylight, are considered guilty of crimes. Also, they based their allegations on a few sentences in one or two treatises which we had treated as confidential before they were exhibited in court, so that among a hundred other treatises a wrong meaning should not be given them, and accusations were made concerning them. However, with the exception of one of those treatises, Eskishehir Court scrutinized them and objected only to one or two matters in Treatise On Islamic Dress, and the exception is replied to extremely decisively in both my petition and my objections to the indictment; and the fact that “we have light in our hands, not the club of politics” was proved conclusively from twenty angles in Eskishehir Court; and Denizli Court scrutinized all the treatises of the Risale-i Nur without exception and did not object to any of them. Nevertheless, those unfair prosecutors extended those three or four sentences to the whole Risale-i Nur, and just as they confiscated the four-hundred-page Zülfikâr because of two pages, so they stated those who read and write out the Risale-i Nur were guilty of a crime and accused myself of contesting the Government. I call on those close to me and the friends who meet with me to testify that for more than ten years, apart from two leaders, one deputy, and the Governor of Kastamonu, I have have not known who the leaders of the Government were, or who its ministers, commanders, officials, and deputies were, and I have not been curious to find out. However, one or two years ago, one or two persons displayed an interest in me and I learnt of five or six of the leading members of the Government. Is it in any way possible for someone not to know the people he is contesting, and to have no wish to know them, to attach no importance to learning whether they are friend or foe? It is understood from this that they dream up totally baseless pretexts to ruin me whatever happens.

Since that is the case, I say not to the court here but to those unjust people: I don’t give tuppence for your severest penalty; it has no importance whatsoever. For I am seventy-five years old and have one foot in the grave. To exchange one or two years of innocent life of persecution for the rank of martyrdom would be the greatest happiness for me. Thanks to the thousands of proofs of the Risale-i Nur, I believe with the utmost certainty that for us death is our discharge papers. Even if outwardly it is execution, for us one hour’s distress would be the key to eternal happiness and mercy. But as for you, covert, cruel enemies who confuse the judiciary on account of atheism and preoccupy the Government with us for no reason! Be certain of this and tremble! For you are being condemned to eternal annihilation and everlasting solitary confinement. We see that our revenge is being taken on you in compounded fashion. We pity you even. Yes, surely the reality of death, which has emptied this town a hundred times into the graveyard has demands greater than life. To find a way of being delivered from its certain execution is man’s greatest need, more important than anything. Those who on trite pretexts impute guilt to the Risale-i Nur students, who have found this way for themselves, and to the Risale-i Nur, which provides that way with thousands of proofs, —how guilty they are themselves in the eyes of truth and justice even lunatics would understand.

There are three matters which deceive these unjust people and give rise to the delusion of a political society, which is completely irrelevant:

The First: The fact that since early days my students have been fervently attached to me like brothers, has given rise to the erroneous impression of a society.

The Second: Some of the Risale-i Nur students have acted as though they were an Islamic group, such as is found everywhere and is permitted by the laws of the Republic and is not harassed by it, and this has been imagined to be a society. But those limited three or four students have not intended any sort of political society, only to serve belief together sincerely as brothers and to support each other in working for the hereafter.

The Third: Because those unfair people know themselves to be misguided and overcome by love of this world, and because they find some of the Government’s laws convenient for themselves, they say to themselves: “Most probably Said and his friends oppose the Government’s laws, which suit our caprices, which are illicit in the eyes of civilization. In which case, they are a political society which opposes the Government.”

So I say: You wretches! If the world was eternal, and man was going to remain in it permanently, and his only duty was politics, perhaps there would have been some meaning in your slander. But if I had undertaken this work with a view to politics, you would have found not ten sentences in a hundred treatises, but a thousand, to be political and combative. If to suppose the impossible, like you, we had been working with all our strength for worldly aims and pleasures and politics, which not even Satan could make anyone accept, even if it had been thus, since these twenty years there has been no incident in which we were involved, and the Government looks not to the heart but to the hand, and all governments have fierce opponents, you cannot deem us guilty in the name of the law. My last word is

God suffices me, there is no god but He; in Him do I place my trust — He the Sustainer of the Throne [of Glory] Supreme!15

* * *

[After our acquittal in Denizli Court I lived alone and did not concern myself with politics. This new affair, which has resulted in our being sent to Afyon Prison, is therefore unlawful in ten ways, as I shall explain.]

The First: Although the Risale-i Nur has been scrutinized by three courts and three committees of experts, and seven departments of government in Ankara and their legal bodies, and although all the treatises were unanimously acquitted without opposition, and Said and his seventy-five companions were all acquitted without being sentenced to a single day’s imprisonment, to again seize those treatises as though they were pernicious writings is totally contrary to the law, as anyone the slightest bit reasonable would understand.

The Second: A man who lived for three and a half years all alone and a stranger in Emirdag after having been acquitted, with his door locked from the outside and bolted on the inside, who accepted only one out of a hundred people on essential business, and even gave up the work of writing he had pursued for twenty years and wrote no more —he had the lock on his door smashed by detectives for political purposes and they broke in on him, but they could find nothing other than an Arabic prayerbook and a wall-hanging. Anyone with even a grain of fairness would understand how illegal it was to harass him in this way.

The Third: As he said in court: if there is someone who as is confirmed by seventy witnesses, for seven years knew nothing of the Second World War and was not curious about it nor asked about it, and now for ten years has been in the same state of mind, and for twenty-five years has read no newspaper nor listened to one, and for thirty years has said: “I seek refuge with God from Satan and politics,” and has avoided politics with all his strength, and if in twenty-two years of the most tortuous distress, in order not to attract the attention of politicians or become involved in politics, has not once applied to the Government to alleviate his conditions —if there is such a person, is it in conformity with any law to raid his place of seclusion as though he was plotting political intrigues, and cause him unheard of suffering while he was ill? Anyone with an iota of conscience would pity him in that state!

The Fourth: Eskishehir Court studied the Risale-i Nur for six months because we had been charged with organizing a political society and founding a sufi order, and due to that suspicion and because of the personal hatred towards us of the great leader it urged certain members of the judiciary to act against us, yet that court acquitted us of founding a political society and sufi order and the Risale-i Nur charges, and only making a pretext of a short piece called Treatise On Islamic Dress, gave sentences of six months to fifteen out of a hundred students, not in accordance with the law but arbitrarily. And although until the investigations had been completed they remained in prison for four and a half months, that is, they served prison sentences of one and a half months, and ten years later Denizli Court again on a number of pretexts like organizing a political society and founding a sufi order, and after scrutinizing closely twenty years’ worth of letters and writings, sent five boxes of books to Ankara Criminal Court, and although those books and letters were the subject of two years’ close scrutiny by Ankara and Denizli Courts, they passed a unanimous decision for their acquittal concerning the political society and sufi order16 and other pretexts, and returned all the books to their owners. They also acquitted Said and his companions. So anyone who has not lost his humanity will understand just how illegal it is to look on him as a political activist and accuse him of being a plotter, and to provoke the officers of the court against him.

The Fifth: Because of the compassion which is the basis of my way and that of the Risale-i Nur and for thirty years has been a principle by which I have lived, so that no harm comes to the innocent I do not censure the tyrants who persecute me, let alone cursing them. Even when angry at some of those depraved wretches who oppress me out of vicious hatred, or even the irreligious tyrants, my compassion prevents me from responding with a curse, let alone physically. For those cruel tyrants have parents and children; I do nothing to them so that no material harm comes to those four or five elderly unfortunates and innocents. Sometimes I even forgive them. It is because of this compassion that I absolutely never interfere in government or disturb public order. Moreover, I have recommended this so strongly to all my friends that some of the fair-minded police of three provinces have admitted that “these Risale-i Nur students are police of a sort; they preserve order and maintain public security.” There are thousands of witnesses to this fact, and they have confirmed it through twenty years’ experience and thousands of students have corroborated it by never having been involved in any incident recorded by the police, so which law permits that unhappy man’s house to be raided as though he was a revolutionary and ‘komitadji’, and for pitiless men to insult him, and despite not finding anything in his house, as though he was a multiple criminal gather up his most precious, miraculous Qur’an and the inscriptions hanging on his wall as though they were pernicious writings? What benefit demands turning thousands of religious people who thus serve public order with their good morals against government and public order because of some baseless suspicion?

The Sixth: Endless thanks be to God that thirty years ago, through His grace and the effulgence of the Qur’an, a person realized just how valueless and meaningless are the fleeting fame and glory of this world, and its egotistical self-admiration and celebrity, and since that time has struggled with all his strength against his evil-commanding soul, and to be self-effacing and give up egotism, and not to be artificial and hypocritical. Those who have served him or befriended him are perfectly certain of this and testify to it. For twenty years he has fled with all his might from people’s good opinions and their attention, which everyone takes too much pleasure in, and contrary to everyone else has rejected praise and acclaim and being accorded a spiritual rank. He has also rejected the excessively good opinions of him of his closest brothers, and has wounded their feelings by not accepting the praise and commendation expressed in their letters. He has show himself to be devoid of virtue, and has ascribed all virtue to the Risale-i Nur, a Qur’anic commentary, and hence to the collective personality of the Risale-i Nur students, thinking of himself as only a lowly servant. This proves that he has not tried to make himself liked, and he has not wanted to and has rejected it. So under what law has he been deemed guilty because without his consent some of his friends in a distant place had an excessively good opinion of him and eulogized him and awarded him a high spiritual rank; and because of what a preacher said in the region of Kütahya whom he does not know; and because of a letter with a forged signature which had been sent to Kütahya, where I have never sent any letter; and because of an offensive book in Balikesir, the author of which is unknown? Would any law in the world permit sending officials to break the lock of a wretched, aged, ill stranger’s room as though he had committed a serious crime, and allow them to justify this by finding only a book of supplications and a wall-hanging? Would any politics allow such aggression?

The Seventh: Would any law permit for an unfortunate who, although at this time inside the country when there are so many lively political parties and currents, internal and external, and the ground is ripe to take advantage of this, that is, to win numerous diplomats and politicians as supporters in place of his handful of friends, told all his friends, solely in order not to get involved in politics, nor damage his sincerity, nor attract the government’s attention to himself, nor to become preoccupied with the world: “Beware! Don’t get carried away by those political currents! Don’t get involved in politics! Don’t disturb public order!”; and although two currents caused him harm and distress because he withdrew in this way, the old one because of its groundless fears, and the new, because its says he does not help it — despite all this he never interfered in the worldly’s world and was busy with his life in the hereafter, and wrote not even one letter in twenty-two years to his own brother in the village of Nurs in his native region, nor ten letters in twenty years to his friends in those provinces — so which law permits that anyone intervenes to this extent with his preoccupation with the hereafter?

Would any law permit collecting up copies of the Risale-i Nur, in which three courts of law have found nothing indictable, although under the liberty laws the publications of those without religion and the communists are not interfered with despite being extremely harmful for the country and nation and morality. For the Risale-i Nur has been striving for twenty years to maintain the country and nation’s social life and morality and security; and has been effectively struggling to regain for this nation its true support, the Islamic world’s brotherhood and its friendship, and to strengthen these; and the parts of the Risale-i Nur like Zülfikâr and The Staff of Moses (Âsâ-yi Mûsa), which having been studied for three months by the Directorate of Religious Affairs on the orders of the Minister for Internal Affairs for the purpose of having it criticized, fully appreciated its value and had it put in the Department library as “an important work;” and The Staff of Moses, which was placed on the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him), as a sign of its acceptance was seen there by the Hajjis. Would any law, conscience, or justice permit these to be collected up as though they were injurious papers and sent to court?

The Eighth: Then a person who although he was given complete freedom after twenty-two years of distressing and unjustified exile, did not return to his native region where he had thousands of friends and relations, but preferred solitude and exile so that he should have no contact with social life and politics; and who gave up the very meritorious congregation of the mosque in preferance to performing the prayers on his own and remaining in his room; that is, his state of mind made him avoid the people’s adulation; and as is testified to by twenty years of his life and confirmed by thousands of valuable Turks, preferred one pious Turk to numerous negligent Kurds, and who even proved in court that he would not exchange a hundred negligent Kurds for one Turkish brother with powerful belief like Hafiz Ali; and who in order not to be the object of their respect and veneration, never met with people so long as it was not essential and did not go to the mosque; and for forty years has worked with all his strength and all his works for Islamic brotherhood and so that Muslims would love one another; and who, since the Turkish nation is the Qur’an’s standard-bearer and is praised by the Qur’an, has great love for that nation and has passed his life among its people —in order to insult this person with the tongue of officialdom and make propaganda and scare away his friends, the former governor said: “He is a Kurd and you are Turks. He is a Shafi‘i and you are Hanafi’s,” trying to frighten everyone into abandoning him. And although over twenty years and in two courts he was not forced to change his manner of dress, and the army peaked cap was modified, a brimmed hat was forcibly placed on the head of that recluse — what benefit is there is all this? What law permits it?

The Ninth: is very important,17 and very powerful, but it touches on politics so I am remaining silent.

The Tenth: This is an attack, which no law permits, and is without advantage, and is only making mountains out of molehills due to some meaningless delusion, and is no part of any law. Concerning this too I am remaining silent so as not to touch on politics, which according to our way we are unconcerned with.

In the face of treatment which is thus illegal in ten ways, all we say is For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs!

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

I have a few more points I want to submit to

the authorities of Afyon, and to its Court and Police

The First: Most of the prophets appearing in the East and in Africa, and most of the philosophers emerging in the West and in Europe is a sign of pre-eternal Divine Determining that in Asia religion is dominant and philosophy is in second place. In consequence, even if those ruling in Asia are not religious, they should not interfere with those who work for religion; they should encourage them.

The Second: The All-Wise Qur’an is the intellect and power of thought of the head of the earth. If, I seek refuge with God, the Qur’an was to depart from the globe, the globe would go mad. It is not far from reason to suppose that another planet colliding with its head emptied of reason, would cause doomsday to erupt. Yes, the Qur’an is a chain, a ‘rope of God,’ binding the earth to the Divine Throne. It preserves the earth more than gravity. Thus, the Risale-i Nur, which is a true and powerful commentary on the Qur’an of Mighty Stature, is a supreme Divine bounty which has been demonstrating its effectiveness for twenty years in this century, an insuppressible miracle of the Qur’an. The Government therefore should not be interfering in it and trying to scare its students away from it, but protecting it and encouraging people to read it.

The Third: In Denizli Court I said the following in connection with all the believers assisting with prayers for forgiveness those who have departed for the past, and their bequeathing good works on their spirits:

When you are asked by millions of believing plaintiffs at the Supreme Tribunal: “Why did you want to ruin with imprisonment and persecution the Risale-i Nur students, who were striving to save the country and nation from anarchy and irreligion and immorality and their compatriots from eternal annihilation, although because of the liberty laws you looked tolerantly on the publications of atheists and communists and political societies that produce anarchists, and did not bother them?” What answer will you and those who want to convict and ruin the Risale-i Nur students, who serve the truths of the Qur’an, give? I am asking you the same thing! I said that to them and those just and fair-minded people acquitted us, demonstrating the fairness of the judicial system.

The Fourth: I was expecting to be taken for interrogation to a place of consultation, in either Ankara or Afyon, where questions would be asked and answered about matters of overriding importance and the Risale-i Nur’s relation to them. Yes, matters connected with finding ways of restoring the brotherhood, love, and good will of three hundred and fifty million Muslims for this nation and country, and their moral assistance for it. An indication that the Risale-i Nur is the most effective means of achieving this is the following:

In Mecca this year, a scholar of great eminence translated the main collections of the Risale-i Nur into both one of the Indian languages and Arabic, and sending them to India and Arabia, said: “Just as he strives through the Risale-i Nur to secure unity and Islamic brotherhood, our most powerful support, so he demonstrates that the Turkish nation is always progressive in religion and belief.”

I was also expecting that momentous questions would be asked like “What is the extent of the service the Risale-i Nur can provide in the face of the danger communism poses to this country, because it turns into anarchy? How can this blessed country be defended against this terrible torrent?” It should have been thus, but having been blown up out of all proportion due to the petty and personal slander of the spiteful, matters holding not the slightest importance and which are in no way crimes, were discussed, which caused distress me in these serious conditions, the like of which I have never before suffered in my life. Meaningless questions were asked about one or two minor personal matters which three previous courts had previously examined then acquitted.

The Fifth: The Risale-i Nur cannot be contested or defeated. It has been silencing the most obdurate philosophers for twenty years. It demonstrates the truths of belief as clearly as the sun. Those who rule this country should profit from its strength.

The Sixth: Destroying my unimportant character because of my personal faults, and through contemptuous treatment poisoning public opinion about me does not harm the Risale-i Nur, in fact it strengthens it in some ways. For in place of my mortal tongue are the undying tongues of a hundred thousand copies of the Risale-i Nur, and they cannot be silenced; they will speak out. And as they have up to now, the thousands of powerful tongues of its sincere students will continue that sacred, universal service till the end of the world, God willing.

The Seventh: As I stated in the previous trials putting forward the proofs, our enemies and those who oppose us both officially and unofficially, deceiving the Government, making some of its leading members suspicious about us and causing the judiciary to move against us, are either seriously deceived or have been deceived by others, or are exceedingly treacherous revolutionaries working on account of anarchy, or cunning atheists struggling against Islam and the truths of the Qur’an on account of apostasy. Calling absolute despotism “the Republic” in order to attack us, and making the regime a screen to absolute apostasy, and calling absolute dissipation “civilization,” and calling arbitrary compulsion on account of disbelief “the law,” they have both ruined us, and deceived the Government, and preoccupied the judiciary with us for no reason. Referring them to the wrath of the All-Compelling and Glorious One, we take refuge in the citadel of For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs so as to defend ourselves against their evil.

The Eighth: Last year the Russians sent numerous people to make the Hajj as propaganda in order to show that they are more respectful towards the Qur’an than other nations and, because of religion, to try to turn the Islamic world against the religious people of this country. But the main collections of the Risale-i Nur were being spread at that time in both Mecca, and Medina, and Damascus, and Egypt, and Aleppo, attracting the appreciation of the religious scholars, which both negated the communist propaganda, and showed to the Islamic world that like formerly the Turkish nation and its brothers are supporting religion and the Qur’an and are the elder brothers of the other peoples of Islam and their heroic commander in the service of the Qur’an. Those collections from the Risale-i Nur demonstrated this in those sacred centres. Will it not the bring the earth to anger if this valuable national service of the Risale-i Nur is responded to with torments in this way?

The Ninth is a brief summary of a matter that was proved and elucidated in my defence in Denizli.

If through his genius and intelligence a great military commander arrogates to himself all the positive virtues of the army and ascribes to the army his own negative evils, the courageous actions and virtues of the soldiers, which equal them in number, will be reduced to one, while the commander’s evils will be equal in number to the soldiers, which is an awesome wrong and contrary to the truth. This being so, I said to the public prosecutor in our previous trials, who was attacking me because of the slap a Hadith I expounded forty years earlier dealt that person: “It’s true I’m offending him due to predictions made by Hadiths, but I’m also defending the army’s honour and preserving him from serious error. As for you, for the sake of one single friend of yours, you are affronting the honour of the army, which is the Qur’an’s standard-bearer and an heroic commander of the Islamic world.” God willing, the prosecutor saw the matter more fairly and was saved from his error.

The Tenth: It is because in the administration of justice the essence of justice and the rights of everyone who applies have to preserved without discrimination and the duty of those involved is to work solely for the sake of right, that during his caliphate, Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) sat together with a Jew in court and they were tried together. On another occasion, a just judge saw that an official was angry with a delinquent thief when he was cutting off his hand as demanded by the law. He immediately sacked the official, and full of regret said: “Those who up to now have been influenced by their feelings in this way while executing the law have perpetrated great wrongs.” Yes, even if in executing the law he does not pity the convicted man, he may not be angry; if he is, he is acting tyrannically. If he carries out capital punishment angrily, even if it is in retaliation (qisas), he becomes a sort of murderer.”

Thus, in courts of law it is this pure, unbiased truth which rules. But although three courts have acquitted us, and perhaps if they knew, ninety per cent of this nation would testify that the Risale-i Nur students are harmless and beneficial for nation and country, the students are being angrily and contemptuously mistreated, despite being innocent and much in need of consolation and the indulgence of the law. But since we have decided to meet with patience and forbearance every calamity and insult, we are silent, referring it to God and saying: “Perhaps there is some good in this.” However, I was afraid that these innocent unfortunates being treated in this way due to unfounded suspicions and the malicious reports of informers would lead to the visitation of disaster, and I was therefore obliged to write this. Anyway, if there is any fault in this matter, it is mine. These unfortunates assisted me solely seeking God’s pleasure and to save their religious belief and lives in the hereafter. For them to receive such treatment when they were deserving of praise and appreciation, is enough to make anyone angry.

Moreover, it is amazing, but again they are making unsupported assertions about a political society. However, both three courts have scrutinized this aspect of the case and acquitted us, and neither the courts, nor the police, nor the experts’ committees have discovered any sign of any society that could justify such an accusation: the Risale-i Nur students are a brotherhood which looks to the hereafter, like the students of a teacher, or university students, or the students of a Qur’an teacher who is teaching them to memorize the Qur’an. Those who have made charges against them calling them a political society, have to look on all tradesmen, preachers, and school-children as belonging to such societies. I therefore see no necessity to defend those imprisoned here as a result of such meaningless and baseless charges.

However, there is nothing at all to prevent me defending the Risale-i Nur with the same facts that I have defended it with three times previously, for it closely concerns both this country and the Islamic world, and it is the beneficial cause of plenty and blessings, material and spiritual, for this nation and country. No law or politics prohibits this or could prohibit it.

Yes, we are a society, but we a society which every century has three hundred and fifty million members. Every day with the obligatory prayers, its members demonstrate five times with perfect veneration their attachment to the principles of that sacred society, and their wish to serve it. In accordance with the sacred programme of Indeed, the believers are brothers,18 they hasten with their supplications and spiritual gains to assist one another. Yes, we are members of that holy and vast society. And our particular duty is to convey in confirmatory form to the people of belief the Qur’anic truths of faith, and save them and ourselves from eternal annihilation and perpetual solitary confinement in the Intermediate Realm. We have absolutely no connection with any worldly, political, plotting society, political or revolutionary, as has been imputed to us; we do not condescend to any such meaningless, purposeless secret society. In any event, four courts of law have investigated this down to the finest details, and then acquitted us concerning it.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My written objections, which form a supplement and addition

to my defence, and were sent to six departments of government in

Ankara, and presented to Afyon Criminal Court

I say this to Afyon Court: Enough now! My patience is exhausted! It is a cruel and unprecedented wrong that in addition to having harassed me for twenty-two years without reason by holding me under constant surveillance in exile in total isolation and solitary confinement, to have illegally imprisoned the Risale-i Nur students three times and caused us loss of hundreds of thousands of liras because of unfounded suspicions and utilizing ‘possibilities’ instead of facts. And this, in spite of the fact that other than two or three matters six courts have been unable to find anything contrary to the law in the hundred parts of the Risale-i Nur. The future and its generations will curse the tyrants who have been responsible for it. Up to now I have found consolation since it is my conviction that they will condemn them and cast them down to the depths of Hell at the Last Judgement, and holding my silence I have endured it. Otherwise, we could have defended our rights to the full.

Six courts over fifteen years have scrutinized the Risale-i Nur and our correspondence, and five of them in effect acquitted us on all points. Only Eskishehir Court made a pretext of five or ten words in the short treatise about the veiling of women, a single matter, and gave a light sentence under a ‘flexible’ law. When they did this, I wrote the following in the correction which after the Appeal Court I sent officially to Ankara as the sole example of illegality:

A long time ago, following the consensus and rulings of three hundred and fifty thousand Qur’anic commentaries, I expounded the Qur’anic verses about the veiling of women, which for one thousand three hundred and fifty years have taught and enjoined a powerful, perpetual Islamic practice and sacred principle of three hundred and fifty million people, in order to defend them against an atheist’s objections and his criticisms of Qur’anic civilization. If there is any justice in the world, the Court will surely quash the conviction of someone and the sentence passed on him for expounding the verses, since he was following the way taken by our forefathers for one thousand three hundred and fifty years; it will surely remove this extraordinary stain from the legal establishment of this Islamic State.

I wrote this in the addendum containing my corrections and showed it to the public prosecutor. He was horrified and said: “There is no need for this. Your sentence was short and only a small part of it remains. There is no need to send this.”

Thus, you have understood the truly strange examples like this one in my defence and objection, which has been presented to you and the departments of government in Ankara. What I seek and hope from Afyon Court is this: I await from you in the name of true justice that you decide on the complete freedom of the Risale-i Nur, whose service and effulgence profits the nation and country as much as an army. Otherwise, I have to inform you that when the five or ten of my friends who were sent to prison because of their relations with me are released, I have the idea of committing some offence which will necessitate the heaviest penalty, compelling me to bid farewell to this life. It is like this:

Although for the good of the country and nation, the Government should give me full protection and assist me, the fact that it is pressurizing me suggests that part of the communist organization and the secret atheistic society that have been working against me these last forty years, with which it has now combined, have both gained control of important positions, and are opposing me. It worries me, for there are numerous signs that the Government either does not know of this, or it is permitting it.

Chairman of the Court! With your permission, I shall ask you a question about which I am extremely curious: why, although I have in no way been involved in politics, have the politicians deprived me of all civil rights, all liberties, and even all the rights of life? And why have they forbidden my very careful brothers and loyal assistants to have any contact with me, who tried to protect me against those plans to assassinate me while I was being held for thee and a half months in total isolation, and to defend me against my covert enemies who have poisoned me eleven times, and have even prevented me, although I am elderly, alone, in exile, and ill, from studying my blessed, harmless books, which I always had with me?

I pleaded with the public prosecutor to give me my books, but he did not give them although he promised. They compelled me to remain alone in a huge, locked, and freezing ward with nothing to occupy myself, and instead of the officials and menials concerned being friendly and comforting, they quite simply encouraged them to look on me hostilely. A small example is this: I wrote a petition to the prison governor, public prosecutor, and chairman of the court, and sent it to one of my brothers to write out since I do not know the new letters. It was written and was given to them. Then, as though I had committed some heinous crime, they nailed up my windows. The smoke from the stove was a great discomfort to me, and I insisted that they left one window open. Now they have nailed that up too. Also, although according to prison practice, solitary confinement usually lasts around a fortnight, I was in total isolation for three and a half months and they did not allow any of my friends to have any contact with me. Also, three months ago a forty-page indictment was written against me, and they showed it to me. But I do not know the new letters, and I was ill, and my own writing is very poor, so I pleaded with them to let two of my students come, who know my language, and could read the indictment and write out my objections to it. But they did not permit it. They said: “The defence lawyer should come and read it.” Then they did not permit him either. Only, they told one of my brothers to write it out in the old letters and give it to me. But it would take six or seven days to write out those forty pages. To make the hour’s work of reading me the indictment stretch over six or seven days, just so that no one should have contact with me, is appalling repression and deprives me of my right of defence entirely. A multiple murderer condemned to be hanged does not receive such treatment. I truly suffer extreme distress since I know of no reason for this unprecedented torment. I heard that the Chairman of the Court is fair-minded and kind. I have therefore for the first and last time written this petition and complaint.

S a i d N u r s i ,

who is ill, wretched, and in total isolation.

* * *

The Indictment contains four basic points concerning me

First Point: I consider myself to be a regenerator of religion, as though I was proud and self-seeking.

I reject this with all my strength. Moreover, all my brothers will testify that I have never accepted anyone’s suggestion that I was the Mahdi. In fact, when the experts’ committee of Denizli Court said “If Said was to declare himself Mahdi, all his students would accept it,” Said stated in his objections, saying: “I am not a Sayyid, and the Mahdi will be a Sayyid,” thus refuting them.

Second Point: Publishing things secretly.

Our covert enemies should not misconstrue things, for there is nothing that touches on politics and public order. Also, they should not make the duplicating machine and the old letters a pretext. Six courts of law and various departments of government in Ankara understood the blow dealt by the Risale-i Nur19 at Mustafa Kemal, and they did not bother about it and acquitted us, returning all our books to us including the Fifth Ray. Moreover, his bad deeds were pointed out in order to preserve the army’s worth. One person was disliked in order to affectionately praise the army.

The Third: “He encourages the breaching of public security.” This extraordinary accusation is refuted by the facts that over a period of twenty years six courts and the police of ten provinces have not recorded a single instance when any of the hundred thousand Nurju’s and hundred thousand copies of parts of the Risale-i Nur breached public security or disturbed public order, and they have not found any such thing. It is meaningless to reply to a few unimportant matters in this new indictment, for three courts of law have acquitted us on these very points and they have been replied to repeatedly. Since charging us with these matters is the equivalent of charging Ankara Criminal Court and the Courts of Denizli and Eskishehir, which acquitted us concerning them, I leave it to them to reply. But there are two or three further matters.

The First: Although it was studied for two years in the closest detail by Denizli and Ankara Criminal Courts and they acquitted us and returned the book, this Indictment applies one or two matters in the Fifth Ray to a commander who is dead and gone and shows them to be indictable offences. So we say: absolutely no law can deem it an offence to make a fair, general criticism which might be made applicable to a person who dead and gone and has no connection with the Government.

Manipulating the facts, the prosecution has taken one aspect of that general interpretation and applied it to that commander. No law can consider it a crime if one hundredth of a meaning which may be understood as referring to someone is found in a confidential and private treatise. Moreover, the treatise expounds allegorical Hadiths in wondrous fashion. Since those explanations were written thirty or forty years ago, and decisive answers have been given in my defence and objections, which have been presented to three other courts besides yours, and to six departments of government in Ankara, and have received no criticism, surely it cannot be considered to be at variance with any law if explanations of the Hadith’s true meaning turn out to fit a faulty individual.

Also, the merits of the reforms in which that person had a part, the faults of which he was the cause, are not only his, they are also the army’s and the government’s. He only had a share of them. Just as it is surely not a crime to criticize him for his faults, so it cannot be said it is attacking the reforms. Also could it possibly be a crime not to like someone who turned the Aya Sophia Mosque into a house of idols —despite its being an eternal source of this heroic nation’s honour, and shining like a jewel in its jihad and service of the Qur’an, and being a vast and precious souvenir of the nation’s swords— and who also transformed the Shaykh al-Islam’s Office into a girls’ high school?

The Second Matter with which I am charged in the Indictment:

Three courts of law have acquitted me on this matter; and as I pointed out forty years ago when elucidating the wondrous interpretation of a Hadith, the Shaykh al-Islam of men and jinn, Zembilli ‘Ali Efendi, stated: “It is not permissible to put a brimmed hat on one’s head, even as a joke,” and all the Shaykh al-Islams and all the Islamic ‘ulama considered it impermissible. The mass of Muslims were therefore in danger when they were forced to wear such hats (that is, they either had to renounce their religion or rebel); but since in one section of the Fifth Ray, which was written forty years ago, it says “The wearing of the brimmed hat will be enforced, and prostration in prayer will be forbidden. But the faith in the heads of those wearing it will make the hat prostrate, God willing, making it Muslim,” it saved the mass of Muslims both from rebellion and revolt, and from voluntarily renouncing their religion and belief; and although no law at all can propose such a thing to those living in seclusion; and in twenty years none of six provincial authorities have forced me to wear it; and officials in their offices and women and children and people in the mosques and the majority of villagers are not compelled to wear it; and it has now been officially taken off the soldiers’ heads; and in many provinces now berets and knitted hats are not prohibited; nevertheless, it has been put forward as a reason for the conviction of myself and my brothers. Could any law in the world, any principle, any good, consider this completely meaningless charge to be a crime?

The Third Matter with which I am charged:

Incitement to breach public security in Emirdag. My objection to this is as follows:

Firstly is my irrefutable list of objections, which has been presented to the court here and to six departments of government in Ankara with this court’s knowledge and permission. I am now stating it exactly in answer to the indictment.

Secondly: As is testified to by all those who met with me in Emirdag and is confirmed by its people and police, in my solitude I avoided involvement in politics with all my power. I even gave up writing and corresponding with others. I wrote nothing apart from two pieces, one on repetition in the Qur’an, the other about the angels. And I used to write one letter a week to one place to encourage people in the Risale-i Nur. In fact, in three years I wrote only three or four letters to my own brother, who is a Mufti and for twenty years was with me as my student, and was very anxious about me, and sent me congratulations for the religious festivals. And although for twenty years I have not written once to my brother who is in my native region, I am accused in the indictment of breaching security, and once again, of “opposing the reforms.” In reply I say this:

The fact that in twenty years six courts of law and the police of ten provinces connected with the matter have not recorded any incident involving the disturbance of public order and breaching of security in connection with the twenty thousand or perhaps a hundred thousand people who enthusiastically read the twenty thousand copies of the Risale-i Nur, shows that it looks on a single possibility out of thousands as being established fact. But if there is no sign of anything concerning one possibility out of two or three, there can be no crime. And it is not one possibility out of thousands, but everyone including the prosecutor who attacks me, could kill numerous people; they could disturb public peace and order on account of communism, and breach security. That is to say, it is contempt of court and the law to put forward extraordinary and exaggerated possibilities in place of events.

