them. Although the RPP fell from power, the struggle between those working to establish materialist philosophy of some form under the guise of Westernization or modernization and those striving in the way of Islam and religion continued in essentially the same form. Thus, the last time Bediuzzaman addressed his students before his death, the point he stressed above all others was this question of `positive action' and `peaceful cihad.' And this is the way the movement had adhered to.
Due to the policies of Ataturk, Turkey had been virtually broken off from the Islamic world during the years of RPP rule. On the Democrats gaining power in 1950, one of Bediuzzaman's endeavours was to have the Risale-i Nur translated into Arabic, so that it could show the effectiveness in the strengthening and renewal of belief it had demonstrated in Turkey on a much wider scale. As many Islamic countries were gaining their independence at that time, Bediuzzaman saw this as the means to Islamic Unity; unity based on the "brotherhood of belief ' from which would spring co-operation in many fields. Indeed, it was at this time that he translated (from Arabic into Turkish) the text of his Damascus Sermon of 1911, and had it published with alterations, which deals with this question, and foresees the supremacy of Islam that Bediuzzaman once again started to speak of at this time.
Also connected with the Islamic world was Bediuzzaman's Eastern University, the Medresetü'z-Zehra, concerning which he addressed the President and Prime Minister in 1955 in connection with the setting up of the Baghdad Pact. He saw an educational establishment which combined the religious and modem sciences and was of sufficient stature to attract students from the eastern Islamic world to be both the means to unity among the Muslims of those countries, and, besides being a means to unity and reconciliation in that troubled part of Turkey, to be also the way to combat communist influence and its depradations. The forces whose aim it was to divide the Islamic world, and the moral decay, dissension, and disunity they caused had to be combatted through the `positive' means of learning, knowledge and religion. Such a university, he stated, would be "the foundation-stone and chief citadel" of peace in that area and the Middle East.
As time passes. Bediuzzaman's statements and predictions