An important question about my person and the Risale-i Nur: many people ask, “Although you have not meddled in ‘the worldly’s’ world, why do they meddle in your Hereafter at every opportunity? Whereas no government’s laws interfere with recluses and those who have abandoned the world?”

T h e A n s w e r : The New Said’s reply to this question is silence. The New Said says: “Let Divine Determining give the answer for me.” Nevertheless, being compelled to, the Old Said’s head, which the New Said has borrowed on trust, says: those who should give the answer to this question are the authorities of Isparta Province, and its people. For the authorities and the people are much more concerned with the meaning underlying this question than I am. Since the administration, which consists of thousands of people, and the people, who number hundreds of thousands, are obliged to consider it and defend it in my place, why should I speak with the prosecutors unnecessarily, and defend myself?

I have been in this province for nine years, and I am gradually turning my back more and more on their world. No aspect of my life has remained hidden. Even my most secret and confidential treatises have come into the hands of the government and some of the deputies. If I had meddled at all in worldly matters, which would have caused ‘the worldly’ alarm and anxiety, or if I had made any attempt to meddle, or if I had had any idea of doing so, this province and the local government in the towns would have known. But although I have been under their scrutiny and surveillance for nine years, and I too have not hesitated to divulge my secrets to those who have visited me, the authorities have remained silent and have not bothered me. If I had had any fault that could have been harmful to this country’s happiness and future, and to its people, over this nine years everyone from the Governor to the village police chief have made themselves responsible. They are obliged to defend me in the face of those who make molehills into mountains concerning me, and make the mountains into molehills. In which case, I refer the answer of this question to them.

The reason the people of this province are mostly obliged to defend me more than myself is that by means of hundreds of treatises which have demonstrated their effectiveness materially and in fact, I have worked these nine years for these people’s eternal life and strength of belief and happiness of life, who are both brothers, and friends, and blessed; and no upset or harm at all has been suffered by anyone on account of the treatises; and not the slightest sign of anything political or worldly has been encountered; and, praise be to God, by means of the Risale-i Nur, this province of Isparta has gained in respect of strength of belief and firmness in religion a degree of blessedness resembling the blessedness of Damascus in former times and of al-Azhar in Egypt; and the Risale-i Nur has made the power of belief prevail over indifference and the desire to worship prevail over vice in the province, and has made it more religious than any other province. Since this is the case, all its people, even supposing they are irreligious, are obliged to defend me and the Risale-i Nur. While they have such important rights of defense, my unimportant, insignificant right does not drive me to defend myself at a time I, this powerless one, have completed my duty and, thanks be to God, thousands of students have worked and are working in my place. Someone with so many thousands of advocates does not defend his own case.