specified. The appointed hour, which may come at any time to cut off your head, may be either etemal extinction or the despatch papers to go to a better world. The ever-open grave is either the door to a pit of non-being and eternal darkness, or the gate onto a world more permanent and full of light than this world.
"...Thus, Respected Sirs, is it at all fair, is it at all reasonable to consider the Risale-i Nur, which uncovers and explains hundreds of questions of belief like this, to be biased books exploiting political currents like harmful writings? What law requires this?... Also, since the secular Republic remains impartial according to the principle of secularism and does not interfere with those without religion, of course it also should not interfere with religious people on whatever pretext."
Thus, Bediuzzaman established that it was the cause of belief and the Risale-i Nur that he was going to defend, and then went on to rebut the charges concerning his exploiting religion for political ends. The important questions of political reaction and secularism shall be discussed later.
After pointing out that he had refused Mustafa Kemal's offers to work alongside the new regime in 1923 because he had already withdrawn from the world and politics, Bediuzzaman described to the Court five `Pointers' showing that he had not "interfered in the state's business".
Firstly, for thirteen years Bediuzzaman had not so much as opened a newspaper, newspapers being "the tongue of politics", which everyone he knew could testify to. Then, for the ten years he had been in the province of Isparta there was not the slightest hint to suggest he had made any attempt "to be involved in politics", despite the great upheavals that were occurring during that time. His house had been raided and searched thoroughly, and all his private papers and books taken. And though these had been studied by both the police and the Governor’s Office, nothing of any political content had been found. Only, in all the works, they had found a few points they were able to raise objections about. These were mostly scholarly expositions on a number of Qur'anic verses to do with women's dress and inheritance. However, he told the Court, these short pieces had