In His Name, be He glorified!
Sirs!
I have formed the certain opinion as a result of numerous indications that we have been attacked not for “breaching public security by exploiting religious feelings” on behalf of the government, but behind a tissue of lies, on behalf of atheism, because of our belief and our service to belief and public order. One proof of this out of many is that
despite twenty thousand people reading and accepting the twenty thousand copies of the parts of the Risale‑i Nur over twenty years, public security has not been breached by students of the Risale‑i Nur on any occasion whatsover, and no such incident has been recorded by the government, and neither the former nor the present courts have found such a incident. Whereas, had there been any such widespread, powerful propaganda, it would have become apparent within twenty days. That is to say, contrary to the principle of freedom of conscience, Article 163 of this ambiguous law, which embraces all who give religious counsel, is a bogus mask. Atheists deceive certain members of the government, confuse the legal establishment, and want to crush us whatever happens.
Since the reality of the matter is this, we say with all our strength: O wretches who sell religion for the world and have fallen into absolute unbelief! Do whatever you can! Your world will be the end of you! Let our heads be sacrificed for a truth that hundreds of millions of heads have been sacrificed for! We are ready for any penalty and for our execution! In this situation, being outside prison is a hundred times worse than being inside it. Since there is no freedom at all – neither religious freedom, nor freedom of conscience, nor scholarly freedom – under the absolute despotism that confronts us, for those with honour, the people of religion and supporters of freedom, there is no solution apart from death or entering prison. We say, To Allah do we belong, and to Him is our return, and we trust in our Sustainer.
PrisonerSaid Nursi
In His Name, be He glorified!
Chairman of the Court, Ali Rıza Bey!
I have an important request in order to defend my rights: I do not know the new letters, and my handwriting in the old is very inadequate. Also, they do not allow me to meet with anyone; I am kept in what is quite simply solitary confinement. The indictment was even taken off me after fifteen minutes. I also do not have the means to employ a lawyer. I was able to obtain only one copy of part of the defence I have presented to you, in the new letters, secretly. I also had written out one or two copies of The Fruits of Belief, which is a sort of defence of the Risale‑i Nur and a summary of its way, to give to the public prosecutor and to send to the departments of government in Ankara. They suddenly took them off me and have not returned them. Whereas the judicial authorities in Eskişehir sent a typewriter to the prison for us. We wrote out one or two copies of our defences on it in the new letters, and the court wrote them out as well.
My urgent request, therefore, is either you supply us with a typewriter, or allow us to procure one outside so that we can type out in the new letters two or three copies of both our defences, and the treatise which is a sort of defence of the Risale‑i Nur. We shall then send them to both the Ministry of Justice, and the Cabinet, and the National Assembly, and the Council of State. For it is the Risale‑i Nur that is the basis of the indictment, and the charges against the Risale‑i Nur and the objections to it are not some petty, personal matter so that no importance should be attached to them. On the contrary, it is a general matter of serious concern to the nation, country, and government, and will therefore arouse significant attention in the Islamic world.
Yes, those who covertly attack the Risale‑i Nur are those who in order to destroy the regard, love, and brotherhood of the Islamic world, which is the greatest strength of this country’s people, and arouse loathing, are covertly establishing absolute disbelief by making politics the tool of irreligion. They have deceived the government and twice confused the legal establishment, saying: “The Risale‑i Nur and its students exploit religion for politics and there is the possibility of their disturbing public order and security.
You unfortunates! The Risale‑i Nur definitely has no connection with politics, but since it has smashed absolute disbelief, it destroys and repulses anarchy, which underlies absolute disbelief, and absolute despotism, which overlies it. One of the hundreds of proofs that it ensures public order, security, freedom, and justice is The Fruits of Belief (Meyve Risalesi), which is like its defence. It should be scrutinized by a committee of prominent scholars and sociologists; if they do not confirm what I say, I consent to any punishment or tortuous execution!
PrisonerSaid Nursi
In His Name, be He glorified!
Chairman of the Court!
Three matters have been made the basis of the indictment:
The First is a political society. I cite as witnesses all the Risale‑i Nur students here and those who have met with me, and those who read or write out the Risale‑i Nur; you may ask them. I have not said to anyone that we were going to set up a political society or a Naqshbandi association.
I always told them that we were going to work to save belief. No society has been mentioned among us apart from the sacred community of Islam, which includes all believers and has more than three hundred million members. Through the brotherhood of all believers and because of our service of the Qur’an, we found ourselves in the Party of the Qur’an (Hizb al‑Qur’an), which in the Qur’an is called the Hizb Allah. If this is what is meant in the indictment, we admit to it wholeheartedly and with pride. But if something else is meant, we know nothing of it!
The Second Matter: As is stated in the indictment and confirmed by the report of the Kastamonu police, some books like the Treatise on Islamic Dress (Tesettür Risalesi) and The Six Attacks (Hücumat‑ı Sitte) and its addendum, were found in nailed boxes under piles of firewood and coal in a condition that would in no way allow them to be published. They had been scrutinized and criticized by Eskişehir Court, a light sentence had been served for them, and they had most certainly been treated as private. Now, reading false meanings into some of their sentences, it wants to take us back nine years and charge us again with a crime the penalty of which we have already served.
The Third Matter: In several places in the indictment, phrases have been used which express possibility rather than actual occurrences, like “he may breach state security or he may harm it.” It is possible for everyone to commit murder, but are they to be charged with it due to the possibility?
PrisonerSaid Nursi
In His Name, be He glorified!
