► (220) ◄ The Addendum to the Statement Made While Being Interrogated in Emirdağ and Presented for Its Information to the Judiciary's Collective Personality and to the Interior Minister

The Addendum to the Statement Made While Being

Interrogated in Emirdağ and Presented for Its Information to the

Judiciary's Collective Personality and to the Interior Minister

I had not read any newspaper for twenty years, nor listened to one, then the day before yesterday a person who assists me read me part of a paper. When I heard that both the Ministry of Education in Ankara (with two million liras worth of damage), and a garage again in Ankara, and at the same time a large factory in İzmir, and a large building in Ada had all been completely burnt down, I was extremely sorry and pitied this penurious nation. At that very same time, feeling a distress I had never felt before in my life, though elderly and ill and unlike in any court, I was interrogated continuously for four and a half hours. If the judiciary here had not been humane and kind to a degree, I would never have been able to endure it, and I decided to say something harsh in this cold and being sick so as to be sent to prison. In fact, we decided that one of my helpers should put someone to bed in my room and beat someone up so as to join me in prison to assist me. But the humanity shown by the judiciary here and divine providence gave me patience, and I endured it.

I was curious about this extraordinary situation and true reason for their suspicions. A Guide for Youth being printed and published officially had illuminated many secular schools; valuable youths in Ankara University and Istanbul University had learnt the Risale-i Nur's principles and understood that they were a means of securing the happiness of this country and nation; and many teachers were enthusiastically showing interest in the Risale-i Nur out of national and patriotic zeal and for scholarly concerns, and all this had attracted the attention of the Ministry of Education and they wanted to inhibit the Risale-i Nur somehow since they dislike it,

Even, here, informers said: "The young people are being lost to us; school children are being turned towards religion through the printed Guide for Youth." Whereupon, both myself and most of the Risale-i Nur students in a number of provinces were subject to harassment, Although I ought to have expected the assistance of the hojas (teachers of religion) since I was educated in the medrese, I wanted to rely with all my strength on the Ministry of Education and the secular school teachers, and to depend on them. For it is mostly people from the secular schools who enter the Risale-i Nur's fold and there are only a few hojas. The latter mostly hold back, while since the secular school pupils and teachers appreciate the Risale-i Nur and take it up, I used to hope fervently that the Ministry of