our nation is firmly attached to its religion, so generally its religious feelings are of the purest kind. Religious feeling has reached the purest level in the nation's conscience. Efforts will be made to train instructors to teach Islam and its beliefs, obligations, and rules correctly. It is will be appropriate that the Konya School for Imams and Preachers (Imam—Hatip Mektebi), which next year will produce its first graduates at high-school level, will be made into an institution for teaching religion at an advanced level and the numbers of similar institutions will be increased.
"Having repeated this part of my Konya speech for the esteemed Turkish public opinion, I want to emphasize and make clear the following: what I said was so clear as to disallow any possibility of misinterpretation. It is imperative that reports of it or comments on it remain faithful to it. Nobody has the right to distort and misrepresent what I say, nor do they have the right to impute to me intentions and aims that have never even crossed my mind." [^65]
[^65]:I was going to write some congratulations in the name of all the Nur students and innocent school children on the Prime Minister's Konya speech, but then it occurred to my heart that behind our defence speeches mentioning the Risale-i Nur's freedom and the leading lawyer's reply to the experts' committee, the Prime Minister's speech was a reason for its freedom, for it made all the Anadolu Muslims and all the Nur students a moral strength for him and well-wishers. Just as the reinstatement of the Arabic call to prayer afforded the Prime Minister a moral strength, so also he won a moral strength with this speech and the Risale-i Nur's being left free. So rather than sending him congratulations, we made this a footnote to our defence lawyer's justified defence.∗ The Prime Minister's speech in Konya consists of true facts rebuffing those pretexts, just as the lawyer Mihrî's defence speeches refuted the pretexts put forward for A Guide for Youth's seizure. ∗ The lawyer's defence speech has been included in the short biography of Said Nursi written by Eşref Edip. [Author]
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In His Name, be He glorified!
Our Master Said Nursi says:
Isparta is my true home. Since this is so, I want the best for it and for its people, and an important instance of good is this:
By returning the whole Risale-i Nur Collection, Afyon performed a good act of paramount importance for the world of Islam and indeed for humanity and reduced to nothing and had forgiven its errors of the last eight years. So too, by displaying in the view of Islamic world the blessed-
