To Explain the Truth of the Matter as a Slight Objection to the Report of the Experts' Committee
I say the following in reply to the accusation that I exploit religious emotions for politics:
I cite as witnesses my whole life and those who know me and call on them to testify that even at the time I was political I did not exploit religion for politics, but strove with all my strength to make politics serve religion and follow it. The story of my life and my friends will testify to this. Moreover, at the beginning of the Second Constitutional Period when those who wanted the Shari'a were being hanged, the chairman of the military court and its members declared in the course of the trial of that terrible court set up by the Operation Army, on the day it had condemned fifteen men to the gallows: “You're a reactionary! You clamoured for the Shari'a!” Is it at all possible that the person who replied:
“I am ready to sacrifice my life for a single matter of the Shari'a! If constitutionalism consists of the tyranny of one party and it acts contrary to the Shari'a, let the whole world bear witness that I am a reactionary!” — is it at all possible that such a person, who attaches not the slightest importance to his execution and would sacrifice his whole world and everything he has for the Shari 'a, would exploit religion and the Shari'a for some political ends. Anyone who deems it possible could not be a Sophist even.
Furthermore, it can only be the result of malice and vindictiveness to accuse of exploiting religion for politics, inferring the disturbance of public peace and security, a person who considers it a serious error to violate the rights of a single innocent in this country by serving the interests through politics of ten cruel despots, and has never retaliated towards the ten tyrannous wrongdoers who have tormented him, nor even cursed them, and throughout his life has taken the avoidance of public disturbances as a guiding principle. It is obviously a grievous injustice to say about a person that he causes harm to either public order or the country or politics when despite all their investigations, six provinces and six courts of law have discovered no incident involving his hundreds of thousands of students, although they have suffered unprecedented ill‑treatment, torments, and insults over twenty-eight years.
They should not suppose that in the face of these unjust accusations I am trying to absolve myself of responsibility and save myself from conviction. I can assure you, and my friends who know me well will affirm, that during these twenty‑eight years I have been quite certain that death would be much better for me than life, and the grave much more comfortable for me than prison, and prison would be ten times more advantageous for my ease and comfort than freedom of this sort. If some of my friends had not been saddened at it, I would have remained in prison permanently.
If suicide had been licit, surely a person who did not condescend to bow before the threats of the Russian commander‑in-chief and the commander of the allied forces occupying Istanbul to execute him, or in the face of the fury of the President of the Republic in the president's office in the presence of fifty deputies, would have far preferred death to life on being subjected frequently to the insulting humiliations, slanders, torments, and severe provocations of common gendarmes, paltry officials, and uncouth prison guards. Death would have been sweet for him.
Since they are making a pretext of the Guide and I am being accused due to some unimaginable and astonishing delusion, I and my brothers say the following since we have saved our belief and morals from danger thanks to the truths of the Guide:
The Guide was composed fifteen years ago, and having been printed three times, thousands of copies and tens of thousands of handwritten copies have been disseminated everywhere in this country and have been read eagerly. Despite this, not one of its hundred thousand readers, friend or foe, religious or anti‑religious, has said that they have suffered harm from it, nor have we ever heard any of them saying that it is harmful for the country and nation. If that had been the case, such words would have spread everywhere since it is a topical and relevant question. If necessary, we can put forward to testify to this claim of ours close on a hundred thousand witnesses who declare that they have saved their belief through it, rectified their national character, and profited from it.
If some small mistake is disregarded for a person who possesses ten virtues, how can charges be made against a work that has yielded a hundred thousand benefits and useful results due to some baseless, imaginary fault? No law in the world related to the life of society could ascribe guilt in such a situation.
The members of the experts' committee who studied the work had no knowledge of the Islamic and religious sciences; they noted the following as chargeable offences:
The First: They said it is opposed to secularism and exploits religion for politics.
The facts that its author has renounced politics for the past thirty‑five years and has not read the newspapers, and has always told his students not to become involved in politics refute that charge entirely.
The Second: His support of religious education is shown to be an offence.
To this we say that there is no believer in the world who would call this an offence, especially those among them who are the wretched inmates of prison where he gave them instruction to console them. It was then that he said he was in favour of religious instruction, This shows that their accusation is meaningless. In fact, the three hundred prisoners being reformed by the Risale‑i Nur in a short period of time, and their repenting of their crimes and all of them performing the prescribed prayers attracted the attention of the officials in charge. Some of them said that
the Risale‑i Nur yields more benefits in a fortnight than remaining in prison for fifteen years. They said this to the author of the Guide in prison,
and he replied:
A person who reads even a part of the Risale‑i Nur, which consists of one hundred and thirty books, and A Guide for Youth, which is a small part of the Risale-i Nur, will of course profit from it as much as from the punishment of fifteen years' imprisonment and studying in the medrese, and will be reformed and repent of his evil deeds. Could such a wish, such encouragement be deemed a crime, although it has been affirmed by those who sent me to prison?
