[Küçük Ibrahim’s Defence]
Respected Judges!
The crime with which we are charged is both irrelevant and pertains to the world, it is political. But you, esteemed judges, understood at first sight whether or not we were people who would be involved in politics. However, even if hundreds of authoritative people were to ensure that this cold and alien charge was a hundred per cent realized, and my intelligence was a hundred times greater than it is, because of the feeling the Risale-i Nur and its esteemed author have given me, I would flee with all my being from that temporary, fleeting political thrill and adventure, and spend it on the way of belief in the hereafter and being saved from Hell. Both our respect for and attachment to the Risale-i Nur’s worthy author, and reading and writing out the Risale-i Nur, and our corresponding with the Risale-i Nur students and our relations with them, all look directly to the hereafter, as was affirmed by Denizli Criminal Court and the Court of Appeal. So much so that because of the ideas we have acquired from the Risale-i Nur, we would not exchange these luminous beings for worldly and material values. We will persist in this belief until we die.
Respected Judges of the Court!
Since we are gathered together here due to this fearsome charge, I am bound by conscience and for the sake of the country to state an important fact: only in my own neighbourhood, due to the reform of people’s characters brought about by the Risale-i Nur, over a period of ten years, in full sight of everyone, foremost myself and many others have learnt the way home. Vice and waywardness have been transformed into happy family lives. Mothers and fathers now pray for those who were the cause of it. You may listen to the stories of many people of this sort, in our province and around it. Particularly in Denizli Prison, when the Risale-i Nur entered there, it had such an overwhelmingly beneficial effect on the prisoners that it is still talked about. It was the same when I arrived here at Afyon Prison; whoever I spoke to, they described their former states and present states, and spoke gratefully of the Risale-i Nur students, praying for them. These facts are well-known. I am astonished that love for the Risale-i Nur, which has reformed me and my fellows to this great extent, both socially, morally, and with regard to the hereafter, and especially is an important Qur’anic commentary, and love for its esteemed author, and to write letters of consolation to my compatriots, could have been something political. Out of this astonishment I say that there cannot