[Our Master, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, used this defence speech, which was published in Samsun by the newspaper, Büyük Cihad, after having been read in the court there, in the court in Istanbul and the case resulted in an acquittal.]
Our covert enemies again prompted the judiciary to move against us this Ramadan. The matter concerns a secret communist society.
One of them: While taking some air in the countryside and sitting alone on a hillside, three armed gendarmes and a sergeant approached me in a way that was completely outside the law, and accused me of not wearing a peaked cap. They took me by force to the police station. So I say to all the courts of law whose purpose is the administering of justice:
While those who act illegally in five respects and break the laws of Islam in five ways in the name of Islam, should be accused of illegal behaviour, they will surely be punished by the Supreme Tribunal on the Last Day for trampling the law in that way and using it as an excuse, and causing me torments of the conscience for two years.
Which law in the world would permit someone who has been a recluse for thirty‑five years and goes neither to any market or town to be censured for not wearing a European-style hat? These last twenty-eight years, five provinces and their police and five courts of law have not interfered with his headgear, and no police interfered during this last court case in Istanbul, even, under the eyes of more than a hundred police and for two months making trips everywhere there on foot. And since the Court of Appeal ruled against the prohibition of the beret, and also, none of the women, including those of them who do not wear the veil, and none of the private soldiers are obliged to the wear the brimmed hat like some officials, and since there is absolutely no advantage in wearing it, and I have no official post — seeing that it is an item of official dress — and those who wear berets are not prosecuted, to propose that he wears the hat and resembles foreign priests and to threaten him with court proceedings would certainly disgust anyone with a grain of conscience. For he is a recluse and does not mix with people, and so as not to busy his spirit with this ugly, illegal matter during Ramadan, and in order not to preoccupy his heart and spirit with his body, does not take medicines or call the doctor although he is seriously ill.
For example: The person who was proposing this said that he has to obey orders. But how can you have orders with the force of arbitrary laws? Yes, in the Qur'an, there are verses like:
O you who believe, obey God, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you
, which command obedience to leaders so as not to resemble the Jews and Christians. On condition it is not contrary to obedience to God and His Prophet (UWBP), a person may act on the understanding that he is complying with that obedience. Whereas in this case, although the laws of Islamic tradition command compassion to the sick, and to strangers, and not to cause trouble or distress to those who serve the Qur'an and the sciences of belief for Allah's sake, they propose that a hermit who has renounced the world wear a hat like a foreign priest, which is contrary to the law not ten but a hundred times over, and is opposed too to the traditional laws of Islam and tramples those sacred laws on account of some arbitrary orders.
Treatment of this kind of someone like me who is extremely ill, extremely old and at the door of the grave, is alone, a stranger, impecunious, and who for thirty‑five years has abandoned the world so as not to act contrarily to the Prophet's (UWBP) Sunna, is without any doubt one foot of a ghastly conspiracy on account of anarchy and under the veil of communism, to harm this country, nation, Islam, and religion. It is also a conspiracy against the religious deputies and Democrats who intend to serve Islam and this country and have formed a front against the awesome destruction coming from outside. The religious deputies should be beware. They should not leave it to me to defend against this serious conspiracy on my own.
Postscript: For no advantage and illegally, to order a devotee of Islam and self‑sacrificing servant of the Qur'an who did not condescend to rise to his feet before the commander-in-chief of the Russians although the commander deliberately passed in front of him three times, and in order to preserve the dignity of Islam, did not bow before him despite the threat of execution; and in order to defend Islam's honour, attached not the slightest importance to the threats of execution of the commander-in-chief of the British occupying forces Istanbul and those who had issued fatwas, and opposed them in the press saying: “Spit in the shameless faces of those tyrants!”; and who, in the presence of fifty deputies, declared: “Those who do not perform the prayers are traitors!” and disregarded Mustafa Kemal's wrath; and did not toady to the military court and replied to its intimidating questions: “I am ready to sacrifice my life for a single matter of the Shari'a!”; and who has chosen solitude these last twenty-eight years in order not to resemble non-Muslims — if it is said to such a person: “You have to resemble the Jewish or Christian priests! You have to wear a hat like they do! You have to oppose the consensus of all the Islamic ulema, otherwise we are going to punish you!” certainly a person who has sacrificed all he has for the truth of the Qur'an, would sacrifice a hundred lives if he had them, as his biography testifies, even if he were to be decimated with knives and thrown into Hell, let alone worldly prisons, penalties, and torture.
What is the reason for this self‑sacrificing devotee's endurance and his not retaliating negatively and with material force to the tyrannical injustices of the covert enemies of this country and religion, although he has considerable non-material forces?
I proclaim the following to you and to all people of conscience: The All‑Wise Qur'an has taught him the lessons of the Risale-i Nur, which instil a prohibitor in everyone's heart so that with all their strength they preserve internal order and security, lest harm should come to ninety innocents on account of ten irreligious atheists. I could otherwise take my revenge in one day on my cruel enemies of twenty-eight years. Thus, on the way of preserving public order and for the sake of innocent people, he does not defend his honour and dignity against those who insult him, and he says: I shall sacrifice not my worldly life, but if necessary my life in the hereafter for the Islamic nation.
Saîd Nursî