grave error in trying to replace Islam by "civilization", that is, uprooting religion and imposing philosophy and irreligion. One of these currents was composed of the forces seeking to split up and divide the Islamic world. Through what Bediuzzaman described as "atheistic committees", (zindika komitesi), "secret organizations", and "the forces of corruption", it was seeking to establish "absolute unbelief' in order to create enmity towards the 'Iirkish nation, "the heroic brother and commander of the Islamic world", and for relations to be cut between them. Bediuzzaman

told Hilmi Uran that "if in place of the propaganda of civilization to the detriment of religion, you do not work to spread directly the truths of belief and the Qur'an", the 'Iyirkish nation would fall prey to the anarchy underlying that absolute unbelief; it would fall apart and disintegrate, and would be
"overwhelmed by the fearsome monster that has emerged in the North." Communism, the other current, formed a real threat at that time. Having ovemin all eastem Europe, its overwhelming presence to the North and aggressive stance towards 'Iirkey pushed 'Ibrkey to join the West. So too within Turkey, since the establishment of the Republic, Moscow and its agents and sympathizers had been working for its spread. This other "destructive" current of unbelief was also trying to create anarchy. Bediuzzaman pointed out in the above letter that it would only be halted by the Qur'an and the 'Iirkish nation which was "fused with Islam and was one with it."2
It was with these covert forces working on behalf of the first cuirent above, "the secret committees" and "atheistic organization whose roots are abroad", that Bediuzzaman had been struggling with since before the setting up of the Republic, even since the days of the Constitutional Revolution. Seeing Bediuzzaman as their greatest obstacle to spreading irreligion in Turkey and degenerating its people, they had employed every device and stratagem to have him silenced. Some of these had resulted in the trials and imprisonment. Others were the attempts to poison him. Now in Emirdag, their plans lricluded mobilizing govemment intluence against Bediuzzaman by means of certain officials.23