Although Bediuzzaman was now theoretically free now to go where he pleased, he was still constantly watched and followed by the police. Mehmet Firinci describes how they were alarmed at losing his traces when he first arrived in Istanbul. After Bediuzzaman moved to the house in Draman. there was a policeman permanently posted in front of the house. They told Mehmet Firinci, who was questioned at length at Bediuzzaman's staying in his house, "We are responsible for him and have to protect him." One of Bediuzzaman's visitors there, the chairman of the local branch of the Millet Party, Hüseyin Cahid Payazaga, relates how a chief inspector had been as signed the job of watching the house and noting down all who visited it. Bediuzzaman was followed by police even when going to the mosque, or when making his excursions. Payazaga also writes that they were frightened of Bediuzzaman's going to Aya Sophia at the time of the Conquest celebrations, for there were rumours that he was going to walk there from Fatih. In fact, as the writer Münir Capanoglu wrote, the reason the authorities perpetually drove Bediuzzaman from exile to exile and prison to prison was that they were frightened of him. "They were frightened of Said Nursi... of his person, of his ideology, of the fact he would raise to life the Islamic cause... from the time of the Constitutional Revolution and ever after..."
Of the many recollections of Bediuzzaman at this time, the following two may also be mentioned. Hüseyin Payazaga recalls how in Draman was a non-Muslim Greek grocer and it was there Bediuzzaman used to do his shopping. Dimitrios as he was called used to show Bediuzzaman great respect. He told Payazaga: "You do not know who this person is. If he was in Greece, they would make him a house out of gold." Muhsin Alev also relates how one day they went to Bakirköy to what was then open countryside to take some air, and there a Christian from Beyrut called Suleyman hurried up to Bediuzzaman. Bediuzzaman did not turn the man away, but talked with him for a while, even accepting the coffee he