Where you are going is right, and you will be successful in it." When I asked them why they said this, they told me: "We have had you followed for three days to see if you did anything contrary to Islam and we saw that you are not concerned with anything apart from your own business. Therefore you will achieve your aims." Just as a small flame thrown into a forest will by degrees destroy the whole forest, a believer who lowers himself to look at what is forbidden will day by day eat up his actions and destroy them. I am frightened of such a person having a bad end.

Then he added:

"The Old Said stayed in Istanbul for ten years during his youth, and he did not look at a woman once." [^12]

[^12]:N. Şahiner, Said Nursi, 252-3.

#### The Shaykh Said Revolt

The Shaykh Said Revolt

Although it was known by everyone that Bediuzzaman had given up all political concerns and gone into retreat, the tribal leaders and those with power still wished to benefit from his enormous influence in the eastern provinces. Thus among his visitors were chiefs and tribal leaders, besides those who came to him purely as a man of religion. For the problems of the area had found no solution. Among the Kurds were many who favoured independence or autonomy, especially since the abolition of the Sultanate and Caliphate and the establishment of what many of them saw as the godless Republic. It also provided fertile ground for the British to pursue their ambitions in the area. By early 1925 unrest was widespread, and the tribal chiefs tried to gain Bediuzzaman's support for a full-scale uprising against the government. As before, Bediuzzaman did all he could to persuade them against such a move. A number complied with his wishes. Thus many thousands of lives were saved when what was to be known as the Shaykh Said Revolt finally broke out on 13 February, 1925, so-called as it was lead by a Naqshbandi shaykh called Shaykh Said of Palu. He too had tried to gain Bediuzzaman's support in a letter Bediuzzaman's reply to which is still extant and is given below. The revolt, which was only put down after two months or so, was to have far-reaching results both for Bediuzzaman, who was sent into exile entirely unjustly along with many hundreds of others, and for the area, and not least for the future of the country as a whole. It set the course for the new regime. For the government in Ankara used the revolt as a pretext for rushing through the Law for the Maintenance of Order, passed 4 March 1925, which empowered it to set up the notorious