officer in charge, Ruhi Bey, was sympathetic and did not carry out the order. Moreover, he ordered their handcuffs to be unfastened at the appropriate time, so they could perform the prayers. One student records that he was expelled from the army in consequence. [^107] They travelled as far as Afyon in the lorries in which they had been permitted neither to speak nor to open any window for air, and still handcuffed in pairs and under the bayonets of gendarmes, were transferred to a train. The following morning they arrived at Eskisehir. [^108]

[^107]:Mehmed Gülırmak, in Son Şahitler, i, 84.

[^108]:Halil İbrahim Çöllüoğlu, in Son Şahitler, iv, 121-3.

#### Eskisehir Prison

Eskisehir Prison

Conditions in the prison were appalling. Bediuzzaman was put in solitary confinement, the others together in a ward. Their number grew from thirty-two to one hundred and twenty as they were joined by more Students arrested elsewhere. Once they entered the prison they were not allowed to visit the lavatories. After hours some warders came and dug a hole near the door and inserted a pipe. This is what they would have to use, they were not to be allowed out. With the filth, the bed-bugs, and the cockroaches, it was impossible to sleep at night. For twelve days they were kept without food. The fact was they were considered to be condemned prisoners doomed for the gallows. [^109] Notwithstanding the conditions, Bediuzzaman continued to write, completing five more treatises in the months he was here. These were the Twenty-Eighth, Twenty-Ninth, and Thirtieth Flashes, and the First and Second Rays. He wrote them very much with his students in mind, suffering so unjustly this first imprisonment. He named prison the School of Joseph (Medrese-i Yûsufiye), after the Prophet Joseph, the patron of prisoners.

[^109]:Mehmed Gülırmak, in Son Şahitler, i, 85; Şahiner, Said Nursi, 315.

Among those arrested were some that had only the very slightest connection with Bediuzzaman. It was another example of how the government had blown up the case out of all proportion. These were members of the "network of reactionaries" which was threatening the state! A businessman from Bolvadin called Şükrü Şahinler related his own case and two others:

I had become acquainted with Halil Ibrahim Çöllüoğlu in connection with some business. He then wrote me a letter and requested a reply. The reply I sent was enough to send me to Eskişehir Prison and include me among the students of the Risale-i Nur. Also in that way I was able to see