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 Eskişehir 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 (UWBP): After me the caliphate will last thirty years, then it will be rapacious monarchy, then corruption and tyranny.
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 humankind 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 the reforms innovation, misguidance, and atheism, such things 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 kâmet 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 Allah the Most High, 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 Şeyhülislams, 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!
Said Nursi
[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 in its decision with astonishment and appreciation, as though it were 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.
The First: 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.
The Second Personality: Through Allah the Most High’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. With 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.
The Third: 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. Allah the Most High 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 Allah a hundred thousand times!
The soul is baser than everything,
and the duty higher.
All praise be to Allah, 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 so that you might explain your important ideas to us. But you came and wrote things about the five daily prayers, and sowed discord amongst us.” Said told him: “Those who do not perform the prayers are traitors, and the pronouncements of traitors are to be rejected,” but 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 Şeyhülislam’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 services to the Qur’an and jihad, and a vast and precious souvenir of their swords, and has also turned the Şeyhülislam’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, Allah’s servant, spiritual son of Imam ‘Ali (May Allah 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.) 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 Allah be pleased with him).
The Six Attacks (Hücumat‑ı Sitte) 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 the 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 kâmet was interrupted during the private worship of myself and one or two brothers in the mosque I myself had repaired. ‘Why are you reciting the kâmet 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 The Seven Signs (İşârât‑ı Seb‘a), 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 guesthouse. 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. They should not be shown them until they come to their senses lest they interfere. 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 marketplace 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-İslamiye, and had put aside a small amount to go on the Hajj. The plenty resulting from frugality and contentment rendered that scanty money 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 Allah may help you with powerful help in Qur’anic script over the gate of the War Ministry, which was made into the University, were covered over by marble slabs and have now been brought to light, is a sign that the Qur’anic script will again be permitted, and the aim followed by the Risale‑i Nur will be 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 Prophet’s Family who is to come at the end of time; they suppose him to be you. 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 Allah the Most High’s Messenger (UWBP) will represent, will have three functions: to save belief, to revive the marks of Islam under the title of the caliphate of Muhammad (UWBP), and to modify to some extent the laws of the Shari‘a of Muhammad (UWBP). He will attempt to carry out this vast duty. Since the Risale‑i Nur students see the first duty being fulfilled 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 it is understood from interpretation and study of 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 (UWBP) and Islamic Unity to be immeasurably more extensive than the first duty. Every century a sort of Mahdi and Regenerator has appeared who gave guidance, but they have performed only one of the three functions and so have not been awarded the title of the Great Mahdi.
The Second: That supreme person of the Last Days will be a descendant of the Prophet (UWBP). For sure I am like a spiritual son of Imam ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with him), and I have received instruction from him in the realities; and since in one sense the Family of Muhammad (UWBP) 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 were 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, 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 Zübeyir read in court, his brilliant eulogy drove them to appreciate it, Allah 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 twentieth century and all humanity from the dark, oppressive ideas.”
On Page Twelve: “If it is 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 Saraçoğlu, who calls religion and the training of Muhammad (UWBP) “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 humanity’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 inocuous; that just as there had previously been convictions for them in Eskişehir 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.
Said Nursi