According to Selahaddin Çelebi who was sent by the prison governor on one occasion to write out Bediuzzaman's defence speech for him, it was airless and closed like a cave, and so damp the human body could scarcely withstand it. They had to work by the light of a candle. After one hour of writing down what Bediuzzaman dictated, he was completely exhausted. [^232] The cell had one small window which overlooked the long-term prisoners' exercise yard. So since Bediuzzaman was in total isolation and his students and all the prisoners were forbidden to speak or communicate with him on pain of being beaten, he used to throw the notes, letters, and pieces he wrote out of this window to them. They were most often written on scraps of paper folded up inside match-boxes. When this was discovered by the prison authorities, they boarded up the window for a time. He also sent them by means of a go-between called Arnavut Adem Ağa. When they received them, the Students would start writing out copies. The cell was also next to the juveniles' ward, and the delinquents were encouraged by the warders to disturb Bediuzzaman, who was extremely sensitive to noise, and to strike up a din particularly while he was praying or performing his worship.

[^232]:Selahaddin Celebi, in Son Şahitler, i, 145.

When Selahaddin Çelebi, Mehmet Feyzi, and the other students from Kastamonu arrived, they were put in with the long-term and condemned prisoners. Among these was the prisoners' spokesman and leader, Süleyman Hünkâr, a person of considerable power and influence in the day to day affairs of the prison. Süleyman Efe as he was known both 'reformed' and giving up his former bad ways, became a loyal student of Bediuzzaman, and he struck up a close friendship with Taşköprülü Sadık Bey. Sadık Bey also had followed the fast life of a derebey till Bediuzzaman came to Kastamonu and he had become his student. Although all Bediuzzaman's students and some of the prisoners worked continuously in those appalling conditions for the cause of religion and the Risale-i Nur, it was really through these two that it was possible to organize it.

İbrahim Fakazlı from İnebolu described how the prisoners started to reform and perform the prayers. It had happened soon after the others had arrived and before they had come. When Bediuzzaman had gone to take ablutions the prisoners had crowded at a window wanting him to speak to them. This happened three times and he ignored them. Then the third time, he told them: "Go and wash!" So Süleyman Efe gathered together seventy to eighty of the prisoners and asking them, "Which of you is dirty?" harangued them and ordered them to take baths. Then the prisoners again