While in Isparta and Istanbul Bediuzzaman wrote a number of letters which he subsequently put together in a booklet and published under the title, A Key to the World of the Risale-i Nur. [^18] Before describing the Guide for Youth trial in Istanbul, it is worth mentioning these letters, since the small collection they form was the last piece to be added to the Risale-i Nur, and illustrate further an important feature of the Risale-i Nur, its relating science to the truths of belief, and showing that rather than their conflicting in any way, if considered in the light of the Qur'an, science may broaden and strengthen belief. One of the pieces was inspired by the radio. The radio, which he listened to from time to time, inspired him to write an interesting exposition of the element air and its "duties" which proves Divine Unity so decisively while disproving that nature or chance could have had any hand in its creation that he reckoned that the objections to A Guide for Youth, in which it was first included, stemmed from this. Indeed, Bediuzzaman was most concerned to convey such explanations of Divine Unity and the other truths of belief related to science and technology to the young and his students among university and school students. To mention these letters here also redresses the balance somewhat, for while in the last ten years of his life he concerned himself to a greater degree with social and political matters, his purpose and aim was still to serve the Qur'an and belief through the publication and spreading of the Risale-i Nur.

[^18]:Tarihçe, 569.

#### The 'Guide for Youth' Trial - 1952

The 'Guide for Youth' Trial - 1952

In January 1952, Bediuzzaman went to Istanbul his first visit since he had stayed there on his way to exile twenty-seven years earlier. The previous year a number of his students at Istanbul University had had printed two thousand copies of A Guide for Youth in the new letters, as a result of which the public prosecutor had opened a case against Bediuzzaman. The summons came for him to attend Istanbul First Criminal Court in January, 1952. The charges, under the 'elastic' Article 163 of the Criminal Code, were that A Guide for Youth was "religious propaganda, which, contrary to the principle of secularism, had been written for the purpose of adapting the state system to religious principles." [^19]

[^19]:Ibid., 570; Eşref Edip, Said Nursi, Hayatı, Eserleri, Mesleği, 119.

Coming from Isparta, Bediuzzaman was in court for the first hearing on 22 January, 1952. It took place on an upper floor of the Court House, which now serves as the Main Post Office. For the two months or so he