Then our hidden enemies aroused the  suspicions of some officials and some egotistical hojas and shaykhs concerning us. They caused us and Risale-i Nur students from five or six provinces to be gathered together in the School of Joseph of Denizli Prison. The details of this Sixteenth Hope are described clearly in the brief letters I sent secretly to my brothers while in Denizli Prison, in those sent from Kastamonu, and in the collection containing the court  defence speeches. So referring the details to those letters and to my defence speech, I shall allude to it only very briefly here:

I hid the confidential and important collections, and particularly those about the Sufyan and the Risale-i Nur’s wonder-working, under the coal and fire-wood so that they might be  published  after my death or after the authorities had come to their senses and listened to the truth. Then, when feeling easy at this, some detectives and the assistant public prosecutor suddenly raided my house. They pulled out those secret and important treatises from under the wood then arrested me and sent me to Isparta Prison, although I was in bad health. While greatly upset and sad at the harm that had come to the Risale-i Nur, divine grace came to our aid. The authorities carefully and curiously began to read those important treatises which had  been hidden, of which they were in much need, and the government offices became like Risale-i Nur study centres. Although they began to read with the idea of criticizing, they  appreciated them. In Denizli even, although we were unaware of it, numerous people read  the printed edition of Ayetü’l-Kübra (The Supreme Sign), officially and unofficially, and strengthened their belief. This reduced to nothing the calamity of prison we were suffering.

Later they took us to Denizli Prison and put me into solitary confinement in a stinking,  cold, damp ward. I was most unhappy at my old age and illness and the difficulties visited on my friends because of me. I was feeling most distressed at the confiscations of the Risale-i Nur and the cessation in its activities when divine grace suddenly came to my aid. It transformed that huge prison into a Risale-i Nur medrese, proving it was a School of Joseph.  The Risale-i Nur started to spread through the diamond pens of the heroes of the Medresetü’z-Zehra.24 The great hero of the Risale-I Nur even, in those severe conditions, wrote out more than twenty copies of The Fruits of Belief and the Defence Speeches Collection in the space of three or four months. The conquests began both within the prison and outside. It transformed our losses in that calamity into significant gains and our distress into joy. It once again showed the meaning of the verse,

But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you.(2:216)

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24 See note 21, page 325.