solidarity in the face of things harmful to the country and the nation. Most certainly and without doubt, therefore, either they have been deceived in some appalling manner, or they are extremely vicious anarchists who are both barbarously inimical to humanity, and tyranically hostile to Islam, and harbour enmity towards social life in the utterly corrupt and depraved manner of anarchy, and strive obdurately and intractably as apostates against this country and nation, the sovereignty of Islam and sacred things of religion. Or they are satanic atheists who, working on behalf of foreigners to cut and destroy the life-giving arteries of this nation, are deceiving the government and confusing the judiciary in order to destroy or turn against our brothers and our country the immaterial weapons which up to now we have used against them — those satans, pharaohs, and anarchists.

Prisoner Said Nursi [^243]

[^243]:Nursi, Şualar, 242-3 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 312-13); Tarihçe, 362.

#### The 'Fifth Ray'

The 'Fifth Ray'

In regard to the Fifth Ray, since it played a prominent part in the Afyon trials in 1948-9, a more detailed discussion of it will be left to then, and here only one or two points will be mentioned briefly. Firstly, as noted above and Bediuzzaman told the court, the original of this treatise, in which they alleged Hadiths were used to prove Mustafa Kemal was the Sufyan or Islamic Dajjal, that is, the Antichrist who is to appear at the end of time, had been written when Bediuzzaman first came to Istanbul in 1907, long before Mustafa Kemal rose to prominence. And its rough draft had been made some twenty-five years earlier while Bediuzzaman was a member of the Darü'l-Hikmeti'l-İslamiye, in order to "save from denial allegorical Hadiths and strengthen the belief of those whose belief was weak." [^244] Furthermore, Bediuzzaman had not allowed it to be published, and in the eight years he had been in Kastamonu only two copies had come into his hands, and these he had disposed of. The affair had started when some "rivals", that is, the Mufti and preacher who had informed on Atıf Egemen in the province of Denizli in July 1943, had obtained a copy of it. At the same time, without Bediuzzaman's agreement, The Supreme Sign had been printed in Istanbul, The authorities, who had been informed of this, then confused this, the Seventh Ray with the Fifth Ray. The matter was then blown up out of all proportion by their enemies, and resulted in the mass arrests and Denizli trials. [^245] In any event, it was cleared by the

[^244]:Nursi, Müdâfaalar, 97.

[^245]:Op. cit.