is, on 17 January 1948. They stayed three days in the Emniyet Hotel in Afyon, and their statements were taken. Large crowds gathered in the vicinity during these three days. Then all the police surrounded the hotel and lined the route to the prison. The chief of police said that I was to take Bediuzzaman from the hotel. I put my uniform then I said to him:

"How can I? He knows me. It will be terribly impolite."

"So be it. Everything's out in the open now", he replied.

I went to the hotel with a number of police. They went inside and I waited at the door. When Bediuzzaman came out, he saw me at the top of the steps, and smiling, exclaimed: "Abdurrahman!" Then he patted my back, and said:

"I still like you, because you do your duty."

We took Bediuzzaman by way of empty streets to the prison and his students by the route along which the people were waiting. The court hearings continued for a long time. I too gave my statement and said I had seen Bediuzzaman do nothing that was at all harmful. [^300]

[^300]:Abdurrahman Akgül, in Son Şahitler, i, 11-18.

Although Abdurrahman Akgül states above that Bediuzzaman and his students remained three days in the hotel, since it was the 23 January when they were officially arrested and put in Afyon Prison, it was a week that the fifteen or so of them stayed there. During this time Students were rounded up in Isparta, Denizli, Afyon, Kastamonu and other places and brought to Afyon, making a total of fifty-four who underwent the preliminary questioning. This coincided with a spell of cold weather rarely experienced even in Afyon, [^301] which has its own micro-climate and where the temperature frequently drops lower than in other places.

[^301]:Şahiner, Said Nursi, 364-5.