judges? I request from your respected Court, which executes justice in the name of the just Turkish nation and its high Assembly, that these works, the numerous benefits and advantages of which are obvious and undeniable, are left free and that we are acquitted.

Prisoner, Safranbolulu Mustafa Osman,

Afyon Prison

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[Hifzi Bayram’s Defence]

To Afyon Criminal Court

I am charged with reading some of the works —which teach the truths of the Qur’an and belief and are of great benefit for the nation and country— of the Islamic scholar Bediuzzaman, who is accused of attempting to breach state security by exploiting religious feelings; and with obtaining and giving —on request— to a number of acquaintances some of his treatises, from which I had greatly benefited in respect of belief and religion and which had led me to acquire Qur’anic manners, in the hope that it would be for their good and they would profit from his teachings about belief, and religious and moral instruction, a national characteristic. In addition, on the pretext of a number of acquaintances sending letters of a friendly or scholarly nature to my address, it is alleged that I am a partner in the crime of the above-mentioned. I object as follows to these matters with which I have been charged:

1. I did not read the Risale-i Nur, which has previously been tried and acquitted and returned to its author, and has been praised and recommended by the country’s religious scholars, with any idea of causing trouble in the way insisted on by the prosecution. I saw every part of it to be nothing but an important Qur’anic commentary which effectively teaches Islam and gives religious instruction, the way to make people virtuous and advance morally, and to save nations from falling into the abyss. Since this is the case, I do not suppose that to read these with the intention of study or maintaining my religion and belief, and to give them to others, and to obtain them for others, constitutes a crime. For nowhere at all has