Furthermore, every government has opponents. It is no crime to oppose a government purely intellectually. The government looks to the hand, not to the heart. Especially someone who has performed great services for this country and nation and caused no harm, and latterly played no part in the life of society, but has been made to live in absolute isolation, and whose works have been appreciated and applauded in the most important centres of the Islamic world.21 I fear that those who level these quite extraordinary, groundless accusations at such persons are unknowingly being exploited on account of anarchy, indeed, communism.

I have understood from certain signs that with the idea of belittling the Risale-i Nur and due to groundless suspicions about the Mahdi question, which has political associations, our covert enemies are investigating completely baseless suggestions that the Risale-i Nur is being exploited for this. Perhaps it is because of these suspicions that I am made to suffer such torments. I say to those tyrannical secret enemies and to those who listen to them out of hostility to us: God forbid! Again, God forbid! Both my seventy-five-year life, and especially these last thirty years, and the one hundred and thirty parts of the Risale-i Nur, and the thousands of people who have offered me their sincere friendship testify that at no time have I overstepped my mark in such a way and made the truths of belief a means of winning rank, fame, and renown for myself.

Yes, the Risale-i Nur students know and I have pointed out proofs of it in the courts that, not to gain for myself any position or fame, and win spiritual rank and a high rank in the hereafter, but in order to serve the believers with all my conviction and strength in the question of belief, I am ready to sacrifice not only my life in this world and its transient ranks, but —if necessary— my life in the hereafter and its everlasting ranks, which everyone seeks; and even, in order to be a means of saving certain unfortunates from Hell, —if necessary— to forgo Paradise and myself go to Hell. Just as my true brothers know this, so I have proved it in some respects in the courts. Accusing me in this way of insincerity in my service of the Risale-i Nur and belief, and depreciating the Risale-i Nur and devaluing it, will deprive this nation of its sublime truths.

If, because they imagine this world is eternal and that like themselves everyone exploits religion and belief for the world, these wretches ascribe worldly motives to someone who challenges all the people of misguidance in this world, is ready to sacrifice his lives both in this world, and if necessary, in the next; and as he claimed in the courts would not exchange a single truth of belief for rule of the whole world; and out of sincerity and its mystery flees with all his strength from politics and all ranks, material and spiritual, which hint of politics; and has endured unequalled torments for twenty years; and due to his way, has not condescended to any involvement in politics; and with respect to himself considers himself far inferior to his students, and believes himself to be truly wretched and unimportant — if because of the extraordinary strength of belief they have obtained from the Risale-i Nur, some of his sincere brothers ascribe to him in their private letters some of the virtues of the Risale-i Nur, because he is their ‘interpreter’; and in consequence of a custom which has absolutely no political overtones they afford him a high rank —like people call ordinary persons they love “My lord! My benefactor!,”— and they think much better of him than is his due; and follow the old, acceptable custom practised between master and students, which is not objected to and has the meaning of thanks, and praise him excessively; and write exaggerated eulogies, which has long been the custom to write at the ends of acceptable books; if they do these things, can it in any way be considered a crime? For sure it is opposed to the truth in a way since it is exaggeration, but he is a stranger, alone, with numerous enemies, and there are numerous things to make him lose his helpers. So purely in order to strengthen their morale in the face of so many opponents and to prevent them fleeing and not to destroy the enthusiasm of those who praised him excessively, he changed part of what they had written so that it referred to the Risale-i Nur and did not reject it outright. It may be understood therefore just how far from the truth, the law, and fair-mindedness certain officials have fallen when they try to make the above person’s service of belief look to this world, despite his age and his being at the door of the grave. My last word is:

And for every calamity: we belong to God, and to Him is our return.22

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

Supplement

I saw that it was written on the back of the last report concerning the investigations of the examining magistrate: “On the pretext that its explanations of three verses against civilization were not in conformity with the present Civil Code, four months ago the decision was taken by the Cabinet to officially prohibit the distribution of The Miraculousness of the Qur’an, that is, the Twenty-Fifth Word.”

My reply to this: The Miraculousness of the Qur’an is now part of Zülfikâr, and on only two pages of the four hundred pages of Zülfikâr are explanations of the three verses, which reply in a way that cannot be objected to, to some of civilization’s criticisms of the Qur’an, and were included in three of my old treatises. One of the verses is about the veiling of women; the second, And to the mother, a sixth,23 is about inheritance; as is the third, And for the man a portion equal to that of two women.24 I expounded the wisdom of these verses’ meanings in a way that would silence the philosophers, in two pages twenty years ago, and in my other treatises thirty years ago. It is therefore our legal right, instead of banning the four-hundred-page Zülfikâr on the suspicion that it was written now, to excise those two pages from it and return the book to us — just as if a letter contains one or two harmful words, those words are cut out and the publication of the rest is permitted. We seek our rights from your just court in this matter.

Since nobody could find the opportunity to come to read to me the forty-page indictment, which was given me a month ago, they read it to me today, 11th June, for the first time. I listened to it, and I saw that the list of my objections which I wrote for you two months ago, and the Appendix and Addendum to my objections of nearly a month ago, had been given to both six departments of government in Ankara, and to your office. Those objections refute and demolish that indictment. I see absolutely no necessity to rewrite the objections to it. I only say now, in order to recall to the prosecution, the following two or three points:

The reason I did not take the indictment into consideration and reply to it was to avoid insulting the honour of the three just courts that had acquitted us and being in contempt of them. For those courts acquitted us after studying in the minutest detail all the points in the present indictment. To completely disregard their acquittals is to insult the honour of the judiciary.

Second Point: Due to its gross misrepresentations, attaching unimaginable meanings to one or two matters out of thousands, the prosecution accuses us of certain offences. However, those matters are in the large collections of the Risale-i Nur. The ‘ulama of al-Azhar University in Cairo, the leading scholars of Damascus, the exacting scholars of Mecca and Medina, and of Aleppo and so on, and especially the investigative scholars of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, have all seen them and have praised them appreciatively and put their signatures to them. So it was with astonishment and bewilderment that I saw the pseudo-scholarly objections in the indictment. Even if I had made some errors and the indictment was correct in what it imputed, although thousands of scholars had not spotted them or objected to them, they still would not constitute a crime; they would only be scholarly errors. Moreover, three courts have acquitted the entire Risale-i Nur and ourselves. Only Eskishehir Court gave light sentences to myself and fifteen out of a hundred of my companions because of fifteen words in the Twenty-Fourth Flash, which is about the veiling of women. I wrote in the addendum to my objections that if there is justice on the face of the earth, it would not accept my being convicted for expounding that verse and complying with what was laid down in three hundred and fifty thousand Qur’anic commentaries. As though collecting water from a thousand streams and in its cleverness, the prosecution tried to use against us a number of points in books and letters written over twenty years. That makes the, not three, but five or six courts which acquitted us on this point our accomplices in this imaginary crime. I am reminding the prosecution not to insult the honour of those just courts.

The Third: Even if explicitly, to criticize and object to a leader who is dead and gone, whose relations with the Government have ceased, and who was the cause of certain faults in the reforms, cannot be a legal offence. But there was not anything explicit; the prosecution applied my general statements to him through its misrepresentations. It publicized those confidential meanings, which we do not tell to everyone, and drew everyone’s attention to them. If there is any crime involved, the prosecution is guilty. Because it is inciting the people, and attracting their attention to those meanings.

The Fourth: Due to baseless suspicions, repeating the same old story, collecting water from a thousand streams, the prosecution investigated hints of a secret society, despite our unequivocal acquittal on this point by three courts. However, while there are numerous political societies which are harmful for this nation and country, which they permit and look on tolerantly, to call a secret society the solidarity of the Risale-i Nur students with their fellow-students, which as established by the testimony of thousands of witnesses and signs and the fact that six provinces did not interfere with us, is solely for the good of the country, nation, and religion, on account of happiness in this world and the next, and to strive against the currents from inside and outside the country which are bent on corruption, and like the prosecution to accuse them of “exploiting religion and inciting the people to disturb public order and breach security,” although in twenty years not one single such incident has been recorded in connection with the Risale-i Nur students, will bring not mankind, but the earth to anger, thus rejecting such an accusation. However... there is no need to say anything further. My written objections and its addendum, which were written long before the indictment, are my reply to it.

Prisoner S a i d N u r s i ,

Afyon Prison

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

I say this to Afyon Court and the Chief Criminal Judge:

Because since my early youth I could not endure to be dominated, I severed my relations with the world. Now life has become a great burden for me with this meaningless, unnecessary oppression. I do not have the power to endure the persecution of thousands of officials outside. I am fed up with this sort of life. With all my strength I am requesting of you that you sentence me. To enter the grave is not within my power, and I have to remain in prison. You too know that the unsubstantiated crimes the prosecution accuses me of are non-existent. I cannot be convicted because of them. However, I have serious faults before my true duties, for which I can in effect be convicted. If it is appropriate to ask, I shall reply to your question. Yes, my only crime out of my serious faults is this: it occurred to me here in Afyon Prison that in the view of reality it was an unforgiveable fault that, because I had not looked to the world, I had not performed the weighty duty with which I had been charged in the name of the country, nation, and religion, and my not knowing this did not excuse me.

The fact that three courts have acquitted us in this respect shows just how far from truth and justice those have fallen who give the name of a worldly, political society to the Risale-i Nur students’ disinterested attachment to the Risale-i Nur and its interpreter, which looks purely to the hereafter, and try to show that they are guilty of a criminal offence. We too say:

The basis and foundation of human society and particularly the Islamic nation are the sincere bonds between relatives, and the concerned attachment between tribes and groups, and due to Islamic nationhood the spiritual brotherhood and mutual assistance between believers, and the devotion to one’s nation, and unshakeable attachment to and partiality for the truths of the Qur’an and those who propagate them. It is only by denying these bonds, which ensure the life of society, and by accepting the ‘red peril’ —which scatters the terrible seed of anarchy from the North, which ruins the younger generation and nationhood, and drawing to itself everyone’s children, destroys kinship and nationhood, and opens up the way to the complete corruption of human civilization and the life of society— that the Risale-i Nur students can be called a political society, which is an indictable offence. For this reason, true students of the Risale-i Nur proclaim openly their sacred attachment to the truths of the Qur’an and their unshakeable bonds of brotherhood which look to the hereafter. Because they are happy to accept any penalty they may receive because of that brotherhood, they admit in your just court the truth as it is. They do not stoop to defend themselves with lies, sycophancy, and cunning.

Prisoner

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

An Addendum to the Addition to My Written Objections

to the Indictment Presented to Afyon Court

Firstly: I tell the court that since the new indictment is based on the old indictments of Denizli and Eskishehir Courts, and on the superficial investigations of the superficial ‘committees of experts,’ who were opposed to us, I claim in your court that if I cannot prove one hundred errors in this indictment, I shall be happy with a hundred-year sentence. Now I have proved my case; if you wish I can present you with the table of more than a hundred errors.

Secondly: When during the Denizli trial, our books and papers had been sent to Ankara and I was full of anxiety and despair that the judgement would be given against us, I wrote to my friends the following piece, which has been added to the end of some of my defence speeches: “If the officers of the law who are studying the Risale-i Nur with the idea of criticizing it strengthen or save their belief through it, bear witness that I forgive them. For we are here to serve. The Risale-i Nur’s function is to strengthen and save belief. We are charged with serving belief without differentiating between friend and foe, and without taking sides.”

Judges of the Court! In consequence of this truth, the powerful, irrefutable proofs of the Risale-i Nur have directed the hearts of the people of the court towards itself; whatever you do against me, I forgive you; I will harbour no grudge. It is because of this that although I have been riled by the extreme tyranny and repression I have suffered, and the contemptuous treatment and defamation of my person, which have been to an extent I have never previously experienced, I have endured it and have not even spoken ill of those involved. The collections of the Risale-i Nur, which you have in your possession, form my irrefutable, incontestable defence and my objections to all the charges made against us and the crimes of which we are accused.

It is astonishing that although the leading scholars of Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Medina and Mecca, and the exacting scholars of the Directorate of Religious Affairs have studied the Risale-i Nur collections minutely, and offering no criticisms have praised and applauded them, the ‘clever’ persons who compiled the indictment against us showed through an extraordinary and obvious error —stating that the Qur’an contains forty Suras— just how superficially they considered the matter. Despite hundreds of thousands of the people of reality affirming the Risale-i Nur, under these severe conditions, and myself in exile, alone and wretched and the object of fearsome attacks, that prosecutor, who does not even know how many Suras there are in the Qur’an, said: “Although the Risale-i Nur attempts to expound the Qur’an and interpret Hadiths, it has no scholarly substance or value in teaching its readers in a part of it...” It is understood just how far his criticisms are from the law, reality, justice and equity.

I also make this complaint to you, that although for two hours you made us listen to the entire forty-page indictment, which contains hundreds of errors and wounds our hearts, despite my insistence you did not allow me two minutes to read one and a half pages in reply, which were the complete truth. In the name of justice I therefore request that you permit me to read my entire list of objections.

Thirdly: Every government has opponents. But so long as they do not disturb public order, they may not be touched legally. Is it at all possible then that myself and those like me who are disenchanted with the world and work only for the grave should give up spending the remainder of their lives within the bounds taught by the Qur’an, on the way our forefathers followed for one thousand three hundred and fifty years, in a way permitted by the rules sanctified at all times by three hundred and fifty million believers, — that we should give up that way, and being coerced by our enemies and their subterfuges, merely for this brief and fleeting worldly life, support the savage laws and principles of an immoral, dissolute civilization, indeed, of a sort of communism, and adopt them as our way? No law anywhere, and no one the tiniest bit fair, would force us to accept them. We only say to those who oppose us: Don’t bother us and we won’t bother you!

It is due to this fact that I support neither intellectually nor on scholarly grounds the arbitrary commands of a commander, called laws, which have made Aya Sophia into a house of idols and the Shaykh al-Islam’s Office into a girls’ high school. And for myself I do not act in accordance with them. But although for twenty years I have been severely oppressed during my tortuous captivity, I have not become involved in politics, nor provoked the authorities, nor disturbed public order. Although I have hundreds of thousands of Risale-i Nur friends, not a single incident has been recorded involving the disturbance of the peace. I am fed up with life due to the utterly humiliating and unjust treatment directed at my person here in my exile in the last period of my life, such as I have never before suffered and which has galled me. I feel disgust at freedom even, under this oppression. I have written you a petition saying that contrary to everyone else, I want not my acquittal but to be convicted and given not a light sentence, I want the heaviest penalty. For in order to be saved from this unparalleled, extraordinarily tyrannical treatment, there is no solution for me other than entering either the grave or prison. But since suicide is not permitted, and the appointed hour of death is unknown and outside my power, I am resigned to the imprisonment I now suffer in absolute solitary confinement.25 However, I am not presenting this petition for the present, for the sake of my innocent companions.

Fourthly: Confirmed by all that I have written in the Risale-i Nur these thirty years of my life, the period I have called that of the New Said, and the facts concerning my person, and testified to by the fair-minded people and friends who have met with me with serious intention, I state this: As far as I have been able I have tried to restrain my evil-commanding soul from indulging in self-advertisement, fame-seeking, and pride, and perhaps a hundred times I have wounded the feelings of the Risale-i Nur students who have excessively good opinions of me. As is confirmed by both my close friends and my brothers, and the signs they have observed, I told them: “I possess nothing, I am the wretched herald of the jeweller’s shop of the Qur’an.” It is not winning worldly rank for myself and high position and fame, even supposing I was given high spiritual rank, being frightened of the possibility of my soul taking a share in the service I perform and spoiling my sincerity and pure intention, I decided to sacrifice those ranks and positions for my service. Yet despite my acting in this way, and my not accepting the gratitude of some of my brothers for their benefiting from the Risale-i Nur —which has been presented in your high court as though it was some political matter of great moment— you have made their respect for me, which is greater than that of a son for his father, the subject of interrogation. You have driven some of them to deny it. You have made us listen in astonishment. Can it be imagined a crime for some unfortunate to be praised although he himself is not happy at this and does not consider himself worthy?

Fifthly: I tell you certainly that to accuse the Risale-i Nur students of belonging to a political society and of political involvement when they have absolutely no connection with any society, association, or political movement, is knowingly or unknowingly to struggle against us on account of a secret atheistic organization which for forty years has been working directly against Islam and belief, or in the name of a sort of communism which produces anarchy in this country. For three courts of law have acquitted in that respect all the Risale-i Nur students and the treatises of the Risale-i Nur. Only, Eskishehir Court gave me one year, and out of one hundred and twenty others, fifteen of my friends six months each because of a single matter in a short treatise about the veiling of women, or perhaps because of the sentence: “According to what I have heard, in the centre of government a shoe-shiner behaved impudently towards the semi-naked wife of an important person, and his astonishing unmannerliness dealt a slap in the shameless face of someone opposed to the veiling of women,” which was written long ago. That means, to accuse the Risale-i Nur and its students now is to charge and convict three courts, and to be contemptuous of them.

Sixthly: The Risale-i Nur cannot be combatted. All the Islamic scholars who have seen it have confirmed that it is a veracious commentary on the Qur’an, that is, it consists of powerful proofs of its truths. It is a miracle of the Qur’an this century, and a firm barrier for this nation and country against the perils from the North. I have understood therefore that it is a duty of your court not to scare off its students, but with regard to general rights, to encourage them, and I await this from you. Thanks to freedom of scholarship, the books and journals of those with no religion and some political atheists, who are harmful for the nation, country, and public security, are not interfered with, so it surely is not a crime to be a student of the Risale-i Nur and save the belief of the innocent, needy youth and preserve them from immorality; indeed, the Government and Ministry of Education should applaud and encourage it.

My last word: May Almighty God allow the judges to execute the law with true justice. Amen.

For us God suffices and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs.26 * The best of lords and the Best of Helpers.27

All praise be to God, the Sustainer of All the Worlds.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

My Last Word

I say this to the Judges of the Court:

I have understood from both the indictment and from my long solitary confinement that in this matter it is mostly my person that is under consideration, and it has been seen fit to destroy my character. As though my person was harmful to the government, public security, and the country, and making religion a screen, I harboured worldly aims, and was pursuing some sort of politics. In the face of this, I tell you the following with complete certitude:

Because of these unfounded suspicions, do not injure the Risale-i Nur students by means of slandering my person, for they are devoted to the Risale-i Nur and to this country and nation, and are of great value for them. For if you do, it could open up the way to much immaterial harm for this country and nation, indeed, to their being exposed to danger. I tell you this certainly too: whatever is visited on my person in the way of insult, humiliating treatment, slander, torture, and prison sentences, on account of the way I now follow I have decided to accept it — on condition no harm comes to the Risale-i Nur and its students because of me. There is also reward in this for me in the hereafter. While weeping, I am also pleased since in this way I may be saved from the sins of my evil-commanding soul. If these wretched innocent people had not been sent to prison along with me, I would have spoken out with great vehemence in your court. You have seen too that the person who wrote the indictment wants to destroy my character with his misrepresentations and exaggerations, and partly misinterpreting what is written, by showing that all my books and letters, confidential and otherwise, written over these twenty to thirty years of my life were written this year, and had never been seen by any court, or been pardoned, or been subject to the passage of time. I have said a hundred times that my person is faulty, and the reason that although they have defamed me on every occasion it has had no effect on public regard for me, which is enough to perturb the politicians, is this: there is an intense and overwhelming need here at this time for a number of people to teach religion and strengthen belief, people who will sacrifice the truth for nothing, make it a tool of nothing, and take no share for their own souls. Only in this way may what they teach about faith be profited from and come to be believed in with complete certainty.

Yes, it seems that at no time or place was the need so great, for the danger has come in full force from outside. Although I have admitted and proclaimed that I myself have not met this need, they have supposed that I have met the need to an extent not because of any virtue of mine, but because of the severity of the need and others not being in the forefront. For a long time I have looked on in astonishment and wonder, but only now understood the wisdom in this public regard, of which I am in no way worthy — despite my fearsome faults. The wisdom in it is this:

Here at this time, the Risale-i Nur and the collective personality of its students have directed that severe need to themselves. They have supposed my person to be a representative of the Risale-i Nur’s wondrous reality and its sincere and pure personality —despite my share of its work and service being only a thousandth— and they have given me the attention. But this is both harmful for me, and a burden. It is also not my right. But I have remained silent and have accepted the harm for the sake of the Risale-i Nur and its collective personality. Also, because of my service to it, they have considered my unimportant person to be included in the predictions about the Risale-i Nur, which is a mirror reflecting the All-Wise Qur’an’s miraculousness at this time, and the collective personality of its sincere students, made through Divine inspiration by some of the saints such as Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) and Gawth al-A‘zam (May his mystery be sanctified). It seems I was mistaken, for in some places I attributed some of their kind attention to my person, and did not direct it towards the Risale-i Nur. The reason for this was my weakness; I apparently accepted part of it for myself to prevent the things that might scare away those who help me multiplying and to increase their confidence in what I said. I warn you! There is no need to defame my transitory person, which is at the door of the grave; there is no necessity to give it so much importance. In any event you cannot combat the Risale-i Nur, so do not combat it! You cannot defeat it. You will cause great harm to this nation and country by combatting it. Anyway you cannot scatter its students. For the defender of the Qur’an at this time and its heroic actions —which in the view of the Islamic world are like those of former times— will not allow the sons of this land’s forefathers, who gave forty to fifty million martyrs on the way of defending the Qur’an, to abandon it. Even if they apparently withdraw, those sincere students are still bound to it with all their lives and spirits. They will not abandon the Risale-i Nur, which is a mirror of that reality, thereby harming this nation, country, and public security.

My last word is:

But if they turn away, say: “God suffices me, there is no god but He; in Him do I place my trust — He the Sustainer of the Throne [of Glory] Supreme!”28

* * *

A Petition Sent to the Cabinet

I have a request of the greatest importance to present to the Cabinet.

I request the Cabinet that the fifteen-page Fifth Ray, which was originally written years ago, and was later included at the end of the more than three-hundred-page collection called The Illuminating Lamp (Siracü’n-Nur), and was the reason for the collection being collected up by the Cabinet, be removed from The Illuminating Lamp. For it has been established that the work is in many ways useful for the disaster-stricken, the elderly, and those who have fallen into doubt concerning their faith. I request that the piece which is imagined to be harmful is banned, but permission is given for the remaining three hundred pages to be published, so that the calamity-stricken and the elderly can receive solace from it and the needy can profit from the truths of belief that it contains.

Moreover, in the four-hundred-page Zülfikâr, two pages written thirty years ago expounding two verses about inheritance and the veiling for women in reply to the philosophers of Europe, and one line about banks in Signs of Miraculousness (Isharat al-I‘jaz ), published thirty years ago, about the verse But God has permitted trade and forbidden usury,29 and approximately a line written thirty years ago while I was in the Darü’l-Hikmet, among the six questions asked of the Shaykh al-Islam’s Office by the head cleric of the Anglican Church — I request that these passages are excised and the Zülfikâr collection, which has been confiscated on the pretext of those two pages and one line —because they are not in conformity with the present Civil Code— is returned. For it has been highly praised by the Islamic world and its benefits have been seen in fact, and it proves wonderfully three of the pillars of belief. This is what we request and it is our right. Just as if five words of a letter are censored, the remainder are permitted, so we are seeking this important legal right of ours. We demand that together with the Qur’an and the lovers of faith who through the Risale-i Nur serve the nation, country and public security, we are delivered from the oppression of those who make mountains out of molehills concerning us. Also, I have not seen a copy of The Six Attacks for eighteen years, which I wrote when full of anger at the severe repression I was suffering at that time; saying it was confidential I did not give permission for it to be published. Anyway it came into the hands of three or four courts, and they returned it to its owners.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

[This is written to thank the experts’ committee of the Directorate of Religious Affairs. I shall explain three ‘Points’ in order to assist in amending their minor criticisms, the answer of which is clear.]

The First: I thank those scholars in three ways. For myself I am grateful to them.

Firstly: Apart from the Fifth Ray, their summarizing appreciatively the other thirteen parts of The Illuminating Lamp Collection.

Secondly: Their refuting the allegations made against us of founding a sufi order, setting up a political society, and breaching security.

Thirdly: Their corroborating my case in court. That is, I told the court: If there is any fault, it is mine. The Risale-i Nur students are sincere and innocent, and work at the Risale-i Nur for their faith. Thus, their committee of experts also exonerates the Risale-i Nur students, and ascribes all the fault to me. So I say to its members: May God be pleased with you! Only, they made partners in my crime the late Hasan Feyzi and the late Hafiz Ali, and two or three others who are the heirs of those two blessed martyrs and work according to their system. But they were wrong in one way. For they were ahead of me not in faults but in the service of belief, and were given to me by Divine grace as assistants, out of mercy for my weakness, and were free of my faults.

Second Point: The committee of experts said that some of the narrations in the Fifth Ray are ‘dubious’ and others are ‘false,’ and that some were misinterpreted. This was written in the same way as the indictment in Afyon, which was against us. But I proved in a table fifteen pages long that it contained eighty-one mistakes. The respected committee of experts should see the table. An example of one of the mistakes is as follows:

The prosecutor said: “All the interpretations are wrong, and the narrations are either false (mawdu’) or dubious.”

And I say: To interpret a Hadith means saying that such-and-such a meaning is possibly or probably intended by the Hadith. According to logic, it is possible to refute the possibility of that meaning only by proving its impossibility. But just as the meaning has been seen this century and has been realized, so one aspect of the universality of the Hadith’s allusive level of meaning has observedly shown one flash of its miraculous predictions to be true at this time, and can therefore in no way be denied or objected to. It has also been proved in the table that the prosecutor’s saying that “all the narrations are either false or dubious” is wrong in three respects.

The First: It is wrong in ten respects to deny such narrations in their entirety, for Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who memorized a million Hadiths, and Imam Bukhari, who memorized five hundred thousand, did not have the courage to deny them, and anyway such a denial is not possible; and the prosecutor has not seen all the books of Hadiths; and most of the Umma every century have awaited the appearance of what those narrations signify or to witness one aspect of their general meanings; and they have just about been accepted by the Umma; and a number of aspects and samples of them which are completely true have appeared and been seen.

The Second Respect: The meaning of mawdu’ is that a narration is not a Hadith with an authenticated chain of authorities. It does not mean that its meaning is wrong. Since among the Umma, especially the people of reality and those who have had uncovered to them the realities, and some of the Hadith scholars and those qualified to interpret the law, have accepted them and awaited the appearance of what they indicate, surely those narrations contain truths which look to everyone, like proverbs.

The Third Respect: What question or narration is there that in one of their books the scholars, whose ways and schools are all different, have not objected to it? For example, one of the narrations about the appearance of several Dajjals (Antichrists) within Islam is the following Hadith, which foretells explicitly the dissension of Hulagu and Jenghiz: “The ‘Abbasid Caliphate will long continue, until it falls into the hands of the Dajjal.”30 Like this Hadith, which states that after five hundred years a Dajjal will appear in Islam, numerous narrations give news of the figures that will appear at the end of time. Nevertheless, some of the mujtahids who were of different schools, or whose ideas were extreme, did not accept them, saying they were either unauthenticated or dubious. Anyway... the reason I have cut this long story short is related to the Risale-i Nur, for just as four severe earthquakes ‘coincided’31 with the Risale-i Nur being attacked, demonstrating the earth’s wrath, so during the hours I was writing this reply, two severe earthquakes occurred here. It was like this:

It was two earthquakes ‘coinciding’ with the suffering I was experiencing from the wounds caused by the surgical operation of the experts’ report, which had been given me that evening, and from my pitiful difficulties at having no contact with others and having to write myself with my wretched pen. Yes, I received that evening the report from the Directorate of Religious Affairs, on which I had placed most trust during my eight months of distress in solitary confinement, and had expected would come to our assistance. This morning I understood that with the most trivial matters they had helped not me but the public prosecutor. I saw that they said: “Said said that the last four earthquakes were instances of the Risale-i Nur’s wonder-working.” Then, when intending to write, as I had written in the table of errors: “Like acceptable alms-giving, the Risale-i Nur is a means of calamities being repulsed. Whenever it is attacked, calamities seize the opportunity and occur. Sometimes too the earth rages,” two severe earthquakes32 occurred here, which made me give up writing the piece, so I am leaving it and passing on to the third Point.

Third Point: Exacting, veracious, and fair-minded scholars of the experts’ committee! A long-standing and acceptable practice among scholars is their writing eulogies and praises, sometimes exaggerated, sometimes the opposite, at the ends of fine works written by others, and publishing them, and the authors in question being grateful and pleased at the writers of such eulogies, and their rivals also not accusing them of boasting. So I have been unable to equate it with careful study, precise knowledge, kind assistance, and fairness, that you should have considered it self-advertisement that I did not altogether reject the eulogies written by some special and sincere students of the Risale-i Nur in the style of the late Hasan Feyzi and the martyr Hafiz Ali, which they wrote with the idea of assisting me in my helplessness, weakness, aloneness, and exile in the face of so many unfair people attacking and objecting to me savagely, and to encourage the needy to embrace the Risale-i Nur. I was sorry at this. Those pure-hearted friends of mine never thought of politics, but verified by mathematical reckoning said: “One aspect and minor meaning of the Hadith’s universal allusive meaning at this time is the Risale-i Nur,” which cannot be said to be wrong. For time is proving it right. In any event, even if it was very exaggerated or even wrong, it would still only be a scholarly mistake. And everyone can write his own opinions. You know how many various views and opinions are written in the works of the twelve schools of the Shari‘a, and particularly in the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali Schools, and of the nearly seventy authorities of the sciences of theology (kalam) and the principles of religion. However, never at any time has the need for agreement between the scholars of religion been as great as it is at present, and for them to avoid dispute. Now we are compelled to leave aside conflict in secondary matters and not to make them the subject of dispute.

* * *

I have three questions to ask of the equitable hojas of the committee of experts:

The First: Is a person guilty of an offence if someone praises him with a good intention? Especially if he does not want it — could it be thought self-love if as far as he can he either rejects such praise or directs it towards someone else, but in order not to lose his sincere friend, does not scold him, and responds with silence and saying that the praise is a hundred times greater than his due?

The Second Question: At this time of terrible attacks on religion and momentous religious questions, should a lover of the truth from among the Risale-i Nur students be deserving of such blame and insult because of a harmless, minor scholarly error and a mistaken view? Is it permissible that while awaiting from masters like yourselves a gentle warning, the student who wrote the eulogy should be dealt a blow in this way with the hand of the judiciary?

The Third Question: Are these criticisms of yours, related to only one or two matters, fitting for the Risale-i Nur, which these twenty years has never been shaken by its innumerable opponents and has strengthened the belief of thousands of needy people? Also I remind those exact scholars of the following: because they saw a letter of mine at the top of Ahmed Feyzi’s eulogy, they criticize me in their report as though I had written the eulogy to myself. But the letter was written in order not to accept the praises for myself, and to have them cut out of the eulogy, and I did cut out a part of them. Others I was going to modify, but being forced to hurry, I sent the letter to one of my brothers without completing it. He then put the letter at the beginning of the eulogy. Then when it was being sent to a private person, it was seized by the government. Is such a private eulogy, which was purely scholarly and a personal view, and was sent from friend to friend with the idea of consulting about modifying it, deserving of such vehement objections? Moreover, the two small collections bound in red and black consisted of a number of confidential letters written privately to friends in order to congratulate, encourage, and gratify them. Anyway, one or two people had been interested in them, and had gathered them together in a book so they should not get lost. In the searches it fell into the hands of the police. Is there any need to put forward absurd suppositions about such letters, make them the subject of interrogation, and try to relate them to politics? Is it not like being blind to the terrible dragons assaulting the Qur’an, and not even looking at them, and trying to combat pestilential mosquitoes?

Does it not infer by ignoring Saraçoglu, who calls religion and the training of Muhammad “poison”, and by disputing The Illuminating Lamp, which demonstrates the Qur’anic reality as clearly as the sun and proves it to be the perfect cure for mankind’s wounds, assisting in the confiscation of that collection? We await from persons like yourselves balm for our wounds, and your insight and assistance, and we are not offended at your minor criticisms.

Prisoner,

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

In His Name, be He glorified!

[This forms the introduction to the pieces that follow it.]

