Chapter Three - Eskişehir

CHAPTER THREE

Eskişehir

#### The Arrests Start

The Arrests Start

On 25 April, 1935, a number of Bediuzzaman's students were taken from their homes and places of work and held in custody. Two days later Bediuzzaman himself and another group were arrested. It was the start of an event which very often bordered on the ridiculous, despite its seriousness, and was another example of the lengths the government went to to reduce the standing of influential religious figures and to scare the population away from religion.

According to Süleyman Rüşdü, the affair began when Bediuzzaman went to attend the Friday prayers and thousands of people poured into the streets to see him. The town's governor and administrators took fright at this, and when a copy of the Tenth Word, Bediuzzaman's treatise on resurrection and the hereafter, was found on the governor's desk, they panicked and sent urgent wires to Ankara saying, "Bediuzzaman and his students have taken to the streets. They are storming the Government Building." [^102] In fact, this was part of the 'plan' of the authorities to provoke 'an incident', as we shall see. The houses of anyone known to have had any connection with Bediuzzaman were then searched and the arrests began.

[^102]:Süleyman Rüşdü Çakın, in Son Şahitler, iv, 141.

Tenekeci Mehmed tells how someone sent word to him that this was happening and he took all the parts of the Risale-i Nur he had in his house together with any other books to do with Islam or religion and buried them in the garden. At that point no less than eighteen police came and searched the house. Despite their thoroughness they found nothing, and he was one of the few not arrested. [^103] Besides Isparta and its province, suspects were arrested in Milas, Antalya, Bolvadin, Aydın, Van, and other places. They had been denounced to the authorities as reactionaries (mürteci), and were

[^103]:Mehmed Sözer, in Son Şahitler, ii, 213-4.