court at Denizli along the rest of the Risale-i Nur; if the committee of scholars set up in Ankara raised a number of objections concerning it, Bediuzzaman pointed out these to be in error along other points they raised. [^246] In fact, Bediuzzaman had wanted The Key to Belief Collection to be printed rather than The Supreme Sign, [^247] but he wrote in a letter than he was "profoundly happy" at the student who had had it printed, Tahiri Mutlu's, other great service to the Risale-i Nur, and "expected from divine mercy" that the attention drawn to The Supreme Sign in this way would in the future result in the victories it deserved. [^248]

[^246]:Ibid., 130.

[^247]:Şualar, 249 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 321).

[^248]:Ibid., 250.

#### The True Nature of the Case

The True Nature of the Case

These months of the trial in Denizli Prison were truly a testing for Bediuzzaman and his students. In addition to the physical distress and hardship, it was clear certain forces within the Government were working for Bediuzzaman's execution and that of a number of his leading students. Their situation was one of extreme uncertainty. Besides the severe criticism of the first committee set up to examine the Risale-i Nur, Bediuzzaman mentions the attacks made on them by the Education Minister Hasan Ali Yücel and his publishing a manifesto against them. [^249] The Prime Minister, Şükrü Saraçoğlu, was also directly concerned with the case. Further- more, since it was really the Risale-i Nur that was on trial, both Bediuzzaman's defence and those of his students were defences of the Risale-i Nur. And so, while for the most part Bediuzzaman's tone in his defence was mild and reasoning, when it came to exposing the plots against the Risale-i Nur, which were the cause of the trial, his words were anything but mild, despite the precariousness of their own position.

[^249]:Nursi, Lem'alar, 252 (Eng. tr.: Flashes, 334).

It was this external pressure brought to bear on the case and the fact that the law was clearly being used as a shield and a means of suppressing religion by forces whose aim it was to establish communism in Turkey that led Bediuzzaman to inform his students in a letter that "the real cause of the widespread and significant assault and aggression" against them was not the Fifth Ray, but The Key to Belief and Hüccetü'l-Baliğa (The Decisive Proof) and Hizb al-Nuri. These works with their convincing proofs of the truths of belief had defeated irreligion. Thus, "because the atheists had been unable to defend their way of absolute unbelief against the blows of