With the idea of helping a little to refute with true, fair evidences Afyon Court’s decision against us and turn the Appeal Court in our favour, and in order to indicate briefly some of the errors in the indictment, we have written exactly the pieces from the confidential treatises which they mentioned as being offences; pointing out the errors, we show those who are convicting us to be guilty of an offence.

For instance: In order to have me sentenced to the heaviest penalty, they wrote at the end of the indictment as an index of all my crimes: “The matters Said Nursi rejects: One: the abolition of the Empire and Caliphate.” This is both wrong and an oversight. For fifteen years ago in Eskishehir Court I replied to a question about my writing in the Twenty-Sixth Flash, the Treatise For the Elderly: “I was grieved at the passing of the sovereignty of the caliphate,” and my reply silenced the court. Anyone who considers to be a crime an unimportant memory, faded with time, which was covered by the pardon and has been acquitted, is himself guilty.

As documentary evidence for this imaginary crime, they showed a Hadith from one of the Flashes, which is also found in The Miracles of Muhammad (PBUH): “After me the caliphate will last thirty years, then it will be rapacious monarchy, then corruption and tyranny.”33 That is, after the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs there will be corruption. I wrote in one of my old treatises that this Hadith contained three miraculous prophecies. Then in the indictment, it gave as my crime: “In one of his treatises Said says: ‘After the caliphate will be tryanny and corruption.’” You superficial committee! Anyone who considers it a crime to explain the miraculous prediction of a Hadith which foretells the widespread spiritual and material corruption among mankind of the present and an event that will cause chaos on the earth, is himself guilty both spiritually and materially.

They also wrote that “a person is guilty of political reaction if he calls innovation, misguidance, and atheism, the reforms, such as the closure of the sufi tekkes and zaviyes and the religious schools; the acceptance of secularism; the establishment of nationalist principles instead of Islam; the wearing of the brimmed hat; the banning of Islamic dress for women; the enforced use of the Latin alphabet in place of the Qur’anic alphabet; the ezan and iqama being recited in Turkish; the prohibition of religious instruction in schools; the recognition of equal rights for women and in inheritance; and the abolition of polygamy.

Unfair committee! The Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition has every century been the sacred, heavenly guide of three hundred and fifty million people, the programme of all their happiness, and the sacred treasury of the life of this world and the next. If it is possible to deny numerous of its explicit verses, which do not bear interpretation, about the veiling of women, inheritance, polygamy, the recollection of God, instruction in religious knowledge and its dissemination, and the preservation of the marks of religion, and to make guilty of crimes all the authoritative Islamic interpreters of the law and all the Shaykh al-Islam’s, and if you can annul the passage of time, quash the numerous court acquittals, and the legal pardons, and abolish confidentiality and the private side of things, and freedom of conscience and freedom of thought, and intellectual and scholarly opposition, and remove them from this country and its governments, you can make me guilty of these things. Otherwise in the court of truth, reality, and justice you will be awesomely guilty!

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

[Although it is against them, a piece the court astonishingly showed to be against us.]

I say in this court of law that if there is any justice on the face of the earth, it will reject the unjust decision to convict a man who, basing it on the agreement and confirmation of three hundred and fifty thousand Qur’anic commentaries and following the beliefs of our forefathers for one thousand, three hundred and fifty years, expounded a Divine rule that has been considered most sacred and genuine in the social life of three hundred and fifty million Muslims every century for one thousand three hundred and fifty years; it should quash the judgement.

* * *

[A piece which the court wrote with astonishment and appreciation in its decision, as though it was against us, but which in fact condemns them.]

In the Twenty-Sixth Letter, Said Nursi speaks of himself like this: “This wretched brother of yours has three personalities which are far from each other.

“T h e F i r s t : In regard to being the herald of the elevated treasury of the All-Wise Qur’an, I have a temporary personality which pertains solely to the Qur’an. The extremely exalted character demanded by the position of herald is not my character; I do not possess such a character. It rather consists of the qualities necessitated by the position and the duty. Whatever you see in me of this sort of quality, is not mine, so do not consider me as possessing it; it belongs to the position.

“T h e S e c o n d P e r s o n a l i t y : Through Almighty God’s grace, a personality is given me at the time of worship, when I am turned towards the Divine Court; this personality displays certain marks. These marks arise from “knowing one’s faults, realizing one’s want and impotence, and seeking refuge in utter humility at the Divine Court,” which are the basis and meaning of worship. Through this personality, I know myself to be more wretched, powerless, wanting, and faulty than everyone. Should the whole world praise and applaud me, they could not make me believe that I am good or possess perfection of any sort.

“T h e T h i r d : I have my true personality, that is, the degenerate personality of the Old Said, that is, certain veins of character inherited from the Old Said. Sometimes it inclines to hypocrisy and desires rank and position. Also, because I do not come of a noble family, lowly characteristics are to be observed, like my being frugal to the point of miserliness. My brothers! I am not going to describe the many secret faults and ills of this personality, lest I chase you away altogether. ... Almighty God has compassionately demonstrated His power in me so that He employs my personality, which is like that of the lowest common soldier, in serving the mysteries of the Qur’an, which resembles the most exalted position of field marshal. Thanks be to God a hundred thousand times! The soul is baser than everything, and the duty higher...”

All praise be to God, this is from the bounty of my Sustainer!

* * *

[This is a piece that badly scared the court, so that they recorded it against us in the judgement. However, those vehement words were written fifteen years ago and were afterwards softened with the following.]

This sentence should make them see fairly: “My brothers! For the sake of the innocent and the elderly, don’t take revenge on those who kill me wrongfully. The torments of the grave and Hell are enough for them.”

“In view of the treatment you have meted out to me, and your beliefs, I oppose you in general fashion. You are sacrificing your religion and life in the hereafter for the sake of your lives in this world. According to you, due to the opposition between us and contrary to you, we are always ready to sacrifice our lives in this world for our religion and for the hereafter. To sacrifice two or three years of humiliating life under your domination in order to win sacred martyrdom, is like the water of Kawthar for us. However, in order to make you tremble, relying on the effulgence and indications of the All-Wise Qur’an, I tell you this with certainty:

“You shall not live after killing me! You shall be driven out of the world, your Paradise and your beloved, by an irresistible hand, and swiftly cast into everlasting darkness. Behind me, your Nimrod-like chiefs will be quickly killed and sent to me. In the Divine presence I shall grasp hold of the scruffs of their necks, and on Divine justice casting them down to the lowest of the low, I shall take my revenge!

“O you miserable wretches who sell religion and your lives in the hereafter for this world! If you want to live, do not interfere with me! Know that if you do, vengeance shall be taken on you many times over, and tremble! I hope from Divine mercy that my death will serve religion more than my life, and my death explode over your heads like a bomb, scattering you! Cause me trouble if you have the courage! If you do anything, you shall see!” It concludes with a Qur’anic verse.

* * *

[The court recorded this against me, despite being a passage which accuses them of being extreme.]

In Ankara, Mustafa Kemal entered the office of the Speaker of the Assembly furiously angry. He said: “We summoned you here in order to explain your important ideas to us. But you came and wrote things about the five daily prayers, and sowed discord amongst us.” Although Said told him: “Those who do not perform the prayers are traitors, and the pronouncements of traitors are to be rejected,” by way of apology Mustafa Kemal swallowed his anger. Although his feelings and principles had been wounded, no one laid a finger on the Old Said, those imperious commanders were even frightened of him. It is written that this occurred through the wondrous power of the future collective personality of the Risale-i Nur’s future heroic students, and was a shining instance of the Risale-i Nur’s wonder-working.

* * *

[A passage which was recorded against us, but which makes the court guilty.]

It is said “We do not support either intellectually or on scholarly grounds the arbitrary commands, called laws, of the commander who made Aya Sophia into a house of idols and the Shaykh al-Islam’s Office into a girls’ high school, and in respect of my person, I do not act in accordance with them.”

It is said in his petition dated 29.8.1948: “An idea occurred to me, it was like this: the fact that although for the good of the nation and country the Government should be protecting and helping me, it is oppressing me, suggests that the secret atheistic organization which struggles against me together with the section of the communist organization which has combined with that organization have gained hold of important official positions and are now confronting me. As for the Government, either it is uninformed of this, or it permits it. Could it possibly be a crime not to love a man who has turned Aya Sophia into a house of idols, which is an eternal source of pride for an heroic nation, and a shining decoration in the world showing its service of the Qur’an and jihad, and a vast and precious souvenir of their swords, and has turned too the Shaykh al-Islam’s Office into a girls’ high school?”

* * *

[The piece the court reckoned was the most likely to have Said convicted. It attached entirely the wrong meaning to these words, which Said had used in Denizli Court against his covert enemies; and altering it to refer to the Government, put it forward as a reason for his conviction.]

He called “some of the new laws of the State, which has carried out the reforms, ‘arbitrary compulsion on account of disbelief;’ the Republic, ‘absolute despotism;’ the regime, ‘absolute apostasy and communism;’ and civilization, ‘absolute dissipation.’”

* * *

[A piece included with astonishment and appreciation in the court’s decision.]

Writing out the Risale-i Nur yields numerous benefits, both in this world and in the next. These are:

1. To strive morally against the people of misguidance.

2. To assist Üstad Bediuzzaman in disseminating the truth.

3. To serve Muslims in respect of belief.

4. To acquire knowledge through the pen.

5. To practise worship in the form of reflective thought, one hour of which may on occasion be the equivalent of a year’s worship.

6. To enter the grave in a state of belief.

It also yields five sorts of worldly benefits:

1. Plenty in one’s sustenance.

2. Ease of mind and happiness.

3. Plenty in one’s livelihood.

4. Success in what one does.

5. By virtue of being a Risale-i Nur student, to share in the prayers and supplications offered by all Risale-i Nur students. This will soon be understood by the young, and the university will turn into a Risale-i Nur school.

* * *

[it is astonishing but they considered this sincere devotion to be a crime.]

One of the two plans followed by the covert dissemblers: To destroy my good name; as though in that way the Risale-i Nur would be depreciated.

The Second: To prevent the spread of the Risale-i Nur by causing the Risale-i Nur students to become anxious and slack. Never fear! Let the heads of wretches like ourselves be sacrificed for a sacred truth for which millions of heroic heads have been sacrificed!

* * *

[it is extraordinary but Hasan Feyzi’s most sincere and entirely true preface and eulogy, which was conformable with reality and of no harm but great benefit to many, was said to constitute an offence, and on its being included at the end of one of the collections of the Risale-i Nur, was given as the reason for the collection’s seizure.]

Hasan Feyzi wrote a letter, a summary of which is this:

“O Risale-i Nur! There is no doubt that you are the tongue of Truth, and inspiration of Truth, and have been written with His permission.” “I am no one’s property. I was taken from no book, I was stolen from no work. I belong to the Sustainer and to the Qur’an. I am a wondrous Light pouring forth from an immortal work.” “You are a most effulgent book of truth and mercy. You adorn and honour some of your special, sincere students with the decorations of the saints and purified scholars. Moreover, your treatises have not entered the courts as a criminal or suspect, but as a teacher, instructor, and guide. In every session of justice you have displayed splendidly, brilliantly, your power and forcefulness, your greatness and pride. You laved them with the water of belief and the Qur’an.”

“O Ustad, the Risale-i Nur’s Servant and Interpreter! Ustad, God’s servant, spiritual son of Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him), and disciple of Gawth al-A‘zam (May his mystery be sanctified)! Raise me to the elevated degree of your knowledge!” “Only a month’s worth of provisions, around a kilo, wrapped in paper and hanging from a nail. He attains to an inexhaustible existence within his deprivation. He abstains from accepting gifts. If he had accepted alms and charity, he would have been a millionaire today.”

[They questioned only one of the reasons for the naming of the Risale-i Nur. They said that they saw no one with the name of Nur among his close students. As it says in the reply in the footnote, Nuri Benli and Küreli Nuri the Clockmaker are now distinguished in their service of the Risale-i Nur. That is to say, they cannot criticize it, so are compelled to base their allegations on the most trivial matters.]

The reason that in the Twenty-Sixth Word, the thirty-three Words, thirty-three Letters, thirty-one Flashes, and thirteen Rays are called the Risale-i Nur is this: throughout my life the word ‘Nur’ (light) has everywhere confronted me. For instance, my village was Nurs, my late mother’s name was Nuriye, my Naqshi master was Sayyid Nur Muhammad, one of my Qadiri masters was Nuruddin, one of my Qur’an masters was Nuri, and of my students those most attached to me have been those with Nur in their names. (But how strange it is that there is no one among the important Risale-i Nur students with the name Nuri.)34 And what elucidates and illumines my books most are the comparisons about light. And what has solved most of my difficulties related to the Divine truths is the luminous Name of Nur, out of the Most Beautiful Names. And my particular leader in my passionate enthusiasm for the Qur’an and my restricting my service to it, is ‘Uthman Dhi’l-Nurayn (May God be pleased with him).

* * *

[Hücumat-i Sitte (The Six Attacks) and its Addendum were both written twenty years ago, and in the face of fierce and tyrannical aggression, and are highly confidential, and were written when I was angry, and during the Second World War, all of which justify the anger. So it is far from any justice to look on it as a crime as though it had been written now, and to seize it.]

Written at the head of the Addendum to the Six Attacks is this: “This Addendum was written in order to avoid the disgust and insults that will levelled at us in the future. That is to say, it was written so that when it is said: ‘Look at the spineless people of that age!’, their spit should not hit us in the face, or else to wipe it off. Let the ears ring of the leaders of Europe, savage beneath their humanitarian masks! And let this be thrust in the unseeing eyes of those unjust oppressors who inflicted these unscrupulous tyrants on us! It is a petition with which to hit over the head tthe followers of modern low civilization, who this century have a hundred thousand times over necessitated the existence of Hell.”

“Recently, the concealed aggression of the irreligious has taken on a most ugly form; tyrannical aggression against the unfortunate people of belief and against religion. Our private and unofficial call to prayer and iqama was interrupted during the private worship of myself and one or two brothers in the mosque I myself repaired. ‘Why are you reciting the iqama in Arabic and making the call to prayer secretly?’ they asked. My patience was exhausted in keeping silent. So I say, not to those unscrupulous vile men who are not worth addressing, but to the heads of the Pharaoh-like society who with arbitrary despotism plays with the fate of this nation: O you people of innovation who have deviated from the straight path of religion, I want the answer to six questions.

“The First: Every government in the world, every people which rules, even cannibals, and the chief of a band of brigands, have some principle, some law, by which they rule. So according to which principle do you carry out this extraordinary aggression? Show your law! Or do you accept as the law the arbitrary whims of a handful of contemptible officials? Because no law can interrupt private worship in that way; there cannot be such a law!”

* * *

[it is regretable that they objected to one or two sentences in Isharat-i Seb‘a (The Seven Signs), which is both old, and confidential, and true, and that they attempted to have it seized and us prosecuted. But the truth it contains is so powerful it should be proclaimed to all the world and mankind for the good of society.]

“The biggest fool in the world is he who expects progress, prosperity, and happiness from irreligious anarchists like them. One of those fools who occupied a high position, said: ‘We said “Allah! Allah!” and remained backward. Europe said “Guns and cannons,” and advanced.’

“According to the rule, ‘a fool should be answered with silence,’ the answer for such people is silence. But because behind certain fools are inauspicious clever people, we say this:

“O you wretches! This world is a guest-house. Every day with their corpses, thirty thousand witnesses put their signature to the decree ‘Death is a reality’ and they testify to the assertion. Can you kill death? Can you contradict these witnesses? Since you can’t, death causes people to say: ‘Allah! Allah!’ Which of your guns and cannons can illuminate the everlasting darkness confronting someone in the throes of death in place of ‘Allah! Allah!’, and transform his absolute despair into absolute hope? Since there is death and we shall enter the grave, and this life departs and an eternal life comes, if guns and cannons are said once, ‘Allah! Allah!’ should be said a thousand times.”

* * *

[it is amazing but they turned around a sentence in the Sixteenth Flash which was in our favour, so that it was against us, and showed they were inclined to seize that valuable treatise.]

From the Sixteenth Flash: “As for the calamity of war, it would cause great harm to our service of the Qur’an. ... Like the One Powerful Over All Things sweeps and cleans in a minute the atmosphere filled with clouds and shows the shining sun in clear skies, so He may also dispel these black and merciless clouds and show the truths of the Shari‘a like the sun, and give them without expense or trouble. We await it from His mercy that He will not sell them to us expensively. May He give intelligence to the heads of those at the top, and belief to their hearts; that would be enough. Then matters would put themselves to rights.”

“Since what you hold in your hand is light, not a club, and light cannot be objected to, nor fled from, nor can harm come from showing it, why do you advise caution to your friends, and prevent them showing many light-filled parts of the Risale-i Nur to people?”

“The heads of most of those at the top are drunk and they cannot read them. And even if they do read them, they cannot understand them; they give them the wrong meaning, and interfere. In order that they do not interfere, they should not be shown them until they come to their senses. ... Therefore, I advise my brothers to be cautious and not to give the truths to those who are unfit...”

* * *

[Although the veiling of women is a Qur’anic command, and a most powerful reply has been given concerning it, and the piece was written long ago, and a prison-sentence has been served for it, they are again citing it as an offence. They are also calling a criminal offence, and attempting to confiscate, a truth written on its own from the Treatise For The Elderly which is of the greatest value and useful for everyone and was included in A Guide For Youth. These show that they have been unable to find anything.]

After explaining that the veiling of women is a command of the Qur’an, it says in the Twenty-Fourth Flash, which is about that subject: “The fact that, according to news received, the bare-legged wife of a high-ranking man in the world was accosted by a common shoe-shiner in the country’s capital, in the market-place in daylight in front of everyone, deals a slap in the shameless faces of those opposed to the veiling of women!”

While in the Twenty-Sixth Flash, about the Elderly, it says: “I climbed to the top of Ankara citadel, which was far more aged, dilapidated, and worn out than me. It seemed to me to be formed of petrified historical events. The old age of the season of the year together with my old age, the citadel’s old age, mankind’s old age, the old age of the glorious Ottoman Empire, and the death of the Caliphate’s rule, and the world’s old age all caused me to look in the most grieved, piteous and melancholy state in that lofty citadel at the valleys of the past and the mountains of the future. ... As I sought consolation looking to the right, that is, to the past, my father and forefathers and the human race appeared in the form of a vast grave and filled me with gloom rather than consoling me. ... I looked at the present day. It appeared ... as a coffin bearing my half-dead, suffering and desperately struggling corpse.”

* * *

[They criticized the following where they should have applauded it, citing it as an offence.]

“I spent most of the salary I had received from the Darü’l-Hikmeti’l-Islamiye, and had put aside a small amount to go on the Hajj. Through the plenty resulting from frugality and contentment, that scanty money was sufficient for me. It prevented me being humiliated. There is still a little left of that blessed money.”

It is written that the Twenty-Second Flash is marked as confidential and is for my closest and most sincere and loyal students: “First Indication: Why is it that although you do not interfere in the world of the worldly, they interfere in your hereafter on every opportunity?” “It is the authorities of the province of Isparta and its people that should answer this question.”

* * *

[Those who deemed a crime this innocent, sincere, astonishing hope and desire, born of the compassion resulting from belief, are surely themselves guilty of a crime.]

Said says in one of his signed letters: “I used to be astonished at the innocent seven to ten-year-old children who would run up to me when they saw me driving around in the phaeton and hold onto my hands, and I wondered what the reason was. Then suddenly it was imparted to me that “with a premonition of the future, the group of young innocents sensed that through the Risale-i Nur they would find happiness and would be saved from spiritual dangers.”

* * *

[To deem this piece a crime although the beginning is in my favour and the end is a wish and hope, is beyond all fairness.]

It is written that a number of verses and Hadiths allude unanimously to a luminous truth this century, and point to a supreme regenerator of religion who is to come at the end of time; that the most important of the three duties of that person and community will be to save belief, and that there will be no harm in their disregarding the two duties which dominate the broad sphere, such as reviving the Shari‘a and setting up the caliphate. However, this might lead the Risale-i Nur’s opponents, particularly the politicians, to criticize and attack it, for which reason he has cut out a part of the short treatise of our precise brothers, together with some of its sentences, and will send it in amended form.

In a signed letter, Said Nursi writes: “The fact that the verses Verily We have granted you a manifest victory; * And that God may help you with powerful help35 in Qur’anic script over the gate of War Ministry, which was made into the University, were covered over by marble slabs and have now been brought to light, is a sign of the Qur’anic script again being permitted, and the aim followed by the Risale-i Nur being achieved. It is also a sign that the university will become a Risale-i Nur ‘Medrese’.”

* * *

[This is Husrev’s footnote at the end of my letter entitled The ‘Takbirs’ of the Hajjis, which furnishes a perfect reply to their criticisms of my explanations.]

In the letter signed by Said Nursi, with the heading ‘The takbirs of the Hajjis on Arafat,’ is the reply to “a significant number of the Risale-i Nur students asking persistently about a prominent guide from the Family of the Prophet who is to come at the end of time; they suppose you to be him. For your part, you consistently refuse to accept their ideas, and shrink from such a suggestion. This is a contradiction. We want the answer to this matter.”

The reply: The collective personality of the sacred community which the Mahdi descended from God’s Messenger will represent will have three functions: to save belief, to revive the marks of Islam under the title of the caliphate of Muhammad (PBUH), and to modify to some extent the laws of the Shari‘a of Muhammad (PBUH). He will attempt to carry out this vast duty. Since the Risale-i Nur students see the first duty completely in the Risale-i Nur, saying that the second and third duties are in second and third place, they rightly suppose the Risale-i Nur’s collective personality to be a sort of Mahdi. Since some of them suppose its wretched Interpreter is a representative of that collective personality, they sometimes call him by the same name. Indeed, they say that through interpretation and investigation it is understood from the predictions of some of the saints that the Risale-i Nur is that very guide of the end of time. There is confusion on two points, and they have to be interpreted.

The First: In reality the latter two duties are not of the same degree as the former. However, influenced by this century’s ideas in particular the mass of people and the politicians consider the caliphate of Muhammad (PBUH) and Islamic Unity to be immeasurably more extensive than the first duty. Every century a sort of Mahdi and Regenerator who gave guidance has appeared, but since they have performed only one of the three functions, they have not been given the title of the Great Mahdi.

The Second: That supreme person of the Last Days will be a descendant of the Prophet (PBUH). For sure I am like a spiritual son of Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him), and I have received instruction from him in the realities; and since in one sense the Family of Muhammad (PBUH) includes true Risale-i Nur students, I too may be thought of as belonging to the Prophet’s Family. But it is not permissible in the Risale-i Nur way to desire any sort of egotism or personality or personal rank, or to win fame and renown. Even if rank in the hereafter was given me, I would feel myself compelled to leave it aside in order not to spoil the sincerity of the Risale-i Nur. A semi-consenting reply is given,36 and the ascription of Mahdiship is clearly and decisively rejected.

* * *

[The events in this piece are facts, and since in extraordinary fashion three minutes after my saying: Don’t upset me, the earth will become angry!, there was an earthquake, this should be applauded in amazement, as is demanded by compassion, and not be made the object of criticism.]

It is said: “Ten hours after having given my statement for four hours and suffering considerable discomfort, virtually at the same time, the fire in the Ministry of Education broke out, which caused loss worth two million liras and demonstrated that the Risale-i Nur is a means of repulsing calamities. For if it is attacked, the calamities find a way and strike.”

In letter number one hundred and forty-one, it proves that the fires in the Ministry of Education in Ankara and in a garage, in a factory in Izmir, and a large building in Adana being burnt to the ground after I had given my statement for four and a half hours were not coincidence, then it says: “Don’t deprive me of my treatises, or both I and this country will pay for it; the earth will vent its anger with earthquakes. Three minutes after saying this an earthquake occurred which lasted three seconds, and the Ministry of Education was engulfed in flames; numerous earthquakes have coincided with aggression against the Risale-i Nur and its students, as has been proved four times by courts of law, which cannot be chance or coincidence. Numerous incidents have shown that the Risale-i Nur is a means of calamities being repulsed in this country.”

In letter number one hundred and forty-seven: “This time, the winter displayed its fury when we were attacked. The weather raged with storm and was bitterly cold, but when the assaults ceased and the Nurjus experienced an expansiveness, those bitterly cold days began to smile like the first days of spring. ... The burning down of the Ministry of Education was a universal blow.

* * *

[A situation worthy of congratulation should not be objected to.]

One of the numerous meaningless questions they asked me this time in court, was: “How do you live?” I replied: “Through the plenty resulting from frugality. A person who one Ramadan in Isparta lived on one loaf of bread, a one-kilo bag of yoghurt, and one kilo of rice would not stoop to embracing the world for his livelihood and would not be obliged to accept gifts.”

* * *

[As with the defence Zübeyir37 read in court, his brilliant eulogy drove them to appreciate it, God willing, for amazed, they included it in the judgement.]

In a section with the heading: “Our young people want to be taught truth and realitiy, and to have the highest morality,” on page thirteen, Zübeyir Gündüzalp wrote by typewriter: “The Risale-i Nur is a masterpiece written not through the author’s will, but inspired by the Creator, in order to save the Muslims of the 20th century and all humanity from the dark, oppressive ideas.”

On page twelve: “If it was said to a person serving the Risale-i Nur: ‘Copy out these books instead of the Risale-i Nur, and I’ll give all the wealth of Ford,’ he would reply, without even raising the nib of his pen: ‘If you gave me all the world’s wealth and its sovereignty too, I would not accept it.’”

On page fifteen: “If we are attached to honest writers a hundred times over, our attachment to a great person like Bediuzzaman who guides us in this world and the next, is immeasurable, total.”

On page twelve: “The collective personality of the Risale-i Nur has diagnosed the social, spiritual, and religious sicknesses of this age, and at a Divine command has offered to all humanity at this time the All-Wise Qur’an’s truths in a way that will cure its chronic social ills.”

On page forty-four: “Bediuzzaman said that someone who studies these treatises for a year may become an important scholar. Yes, that is how it is.”

On page fifty-four: “The judges who study the Risale-i Nur do not make incorrect judgements.”

[This piece is entirely in my favour and is the exact truth, and should not have been included with the offences in the court’s decision.]

Ahmed Feyzi amended part of his work, but having to hurry he sent it without completing the corrections. In it, it is said: “Does it not infer by ignoring Saraçoglu, who calls religion and the training of Muhammad ‘poison’, and disputing The Illuminating Lamp, which demonstrates the Qur’anic reality as clearly as the sun and proves it to be the perfect cure for mankind’s wounds, that you are assisting in the confiscation of that collection?”

It says the following in the conclusion of one of his defence speeches, presented to the court on an unknown date. He stated that neither himself nor the students were occupied with politics; the writings shown to be aggressive were confidential; there was freedom of thought and of conscience; that even if the above appeared to be criticism of some laws, this did not constitute a crime; many of the treatises under consideration were written a long time previously; they had been scrutinized by committees of experts and had been found to be harmless; that just as there had previously been convictions for them in Eskishehir Court, so they had been acquitted in Denizli Court, so it was not right that they should be tried again for the same offence; the Risale-i Nur students had up to now been involved in no activities that would disturb public order; and that since no one was named explicitly in the Fifth Ray and its purpose was only to inform, this did not constitute a crime either.

Further examples may be thought of in the same way.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

To the Judges of the Court of Appeal

[Again they did not permit me to speak in the session held to discuss the possible quashing by the Appeal Court of Afyon Court’s unjust decision concerning us. They made us listen to a third severe indictment. They also did not allow anyone to come to help me with writing. Despite my poor handwriting and my being ill, I am presenting this complaint to your Court —which has acted justly towards us twice previously— as a supplement to my petition concerning the appeal.]

In His Name, be He glorified!

A petition to the Supreme Tribunal of the Resurrection; and a complaint to the Divine Court; the Appeal Court of the present should also listen as well as coming generations and the enlightened future teachers and students of the universities. Of the hundreds of torments and calamities I have suffered these twenty-three years, I am setting ten before the court of justice of the All-Glorious Sovereign together with my complaints.

The First: Despite my faults, I have dedicated my life to this nation’s happiness and the saving of its religious belief. Saying, let my head too be sacrificed for a truth, that is, the truth of the Qur’an, for which millions of heroic heads have been sacrificed, I worked with the Risale-i Nur with all my strength. Through Divine assistance, I persisted in the face of all the cruel torments. I did not withdraw.

For example: One instance of the exceedingly cruel treatment I have received during my trial and imprisonment in Afyon: although three times, and every time for nearly two hours, they forced myself and the innocent Risale-i Nur students, who were awaiting solace from justice, to listen to the slanderous, malicious indictments, they did not allow us more than one or two minutes to defend our rights, despite my repeated requests for five or ten minutes.

I have been kept for twenty months in total isolation, with only one or two of my friends being permitted to visit me for three or four hours. For only a small part of my defence speeches did I have anyone to help me with the writing. Then they were forbidden as well, and punished exceedingly brutally. They compelled us to listen to the prosecutor’s biased indictment, which was like water gathered from a thousand streams, and which I proved contained eighty-one errors in fifteen pages arising from twisted meanings and slander and lies. They did not permit me to speak. If they had permitted me, I would have said:

Although as required by freedom of thought and freedom of conscience, you do not interfere with Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, and particularly now with anarchists, apostates, and dissemblers, hiding behind the screen of communism, who both deny your religion, and insult your forefathers accusing them of misguidance, and accept neither your Prophet (PBUH) nor the laws of the Qur’an; and although through the Qur’an’s instruction millions of Muslims in the lands and under the rule of an imperious, bigoted Christian state like Britain, reject all the false beliefs and infidel rules of the English, their courts do not interfere with them; and although opponents of all governments openly publish their ideas without those governments bothering them; and although both the Isparta authorities, and Denizli Court, and Ankara Criminal Court, and the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and the Appeal Court twice, no, three times, have all scrutinized these forty years of my life, and my one hundred and thirty treatises, and my most private treatises and letters, and they had in their possession for two or three years all the copies of the Risale-i Nur, confidential and otherwise, yet they could not show a single matter necessitating the smallest penalty; and although despite the fact I am extremely weak, oppressed, defeated, and am enduring the harshest conditions, our innocence has been proved by the Risale-i Nur collections you hold as well as our four-hundred-page defence, which have been shown to be a most powerful, sound, and veracious guide for two hundred thousand true and devoted students benefiting this country, nation, and public security; — in spite of all these, under which law, what conscience, what good, what crime do you convict us, contemptuously giving us the harshest sentences and severest solitary confinement? Certainly you shall be questioned about this at the Last Judgement.

The Second: One reason they put forward for punishing me was my expounding the Qur’an’s explicit verses about veiling, inheritance, recitation of the Divine Names, and polygamy, written to silence those who object to them in the name of civilization.

Fifteen years ago I wrote the following piece to Eskishehir Court and the Appeal Court, which was also included in the court’s decision. I repeat the piece as a complaint to the Supreme Tribunal at the Last Judgement, and as a warning to the enlightened teachers of the future, and together with Elhüccetü’z-Zehrâ (The Shining Proof) as a sort of addition to my petition to the Appeal Court, which twice has acted fairly in acquitting me and has listened to my cry for justice, and to the committee of judges who did not permit me to speak and due to the malicious indictment which I proved contained eighty errors, convicted me to two year’s hard labour and solitary confinement together with two year’s further exile elsewhere under close surveillance:

I say this that if there is any justice on the face of the earth, the Appeal Court will quash this decision which convicts someone who expounded Qur’anic verses which in each century for one thousand three hundred and fifty years have acted as sacred, true Divine principles in the social life of three hundred and fifty million Muslims, and expounded them relying on the consensus and affirmation of three hundred and fifty thousand Qur’anic commentaries and following the beliefs of our forefathers for one thousand three hundred years. Is it not a denial of Islam and a betrayal of our millions of religious and heroic forefathers to convict, because he expounded those verses, someone who according to reason and learning does not accept certain European laws applied temporarily due to certain requirements of the times and who has given up politics and withdrawn from social life, and is it not to insult millions of Qur’anic commentaries?

The Third: One reason they cited for our conviction was breaching security and disturbing public order. Putting forward the remotest possibility, one in a hundred or even a thousand, in place of actual events, and putting the wrong meanings on forty to fifty words from some confidential treatises and private letters out of the hundred thousand words and sentences of the Risale-i Nur, they present these as evidence, and accusing us want to have us punished.

