looked: the manacles had opened. When I handed them to the gendarme, he was frightened."

Molla Said was indeed famous, and news of his exploits spread through- out the region, reaching also the village of Nurs. In later years he described his parents' reactions to what they heard:

"In the old days, my father and mother used to be told of my strange doings in that eventful and rough and ready life. When they heard news like, your son is dead, or, he has been wounded, or, he is in prison, my father used to laugh and enjoy it immensely. He would say: "Masallah! My son is doing something of importance again, he is demonstrating his courage and daring; that is why everyone is talking about him.' While my mother would weep unhappily in the face of his pleasure. But then time would very often prove my father to be right."

Molla Said was to stay two years in Bitlis on the insistence of the Governor, Omer Pasa, in whose residence he stayed. It was his characteristic fearless defence of right that earned him the Governor's respect and the invitation to stay there.

For Molla Said had heard one day that the Governor and some officials were having a drinking session. Finding it unacceptable that representatives of the Government should behave in such a way, he went and interrupted, them. And reading out a Hadith about the drinking of alcohol, he rebuked them in strong terms. The Governor evidently suppressed the anger he had felt on being addressed in this way, and did nothing. When leaving, the Governor's aide-de-camp asked Molla Said why had had acted in such a way, which would normally have led to being executed. But Said merely replied:

"Being executed did not occur to me, I was thinking of prison or exile. Anyway, if I die repulsing a denier of God's law, what harm is there in it?"