Just as in the prison Bediuzzaman and his students were being abused and ill-treated in ways that were entirely unlawful, so too in the trial, the law was subverted and exploited in the clear purpose of the Court to convict Bediuzzaman whatever the reality of the case. As the tide was turning against them, the trial and imprisonment was a last, futile attempt on the part of ‘the forces of irreligion’ to silence Bediuzzaman and stem the flood turning to the Qur’an and Islam due to the teachings of the Risale-i Nur. Their desperation was demonstrated by the fact that the same charges that had been cleared by previous courts, on which Bediuzzaman and his students had been declared innocent, were again put forward – Bediuzzaman described them as “collecting water from a thousand streams”: “exploiting religious feelings in a way that might disturb public order”, “founding a secret society for political ends”, “forming a new Sufi tarikat ”, “criticizing Mustafa Kemal and his reforms”, “spreading ideas opposed to the regime”, and again Bediuzzaman was accused of being “a Kurdish nationalist”; a charge so far from the truth that more than anything it shows the lengths the authorities were prepared to go to in order to discredit him.
Two points the Prosecution made much of in regard to “inciting the people in ways that might disturb the peace” concerned firstly the Fifth Ray, which explains a number of Hadiths alluding to the Sufyan and Dajjal and events at the end of time, and which the authorities again interpreted as referring to Mustafa Kemal. It unfortunately received support for this from the Experts’ Report. Related to this was the ‘hat’ question. And secondly, the brief passages in the Twenty-Fifth Word explaining Qur’anic verses on Islamic dress and inheritance were considered to be inflammatory, as in Eskishehir Court. But once again the plans of the enemies of religion backfired on them, for rather than arousing hostility towards Bediuzzaman, the Risale-i Nur and religion, the widely publicized trial and imprisonment aroused sympathy. In fact, public indignation was such at the heartless, inhuman, and unlawful treatment suffered by the entirely innocent Bediuzzaman and his students that it has been suggested that it contributed to the defeat of RPP in the 1950 elections.
Since the charges were the same as in Eskishehir and Denizli Courts, Bediuzzaman was able to reuse a part of his former defence merely changing some of the wording. Once again he clearly disproved the charges and demonstrated that neither the Risale-i Nur nor the activities of himself and his students had contravened the law in any way. The following are some extracts from his defence speeches. Firstly from those refuting the political society and public order charges:
“The one hundred and thirty parts of the Risale-i Nur are there for all to see. Understanding that they contained no worldly goal and no aim other than the truths of belief, Eskishehir Court did not object to them with the exception of one or two of the parts, and Denizli Court objected to none at all, and despite being under constant surveillance for eight years the large Kastamonu police force could find no one to accuse apart from my two assistants and three others on pretexts. This is a decisive proof that the Students of the Risale-i Nur are in no way a political society. If what is intended by “society” in the indictment is a community concerned with belief and the hereafter, we say this in reply:
“If the name community is given to university students and tradesmen, it may also be applied to us. But if you call us a community that is going to disturb public order by exploiting religious feelings, in response we say:
“The fact that in no place over a period of twenty years in these stormy times Risale-i Nur Students have infringed or disturbed public order, and the fact that no such incident has been recorded by either the Government or any court, refutes this accusation. If the name community is given meaning it might harm public security in the future through strengthening religious feelings, we say this:
“Firstly, foremost the Directorate of Religious Affairs and all preachers perform the same service.
“Secondly, it is not disturbing peace and security, the Students of the Risale-i Nur protect the nation from anarchy with all their strength and conviction, and secure public order and security…
“Yes, we are a community, and our aim and programme is to save firstly ourselves and then our nation from eternal extinction and everlasting solitary confinement in the intermediate realm, and to protect our compatriots from anarchy and lawlessness, and to protect ourselves with the firm truths of the Risale-i Nur against atheism, which is the means to destroying our lives in this world and in the next.”[27. Sualar, 305.]