Calling to witness those who have known my life these thirty to forty years and the thousands of ‘special’ (has)38 students of the Risale-i Nur, I say: to accuse of disturbing public order someone who, —at a time the commander of the British occupation forces in Istanbul was sowing discord among Muslims, even deceiving the Shaykh al-Islam and some leading men of religion and inciting the Committee of Union and Progress and the Freedom and Accord Party to struggle against each other, thus paving the way for the Greek victory and defeat of the National Movement,— foiled that insidious plan of the commander by printing and publishing through the efforts of Eshref Edib his work Hutuvat-i Sitte (The Six Steps) against the British and Greeks, not retreating even in the face of threat of execution; who did not flee to Ankara even when summoned because of the above service by the leaders there; who attached no importance when a prisoner-of-war to the Russian Commander-in-Chief’s order for his execution; who with a speech during the Thirty-First of March Incident induced eight regiments to obey their officers;39 and in the Military Court, disregarding the threat of execution said in reply to the presiding pashas’ questions of: “You too are a reactionary, you too wanted the Shari‘a?”, “If constitutionalism consists of one party’s despotism, then let all men and jinn witness that I am a reactionary and ready to sacrifice my very soul for a single matter of the Shari‘a,” causing those high-ranking officers to appreciate and admire him, and while expecting his execution, they decided on his acquittal, then on being released, he did not thank them but went on his way shouting: “Long live Hell for all tyrants!”; and as is written in the decision of Afyon Court, when Mustafa Kemal angrily said to him in the office of the Speaker of the Assembly:40 “We summoned you here so you would tell us of your elevated ideas, but you came and wrote some things about the five daily prayers and sowed conflict among us,” he replied: “After belief, the obligatory prayers are the most elevated question. Those who do not perform the prayers are traitors, and the pronouncements of traitors are to be rejected;” who said this in the presence of forty to fifty deputies, and forced that fearsome commander to swallow his anger and make a sort of apology; and in connection with whom not one matter has been recorded by the police and authorities of six provinces connected with the disturbance of public order; and among whose hundreds of thousands of students not the smallest incident has been witnessed (apart from one insignificant incident concerning a rightful defence in which one unimportant student was involved); in connection with none of whose students any crime has been heard; and whichever prison he has been sent to has there reformed the other prisoners; and as testified to by these twenty-three years of his life and three provincial authorities and three courts acquitting him and a hundred thousand of his students, who know the value of the Risale-i Nur, affirming it verbally and by action, despite hundreds of thousands of copies of it being distributed throughout the country, the Risale-i Nur has produced only benefits and caused no harm; and who is a recluse, single, a stranger, elderly, poor, and sees himself at the door of the grave; and who with all his strength has given up transitory things, and has sought ways of atoning for his former sins and making his life eternal, and attaches not the slightest importance to worldly rank, and who, so that no harm will come to the innocent and the elderly, out of his compassion does not curse those who torment and torture him; — those who say about such a man: “This old recluse disturbs the peace and breaches public security; his aims are the intrigues of this world, and his correspondence is for this world, in which case he is guilty” and who convict him under such severe conditions are surely themselves guilty from the ground to the heavens, and they shall give their account at the Last Judgement!

Can it be said about a man who with a speech induced eight mutinying regiments to obey their officers, and with a single article persuaded thousands of people to support him, and was not frightened before the three above-mentioned formidable commanders, and did not fawn to them, and in courts of law declared: “If I had heads to the number of hairs on my head and every day one was cut off, I would not surrender to atheism and misguidance and betray my country and nation and Islam; I would not bow this head, which has been dedicated to the Qur’an, before tyrants,” and was concerned with no one in Emirdag apart from five or ten brothers of the hereafter and three or four servants — could it be said about such a man, as it does in the indictment: “This Said was working secretly in Emirdag; he poisoned the minds of some of the people giving them the idea of disturbing the peace; twenty men gathered round him and wrote private letters praising him, which shows that he was hatching a revolt and was involved in covert politics against the government”? I refer it to your consciences to understand just how far from right, justice, and fairness those who torment him have deviated by, with unprecedented animosity and hatred, throwing him into prison for two years, in solitary confinement, and by not allowing him to speak in court.

Is it at all possible that someone who has received public attention a hundred times greater than is his due, and brought thousands of men to obedience with one speech, and induced thousands of people to join the Ittihad-i Muhammedî Society with one newspaper article, and made fifty thousand people listen admiringly to his address in Aya Sophia Mosque41 — that such a man should work at it for three years in Emirdag and deceive only five or ten people, and fill his grave, which he is approaching, with unnecessary darkness rather than with light? Is it at all possible that he should do this? Satan himself could not make anyone accept it!

The Fourth is their citing my not wearing the brimmed hat as an important reason for my conviction.42 They did not allow me to speak, otherwise I would have said this to those who were trying to punish me: I stayed as a guest for three months in the police station in Kastamonu. At no time did they say to me: “Wear the brimmed hat!” And although in three courts of law I did not wear the hat and did not remove my own headgear, they did not interfere with me. And on that pretext for twenty-three years a number of irreligious tyrants have inflicted a very distressing and severe penalty on me unofficially. And children, women, villagers, officials in their offices, and those who wear the beret are not compelled to wear the hat. And there is no physical benefit in wearing it. Yet because of their fabrications and allegations a recluse like myself has paid a twenty-year penalty for not wearing headgear that all the mujtahids and Shaykh al-Islams have prohibited. Those who are trying to have me punished again because of a meaningless custom related to dress; and with such force, repetition, and insistence to have me found guilty because of my dress —despite, saying there is personal freedom, their comparing to themselves those who drink raki in public in Ramadan during the day and do not perform the obligatory prayers, and not bothering them— surely after suffering the everlasting extinction of death and perpetual solitary confinement of the grave, at the Last Judgement they will be questioned concerning this error.

The Fifth: Those who have heard this third indictment and seen the judgement that we published will confirm that on pretexts as flimsy as a fly’s wing, they are trying to confiscate some of the treatises of the Risale-i Nur, which is alluded to favourably by thirty-three Qur’anic verses, was applauded by such saints as Imam ‘Ali (May God exalt him) and Gawth al-A‘zam ( May his mystery be sanctified), is affirmed by a hundred thousand believers, and in twenty years has won a highly beneficial rank for this nation and country without causing any harm. Even, making a pretext two pages about two correct explanations of two verses, which were written long ago and have been covered by pardons, it was even the cause of the four-hundred-page Zülfikâr and The Miracles of Muhammad (Mu’cizat-i Ahmediye) being seized, which has strengthened and saved the belief of a hundred thousand people and is extremely beneficial and valuable. And now, giving the wrong meaning to one or two words out of a thousand, they are trying to have that infinitely useful treatise seized. As for us, we say:

And for every calamity, we belong to God, and to Him is our return.43 * For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs.44

The Sixth: To those who deem me guilty of a crime because some of the Risale-i Nur students have seen the wondrous proofs of the Risale-i Nur and profited from its irrefutable teachings about belief, which are at the degree of ‘knowledge of certainty,’ and as encouragement, congratulations, appreciation, and gratitude, praise me excessively and have an over-favourable opinion of me, I say this: when a powerless, weak, semi-literate, lonely exile subject to derogatory propaganda designed to scare the people away from me, I found for myself some of the cures of the Qur’an and its sacred truths related to belief which were a perfect remedy for my ills. Then concluding that they were also just the medicine for this nation and the sons of this land, I wrote down those valuable truths. Since I have very poor handwriting and I was much in need of assistants, Divine favour sent me loyal and staunch helpers.

If I had completely rejected their good opinion of me and sincere praise and offended them by rebuking them it would have been like contempt for and hostility towards those Lights taken from the treasury of the Qur’an. Thinking too it would cause those diamond-penned stout-hearted assitants to leave me, I directed their praise and applause for my bankrupt person to the Risale-i Nur, a miracle of the Qur’an to which in truth the praise is due, and to the collective personality of its leading students. But I did offend them in a way by saying that they were affording me a share a hundred times greater than my due. Could any law impute guilt to a man because others praise him although he eschews it and is not happy at it? For this is what the officials are doing, who act in the name of the law.

Although it was written on page fifty-four of the court’s judgement, which was written against us but which we published: “That great person of the end of time will be a descendant of the Prophet (PBUH), and we students of the Risale-i Nur can be considered to be members of the Prophet’s Family only in meaning. Also, there can be no egotism of any sort in the way of the Risale-i Nur, nor any wish for position and personal rank, or fame and renown. Even if I was offered high rank in the hereafter, I would feel myself compelled to refuse it in order not to damage the sincerity of the Risale-i Nur;” and although on pages twenty-two and three it is written: “Knowing one’s faults and realizing one’s poverty and impotence, and humbly seeking refuge at the Divine Court; with that personality I know myself to be more wretched, impotent, and faulty than everyone. So even if all the people praised and lauded me, they could not make me believe that I am someone good, of high spiritual and moral rank. Lest I frighten you off, I shall not say the many secret ills and bad characteristics of my third, true, personality. Out of His grace, Almighty God employs this personality in the mysteries of the Qur’an like a lowly private soldier. Endless thanks be to God. The soul is lower than everything, and the duty higher,” — although this is written in the Court judgement, they find me guilty of being called a supreme guide due to the praises of others, which in fact refer to the Risale-i Nur, and are thus deserving of paying an awesome penalty due to the error.

The Seventh: Although Denizli Court and Ankara Criminal Court and the Appeal Courts unanimously acquitted us and all the treatises of the Risale-i Nur and returned them and our letters to us, and they said “Even if the Appeal Court’s decision to quash the decision and Denizli’s acquittal were wrong, since they have been made final, the case cannot be retried,” I was sent to Emirdag, where I spent three years as a recluse. There, so long as there was no necessity, I spoke only with the two or three tailor apprentices who were assisting me, and rarely, for five or ten minutes with certain religiously-minded people. I wrote no letters other than once a week to one place as encouragement in the Risale-i Nur, and wrote only three letters in three years to my Mufti brother. I gave up writing pieces, which I had been doing for twenty to thirty years, except for two points, twenty pages in length, which were useful for the people of the Qur’an and for belief. One was about the wisdom in the repetitions in the Qur’an, and the other, about the angels; I wrote no other treatise. Only, I gave permission for the treatises which the courts had returned to be made into large collections, and since five hundred copies of The Supreme Sign, which had been printed in the old letters, had been handed over to us by the court, and since duplicating machines were not officially banned, I gave permission to my brothers to duplicate them so they could be published for the benefit of the Islamic world, and I busied myself with correcting them. I was certainly not concerned with politics in any way. Moreover, although official permission had been given for us to return to our native region, contrary to all the other exiles I accepted the hardship of exile in order not to become involved in politics and the world, and did not return. The treatment I have received these last twenty months proves that the person who is trying in this third indictment to find guilty such a man through the baseless accusations, lies, and misinterpretations is ruled by two fearsome meanings, which I shall not utter for now. What I do say is this: the grave and Hell are sufficient, and I refer it to the Last Judgement.

The Eighth: Since the Fifth Ray was returned to us after remaining for two years in the hands of Denizli and Ankara Courts, it was added at the end of the large collection called The Illuminating Lamp together with my defence, which had led to our acquittal in Denizli Court. For sure, previously we had held it to be confidential, but since the courts had advertised it and returned it after acquitting us, I permitted its duplication seeing that it was thus harmless. The original of the Fifth Ray was about allegorical Hadiths and was written thirty to forty years ago. For sure some Hadith scholars stated that some of the Hadiths that were well-known by the Umma were ‘dubious,’ but since it was their apparent meanings that had been objected to, the piece was written solely to save the believers from doubting them. Then since some time later some of its wondrous interpretations became clear for all to see, I held it to be confidential so that it should not be given the wrong meaning. Then numerous courts studied it minutely, and together with publicizing it, returned it to us. So I refer it to the consciences of those who have convicted us arbitrarily to see just how far it is from justice, right, and fairness to now again find us guilty because of it. And saying, For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs, I refer them to the Last Judgement.

The Ninth: This is very important, but since those who have convicted us have studied the Risale-i Nur, I have not written it so as not to upset them.

The Tenth: This is powerful and important, but again so as not to offend them, I have not written it for now.

S a i d N u r s i ,

who is being held in absolute solitary confinement.

* * *

[Part of a petition written during the Eskishehir trial fifteen years ago and sent to the Cabinet.]45

You who “bind and loose”!

I have suffered an injustice the like of which has rarely been seen in the world. To remain silent before such an injustice is disrespect for right. I am compelled therefore to divulge a most important fact. Demonstrate the fault I have committed so that the law demands either my execution or a hundred and one year’s imprisonment, or prove that I am completely mad, or else give complete freedom to myself, my treatises, and my friends, and collect our losses from those who caused them.

Yes, every government has a law and a principle according to which penalties are given. If there is nothing in the laws of the Government of the Republic to necessitate the heaviest penalty for myself and my friends, we should be given our complete freedom, as well as recompense and appreciation and an apology. For if my important service of the Qur’an, which is clear and open, is against the Government, I should receive not a year’s sentence in this way and a number of my friends, six months each, I should be given the death sentence or a hundred and one year’s imprisonment and those earnestly attached to me and my work should be given the heaviest penalties. But if our service is not against the Government, we should receive not penalties, charges and imprisonment, but appreciation and recompense. For it is service the nature of which may be understood through its one hundred and twenty treatises, and its challenging the great philosophers of Europe and overthrowing their principles. Certainly, such effective service will either produce ghastly results inside the country, or it will yield most advantageous, elevated, and scholarly fruits. In which case, I cannot be given a year’s sentence for playing a childish game of hoodwinking, and deceiving public opinion, and concealing the intrigues of tyrants and their lies about us. Those like me either receive capital punishment, proudly climbing the gallows, or they remain free in the position of which they are worthy.

Yes, a clever thief can steal diamonds worth thousands, so he would not sentence himself to the same penalty for stealing a fragment of glass worth virtually nothing. No thief would do that, indeed, no conscious creature. Such a thief is cunning, not utterly stupid in that way.

Sirs! According to your delusions, I am like that thief. Rather than living in seclusion in a poor village in one of the districts of Isparta for nine years and putting in danger myself and my treatises which are the aim of my life by turning against the Government the ideas of five to ten ingenuous unfortunates, who have been given very light sentences along with me, I could have held a high position in either Ankara or Istanbul like formerly and manipulated thousands of people towards the aim I was following. Then I would not have been convicted so abjectly, but would have been involved in the world with the pride and dignity befitting my way and duty.

I do not say this out of pride or to boast, but ashamedly, to point out the errors of those who, recalling some of my old self-advertisement and hypocrisy, want to abase me so that the position I hold lacks all importance and cannot be profited from. So I say to them:

As someone who, as confirmed by his old defence, which was published under the name of The Testimony of Two Schools of Misfortune, reduced to obedience with a speech eight rebelling regiments during the Thirty-First of March Incident; and as was reported in the newspapers of the time, with an article called The Six Steps performed the important service of turning the ideas of the Istanbul ‘ulama against the British and in favour of the National Movement; and delivered an address to thousands in Aya Sophia, making them listen to him; and was greeted with tumultuous applause by the Assembly and deputies in Ankara, and had one hundred and sixty-three deputies assign one hundred and fifty thousand liras for his religious school and university; and without quailing responded completely firmly to the angry President in the Speaker’s office and invited him to perform the obligatory prayers; and while in the Darü’l-Hikmeti’l-Islamiye was unanimously considered worthy by the Union and Progress Government of the duty of effectively inviting the philosophers of Europe to accept Islamic wisdom; and Isharat al-I‘jaz (Signs of Miraculousness), the work he wrote on the front during the War and has now been seized, appeared so valuable to Enver Pasha, who was Commander-in-Chief at the time, that with respect shown by no one else and the idea of sharing in the good and glory of that memento of the War, which was racing to the future, he contributed the paper to have the work printed so that the exploits of its author during the War would be remembered — such a man would not descend to disgracing the dignity of his learning, the sacredness of his service, and his thousands of valuable friends by tainting himself with a petty crime like a horse-thief, abductor of girls, or pickpocket so that you could sentence him to a year’s imprisonment and treat him like a stealer of goats or sheep. He would prefer execution to suffering under the arbitrary persecution of a malicious detective or common policeman the year’s sentence now given him together with being held under supervision for a year, after having been tormented for ten years without reason with oppressive surveillance — although he could not endure to be dominated by the Sultan. If such a man had been involved in the world and if he had harboured such a wish and if his sacred service had permitted, he would have interfered in it to an extent ten times greater than the Menemen Affair and Shaykh Said Revolt.46 The booming sound of a cannon heard by all the world would not have subsided to the buzz of a fly.

Yes, I make the following point for the attention of the Government of the Republic: this situation has been brought about through the intrigues, machinations and propaganda of the covert organization which drove me to this misfortune. The evidence that widespread propaganda and terror and a conspiracy have been orchestrated against us in a way never before seen in any event is this, that although I have a hundred thousand friends, not one of them has been able to write me any letter for six months, or to send any greetings, and the fact that due to the informing of plotters who are trying to deceive the Government, interrogations and searches have been continually carried out from the eastern provinces to those in the west.

The plan these intriguers hatched was evidently to organize an ‘incident’ that would be the cause of thousands like me receiving the heaviest penalties. However, the result was a penalty that recalled an incident of petty pilfering perpetrated by the commonest person. Of one hundred and fifteen people, fifteen innocent men were given sentences of five or six months. Would any rational creature in the world prick the tail of a fierce lion or terrible dragon with his brilliantly sharp diamond sword, and make it turn on him? If his intention was self-defence or combat, he would use his sword somewhere else.

With your deluded view, you conceive of me as such a man, for that is the way you have charged me and sentenced me. If I act in a manner so contrary to consciousness and reason, this great country should not be terrorized and public opinion turned against me with propaganda, I should be sent to a lunatic asylum like a common madman. But if I am someone of the importance you afford me, my keen sword would not be pointed at the tails of the lion or the dragon to make them attack him, he would rather defend himself as far as he could. Just as I have voluntarily chosen seclusion these last ten years, and tolerating difficulties beyond human endurance, have interfered in no way whatsoever in matters of government, nor have I wanted to interfere. Because my sacred duty prohibits me.

O you who bind and loose! Is it at all possible that in the one hundred and twenty treatises of a person who, as was written in the newspapers twenty-five years ago, with one newspaper article caused thirty thousand people to accept his ideas, and drew the attention of the huge ‘Operation Army’ on himself, and replied with six words to the questions of the chief cleric of the English, who wanted six hundred, and gave a speech after the Constitutional Revolution as though he was a leading diplomat, — would only fifteen words related to politics and the world be found in the one hundred and twenty treatises of such a man? Is it at all reasonable to accept that this man follows politics and his aim is this world and he is troubling the Government? If his mind was set on meddling in politics and the Government, such a person would have made it clear in a single of his treatises, and indicated it in a thousand places. If his purpose had been criticism with political intent, would he not have found anything to criticize other than one or two rules about the veiling of women and inheritance, which have long been in force?

Yes, the politically-minded opponent of a ruling regime which had enacted far-reaching reforms would have found not those one or two to object to but thousands. As though the reforms of the Government of the Republic consisted only of one or two minor matters. Although I had no intention to criticize it whatsoever, because of one or two words in one or two of my books which I had written long previously, it was said: “He is attacking the ruling regime and its reforms.” So I ask: Should the whole country be busied with a scholarly matter which demands not the smallest penalty, in a way to cause anxiety?

Thus, myself and five to ten of my friends being given the most minor, trivial sentences; and the whole country being intimidated by powerful propaganda against us and being made to hate us; and Sükrü Kaya, the Interior Minister, being called to Isparta with a significant force of soldiers in order to perform a task a single private soldier could perform, that is, to arrest me; and Ismet, the head of the Cabinet, going to the eastern provinces in that connection; and for two months in prison my being prohibited from speaking with anyone; and no one asking after me or sending me greetings while alone in this exile; — all these show that it is a meaningless, pointless, illegal situation like a tree as huge as a mountain producing a fruit the size of a pea. Seeing that ‘government’ means ‘to govern with wisdom,’ it is not something any government would be involved in, especially a legal government like the Government of the Republic, which adheres more closely to the law than any other.

I want my rights within the bounds of the law. I accuse of being criminals those who act against the law in the name of the law. The laws of the Government of the Republic certainly reject the arbitrary acts of such criminals. I am hopeful that my rights will be restored to me.

S a i d N u r s i

* * *

An Example of the Risale-i Nur’s Veracity

N O T E

As the fair-minded and enlightened who read the following treatise,47 which was written nineteen years ago, will clearly understand, the Risale-i Nur, with all its one hundred and thirty parts, is concerned only with belief and the hereafter and was written in that spirit, completely free of all political and worldly motives. This clear and definite fact was corroborated by the lengthy investigations and minute studies carried out by the Courts of Eskishehir, Isparta, Denizli, and Afyon. In this connection, we are requesting your concern and assistance in having all our books returned to us, which for more than twenty months have been held by Afyon Court, and not the smallest point of which was shown by the Appeal Court as constituting an offence, and which have saved the belief of thousands of people, and have been praised and applauded by their readers, and scholars, and the Islamic world.

The greater part of the books held by Afyon Court were collected by the first of our companions to be released. Saying: “We gave these books of ours to Ustad, their owner; they should be handed over to him,” they referred them to me. In particular, they left in the court the gilded Qur’an which was written showing the miraculous ‘coincidences’ of letters,48 which was among the confiscated books. Before everything we await the swift return to us of those books and our Qur’an, which were previously returned to us by Denizli and Ankara Courts.

S a i d N u r s i

The Sixteenth Letter

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Men said to them: “A great army is gathering against you,” and frightened them. But it [only] increased their belief; they said: “For us God suffices, and He is the best Disposer of Affairs.”49

This letter manifested the meaning of the verse, But speak to him mildly,50 and was not written vehemently. It is the answer to a question asked me both explicitly and implicitly by many people.

[To reply is not agreeable to me and I do not want to, for I have bound everything to reliance on God. But since I have not been left in peace to myself in my own world and since they have directed my attention towards the world, I am compelled to propound five ‘Points’ in the language of the Old Said in order to explain the reality of the situation both to my friends, and to ‘the worldly,’ and to those in authority, so as to save not myself, but my friends and my Words, from the suspicions and ill-treatment of ‘the worldly.’]

FIRST POINT

It is asked: “Why have you withdrawn from politics and now have nothing to do with them?”

T h e A n s w e r : The Old Said of nine or ten years ago was involved in politics a certain amount; indeed, thinking he would serve religion and learning by means of politics, he was wearied for nothing. He saw that it is a dangerous way which is doubtful and full of difficulties and for me superfluous, as well as forming an obstacle to the most necessary duties. It is mostly lies and there is the possibility of unknowingly being a tool in the hand of Europe. Furthermore, one who enters politics is either successful or is in opposition. As for being successful, since I am neither an official nor a deputy, to work in politics is unnecessary and nonsense for me. Politics has no need for me so that I should interfere for nothing. If I join the opposition, I would do so either with ideas or with force. If it was with ideas there is no need for me, for the questions are all clear, and everyone knows them as I do. To wag one’s chin pointlessly is meaningless. If I join the opposition with the use of force in view and to provoke an incident, there would be the possibility of committing thousands of sins in order to reach a doubtful goal. Many people would be afflicted by disaster on account of one. So saying that in conscience he could not accept committing sins and causing the innocent to commit sins due to a one or two in ten possibility, the Old Said gave up cigarettes together with the newspapers, politics, and worldly conversation about politics. Decisive evidence for this is the fact that for the past eight years I have not read a single newspaper nor listened to one being read. Let someone come forward and say that I have read one or listened to one. Whereas eight years ago the Old Said used to read perhaps eight newspapers every day. Furthermore, for the past five years I have been under the closest scrutiny and surveillance. Anyone who has observed the slightest hint of political activity should say so. But for someone like me who is nervous, fearless, and without attachment, who considers the best stratagem to be without stratagem, his ideas will not remain secret for eight days, let alone eight years. If he had had the appetite and desire for politics, he would not have left any necessity for investigation and scrutiny, he would have given voice like the firing of a cannon.

SECOND POINT

Why does the New Said avoid politics with such vehemence?

T h e A n s w e r : He avoids it so vehemently in order to serve belief and the Qur’an, which is of the greatest importance, the greatest necessity and is the most pure and most right, in order not to sacrifice unnecessarily and officiously for one or two doubtful years of worldly life the working for and gaining of more than millions of years of eternal life. For he says: I am getting old and I do not know how many more years I shall live, so the most important question for me must be to work for eternal life. The prime means of gaining eternal life and the key to everlasting happiness is belief, so one has to work for that. But since I am obliged by the Shari‘a to serve people in respect of learning so that they may profit also, I want to perform such a duty. However, such service will either concern social and worldly life, which I cannot do, and also in stormy times it is not possible to perform such service soundly. Therefore, I left aside that aspect and chose the aspect of service to belief, which is the most important, the most necessary, and the soundest. I leave that door open so that the truths of belief I have gained for myself and the spiritual remedies I have myself experienced may be acquired by others. Perhaps Almighty God will accept this service and make it atonement for my former sins. Apart from Satan the Accursed, no one, be it a believer or an unbeliever, one of the veracious or an atheist, has the right to oppose this work. For unbelief resembles nothing else. In tyrannizing, vice, and grievous sins there may be an inauspicious satanic pleasure, but in unbelief there is no sort of pleasure at all. It is pain upon pain, darkness upon darkness, torment upon torment.

Just how contrary to reason it would be for someone like me who is unattached, alone, and compelled to atone for his former sins to leave aside working for an endless eternal life and serving a sacred light like belief, and to cast himself in old age into the unnecessary, perilous games of politics—just how contrary to wisdom, just what a lunacy it would be even lunatics would understand!

But if you ask why service of the Qur’an and belief prohibit me, I would say: Since the truths of belief and the Qur’an are each like diamonds, if I was polluted by politics, the ordinary people who are easily deceived, would wonder about those diamonds I was holding, “Aren’t they for political propaganda to attract more supporters?” They might regard the diamonds as bits of common glass. Then by being involved with politics, I would be wronging the diamonds and as though reducing their value. O you whose view is restricted to this world! Why do you struggle against me? Why do you not leave me to myself?

If you say: The shaykhs sometimes interfere in our business, and they sometimes call you a shaykh.

I reply: Good sirs! I am not a shaykh, I am a hoja [teacher]. The evidence is this: I have been here four years and if I had taught a single person the sufi way, you would have had the right to be suspicious. But I have told everyone who has come to me: Belief is necessary, Islam is necessary; this is not the age of sufism.

If you say: They call you Said-i Kurdi; perhaps you have some nationalist ideas, and that doesn’t suit our interests.

I would reply: Sirs! The things the Old Said and the New Said have written are clear. I cite as testimony the certain statement, “Islam has abrogated the tribalism of the Age of Ignorance.” For years I have considered negative nationalism and racialism to be fatal poison, since they are a variety of European disease. And Europe has infected Islam with them thinking it would cause division, and Islam would break up and be easily swallowed. My students and those who have had anything to do with me know that for years I have tried to treat that disease. Since it is thus, good sirs, I wonder why you make every incident a pretext to harass me? According to what principle do you cause me distress at every worldly incident, like punishing and inflicting trouble on a soldier in the west because of a mistake made by a soldier in the east due to the connection of the army, or convicting a shopkeeper in Baghdad because of a crime committed by a tradesman in Istanbul due to their being in the same line of business? How can the conscience demand this? What benefit can require it?

THIRD POINT

My friends who wonder how I am and are astonished at my meeting every calamity silently with patience ask the following question: “How can you endure the difficulties and troubles with which you are faced, whereas formerly you were very proud and angry and could not endure even the least insult?”

T h e A n s w e r : Listen to two short incidents and stories and you shall receive your answer:

The First Story: Two years ago an official spoke insultingly and contemptuously about me behind my back. They later told me about it. For about an hour I was affected due to the Old Said’s vein of temperament. Then through Almighty God’s mercy the following fact occurred to me; it dispelled the distress and made me forgive the man. The fact is this:

I addressed my soul saying: if his insults and the faults he described concern my person and my soul, may God be pleased with him, because he recounted the faults of my soul. If he spoke the truth, he drove me to train my soul and he helped in saving me from arrogance. If he spoke falsely, he has helped to save me from hypocrisy and undeserved fame, the source of hypocrisy. No, I have not been reconciled with my soul, for I have not trained it. If someone tells me there is a scorpion on my neck or breast or else points it out to me, I should be grateful to him, not offended. But if the man’s insults were directed towards my belief and my attribute of being servant of the Qur’an, it does not concern me. I refer him to the Qur’an’s Owner, Who employs me. He is Mighty, He is Wise. And if it was merely to curse at me, insult me, and destroy my character, that does not concern me either. For I am an exile, a prisoner, a stranger, and my hands are tied, and it does not fall to me to try to restore my honour myself. It rather concerns the authorities of this village where I am a guest and under surveillance, then of the district, then of the province. Insulting the prisoner of a person, concerns the person; he defends the prisoner. Since the reality of the matter is this, my heart became easy. I said,

My [own] affair I commit to God; for God [ever] watches over His servants.51

I thought of the incident as not having happened. But unfortunately it was later understood that the Qur’an had not forgiven him...

The Second Story: This year I heard that an incident had occurred. Although I only heard a brief account of it after it had happened, I was treated as though I had been closely connected with it. Anyway I do not correspond with anyone, and if I do, I only write extremely rarely concerning some question of belief to a friend. In fact I have written only one letter to my brother in four years. Both I prevent myself from mixing with others, and ‘the worldly’ prevent me. I have only been able to meet with one or two close friends once or twice a week. As for visitors to the village, once or twice a month perhaps one or two used to meet with me for one or two minutes concerning some matter to do with the hereafter. In exile, a stranger, alone, with no one, I was barred from everything, from everyone, in a village which was unsuitable for someone like me to work for a livelihood. Even, four years ago I repaired a tumble-down mosque. Although with the certificate I had from my own region to act an imam and preacher I acted as imam in the mosque for four years (May God accept it), this past Ramadan I could not go to the mosque. Sometimes I performed the five daily prayers alone. I was deprived of the twenty-fivefold merit and good of performing the prayers in congregation.

I displayed the same patience and forbearance in the face of these two incidents that befell me as I did towards the treatment of that official two years ago. God willing I shall continue to do so. I think like this and say: if this ill-treatment, distress, and oppression inflicted on me by ‘the worldly’ is for my faulty soul, I forgive it. Perhaps my soul will be reformed by means of it, and perhaps it will be atonement for its sins. I have experienced many of the good things in this guest-house of the world; if I experience a little of its trials, I shall still offer thanks. If ‘the worldly’ oppress me because of my service of belief and the Qur’an, it is not up to me to defend it. I refer it to the Mighty and Compelling One. If the intention is to destroy the regard in which I am held generally, to expunge undeserved fame, which is baseless and causes hypocrisy and destroys sincerity, then may God bless them! For I consider being held in regard by people generally and gaining a name among them to be harmful for people like me. Those who have dealings with me know that I do not want respect to be shown to me, indeed, I can’t abide it. I have even scolded a valuable friend of mine perhaps fifty times for showing me excessive respect. If their intention in slandering me, belittling me in the eyes of the people, and defaming me is directed towards the truths of belief and the Qur’an of which I am the interpreter, it is pointless. For a veil cannot be drawn over the stars of the Qur’an. “One who closes his eyes only himself does not see; he does not make it night for anyone else.”

FOURTH POINT

The answer to a number of suspicious questions:

T h e F i r s t : ‘The worldly’ say to me: “How do you live? What do you live on since you do not work? We don’t want people in our country who sit around idly and live off the labour of others.”

T h e A n s w e r : I live through frugality and the resulting plenty. I am not obliged to anyone other the One Who provides for me and I have taken the decision not to become obliged to anyone else. Yes, someone who lives on a hundred para, or even forty para, does not become obliged to anyone. I do not want to explain this matter. To do so is most disagreeable to me, as it may make me feel a sort of pride or egotism. But since ‘the worldly’ ask about it suspiciously, I reply as follows: since my childhood, throughout my life, it has been a principle of my life not to accept anything from the people, even zakat, not to accept a salary —only I was compelled to accept one for one or two years in the Darü’l-Hikmeti’l-Islamiye on the insistence of my friends— and not to become obliged to people for a worldly livelihood. The people of my native region and those who have known me in other places know this. During these five years of exile, many friends have tried earnestly to make me accept their gifts, but I have accepted none of them. If, therefore, it is asked me, “So how do you manage to live?”, I reply: I live through Divine bestowal and blessings. For sure, my soul deserves all insults and contempt, but as a wonder resulting from service of the Qur’an, I receive plenty and blessings which are a Divine bestowal in the matter of sustenance. In accordance with the verse,

But the bounty of your Sustainer rehearse and proclaim,52

I shall recall the bounties Almighty God has bestowed on me, and mention a few examples by way of thanks. But together with being thanks, I am frightened that it will induce hypocrisy and pride so that blessed plenty will be cut. For to make known a secret Divine gift of plenty causes it to cease. But what can I do, I am compelled to tell them.

