tion and foresees the supremacy of Islam that he 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 judged that an educational establishment which combined the religious and modern sciences and was of sufficient stature to attract students from the eastern Islamic world would both bring together the Muslims of those countries, and besides encouraging unity and reconciliation in that troubled region, would combat communist influence and its depradations. The forces that aimed to divide the Islamic world, and the moral decay, dissension, and disunity they caused had to be combated 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 concerning the future become realized, his judgements as to which course of action should be taken are proved correct, and his importance become clearer. At a time the Islamic world was apparently crushed beneath the heel of Europe, he foretold its rise and saw the Qur'an holding sway over the future, the age of science and reason. While the part he played through the Risale-i Nur in this rise is now indisputable, in the future it will undoubtedly be universally accepted. For in his refuting Naturalism and the other materialist philosophies which are the mainstays of atheism and unbelief and chief means of attacking religion in modern times, and in demonstrating in pure form in the Risale-i Nur the Qur'anic message in a way that addresses modern man's mentality, that is, in expounding and explaining the face of the Qur'an that looks to this age, he performed a service to Islam which is without equal. Just as the Risale-i Nur continues to save and strengthen the belief of increasing numbers of Muslims throughout the Islamic world, so is it the means of increasing numbers of non-Muslims entering Islam. That he and the Risale-i Nur are the regenerators of religion promised each century in the Hadiths of the Prophet (PBUH) cannot be doubted. Indeed, in this age of tumult and upheaval when the darkness has threatened to engulf mankind, the light which Muhammad (PBUH) brought, the light of divine revelation and true knowledge, has found a worthy vessel in the Risale-i Nur, through which it is reflected into the hearts and minds of millions of believers, and through which, God willing, it will illuminate the future.