dipped it in the soup. They asked me about it and I told them: the ant and bee nations are republicans. I give the breadcrumbs to the ants out of respect for their republicanism.”
Then they said to me: “You are opposing the righteous early generations of Islam.” I told them in reply: “The four Rightly-Guided Caliphs were both Caliphs and Presidents of the Republic. Abu Bakr the Veracious (May God be pleased with him), the Ten Promised Paradise, and the Companions of the Prophet were like presidents of the republic. But not as an empty name and title, they were heads of a religious republic which bore the meaning of true justice and freedom in accordance with the Shari‘a.”
I told them: Mr. Prosecutor and Members of the Court! You are accusing me of holding an idea opposite to that which I have held for fifty years. If you ask me about the secular republic, what I understand by it is that ‘secular’ (laic) means to be impartial; that is, a government which, in accordance with the principle of freedom of conscience, does not interfere with the religiously-minded and pious, the same as it does not interfere with the irreligious and dissipated. I withdrew from political and social life twenty-five years ago, and what form the Government of the Republic has taken, I do not know. If, I seek refuge with God, it has assumed a fearsome form whereby, on account of irreligion, it passes and accepts laws to incriminate those who work for their belief and lives in the hereafter, then I announce to you fearlessly and warn you that if I had a thousand lives, I would be ready to sacrifice all of them for belief and life in the hereafter. Do whatever you will! My last word is For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs! In response to your wrongfully condemning me to capital punishment or hard labour, I say: as the Risale-i Nur has discovered and shown with absolute certainty, I am not being executed; I am being discharged and departing for the world of light and happiness. As for you, our covert enemies, wretches who oppress us on account of misguidance! Since I know you are condemned to eternal extinction and everlasting solitary confinement, and I have seen this, I have taken my revenge on you totally, and am ready to surrender up my spirit with a perfectly easy mind!
Seventh Principle: In consequence of superficial investigations held in other places, Afyon Court looked on us as a political society. My reply is this:
Firstly: As is testified to by all those who have befriended me, I have read no newspaper for nineteen years, nor listened to one, nor asked about one, and for the past ten years five months have received no news except