Molla Said was completely fearless. Night and day he strove for Islam. He always used to say: "It is belief in God that is necessary," and, "Belief in God is worth everything. [^272]

[^272]:Mustafa Yalçın, in Son Şahitler, ii, 23-4.

Another fellow prisoner, Dr. M. Asaf Dişçi, recalled that he first saw Bediuzzaman in the town of Kologrif. They were together there for about six months and then Bediuzzaman was sent to another large prisoner-of-camp further into the interior. In Kologrif they were held in a cinema, and he divided off part of it and made it into a mosque. Dr. Asaf Dişçi went on to say:

Because he was the commander of a regiment, the other prisoners used to be very respectful towards him, but he used to say: "I am a hoja [teacher]"... He lived very frugally. He would make do with two eggs and a slice of bread a day... His time was always full. He would read his commentary on the Qur'an and teach the prisoners. The officers and men were all extremely deferential towards him... he commanded respect. [^273]

[^273]:Dr. M. Asaf Dişçi, in Son Şahitler, i, 189-190.

Mustafa Bolay, a prisoner who spent six months in the Kosturma camp with Bediuzzaman, stated that Russians wanted to kill him and that it was the military high command that had specified his being sent to that camp. Bediuzzaman's nephew, Abdurrahman, who wrote a short biography of his uncle, corroborated this claim. He wrote:

They sent my uncle to Kosturma by way of Van, Julfa, Tiflis, and Kologrif. I wanted to describe in detail all the dangers to which he had been subject at this time — the Russian officers had even wanted to kill him on several occasions, then record that he had committed suicide — but he would not permit it, so I just wrote it briefly. [^274]

[^274]:Şahiner, Son Şahitler, i, 78-9; Abdurrahman, Tarihçe, 38.

Both Mustafa Bolay and Mustafa Yalçın also corroborate an event Bediuzzaman was involved in that happened in the prisoner-of-war camp and doubtless contributed to the awe in which he was held by captors and captives alike. It is described in Bediuzzaman's biography, and Necmeddin Şahiner gives a longer version from an article by Abdürrahim Zapsu in the magazine Ehl-i Sünnet, which is what we give here:

On one occasion, Nicola Nicolayavich, the Czar's uncle who at the same time was commander-in-chief of the Russian forces at the Caucasian Front, came on an inspection of the camp. While on his tour of it, he passed by Bediuzzaman, who was seated. Bediuzzaman paid him no atten-