► (065) ◄ To the Afyon Police Headquarters

To the Afyon Police Headquarters

When I first saw you, I reckoned that you would be fair-minded and just although we had not met, and am therefore explaining to you before anyone else a fact about which I am concerned. It is up to you, and is your duty, to inform the relevant authorities about it. The matter is this:

My present circumstances have been unheard of in history. Living in total isolation, forbidden to have contact with anyone even the congregation at the mosque, elderly, ill, and in deprivation, it suddenly occurred to my heart that since I too am a son of this land, I am obliged to work for its happiness. I have nothing to contribute materially, so I permitted some of my brothers to print in the new letters The Fruits of Belief (Meyve Risalesi) and The Conclusive Proof (Hüccetü'l-Bâliğa), which I have written about what I have understood from the Qur'an. The relevant Ankara authorities, the committee of experts, and Denizli Court could find nothing reprehensible in those two treatises after scrutinizing them for two years, and they returned them to us officially. I also sent a reply requesting that they show them to the censor and to leading writers, and then print them. It is also customary to present copies to twelve departments of government after they have been printed. The Treatise on Sincerity (İhlas Risalesi) and Treatise on Frugality (İktisad Risalesi) were subsequently added at the end of the former two treatises and printed in the new letters. I declare to you in all certainty that my purpose in printing these works was to preserve this blessed nation and country from moral and material anarchy, to assist public peace and security, to erect a moral barrier against the flood of an external current that incites lawlessness, and to try to dispel the objections and accusations of the Islamic world against us and to attract their love and brotherhood. But alas! Since I have no connection with the world, and do not meet with members of government, and know nothing of the state of the world, and because I have been subject to illegal assaults, certain persons who for a long time past have covertly opposed me hostilely, seized the opportunity and raised suspicions about me with the police and judiciary.

In Short: I heard by a strange coincidence that, on a train, detectives had seized four of my treatises and copies of all the letters I have written these last two years. Two of those treatises were on sincerity. It's true they are a bit confidential, but both the court and the Ankara experts' committee considered them harmless and returned them to us. They had also been sent to Istanbul to show the censor and to leading writers. As for the Treatise on