Government. Also, the revitalization of a number of other medreses would be an important means of securing the future life - both material, and moral and spiritual - of Kurdistan. In this way, the basis of education would be established, and together with making over to the Government this huge force which is now being dissipated in internal conflict, it would cause it to be expended outwardly. And it would demonstrate that they are thoroughly deserving of justice, and capable of being civilized, as well as displaying their natural ability.

Thus, Bediuzzaman was finally successful in presenting to the Sultan an outline of his proposals, the fruit of his own experience over many years. And, pointing out some of the damaging results of the system as it then was, he with foresight predicted problems of great magnitude in the future.

Bediuzzaman's ideas on educational reform were far-reaching and innovative. They are in part described above and in Bediuzzaman's `Conversation with the Doctor' following this section. But due to their importance, before continuing with Bediuzzaman's audience with the Sultan, we include a summary of them in their entirety.

The heart of Bediuzzaman's proposals lay in reconciling "the three main branches" of the educational system, the medreses or traditional religious schools, the mektebs or new secular schools, and the tekkes or Sufi establishments, and the disciplines they represented. The embodiment of this rapprochement was the Medresetu'z-Zehra, which has been mentioned earlier. Bediuzzaman attached the greatest importance to establishing this university where the religious sciences and modem sciences would be taught side by side and "combined", and pursued it till the end of his days.

The second main area of Bediuzzaman's proposals lay in completely restructuring medrese education and were extremely `modem' in their approach. These consisted of what might be described as the democratization of the medrese system, and its diversification so that "the rule of the division of labour" could be