Supplement
I saw that it was written on the back of the last report concerning the investigations of the examining magistrate: “Four months ago the decision was taken by the Cabinet to officially prohibit the distribution of The Miraculousness of the Qur’an, that is, the Twenty‑Fifth Word, on the pretext that its explanations of three verses against civilization were not in conformity with the present Civil Code.”
My reply to this: The Miraculousness of the Qur’an is now part of Zülfikâr, and on only two pages of the four hundred pages of Zülfikâr are explanations of the three verses, which reply in a way that cannot be objected to, to some of civilization’s criticisms of the Qur’an, and were included in three of my old treatises. One of the verses is about the veiling of women; the second, And to the mother, a sixth, is about inheritance; as is the third, And for the man a portion equal to that of two women. I expounded the wisdom of these verses’ meanings in a way that would silence the philosophers, in two pages twenty years ago, and in my other treatises thirty years ago. It is therefore our legal right, instead of banning the four‑hundred-page Zülfikâr on the suspicion that it was written now, to excise those two pages from it and return the book to us – just as if a letter contains one or two harmful words, those words are cut out and the publication of the rest is permitted. We seek our rights from your just court in this matter.
Since nobody could find the opportunity to come to read me the forty‑page indictment, which was given me a month ago, they read it to me today, 11th June, for the first time. I listened to it, and I saw that the list of my objections which I wrote for you two months ago, and the Appendix and Addendum to my objections of nearly a month ago, had been given to both six departments of government in Ankara, and to your office. Those objections refute and demolish that indictment. I see absolutely no necessity to rewrite the objections to it. I only say now, in order to recall to the prosecution, the following two or three points:
The reason I did not take the indictment into consideration and reply to it was to avoid insulting the honour of the three just courts that had acquitted us and being in contempt of them. For those courts acquitted us after studying in the minutest detail all the points in the present indictment. To completely disregard their acquittals is to insult the honour of the judiciary.
Second Point: Due to its gross misrepresentations, attaching unimaginable meanings to one or two matters out of thousands, the prosecution accuses us of certain offences. However, those matters are in the large collections of the Risale‑i Nur. The ulema of al‑Azhar University in Cairo, the leading scholars of Damascus, the exacting scholars of Mecca and Medina, and of Aleppo and so on, and especially the investigative scholars of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, have all seen them and have praised them appreciatively and put their signatures to them. So it was with astonishment and bewilderment that I saw the pseudo-scholarly objections in the indictment. Even if I had made some errors and the indictment was correct in what it imputed, although thousands of scholars had not spotted them or objected to them, they still would not constitute a crime; they would only be scholarly errors.
Moreover, three courts have acquitted the entire Risale‑i Nur and ourselves. Only Eskişehir Court gave light sentences to myself and fifteen out of a hundred of my companions because of fifteen words in the Twenty‑Fourth Flash, which is about the veiling of women. I wrote in the addendum to my objections that if there is justice on the face of the earth, it would not accept my being convicted for expounding that verse and complying with what was laid down in three hundred and fifty thousand Qur’anic commentaries. As though collecting water from a thousand streams and in its cleverness, the prosecution tried to use against us a number of points in books and letters written over twenty years. That makes the, not three, but five or six courts which acquitted us on this point our accomplices in this imaginary crime. I am reminding the prosecution not to insult the honour of those just courts.
The Third: Even if explicitly, to criticize and object to a leader who is dead and gone, whose relations with the government have ceased, and who was the cause of certain faults in the reforms, cannot be a legal offence. But there was not anything explicit; the prosecution applied my general statements to him through its misrepresentations. It publicized those confidential meanings, which we do not tell to everyone, and drew everyone’s attention to them. If there is any crime involved, the prosecution is guilty. Because it is inciting the people, and attracting their attention to those meanings.
The Fourth: Due to baseless suspicions, repeating the same old story, collecting water from a thousand streams, the prosecution investigated hints of a secret society, despite our unequivocal acquittal on this point by three courts. However, while there are numerous political societies which are harmful for this nation and country, which they permit and look on tolerantly, to call a secret society the solidarity of the Risale‑i Nur students with their fellow‑students, which as established by the testimony of thousands of witnesses and signs and the fact that six provinces did not interfere with us, is solely for the good of the country, nation, and religion, on account of happiness in this world and the next, and to strive against the currents from inside and outside the country which are bent on corruption, and like the prosecution to accuse them of “exploiting religion and inciting the people to disturb public order and breach security,” although in twenty years not one single such incident has been recorded in connection with the Risale‑i Nur students, will bring not humankind, but the earth to anger, thus rejecting such an accusation. However, there is no need to say anything further. My written objections and its addendum, which were written long before the indictment, are my reply to it.
Prisoner Said Nursi,Afyon Prison
In His Name, be He glorified!
I Say This to Afyon Court and the Chief Criminal Judge:
Because since my early youth I could not endure to be dominated, I severed my relations with the world. Now life has become a great burden for me with this meaningless, unnecessary oppression. I do not have the power to endure the persecution of thousands of officials outside. I am fed up with this sort of life. With all my strength I am requesting you to sentence me. To enter the grave is not within my power, and I have to remain in prison. You too know that the unsubstantiated crimes the prosecution accuses me of are non‑existent. I cannot be convicted because of them. However, I have serious faults before my true duties, for which I can in effect be convicted. If it is appropriate to ask, I shall reply to your question.
Yes, my only crime out of my serious faults is this: it occurred to me here in Afyon Prison that in the view of reality it was an unforgiveable fault that, because I had not looked to the world, I had not performed the weighty duty with which I had been charged in the name of the country, nation, and religion, and my not knowing this did not excuse me.
The fact that three courts have acquitted us in this respect shows just how far from truth and justice those have fallen who give the name of a worldly, political society to the Risale‑i Nur students’ disinterested attachment to the Risale‑i Nur and its interpreter, which looks purely to the hereafter, and try to show that they are guilty of a criminal offence. We too say:
The basis and foundation of human society and particularly the Islamic nation are the sincere bonds between relatives, and the concerned attachment between tribes and groups, and due to Islamic nationhood the spiritual brotherhood and mutual assistance between believers, and the devotion to one’s nation, and unshakeable attachment to and partiality for the truths of the Qur’an and those who propagate them. It is only by denying these bonds, which ensure the life of society, and by accepting “the red peril” – which scatters the terrible seed of anarchy from the North, which ruins the younger generation and nationhood, and drawing to itself everyone’s children, destroys kinship and nationhood, and opens up the way to the complete corruption of human civilization and the life of society – that the Risale‑i Nur students can be called a political society, which is an indictable offence.
For this reason, true students of the Risale‑i Nur proclaim openly their sacred attachment to the truths of the Qur’an and their unshakeable bonds of brotherhood which look to the hereafter. Because they are happy to accept any penalty they may receive because of that brotherhood, they admit in your just court the truth as it is. They do not stoop to defend themselves with lies, sycophancy, and cunning.
PrisonerSaid Nursi