Letters ( revised ) | THE TWENTY-EIGHTH LETTER | 418
(399-446)
“Don’t be angry, it was my duty.” Then he gave them permission and told them to go. Comparing other things and treatment with that incident, it is understood that the treatment accorded to me is purely arbitrary, and that they inflict vipers and curs on me. But I don’t condescend to bother with them. I refer it to Almighty God to ward off their evil. In fact, those who instigated the event that was the cause of the exile are now back in their own lands, and  powerful  chiefs  are  back  at  the  heads  of  their  tribes.  Everyone  has  been discharged. They made me and two other people exceptions, although I have no connection with their world; may it be the end of them! But one of those two was appointed  Mufti  somewhere  and  can  travel  everywhere  outside  his  own  region, including to Ankara. And the other was left in Istanbul in the midst of forty thousand people from his native region, and he can meet with everyone. Moreover, those two persons are not alone and with no one, like me; they are ver y influential, with God’s permission. And so on and so forth. But they put me in a village and set those with the least conscience on me. I have only been able to go to another village twenty minutes away twice in six years, and they did not give me permission to go there for a few days’ change of air, crushing me even more under their tyranny. Whereas whatever form a government takes the law is the same for all. There cannot be different laws for  villages  and  for  different  individuals.  That  is  to  say,  the  law  as  far  as  I am concerned is unlawfulness.  The officials here utilize government influence for their own personal grudges. But I offer a hundred thousand thanks to Almight y God, and by way of making known His bounties, I say this:

All this oppression and tyranny of theirs is like pieces of wood for the fire of ardour and endeavour which illuminates the lights of the Qur’an; it makes them flare up and shine. And those lights of the Qur’an, which have suffered this persecution of theirs and have spread with the heat of endeavour, have made this province, indeed, most of the country, into a medrese in place of Barla. They supposed me to a prisoner in a village. On the contrary, in spite of the atheists, Barla has become the teaching desk, and many places, like Isparta, have become the medrese.

 

All praise be to God, this is a bounty from my Lord and Sustainer.


 

No Voice

Letters ( revised )