applied.

A third area concerned the preachers, who "guided the general public".

While the role the Medresetu'z-Zehra was to play was seen by Bediuzzaman to be vital for securing the future of Kurdistan and unity of the Empire as well as acting as an important centre for the eastern Islamic world, the general principles it represented were applicable to all medreses. Several of the conditions Bediuzzaman considered to be essential were mentioned in the petition: the Medresetu'z-Zehra and its two sister establishments should be known by the familiar name of medrese and the instruction should be in a language known by potential students. In another work, Münâzarat, Bediuzzaman stated that they should be tri-lingual, with Arabic being "compulsory", Kurdish "permissible", and 'Turkish "necessary". In the same work, he also stated that Kurdish scholars who were trusted by Turk and Kurd should be selected as teachers, as well as those who knew the local languages, and that it was necessary to take into account the capacity and cultural level of the community they were to serve. Also these `medreses' should be on an equal footing with the official secular schools, and like them, their examinations should be recognized. The basis of the system Bediuzzaman was proposing, however, was the combined teaching of the religious and modem sciences.

In the course of time, the medrese syllabuses had become narrow and sterile, with modem developments in science being rejected altogether. So that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the medreses were producing ulema who believed, together with the Europeans, that there was a clash and contradiction between certain `externals' of Islam and certain matters of science - matters as basic as the Earth being round. This false idea had caused feelings of hopelessness and despair, and had shut the door of progress and civilization. "Whereas", pointed out Bediuzzaman, "Islam is the master and guide of the sciences, and the chief and father of all true knowledge."