Mustafa Agrali described also the hospitality they received from the Kurdish villagers in the places where they stopped for the night. He notes however that in the first place Bediuzzaman refused all offers of food pleading illness. And after spending the night in prayer and performing together with him the morning prayers, he got out a kettle from the small basket which contained his belongings, then proceeded to boil himself an egg on the stove. It was the first food he had eaten since leaving Van.
Of the details given about Bediuzzaman by Münir Bakan when the caravan stayed two or three days in his village of Koruçuk near Erzurum is the fact that there were officers assigned to write down whatever he said. As he told Necmeddin Sahiner, "Of course, they weren't writing down these notes out of `sincerity', but for `capital'." One of the things Bediuzzaman said to Münir Bakan was:
"Don't be afraid, my brother, these disasters that are being visited on us are temporary. Only there is one point you should take careful note of and be afraid of: make your children study, otherwise this religion will be lost to you in no time at all.”
By the time the exiles boarded the ship for Istanbul in Trabzon, it was spring and approaching summer in the warmer western climate. Two independent witnesses have told of how Bediuzzaman insisted on remaining on deck in the ship, defying the captain when he tried to force him to go below to join the other exiles.
In Istanbul, Bediuzzaman stayed in the `Barley Sellers' Mosque in Sirkeci, in the Hidayet Mosque, and with his student Tevfik Demiroglu. His fears about Mustafa Kemal's true intentions had been justified, for the attempts to uproot Islam and expunge Turrkey’s Islamic past and identity had already begun, and he saw here some of the results. He described one of these as follows:
"When I was brought to Istanbul on my way to exile, I asked what had happened to the Seyhü’l-Islam’s Office, for I was connected with it having worked and served the Qur'an in the Darü’l-Hikmeti’I-Islamiye, which was attached to it. Alas! I