• Afyon Court

Just as in the prison Bediuzzaman and his students were being abused and ill-treated in ways that were entirely unlawful, so too in the trial, the law was subverted and exploited in the clear purpose of the Court to convict Bediuzzaman whatever the reality of the case. As the tide was turning against them, the trial and imprisonment was a last, futile attempt on the part of `the forces of irreligion' to silence Bediuzzaman and stem the flood turning to the Qur'an and Islam due to the teachings of the Risale-i Nur. Their desperation was demonstrated by the fact that the same charges that had been cleared by previous courts, on which Bediuzzaman and his students had been declared innocent, were again put forward - Bediuzzaman described them as "collecting water from a thousand streams": "exploiting religious feelings in a way that might disturb public order", "founding a secret society for political ends", "forming a new Sufi tarikat ", "criticizing Mustafa Kemal and his reforms", "spreading ideas opposed to the regime", and again Bediuzzaman was accused of being "a Kurdish nationalist"; a charge so far from the truth that more than anything it shows the lengths the authorities were prepared to go to in order to discredit him.
Two points the Prosecution made much of in regard to "inciting the people in ways that might disturb the peace" concerned firstly the Fifth Ray , which explains a number of Hadiths alluding to the Sufyan and Deccal and events at the end of time, and which the authorities again interpreted as referring to Mustafa Kemal. It unfortunately received support for this from the Experts' Report. Related to this was the `hat' question. And secondly, the brief passages in the twenty-fifth Word explaining Qur'anic verses on Islamic dress and inheritance were considered to be inflammatory, as in Eskisehir Court. But once again the plans of the enemies of religion backfired on them, for rather than arousing hostility towards Bediuzzaman, the Risale-i Nur and religion, the widely publicized trial and imprisonment aroused sympathy. In fact, public indignation was such at the heartless, inhuman, and unlawful treatment suffered by the entirely innocent Bediuzzaman and his students that it has been suggested that it contributed to the defeat of RAP in the 1950 elections.
Since the charges were the same as in Eskisehir and Denizli