It is not possible through tyranny and injustice to destroy virtue;
Try to annihilate the conscience, if you can, in humankind.
Yes, just as the virtue arising from belief cannot be the cause of oppression, so it cannot be the cause of despotism. Oppression and arbitrary despotism indicate the absence of virtue. The chief way the people of virtue in particular interfere in the life of society is through impotence, poverty, and humility. All praise be to God, my life has passed on this way, and is passing on it. I do not claim this out of pride, saying that I possess some virtue. I say the following as thanks and to make known a divine bounty:
Through His grace and munificence, Almighty God bestowed on me the virtue of working for the sciences of belief and the Qur’an. All praise be to God, throughout my life I have spent this divine bounty for the benefit and happiness of this Muslim nation, and just as at no time have I used it to dominate and oppress people, so for an important reason I detest public attention and being fêted by people, which is sought after by the neglectful; I flee from it. Twenty years of my former life were lost because of it, so I look on it as harmful for me. But since I know that public attention is a sign that the people like the Risale-i Nur, I do not put them off.
O you whose view is restricted to the life of this world! In no way have I meddled in your world, nor have I had anything to do with your principles, nor as is testified to by my life these nine years of captivity, have I had any intention or desire to meddle in the world again. So according to what law have you inflicted all this surveillance and oppression on me as though I were an old oppressor who was ever ready to seize an opportunity and supported the idea of tyranny and despotism? No government in the world permits such treatment over and above the law, nor is it recommended by anyone. It is not only me who is sick of the ill-treatment I have had meted out to me so far, if they knew of it all mankind would be disgusted, and even the universe!
THIRD INDICATION
A fallacious, crazy question.
Some members of the judiciary say: “Since you reside in this country, you should abide by its republican laws. So why do you elude those laws under the cloak of being a recluse? For instance, according to the present laws of the government, it is opposed to one of the principles of the republic, which is based on equality, to assume some virtue, some merit, outside one’s duty, and through it to dominate some of the nation and exercise power and influence. Why do you have your hand kissed, though you hold