out that even if the Armenians' freedom was as bad as they thought, Muslims still do not cause harm. The Armenians and the total number of non-Muslims in the Empire were relatively few compared with the whole Muslim nation of more than three hundred million. And these three hundred million had been bound with "three dreadful fetters of despotism" and were being "crushed, captive under the Europeans' tyranny." "Thus," continued Bediuzzaman, "the non-Muslims' freedom, which is one branch of our freedom, is the bribe for [the price of] the freedom of all our nation [the Islamic world]. It is the repeller of that despotism and the key to those fetters. It is the raiser of the dreadful tyranny the Europeans have made descend on us." He considered they could afford this price, for as we have seen, "the Ottomans' freedom is the discloser of mighty Asia's good fortune. It is the key to Islam's prosperity. It is the foundation of the ramparts of Islamic Unity." [^215]

[^215]:Ibid., 20-1.

#### Bediuzzaman Addresses the Generations of the Future

Bediuzzaman Addresses the Generations of the Future

Bediuzzaman's eyes were on the future. It was a time of defeat for the Islamic world, a period of regression and darkness. But he knew the spring would come, and a golden age would dawn bringing true happiness, progress, and civilization for mankind. This return to life had begun. Flashes of light, signs of life could be seen. Bediuzzaman's view was so clear, he became impatient with the reluctance of the tribesmen to grasp it; rather, he expressed his impatience with his contemporaries generally:

Why should the world be the world of progress for everyone else, and the world of decline and retrogression only for us? Is that the case? See, I shall not speak to you, I am turning this way; I shall speak to the people of the future:

O you Said's, Hamza's, Ömer's, Osman's, Tahir's, Yusuf's, Ahmad's and the rest of you who are hidden behind the high age of three centuries hence, and listening silently to my words, watch us with a secret, unseen gaze! I am addressing you! Raise your heads and say: "You are right!" And it should be incumbent on you to say it. Let these contemporaries of mine not listen if they do not wish. I am speaking to you over the wireless telegraph that stretches from the valleys of the past called history to your elevated future. What should I do? I was hasty, I came in winter, but you will come in a paradise-like spring. The seeds of light sown now will open as flowers in your ground. And we await this from you as the recompense for