university would also "reconcile the sciences of philosophy and those of religion, and make peace between European civilisation and the truths of Islam." And thus unifying secular and religious education, would be both a modem secular school and a religious school. As has been described in previous chapters, Bediuzzaman received money at various times for its construction, but due to the vicissitudes of the times, the project could not be realised.
Doubtless the main reason for Bediuzzaman’s mentioning the Medresetü'z-Zehra in his letter was that the new President, Celal Bayar, had announced in a speech in Van in 1951 that the Democrat Government planned to build a university there in Eastern Turkey. Bediuzzaman had met the announcement with great gratification, equating it with his Medresetü'z-Zehra , and writing to inform his students of it under the heading "Some Important Good News for Risale-i Nur Students". And again in the present letter, he applauded the President's move, both for Turkey as a whole, and the east of the country, and as "a foundation stone of general peace in the Middle East." Only Bediuzzaman stressed that for it to perform this vital finction, the sciences of religion should be taken as the basis of the university. For "the destruction" was caused by external forces and was not of a physical nature, but was "moral and spiritual" (manevi). What would counter and reverse the destruction also had to be of a moral and spiritual nature, "of the strength of an atom bomb". As a specialist on these matters of some fifty-five years' standing, Bediuzzaman had the right to speak concerning them.
It may be added that although the Government completed the project and the Eastern University was opened in November,1958, it was built in Erzurum, not Van, and given the name, Ataturk University. The campaign the RPP and some newspapers conducted against the Government protesting that it was "building Said Nursi's Medrese" may have had some bearing on this.
In connection with the Baghdad Pact, it might also be mentioned that Bediuzzaman's students who were with him at the time of the revolution in Iraq, 14 July 1958, have recorded his extreme distress at the events there. This was not only at the brutal