The chief reason those malicious people attack and oppress me is their friendship and partiality for Mustafa Kemal. So I say to them, thirty years ago I said about a man who is now dead and gone and whose connections with the government are severed, that according to a Hadith, someone would emerge who would cause harm to the Qur'an, and subsequently time showed that man to be Mustafa Kemal.

Also, because I did not wrongfully ascribe to M. Kemal the honour and victory of a valiant army which with its heroism and love of truth had for five hundred years challenged the world, his malicious friends have been tormenting me for the last twenty years on false pretexts.

Yes, as I proved in court, in accordance with a veracious rule, honour, glory, distinction, and material and moral booty are given to the army and community, and distributed; errors and faulty strategies are ascribed to the commander and chiefs, hence the victories and glory of a heroic army and its soldiers and the valiant officers at their head should not be ascribed to Mustafa Kemal, rather, the errors and faults should be ascribed to him. So I consider those who accuse me of not loving him, and of not loving the heroic army and of slighting their honour, to be traitors to this nation. I have proved this in court and I am ready to prove it to his obdurate friends. I love the millions of members of this blessed nation's courageous army and its officers, and I do whatever I can to protect their reputation and honour. My malicious enemies who oppose me in effect betray those millions of soldiers out of their love for that one man, and are hostile to them, even.

Yes, numerous signs led me to understand that what incites those who attack me are my objections to Mustafa Kemal and my not being friendly towards him. The other reasons are mere pretexts. I have therefore been obliged to say to those enemies of mine: he summoned me to Ankara to act

graciously towards me and appoint me as general preacher to all the eastern provinces. So I went there, and the following three matters made me turn down his friendship. But for twenty years I have suffered torments in isolation, and have not interefered in their world.

The First Matter was his showing through his actions that he was the man that a Hadith had predicted would try to harm Islamic traditions at the end of time. I had expounded the Hadith thirty-six years previously and the man turned out to be the person it was referring it. There is an explanation of this in the third part of my court defences.

Second Matter: It is a correct rule that the existence, construction, and life of something is possible through the existence of all the conditions and elements that pertain to it, but its non-existence, destruction, and death occur on the spoiling of a single condition. That destruction is far easier than construction is a proverb on everyone's lips. In consequence of this certain rule, since the serious mistakes and destruction that are there for all to see resulted from that commander's errors, and the great honours and victories resulted from the army's heroism, it is an awesome injustice to ascribe the good of the community to the man at the top and his evil to the community, when it should have been exactly the reverse.

Third Matter: To ascribe the community's good acts and army's victory to the man at the top and his error to the community, means reducing thousands of instances of good to a single good and increasing a single error to thousands. For if a regiment kills a terrible enemy, each of its soldiers receives the rank of ghazi, a champion war veteran, but if it is ascribed only to the colonel, the honour is reduced a thousandfold to there being a single ghazi. And if due to his own error the colonel becomes a bloody murderer but the murder is ascribed not to him but to the regiment, a single crime multiplies a thousand times and a thousand soldiers become answerable and subject to punishment.

Similarly, if the open, serious errors are not ascribed to the deceased man who committed them, by attributing them to an army which for five hundred, indeed a thousand, years has demonstrated its fighting spirit and love of truth to the world and put its signature with its swords and blood to its being the standard-bearer of the noble Qur'an, those errors increase thousands of times over, to the number of its officers; it tarnishes terribly the army's shining past and shames this century's army before those armies of the past, and makes it culpable. And if the present glories and victories are given to a single man, they diminish thousands of times over, and the fighting spirit and virtues to the number of officers and men are reduced to one and are extinguished. Such faults could never be atoned for.

It is for these reasons that I forwent his friendship, and in his place, I received the friendship of the army of which, at a crucial time, I was a member and had effectively served, and I strove with the Risale-i Nur to preserve its honour and glory, which was thousands of times more important.

For twenty years, no police in any province have bothered with my dress. Only, twenty-five years ago, Nevzad Bey, the governor of Ankara, attempted to intervene forcibly, but he was unsuccessful and he also received a blow by committing suicide.

Also, in reply to the orders given by a high-ranking official under the Afyon governor to forcibly intervene in my dress, a low-ranking official in Emirdağ said that they could do nothing contrary to the law and demonstrated his love of legality.

Also, because the district official (kaymakam) here was not prone to suspicions and did not mistreat me, they tried to have him moved elsewhere.

Also, due to my indisposition which makes me unsociable and some other physical illnesses, which were preventing me from going to the mosque and the Friday prayers, I acted in accordance with the doctors' law and obtained a weekly report, so as not to be sent to give a statement. But in spite of this, I was subject to some arbitrary laws whereby they sent two doctors from Afyon to nullify the previous report, and even sent the previous doctor to court.

