To Hilmi Bey, former Interior Minister and now General Secretary of the Republican People's Party
Firstly: The only petition I have written in twenty years was to you when you were Interior Minister. But I did not break my rule of twenty years and did not submit it. If you like, I can read it to you. I shall speak to you as both former Interior Minister, and present General Secretary. To speak for ten hours would be little indeed for someone who has not addressed the government for twenty years and spoken only once with one of its leading members and that on account of the government. So permit me to speak with you for an hour or two.
Secondly: I consider myself obliged to explain a matter to you as present General Secretary of the party. It is this:
O Turkish nation and brothers in religion who have been Turkified and have for a thousand years gratified the Islamic world with their heroism and are renowned for the pre‑eminent role they have played in preserving Islamic unity and saving the world of humanity from absolute disbelief and misguidance!
If, mistakenly and to the detriment of religion, you do not now defend the Qur'an and truths of belief as you did formerly, and if you and the patriots who resemble you do not strive to spread the truths of the Qur'an directly in place of the propaganda of present‑day civilization, I can tell you most certainly and demonstrate to you with decisive proofs, that instead of the Islamic world's love and brotherhood, you shall earn its loathing and disgust, and you shall fall prey to the anarchy underlying absolute disbelief that is now attempting to destroy the Islamic world; you shall be the cause of the Islamic world's citadel and renowned army, the Turkish nation, being torn to pieces and overrun by the fearsome monster that has emerged from the north-east.
Yes, this heroic nation may withstand the two terrible currents pressing down from outside by relying of the strength of the Qur'an. Only this nation can halt absolute disbelief, absolute despotism, and absolute dissipation, and the current that gains an overwhelming force by allowing the rebellious to seize the wealth of the upright; only this nation, which is fused with Islam and united with Islam and in the past has won all its honour through Islam. The zealous patriots of this nation will halt that current, God willing, by taking the truths of the Qur'an as their guiding principles in place of secular education, for they are the life‑blood of this nation, which is thus fused and united.
The Second Current['s Representatives] have followed a strategy of accustoming their colonies in the Islamic world to themselves in order to entirely bind them to this current, to impute irreligion to the powerful Islamic centre of this country and to corrupt it, and in effect to sever the bonds between this country and the Islamic world, and turn the latter's brotherhood into enmity. It has been somewhat successful in this up to the present.
If this current were to come to its senses, it would change this alarming strategy and placate Islam in this centre just as it has placated the Islamic world. It would both profit enormously, and preserve its vast conquests to a degree, and save this country and nation from a ghastly calamity.
If the patriotic, nation‑loving people of whom you are the General Secretary attempt to persist with the principles that have been in force up to now and have trampled our sacred matters on account of modern civiliza- tion, and taking as their guiding principles the policies enacted by three or four people in the name of reform (inkilap), they ascribe the resulting ghastly errors to the nation, then the evils performed by the three or four will become three or four million and will constitute serious oppostion to the innumerable past armies of the Turkish nation with their millions of martyrs. For this nation is a heroic and religious nation and the army of Islam; to persist in the above will be a cause of dishonour and torment to their spirits. Moreover, if the good works which have found existence through the nation's and army's power and zeal and in which those three or four reformist men had a very small part, are ascribed to those three or four men, those three or four million good works will be reduced and restricted to three or four good works, and will in no way atone for those awesome errors.
Thirdly: You surely have numerous and various opponents, both internal and external. I would not know because I have not concerned myself with worldly or political affairs. But because they have harassed me so much this year, I have been compelled to search for the reason and I saw that an opponent of yours had emerged. If that opponent had been a perfect leader and had appeared in the name of the truths of belief, he would have defeated you in one fell swoop. For ninety‑nine per cent of this nation has for a thousand years been bound heart and spirit to the traditions of Islam. Even if it bows obediently to the commands of an opposing nature, it would not be bound to them with the heart.
Furthermore, Muslims do not resemble other nations; if they give up their religion, they become anarchists and cannot be held by any bonds; they can be controlled only by absolute despotism and unqualified bribery and not by any educative or preventative measures. There are numerous examples proving this fact so I am cutting it short and refer it to your intelligence.
Sweden, Norway, and Finland have felt an intense need this century for the Qur'an, it is essential that you do not lag behind them. Your duty is to act as guide to them and to others like them. If you ascribe the errors of the reforms that have occurred up to the present to the three or four men and try to repair the destruction caused under the constraints of the World War and other revolutions — especially the destruction caused to the religious traditions — it will both win you great honour in the future, and be atonement in the hereafter for your serious mistakes, and be a useful service for the country and nation, and make you deserving to be known as patriotic and a lover of the nation.
Fourthly: Since death cannot be killed nor the door of the grave be closed, and since like everyone you are racing towards it, and since for the people of misguidance certain death means being sentenced to eternal nonbeing and no matter how zealous, preoccupation with politics and worldly matters cannot change this; and since you now have in your possession the Risale‑i Nur, which proves as clearly as daylight that for the believers the Qur'an transforms everlasting execution into discharge papers, and in twenty years no scientist or atheist has been able to challenge it — on the contrary, it has brought to belief scientists who have studied it attentively, and in the space of twelve years four of your criminal courts and committees of experts made up of philosophers and religious scholars have applauded, affirmed and appreciated it and have been unable to object to the proofs it contains of the matters of belief; and since I can put forward as witnesses one hundred thousand members of the Turkish nation, especially its youths with a secular education, that together with its being in no way harmful for this nation and country, it is a Qur'anic barrier resembling the barrier of Dhu'l-Qarnayn that withstands the fearsome currents that are assaulting them; most certainly, it is encumbent upon you that you consider fully these ideas of mine that I am presenting to you. At all times you lend an ear to worldly diplomats, so should therefore heed, if only a little, a wretched person like myself who is at the door of the grave and speaks on behalf of the hereafter and weeps at the circumstances of his fellow citizens.
A Brief Postscript
Hilmi Bey! You are fortunate! While in prison and here I considered you to be pitiless towards us. Whenever I became angry, I intended to curse you. But whenever I mentioned in my prayers a select Nur student and brother of mine called Hilmi Bey, the name Hilmi Bey, the recipient of the prayer, virtually became an intercessor and prevented me, although I had intended to curse you. So I revoked that intention and enduring the ill‑ treatment of your officials who tormented me, gave up the idea of cursing you. Often I was astonished at this; I was not angry at you despite your causing all this unjustifiable torment. That is to say, a premonition was inspired in my heart that in the end we would be friends.
Police and authorities of Emirdağ! I wrote the below conversation a year ago, then held it and did not send it. But now they are intervening and preventing my assistant from helping me, which is illegal in five respects, and are constraining and holding me under an absolute despotism in a way unheard of in the world. I am publicizing this in the hope that those who flout the law in the name of the law will act more fairly and justly.