spoke with the proprietor, and approached them. They told the three:

"Ustad sends you his greetings and wants to meet you."

The three police were dumbfounded, and trying to cover it up, pretended ignorance. Eventually Abdurrahman sent one of the other two, Hasan, with them. A while later he returned and told them what had passed between them.

Bediuzzaman first asked him his name. Hasan replied:

"Ahmed."

To which Bediuzzaman said: "Look here, Ahmed. Promise me you'll tell the truth."

"I promise." Bediuzzaman continued:

"I received news that three police are being sent in order to investigate me. I have many students and friends. If you are those three police, say so, and I'll warn them so no harm comes to you."

Hasan remonstrated, insisting that they were not police.

The following day, the same thing happened. Only this time, Abdurrahman sent both the others. Bediuzzaman spoke to them concerning belief and the Qur'an. Then offered them some lokum, Turkish Delight, and gave them handwritten copies of The Staff of Moses and A Guide for Youth.

Abdurrahman related how the third policeman, Salih, had written out a memo stating that "Said Nursi got one of his students to buy some liquor from the grocer", but could get no one to sign it. [^299] Salih received his deserts for this: that night he himself drank too much, got into a fight and was beaten up. He was found unconscious lying in the gutter, with his revolver stolen, As a punishment, his superiors fined him three times the cost of the revolver, demoted him, and sent him elsewhere.

[^299]:Bediuzzaman refers to this in several places, which was part of a campaign of slander that "no devil could in any way deceive anyone with", which showed that no other weapon remained to them which they could use against the Risale-i Nur. See, Nursi, Emirdağ Lahikası, i, 257; also, Lem'alar, 246-7 (Eng. tr.: Flashes, 327).

When it came to Bediuzzaman and his students being arrested, Abdurrahman described it like this:

Whenever Bediuzzaman went out in Emirdağ, all the people used to wait for him along his way, and he would greet them smiling. While we were there, the governor and public prosecutor came to Emirdağ five or six times, and carried out searches. Finally one evening they gathered up ten people from their homes, and the [five] others from their places of work. They collected Bediuzzaman the following morning then took them altogether in the police bus to Afyon. We returned to Afyon the same day, that