► (109) ◄ We Say This to the Cabinet and Tevfik İleri

We Say This to the Cabinet and Tevfik İleri[^60]

[^60]:Tevfik İleri (1911-1961), acted as Minister of Education and of other departments in all the Democrat governments of the 1950s. [Tr.]

We told our Master about your invaluable service with the University of the East, and he said:

If I had not been ill, I would have gone to the eastern provinces for the university. I congratulate the Minister of Education with my whole life and spirit. Fifty-five years ago, before the proclamation of the Second Constitution, [^61] I went to Istanbul to work for the founding of a university in the east called the Medresetü'z-Zehrâ; there were to be three universities, one in Van, one in Diyarbakır, and one in Bitlis, or at least one in Van. The Constitution was reinstated and the matter was neglected. Then, when the Unionists were in power, I went to Kosova in connection with Sultan Reşad's visit. The attempt was being made there to found a large Islamic university. I said to both the Unionists and Sultan Reşad that the east had far greater need, for it was like the centre of the Islamic world. They gave their word concerning it, but then the Balkan Wars broke out and Kosova was invaded. So I requested that the twenty thousand gold liras assigned to it should be given for the university in the east, They accepted. I went to Van and with a thousand-lira advance laid the foundations at Artemit on the shores of Lake Van, But then the First World War broke out and again it was abandoned.

[^61]:Bediuzzaman went to Istanbul at the end of November, 1907. The Constitution was reinstated on 23 July 1908. [Tr.]

Having escaped from captivity during the War, I returned to Istanbul. Later they summoned me to Ankara due to my services for the national movement. I went and told them there: "Throughout my life I have been trying to found a university in the east. Sultan Reşad and the Unionists assigned it twenty thousand gold liras; you add the same amount to that." They agreed to allot it one hundred and fifty thousand liras and I insisted that the deputies should put their signatures to it. Some of the deputies pro- tested that I intended to found a medrese-style, solely Islamic, institution, while imitation of the West was now needed. So I told them:

"The eastern provinces are a sort of centre of the Islamic world; it is essential that both the modern sciences and the religious sciences are taught. For the fact that most of the prophets have appeared in the east and most of the philosophers in the west shows that the east will progress