Chairman of the Court!
I present my defence, which is in the form of a petition I sent to the departments of government in Ankara and to the President, and the reply from the Prime Minister’s Office, which shows that they recognized its importance. Contained in this defence are decisive answers to the unfounded and offensive suspicions that the prosecution have levelled against us. There are numerous untrue and illogical things in the report of the committee of experts from here, which was based on the superficial and malicious reports of other places; my objections to these too have been presented. In Short:
As I stated before, I told Eskişehir Court when they wanted to convict me under Article 163: out of two hundred deputies of the republican government, the same number, 163, agreed to assign one hundred and fifty thousand liras to my medrese in Van. In which case, the government’s regard for me invalidates Article 163 as far as I am concerned. Although I told the court this, the committee of experts falsified what I said and wrote: “163 deputies opened proceedings against Said.”
It is because of this totally baseless accusation of the first experts’ committee that the prosecution is making charges against us. This is in spite of the fact that the Risale‑i Nur had been referred, on your decision, to the highest learned and scientific committee, and having studied and scrutinized all its parts, the committee unanimously made this statement about us: “There is nothing explicit or inferred in the writings of Said and the Risale‑i Nur students which suggests that they harbour any intentions to exploit religion or sacred matters, encourage the breaching of state security, or to found a political society, or to conspire in any way against the government. It is understood that in their correspondences, Said’s students did not nurture any evil intentions against the government, or have the idea of founding a political association, or establishing a Sufi order.”
The second committee of experts also stated unanimously that “ninety‑nine per cent of Said Nursi’s treatises are both sincere, and disinterested, and have in no way departed from the principles of scholarship, reality, and religion. There is clearly nothing in them exploiting religion, or concerning the formation of a political society, or breaching security. The letters and correspondence between the students and between them and Said Nursi are of this sort. Apart from five or ten confidential, complaining, and unscholarly pieces, all the treatises expound Qur’anic verses or the true meanings of Hadiths. Ninety per cent of the available treatises contain comparisons illustrating clearly the tenets of belief in Allah, the Prophet, and the hereafter and their terminology, scholarly views, moral admonitions to the elderly and to youths, and instructive incidents selected from his experiences in life. They contain nothing which could damage the government, administration, or public security.
Thus, the prosecution ignored the report of this eminent committee and made extraordinary charges against us based on the confused, deficient first report, so we are truly extremely upset. We in no way deem it fitting for this just court with its proven fairness.
If there be no mistake in the comparison, it resembles this story: they asked a Bektaşi why he did not perform the obligatory prayers. He told them: “It says in the Qur’an Approach not the prayers. When they reminded him that the verse continued When you are intoxicated, he told them: “I have not memorized the whole Qur’an.” They take a single sentence from the Risale‑i Nur, and disregarding what follows it, which puts it in context and explains it, use it against us. Thirty to forty examples of this are to be seen in the defence I shall present, when comparing it with the indictment. I shall recount a subtle incident which is one of those examples:
The prosecution in Eskişehir Court used a phrase about the Risale‑i Nur’s instruction in belief that was anyway the result of an error, like “it corrupts the people.” Although it later did not use it, one of the Risale‑i Nur students called Abdürrezzaq, said a year after the trial:
“You unfortunate! The Risale‑i Nur has received the indirect praise of thirty‑three Qur’anic verses, its value for religion has been established by three miraculous predictions of Imam ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) and the powerful allusions of Gawth al-A‘zam (May his mystery be sanctified); these twenty years it has caused the government no trouble whatsoever, and besides not harming anyone at all, has illumined and guided thousands of the sons of this land, and strengthened their belief and rectified their conduct, and yet you call that guidance ‘corruption.’ You have no fear of Allah the Most High! May your tongue be cursed!”
Now, the prosecution has seen these words of that student, so I refer to your fairness and conscience the expression: “Said has spread corruption.”
With the idea of interfering in the social teachings of the Risale‑i Nur, the prosecution said: “The place of religion is the conscience; it cannot be tied to laws and regulations. Formerly there was social unrest because it was tied to laws.”
So I say: “Religion does not consist only of belief; its second half is righteous action. Is fear of imprisonment or being seen by a government detective sufficient to deter the perpetrators of numerous grievous sins which poison society, like murder, adultery, theft, gambling, and drinking? If that were so, there would have to be a policeman or detective stationed permanently in every house, or at everyone’s side even, so that obdurate souls would restrain themselves from those filthy acts. Whereas, in respect of good deeds and belief, the Risale‑i Nur places a permanent immaterial prohibitor next to everyone. It easily saves them from bad deeds by recalling the prison of Hell and divine wrath.
Also, due to the signature in one treatise of a wonderful and extra‑ordinary coincidence, the prosecution made a meaningless inference, saying “the members of a political society.” Are the holders of signatures of this sort in the account books of tradesmen and innkeepers called a society. There was a similar baseless accusation in Eskişehir Court. When I replied and told them about the treatise called The Miracles of Muhammad (UWBP), they were astonished. If we had formed a worldly society, the people who had suffered so much harm on my account would certainly have fled in total abhorrence.
This means that just as I and we have a relationship with Imam al‑Ghazali which is not broken off because it pertains to the hereafter not to this world; so these innocent, sincere, pure religious people have displayed a powerful attachment to an unfortunate like myself for the sake of his teachings about belief. This has given rise to unfounded suspicions of an imaginary political society. My last word is: For us Allah suffices and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs.
Prisoner in solitary confinementSaid Nursi