The First: This six months one bushel (kile)53 of wheat, consisting of thirty-six loaves of bread, has sufficed me. There is still some left, it is not finished. How much longer54 it will last, I do not know.

The Second: This blessed month of Ramadan I received food from only two houses, and both of them made me ill. I understood that I am prohibited from eating the food of others. The rest of the time, in the whole of Ramadan, three loaves of bread and one okka55 of rice sufficed me, as was witnessed and told by Abdullah Çavus, the owner of a blessed house and a loyal friend who saw my economizing. The rice even was finished two weeks after the end of Ramadan.

The Third: For three months on the mountain one kiyye56 of butter was enough for me and my guests, eating it every day together with bread. On one occasion even I had a blessed visitor called Süleyman. Both his bread and my bread were about to be finished. It was Wednesday. I told him to go and get some bread. For two hours’ distance on every side of us there was no one from whom he could have got any bread. He said that he wanted to stay with me on the mountain on Thursday night so that we could pray together. Saying, Our reliance is on God, I told him to stay. Later, although it had no connection with this and there was no reason for it, we both began walking till we reached the top of the mountain. There was a little water in the ewer, and we had a small piece of sugar and some tea. I said to him: “Brother! Make some tea!” He set about making it and I sat down under a cedar-tree overlooking a deep ravine. I thought regretfully to myself: we have a bit of mouldy bread which will only just be enough for us this evening. What shall we do for two days and what shall I say to this ingenuous man? While thinking this, I suddenly turned my head involuntarily and I saw a huge loaf of bread on the cedar-tree in among the branches; it was facing us. I exclaimed: “Süleyman! Good news! Almighty God has sent us food.” We took the bread, and looking at it saw that no bird or wild animal had touched it. And for twenty or thirty days no one at all had climbed to the top of that mountain. The bread was sufficient for us for the two days. While we were eating and it was about to be finished, righteous Süleyman who had been the most loyal of loyal friends for four years, suddenly appeared from below with more bread.

The Fourth: I bought this sack coat that I’m wearing seven years ago second-hand. In five years I have spent only four and a half liras on clothes, underwear, slippers, and stockings. Frugality and Divine mercy and the resulting plenty have sufficed me.

Thus, there are numerous things like these examples and numerous sorts of Divine blessings. The people of this village know most of them. But do not suppose I am mentioning them out of pride, I have been forced to, rather. And do not think they were due to my goodness. These instances of plenty were either bestowal to the sincere friends who have visited me, or a bestowal on account of service to the Qur’an, or an abundance and benefit resulting from frugality, or they have been sustenance for the four cats I have which recite the Divine Names “O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!”, which comes in the form of plenty and from which I benefit too.

Yes, if you listen carefully to their mournful miaowings, you will understand that they are saying, “Ya Rahim! Ya Rahim! O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!” We have arrived at the subject of cats and it has recalled the hen. I have a hen. This winter every day almost without exception she brought me an egg from the treasury of Mercy. Then one day she brought me two eggs and I was astonished. I asked my friends “How can this be?” They replied: “Perhaps it is a Divine gift.” The hen also has a young chick she hatched in the summer. It started to lay at the beginning of Ramadan and continued for forty days. Neither I nor those who assist me have any doubt that, being both young, and in winter, and in Ramadan, this blessed situation was a Divine gift and bestowal. And whenever the mother stopped laying, it immediately started, not leaving me without eggs.

S e c o n d S u s p i c i o u s Q u e s t i o n : ‘The worldly’ ask: How can we be confident that you will not interfere in our world? If we leave you free, perhaps you may interfere in it. Also, how do we know that you are not being cunning? How do we know that it is not a stratagem, showing yourself to have abandoned the world and not taking things from the people openly, but secretly?

T h e A n s w e r : My attitude and situation in the Court Martial and in the period before the proclamation of the Constitution, which are known by many, and my defence in the Court Martial at that time called The Testimony of Two Schools of Misfortune, show decisively that the life I lived was such that I would not resort to the tiniest wiles, let alone cunning and subterfuge. If trickery had been resorted to in this last five years, application would have been made to you in sycophantic manner. A wilely man tries to ingratiate himself. He does not hold back; he always tries to deceive and hoodwink. Whereas I have not condescended to lower myself by responding to the severest attacks and criticisms levelled at me. Saying, I place my trust in God, I turned my back on ‘the worldly.’ Moreover, one who discovers the reality of this world and knows the hereafter, is not sorry if he is sensible; he does not turn back to the world and struggle with it again. Someone after the age of fifty who has no connection with anything and is alone, will not sacrifice eternal life for one or two years of the chatter and deception of this world. If he does so, he is not cunning, but foolish and crazy. What can a crazy lunatic do so that anyone should bother with him? As for the suspicion of outwardly abandoning the world while inwardly seeking it, in accordance with the verse,

Nor do I absolve my own self [of blame]; the [human] soul is certainly prone to evil,57

I do not exonerate my soul, for it wants everything bad. But in this fleeting world, this temporary guest-house, during old age, in a brief life, it is not reasonable to destroy eternal, everlasting life and eternal happiness for a little bit of pleasure. Since it is not profitable for the reasonable and the aware, my soul has willy-nilly had to follow my reason.

T h e T h i r d S u s p i c i o u s Q u e s t i o n : ‘The worldly’ say: Do you like us? Do you approve of us? If you do like us, why are you stand-offish and have nothing to do with us? If you do not like us, that means you object to us, and we crush those who object to us.

T h e A n s w e r : Not you, if I had loved your world, I would not have withdrawn from it. I don’t like either you or your world. But I do not interfere with them. For I have different goals, different points have filled my heart; they have left no place in my heart to think of other things. Your duty is to look to the hand, not to the heart. For you seek your government and your public order. So long as the hand does not interfere, what right do you have to interfere in the heart and say, “the heart should love us too,” although you are in no way worthy of it? Yes, just as I desire and long for the spring during this winter, but I cannot will it nor attempt to bring it, so I long for the world to be righted and I pray for it and I want the worldly to be reformed, but I cannot will these things, because I do not have the power. I cannot attempt them in fact, because it is neither my duty, nor do I have the capacity.

F o u r t h S u s p i c i o u s Q u e s t i o n : ‘The worldly’ say: we have experienced so many calamities, we no longer have confidence in anyone. How can we be certain that given the opportunity you won’t interfere as you wish?

T h e A n s w e r : The previous points should give you confidence. In addition, since I did not interfere in your world while in my native region among my students and relatives, in the midst of those who heeded me and of exciting events, for someone who is alone in exile, with no one, a stranger, weak, powerless, turned with all his strength towards the hereafter, cut off from all social relations and correspondence, who has only found a few friends from far afield who are also turned to the hereafter, and who is a stranger to everyone else and whom everyone else regards as a stranger — for such a person to interfere in your fruitless and dangerous world would surely be a compounded lunacy.

FIFTH POINT

This concerns five small matters.

T h e F i r s t : ‘The worldly’ ask me: Why do you yourself not practise the principles of our civilization, our style of life, and our manner of dressing? Does this mean you oppose us?

M y r e p l y : Sirs! What right do you have to propose to me the principles of your civilization? For as though casting me outside the laws of civilization, you have wrongfully forced me to reside in a village for five years prohibited from all social relations and correspondence. While you left all the exiles in the town with their friends and relations, then gave them the papers granting them an amnesty, without reason you isolated me and did not allow me to meet with anyone from my native region with one or two exceptions. That means you do not count me as a member of this nation and a citizen. How can you propose to me that I apply your civil code to myself? You have made the world into a prison for me. Such things cannot be proposed to someone in prison. You closed the door of the world on me, so I knocked on the door of the hereafter, and Divine mercy opened it to me. How can the confused customs and principles of the world be proposed to someone at the door of the hereafter? Whenever you set me free and return me to my native region and restore my rights, then you can require me to conform to your principles.

S e c o n d M a t t e r : ‘The worldly’ say: “We have an official department for instructing in the precepts of religion and truths of Islam. With what authority do you publish religious works? Being a convicted exile, you have no right to mix in these matters.”

T h e A n s w e r : Truth and reality cannot be restricted. How can belief and the Qur’an be restricted? You can restrict the principles and laws of your world, but the truths of belief and Qur’anic principles cannot be forced into the form of worldly dealings, be given an official guise and offered in return for a wage. Those mysteries which are Divine gifts, those blessings, come rather through a sincere intention and giving up the world and carnal pleasures. Moreover, that official department of yours accepted me and appointed me as a preacher while I was in my home region. I accepted the position, but rejected the salary. I have the document in my possession. With the document I can act as an imam and preacher everywhere, because my being exiled was unjust. Also, since the exiles have been returned, my old documents are still valid.

Secondly: I addressed the truths of belief which I have written directly to my own soul. I do not invite everyone. Rather, those whose spirits are needy and hearts wounded search out and find those Qur’anic remedies. Only, to secure my livelihood I had printed a treatise of mine about the resurrection of the dead before the new script was introduced. And the former governor, who was unfair to me, studied the treatise, but did nothing against it since he could find nothing in it to criticize.

T h i r d M a t t e r : Some of my friends remain apparently aloof from me because ‘the worldly’ consider me with suspicion and in order to appear favourable to ‘the worldly,’ indeed, they criticize me. But the cunning ‘worldly’ attribute their aloofness and avoiding me not to their loyalty to ‘the worldly’ but to a sort of hypocrisy and lack of conscience, and they look on those friends of mine coldly.

So I say this: O my friends of the hereafter! Don’t stand aloof from my being a servant of the Qur’an and run away. Because, God willing, no harm will come to you from me. Suppose some calamity is visited on you or I am oppressed, you cannot be saved by avoiding me. By doing that you will make yourselves more deserving of calamity and a blow. What is there, that you should have these groundless fears?

F o u r t h M a t t e r : I see during this time of my exile that certain boastful people who have fallen into the swamp of politics regard me in a partisan manner, with rivalry, as though I am connected with the worldly currents like they are.

Sirs! I am in the current of belief. Before me is the current of unbelief. I have no connection with other currents. Perhaps some of those who work for a wage see themselves as excused to a degree. But to take up a position opposed to me in rivalry for no wage in the name of patriotism, and harass me, and oppress me, is a truly grievous error. For as was proved above, I have no connection at all with world politics. I have dedicated and vowed all my time and my life to the truths of belief and the Qur’an. Since it is thus, let the one who torments and harasses me in rivalry think that such treatment of his is similar to causing harm to belief in the name of atheism and unbelief.

F i f t h M a t t e r : Since this world is transitory, and since life is short, and since the truly essential duties are many, and since eternal life will be gained here, and since the world is not without an owner, and since this guest-house of the world has a most Wise and Generous director, and since neither good nor bad will remain without recompense, and since according to the verse,

On no soul does God place a burden greater than it can bear58

there is no obligation that cannot be borne, and since a safe way is preferable to a harmful way, and since worldly friends and ranks last only till the door of the grave, then surely the most fortunate is he who does not forget the hereafter for this world, and does not sacrifice the hereafter for this world, and does not destroy the life of the hereafter for worldly life, and does not waste his life on trivial things, but considers himself to be a guest and acts in accordance with the commands of the guest-house’s Owner, then opens the door of the grave in confidence and enters upon eternal happiness.59

* * *

The Addendum to the Sixteenth Letter

In His Name!

There is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.

Without reason ‘the worldly’ became suspicious of a powerless stranger like myself, and imagining me to have the power of thousands of people, put me under numerous restrictions. They did not give permission for me to stay one or two nights in Bedre, a district of Barla, or on one of the mountains of Barla. I heard that they say: “Said has power equal to that of fifty thousand soldiers, we cannot therefore set him free.”

So I say: You unhappy people whose view is restricted to this world! How is it that you do not know the matters of the world, despite working for the world with all your strength, and govern it like lunatics? If it is my person you fear, it is not fifty thousand soldiers, one soldier even could do more than me. That is, he could be posted at the door of my room and tell me: “You can’t go out!”

But if it is my profession and my being herald of the Qur’an and the moral strength of belief that you fear, then you are wrong, it is not fifty thousand soldiers, you should be aware that in respect of my profession I have the strength of fifty million! For through the strength of the All-Wise Qur’an, I challenge all Europe including your irreligious people. Through the lights of belief I have published I have razed the sturdy bastions they call the physical sciences and Nature. I have cast down lower than animals their greatest irreligious philosophers. If all Europe was to gather, of which your irreligious people are a part, through God’s assistance, they could not make me recant a single matter of that way of mine. God willing, they could not defeat me....

Since the matter is thus, I do not interfere in your world, so don’t you interfere in my hereafter! If you do, if it will be of no avail.

What is determined by God cannot be turned by force;

A flame that if lit by God, cannot be extinguished by puffing.

‘The worldly’ are exceptionally and excessively suspicious of me; quite simply, they are frightened of me. Imagining things non-existent in me, which even if they were existent would not constitute a political crime and could not be the cause of accusation, like being a shaykh, or of significant rank or family, or being a tribal leader, and influential, and having numerous followers, or meeting with people from my native region, or being connected with the affairs of the world, or even entering politics, or even the opposition; imagining these things in me, they have been carried away by groundless fears. At a time even that they are discussing pardoning those in prison and outside, that is, those that according to them cannot be pardoned, they have quite simply barred me from everything. A bad and ephemeral person wrote the following good and enduring words:

If tyranny has cannon, shot, and forts,

Right has an untwistable arm, a constant face.

And I say:

If the worldly have rule, power, and strength,

Through the Qur’an’s effulgence, its servant

Has unfaltering knowledge, an unsilenceable voice;

He has an unerring heart, an unquenchable light.

Many friends, as well as a military commander under whose surveillance I was, repeatedly asked: “Why don’t you apply for the release papers and put forward a petition?”

T h e A n s w e r : I do not apply and I cannot apply for five or six reasons:

The First: I did not interfere in ‘the worldly’s’ world so that I should have been convicted and apply to them. I was convicted by Divine Determining; my faults are before it, and I apply to it.

The Second: I believe and have certain knowledge that this world is a swiftly changing guest-house. Therefore, it is not the true homeland and everywhere is the same. Since I am not going to remain permanently in my homeland, it is pointless to struggle for it; it is not worth going there. Since everywhere is a guest-house, if the mercy of the guest-house’s Owner befriends one, everyone is a friend and everywhere familiar. Whereas if it does not befriend one, everywhere is a load on the heart and everyone hostile.

The Third: Application is made within the framework of the law. But the way I have been treated these six years has been arbitrary and outside the law. The Exiles’ Law was not applied to me. They looked on me as though I had been stripped of all the rights of civilization and even of all worldly rights. To apply in the name of the law to those whose dealings with me have been thus outside the law is meaningless.

The Fourth: This year, the local official applied in my name for me to stay for a few days in the village of Bedre, which is a sort of district of Barla, for a change of air. How can those who reject such an unimportant need of mine be applied to? If they are applied to, it would be a futile and degrading abasement.

The Fifth: To claim a right before those who claim a wrong to be right, and to apply to them, is a wrong. It is disrespectful towards right. I do not want to perpetrate such a wrong and show disrespect for right. And that is that.

The Sixth: The distress and difficulty ‘the worldly’ have caused me has not been due to politics, because they know I do not meddle in politics and flee from it. Rather, knowingly or unknowingly, they torment me on account of aggressive atheism because I am bound to religion. In which case, to apply to them infers regretting religion and flattering the cause of aggressive atheism.

Moreover, Divine Determining, which is just, would punish me through their tyrannical hand on my applying to them and having recourse to them, for they oppress me because of my being bound to religion. As for Divine Determining, from time to time it represses me due to my hypocrisy before ‘the worldly,’ because of my deficiency in religion and in sincerity. Since this is so, for the time being I cannot be saved from this distress. If I apply to the worldly, Divine Determining would say: “Hypocrite! Pay the penalty for applying!” And if I do not apply, ‘the worldly’ say: “You don’t recognize us, go on suffering difficulties!”

The Seventh Reason: It is well-known that an official’s duty is to give harmful individuals no opportunity to cause harm and to assist those who are beneficial. Whereas the official who took me into custody approached me, an elderly guest at the door of the grave, when I was expounding a subtle aspect of belief contained in There is no god but God as though I was perpetrating some misdemeanour, although he had not been to me for a long time previously. He caused the sincere unfortunate who was listening to be deprived, and me to be angry. There were certain people here, and he attached no importance to them. Then when they acted discourteously in a way that would poison the life of the village, he started to be gracious and appreciative towards them.

Furthermore, it is well-known that someone in prison who has committed a hundred crimes can meet with the person who supervises him whether the official be of high or low rank. But in this last year, although two important people in the national government charged with supervising me have passed by my house several times, they have absolutely neither met with me nor asked after my condition. At first I supposed that they did not come near to me due to enmity, then it became clear that it was due to their fearful suspicions; they were fleeing from me as though as I was going to gobble them up. Thus, to recognize a government whose members and officials are like those men and have recourse to it and apply to it, is not sensible, but a futile abasement. If it had been the Old Said, he would have said, like ‘Antara:

The very water of life becomes Hell through abasement,

Whereas Hell with dignity becomes a place of pride.

The Old Said no longer exists, and the New Said considers it meaningless to talk with ‘the worldly.’ Let their world be the end of them! They can do what they like. He is silent, saying, we shall be judged together with them at the Last Judgement.

The Eighth Reason for my not applying: According to the rule, “The result of illicit love is merciless torment,” Divine Determining, which is just, torments me through the tyrannous hand of ‘the worldly’ because I incline towards them, since they are not worthy of it. Saying, I deserve this torment, I am silent. For in the Great War I fought and strove as a Commander of a volunteer regiment. Applauded by the Commander-in-Chief of the army and Enver Pasha, I sacrificed my valuable students and friends. I was wounded and taken prisoner. Returning from captivity, I cast myself into danger through works like The Seven Steps, aiming them at the heads of the British, who had occupied Istanbul. I assisted those who hold me without reason in this torment and captivity. As for them, they punish me in this way for that help. Those friends here cause me in three months the hardship and distress I suffered in three years as a prisoner-of-war in Russia. And the Russians did not prevent me from giving religious instruction, although they regarded me as a Kurdish Militia Commander, a cruel man who had slaughtered Cossacks and prisoners. I used to instruct the great majority of my ninety fellow officer prisoners. One time, the Russian commander came and listened. Because he did not know Turkish, he thought it was political instruction, and put a stop to it. Then later he gave permission. Also, in the same barracks, we made a room into a mosque, and I used to lead the prayers. They did not interfere at all. They did not prevent me from mixing, or from communicating, with the others. Whereas my friends here, my fellow citizens and co-religionists and those for whose benefits in the form of religious belief I have struggled, have held me in a tortuous captivity not for three years, but for six, for absolutely no reason and although they know I have severed all my relations with the world. They have prevented me mixing with others. They have prevented me from giving religious instruction, despite my having a certificate, and even from giving private instruction in my room. They have prevented me from communicating with others. They have even barred me from the mosque which I repaired and where I acted as prayer-leader for four years, although I had the necessary certificate. And now, to deprive me of the merit of performing the prayers in congregation, they do not accept me as prayer-leader even for three private individuals, my permanent congregation and brothers of the hereafter.

Furthermore, if, although I do not want it, someone is to call me good, the official who holds me in surveillance is jealous and angry. Thinking he will destroy my influence, he entirely unscrupulously takes precautions, and pesters me in order to curry favour with his superiors.

To whom can someone in such a position have recourse other than God Almighty? If the judge is also the claimant, of course he cannot complain to him. Come on, you say! What can we say to this? You say what you like, I say this: there are many dissemblers among these friends of mine. A dissembler is worse than an unbeliever. For that reason they make me suffer what the infidel Russian did not make me suffer.

You unfortunates, what have I done to you and what I am doing? I am trying to save your belief and am serving your eternal happiness! It means that my service is not sincere and purely for God’s sake so that it has the reverse effect. In return, you torment me at every opportunity. For sure, we shall meet at the Last Judgement. I say:

God is enough for us and the best of protectors.60 * The best of lords and the best of helpers.61

The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!

S a i d N u r s i

The Sixteenth Letter

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Men said to them: “A great army is gathering against you,” and frightened them. But it [only] increased their belief; they said: “For us God suffices, and He is the best Disposer of Affairs.”49

This letter manifested the meaning of the verse, But speak to him mildly,50 and was not written vehemently. It is the answer to a question asked me both explicitly and implicitly by many people.

[To reply is not agreeable to me and I do not want to, for I have bound everything to reliance on God. But since I have not been left in peace to myself in my own world and since they have directed my attention towards the world, I am compelled to propound five ‘Points’ in the language of the Old Said in order to explain the reality of the situation both to my friends, and to ‘the worldly,’ and to those in authority, so as to save not myself, but my friends and my Words, from the suspicions and ill-treatment of ‘the worldly.’]

FIRST POINT

It is asked: “Why have you withdrawn from politics and now have nothing to do with them?”

T h e A n s w e r : The Old Said of nine or ten years ago was involved in politics a certain amount; indeed, thinking he would serve religion and learning by means of politics, he was wearied for nothing. He saw that it is a dangerous way which is doubtful and full of difficulties and for me superfluous, as well as forming an obstacle to the most necessary duties. It is mostly lies and there is the possibility of unknowingly being a tool in the hand of Europe. Furthermore, one who enters politics is either successful or is in opposition. As for being successful, since I am neither an official nor a deputy, to work in politics is unnecessary and nonsense for me. Politics has no need for me so that I should interfere for nothing. If I join the opposition, I would do so either with ideas or with force. If it was with ideas there is no need for me, for the questions are all clear, and everyone knows them as I do. To wag one’s chin pointlessly is meaningless. If I join the opposition with the use of force in view and to provoke an incident, there would be the possibility of committing thousands of sins in order to reach a doubtful goal. Many people would be afflicted by disaster on account of one. So saying that in conscience he could not accept committing sins and causing the innocent to commit sins due to a one or two in ten possibility, the Old Said gave up cigarettes together with the newspapers, politics, and worldly conversation about politics. Decisive evidence for this is the fact that for the past eight years I have not read a single newspaper nor listened to one being read. Let someone come forward and say that I have read one or listened to one. Whereas eight years ago the Old Said used to read perhaps eight newspapers every day. Furthermore, for the past five years I have been under the closest scrutiny and surveillance. Anyone who has observed the slightest hint of political activity should say so. But for someone like me who is nervous, fearless, and without attachment, who considers the best stratagem to be without stratagem, his ideas will not remain secret for eight days, let alone eight years. If he had had the appetite and desire for politics, he would not have left any necessity for investigation and scrutiny, he would have given voice like the firing of a cannon.

SECOND POINT

Why does the New Said avoid politics with such vehemence?

T h e A n s w e r : He avoids it so vehemently in order to serve belief and the Qur’an, which is of the greatest importance, the greatest necessity and is the most pure and most right, in order not to sacrifice unnecessarily and officiously for one or two doubtful years of worldly life the working for and gaining of more than millions of years of eternal life. For he says: I am getting old and I do not know how many more years I shall live, so the most important question for me must be to work for eternal life. The prime means of gaining eternal life and the key to everlasting happiness is belief, so one has to work for that. But since I am obliged by the Shari‘a to serve people in respect of learning so that they may profit also, I want to perform such a duty. However, such service will either concern social and worldly life, which I cannot do, and also in stormy times it is not possible to perform such service soundly. Therefore, I left aside that aspect and chose the aspect of service to belief, which is the most important, the most necessary, and the soundest. I leave that door open so that the truths of belief I have gained for myself and the spiritual remedies I have myself experienced may be acquired by others. Perhaps Almighty God will accept this service and make it atonement for my former sins. Apart from Satan the Accursed, no one, be it a believer or an unbeliever, one of the veracious or an atheist, has the right to oppose this work. For unbelief resembles nothing else. In tyrannizing, vice, and grievous sins there may be an inauspicious satanic pleasure, but in unbelief there is no sort of pleasure at all. It is pain upon pain, darkness upon darkness, torment upon torment.

Just how contrary to reason it would be for someone like me who is unattached, alone, and compelled to atone for his former sins to leave aside working for an endless eternal life and serving a sacred light like belief, and to cast himself in old age into the unnecessary, perilous games of politics—just how contrary to wisdom, just what a lunacy it would be even lunatics would understand!

But if you ask why service of the Qur’an and belief prohibit me, I would say: Since the truths of belief and the Qur’an are each like diamonds, if I was polluted by politics, the ordinary people who are easily deceived, would wonder about those diamonds I was holding, “Aren’t they for political propaganda to attract more supporters?” They might regard the diamonds as bits of common glass. Then by being involved with politics, I would be wronging the diamonds and as though reducing their value. O you whose view is restricted to this world! Why do you struggle against me? Why do you not leave me to myself?

If you say: The shaykhs sometimes interfere in our business, and they sometimes call you a shaykh.

I reply: Good sirs! I am not a shaykh, I am a hoja [teacher]. The evidence is this: I have been here four years and if I had taught a single person the sufi way, you would have had the right to be suspicious. But I have told everyone who has come to me: Belief is necessary, Islam is necessary; this is not the age of sufism.

If you say: They call you Said-i Kurdi; perhaps you have some nationalist ideas, and that doesn’t suit our interests.

I would reply: Sirs! The things the Old Said and the New Said have written are clear. I cite as testimony the certain statement, “Islam has abrogated the tribalism of the Age of Ignorance.” For years I have considered negative nationalism and racialism to be fatal poison, since they are a variety of European disease. And Europe has infected Islam with them thinking it would cause division, and Islam would break up and be easily swallowed. My students and those who have had anything to do with me know that for years I have tried to treat that disease. Since it is thus, good sirs, I wonder why you make every incident a pretext to harass me? According to what principle do you cause me distress at every worldly incident, like punishing and inflicting trouble on a soldier in the west because of a mistake made by a soldier in the east due to the connection of the army, or convicting a shopkeeper in Baghdad because of a crime committed by a tradesman in Istanbul due to their being in the same line of business? How can the conscience demand this? What benefit can require it?

THIRD POINT

My friends who wonder how I am and are astonished at my meeting every calamity silently with patience ask the following question: “How can you endure the difficulties and troubles with which you are faced, whereas formerly you were very proud and angry and could not endure even the least insult?”

T h e A n s w e r : Listen to two short incidents and stories and you shall receive your answer:

The First Story: Two years ago an official spoke insultingly and contemptuously about me behind my back. They later told me about it. For about an hour I was affected due to the Old Said’s vein of temperament. Then through Almighty God’s mercy the following fact occurred to me; it dispelled the distress and made me forgive the man. The fact is this:

I addressed my soul saying: if his insults and the faults he described concern my person and my soul, may God be pleased with him, because he recounted the faults of my soul. If he spoke the truth, he drove me to train my soul and he helped in saving me from arrogance. If he spoke falsely, he has helped to save me from hypocrisy and undeserved fame, the source of hypocrisy. No, I have not been reconciled with my soul, for I have not trained it. If someone tells me there is a scorpion on my neck or breast or else points it out to me, I should be grateful to him, not offended. But if the man’s insults were directed towards my belief and my attribute of being servant of the Qur’an, it does not concern me. I refer him to the Qur’an’s Owner, Who employs me. He is Mighty, He is Wise. And if it was merely to curse at me, insult me, and destroy my character, that does not concern me either. For I am an exile, a prisoner, a stranger, and my hands are tied, and it does not fall to me to try to restore my honour myself. It rather concerns the authorities of this village where I am a guest and under surveillance, then of the district, then of the province. Insulting the prisoner of a person, concerns the person; he defends the prisoner. Since the reality of the matter is this, my heart became easy. I said,

My [own] affair I commit to God; for God [ever] watches over His servants.51

I thought of the incident as not having happened. But unfortunately it was later understood that the Qur’an had not forgiven him...

The Second Story: This year I heard that an incident had occurred. Although I only heard a brief account of it after it had happened, I was treated as though I had been closely connected with it. Anyway I do not correspond with anyone, and if I do, I only write extremely rarely concerning some question of belief to a friend. In fact I have written only one letter to my brother in four years. Both I prevent myself from mixing with others, and ‘the worldly’ prevent me. I have only been able to meet with one or two close friends once or twice a week. As for visitors to the village, once or twice a month perhaps one or two used to meet with me for one or two minutes concerning some matter to do with the hereafter. In exile, a stranger, alone, with no one, I was barred from everything, from everyone, in a village which was unsuitable for someone like me to work for a livelihood. Even, four years ago I repaired a tumble-down mosque. Although with the certificate I had from my own region to act an imam and preacher I acted as imam in the mosque for four years (May God accept it), this past Ramadan I could not go to the mosque. Sometimes I performed the five daily prayers alone. I was deprived of the twenty-fivefold merit and good of performing the prayers in congregation.

I displayed the same patience and forbearance in the face of these two incidents that befell me as I did towards the treatment of that official two years ago. God willing I shall continue to do so. I think like this and say: if this ill-treatment, distress, and oppression inflicted on me by ‘the worldly’ is for my faulty soul, I forgive it. Perhaps my soul will be reformed by means of it, and perhaps it will be atonement for its sins. I have experienced many of the good things in this guest-house of the world; if I experience a little of its trials, I shall still offer thanks. If ‘the worldly’ oppress me because of my service of belief and the Qur’an, it is not up to me to defend it. I refer it to the Mighty and Compelling One. If the intention is to destroy the regard in which I am held generally, to expunge undeserved fame, which is baseless and causes hypocrisy and destroys sincerity, then may God bless them! For I consider being held in regard by people generally and gaining a name among them to be harmful for people like me. Those who have dealings with me know that I do not want respect to be shown to me, indeed, I can’t abide it. I have even scolded a valuable friend of mine perhaps fifty times for showing me excessive respect. If their intention in slandering me, belittling me in the eyes of the people, and defaming me is directed towards the truths of belief and the Qur’an of which I am the interpreter, it is pointless. For a veil cannot be drawn over the stars of the Qur’an. “One who closes his eyes only himself does not see; he does not make it night for anyone else.”

FOURTH POINT

The answer to a number of suspicious questions:

T h e F i r s t : ‘The worldly’ say to me: “How do you live? What do you live on since you do not work? We don’t want people in our country who sit around idly and live off the labour of others.”

T h e A n s w e r : I live through frugality and the resulting plenty. I am not obliged to anyone other the One Who provides for me and I have taken the decision not to become obliged to anyone else. Yes, someone who lives on a hundred para, or even forty para, does not become obliged to anyone. I do not want to explain this matter. To do so is most disagreeable to me, as it may make me feel a sort of pride or egotism. But since ‘the worldly’ ask about it suspiciously, I reply as follows: since my childhood, throughout my life, it has been a principle of my life not to accept anything from the people, even zakat, not to accept a salary —only I was compelled to accept one for one or two years in the Darü’l-Hikmeti’l-Islamiye on the insistence of my friends— and not to become obliged to people for a worldly livelihood. The people of my native region and those who have known me in other places know this. During these five years of exile, many friends have tried earnestly to make me accept their gifts, but I have accepted none of them. If, therefore, it is asked me, “So how do you manage to live?”, I reply: I live through Divine bestowal and blessings. For sure, my soul deserves all insults and contempt, but as a wonder resulting from service of the Qur’an, I receive plenty and blessings which are a Divine bestowal in the matter of sustenance. In accordance with the verse,

But the bounty of your Sustainer rehearse and proclaim,52

I shall recall the bounties Almighty God has bestowed on me, and mention a few examples by way of thanks. But together with being thanks, I am frightened that it will induce hypocrisy and pride so that blessed plenty will be cut. For to make known a secret Divine gift of plenty causes it to cease. But what can I do, I am compelled to tell them.

The First: This six months one bushel (kile)53 of wheat, consisting of thirty-six loaves of bread, has sufficed me. There is still some left, it is not finished. How much longer54 it will last, I do not know.

The Second: This blessed month of Ramadan I received food from only two houses, and both of them made me ill. I understood that I am prohibited from eating the food of others. The rest of the time, in the whole of Ramadan, three loaves of bread and one okka55 of rice sufficed me, as was witnessed and told by Abdullah Çavus, the owner of a blessed house and a loyal friend who saw my economizing. The rice even was finished two weeks after the end of Ramadan.

