day. He had conquered it..."
Nevertheless Bediuzzaman himself felt keenly his being parted from his students and brothers. Above all Hafiz Ali's death in prison had caused him great sorrow. The first thing did on being released was to visit his grave. Selahaddin Çelebi was also present and he recalled how after the Qur'an being recited and Bediuzzaman offering a sad prayer, Bediuzzaman raised his hand and said: "This martyr was a star." Involuntarily all those present raised their heads and in the sky a single star was shining.
Bediuzzaman described his state of mind as follows in the Tenth Topic of The Fruits of Belief:
"After our release from Denizli Prison, I was staying on the top floor of the famous Sehir Hotel. The most subtle and graceful dancing of the leaves, branches and trunks of the many poplar trees in the fine gardens opposite me, each with a rapturous and ecstatic motion like a circle of dervishes at the touching of the breeze, pained my heart, sorrowful and melancholy at being parted from my brothers and remaining alone. Suddenly the seasons of autumn and winter came to mind and a heedlessness overcame me. I so pitied those graceful poplars and living creatures swaying with perfect joyousness that my eyes filled with tears. With this reminder of the separations and non-being beneath the ornamented veil of the universe, the grief at a world-full of deaths and separations pressed down on me. Then suddenly, the light the Muhammedan (PBUH) truth had brought came to my assistance and transformed that grief and sorrow into joy... Just when they had turned the world into a sort of hell and the reason into an instrument of torture, the light Muhammed (Peace and blessings be upon him) had brought as a gift for mankind raised the veil; it showed in place of extinction, non-being, nothingness, purposeless, futility, and separations, meanings and instances of wisdom to the number of the leaves of the poplars, and as is proved in the Risale-i Nur, results and duties which may be divided into three sorts..."