Entering the gate, I came into a great stone-flagged court upon which the study halls face. The court was surrounded by arcades upheld by marble pillars, and in the arcades and in the immense rooms beyond were thousands upon thousands of seekers after Koranic learning. They sat in groups on the floor, listening to the professors, who were lecturing on various subjects, swaying back and forth as they chanted their words of wisdom. Some of the groups were studying aloud, until the confusion was as great as that at the Tower of Babel when the tongues of the builders were multiplied. There were at least five thousand men all talking at once, and all, as it seemed to me, were shouting at the tops of their voices. As I made my way through the mass, I had many unfriendly looks and narrowly escaped being mobbed when I took snapshots of the professors and students at work under the bright sun which beat down upon the court. The inmates of this school are among the most fanatical of the Mohammedans, and I have since learned that the Christian who ventures among them may be in danger of personal violence. I spent some time going from hall to hall and making notes. In one section I found a class of blind boys who were learning the Koran, and I am told that they are more fanatical than any of the others. In another place I saw forty Persians listening to a professor. They were sitting on the ground, and the professor himself sat flat on the floor with his bare feet doubled up under him. I could see his yellow toes sticking out of his black gown. He was lecturing on theology and the students were attentive. Another class near by was taking down the notes of a lecture. Each had a sheet of tin, which looked as though it might have been cut from an oil can, and he wrote upon this in ink with a reed stylus. The letters were in Arabic so I could not tell what they meant. I looked about in vain for school furniture such as we have at home. There was not a chair or a table in the halls; there were no maps or diagrams and no scientific instruments. There were no libraries visible; the books used were mostly pamphlets. There is no charge for tuition and the poor and the rich are on much the same level. Many of the undergraduates are partially supported by the university; it is no disgrace to be without money. Some of the students and professors live in the university. They sleep in the schoolrooms where they study or teach, lying down upon mats and covering themselves with their blankets. They eat there, peddlers bringing in food and selling it to them. Their diet is plain, a bowl of bean soup and a cake of pounded grain, together with some garlic or dates, forming the most common meal. These things cost little, but to those who are unable to buy, the university gives food. Nine hundred loaves of bread are supplied without charge to needy students every day.