[Emirdağlı Mustafa’s Defence]
I say briefly in reply to the prosecution’s accusing me of being a partner in my Master Bediuzzaman’s imaginary crime:
The service I have performed for my Master and the Risale-i Nur, without having the very slightest regret, resembles a mere droplet before an ocean of grace and favour. Just as tiny fragments of glass are sacrificed on the way of obtaining a treasury of precious diamonds, so I am every moment ready to sacrifice my life for the Risale-i Nur, which is the means of saving my everlasting life. I consider it would be a terrible betrayal of my blessed Master, the leading scholar of the age, and of his sole aim, belief and the Qur’an, to abandon the Risale-i Nur, the innumerable benefits of which, worldly and for the hereafter, have been established, because of temporary imprisonment and its unimportant hardships and so that no harm should come to our brief, tumultuous lives in this world, or to be indifferent towards the Risale-i Nur and my Master. I do not want to deviate even an iota from what he permits and commands.
Respected Judges of the Court!
Why does it seem excessive that despite my indigence I should be the student of a leading religious scholar who has formed a powerful front against communism, which aims to scatter its poisonous microbes over our beautiful land? This surely proves that the riches of the Risale-i Nur far exceed worldly riches. Leave my Master and the Risale-i Nur free for ever so they may save the belief of the Turkish youth like myself, and the young people may become useful members of the country. The need of us Turkish youth for the Risale-i Nur is thousands of times greater than the need for air of someone held in close confinement, and the need for light of someone in pitch blackness, and the need for food and water of someone parched with thirst and hungry in the desert, and the need for a life-saver of someone drowning in the sea. It is therefore not conformable with the honour of justice, because of the above facts, some of which I have mentioned, to condemn Bediuzzaman, who has won our greatest good opinion and regard, and to whom we are attached with unbreakable bonds, and the many unfortunates who are his good-intentioned students, and leave us to rot in prison.
Prisoner, Emirdağlı Mustafa Acet,
Afyon Prison