charged under Article 163 of the Criminal Code, which among other things prohibited the exploitation of religion and religious sentiments in any way damaging to the security of the state, and the formation of political associations on the basis of religion. There was questioning and statements were taken, and it was while this was in progress that Colonel Asım Bey died. He had to make the choice between saying something that could be harmful to Bediuzzaman, and telling a lie, which his honour would not allow. So he uttered a prayer: "Lord! Take my spirit!" and indeed, the Almighty did take his spirit, and he attained the rank of what Bediuzzaman called "an integrity martyr".

Meanwhile, a furore was started in the press startling the country with stories of a "network of reactionaries" which had been uncovered. And as though to quell some major unrest which threatened the foundations of the state, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Şükrü Kaya, the commander-in-chief of the gendarmerie, Kazım Orbay, and the chief of police travelled together to Isparta at the head of a detachment of gendarmes. Isparta and the surrounding country were put under the control of military units, and cavalry was posted along the road all the way from Isparta to Afyon. Rumours were spread throughout the region that Bediuzzaman and his students were going to be executed and a general atmosphere of terror was generated, At the same time, in order to forestall any uprising in the eastern Turkey that Bediuzzaman's being put in prison might provoke, İnönü, the head of that despotic government, set off on a tour of the Eastern Provinces. [^104]

[^104]:Tarihçe, 192.

On around 12 May, Bediuzzaman and thirty-one of his students were handcuffed in pairs as though they were dangerous criminals and bundled into lorries at the point of bayonets. Unknown to them, they were to be taken to the prison at Eskişehir, some three hundred and thirty kilometres to the north. Thousands of the local people gathered when they were leaving, weeping families of those arrested, all the people weeping to see them being taken away in this pitiable state. [^105] One of the gendarmes sent from Ankara to escort them related this and the journey, first telling how they had been fitted out with new equipment and how Bediuzzaman had been described to them in the most exaggeratedly unfavourable terms, Şükrü Kaya, the Home Affairs Minister, calling him in derogatory fashion, "the Kurdish Hoja". [^106] In fact the order was to offload Bediuzzaman and his students in some isolated spot on the road and to shoot them. However, the

[^105]:Halil İbrahim Çöllüoğlu, in Son Şahitler, iv, 121.

[^106]:İsmail Karaman, in Son Şahitler, ii, 86-7.