torates, to national sovereignty and independence. Furthermore, manipulation of the Caliphate played an important part in Britain's imperialist games. That Bediuzzaman was held in the greatest respect by other 'ulema is attested to in the recollections of Professor Ali Nihad Tarlan, who visited him on several occasions during these years, here one night in the Medresetü'l-Mütehassisin in Yavuz Selim:
Bediuzzaman was wearing grey. He spoke of many matters that night, scholarly and religious. I'll tell you how he greeted me there; he met me saying: "Welcome, my dear brother!" He was always thinking, always reflecting. He was a superhuman person. Babanzade Ahmed Naim Bey said of him: "Whenever Bediuzzaman started to speak in the Darü'l-Hikmet, we used to just listen to him in wonder." [^304]
[^304]:Ali Nihad Tarlan, in Şahiner, Aydınlar Konuşuyor, 162.
#### Fatwa and Counter- Fatwa
Fatwa and Counter- Fatwa
As was mentioned when describing the outline of events above, following their reoccupation of Istanbul in March 1920, the British forced Şeyhü'l-İslam Dürrizade Abdullah Efendi — installed after his predecessor, Haydarizade İbrahim Efendi, had resigned rather than sign it — to issue a fatwa declaring the various nationalist groups in Anatolia to be rebels and the killing of them the bounden duty of Muslims. In his book on the fundamental role of religion and men of religion in the national struggle, which includes a short section on Bediuzzaman, Kadir Mısıroğlu describes both the coercion by which the fatwa was extracted by the British, and in some detail the counter-fatwa signed by 84 muftis in Anatolia, and a further 68 'ulema, of whom 11 were deputies in the Ankara Assembly. This counter- fatwa stated that a fatwa issued under enemy duress was null and void, and declared the national struggle to be a jihad, a Holy War. [^305]
[^305]:Kadir Mısıroğlu, Kurtuluş Savaşında Sarıklı Mücahitler, Istanbul 1980, 297-307.
Bediuzzaman also opposed the Şeyhü'l-İslam's fatwa, and said:
A fatwa issued by a government and Şeyhü'l-İslam's Office in a country under enemy occupation and under the command and constraint of the British, is defective, and should not be heeded. Those operating against the enemy invasion are not rebels. The fatwa must be rescinded. [^306]
[^306]:Şahiner, Said Nursi, 238, quoted from Eşref Edip, Risale-i Nur Muarızları Yazarların İsnadları Hakkında İlmi Bir Tahlil, Istanbul 1952.
In addition, Bediuzzaman opposed it on the learned grounds that since it comprised a legal judgement, the claims of both parties should have been considered before judgement had been passed. He wrote: