the Risale-i Nur. Nevertheless, importantly, they rejected the charges of forming a tarikat, organizing a political society, and disturbing public order, and concentrated their objections, which Bediuzzaman described as, "unfair, incorrect, and unjustifiable", on the Fifth Ray. [^334] The second point they raised, also entirely unfair and mistaken but one which, out of fear, Bediuzzaman's enemies frequently levelled at him, was being "conceited and vainglorious", by which was meant building up by means of his students' good will towards him, a position of personal prestige and power.

[^334]:Nursi, Şualar, 437 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 515).

Bediuzzaman answered these objections the committee raised in a "Thank-you Letter", in which he firstly expressed his gratitude to them for exonerating him of the main charges. He then pointed out in scholarly and reasoned fashion the errors in their objections to the Hadiths in the Fifth Ray and his interpretation of them. Since together with the few lines on inheritance and Islamic dress this was the one part of the Risale-i Nur that was made the pretext for this court case and numerous subsequent cases — since the authorities interpreted it as attacking Ataturk, it is worth mentioning here the history of this extraordinary treatise, which illustrates one reason how Bediuzzaman earned his name, the Wonder of the Age, and also, unfortunately, how this frequently resulted in rivalry and jealousy on the part of other religious scholars.

The Fifth Ray had originated over forty years previously, from when Bediuzzaman came to Istanbul in 1907 before the Constitutional Revolution. At that time, when the "prodigy from the East" had put a notice on his door saying "Here all questions are answered, but none are asked", the Istanbul 'ulema put some questions to him about some allegorical Hadiths referring to the end of time, which had been asked them by the visiting Japanese Commander-in-Chief. Then, when a member of the Darü'l-Hikmeti'l-İslamiye after the First World War, in reply to some further questions on the same subject, Bediuzzaman arranged these replies roughly in the form of a treatise, the purpose of which was to save believers from doubts about the allegorical Hadiths, which superficially appeared to be unconformable with reason. [^335] Then, in 1922 he was invited to Ankara by Mustafa Kemal, and he saw part of what these Hadiths foretold "in someone there", and for that reason felt compelled to refuse the offers made to him of various posts, and withdrew from politics and the world to eastern Anatolia in order to work "solely on the way of saving belief." And again on being asked questions on these allegorical Hadiths foretelling events at

[^335]:Ibid., 296, 383 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 376-7, 451).