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 the 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 Eskişehir 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 three 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.
Said Nursi,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 were 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 Nur 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 Eskişehir, 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 that 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 Şeyhülislam’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 Şeyhülislam 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 Şeyhülislams and all the Islamic ulema 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, Allah 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 Emirdağ. 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 Emirdağ 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 actualities.
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. 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:
Allah forbid! Again, Allah 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 he deserves; 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: For every calamity: we belong to Allah, and to Him is our return.
Said Nursi