The Third: For three months on the mountain one kiyye56 of butter was enough for me and my guests, eating it every day together with bread. On one occasion even I had a blessed visitor called Süleyman. Both his bread and my bread were about to be finished. It was Wednesday. I told him to go and get some bread. For two hours’ distance on every side of us there was no one from whom he could have got any bread. He said that he wanted to stay with me on the mountain on Thursday night so that we could pray together. Saying, Our reliance is on God, I told him to stay. Later, although it had no connection with this and there was no reason for it, we both began walking till we reached the top of the mountain. There was a little water in the ewer, and we had a small piece of sugar and some tea. I said to him: “Brother! Make some tea!” He set about making it and I sat down under a cedar-tree overlooking a deep ravine. I thought regretfully to myself: we have a bit of mouldy bread which will only just be enough for us this evening. What shall we do for two days and what shall I say to this ingenuous man? While thinking this, I suddenly turned my head involuntarily and I saw a huge loaf of bread on the cedar-tree in among the branches; it was facing us. I exclaimed: “Süleyman! Good news! Almighty God has sent us food.” We took the bread, and looking at it saw that no bird or wild animal had touched it. And for twenty or thirty days no one at all had climbed to the top of that mountain. The bread was sufficient for us for the two days. While we were eating and it was about to be finished, righteous Süleyman who had been the most loyal of loyal friends for four years, suddenly appeared from below with more bread.

The Fourth: I bought this sack coat that I’m wearing seven years ago second-hand. In five years I have spent only four and a half liras on clothes, underwear, slippers, and stockings. Frugality and Divine mercy and the resulting plenty have sufficed me.

Thus, there are numerous things like these examples and numerous sorts of Divine blessings. The people of this village know most of them. But do not suppose I am mentioning them out of pride, I have been forced to, rather. And do not think they were due to my goodness. These instances of plenty were either bestowal to the sincere friends who have visited me, or a bestowal on account of service to the Qur’an, or an abundance and benefit resulting from frugality, or they have been sustenance for the four cats I have which recite the Divine Names “O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!”, which comes in the form of plenty and from which I benefit too.

Yes, if you listen carefully to their mournful miaowings, you will understand that they are saying, “Ya Rahim! Ya Rahim! O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!” We have arrived at the subject of cats and it has recalled the hen. I have a hen. This winter every day almost without exception she brought me an egg from the treasury of Mercy. Then one day she brought me two eggs and I was astonished. I asked my friends “How can this be?” They replied: “Perhaps it is a Divine gift.” The hen also has a young chick she hatched in the summer. It started to lay at the beginning of Ramadan and continued for forty days. Neither I nor those who assist me have any doubt that, being both young, and in winter, and in Ramadan, this blessed situation was a Divine gift and bestowal. And whenever the mother stopped laying, it immediately started, not leaving me without eggs.

S e c o n d S u s p i c i o u s Q u e s t i o n : ‘The worldly’ ask: How can we be confident that you will not interfere in our world? If we leave you free, perhaps you may interfere in it. Also, how do we know that you are not being cunning? How do we know that it is not a stratagem, showing yourself to have abandoned the world and not taking things from the people openly, but secretly?

T h e A n s w e r : My attitude and situation in the Court Martial and in the period before the proclamation of the Constitution, which are known by many, and my defence in the Court Martial at that time called The Testimony of Two Schools of Misfortune, show decisively that the life I lived was such that I would not resort to the tiniest wiles, let alone cunning and subterfuge. If trickery had been resorted to in this last five years, application would have been made to you in sycophantic manner. A wilely man tries to ingratiate himself. He does not hold back; he always tries to deceive and hoodwink. Whereas I have not condescended to lower myself by responding to the severest attacks and criticisms levelled at me. Saying, I place my trust in God, I turned my back on ‘the worldly.’ Moreover, one who discovers the reality of this world and knows the hereafter, is not sorry if he is sensible; he does not turn back to the world and struggle with it again. Someone after the age of fifty who has no connection with anything and is alone, will not sacrifice eternal life for one or two years of the chatter and deception of this world. If he does so, he is not cunning, but foolish and crazy. What can a crazy lunatic do so that anyone should bother with him? As for the suspicion of outwardly abandoning the world while inwardly seeking it, in accordance with the verse,

Nor do I absolve my own self [of blame]; the [human] soul is certainly prone to evil,57

I do not exonerate my soul, for it wants everything bad. But in this fleeting world, this temporary guest-house, during old age, in a brief life, it is not reasonable to destroy eternal, everlasting life and eternal happiness for a little bit of pleasure. Since it is not profitable for the reasonable and the aware, my soul has willy-nilly had to follow my reason.

T h e T h i r d S u s p i c i o u s Q u e s t i o n : ‘The worldly’ say: Do you like us? Do you approve of us? If you do like us, why are you stand-offish and have nothing to do with us? If you do not like us, that means you object to us, and we crush those who object to us.

T h e A n s w e r : Not you, if I had loved your world, I would not have withdrawn from it. I don’t like either you or your world. But I do not interfere with them. For I have different goals, different points have filled my heart; they have left no place in my heart to think of other things. Your duty is to look to the hand, not to the heart. For you seek your government and your public order. So long as the hand does not interfere, what right do you have to interfere in the heart and say, “the heart should love us too,” although you are in no way worthy of it? Yes, just as I desire and long for the spring during this winter, but I cannot will it nor attempt to bring it, so I long for the world to be righted and I pray for it and I want the worldly to be reformed, but I cannot will these things, because I do not have the power. I cannot attempt them in fact, because it is neither my duty, nor do I have the capacity.

F o u r t h S u s p i c i o u s Q u e s t i o n : ‘The worldly’ say: we have experienced so many calamities, we no longer have confidence in anyone. How can we be certain that given the opportunity you won’t interfere as you wish?

T h e A n s w e r : The previous points should give you confidence. In addition, since I did not interfere in your world while in my native region among my students and relatives, in the midst of those who heeded me and of exciting events, for someone who is alone in exile, with no one, a stranger, weak, powerless, turned with all his strength towards the hereafter, cut off from all social relations and correspondence, who has only found a few friends from far afield who are also turned to the hereafter, and who is a stranger to everyone else and whom everyone else regards as a stranger — for such a person to interfere in your fruitless and dangerous world would surely be a compounded lunacy.

FIFTH POINT

This concerns five small matters.

T h e F i r s t : ‘The worldly’ ask me: Why do you yourself not practise the principles of our civilization, our style of life, and our manner of dressing? Does this mean you oppose us?

M y r e p l y : Sirs! What right do you have to propose to me the principles of your civilization? For as though casting me outside the laws of civilization, you have wrongfully forced me to reside in a village for five years prohibited from all social relations and correspondence. While you left all the exiles in the town with their friends and relations, then gave them the papers granting them an amnesty, without reason you isolated me and did not allow me to meet with anyone from my native region with one or two exceptions. That means you do not count me as a member of this nation and a citizen. How can you propose to me that I apply your civil code to myself? You have made the world into a prison for me. Such things cannot be proposed to someone in prison. You closed the door of the world on me, so I knocked on the door of the hereafter, and Divine mercy opened it to me. How can the confused customs and principles of the world be proposed to someone at the door of the hereafter? Whenever you set me free and return me to my native region and restore my rights, then you can require me to conform to your principles.

S e c o n d M a t t e r : ‘The worldly’ say: “We have an official department for instructing in the precepts of religion and truths of Islam. With what authority do you publish religious works? Being a convicted exile, you have no right to mix in these matters.”

T h e A n s w e r : Truth and reality cannot be restricted. How can belief and the Qur’an be restricted? You can restrict the principles and laws of your world, but the truths of belief and Qur’anic principles cannot be forced into the form of worldly dealings, be given an official guise and offered in return for a wage. Those mysteries which are Divine gifts, those blessings, come rather through a sincere intention and giving up the world and carnal pleasures. Moreover, that official department of yours accepted me and appointed me as a preacher while I was in my home region. I accepted the position, but rejected the salary. I have the document in my possession. With the document I can act as an imam and preacher everywhere, because my being exiled was unjust. Also, since the exiles have been returned, my old documents are still valid.

Secondly: I addressed the truths of belief which I have written directly to my own soul. I do not invite everyone. Rather, those whose spirits are needy and hearts wounded search out and find those Qur’anic remedies. Only, to secure my livelihood I had printed a treatise of mine about the resurrection of the dead before the new script was introduced. And the former governor, who was unfair to me, studied the treatise, but did nothing against it since he could find nothing in it to criticize.

T h i r d M a t t e r : Some of my friends remain apparently aloof from me because ‘the worldly’ consider me with suspicion and in order to appear favourable to ‘the worldly,’ indeed, they criticize me. But the cunning ‘worldly’ attribute their aloofness and avoiding me not to their loyalty to ‘the worldly’ but to a sort of hypocrisy and lack of conscience, and they look on those friends of mine coldly.

So I say this: O my friends of the hereafter! Don’t stand aloof from my being a servant of the Qur’an and run away. Because, God willing, no harm will come to you from me. Suppose some calamity is visited on you or I am oppressed, you cannot be saved by avoiding me. By doing that you will make yourselves more deserving of calamity and a blow. What is there, that you should have these groundless fears?

F o u r t h M a t t e r : I see during this time of my exile that certain boastful people who have fallen into the swamp of politics regard me in a partisan manner, with rivalry, as though I am connected with the worldly currents like they are.

Sirs! I am in the current of belief. Before me is the current of unbelief. I have no connection with other currents. Perhaps some of those who work for a wage see themselves as excused to a degree. But to take up a position opposed to me in rivalry for no wage in the name of patriotism, and harass me, and oppress me, is a truly grievous error. For as was proved above, I have no connection at all with world politics. I have dedicated and vowed all my time and my life to the truths of belief and the Qur’an. Since it is thus, let the one who torments and harasses me in rivalry think that such treatment of his is similar to causing harm to belief in the name of atheism and unbelief.

F i f t h M a t t e r : Since this world is transitory, and since life is short, and since the truly essential duties are many, and since eternal life will be gained here, and since the world is not without an owner, and since this guest-house of the world has a most Wise and Generous director, and since neither good nor bad will remain without recompense, and since according to the verse,

On no soul does God place a burden greater than it can bear58

there is no obligation that cannot be borne, and since a safe way is preferable to a harmful way, and since worldly friends and ranks last only till the door of the grave, then surely the most fortunate is he who does not forget the hereafter for this world, and does not sacrifice the hereafter for this world, and does not destroy the life of the hereafter for worldly life, and does not waste his life on trivial things, but considers himself to be a guest and acts in accordance with the commands of the guest-house’s Owner, then opens the door of the grave in confidence and enters upon eternal happiness.59

* * *

The Addendum to the Sixteenth Letter

In His Name!

There is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.

Without reason ‘the worldly’ became suspicious of a powerless stranger like myself, and imagining me to have the power of thousands of people, put me under numerous restrictions. They did not give permission for me to stay one or two nights in Bedre, a district of Barla, or on one of the mountains of Barla. I heard that they say: “Said has power equal to that of fifty thousand soldiers, we cannot therefore set him free.”

So I say: You unhappy people whose view is restricted to this world! How is it that you do not know the matters of the world, despite working for the world with all your strength, and govern it like lunatics? If it is my person you fear, it is not fifty thousand soldiers, one soldier even could do more than me. That is, he could be posted at the door of my room and tell me: “You can’t go out!”

But if it is my profession and my being herald of the Qur’an and the moral strength of belief that you fear, then you are wrong, it is not fifty thousand soldiers, you should be aware that in respect of my profession I have the strength of fifty million! For through the strength of the All-Wise Qur’an, I challenge all Europe including your irreligious people. Through the lights of belief I have published I have razed the sturdy bastions they call the physical sciences and Nature. I have cast down lower than animals their greatest irreligious philosophers. If all Europe was to gather, of which your irreligious people are a part, through God’s assistance, they could not make me recant a single matter of that way of mine. God willing, they could not defeat me....

Since the matter is thus, I do not interfere in your world, so don’t you interfere in my hereafter! If you do, if it will be of no avail.

What is determined by God cannot be turned by force;

A flame that if lit by God, cannot be extinguished by puffing.

‘The worldly’ are exceptionally and excessively suspicious of me; quite simply, they are frightened of me. Imagining things non-existent in me, which even if they were existent would not constitute a political crime and could not be the cause of accusation, like being a shaykh, or of significant rank or family, or being a tribal leader, and influential, and having numerous followers, or meeting with people from my native region, or being connected with the affairs of the world, or even entering politics, or even the opposition; imagining these things in me, they have been carried away by groundless fears. At a time even that they are discussing pardoning those in prison and outside, that is, those that according to them cannot be pardoned, they have quite simply barred me from everything. A bad and ephemeral person wrote the following good and enduring words:

If tyranny has cannon, shot, and forts,

Right has an untwistable arm, a constant face.

And I say:

If the worldly have rule, power, and strength,

Through the Qur’an’s effulgence, its servant

Has unfaltering knowledge, an unsilenceable voice;

He has an unerring heart, an unquenchable light.

Many friends, as well as a military commander under whose surveillance I was, repeatedly asked: “Why don’t you apply for the release papers and put forward a petition?”

T h e A n s w e r : I do not apply and I cannot apply for five or six reasons:

The First: I did not interfere in ‘the worldly’s’ world so that I should have been convicted and apply to them. I was convicted by Divine Determining; my faults are before it, and I apply to it.

The Second: I believe and have certain knowledge that this world is a swiftly changing guest-house. Therefore, it is not the true homeland and everywhere is the same. Since I am not going to remain permanently in my homeland, it is pointless to struggle for it; it is not worth going there. Since everywhere is a guest-house, if the mercy of the guest-house’s Owner befriends one, everyone is a friend and everywhere familiar. Whereas if it does not befriend one, everywhere is a load on the heart and everyone hostile.

The Third: Application is made within the framework of the law. But the way I have been treated these six years has been arbitrary and outside the law. The Exiles’ Law was not applied to me. They looked on me as though I had been stripped of all the rights of civilization and even of all worldly rights. To apply in the name of the law to those whose dealings with me have been thus outside the law is meaningless.

The Fourth: This year, the local official applied in my name for me to stay for a few days in the village of Bedre, which is a sort of district of Barla, for a change of air. How can those who reject such an unimportant need of mine be applied to? If they are applied to, it would be a futile and degrading abasement.

The Fifth: To claim a right before those who claim a wrong to be right, and to apply to them, is a wrong. It is disrespectful towards right. I do not want to perpetrate such a wrong and show disrespect for right. And that is that.

The Sixth: The distress and difficulty ‘the worldly’ have caused me has not been due to politics, because they know I do not meddle in politics and flee from it. Rather, knowingly or unknowingly, they torment me on account of aggressive atheism because I am bound to religion. In which case, to apply to them infers regretting religion and flattering the cause of aggressive atheism.

Moreover, Divine Determining, which is just, would punish me through their tyrannical hand on my applying to them and having recourse to them, for they oppress me because of my being bound to religion. As for Divine Determining, from time to time it represses me due to my hypocrisy before ‘the worldly,’ because of my deficiency in religion and in sincerity. Since this is so, for the time being I cannot be saved from this distress. If I apply to the worldly, Divine Determining would say: “Hypocrite! Pay the penalty for applying!” And if I do not apply, ‘the worldly’ say: “You don’t recognize us, go on suffering difficulties!”

The Seventh Reason: It is well-known that an official’s duty is to give harmful individuals no opportunity to cause harm and to assist those who are beneficial. Whereas the official who took me into custody approached me, an elderly guest at the door of the grave, when I was expounding a subtle aspect of belief contained in There is no god but God as though I was perpetrating some misdemeanour, although he had not been to me for a long time previously. He caused the sincere unfortunate who was listening to be deprived, and me to be angry. There were certain people here, and he attached no importance to them. Then when they acted discourteously in a way that would poison the life of the village, he started to be gracious and appreciative towards them.

Furthermore, it is well-known that someone in prison who has committed a hundred crimes can meet with the person who supervises him whether the official be of high or low rank. But in this last year, although two important people in the national government charged with supervising me have passed by my house several times, they have absolutely neither met with me nor asked after my condition. At first I supposed that they did not come near to me due to enmity, then it became clear that it was due to their fearful suspicions; they were fleeing from me as though as I was going to gobble them up. Thus, to recognize a government whose members and officials are like those men and have recourse to it and apply to it, is not sensible, but a futile abasement. If it had been the Old Said, he would have said, like ‘Antara:

The very water of life becomes Hell through abasement,

Whereas Hell with dignity becomes a place of pride.

The Old Said no longer exists, and the New Said considers it meaningless to talk with ‘the worldly.’ Let their world be the end of them! They can do what they like. He is silent, saying, we shall be judged together with them at the Last Judgement.

The Eighth Reason for my not applying: According to the rule, “The result of illicit love is merciless torment,” Divine Determining, which is just, torments me through the tyrannous hand of ‘the worldly’ because I incline towards them, since they are not worthy of it. Saying, I deserve this torment, I am silent. For in the Great War I fought and strove as a Commander of a volunteer regiment. Applauded by the Commander-in-Chief of the army and Enver Pasha, I sacrificed my valuable students and friends. I was wounded and taken prisoner. Returning from captivity, I cast myself into danger through works like The Seven Steps, aiming them at the heads of the British, who had occupied Istanbul. I assisted those who hold me without reason in this torment and captivity. As for them, they punish me in this way for that help. Those friends here cause me in three months the hardship and distress I suffered in three years as a prisoner-of-war in Russia. And the Russians did not prevent me from giving religious instruction, although they regarded me as a Kurdish Militia Commander, a cruel man who had slaughtered Cossacks and prisoners. I used to instruct the great majority of my ninety fellow officer prisoners. One time, the Russian commander came and listened. Because he did not know Turkish, he thought it was political instruction, and put a stop to it. Then later he gave permission. Also, in the same barracks, we made a room into a mosque, and I used to lead the prayers. They did not interfere at all. They did not prevent me from mixing, or from communicating, with the others. Whereas my friends here, my fellow citizens and co-religionists and those for whose benefits in the form of religious belief I have struggled, have held me in a tortuous captivity not for three years, but for six, for absolutely no reason and although they know I have severed all my relations with the world. They have prevented me mixing with others. They have prevented me from giving religious instruction, despite my having a certificate, and even from giving private instruction in my room. They have prevented me from communicating with others. They have even barred me from the mosque which I repaired and where I acted as prayer-leader for four years, although I had the necessary certificate. And now, to deprive me of the merit of performing the prayers in congregation, they do not accept me as prayer-leader even for three private individuals, my permanent congregation and brothers of the hereafter.

Furthermore, if, although I do not want it, someone is to call me good, the official who holds me in surveillance is jealous and angry. Thinking he will destroy my influence, he entirely unscrupulously takes precautions, and pesters me in order to curry favour with his superiors.

To whom can someone in such a position have recourse other than God Almighty? If the judge is also the claimant, of course he cannot complain to him. Come on, you say! What can we say to this? You say what you like, I say this: there are many dissemblers among these friends of mine. A dissembler is worse than an unbeliever. For that reason they make me suffer what the infidel Russian did not make me suffer.

You unfortunates, what have I done to you and what I am doing? I am trying to save your belief and am serving your eternal happiness! It means that my service is not sincere and purely for God’s sake so that it has the reverse effect. In return, you torment me at every opportunity. For sure, we shall meet at the Last Judgement. I say:

God is enough for us and the best of protectors.60 * The best of lords and the best of helpers.61

The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!

S a i d N u r s i

[Husrev’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

In the indictment the prosecution has charged me in two respects, one general, the other particular. The general charge is my service of the Risale-i Nur and my sharing in the imaginary crime of my Master. The particular charge is my life of seclusion, which is of no importance and constitutes no crime, as well as a number of circumstances related to my personal life. In reply to the prosecution’s making me share in my Master’s imaginary crime because of my service to the Risale-i Nur, I say this:

On the way my Master has taken, I participate with all my heart and soul in the imaginary crime with which he is charged, in the sacred service he performs through the Risale-i Nur for the Islamic world and particularly for this country and nation. I shall offer thanks to Almighty God till the end of my days for having given me success in this service of religious belief.

Respected Judges! Certain evidence of my success in serving the Risale-i Nur is this:

It was my writing out the copies of the Qur’an, although I had little proficiency in Arabic calligraphy, in a wondrous and unprecedented way, perfectly, outside my will and power. One of these you have in your possession.

The second evidence is my success in writing nearly six hundred copies of various parts of the Risale-i Nur, which for twenty years has secured enormous benefits for this country and nation, and for religion and good morality. In fact, in the short time of one month I wrote out fourteen treatises, as my friends know. I find it superfluous to defend also those points related to my part in my Master’s sacred service, which are supposed to be offences. I affirm with all my strength my Master’s written objections and their addendum, and I present them to your high court as my own objections.

Respected Judges! Our Master follows no worldly or political aim at all in his blessed, sacred, and luminous works, which your court is still holding and which consist of the truths of belief and the Qur’an. Moreover, just as I and my friends confirm the sacred service he has performed for this country and nation, so did the patriots in the Union and Progress government confirm it. For at that time, they gave nineteen thousand gold liras for his university in Van, called the Medresetü’z-Zehra. The lovers of their country admiringly confirmed his patriotic, scholarly endeavours. Then one hundred and sixty-three deputies out of two hundred allotted one hundred and fifty thousand liras, when funds were very scarce, for that university of his in the east.

Throughout his life, my sacred, blessed Master, whom the prosecution has designated a criminal, has compelled even his most obdurate and jealous enemies to submit and those who have sought his conviction in the courts, not permitting them to combat his vehement, sharp words. I inform your high court that I am proud of the service I have performed for the Risale-i Nur this last twenty years, working as a scribe in his sacred service and all his learned activities, the aim of which is to secure the foundation stones of this country’s happiness and prosperity.

Prisoner, Husrev Altinbasak

* * *

[Tahiri’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

As has been communicated to me by the office of the Afyon state prosecutor, I have been sent to trial together with my Master, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, and his other companions in connection with the matter of inciting the people to breach state security by exploiting religious feelings.

I gave correct answers to the questions asked of me both in Isparta Magistrates’ Court, and in the office of the Afyon examining magistrate. Denizli Court, which acquitted us, returned all our books to us, and did not convict us for reading and writing out the treatises of my Master, Bediuzzaman, or for corresponding with our brothers who are his students. However, six years ago, without my Master’s permission, on my own initiative I had printed in Istanbul five hundred copies of the Seventh Ray by Bediuzzaman in the old letters. In accordance with the decision dated 20.7.1945, Denizli Court returned these in their entirety together with their box, handing them over to me in person. They were then distributed at cost price to Risale-i Nur students eager for them.

In consequence of that court’s decision, which had been ratified by the Appeal Court and had been made final, two years ago I bought a duplicating machine in Istanbul and paper, and took them to Isparta.

Of the three collections which you have in your possession, two were written out by my brother Husrev Altinbasak, and one was written out by myself. First of all we printed Zülfikâr, containing The Miracles of Muhammad (PBUH) and The Miraculousness of the Qur’an. This we in part sold, and with the money bought the paper for The Staff of Moses Collection (Asâ-yi Mûsa). We then printed The Staff of Moses, and sold it. Then we bought the paper for The Illuminating Lamp Collection (Siracünnûr), and printed it. This continued for about a year. Then, when bringing around thirty copies of these collections to Egirdir, I was arrested on the way, and handed over to the judicial authorities in Egirdir. Not much time had passed when on the initiative of the Isparta judicial authorities, Husrev Altinbasak’s house was searched and both the duplicating machine and the collections were seized, and we were sent to court to be tried for the offences of a year previously. Since they were religious works which were not prohibited, Husrev Altinbasak, myself, and one other friend were given sentences of one month for printing books without permission. We applied to the Appeal Court, and before it had come to a decision, I was sent to Afyon Prison.

Now, in your high court, because of this altruistic service of mine for my religion and co-religionists, and particularly the question of the Fifth Ray, which contains interpretations of Hadiths and was returned by the former court, the Afyon state prosecutor wants to have me, and the Risale-i Nur’s author, and Husrev Altinbasak, and forty-six other student brothers punished for “breaching state security,” because they wrote out these works and read them.

I say to you in your presence as a full citizen of this country, without deviating from the truth, that for years I have been the student of Said Nursi, whom we hold with the highest esteem as our Master, and who with these works has rectified our conduct religiously and advanced us, and has rejected it when we called him “Regenerator of Religion.” I can testify categorically and absolutely certainly that neither he himself nor his works nor his students have in any way attempted to breach state security. One of the matters concerning which we have been charged is the money obtained from sale of the books, concerning which Isparta Court was fully aware and was unable to find us guilty and sentence us. For just as we were in no need to secure our livelihoods through sale of the books, so we used the money obtained from their sale to buy the duplicating machine, paper, and ink. There is no possibility of this service, which we performed purely for God’s sake with pure intention, being a crime, and therefore request of your high court and consciences that the copies of the Risale-i Nur be returned.

Prisoner, Tahiri

* * *

[Zübeyir’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

I am charged with founding a secret society and breaching state security. As I shall set out below, since you will form the certain opinion that I have committed no such crime, I reject the charge here and now. Yes, I can say gratefully and outright that I am a Risale-i Nur student. It would be contrary to the virtue the Risale-i Nur has taught me to deny it, and I cannot commit such a misdemeanour. A person who reads the Risale-i Nur would not conceal it. On the contrary, he would proclaim it proudly and fearlessly. For it contains not a single word or sentence that demands hesitation.

I tried to describe the Risale-i Nur’s value in forty to fifty pages. I cannot say that I praised it. For I do not have the ability to praise any part of the Risale-i Nur, let alone the whole collection. For it is a true commentary on the All-Wise Qur’an, which is the sun of the universe and its intelligence, and has been illuminating and guiding humanity for around one thousand three hundred years. If any matter related to a secret society has been found in the works, as I stated above, I attempted to describe the value of, then punish me for the crime of trying to disseminate harmful works. However, the wonderful way in which the Risale-i Nur is written has been affirmed by learned scholars; it is sufficiently powerful to reform a corrupted society; it is a guide for the people of the twentieth century and saves them from misguidance and the vice they are dragged down to by materialism and Naturalism, and from the dense darkness of their ideas; and through the effulgence of the Qur’an, it has opened up for mankind a way leading to happiness and salvation, pointing it out clearly with its light. So if the Risale-i Nur Collection does not contain any discussions related to the crime of which I am accused, it is my opinion that your court too will agree that to punish me would be contrary to justice.

I was asked by the examining magistrate: “Are you a Risale-i Nur student?”

I do not consider myself worthy to be the student of a genius like Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. But if he accepts me, I proudly confess: “Yes, I am a Risale-i Nur student.”

Having been slandered on numerous occasions by his secret enemies, my Master Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, the peerless author of the Risale-i Nur, has been sent to court, and every time has been acquitted. The Risale-i Nur has been scrutinized line by line by committees of professors and Islamic scholars and they have given reports stating that the work is written with unsurpassed knowledge and is a true commentary on the Qur’an. Since that is the truth, why is he sent to court? My firmly held views on this subject are as follows:

Those who read the Risale-i Nur, especially the perceptive young, acquire a powerful belief. They become unshakeably self-sacrificing and religious, and devoted to their country. The immorality and vice inculcated by negative ideologies can find no foothold where there is indestructible faith. The more those with such belief increase in number, Freemasonry and communism cannot expand and spread. The Risale-i Nur proves rationally, logically, and in scholarly fashion with verses from the Qur’an and extremely powerful proofs and arguments, that materialist philosophy, on which communism is based, has absolutely no connection with truth and reality, and that its theories are completely unfounded. It illumines those who fall into the darkness of those rotten ideas, and saves them. It proves God’s existence with powerful evidences that cannot be denied or objected to, to even materialists, who believe only what their eyes can see.

With its original and attractive style and elevated literary art, this wonderful work quite simply makes itself read, and by high school and university students in particular.

It is because of this that the communists and Masons know that the Risale-i Nur forms a powerful obstacle to the spread of their poisonous ideas. They have recourse to various stratagems and calumnies in order to eliminate the Risale-i Nur, or not to have it read, since, as a true Qur’anic commentary, it is a powerful source of belief. Although up to now there has been no sign whatsoever of any of the lies they have ascribed to us, they continue to attack us. It is understood from this that they want to intimidate us, make us give up the Risale-i Nur and at the same time put before us their own putrid publications. In this way, causing the nation and youth to lose their faith altogether, they want to bring about a decline in moral standards, and thus to make the country cave in on itself. It is their ambition to hand over this country and its people to a foreign power. In the presence of the bench of judges I say this fearlessly:

They should know this and tremble; we are not to be intimidated by mere threats. For we have seen truth and reality in the Risale-i Nur, and learnt it and believed in it. The Turkish youth is not sleeping. This heroic Islamic Turkish nation will not bow down under the yoke of another country. The religious, warlike Turkish nation, the believing, brave Turkish youth, fear nothing. It is for this reason that we read the Risale-i Nur, which raises us to the highest degrees of humanity, ensures that we advance in every field, and instilling in us young people love of religion, country, and nation, makes us true lovers of religion who will sacrifice all our beings for them. And we shall read this work. As I stated above, I have read very little of the Risale-i Nur, and yet I have profited enormously. This work is of the very greatest benefit for this country and nation and for all humanity, and if I had wealth, I would spend all of it to publish it. For I am ready to sacrifice my whole being for my religion and the eternal happiness and well-being of my country and nation.

Moreover, I have not believed in the Risale-i Nur naively. Thirty-three verses of the Qur’an, and Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) and ‘Abd al-Qadir Geylani (May God be pleased with him) made predictions that the Risale-i Nur would be written and would offer guidance to the people of this age. Furthermore, the parts of the Risale-i Nur that I have read have made me form the opinion that this collection consists of works that teach truth and reality and that reform humanity.

I felt a great emptiness in my spirit, and when searching for a book to read, I came across the Risale-i Nur. Then when I read it, I could not be without it or put it down. I felt that the Risale-i Nur was meeting the overwhelming need in my heart. I found in it the rational proofs of belief to save me from doubts about belief and knowledge. In this way I was saved from the distress of scepticism. I understood from its truths that the Risale-i Nur was written for us, the people of this age.

Powerful belief is necessary so that one may acquire the elevated virtues necessary for good conduct and manners, and courtesy. Since the truths of belief are explained by means of extremely powerful proofs and clear examples in the Risale-i Nur, the more I read it, the stronger my belief became. In this way I was saved from giving up my religion, which is truth and reality and comprises the principles of the highest civilization, and from the calamity of being swallowed by the Red Monster. Thus, since the Risale-i Nur saves its readers from numerous calamities, material and spiritual; makes them more knowledgeable than a university graduate; instils in them love of Islam, country, and nation; and teaches them obedience to God, and to be hardworking and compassionate; no one who realizes its value would give it up, whatever the price. This sincere respect and veneration could be torn out of no one’s heart.

The Risale-i Nur is described by the prosecution as a harmful work. I protest in the strongest terms at this lack of conscience and lie. And it is claimed that I encourage it. Yes, this is true. The hearts of all the enlightened who heard the other lie were pained, indeed they wept and gnashed their teeth. The twentieth century is a time Positivist ideas are dominant. Things for which there are no proof and evidence are not believed in, and we do not believe in them. We want proof that the Risale-i Nur is harmful.

If another of the aims of our covert enemies who concoct these lies is to destroy the solidarity of those who read the Risale-i Nur, which is manifested as their embracing each other in exceptional fashion due to the bonds of Islam and for the sake of serving the Qur’an, and expresses only respect, compassion, and affection, and has no other goal in sight. Our enemies should not struggle against us for nothing. I am the most backward, the most ordinary of those who read the Risale-i Nur, yet I give them this reply:

Even if one of us is in the east, one in the west, one in the south, one in the north, one in the hereafter, and one in this world, we are still together. If the power of all the universe was to amass, it could not separate us from our exalted Master, Said Nursi, or from the Risale-i Nur, or from one another.

For we serve the Qur’an and we shall serve it. Because we believe in the reality of the hereafter, no force can root out this love and solidarity of ours. All Muslims shall gather together in the abode of eternal happiness.

With your permission, I shall describe an important fact concerning the well-being of our country and nation: one of the communists’ secret plans is to incite the people against the Government.

False information was given the leaders of the Government so that Bediuzzaman Said Nursi should be sent to prison and his works be seen as harmful. But no one believed the negative propaganda. For years the people of this nation have believed so firmly that he is a unique Islamic scholar this age and in every way without peer that no propaganda can destroy their true conviction.

I offer praise and thanks to Almighty God that He has favoured me with profiting from the works of a great Master. I am indebted with all my heart and soul to him for being the means of my learning about belief and Islam, and benefiting immeasurably. Since my Master has saved me from the distress I suffered for years as I wrote, and my youth from becoming fodder for communism, and my being condemned to everlasting solitary confinement, I am prepared to languish in this worldly prison for years for him.

