Directorate of Religious Affairs and all the imams and preachers whom they employed, since they encouraged religious feelings in the same way.
A further charge, and one that Bediuzzaman was to be frequently charged with, was with instructing in Sufis, for as was mentioned earlier , Sufism had been prohibited in 1925, and the orders disbanded and their tekkes closed. This was another quite baseless charge; as all the Risale-i Nur showed, Bediuzzaman was concerned with the truths of belief. He told the Court:
"As I have written in numerous treatises, this is not the time of Sufism; it is the time to save belief. There are many who enter Paradise without belonging to a Sufi order, but none who enter it without belief. It is therefore the time to work for belief." There was no one who could come forward and say he had taught them Sufism. What he had taught to a small number of his special students was "not training in Sufism (tarikat), but instruction in the direct way to reality (hakikat)." In connection with this, the Court wanted to know what Bediuzzaman lived on. But his extreme frugality was wellknown and easily established, as well as his life-long habit of not accepting presents or charity in any form.
Another of the main charges, which was also clearly trumped up, was that Bediuzzaman had set up an organization for political purposes. He was persistently questioned by the Court concerning this, and asked where he had secured the funds for it. Bediuzzaman’s reply was in four parts. He began:

"Firstly. And I ask those who ask, What document, what is there to suggest the existence of a political organization such as that? What evidence, what proof have they found that we have set up an organization with money that they ask so persistently? For the last ten years I have been in the province of Isparta under strict surveillance. I used to see only one or two assistants and in ten days one or two travellers. I was alone, a stranger, tired of the world, felt extreme disgust with politics, and had repeatedly witnessed how powerful political movements had been harmful and come to nothing