during this time, so that from one letter we learn that there were around two hundred dershanes in Diyarbakir and the east, including four or five specifically for women in Diyarbakir itself. On occasion in Diyarbakir as many as a thousand people would attend the derses, the readings of the Risale-i Nur. In Ankara, Istanbul, Eskisehir, and all the main centres in Anatolia, the Risale-i Nur and its associated activities flourished.
The corollary of these successes was increased pressure and harassment from the enemies of religion. Bediuzzaman told Hulûsi Bey when he visited him in Emirdag in 1957 that he now had to take further precautions to protect himself in the face of the threats to himself. For a further attempt had been made on his life, when an unknown person had entered his house by way of the roof and thrown poison in his water jug. Then in April ,1958, RPP supporters in Nazilli in western Anatolia set up a plot against the local Risale-i Nur Students, two of whom were arrested. In concert with them, the newspapers started a furore describing the Nurcus as "enemies of the reforms". In response the Risale-i Nur Students in Ankara wrote and published a letter answering their misrepresentations and lies, whereupon eleven of the leading Students were arrested and held in Ankara Prison. This was the first case the lawyer Bekir Berk undertook for the Risale-i Nur Students, who were all acquitted. Bekir Berk, subsequently famous as "the Muslims' lawyer" was also appointed by Bediuzzaman as his attorney. In Konya too, where the Risale-i Nur Students were active, there were arrests and court cases, and in many other centres. At the same time the country-wide press campaign against Bediuzzaman and the Risale-i Nur movement continued, with blatant misreporting and misrepresentations. Bediuzzaman and his students did not let these attacks remain unanswered and published replies, a number of which are included in the second volume of