If I suffer capital punishment on the way of the Risale-i Nur, a Qur’anic commentary which in twenty years has taught millions of people religion, belief, Islam, and virtue, preserving them from irreligion, I shall run to the gallows crying: “Allah! Allah! Ya Rasulallah!” If I am executed by firing squad on the way of the Risale-i Nur, which protects our young people from abandoning their religion and being swept away by communism to eternal perdition, and from crimes for which they would be shot as traitors to their country, without flinching I shall bare my chest to the bullets. And I beseech my Sustainer that if I am cut to pieces by knives for my Master Bediuzzaman, with my blood spurting in all directions I shall write: “The Risale-i Nur! The Risale-i Nur!”

Respected Judges of the Court!

The education the Risale-i Nur gives is truly marvellous and original; it is without equal. The purpose of other sorts of education is to gain material benefits and to attain various positions. People study mostly for materialist ends and to be able to become famous, or sometimes merely because they have to study. However, those who by reading its treatises, receive the Risale-i Nur education, which resembles an unorganized free university, nurture no worldly aims, only to serve the Qur’an and belief.

Nevertheless, the Risale-i Nur, which consists of serious, scholarly treatises about the truths of belief, is read with such enthusiasm, passion, and pleasure, that it awakens in those who read it faithfully the desire to read it over and over again. Even though those who read and write out the Risale-i Nur may find their lives in danger at the doors of the courtroom, they state openly that they read these wonderful works, and that they shall read them. Even if they know that the decision will be given for their execution, they do not hesitate to display this constancy. This characteristic of the Risale-i Nur, one of its many wonders, makes one ask: “Did those who admit this, find their lives by the wayside?”

This means that contained in the Risale-i Nur and Bediuzzaman is a truth so elevated that as well as not being harmful they did not deny it.

Normally students are made to study under the constraints of discipline and authority. However, Bediuzzaman compelled no one to study the Risale-i Nur, and hundreds of thousands of readers study it devotedly and resolutely, the majority of them without ever seeing him. Such a wondrous method of education was never seen in any medrese, either recently or previously, and was never encountered in any university.

The prosecutor said that “The respect in which Bediuzzaman is held has not been afforded to any other Qur’anic commentator.”

That is correct. Seeing that respect and reverence are awarded in relation to greatness and achievement, and gratitude and thanks are offered to the degree one has profited, Bediuzzaman’s works are profited from to an enormous degree so that respect for him and gratitude to him are unprecedented.

The Masons and communists expended every effort so that Bediuzzaman, the greatest Islamic thinker and writer of the twentieth century, would not be known by us, and especially by the young. But the wide-awake Turkish Muslim nation and youth recognized that hero of religion, our Master, and they benefited from him and allowed others to do so. It is because of this that their extraordinary attachment and confidence cannot be shaken.

Since the Qur’anic verses in the Risale-i Nur are expounded in Turkish with supreme art and skill without anything of their virtues, which are the Qur’an’s greatest miracle, being lost, every class of people —men, women, officials, tradesmen, scholars and philosophers— can read and understand it. Profiting from it to the extent they can, they become ever more attached to it. High school students, university students, professors, lecturers, and philosophers all read it. These educated classes profit from it to an extraordinary degree, affirming its originality and the superior art of its composition, and feeling a strong desire to read the whole work.

When perceptive and appreciative people first come to know Bediuzzaman and the Risale-i Nur, they are infinitely regretful they did not know of them previously, and in order to make up for lost time, never waste their spare time, and if they have five minutes even, pick up the Risale-i Nur, and read it day and night. This extraordinary interest and demand has never ever been shown for the work of any psychologist, sociologist, or philosopher. Only the educated can benefit from them. If a middle school student or a housewife reads the work of a eminent philosopher, he or she does not profit from it. But everyone profits from the Risale-i Nur in accordance with his level. For this reason, the whole nation awaits your decision to acquit Bediuzzaman and the Risale-i Nur students. If in this time of tribulation Said Nursi had not impressed on his students the need for patience, endurance, and moderation, as when the commander of a volunteer militia force in the First War he mustered his students to fight, so out of the great honour in which they hold him thousands of Risale-i Nur students would have pitched their tents on the heights around Afyon and awaited the decision of Afyon Criminal Court to acquit him.

The work that Said Nursi and the Risale-i Nur students do cannot be considered within the framework of the law and be proved to be a secret society. Why can it not be proved? Is a legal expert who has risen to be chief public prosecutor incapable of proving it according to the law? No, he is certainly not incapable. But there is no organization that could be called a secret political society. That is why it cannot be proved.

It is a contradiction that the statement the prosecutor first gave, which was completely accurate and in accordance with the law, said that “the Risale-i Nur students are not a political society,” and then a bit later for some reason said that “they are a political society.” Of course the latter is invalid. We are certain that the judges will see this fact clearly and give the decision that “there is no secret society.”

Judges of the Court!

If when suffering sorrow and anguish a piece was broken off the heart, the news of a youth losing his religion should make the heart break into pieces to the number of its minute particles.

Thus, the acquittal you shall give shall be the cause of the Muslim youth and Islamic world being effectively saved from this terrible plague. This is another of the reasons binding me inseparably to Bediuzzaman and his works.

Your decision to acquit the Risale-i Nur and give it its freedom will save all the Turkish youth and all Muslims from the tragedy of irreligion. For without any doubt at all, one day the Risale-i Nur, a treasury of elevated truths, will be known throughout the world. Then you shall be appreciated by all mankind. Your decision to acquit the Risale-i Nur will make the present and future generations grateful to you, and the more it is read and benefited from, the more you shall be appreicated.

Beware! Do not suppose these sincere words of mine are hypocritical. Absolutely not! Because I am afraid of no one while Bediuzzaman is being tried, nor do I waver.

Only, with your permission, I want to say this much: if the prosecutor continues to make such despicable charges against the Risale-i Nur, which is a superlative means of preventing Freemasonry and communism in this blessed country, and against its author and readers, and he does not desist from making those entirely erroneous accusations, and carried away by his feelings, opposes them, he will be supporting communism and Freemasonry, and will be assisting the noxious atheists to multiply, against whom in truth these charges should be made.

* * *

[Part of Zübeyir’s Supplement for the Appeal Court]

Through its proofs the Risale-i Nur repairs the belief of people which has been destroyed by the doubts and scepticism sown by the publications of secret atheistic organizations.

One of the least tangible reasons for the youth adhering to the Risale-i Nur as though electrocuted, is this: for years with unparalleled devotion and self-sacrifice, elderly and ill, at a time demanding extraordinary caution, with superhuman patience Bediuzzaman Said Nursi has endured the various torments of his enemies, the communists, Masons, and those hoodwinked by them. With his truth-seeing, realistic view, he has distinguished numerous treacherous stratagems against religion, and has written works about belief which will bring to nothing their fearsomely cunning, covert plans.

But what a regretable, sad and sorry situation it is, that for twenty-five years they have tried to eliminate this champion of Islam, this matchless person, in prisons and places of detention, in absolute solitary confinement. Even if due to animosity resulting from the unfounded suspicions given rise to by the treachery of communists, the Risale-i Nur’s author has been punished, his works continue to be read with ever increasing interest and enthusiasm.

The first and most powerful evidence is this: the young people who read the work The Staff of Moses (Asâ-yi Mûsa), which has been duplicated in the new letters, quickly learn the Qur’anic alphabet in order to be able to read the rest of the works. This removes the obstacle of not knowing the Qur’anic script, which prevents a person learning numerous sciences and compels him to read works written specifically to distance him from religion and belief. Whenever the younger generation has been decked out and fortified with the Qur’an and the sciences that irradiate from it, the nation to which that youth belongs has begun to progress and advance. Here, the youth have begun to fill their spirits, burning with the need for belief and Islam, with the lights of the Risale-i Nur, a Qur’anic commentary. Thus acquiring certain, verified belief, our young people will struggle against irreligion and communism, and will on no account allow their country to be sold to the enemies of Islam. If the communists, therefore, find the opportunity to destroy all paper and ink, numerous youths like myself and older people will be ready to sacrifice themselves, and in order to publish the Risale-i Nur, a treasury of truth, would if it was possible make their skins into paper and blood into ink.

Yes! Yes! Yes! A thousand times!

In the indictment the prosecutor says: “Said Nursi is poisoning the university students with his works.” In reply we say: “If the Risale-i Nur is poison, we are in need of tons of it and thousands of kilos. If he knows where it is to be found in abundance, he should send us there speedily by aeroplane!”

When we Risale-i Nur students suffer the persecution of tyrants for the sake of serving belief and Islam, we prefer to die in the corners of prison or on the gallows to dying on the couch of comfort. We know it to be a supreme Divine favour to die as martyrs in the prison into which we have been unjustly cast because of our service to the Qur’an, rather than living in captivity in what is apparently freedom but in reality absolute despotism.

Prisoner, Konyali Zübeyir Gündüzalp92

Afyon Prison.

* * *

[Mustafa Sungur’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

The prosecution wants to have me punished for belonging to the society of Nurjus and inciting the people against the government.

Firstly: There is no society called the Nurju Society, and I belong to no such society. I am a member of the sacred, Divine society of Islam, which every century for one thousand three hundred and fifty years has had three hundred million members, was founded by Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him), the Glory of the Universe, and is vast and luminous and promises eternal happiness for all mankind. All thanks be to God, I am determined to obey its sacred injunctions with all my strength.

As for the Risale-i Nur, my being a student of which is considered to be a crime, it is a miracle of the Qur’an that teaches me my religious duties and those related to belief and that Islam is the highest and most sacred religion and the sole means of happiness for mankind. It proves with brilliant evidences that the Qur’an is a decree of the All-Glorious One, Who is the Owner of all beings, is all-present and all-seeing everywhere, and under Whose pre-eternal administration are all beings from minute particles to the stars and suns; it is a miraculous work whose view encompasses pre-eternity and post-eternity and all events; it is the pre-eternal address of an Everlasting Sun which is superior to all other books and miraculous in forty aspects, and which by giving mankind the good news of eternal happiness, is the object of their eternal gratitude. It proves too that God’s Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) was sent by the Creator of the Universe, and that with all his conduct and practices was the most perfect, the most loyal, the highest of all men, whose perfections were the most elevated, and through the light of Islam that he brought, gave the best of all news to men, and gave them the most sacred consolation, and who has taken under his spiritual rule fourteen centuries and one fifth of mankind, and to the book of whose good deeds pass the equivalent of all the good deeds performed for one thousand three hundred years by his community, and that he is the reason for the universe’s existence and is God’s Beloved. It proves also with brilliant proofs that both the hereafter, and Paradise and Hell are certain and definite.

With its words and sentences, the Risale-i Nur testifies that it is a pre-eternal and post-eternal light proceeding from the light of the Qur’an and the Light of Muhammad (PBUH). In respect of its belonging to the Qur’an and being a special commentary on it, it pertains to the heavens and the Divine Throne. Thus, with all its Words, all its Flashes and Rays, and all its Letters, the Risale-i Nur, which is supposed to be inciting the people against the Government, teaches the Divine truths, and principles of Islam, and mysteries of the Qur’an. Is it a crime, then, to read the Risale-i Nur, which is thus elevated and worthy of veneration, and teaches good morality and virtue and the truths of belief, and to copy out its parts, which bestow eternal happiness, or to serve it so that believers may profit from it with respect to their belief? Is that inciting the people against the Government? And to visit the author of such a blessed and sublime work, a monument of light who is decked out with the highest degree of belief, laudable morals, and virtue and is at the very summit of human perfections, and to be brothers on the way of the Qur’an and belief with the Risale-i Nur students, who with their good works, veracity, and unshakeable belief this century, have defended the honour of Islam and truths of the Qur’an, and upheld them, and who have no aim other than winning God’s pleasure — is to do these things to found a political society? Which equitable, unsullied conscience could inflict a punishment for these?

Judges of the Court! The Risale-i Nur’s veracity has been affirmed by the most advanced scholars, and with its gaining for its readers the highest level of belief and greatest love of Islam, there is no doubt that all its Words, and its Flashes and Rays are luminous commentaries on the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition. They are all brilliant suns which dispel spiritual sicknesses and darkness. As is testified to by his pure and upright life, our Master has passed his life on the way of belief and the Qur’an, and enduring every sort of difficulty and distress, has by disseminating the truths of the Qur’an worked to save the sons of this blessed nation in particular from the awesome attacks of communism and every sort of irreligion, and was charged with the sacred duty of writing the Risale-i Nur at this time. He does not instruct us (God forbid!) in immorality and spoliation. He teaches us the saving of belief, the highest cause and most momentous question in the world of humanity. It is most certainly a Divine favour that for twenty-five to thirty years he has striven with the Risale-i Nur to save the religious belief of hundreds of thousands of believers, especially by teaching belief, the greatest happiness in life and its most important purpose, to unfortunates like myself who knew nothing of Islam. We say the following to those who in a way diametrically opposed to reality, consider him to be harmful for the life of society and deny his sacred service of belief and work for religion:

If it is a crime to adhere to God, and obeying the injunctions of religion, save people from terrible calamities such as immorality and being without religious belief, and to make them happy with the permanent happiness of Islam, then he may be said to be harmful to society. It is otherwise the greatest calumny and an unforgiveable crime. The Risale-i Nur’s aim is not this world, it is the never-ending happiness of the hereafter and the pleasure of the Eternal Enduring One, the Compassionate One of Beauty, one shadow of the manifestation of Whose beauty is all the beauty and good in this world, and one flash of Whose love is Paradise together with all of its subtle wonders. Having a thus Divine, sacred, and truly elevated aim, a thousand times over I declare the Risale-i Nur to be free of all transitory things such as inciting the people against the Government. And we seek refuge with God from the evil of those who with slander of this sort try to crush us and prevent us from working for belief or from learning about religion.

Judges of the Court! As is indicated by thirty-three verses of the Qur’an, and pointed out by Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) and Gawth al-A‘zam (May God be pleased with him) and hundreds of investigative scholars, the Risale-i Nur is a light of the Qur’an those who adhere to which will save their belief, God willing. It most definitely cannot be extinguished or be lost. For example, the attacks made on it these last twenty-five years with the intention of eliminating it, have been the cause of its spreading and shining out in extraordinary fashion. For its Owner is the All-Glorious Monarch in Whose power and under Whose command is everything from pre-eternity to post-eternity. For its truths are the Qur’an’s truths, and through His protection and grace, Almighty God will always make it shine out, God willing.

Judges of the Court! If it is a crime to read and write out the Risale-i Nur —which teaches belief and Islam with the highest love and fervour, and recognizes no aim or purpose other than Divine pleasure, and is certainly a supreme miracle of the Qur’an this age and a luminous commentary on it— and to give its treatises, which teach the truths of belief, to one’s believing brother; and if the bonds of religion and Islamic brotherhood, which are enjoined by religion, and the sacred, Divine fraternity of uniting on the way of the Qur’an and belief for love of God constitute a political society, for me to belong to such a society is the greatest good fortune, and is a happiness greater than that afforded by any favour or award. Endless thanks be to Almighty God, Who bestowed on a wretch like myself the great favour of being a Risale-i Nur student, which gains such happiness and good fortune for a person. My last word is:

For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs. * God suffices me, there is no god but He; in Him do I place my trust — He the Sustainer of the Throne [of Glory] Supreme!

Mustafa Sungur,

Teacher

* * *

[Mustafa Sungur’s Supplement for the Court of Appeal]

1. The Criminal Court: My reading the Risale-i Nur and writing it out and giving a part of it to a needy believing brother so that he might benefit from it was called “inciting the people against the Government,” and deemed an offence. However, in my written objections to this charge I said: the Risale-i Nur, which is supposed to incite the people against the Government, is a true Qur’anic commentary. With all its parts it teaches the truths of belief, and bestows the greatest happiness on those who read and write it. Its aim is not anything transitory such as inciting the people against the Government, the way of disruptive, immoral layabouts; it is Divine pleasure, the most perfect of all happiness and good fortune. I am proud to read and write out the Risale-i Nur, which has gained for me the highest virtue and belief, the sweetest bounty, so that I am its luckiest student and most powerless servant. Although I said that I knew to be its student was a supreme Divine gift, and that I constantly thank my Sustainer who granted this vast bounty to a wretch like myself who was not worthy of it, without basing it on any law or evidence, my adherence to belief and Islam was deemed a crime, and entirely contrary to truth and right I was punished.

2. While studying in Kastamonu Gölköy Institute, I myself witnessed the irreligion taught us by some teachers. They said, God forbid, that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) had written the Qur’an, Islam was now abrogated, civilization had advanced, and that it was a great error and backwardness to follow the Qur’an this century. One day even, a teacher said that because Muslims performed the obligatory prayers and thought of the hereafter, they suffered constant distress and passed their lives unhappily; and that in the mosques of Islam there was a deathly atmosphere, while the Christian churches were always happy and full of life, and that with their musical instruments and other amusements, they enjoyed life and passed their time happily. They tried to break the bonds with Islam and belief in our hearts, and instil denial and disbelief in their place.

Then if through reading several treatises from a peerless light of the Qur’an like the Risale-i Nur —which pours out from the Qur’an’s effulgence, and proves with brilliant evidences and arguments the truths of belief and Islam, and that the religion of Islam is a never-dying inextinguishable sun and means whereby humanity may attain happiness and well-being— a wretch in whom had been instilled the above poisonous ideas and whose spirituality they had wanted to kill with their noxious irreligious lessons, and had even been carried away by them and (God forbid) believing in those ideas had begun to disseminate them — if he had come to believe in the Qur’an, would not his offering the endless joy and happiness he felt to the compassionate, loyal, and true hero Ustad Bediuzzaman, who had gained these for him through the blessed Risale-i Nur he had written; would not his telling the Revered Master, who had been charged with the burdensome duty of writing the Risale-i Nur, how it had saved him from his former life of heedlessness and misguidance, leading him to belief and light, and how it was a sun of guidance and means of happiness for all humanity, and a Divine favour for all men and particularly for believers; and would not his calling “the destruction and corruption of a covert organization of the Sufyan,” those who with their terrible aggressive assaults on the Qur’an and Islam, as described above, were urging the sons of this heroic Muslim nation to embrace irreligion, and trying to raze the sacred, Divine foundations of Islam, to whom millions of people are bound and destroy their eternal happiness and feeling compounded regret and disgust at the lunatics who applaud them and their base, aggressive, tyrannical destruction; and would not his saying to his former fellow students, who had fallen into doubt concerning their faith: “Come, let’s give up following the lusts and whims of our souls; let’s bow before the truths of the Qur’an and hurry to the Risale-i Nur medrese, the guide to happiness this century. Let’s leave those lying scoundrels whom we have been applauding for months or years and reject the falsehoods they showed to be the truth, and attach ourselves to Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s teachings and take them as our master. Let’s turn our backs on the darkness and embrace the light;” would not these all arise from the joy he found in his belief and his love of the Qur’an and Islam, and from his adherence to them, and his devotion to his nation, and his desiring everyone to acquire true, verified belief and attain infinite happiness?

Is it a crime to attach oneself to God and proclaim that Islam is the loftiest religion and the bringer of virtue and happiness? At a time when with lies and slander, from every side there are overwhelming attacks on the Qur’an and Islam, and attempts are being made to refute the Qur’an and Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him), which are extremely elevated, sacred, and precious, yet books which spread irreligion and atheism and rebellious, transient, worthless wretches who attack Islam are held in respect and innovations and the unlawful are applauded — at such a time is it a crime to believe and proclaim the sacredness and loftiness of the Risale-i Nur and that as a miracle of the Qur’an it is a Divine Light and dominical gift which explains and proves decisively and clearly the elevatedness, veracity, and sacredness of the Qur’an and Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him); and both God’s existence and that the universe with all its beings and all its members and systems testifies to its Creator’s necessary existence and unity; and because he possesses reason and can think and is the most comprehensive mirror of the Divine Names man is a sort of monarch over all other creatures; and that if he has a relationship with God through worship and belief and preserves himself against misguidance and vice and grievous sins, he becomes worthy of rising to the highest of the high, superior to all beings, and an esteemed guest who will be forever happy in Paradise, but if he denies his Creator through associating partners with Him and rebellion, or through heedlessness and misguidance, he falls lower than an animal, descending to the lowest of the low, coming to deserve everlasting Hell and unending torment and torture; and that the Qur’an is the true Word of God, which is constant, and that its injunctions and commands do not, and cannot, change; and that mankind’s true and permanent happiness is possible only through following the Qur’an’s commands and adhering to them?

The reading of novels and stories, written against Islam for five or ten minutes illicit pleasure, and the publishing of books extremely dangerous and harmful for the country and nation, and their being praised and recommended are not considered crimes, so can it be deemed a crime if we read and write out the Risale-i Nur, which describes the Sun of Islam —which hundreds of millions of people have followed and in which they have found true happiness— or enumerated its elevated characteristics, which we lack the ability to praise? Can anyone who has an atom of belief in his heart and desires the well-being of the country and nation consider the above to be crimes?

Respected Judges of the Appeal Court! This case presented in your elevated presence is directly the case of belief and the Qur’an. It is the case of the eternal happiness and salvation of millions of people. Concerned with this case in effect are foremost God’s Most Noble Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) and all the prophets (Peace be upon them), and all the saints and innumerable people of reality and believers, as well as all our forefathers who have departed for the eternal realm. You may now win the love and good will, the prayers and intercession, of those millions of the people of reality. The elevated reality called the Risale-i Nur is before you. Is its aim the lowly, transient ranks and positions of this world, or to win God’s pleasure, the greatest happiness, the purest joy, and highest good fortune? And does it encourage people to be immoral, or does it deck them out with belief and the highest morality and virtue?

Before you is the Risale-i Nur, which pours out from the miraculousness of the Qur’an of Miraculous Exposition and is a Divine Light. Since the greatest case facing people, more important than anything, is to win belief in order to be able to depart from this world for the realm of eternal happiness; and since through the effulgence of the Qur’an, the Risale-i Nur teaches the truths of belief, and as is testified to by hundreds of thousands of people who have read it and written it out, and as indicated by numerous Qur’anic verses and Hadiths of the Prophet (PBUH), and Imam ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) and many saints like Gawth al-A‘zam (May God be pleased with him), it has definitely won that case; certainly and without doubt, through your elevated love of truth and justice, above every sort of transient anxiety, you will understand and appreciate the Risale-i Nur’s veracious, Qur’anic face and its true value, and that its students pursue no aim other than God’s pleasure.

Judges of the Appeal Court! With his high morality, virtue and compassion our esteemed and elevated Master, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, strives to save people from the dense darkness of false ideas and eternal solitary confinement, and enduring the severest distress and torments has risen to the highest degree of perfection at this time through being charged by Almighty God with the sacred duty of publishing the truths of the Qur’an, yet entirely contrary to all truth and justice, he is cast into prison. Elderly, ill, and with no one, practising his beliefs and worship in most elevated fashion, possessing the most brilliant intelligence and learning, and having no aim other than saving the belief of people, the terrible suffering of our Master, who is seventy-five years old and truly loves humanity, in the intense cold of Afyon Prison, pierces the heart, causing the severest anguish. Trusting in your elevated truth-loving justice and true philanthrophy, we await the manifestation of justice’s compassion.

Mustafa Sungur

* * *

[Mehmed Feyzi’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

The indictment states that I am my Master, Said Nursi’s, chief scribe, and am firmly attached both to himself and to the Risale-i Nur, and have served them, and it deems this an offence. For my part, I accept the charge with all my strength and am proud of it. For I have a powerful, innate yearning for knowledge. Evidence for this is that when during the Denizli affair my house was searched, it was officially established that found in it were more than five hundred various scholarly books, some in Arabic. It is an unusual desire to study and extraordinary love of learning that made me collect these five hundred books, that not one person in a thousand would have at this time, despite my impecuniosity and young years.

Because of this natural capacity of mine, I was searching for a true master. Endless thanks be to Almighty God that He gave me what I was searching for afar, from close by. Yes, my Master, Said Nursi’s life testifies that his only aim in life has been knowlege and to learn the sciences of Islam. I have understood clearly both through my own observations, and from his published biography, and from what I have learnt from his old students, the innate love of learning that I have is found in my Master to an extraordinary degree, so that on his own in wondrous fashion, contrarily to all the other medrese teachers at this time, he has persisted in medrese teaching and endured every calamity. But then, because they did not understand my Master’s extraordinary situation, the politicians attempted to link him with a sort of politics, with which he has no connection, even throwing him into prison. But later Almighty God made his passion for knowledge into a key to the Qur’an’s truths, and the Risale-i Nur emerged, which has left all scholars and philosophers in amazement. Around that time, as a Divine favour I found close by in Kastamonu the Master I had been searching for all my life, whose nature was similar to mine but infinitely more elevated. I shall offer thanks for this to the end of my days.

Just as since early days, in order to preserve the dignity of learning my Master never accepted such things as charity and gifts, so he did not allow his students to accept them. He would bow before no one. In fact, not condescending to crouch down in the trenches in the front lines in the War, or even to enter them, he preserved the dignity of learning. Similarly, heroically preserving the honour of scholarship and teaching in the face of three awesome commanders, he was completely unmoved at their anger and silenced them. I therefore accepted him as my true Master, since I knew that he was someone who had sacrificed everything to preserve the high honour of this nation and country and the Turkish learned establishment. Even, if to suppose the impossible a Master so truly devoted to his country and nation had a hundred faults, they should be looked on tolerantly and not objected to.

A example showing that this country’s patriots in the Second Constitutional Period and the nationalists and patriots under the Republic appreciated in the name of the country and nation our Master’s extraordinary service to learning was that the Committee of Union and Progress government gave nineteen thousand gold liras for his university in the east called the Medresetü’z-Zehra. This was to be organized along the same lines of al-Azhar University. Its foundations were laid in Van Province, but it remained unbuilt due to the First World War. Then the first government of the Republic twenty-four years ago allotted one hundred and fifty thousand liras on the agreement of one hundred and sixty-three deputies. Our Master’s nearly succeeding on his own in founding a large university similar to al-Azhar, which was brought into being only through the enterprise of thousands of teachers, shows that all patriots and lovers of their country, together with the teachers of the medreses (religious schools) should appreciate and applaud him. As for us, because we found such a Master, we decided to endure every sort of hardship and difficulty. I have boundless respect for him as an exceptionally learned scholar at this time, who through the effulgence of his learning and truths of his one hundred and thirty works has caused me to advance on the way of belief and knowledge. God willing, this respect of mine will continue for all eternity.

There is no covert organization which exploiting religion and religious feelings aims to breach public security, in connection with which the prosecution wants to have me convicted. Despite months of investigations and searches it has not been able to verify any such society, nor do we have any connection with such a thing. Our sole concern, within the framework of the laws of the Republic, is for the Risale-i Nur, which has undergone the toughest examinations and has met with due respect from the highest committees of experts and has been acquitted by authorized courts of law. This is not treason towards the country and nation, but scholarly striving in a way that is directly beneficial for country and nation. Other than this we have no political aim nor any other purpose. Thus, since our innocence and sincerity are clear in this matter, I seek the manifestation of justice from your just court and my acquittal, as in Denizli Court.

Prisoner, Kastamonulu Mehmed Feyzi Pamukçu,

Afyon Prison

* * *

[Ahmed Feyzi’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

Judges of the Court!

Is it not the duty and right of a believer to serve the Qur’an and the Prophet (PBUH) by meeting with a scholar of religion, reading and writing out his books about the truths of religion, and hastening to the assistance of his co-religionists? Is there any law prohibiting us from this service of religion? Is it a crime to criticize certain aspects of the atheistic immoral currents of our times? We are purely a body of religiously-minded people which has no connection whatsoever with politics or government. To think well of someone and consider him worthy is a personal opinion that may be held by anyone. We know Bediuzzaman to be the most elevated scholar of religion of our times. We know him to be someone who follows reality, and who expresses and explains the truths of religion without toadying to anyone. We call him a mujahid because of his service to religion and relying on the Qur’an’s unshakeable truths, his undertaking the defence of our country against the currents of immorality and disbelief which threaten it. In a country in which freedom of religion and conscience are the rule, we cannot be held guilty of an offence because of the views we hold in the light of our consciences. Therefore, we are not obliged to give account to anyone.

As for the matter of the persons foretold in Hadiths to come at the end of time: we did not fabricate these. They have their origin in religion. In a number of Hadiths, God’s Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) said that the life of his community would not exceed one thousand five hundred years. The major historical events up to that time, which would have the greatest significance for the life of his community and for the life of the world, he gave news of, calling them “the signs of the end of the world.” He drew the attention of the Muslim Umma to their evil. He said that those who were heedless and ignorant of these evils would meet with everlasting misery and loss. There are innumerable religious proofs of these. We believe in God, His Messenger, and the Qur’an. So as the result of this belief and belief in the Messenger’s veracity, should we not strive to save ourselves from everlasting perdition? Should we not see what is happening around us? Wondering, “Have those perilous times come? Don’t let it be us who are the generation that falls prey to those dangers,” should we not point out how they may be applied to existent religious truths? If we disregard the positive evidences before us and the proven scholarly truths which take us to the Divine existence, and supposing the irreligion of Europe to be the greatest means of civilization and sole mark of knowledge, we abandon our religion, who will save us from eternal perdition? Should we not think of this? Would a person of this mind who recognizes nothing superior to the Qur’an and its truths, throw himself into everlasting perdition out of fear of temporary punishments? Or would he attach any worth to transient values? Would he give up his duty of serving God, and His Messenger, and His religion? These then are the true factors tying us to Bediuzzaman. Is there any other source of religion that can silence the pre-eternal needs of our spirits?

The prosecutor recommends to us the thousands of Arabic books which fill the libraries but do not interpret the spirit of today. He himself and those who think like him may not like the compendium of knowledge, treasury of freedom, and elevated reality called the Risale-i Nur, and they may criticize it. That is a matter for themselves. But they may not interfere in our preferring this or that work, or our attaching value to them. We like the Risale-i Nur. And we know it to be a true, unhypocritical book on religion and a Qur’anic commentary. Values and value judgements are questions of conscience. No one can interfere in them. Yes, we agree that the Risale-i Nur’s author always teaches pure truth. The fact that he does not accept this does not shake our opinion. Moreover, our opinion is based not on his wonder-working in the physical realm, but on the wonders of his knowledge, the extraordinary manifestations of which we have observed in his teachings with the Risale-i Nur, which challenge all the world of knowledge. Can you show us a second Bediuzzaman who although his [official] period of study was no more than three months, spread such a brilliant light of knowledge; and with the wonders of his learning displayed a logic so advanced in the ultimate questions of science that they left even the loftiest thinkers in amazement; and in a language he learnt only in the second part of his life had such a captivating style of exposition, and such a gripping ardour; who overflows with love and passion, and is exuberant like a sea of belief, a treasury of Divine knowledge, an ocean of wisdom?

Do you consider it excessive that we consider to be Master, the monument of virtue and light who shows not the slightest inclination towards the pomp of fleeting, superficial ostentation; nor stoops to even the smallest benefit or pleasure; nor attaches any value to anyone who fawns at the feet of fleeting filth; who awaits nothing from anyone, nor asks for it, and accepts nothing offered to him; who displaying the best example of the purest chastity and enduring patiently, with forbearance, every sort of deprivation, has dedicated himself to the truth and to making known the lights of the Qur’an and knowledge of Muhammad (PBUH); and out of the abundance of his compassion weeps at the suffering of the country and nation; and who never gives up his work, which is for the happiness of those around him, despite all the betrayals he has suffered; and disregarding his own old age and aloneness, strives and battles with selfless, Divine exertion to save people from the pits of ignorance and whirlpool of denial? In addition to the wonders of his knowledge described above, he is worthy of being known and followed as an example of perfection and virtue because of this matchless self-sacrifice, self-sufficiency, and masterpiece of chastity and moderation, which he has shown at this time when moral values have been lost.

That is how we look on Bediuzzaman and his works. Is it solely because of our attachment to him, which arises from our belief, and our belief in the severe rebukes and reprimands of the Qur’an and Muhammad (PBUH) concerning unbelief and morality that he has involved us in politics, which are deemed fleeting filth? Or can it be called corruption to inform about God and His Messenger, the truth and the Qur’an some of the sons of our compatriots who for twenty-five years have been unable to learn the truths of religion and are heading for certain perdition, in order to save them from everlasting extinction, and to reform their unsullied spirits and innocent consciences?

Judges of the Court! We are in no way involved in politics. We know that for those like us who are not versed in politics, politics is a way beset with a thousand and one perils, dangers, and responsibilities. In any event we attach no importance to fleeting externals. We only look to the good face of the world, which takes us to Divine pleasure. We therefore vehemently reject the charge that we pursue politics or contest the concept of the state. If there had been any such intention, there would have been some small manifestation of it in twenty-five years. Yes, we have a negative front, a side which rebukes, turned to immorality and unbelief. This arises only from belief and our necessarily joining in the Qur’an’s severe expressions and comprehensive warnings about these things. If these reasons and this sincere, straightforward style of exposition do not convince you, sentence us to whatever sort of punishment you please. But do not forget that Jesus (Peace be upon him), who today has six hundred million followers, was sentenced to death like a common thief by the authorities of his time only because his heart beat for mankind’s happiness and he bore the trust of delivering the message.

