had really gone. That's youth and ignorance for you! [^324]

[^324]:Hasan Değirmenci, in Son Şahitler, i, 31.

Hilmi Pancaroğlu, who lived in Afyon and visited Bediuzzaman when he was staying in the town after being released from the prison, gave this account:

While in the prison, Bediuzzaman asked permission to attend the Friday Prayers, but he was refused it. Then, when the warders looked into his ward, they could not see him. In a panic, they started to search the mosques. Police went to various mosques, and different groups of them saw him performing the prayers simultaneously in the İmarat, Otpazarı, and Mısırlı Mosques. Only, when everyone came out after the prayers, they could in no way find him. Then, on returning to the prison, what did they see, but Ustad in his ward. Most of the people of Afyon know of this event. [^325]

[^325]:Hilmi Pancaroğlu, in Son Şahitler, iii, 169-70.

Evidently in reply to a question on this matter, Bediuzzaman confirmed that it had occurred, but as was mentioned above, considered it to be unimportant and wanted attention to be directed away from himself towards the Risale-i Nur. He wrote:

One time a famous scholar was seen on numerous fronts in the War by those who had gone to the jihad. They said to him... And he replied: "Certain saints are doing this in my place in order to gain reward for me and allow the people of belief to benefit from my teaching." In exactly the same way, in Denizli it was even made known officially that I had been seen in mosques there, and the governor and warders were informed. Some of them became alarmed, saying, "Who opened the prison gates for him?" And exactly the same thing happened here. But rather than attributing a very minor wonder to my own very faulty and unimportant self, The Ratifying Stamp of the Unseen Collection, which proves and demonstrates the Risale-i Nur's wonders, wins confidence in the Risale a hundred or rather a thousand times more, and ratifies its acceptance. And the heroic students of the Risale-i Nur in particular ratify it with their pens and states, which are truly wonders. [^326]

[^326]:Nursi, Şualar, 409 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 481).

#### The Flag Incident

The Flag Incident

One Republic Day, that is, 29 October, while Bediuzzaman was in Afyon Prison, perhaps hoping to provoke an incident, the governor had the national flag, the famous star and crescent, hung on Bediuzzaman's ward,