Bediuzzaman frequently stressed in his defence speeches that the nature of their service to the Qur’an prohibited them from participating in politics; it was those opposed to the positive and constructive social results of this service who repeatedly accused them of political involvement:
“We Students of the Risale-i Nur do not make the Risale-i Nur a tool for worldly [political] currents, not even for the whole universe. Furthermore, the Qur’an severely prohibits us from politics. Indeed, the Risale-i Nur’s duty is to serve the Qur’an through the truths of belief and through extremely powerful and decisive proofs, which in the face of absolute unbelief which destroys eternal life and also transforms the life of this world into a ghastly poison, bring even the most obdurate atheist philosophers to belief. Therefore we may not make the Risale-i Nur a tool for anything.
“Firstly: It is not to reduce to pieces of glass the diamond-like truths of the Qur’an in the view of the heedless by inducing the false idea of political propaganda.
“Secondly: Compassion, truth and right, and conscience, the fundamental way of the Risale-i Nur, prohibit us severely from politics and interfering with government. For dependent on one or two irreligious people fallen into absolute unbelief and deserving of slaps and calamities are seven or eight innocents – children, the sick and the elderly. If slaps and calamities are visited on the one or two, those unfortunates suffer also. Therefore, since the result is doubtful, we have been severely prohibited from interfering by way of politics in social life to the harm of government and public order.
“Thirdly: Five principles are necessary and essential at this strange time in order to save the social life of this country and nation from anarchy: respect, compassion, refraining from what is prohibited (haram), security, the giving up of lawlessness and being obedient [to authority]. The evidence that when the Risale-i Nur looks to social life it establishes and strengthens these five principles in a powerful and sacred fashion and preserves the foundation-stone of public order, is that over the last twenty years the Risale-i Nur has made one hundred thousand people into harmless, beneficial members of this nation and country. The provinces of Isparta and Kastamonu bear witness to this. This means that knowingly or unknowingly the great majority of those who object to the parts of the Risale-i Nur are betraying the country and nation and dominance of Islam on account of anarchy…”[28. Sualar, 292-3.]
In response to the repeated charge of forming a tarikat, Bediuzzaman said:
“The basis and aim of the Risale-i Nur is certain belief and the essential reality of the Qur’an. For this reason, three courts of law have acquitted it in regard to being a tarikat. Furthermore, not one person has said during these twenty years: ‘Said has given me tarikat [instruction].’ Also, a way to which for a thousand years most of this nation’s forefathers have been bound may not made something for which [the members of the nation] are answerable. Also, those who combat successfully those secret dissemblers who attach the name of tarikat to the reality of Islam and attack this nation’s religion, may not themselves be accused of being a tarikat…[29. Sualar, 313.]
A further matter the Court unjustly found Bediuzzaman guilty of concerned his explanations of certain Islamic laws concerning women. In his defence to the Appeal Court, he wrote defending these:
“One reason they showed for punishing me was my commentary on the Qur’an’s extremely explicit verses about veiling, inheritance, recitation of the Divine Names, and polygamy, written to silence those who object to them [in the name of] civilization.
“….. I say this that if there is any justice on the face of the earth, [the Appeal Court] will quash this decision which convicts someone who expounded [Qur'anic verses] which in each century for one thousand three hundred and fifty years have been sacred and true Divine principles in the social life of three hundred and fifty million Muslims, and expounded them relying on the consensus and affirmation of three hundred and fifty thousand Qur’anic commentaries and following [what have been] the beliefs of our forefathers for one thousand three hundred years. Is it not denial of Islam and betrayal of our millions of religious and heroic forefathers to convict, because he expounded those verses, someone who according to reason and learning does not accept certain European laws applied temporarily due to certain requirements of the times and who has given up politics and withdrawn from social life, and is it not to insult millions of Qur’anic commentaries?[30. Sualar, 378-9.]