expressions which may act against me, and sentences opposed to the new laws, which I do not know. But since it proceeds on the truth, for the sake of the truth the faults should be disregarded. This petition and defence speech is based on nine ‘Principles’.

The First: Since in accordance with the Republic’s principle of freedom of conscience, the Government of the Republic does not interfere with the irreligious and dissipated, it certainly should not interfere with the religious and righteous; and since no irreligious nation can continue in existence, and with regard to religion Asia does not conform to Europe, and an irreligious Muslim does not resemble any other person without religion; and since no sort of progress or civilization can take the place of religion, or righteousness, or the learning of the truths of belief in particular, which are the innate need of the people of this country, who for a thousand years have illumined the world with their religion and heroically preserved their firmness of faith in the face of the assaults of the whole world, and cannot be made to forget that need; surely no government of this nation in this country can intervene in the Risale-i Nur in respect of justice and the law and public order.

Second Principle: Since it is one thing to reject something and something quite different not to act in accordance with it; and all governments have fierce opponents; and there were Muslims under Zoroastrian rule and Jews and Christians under the Islamic government of the Caliph ‘Umar; and all those who do not cause trouble to the government or disturb public order have personal freedom, and this may not be curtailed, and governments look to the hand and not to the heart; and since those who want to upset public order and the administration and interfere in politics will doubtless concern themselves with the newspapers and current affairs in order to learn about the movements, situations, and events that will assist them so they make no false moves; and since the Risale-i Nur so restrains its students that as my close friends know, for twenty-five years it has made me give up reading the newspapers and even asking about them or being curious and thinking about them; and since for ten years now I have withdrawn from social life to such an extent that apart from the German defeat and the spread of communism I have heard no news about what is happening in the world and the current situation; certainly and without doubt no one