[Zübeyir’s Defence]
I am charged with founding a secret society and breaching state security. As I shall set out below, since you will form the certain opinion that I have committed no such crime, I reject the charge here and now. Yes, I can say gratefully and outright that I am a Risale-i Nur student. It would be contrary to the virtue the Risale-i Nur has taught me to deny it, and I cannot commit such a misdemeanour. A person who reads the Risale-i Nur would not conceal it. On the contrary, he would proclaim it proudly and fearlessly. For it contains not a single word or sentence that demands hesitation.
I tried to describe the Risale-i Nur’s value in forty to fifty pages. I cannot say that I praised it. For I do not have the ability to praise any part of the Risale-i Nur, let alone the whole collection. For it is a true commentary on the All-Wise Qur’an, which is the sun of the universe and its intelligence, and has been illuminating and guiding humanity for around one thousand three hundred years. If any matter related to a secret society has been found in the works, as I stated above, I attempted to describe the value of, then punish me for the crime of trying to disseminate harmful works. However, the wonderful way in which the Risale-i Nur is written has been affirmed by learned scholars; it is sufficiently powerful to reform a corrupted society; it is a guide for the people of the twentieth century and saves them from misguidance and the vice they are dragged down to by materialism and Naturalism, and from the dense darkness of their ideas; and through the effulgence of the Qur’an, it has opened up for mankind a way leading to happiness and salvation, pointing it out clearly with its light. So if the Risale-i Nur Collection does not contain any discussions related to the crime of which I am accused, it is my opinion that your court too will agree that to punish me would be contrary to justice.
I was asked by the examining magistrate: “Are you a Risale-i Nur student?”
I do not consider myself worthy to be the student of a genius like Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. But if he accepts me, I proudly confess: “Yes, I am a Risale-i Nur student.”
Having been slandered on numerous occasions by his secret enemies, my Master Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, the peerless author of the Risale-i Nur, has been sent to court, and every time has been acquitted. The Risale-i Nur has been scrutinized line by line by committees of professors and Islamic scholars and they have given reports stating that the work is