of the leading intellectual figures of the time. The poet Mehmet Akif, and Fatin Hoca, the Director of the Observatory, were among its inhabitants. There are many contemporary descriptions of Bediuzzaman. The following, written by Ahmed Ramiz Efendi, owner of the Ictihad Publishing House, describes his arrival:

 

"It was in 1323 (1907) that the news spread around that a person of flashing brilliance - a rarity of creation - called Said-i Kurdi,' having risen like the sun over the rugged, precipitous mountains of the East, had appeared on the horizons of Istanbul....

 

"Said said: `I have come here in order to open schools in my native land, I have no other wish. I want this, nothing else.' In other words, Bediuzzaman wanted two things, to open educational establishments in every part of the Eastern Provinces, and to receive nothing in return..."

 

Bediuzzaman cut a striking figure in Istanbul. On the door of his room in the Sekerci Han he hung a sign which read:

 

The following are the impressions of some of his visitors to the Han and those who saw him at that time. The first, that of Hasan Fehmi Basoglu, later a member of the Consultative Committee of the Department of Religious Affairs.

"About the time the Second Constitution was proclaimed I was studying in the Fatih Medrese. I heard that a young man called Bediuzzaman had come to Istanbul and had settled in a han, and that he had even hung a notice on his door which said: "Here every problem is solved, all questions are answered, but no questions are asked." I thought that someone who made such a claim could only be mad. But hearing nothing but praise and good opinions concerning Bediuzzaman, and learning of the astonishment of the many groups of ulema and students who were visiting him, it awoke in me the desire to visit him myself. I decided that I would prepare some