A further matter the court unjustly found Bediuzzaman guilty of concerned his explanations of certain Islamic laws concerning women. In his defence to the Appeal Court, he wrote defending these:

One reason they showed for punishing me was my commentary on the Qur'an's explicit verses about veiling, inheritance, recitation of the Divine Names, and polygamy, written to silence those who object to them [in the name of] civilization. ...

I say this: if there is any justice on the face of the earth, [the Appeal Court] will quash this decision which convicts someone who expounded [Qur'anic verses] that every century for one thousand three hundred and fifty years have been held to be sacred, true Divine principles in the social life of three hundred and fifty million Muslims, and expounded them relying on the consensus and affirmation of three hundred and fifty thousand Qur'anic commentaries and following [what have been] the beliefs of our forefathers for one thousand three hundred years. Isn't denial of Islam and betrayal of our millions of religious, heroic forefathers to convict, because he expounded those verses, someone who according to reason and learning does not accept certain European laws applied temporarily due to certain requirements of the times and who has given up politics and withdrawn from social life, and is it not to insult millions of Qur'anic commentaries? [^332]

[^332]:Nursi, Şualar, 378-9 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 445).

#### The Experts' Report

The Experts' Report

While the preliminary questioning was being carried out by the public prosecutor and examining magistrate after the arrests of Bediuzzaman and his students, the collections of the Risale-i Nur, such as Zülfikar, The Staff of Moses, The Illuminating Lamp (Sirac-ün-Nur), and A Guide for Youth, as well as letters and other documents were all sent to the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Ankara to be scrutinized by another 'committee of experts', Although it produced its report in a short time, presenting it to Afyon Court on 16 March, 1948, due to the prosecutor's interference, it was not for several months that Bediuzzaman was able to obtain a copy of it. This committee bowed to pressure from the government, and included two main points that the prosecution was able to use against Bediuzzaman, [^333] although only three years before the previous 'experts' had cleared

[^333]:Bediuzzaman had surmised that the Experts' Report had arrived some time previously, because some of the answers in a table he had made out of ninety errors and factual inaccuracies in the indictments and his answers to them corresponded exactly to the Report. In other words, the indictment was in part based on the report (Şualar, 433; Rays, 510.) For the table, see Nursi, Şualar, 342-361.