Short indications of some of the errors in the indictment

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They also wrote, "One is guilty of irtijâ’ who says that reforms, such as the closure of the takkas1, zaviyes2 and the madrasas, the acceptance of secularism, the establishment of nationalist principles instead of Islam, the wearing of the hat, the abolishment of tasattur, the enforced use of the Latin alphabet in place of the Qur'anic alphabet, the adhan and iqâmah being recited in Turkish, the abolishment of religious instructions in schools, granting women the same inheritance and rights as men and the abolishment of polygamy are bid’ah, dhalâlah and ilhad.”

O unfair committee! If it is possible to deny numerous explicit âyahs of the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition — the sacred samâwi guide of three hundred and fifty million people in every century, the programme of all their happiness and the sacred treasury of the life of the world and the âkhirah — that do not bear interpretation and are revealed about the tasattur, inheritance, polygamy, dhikr of Allah, instruction and dissemination of ‘ilm about the religion and the preservation of the shaâ’er, and if it is possible to make all mujtahids of Islam and all Shaykhs al-Islam guilty, and if you can abolish and remove the passage of time, the numerous court acquittals, the legal pardons, confidentiality and privacy, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of thought and intellectual and scholarly opposition from this country and governments, you can make me guilty of these things. Otherwise, in the court of haqiqah, haqq and justice, you will be terribly guilty!

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To the Judges of the Court of Appeal

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Thus, I say to the Appeal Court: “I exclaim that if there is any justice on the face of the earth, it will reject and abolish this wrong judgment that convicts a man who made tafsir of a sacred and haqq principle of Allah which in each century for one thousand three hundred and fifty years was applied in the social life of three hundred and fifty million Muslims, by relying on the consensus and affirmation of three hundred and fifty thousand tafsirs and following our ancestors’ beliefs they had for one thousand three hundred and fifty years. The deaf ears of this century, too, should hear!” I wonder, does convicting a man, because of the tafsir of those âyahs, who, both intellectually and scientifically, does not accept certain European laws that are accepted temporarily due to the requirement of certain compulsions of this time and who has abandoned politics and withdrawn from social life, not conclude with the denial of Islam, betraying billions of our religious and heroic forefathers and insulting millions of tafsirs?

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بِاسْمِهِ سُبْحَانَهُ

My ‘Azîz, Siddîq Brothers!

Today, due to a ma’nawî warning, I felt anxiety and grief for you. Just at the moment when I was deeply grieving and suffering the pain of our brothers, who are anxious about their livelihoods and want to be released quickly, a blessed memory, a haqiqah and some good tidings came to my heart: after five days, the truly blessed three months, which are the months of ‘ibâdah that contain great sawâb, will begin. As for the sawâb of each good deed, it is tenfold at other times; in the month of the noble Rajab, it is more than a hundredfold; in the mighty Sha'ban, it exceeds three hundredfold; and in the blessed Ramadhan, it reaches a thousandfold; while on Juma nights in Ramadhan, it reaches thousands, and on the Night of Qadr, it reaches thirty thousand. It is certainly very profitable to spend those three months, which are thus a sacred market for the trade of the âkhirah that causes one to earn plentiful benefits and an exceptional exhibition for the people of haqiqah and the people of ‘ibâdah, and which secure a life of eighty years for the people of îmân in three months, in this Madrasa of Yûsuf (as), where the profits multiply tenfold. All the hardships suffered are pure rahmah. Just as regarding ‘ibâdah, it is thus, so regarding the service of the Nur — with respect not to quantity but quality — it is fivefold because people who continuously enter and are released from this guest house are the means of the Nur’s lessons being disseminated. Sometimes one man's ikhlas gives the benefits of twenty men. Furthermore, according to the Nur's mystery of ikhlas, it is of no importance if there is a little hardship and trouble within the dissemination of the Nur's solace among the helpless prisoners, who are much in need of those solaces and possess the vein of political heroism. Regarding the trouble of livelihood: since these three months are a market for the âkhirah, each of you entered this place in place of numerous others and some of you entered this place in place of a thousand men, they will help in your works outside; I felt perfectly at ease and understood that being here until 'Eid is a great ni’mah.

              Said Nursî

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بِاسْمِهِ سُبْحَانَهُ وَاِنْ مِنْ شَيْءٍ اِلاَّ يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ

اَلسَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَ رَحْمَةُ اللّٰهِ وَ بَرَكَاتُهُ اَبَدًا دَائِمًا

My ‘Azîz, Siddîq Brothers!

We congratulate your blessed, noble Ramadhan with all our hearts and souls. In this noble Ramadhan’s Night of Qadr, may Janâb-i Haqq give the khayr of more than a thousand months’ khayr to all of you and accept it as an eighty-year accepted lifetime. Amîn.

Secondly: I believe that our being here until ‘Eid has numerous benefits and khayr for us. If we were to be released now, we would be deprived of all the khayr of this Madrasa of Yûsuf; due to worldly occupations, our being released would also harm our ma’nawî hudhur and harm the noble Ramadhan, which looks purely to the âkhirah. According to the mystery of   اَلْخَيْرُ فِى مَا اخْتَارَهُ اللّٰهُ3, InshâAllah, there will be great joy full of khayr in this.

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Since the haqiqah is this, it is a great happiness to try not to give importance to these minor temporary hardships with our lessons of ‘ilm and to busy ourselves with our awrâd, the khayr of which increases from one to a thousand in the noble Ramadhan, without anxiety and with caution, through perfect patience and shukr, with submission and tawakkul to Ilahî qadar and qadhâ4 that have been decreed for us and to the ‘inâyah of Allah that protects us, with consoling, sincere, mutually supporting and genuine friendship, love and conversation with our brothers here. The Nur's effective lessons in its most important examination and trial and making the enemies read them are a significant victory for Nur.

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It was decreed in sahîh riwâyât, "Seek the Night of Qadr in the second half of Ramadhan, especially in the last ten days." Since it is probably in the coming nights, in places full of sawâb like these, it is a great happiness to work to profit from it, which causes a person to gain a lifetime of more than eighty years of ‘ibâdah.

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Since there is a strong possibility that tomorrow night5 is the Night of Qadr, some of the mujtahids have assigned the Night of Qadr to tomorrow. Even if it is not in fact, since the ummah considers that night to be so, InshâAllah, it will be accepted as such.

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