dawn is to sunset. If, that is, they do not wither up through the languor of idleness and poison of malice."

The Fourth Truth is the Shari'a. Bediuzzaman explains: "Since the Illustrious Shari'a has come from the Pre-Eternal Word of God, it will go to Post-Eternity." For it is dynamic. The Shari'a adapts and expands in relation to man's development. It comprises equality, justice, and true freedom with all its relations and requirements. The initial period of Islam is proof of this. Therefore, he says, their present unfortunate condition results from four causes: failure to observe the Shari'a, arbitrary and erroneous interpretations of it, bigotry on the part of certain "ignorant literalist scholars", and fourthly, "abandoning through ill-fortune and bad choice, the virtues of Europe, which are difficult to acquire, and imitating like parrots or children the sins and evils of civilization, which are agreeable to man's base appetites."

The Fifth Truth is the Parliament, and the Islamic principle of mutual consultation. In this complex modern age, it is only through a constituent assembly, consultation, and freedom of thought that the state can be upheld, administered, and guided.

Bediuzzaman completes the Address with three "warnings". Firstly state officials who are prepared to adapt to the new regime must be treated with respect and their experience must be benefited from. Secondly, he points out that the sickness afflicting the Empire has spread from the centre of the Caliphate, from Istanbul, and goes on to urge reconciliation between "the three main branches of the 'public guide'", the scholars of the medreses, those of secular schools, and the Sufis in the tekkes. This point was discussed above, as was the following, third warning, which concerns the preachers. Again, he is urging them to renew their ideas and methods, and speak conformably with the needs of the times.

#### Bediuzzaman's Ideas on Freedom and Constitutionalism

Bediuzzaman's Ideas on Freedom and Constitutionalism

What, then, was the relationship between constitutionalism and Islam? For in this speech, and in all his speeches and writings of the time, Bediuzzaman was at pains to make clear to the people that the Constitution, which was the 1876 Constitution, was in no way contrary to the Shari'a. He describes it as the "Kanun-u Şer'i", [^122] or Islamic Constitution, and "the Constitution which is founded on the Shari'a." [^123] "Constitutionalism and

[^122]:Nursi, 'Hürriyet'e Hitab,' in Asar-ı Bedi'iyye, 348; Nursi, Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî, 57.

[^123]:Op. cit., 349, and, 59.