• Increased Harassment and Arrest

Both Bediuzzaman and his students in Kastamonu, and the Risale-i Nur Students in the region of Isparta and other places were under constant pressure from the authorities. This increased as time passed, culminating in widespread arrests and the Denizli trials and imprisonment in 1943-4. On several occasions previous to this copies of the Risale-i Nur were seized after searches, students arrested and then subsequently acquitted and the copies of the Risale-i Nur returned. It was the Fifth Ray in particular that was being searched for. In 1940, thirty to forty were arrested then released. Towards the end of 1941, there was another incident in Isparta involving a Risale-i Nur student called Mehmet Zühtü Efendi, and this was followed by a third incident. The closeness of the surveillance under which Bediuzzaman was held, and the pressure on him, also increased. These incidents are reflected in Bediuzzaman's letters together with repeated warning to his students to observe the utmost caution and discretion and to guard against the plans and plots that were being hatched against them. These have been mentioned in part above; their principle aim was to break the solidarity of the Risale-i Nur Students by sowing conflict among them, and to distract, tempt, or scare them away from their service to the Risale-i Nur. It was a serious and planned attempt to stop the spread of the Risale-i Nur on the part of the forces within the Government working for the cause of irreligion.
These series of arrests occurred in Isparta and Bediuzzaman was not himself actually taken into custody as well. However, the authorities attempted to solve their problem by more dastardly means: they had him poisoned on several occasions. Çayci Emin stated that from time to time Bediuzzaman suffered severe bouts of illness as a result of being poisoned . He also described an occasion when Bediuzzaman was poisoned when alone in the mountains having bought some fruit on the way. Mehmed Feyzi also describes it, as it was he who received word from some unknown source and went up into the mountains and found Bediuzzaman in a semi-conscious state. Bediuzzaman had known the grocer he had bought