Through the certain discoveries of the Risale-i Nur, we know with the unshakeable certainty of twice two equalling four that through the mystery of the Qur’an for us death has been transformed from eternal extinction into a discharge from duties, and that for those who oppose us and follow misguidance certain death is either eternal annihilation (if they do not have certain belief in the hereafter), or everlasting, dark solitary confinement (if they believe in the hereafter and take the way of vice and misguidance). Is there a greater or more important question for man in this world than this that it can be a tool for it? I ask you! Since there is not and cannot be, why do you strive against us? In the face of your greatest penalty, we receive our discharge papers to go to the world of light, so we await it with complete fortitude. But we know as clearly as seeing it, like we see you in this court, that those who reject us and condemn us on behalf of misguidance will in a very short time be condemned to eternal annihilation and solitary confinement and will suffer that awesome punishment, and with our feelings of humanity we earnestly pity them. I am ready to prove this certain and important fact and also to silence the most stubborn of them. If I could not prove it as clearly as daylight, not to that unscholarly, prejuiced committee of scholars who knew nothing of spiritual and moral matters, but to the greatest scholars and philosophers, I should be content with any punishment!
Just as an example, I offer the treatise The Fruits of Belief, which was written for the prisoners on two Fridays, and explaining the principles and bases of the Risale-i Nur, is like a defence of it. We are working secretly under great difficulties to have this written out in the new letters1 so as to give it to the departments of government in Ankara. Read and study it carefully; if your heart (I cannot speak for your soul) does not affirm me, I shall remain silent in the face of whatever insults and torment you inflict on me in the solitary confinement in which I am now held!
In Short: Either leave the Risale-i Nur completely free, or smash this powerful and irrefutable truth if you can! Up to now, I have not thought of you and your world. And I was not going to think of it, but you forced me, and perhaps even Divine Determining sent us on this way in order to warn you. As for us, we resolved to take as our guide the sacred rule, ‘Whoever believes in Divine Determining is saved from grief,’ and to meet all our difficulties with patience.
Prisoner
This refers to the Latin alphabet, which was adopted officially on the passing of a law in December 1928. It replaced the Ottoman (Arabic) script, which was thereafter banned. [Tr.]