29 April 2019: The letter Alparslan Kuytul wrote to the public from prison
Fact
Arrested on 8 February 2018 following the operation of 30 January 2018, Alparslan Kuytul wrote a letter to the public from Bolu F-Type Prison in the fourteenth month of his detention. The letter was published in April 2019. This page is a rendering of that letter.
At the centre of the text stands his one-sentence answer to the charge against him:
"We have never been involved in terror, and God willing we never will be."
Addressing the quarters he says have slandered him, his reasoning is this: if God supports him, no one has the power to stop him; if God does not support him, he will not reach his goal in any case — so in either event those who trouble themselves are tiring themselves for nothing.
Within the same frame he says two things: neither prison walls nor the reports appearing in the press can prevent what he says from reaching people; and the submission demanded of him will not be given.
When told to keep quiet, he takes his answer from the chapter of Joseph: the prison is dearer than what he is being called to. He writes that he prefers staying in prison for speaking the truth to the humiliation of keeping silent before injustice. Nor does he describe patience as silence; he says that while being patient the struggle will go on.
The letter ends with the sentence most often quoted from it afterwards:
"Until I die I will go on saying 'Tawhid, Justice, Freedom, Civilisation'."
Source
O Oppressors Who Sent Me to the Dungeon with Slanders!
The letter written to the public by Alparslan Kuytul Hocaefendi, who has been held in Bolu F-Type Prison for 14 months without trial, was published yesterday (29 April 2019). The letter, which ends with his words "Until I die I will go on saying 'Tawhid, Justice, Freedom, Civilisation'", drew great interest from those who love him and from his students.
In his letter, noting that the efforts of the enemies of Islam who trouble us are so much rowing in vain, Hocaefendi addressed the godless deep state committee as follows:
"To those who are at odds with us I say:
O my slandering, base enemies! Know that your dealing with us makes no sense. For if God, may His majesty be exalted, supports us, you have not the power to stop us. And if God, may His majesty be exalted, does not support us, then there is no need for you to try to stop us. For what God does not support does not reach its goal. Either way, you are tiring yourselves for nothing.
Whatever oppression they may practise, whatever slander they may throw, we will go on explaining the diamond truths of the Qur'an and the cause of tawhid until we die. We have never been involved in terror, and God willing we never will be. We have not bowed to the enemies of Islam, and we will not. We have not obeyed them, and we will not.
The Noble Qur'an says: "Be patient; your patience is only through God. Do not grieve over them, and do not be distressed by the plot they are devising." And our Master, may God bless him and grant him peace, says that God increases the honour of one who bears with patience the injustice done to him. Even if they seek to provoke, we will be patient — but while we are patient we will also go on with the struggle.
Thoughts or beliefs come alive, bring the masses alive and turn into a cause only if suffering is borne and a price is paid for them. Ideas spread the more they are oppressed. Causes grow in proportion to the suffering borne for them.
Rumi says: "Wherever there is someone striving to set the unruly on the right path, he will take many a kick." So then, we shall consent to this.
They say to me, "Be silent, do not explain tawhid, and keep quiet about the oppression they practise." And I answer them with the words of Joseph, peace be upon him: "My Lord, the prison is dearer to me than that to which they call me." Bearing the ordeal of the dungeon for speaking the truth is better than bearing the humiliation of keeping silent before injustice.
Once God is behind us, it does not matter who stands against us.
The burden we carry is gold, it is diamond. He who gave this burden will also give the strength to carry it.
Neither the concrete walls and iron bars of the prison nor the lies and slanders of the media can stop the truth from reaching the masses.
O oppressors who sent me to the dungeon with slanders! While I go to the dungeon in the way of God, you will go to your homes. You will tear me from my family and my friends, and you will be reunited with your own families and friends. While I shiver in a cold dungeon, you will live at ease in your warm homes. While I am alone in solitary confinement, you will converse with your friends. So be it. Let me answer you first with Yunus:
"So be it! The Creator is our friend
Do not think what the oppressor does is gain
The sigh of the oppressed brings the shah down
Everything has its appointed time"
O oppressors! While I live in the dungeon the honour of the wronged, you outside will live the humiliation of the wrongdoer. The sweetness I take in the dungeon from being wronged, you will never take from wrongdoing. While I live the happiness of being with my Lord, you will multiply your sins with your false friends. I can bear the dungeon of this world, but you will not be able to bear the dungeon of the hereafter. So my condition is better than yours. Though on the one hand I suffer, on the other I am in a station of thankfulness, for I am among those who have been an occasion for tawhid coming onto the agenda in this country and for some people understanding it, and because I leave behind me a vanguard generation in good works.
Until I die I will go on saying: 'Tawhid, Justice, Freedom, Civilisation'."