Biography of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi | PART TWO ( THE NEW SAID ) | 412
(242-491)

such as Zülfikar, The Staff of Moses, The Illuminating Lamp (Sirac-ün-Nur), and A Guide for Youth, as well as letters and other documents were all sent to the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Ankara to be scrutinized by another `committee of experts'. Although these produced their report in a short time, presenting it to Afyon Court on 16 March , 1948, due to the Prosecutor s interference, it was not for several months that Bediuzzaman was able to obtain a copy of it. This committee bowed to pressure from the Government, and put forward two main points that the Prosecution was able to use against Bediuzzaman , although only three years before the previous `experts' had cleared the Risale-i Nur. Nevertheless, importantly, they rejected the charges of forming a tarikat, organizing a society, and disturbing public security, and concentrated their objections, which Bediuzzaman described as, unfair, incorrect, and unjustifiable", on the Fifth Ray. The second point they raised, also entirely unfair and mistaken but one which, out of fear, Bediuzzaman's enemies frequently levelled at him, was being "conceited and vain-glorious", by which was meant building up by means of his students' good will towards him, a position of personal prestige and power.
Bediuzzaman answered these objections the committee raised in a "Thank-you Letter", in which he firstly expressed his gratitude to them for exonerating him of the main charges. He then pointed out in scholarly and reasoned fashion the errors in their objections to the Hadiths in the Fifth Ray and his interpretation of them. Since together with the few lines on inheritance and Islamic dress this was the one part of the Risale-i Nur that was made the pretext for this court case and numerous subsequent cases - since the authorities interpreted it as attacking Ataturk, it is worth mentioning here the history of this extraordinary treatise ,which illustrates one reason how Bediuzzaman earned his name, `The Wonder of the Age', and also, unfortunately, how this frequently resulted in rivalry and jealousy on the part of other religious scholars.

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