Flashes, and the First and Second Rays. He wrote them very much with his students in mind, suffering so unjustly this first imprisonment. He named prison the School of Joseph (Medrese-i Yusufiye), after the Prophet Joseph, the patron of prisoners.
Among those arrested were some that had only the very slightest connection with Bediuzzaman. It was another example of how the Government had blown up the case out of all proportion. These were members of the "network of reactionaries" which was threatening the state! A businessman from Bolvadin called Sükrü Sahinler related his own case and two others:
"I had become acquainted with Halil Ibrahim Çöllüoglu in connection with some business. He then wrote me a letter and requested a reply. The reply I sent was enough to send me to Eskisehir Prison and include me among the students of the Risale-i Nur. Also in that way I was able to see Bediuzzaman in Eskisehir and visit him.
"There was an optician in Aydin called Sevket Gözaçan. Because he had treated the eyes of one of Bediuzzaman's students, Bediuzzaman wrote him a short note to thank him three or four lines long. They sent Sevket Bey to Eskisehir Prison because of this.
"And again, one of Bediuzzaman students called Ahmed Feyzi Kul had written Bediuzzaman a letter in Barla and signed it `The Müftü of Aydin' [by way of a joke, aydin means `enlightened', as well as being a placename]. When the affair erupted, they sent the real Müftü of Aydin to Eskisehir although he was not connected in any way at all. Müftü Mustafa Efendi stayed in prison for months together with me. Eskisehir was somewhere where crazy mix-ups like this all came together."
Perhaps the most crazy was the case of Bediuzzaman's treatise on the wisdom of fasting in the month of Ramazan. When searching the houses of Bediuzzaman and his students for copies of the Risale-i Nur, the police had come across this treatise, called in Turkish, Ramazan'a Ait, which can mean either Belonging to Ramazan, or Concerning Ramazan. Besides the holy month of fasting, in Turkey it is also a man's name. Thus, the police started searching the villages