• The `Fifth Ray'

In regard to the Fifth Ray, since it played a prominent part in the Afyon trials in 1948-9, a more detailed discussion of it will be left to then, and here only one or two points will be mentioned briefly. Firstly, as noted above and Bediuzzaman told the Court, the original of this treatise. in which they alleged Hadiths were used to prove Mustafa Kemal was the Sufyan or Islamic Deccal, that is, the Antichrist who is to appear at the end of time, had been written when Bediuzzaman first came to Istanbul in 1907, long before Mustafa Kemal rose to prominence. And its rough draft had been made some twenty-five years earlier while Bediuzzaman was a member of the Darü’l Hikmeti’l-Islamiye, in order to "save from denial allegorical Hadiths and strengthen the belief of those whose belief was weak." Furthermore, Bediuzzaman had not allowed it to be published, and in the eight years he had been in Kastamonu only two copies had come into his hands, and these he had disposed of. The affair had started when some "rivals", that is, the Mufti and preacher who had informed on Atif Egemen in the province of Denizli in July 1943. had obtained a copy of it. At the same time, without Bediuzzaman's agreement, The Supreme Sign had been printed in Istanbul. The authorities, who had been informed of this, then confused this, the Seventh Ray with the Fifth Ray. The matter was then blown up out of all proportion by their enemies, and it resulted in the mass arrests and Denizli trials. In any event, it was cleared by the Court at Denizli along the rest of the Risale-i Nur if the committee of scholars set up in Ankara raised a number of objections concerning it, Bediuzzaman pointed out these to be in error along other points they raised. In fact, Bediuzzaman had wanted The Key to Belief Collection to be printed rather than The Supreme Sign, but he wrote in a Ietter than he was "profoundly happy" at the student who had had it printed, Tahiri Mutlu's, other great service to the Risale-i Nur, and "expected from Divine Mercy" chat the attention drawn to The Supreme Sign in this way would in the