The Third: Supporting Islamic dress, conduct, and training is shown to be an offence.
As was stated in the courts of Eskişehir, Denizli, and Afyon, and published in the Afyon Court decision, fifteen years ago the court at Eskişehir accused me of being in favour of Islamic dress for women. I replied as follows to both the court there and the Appeal Court:
≈“Anyone who accuses a person of expounding a Qur'anic verse about Islamic dress which has been a sacred principle in the social life of three hundred and fifty million Muslims every century for one thousand three hundred and fifty years, in line with the agreed meaning of three hundred and fifty thousand commentaries and following the beliefs of our forefathers for the past one thousand three hundred and fifty years —anyone would fiercely reject such an accusation if there is any justice on the face of the earth, and if judgement is passed in favour of the accusation, would cancel and countermand it.”
The Risale‑i Nur proves decisively that the command to women in this verse to veil themselves is a significant instance of compassion and saves them from abasement, just as an article of mine published in the one hundred and fifteenth issue of Sebilurreşad, entitled “To My Believing Sisters of the Hereafter,” proves it.
The Fourth: Securing personal influence is shown to be an offence, and the reason for this is the Risale‑i Nur's author using such expressions as: “I am speaking in the name of the Risale-i Nur's collective personality,” “it was imparted to my heart,” “it occurred to my mind,” “it occurred to my heart,” and, “the Risale-i Nur produces the benefits of both the secular schools, and the religious schools (medrese), and the Sufi tekkes.” The experts' committee cited these as offences in their charges.
In reply I say this: A man over eighty years of age is at the door of the grave, and for the past forty years has accustomed himself to seclusion, and having lived for twenty‑eight years in absolute isolation, in prison and exile, is weary with the world. For thirty-five years he has neither read the newspapers nor listened to their being read. Never in his life has he accepted unreciprocated gifts, and has accepted nothing at all from his closest relatives, even his brother, without giving something in return. He has taken not meeting with people as his rule, unless necessary, so as to avoid their high regard and attention. He has never accepted his friends' acclaim for himself, and has referred it either to the Nurjus as a whole, or to the Risale-i Nur's collective personality. He says:
“I am not worthy and I do not have the right. I am a servant. I have rotted and disappeared like a seed. The Risale‑i Nur is a commentary on the All-Wise Qur'an and expounds its meaning.”
Like just about everyone, he says “It occurred to me,” or “The thought came to me,” or, “It was imparted to my mind.” Everyone uses expressions like these. My intention in using them is to say that my writings are not due to my own skills or intelligence, but they come to me and occur to me. And this is something that everyone says too. If what the ill‑informed experts' committee mean is inspiration, scientists and men of learning are agreed that all living creatures from animals to angels and human beings, everyone, receives inspiration of a sort. To call this an offence necessitates denying science and learning.
The Fifth: “The author is of the opinion that he can save with answers to those who seek help from the Risale‑i Nur, a generation which may possibly be captive to an enticing dissension.” The experts deemed this statement an offence. The attentive may understand just how meaningless it is to consider it an offence his saying: “I feel certain about a truth which has been proved by one hundred thousand witnesses and is open and clear.”
The Sixth: They have shown to be an offence his saying: “Let the ears ring of the politicians, sociologists, and moralists!” But he meant that the politicians and moralists should disseminate the short and easy way he had discovered to save the youth from dangers. With regard to humanity, those who say “Let their ears ring!” is an offence are themselves guilty.
The Seventh: “He says that there is a renegade collective personality which incites dissension and teaches it, and its spectre has appeared. But he does not say who it is.” The experts' committee put this forward as a chargeable offence. Do the satans among jinn and men ever cease to pursue their activities in the world? They are perpetually busy doing evil and getting others to do it, so those ill‑informed experts failed to understand that they are attacking us pointlessly. Since by using the word “collective” (mânevî) he meant non-physical, non-material, and he did not state who it was, those who say they will send him to court for insulting a “non-physical” man; that is, insulting a Satan, for which no court in the world could try him, are uttering complete, meaningless nonsense.
The Eighth: They show to be an offence “the author's repeatedly and insistently explaining and claiming that he relies on the bases of the Risale‑i Nur, which proceeds and issues directly from the miraculousness of the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition's meanings (i'caz-ı mânevî) and thus bases his propaganda on religious evidences and persuasion.”
As affirmed by all the readers of the Risale‑i Nur, and particularly by famous scholars in Egypt, Damascus, Pakistan, and the Directorate of Religious Affairs, “The Risale-i Nur is a true commentary on the Qur'an, and belongs to the Qur'an, and consists of flashes from it.” In which case, the reason for this error will be sought at the supreme tribunal at the Last Judgement, from those who show the above to be infringements of the law.
God suffices us, and He is the best Disposer of Affairs
Saîd Nursî,who is ill.