number of Hadiths, God’s Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) said that the life of his community would not exceed one thousand five hundred years. The major historical events up to that time, which would have the greatest significance for the life of his community and for the life of the world, he gave news of, calling them “the signs of the end of the world.” He drew the attention of the Muslim Umma to their evil. He said that those who were heedless and ignorant of these evils would meet with everlasting misery and loss. There are innumerable religious proofs of these. We believe in God, His Messenger, and the Qur’an. So as the result of this belief and belief in the Messenger’s veracity, should we not strive to save ourselves from everlasting perdition? Should we not see what is happening around us? Wondering, “Have those perilous times come? Don’t let it be us who are the generation that falls prey to those dangers,” should we not point out how they may be applied to existent religious truths? If we disregard the positive evidences before us and the proven scholarly truths which take us to the Divine existence, and supposing the irreligion of Europe to be the greatest means of civilization and sole mark of knowledge, we abandon our religion, who will save us from eternal perdition? Should we not think of this? Would a person of this mind who recognizes nothing superior to the Qur’an and its truths, throw himself into everlasting perdition out of fear of temporary punishments? Or would he attach any worth to transient values? Would he give up his duty of serving God, and His Messenger, and His religion? These then are the true factors tying us to Bediuzzaman. Is there any other source of religion that can silence the pre-eternal needs of our spirits?
The prosecutor recommends to us the thousands of Arabic books which fill the libraries but do not interpret the spirit of today. He himself and those who think like him may not like the compendium of knowledge, treasury of freedom, and elevated reality called the Risale-i Nur, and they may criticize it. That is a matter for themselves. But they may not interfere in our preferring this or that work, or our attaching value to them. We like the Risale-i Nur. And we know it to be a true, unhypocritical book on religion and a Qur’anic commentary. Values and value judgements are questions of conscience. No one can interfere in them. Yes, we agree that the Risale-i Nur’s author always teaches pure truth. The fact that he does not accept this does not shake our opinion. Moreover, our opinion is based not on his wonder-working in the physical realm, but on the wonders of his knowledge, the extraordinary manifestations of which we have observed in his teachings with the Risale-i Nur, which challenge all the world of knowledge. Can you show us a second Bediuzzaman who although his [official] period of study was no more than three months,