The Addendum to the Statement Made While Being Interrogated in Emirdağ and Presented for Its Information to the Judiciary's Collective Personality and to the Interior Minister

I had not read any newspaper for twenty years, nor listened to one, then the day before yesterday a person who assists me read me part of a paper. When I heard that both the Ministry of Education in Ankara (with two million liras worth of damage), and a garage again in Ankara, and at the same time a large factory in İzmir, and a large building in Ada had all been completely burnt down, I was extremely sorry and pitied this penurious nation. At that very same time, feeling a distress I had never felt before in my life, though elderly and ill and unlike in any court, I was interrogated continuously for four and a half hours. If the judiciary here had not been humane and kind to a degree, I would never have been able to endure it, and I decided to say something harsh in this cold and being sick so as to be sent to prison. In fact, we decided that one of my helpers should put someone to bed in my room and beat someone up so as to join me in prison to assist me. But the humanity shown by the judiciary here and divine providence gave me patience, and I endured it.

I was curious about this extraordinary situation and true reason for their suspicions. A Guide for Youth being printed and published officially had illuminated many secular schools; valuable youths in Ankara University and Istanbul University had learnt the Risale-i Nur's principles and understood that they were a means of securing the happiness of this country and nation; and many teachers were enthusiastically showing interest in the Risale-i Nur out of national and patriotic zeal and for scholarly concerns, and all this had attracted the attention of the Ministry of Education and they wanted to inhibit the Risale-i Nur somehow since they dislike it,

Even, here, informers said: "The young people are being lost to us; school children are being turned towards religion through the printed Guide for Youth." Whereupon, both myself and most of the Risale-i Nur students in a number of provinces were subject to harassment, Although I ought to have expected the assistance of the hojas (teachers of religion) since I was educated in the medrese, I wanted to rely with all my strength on the Ministry of Education and the secular school teachers, and to depend on them. For it is mostly people from the secular schools who enter the Risale-i Nur's fold and there are only a few hojas. The latter mostly hold back, while since the secular school pupils and teachers appreciate the Risale-i Nur and take it up, I used to hope fervently that the Ministry of

Education would protect the Nur students. But while awaiting their help, the passage at the end of the printed Guide for Youth which says: "Now there is government permission, Nur students should open Nur study centres as far as they can," led to this new assault, and with it our covert enemies tried to turn the Education Ministry against us.

Uptil the present those enemies of ours have many times wanted to wreck us with their strategems and the judiciary, but they have been unsuccessful and their plans have misfired. Then they tried to incite the bigoted, egotistical hojas in high positions against us, and again they failed, Now, by using the Education Ministry against us, on whose assistance I had most relied, they are trying to get certain officials in this government to accuse the unfortunate, innocent Nur students of belonging to Sufi orders and political societies, concerning which we have been acquitted by three courts, and to deprive them and myself of studying the Risale-i Nur. The Education Ministry's catching fire at exactly the same time as my pitiful interrogation for four and a half hours, and there being no means of extinguishing the fire and its being completely burnt down does not resemble a coincidence; it seems to be more a mark of anger.

At the end of my statement and at the same time, I said: "Don't prevent me in my loneliness and exile from studying my books; it'll be a shame both for me, and for this country. {(*):} Perhaps the earth will again shake with an earthquake and anger." Three minutes later an earthquake occurred that lasted three seconds. Then at the same time I repeated that passage in court, the earth attacked the Education Ministry with fire, and as has been proved four times in court, numerous times, whether night or day, earthquakes have happened simultaneously with assaults on the Risale-i Nur and its students, which surely could be no coincidence. This means that since the Risale-i Nur is a weighty foundation stone of this country and nation's order and security, with such occurrences and blows, its truths turn the nation's attention to itself, which is a true, veracious, and powerful commentary on the Qur'an, and urging the nation towards itself, it deals compassionate slaps at its opponents.

It is now established that just as almsgiving repulses calamities, so the Risale-i Nur is a means of repulsing disasters. The calamity of the fire occurring just when the Risale-i Nur was being attacked proves that the Risale-i Nur is a means of repulsing disasters.

My Dear, Loyal Brothers!

In Eğirdir, the man who seized The Staff of Moses and gave it to the court, himself received a prison sentence of two years, and the judge who angrily gave Husrev a two-month sentence was himself compelled to resign and his wife left him, receiving a sort of slap. And the slaps here described in the note sent attached to the letter to you show with certainty that we are under protection and providence, and that those who harm us will receive severe blows in the hereafter, just as some of them are swiftly smitten here.

Also, at exactly the same time as their assaults on us, the winter became very angry; the severe cold and storms showed that the atmosphere had unleashed its fury. Then, when their assaults ceased and the Nurjus became easy, the icy cold days began to smile like the days of springtime. We are of the opinion that their continuing smiles give good news and consolation.

As was written in that note, the fact that the official police who were trying to destroy public regard for us with ridiculous slanders that no devil even could deceive anyone with, received blows at the same time, shows that our attackers are helpless to find anything but lies and calumnies and that nothing else is left to them. So we must be extremely careful and cautious, and not attach any importance to such rumours.