Having spoken out freely, we shall be proud to face our conviction. With the cry of For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs, we open our hands to the Court of the Dispenser of Needs.

Prisoner, Ortaklar Bucagili Ahmed Feyzi Kul

Afyon Prison.

* * *

[Ceylan’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

Making a mountain out of a molehill, because of my service to my Master and the Risale-i Nur, of which I am proud, the prosecution portrays me as a prominent diplomat or cunning plotter. In reply to his apportioning me a large share of the imaginary crime with which the Risale-i Nur is charged, I say this: I am closely attached to my Master, Bediuzzaman, from whom, by reading his works on religion, belief, and morality, I have profited to such an extent that I would readily sacrifice my life for his sake. However, my attachment is not as the prosecution said, harmful for the country and nation, in order to incite the people against the state; it is rather an unseverable attachment on the way of saving myself from the eternal annihilation of the grave, from which no one can escape, and saving the belief of my brothers in religion, which, like me, they are in need of saving in these perilous times, correcting their conduct, and becoming useful members of the nation and country.

I am one of those close to him. From time to time for four years I have proudly attended on him. During this time, I have witnessed nothing other than total virtue. I have not once heard him say a single word about his being the Mahdi or the Regenerator of Religion. More than a hundred thousand copies of the Risale-i Nur and hundreds of thousands of pure intentioned Risale-i Nur students, who have saved their belief by reading its treatises, can testify that he is the very epitome of humility.

My blessed Master considers himself to be a Risale-i Nur student like us. This is what he claims. This may be seen easily in many of his letters, which you have in your possession, and especially in the Treatise On Sincerity, which is included in The Staff of Moses Collection (Asâ-yi Mûsa). He repeatedly says in his letters: “Enduring truths like the sun or diamonds cannot be constructed on transient persons, and transient persons cannot lay claim to those precious truths.” So to accuse him of boasting and of claiming to be the Mahdi and Regenerator of Religion is not something anyone of intelligence would do. For if you read carefully and fairly all his treatises and letters, you will form the certain conviction that the like of this profoundly learned scholar of the times has not been encountered for centuries. He is a saver of belief the like of whom will not be encountered, who at a time the red sparks of communism are licking the eaves of our houses is a patriot far more useful and productive for the country and nation than an army. I am regretful that I was not earlier the student of such a work and the esteemed Master who wrote it.

Respected Judges of the Court!

With the idea of performing a sacred service for the nation, so that like me the sons of this land might profit from the Risale-i Nur, whose endless benefits I myself had experienced, I had printed A Guide For Youth (Gençlik Rehberi) in Eskishehir. I ask you: how contrary is it to justice that while service of the Risale-i Nur, which is a true and irrefutable Qur’anic commentary, and thus to belief of an unfortunate like myself should have met with praise and appreciation, and encouragement, we received this severe treatment?

I request of your just court that you give the decision for the Risale-i Nur’s freedom, for it is the sustenance of our spirits, means of our salvation, and key to our eternal happiness. If the circumstances, some of which I have mentioned and enumerated above constitute a crime in your view, I shall accept with total resignation the harshest penalty you can inflict.

Prisoner, Emirdagli Ceylan Çaliskan,

Afyon Prison

* * *

[Mustafa Osman’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

I say in reply to the matters which have been put forward as offences, that I took part in the imaginary activities against the regime reputedly perpetrated by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, who is accused of founding a secret society and by exploiting religious feelings, of being engaged in activities that might breach state security:

1. Yes, like many Risale-i Nur students, I began to collect the treatises of the Risale-i Nur and to read them with the intention of receiving a civilized, religious education and learning Qur’anic conduct, which is a national characteristic and is worthy of true Turkism and Islam, and an historical honour and virtue of ours. I intended to become a useful member of the country and nation, and defend it against the effects of foreign ideologies.

How could it be considered an offence at a time vice and immorality have trampled the honour and mode of action of our forefathers, which found fame in history, and poisoned the life of society, and have spilled into the streets to the extent of disgusting even the immoral, alarming public opinion, so that it is gossiped about in every home, and this grievous situation, which gives rise to criticism in the form of news about the moral police and of various other subjects in the newspapers and magazines, which are the tongue of public opinion, is rapidly spreading and quite simply becoming general — to read the Risale-i Nur Collection at such a time, which saved me as it saves all Muslims who read it; and to give it to my compatriots when they insistently asked for it, who knew and heard that I read these works, so that it could rectify their morals too; and so to save through the Risale-i Nur and its effective teachings these people who had lost their moorings and were becoming harmful for the country and nation; and to give it to them to read since it would assist them to become useful to humanity — how could this be considered an offence? It is the luminous, effective weapon of Bediuzzaman in his sacred, moral struggle, which is worthy of praise and appreciation. With his effective teachings about religion he is a mujahid, fighting against the dangerous red plague of communism which is spreading like an epidemic even in our country and makes the whole world tremble — how could it be considered a crime for myself to have given these treatises to people when they have thus in twenty years transformed into useful members of the country and nation twenty thousand people, and probably more? And how could charges be made against its respected author in the same way? I ask your consciences.

2. The Hadith which the prosecution stated was “false” and therefore unscholarly, is said to be “sound” in the books of Hadiths. So having been accepted by the scholars of Hadiths, and the fact that the leading Istanbul scholars both before the Constitutional Revolution and during it accepted Bediuzzaman’s interpretations and replies, which are now found in the Fifth Ray, to the questions they asked of him in connection with the questions asked of them by the Japanese and the Anglican Church, and those prominent scholars did not object to his replies establishes definitely that the Hadith is sound.

Moreover, the truths of not a part of the Risale-i Nur, but of all of it, are so powerful that no true Islamic scholar could object to them, so that foremost the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and true scholars throughout the country since the Constitutional Period, have been compelled to accept and respect them. The objections of one or two individuals who are known as scholars but who are bereft of true knowledge do not refute those truths and powerful proofs. They are merely ridiculous. Is it a betrayal of the regime to write a letter of thanks to the author of the Risale-i Nur because one is captivated by the truths of the Qur’an and belief it contains, the spiritual and material benefits of which have become clear, and which are studied all over the country by every class of person in order to save their eternal lives from extinction, and from which thousands of compatriots have profited and so are eternally indebted to their esteemed author, since he has saved their belief; is it a betrayal, relying on the undeniable truths stated by the Hadith which is deemed to constitute an offence, to consider certain acts and works to have appeared in this country, which are referred to by the Hadith, and supposing it to be thus, relying on the statements of numerous Islamic scholars, to see it as a victory of the Qur’an which will lead to the repairing of certain errors and to be pleased at this, and to privately put this view to a Master from whose works one has received effulgence; and to hope that the country and nation will not fall into anarchy and thus into the embrace of the Red Peril, which causes the whole world to tremble — is this a betrayal of the regime? Is it to malign the reforms? And although several courts of law have acquitted that scholar, who is utterly deserving of commendation and appreciation, and although he is very elderly, a recluse, and has no one, to charge him with the same matters, arrest him, put him into solitary confinement, and send him to trial, and for us too, to consider to be a crime these scholarly views of ours and our working to save our belief, and to put these forward as evidence of our supposed breaching of state security, is the just decision of which conscience? I ask this of your court and leave it to your consciences.

3. The charge of “Carrying Bediuzzaman’s picture as though it was something sacred, and collecting his letters, and corresponding with him.” To carry not a simple picture, but one decorated in gold and jewels, of the universal scholar and esteemed author who through his works has saved my spiritual life and eternal life from extinction, and allowed me to experience the pleasure and happiness of physical life, and who has saved the belief of thousands like me, and to send him letters and congratulate him, and to get to know others who love him, is my right as it is for all members of humanity. I do not suppose this right of mine to constitute a crime, and finally I say: as the police of two provinces and numerous towns can testify, in order to be able to serve this country, nation, and humanity, for long years the Risale-i Nur students have saved themselves through the Risale-i Nur from being aimless, and have been the means of saving others. Although the patriotic service they have performed for this country and its government has in reality been greater than a police force of thousands, and is worthy of recognition and appreciation, it has been misinterpreted and we have been arrested, as though deliberately on behalf of some foreign power. All our work and businesses have gone to rack and ruin and our wretched families and children have been left weeping and destitute. Which laws of democracy does this conform to? Which just decisions of which just judges? I request from your respected Court, which executes justice in the name of the just Turkish nation and its high Assembly, that these works, the numerous benefits and advantages of which are obvious and undeniable, are left free and that we are acquitted.

Prisoner, Safranbolulu Mustafa Osman,

Afyon Prison

* * *

[Hifzi Bayram’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

I am charged with reading some of the works —which teach the truths of the Qur’an and belief and are of great benefit for the nation and country— of the Islamic scholar Bediuzzaman, who is accused of attempting to breach state security by exploiting religious feelings; and with obtaining and giving —on request— to a number of acquaintances some of his treatises, from which I had greatly benefited in respect of belief and religion and which had led me to acquire Qur’anic manners, in the hope that it would be for their good and they would profit from his teachings about belief, and religious and moral instruction, a national characteristic. In addition, on the pretext of a number of acquaintances sending letters of a friendly or scholarly nature to my address, it is alleged that I am a partner in the crime of the above-mentioned. I object as follows to these matters with which I have been charged:

1. I did not read the Risale-i Nur, which has previously been tried and acquitted and returned to its author, and has been praised and recommended by the country’s religious scholars, with any idea of causing trouble in the way insisted on by the prosecution. I saw every part of it to be nothing but an important Qur’anic commentary which effectively teaches Islam and gives religious instruction, the way to make people virtuous and advance morally, and to save nations from falling into the abyss. Since this is the case, I do not suppose that to read these with the intention of study or maintaining my religion and belief, and to give them to others, and to obtain them for others, constitutes a crime. For nowhere at all has any incident harmful to the country and nation in which Risale-i Nur students have taken part been witnessed or recorded by the police. In addition, it is totally false to say: “they study and read them secretly” and to arouse doubts about a secret society. Because, whether scholarly or political, the Risale-i Nur students have no connection with any society, secret or open. In fact, several years ago the same charges were made against Bediuzzaman and many others, and they were sent for trial in Denizli Criminal Court, and although all the parts of the Risale-i Nur were scrutinized in the closest detail, they were all acquitted. I do not know the extent to which the imperatives of justice demand putting forward as evidence for a serious crime such as breaching state security and betrayal of the regime, reading a work which itself and whose author have been acquitted, and giving it to others to read; so I refer it to your consciences!

2. Among the charges was my being sent, while under arrest, a treatise by someone I do not know from Bayezid. I have not seen this treatise. I am uninformed about what it contains. If it is the Risale-i Nur, I accept it. You ask, and I shall reply. Only, I learnt that the prosecutor mentions the Mahdi in the indictment, and my Master is innocent of all such accusations. Just as I have never heard him mention such a thing, so I have not seen it in any of his works. Moreover, at every opportunity he has forbidden his students to venerate him, exalt him, or accord him any rank, and he has rebuked those who have written him such letters. We have always known him to be an important scholar who seeks no rank or position, and to be a precise and exacting hoja.

Prisoner, Hifzi Bayram

[Emirdagli Mustafa’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

I say briefly in reply to the prosecution’s accusing me of being a partner in my Master Bediuzzaman’s imaginary crime:

The service I have performed for my Master and the Risale-i Nur, without having the very slightest regret, resembles a mere droplet before an ocean of grace and favour. Just as tiny fragments of glass are sacrificed on the way of obtaining a treasury of precious diamonds, so I am every moment ready to sacrifice my life for the Risale-i Nur, which is the means of saving my everlasting life. I consider it would be a terrible betrayal of my blessed Master, the leading scholar of the age, and of his sole aim, belief and the Qur’an, to abandon the Risale-i Nur, the innumerable benefits of which, worldly and for the hereafter, have been established, because of temporary imprisonment and its unimportant hardships and so that no harm should come to our brief, tumultuous lives in this world, or to be indifferent towards the Risale-i Nur and my Master. I do not want to deviate even an iota from what he permits and commands.

Respected Judges of the Court!

Why does it seem excessive that despite my indigence I should be the student of a leading religious scholar who has formed a powerful front against communism, which aims to scatter its poisonous microbes over our beautiful land? This surely proves that the riches of the Risale-i Nur far exceed worldly riches. Leave my Master and the Risale-i Nur free for ever so they may save the belief of the Turkish youth like myself, and the young people may become useful members of the country. The need of us Turkish youth for the Risale-i Nur is thousands of times greater than the need for air of someone held in close confinement, and the need for light of someone in pitch blackness, and the need for food and water of someone parched with thirst and hungry in the desert, and the need for a life-saver of someone drowning in the sea. It is therefore not conformable with the honour of justice, because of the above facts, some of which I have mentioned, to condemn Bediuzzaman, who has won our greatest good opinion and regard, and to whom we are attached with unbreakable bonds, and the many unfortunates who are his good-intentioned students, and leave us to rot in prison.

Prisoner, Emirdagli Mustafa Acet,

Afyon Prison

* * *

[Halil Çaliskan’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

Respected Judges of the Court!

In the indictment read to me by the prosecution my service of my Master is cited as a serious crime. My Master came to our town in 1944 and resided there for four years. For forty years he has given up all the pleasures and comforts of the world and worked only for belief and Islam and to save the eternal happiness of Muslims, particularly in our country, on the way of belief and the hereafter. With the Risale-i Nur’s teachings on belief and morality, he has constructed a barrier against the noxious ideas of communism, which are causing great harm to our religion, and particularly among our nation, which is Muslim and Turkish. The material and spiritual harm it causes is excessive. He prevents too similar things harmful to the nation. Does my proud service on and off for three years of the Risale-i Nur and my Master, who is worthy of being applauded by all the scholars in the world, constitute a crime in the view of justice? It is also shown to be a crime that I left being a tailor to perform that service. But if I was to sacrifice my very life for the Risale-i Nur, which is truth and reality and a true commentary on the Qur’an, and for my Master, should it be deemed a serious offence and myself known as a traitor to my country? I ask you.

Respected Chairman of the Court! I read some parts of the Risale-i Nur and I wrote some out. Endless thanks be to Almighty God that due to the yearning I had long felt for knowledge, I began to profit from these treatises. Although I was closely concerned with them, I saw nothing in them about inciting the people against the Government, or disturbing public order, or founding a secret society. Nor did I hear anything from my Master about being the Mahdi or Regenerator of Religion, or anything about such movements. The sole aim of the Risale-i Nur and our Master and us students is to serve Islam, and particularly the Turkish nation, with respect to belief and morality. Certainly, the Risale-i Nur and its servants should not be harassed because of this service. Our sole aim and purpose was this and nothing else. And we performed this duty for God’s pleasure. In any event we could not exploit such a sacred duty for the world or any worldly benefit, and would not stoop to such a thing. We therefore cannot endure the prosecution’s charges against the sincere Risale-i Nur students, who have belief in their hearts, are preoccupied with the hereafter and have no worldly ambitions whatsoever, of founding a secret political society, which never at any time occurred to us.

Respected Judges of the Court! We believe that you have understood the aims, intentions, and nature of the Risale-i Nur students, and have formed the opinion that we have no connection with the crimes with which we are charged by the prosecution. We therefore request from your high court and your consciences that our books are returned to us, free, and we are acquitted.

Prisoner, Emirdagli Halil Çaliskan,

Afyon Prison

* * *

[Mustafa Gül’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

I am not a member of any secret society. In any event, my Master Bediuzzaman Said Nursi never founded any such society. He always taught us about the truths of the Qur’an and warned us severely against being concerned with politics. I am only the student of the great Master Said Nursi. I am bound to him and to the Risale-i Nur with all my heart and spirit. I would be happy with any punishment inflicted on me for the sake of the Risale-i Nur and my Master. Through his works, my Master saved my belief and life in the hereafter. His aim is to save all Muslims and all our compatriots from unbelief and for them to win eternal happiness. It has become clear in all our trials that we have no connection with any political ambitions. Although the reality is this, we have again unjustly and irrelevantly been dragged to court. We have understood from this that they want to break our solidarity. Our solidarity is not turned to any worldly or political end or matter. We only have the very greatest respect for our Master. Those who read the Risale-i Nur acquire an extraordinary belief, Islam, morality, and perfection.

We are incapable of not having enormous love for our Master. I am attached with all my being to my Master and to the Risale-i Nur students. This attachment could not be severed or broken even if I was executed. I and all my brothers are innocent. We request with all our strength that the Risale-i Nur is left free. I request that my elevated Master and innocent Nurju brothers and myself are acquitted.

Ispartali Mustafa Gül

* * *

[Küçük Ibrahim’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

Respected Judges!

The crime with which we are charged is both irrelevant and pertains to the world, it is political. But you, esteemed judges, understood at first sight whether or not we were people who would be involved in politics. However, even if hundreds of authoritative people were to ensure that this cold and alien charge was a hundred per cent realized, and my intelligence was a hundred times greater than it is, because of the feeling the Risale-i Nur and its esteemed author have given me, I would flee with all my being from that temporary, fleeting political thrill and adventure, and spend it on the way of belief in the hereafter and being saved from Hell. Both our respect for and attachment to the Risale-i Nur’s worthy author, and reading and writing out the Risale-i Nur, and our corresponding with the Risale-i Nur students and our relations with them, all look directly to the hereafter, as was affirmed by Denizli Criminal Court and the Court of Appeal. So much so that because of the ideas we have acquired from the Risale-i Nur, we would not exchange these luminous beings for worldly and material values. We will persist in this belief until we die.

Respected Judges of the Court!

Since we are gathered together here due to this fearsome charge, I am bound by conscience and for the sake of the country to state an important fact: only in my own neighbourhood, due to the reform of people’s characters brought about by the Risale-i Nur, over a period of ten years, in full sight of everyone, foremost myself and many others have learnt the way home. Vice and waywardness have been transformed into happy family lives. Mothers and fathers now pray for those who were the cause of it. You may listen to the stories of many people of this sort, in our province and around it. Particularly in Denizli Prison, when the Risale-i Nur entered there, it had such an overwhelmingly beneficial effect on the prisoners that it is still talked about. It was the same when I arrived here at Afyon Prison; whoever I spoke to, they described their former states and present states, and spoke gratefully of the Risale-i Nur students, praying for them. These facts are well-known. I am astonished that love for the Risale-i Nur, which has reformed me and my fellows to this great extent, both socially, morally, and with regard to the hereafter, and especially is an important Qur’anic commentary, and love for its esteemed author, and to write letters of consolation to my compatriots, could have been something political. Out of this astonishment I say that there cannot be such a crime. At the most I can say that the covert enemies of the Qur’an and thus of the Risale-i Nur have made the judiciary and police suspicious about us for no reason, and have thus been the cause of our packing the prisons. For sure, the elevated judges will understand these facts, and placing their hands on their consciences will give their just decisions, concerning which good tidings are given by God Almighty, and they will make the Muslim Turkish nation, which throughout the country is eagerly awaiting their decision, grateful to them.

Prisoner, Inebolulu Ibrahim Fakazli,

Afyon Prison

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1. Qur’an, 3:173.

2. Qur’an, 9:129.

3. The severe earthquakes which occurred the four times the Risale-i Nur was contested proved that it would be “most regretable for this country.”

4. Qur’an, 6:164, etc.

5. The Darü’l-Hikmeti’l-Islâmiye was a learned body set up in 1918 to find solutions for the problems confronting the Islamic world, and to provide scholarly answers for attacks made on Islam. It was attached to the Shaykh al-Islam’s Office and was composed of nine permanent members and various officers. Bediuzzaman’s appointment was ratified by the Caliph in August 1918.

6. The Proclamation of the (Second) Constitution in July, 1908.

7. Bukhari, Fitan, 26; Muslim, Fitan, 101, 102; Tirmidhi, Fitan, 62; Musnad, iii, 115; 211, 228, 249, 250; v, 38, 404-5; vi, 139-40. For this and the other Hadiths about the signs of the end of time, see, The Fifth Ray in the present work.

8. In 1922, during the Independence Struggle. [Tr.]

9. Sayyid Ahmad Sanusi. He took over the leadership of the Sanusiyya movement in North Africa in the early 1900’s, and fought alongside the Ottomans against Italian aggression in 1911. As a staunch supporter of the Caliphate, he was invited to Istanbul in 1918, and subsequently appointed ‘General Preacher’ in eastern Turkey and greatly assisted the Turks in the War of Independence. [Tr.]

10. The name given the revolt which broke out in the army in Istanbul in 1909 and resulted in the dethronement of Sultan ‘Abdulhamid. Despite playing a pacifying role, Bediuzzaman was arrested following the revolt along with many others and tried, but was acquitted. [Tr.]

11. The famous Shaykh Said Revolt which broke out in February, 1925 in eastern Turkey. Bediuzzaman strongly advised its leaders against undertaking any such action against the Government, as it would “... make Ahmed kill Mehmed, and Hasan kill Husayn.” [Tr.]

12. A minor incident which occurred in the town of Menemen in western Turkey 1930, but was blown up out of all proportion and brutally suppressed. Bediuzzaman was in no way involved in it. [Tr.]

13. It had formerly been a common practice to gather together in a single volume for constant reading Sura al-An‘am and other meritorious suras and verses from the Qur’an. [Tr.]

14. I said that in order to offer supreme thanks for a supreme Divine bounty like the radio, it should “recite the Qur’an so that all the people on the face of the earth could listen to it, and the atmosphere might become a hâfiz of the Qur’an.”

15. Qur’an, 9:129.

16. The basis and aim of the Risale-i Nur is certain belief and the essential reality of the Qur’an. For this reason, three courts of law have acquitted it in regard to being a tarikat. Furthermore, not one person has said during these twenty years: “Said has given me tarikat [instruction].” Also, a way to which for a thousand years most of this nation’s forefathers have been bound may not made something for which [the members of the nation] are answerable. Also, those who combat successfully those covert dissemblers who attach the name of tarikat to the reality of Islam and attack this nation’s religion, may not themselves be accused of being a tarikat. As for a society or community, it is a fraternity which look to the hereafter within Islamic brotherhood. It is not a political society, as three courts have ruled. They have acquitted it in that respect.

17. The fact that there were Christians and Jews in Islamic governments, and Muslims in Christian and Zoroastrian governments shows that opponents who do disturb public order or interfere in government cannot be legally interfered with. Moreover, one is not answerable for possibilities. Otherwise everyone would have to be sent to court and tried because of ‘possibility’, for everyone might kill other people.

18.Qur’an, 49:10.

19. The wrong meaning has been given in the Indictment, for it has deemed an offence some instances of the Risale-i Nur’s ‘wonder-working’ (kerâmet) which took the form of ‘slaps’. As though disasters like the earthquakes that occur when the Risale-i Nur is attacked are blows dealt by the Risale-i Nur. God forbid! We never said such a thing, nor wrote it. What we said in many places supported by proof was that like acceptable almsgiving, the Risale-i Nur is a means of repulsing disasters. Whenever it is attacked, it hides itself; then calamities seize the opportunity and assault us. Yes, confirmed by thousands of Risale-i Nur students and what they have observed, supported by hundreds of incidents and events and their ‘coincidences’,20 which in no way could have been attributed to chance, as well as numerous indications and ‘coincidences’ of the Qur’an, some of which were even pointed out in court, I have formed the certain conviction that those ‘coincidences’ are a Divine bestowal indicating the Risale-i Nur’s acceptability and are a sort of wonder of the Risale-i Nur on account of the Qur’an.

20. ‘Coincidences’ (tevâfukat): the unintentional correspondence of words or letters in lines or patterns on one or several pages, or the ‘coinciding’ of apparently unrelated events. [Tr.]

21. In the eightieth of the hundred errors about these works in the indictment, the prosecution says: “The interpretations in the Fifth Ray are incorrect.”

The Answer: In the Fifth Ray, it is said: “God knows best, one interpretation is this.” What this means is: “It is possible that one meaning of the Hadith is this.” Logically, this cannot be proved wrong. It can be proved wrong only by proving its impossibility.

Secondly: Although for the past twenty years, indeed forty years, those who opposed me, and then those who tried to oppose the Risale-i Nur, have not refuted my interpretations on grounds of either logic or scholarship, and thousands of learned people —the religious scholars who oppose me together with the Risale-i Nur students— have confirmed them, and have not said “he’s been smitten by the evil-eye,” I refer it to your fair-mindedness to judge just how unjust it is for those who do not know how may Suras there are in the Qur’an to meet them incredulously.

In Short: The meaning of interpretation is one probable or possible meaning of a Hadith or Qur’anic verse out of many.

22. Qur’an, 2:156.

23. Qur’an, 4:11.

24. Qur’an, 4:176.

25. The same situation has now continued for seventeen months.

26 Qur’an, 3:173.

27 Qur’an, 8:40.

28. Qur’an, 9:129.

29. Qur’an, 2:275.

30. See, al-Hindi, Kanz al-‘Ummal, xiv, 271, No: 33,436; Musnad al-Firdaws, iii, 447; Majma’u’l-Zawa’id, v, 186; Jam’u’l-Fawa’id, i, 849.

31. ‘Tevâfuk’: See page 407, fn. 20 above.

32. These two earthquakes coincided with Friday, 18.9.1948, in the morning. Signed in the name of the Risale-i Nur students being held in Afyon Prison, Halil Mustafa Mehmed Feyzi Husrev

33. Musnad, iv, 273; v, 220, 221; Qadi Iyad, al-Shifa, i, 340.

34. At that time it was thus; now twenty years have passed.

35. Qur’an, 48:1, 3.

36. Inequitable Court! Could there be any reply more decisive than this? Signed, Husrev, in the name of the Risale-i Nur students.

37. Zübeyir Gündüzalp (1920-1971) was born in Konya Province, and became a student of Bediuzzaman while working as a telegraphist for the Post Office. He later became one of his closest students, displaying complete devotion to Bediuzzaman and sincerity in his service of the Risale-i Nur. He became one of the leading figures of the movement after Bediuzzaman’s death. [Tr.]

38. In his writings, Bediuzzaman mentions ‘has’ (special) by which he probably meant those that loyally and devotedly served the Risale-i Nur, and ‘erkan’ (leading; lit. ‘pillars’), those who in addition to their devoted service played a more organizing role. [Tr.]

39. See page 384, fn. 10.

40. Before finally going there sometime in the final months of 1922, Bediuzzaman was on several occasions secretly summoned to Ankara by Mustafa Kemal during the Independence Struggle, in recognition of his effective struggle against the occupying forces. [Tr.]

41. These events occurred in early 1909. [Tr.]

42. According to the famous Hat Act passed 25 November 1925, the wearing of European headgear became compulsory, and all other headgear was banned. [Tr.]

43. Qur’an, 2:156.

44. Qur’an, 3:137.

45. A petition was sent to the Cabinet fifteen years ago concerning this same matter. Now, since it has again arisen, I am obliged to send it again to the departments of government concerned.

46. See page 385, fns. 11, 12.

47. The Sixteenth Letter was written several years previously to Eskishehir and Denizli Courts, yet its rebuffing all the points of objection as though it had seen the three courts demonstrates clearly that it was the object of Divine bestowal and grace.

48. Tevafuk: See page 407, fn. 20.

49. Qur’an, 3:173.

50. Qur’an, 20:44.

51. Qur’an, 40:44.

52. Qur’an, 93:11.

53. 36.5 lbs. [Tr.]

54. It lasted a year.

55. About 2.8 lbs. or 1,300 grammes. [Tr.]

56. About 2.8 lbs. [Tr.]

57. Qur’an, 12:53.

58. Qur’an, 2:286.

59. The reason for these ‘sinces’ is this: I take no notice of the wrongs and tyranny perpetrated against my person and give them no importance. I say, “They are not worth worrying about,” and I do not interfere in the world.

60. Qur’an, 3:173.

61. Qur’an, 8:40.

62. This refers to Russia. [Tr.]

63. Recalling the imprisonment of Yusuf, related in the Qur’an, Bediuzzaman called prison ‘Medrese-i Yusufiye’, the School of Joseph, impressing on his students that prison was essentially a place of study and training. [Tr.]

64. Qur’an, 2:21:6.

65. ‘Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa’, i, 55; Muhammad al-Shaybani, Sharh al-Sirat al-Kabir, i, 11.

66. See, page 445, footnote 38.

67. Sirran tanawwarat: a phrase taken from the qasidat al-Jaljalutiyya, attributed to Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib.

68. Qur’an, 94:6.

69. Medresetü’z-Zehrâ: the Islamic university Bediuzzaman had since his early youth endeavoured to found in eastern Anatolia, in which the modern and religious sciences would be taught side by side, and which he intended would play the central and unifying role in Asia that al-Azhar plays in Africa. Despite twice receiving funds for it and actually laying the foundations, it was never completed due to the vicissitudes of the times. Although it was not realized in the form he had originally foreseen, while in Kastamonu (1936-’43), he wrote: “Endless thanks be to Almighty God for He has made the province of Isparta into a Medresetü’z-Zehrâ, which has long been the goal of my dreams, —into an al-Azhar University.” See, Kastamonu Lahikase (1960), 172. [Tr.]

70. Husrev Altinbasak (1899-1977) was from Isparta and became one of Bediuzzaman’s leading students. With his fine handwriting he wrote out hundreds of copies of the treatises of the Risale-i Nur. He is reputed to written nine copies of the Qur’an showing the ‘coincidences’ of the name of ‘Allah’. He was together with Bediuzzaman in the prisons of Eskishehir, Denizli, and Afyon. [Tr.]

71. ‘Certain, verified belief’: an approximate translation of tahkikî (Arabic: tahqiqi) iman. It also has the meaning of ‘ascertained through enquiry,’ ‘resulting from investigation,’ and ‘confirmatory.’ See also, page 569, footnote 1. [Tr.]

72. Alif: the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, the numerical value of which is one, and which is written as a vertical dash. [Tr.]

73. Husrev, Re’fet, Tahiri, Feyzi, and Sabri.

74. Bayram: Arabic, ‘Id, the two big festivals in the Muslim calendar. Here, the festival marking the end of Ramadan. [Tr.]

75. This piece was written by Ustad Bediuzzaman’s lawyers, with his permission while he was being held in Afyon Prison, and was sent to the government ministries mentioned. Signed, Sungur

76. The squall was a revolt that broke out in the prison, but none of the Risale-i Nur students was involved.

77. A juz’ is a thirtieth part of the Qur’an. [Tr.]

78. Hizb al-Nuri: A forty-five-page Arabic piece which Bediuzzaman described as “manifesting the meaning of the Hadith ‘An hour’s reflective thought may be better than a year’s [supererogatory] worship,’ a luminous proof of the Risale-i Nur, a supreme invocation springing from it, and a small sample of it.” [Tr.]

79. Musnad al-Firdaws, iii, 447; al-Hindi, Kanz al-‘Ummal, xiv, 271, No: 33436; Suyuti, Ta’rikh al-Hulafa’, 6, 16; Majma’u’l-Zawa’id, v, 187; Cam’u’l-Fawa’id, i, 849.

80. Qur’an, 2:61.

81. See, Qur’an, 88:20.

82. Qur’an, 17:44.

83. It is certainly bad that some of our brothers are unnecessarily denying that they are students of the Risale-i Nur, especially .... , and that they are concealing their considerable past services. But because of that service we should forgive them and not feel angry at them.

84. Bukhari, Fadl Laylat al-Qadr, 2, 3; Tahajjud, 21; Muslim, Siyam, 207-19.

85. Qur’an, 39:18.

86. Yesterday I felt happy and joyful. Then I realized that my brother in Nurs had eight months previously sent some Nurs honey in a flask to me in Emirdag. Yesterday it arrived here from Emirdag. I told them to quickly bring it to me. I waited, but it was not brought. My happiness suddenly turned into anger. It was the cause of that flask with the honey, which in my eyes was a hundred times more precious than the flask, being given to a stranger and sent to the market, and then the flask suddenly broke. I have sent an amount of that sweet honey, a gift from the village of Nurs, my birthplace, so that all my brothers may have a taste of it as a ‘Festival sweet.’

87. Qur’an, 68:1.

88. Qur’an, 51:1.

89. Impotently, I say in the name of my brothers: if necessary, we shall overtake them and advance far beyond them, God willing. We shall show that we are the heirs of our forefathers both in religion, and in heroism.

90. Ustad did not ask for this article to be published in the newspaper, but being both of great interest, and an instructive example, and very exciting, it has been included here. Husrev

91. Qur’an, 108:1.

92. After this defence and its addendum were sent to the Court of Appeal, the Court authorities sent a telegraph ordering that Zübeyir should be released from prison.