Said Nursi and the Nur Movement in Turkey: An Atomistic Approach

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Mustafa Gkhan S ahin, PhD University of South Florida

ince his active involvement in politics during the late Ottoman era, Bedizzaman Said Nursi,1 the founder of the Nur movement,2 posed fundamental challenges to the modernizing the state in Turkey. He was not the only scholar who opposed authoritarian state policies; however, over the years, his movement has become the most inuential Islamic movement. For Nurcus, as sympathizers of Nursi call themselves, this was due to the Nur movements renewalist character. Since the groundbreaking work of Mardin (1989), the story of the Nur movement has been elaborated in many scholarly studies. Many of them, however, paid an inordinate amount of attention to external (structural) factors such as social milieu, opportunity spaces, institutional factors (i.e., state), and the movements position vis--vis the West. None of them touched upon the atomistic approach inherent in the Nur movements renewalism. This has been a common trend in many Islamic studies. However, external factors are choices and opportunities, not strict limitations. Because of the strong connections with its normative sources, the Nur movement does not act like billiard balls; rather, it is a thinking agent making deliberate decisions in line with its identity. Structural/institutional analyses3 cannot adequately explain this self-referential, if not dogmatic, identity of the religious actors who constantly challenge the structural limitations around them. Even the scholars, who see the social relations as a coconstitutive process, overlook the qualities that emerge from reading a religious text that shapes an actors own imaginings and interpretations, which are formulated independent of social relations.4 Based on the Nur movements own self-perception described in the Risale-i Nur, Nursis magnum opus, this article will mainly employ an actor-based approach. By examining the historical development of the Nur movement and its approach toward important religious and political issues, this study will shed light upon the distinct Islamic identity of the movement. What Is New in Said Nursis Message? The Nur community upholds the belief that, the text (Quran), not the context, constructs the Muslim identity.The Quran as a living text, however, can have dierent messages for dierent ages. This emerges from what they call the renewalism (tajdid), a traditional Islamic concept. According to Islamic theory, historically, in each century, renewalist movements develop a new message for their target audience by returning to the age-old traditions. Nursis renewalist ideas against the challenges of the day
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(structural factors) were especially evident in his treatment of the place of the individual in Islamic societies. Nursis response to the secularizing state policies was dierent from his contemporaries in Turkey. It was not a complete rejection, like Iskilipli Atif Hoca; an escape, like Mustafa Sabri and Mehmet Akif; or seclusion, like Elmalili Muhammed Hamdi Yazir. Rather than following any of these leading Islamic scholars in Turkey, Nursi adhered to, rather innovatively, an atomistic path to the salvation of Muslims. He wanted to form a new generation based on the renewal of the faith that redened the entire spectrum of social and political aspects of life. Aktay argues that Nursi was the only scholar who aimed to accomplish such a goal (Aktay, 2004). The historical manifestation of renewalism as an age-old tradition has been characterized by the centennial renewal of the faith side by side with the intellectual and theological critique of innovation (bidat) (Algar, 2001). Therefore, renewalism at its core is traditional because it holds that Islam suces to meet the challenges of the time without feeling the necessity of going through a reformation process that requires destroying the tradition and rebuilding it from scratch. Nurcus looks back to the earlier generations of Islam, in general, and companions of the Prophet Muhammad, in particular, as models of Islamic behavior. They view themselves as the legitimate representatives of the prophetic tradition. For them, the Prophet is more than a historical gure. He is the one sent by the divine will, and all his actions are worthy of emulation. The concept of renewing the religion stemmed from the conviction that the period of the Prophet was the ideal which should be recaptured.This understanding is an implicit acceptance as time passes the authentic practice of the religion decays. The Prophet Muhammad stated in a hadith: The best of my community is the generation in which I was sent, then those who follow them, then those who follow them. Friedmann argues that this is only one of the numerous traditions idealizing the earliest period of Islamic history and indicating that a process of deterioration would set in after its completion (Friedmann, 2000). To remedy the deterioration, Muhammad said that at the beginning or end of each century, God would send one of his servants to the Islamic community who will renew the religion (Algar, 2001). Renewalism is a process of rectifying the religion after it is corrupted. It presupposes that the message of Islam is fundamentally sound, but it needs renovating. Nursis followers uphold the belief that the success of their movement is due to its ability to renovate the Islamic message in line with the requirements of the contemporary age. They believe that Nursi invented a new method within the tradition concerning all aspects of life, including politics, and an individuals position, vis--vis the state. Undeniably, for Nurcus, Nursi is the renewer (mujaddid) of this age. In Nursis renewalism, the ideal way of renewing the religion was not through the state apparatus but through reading, learning, and disseminating the message of the Risale-i Nur. Therefore, as he gradually distanced himself from daily politics, he substituted direct political involvement with an apolitical one (Kuru & Kuru, 2008). Nursi, however, did not emerge in a vacuum. Analyzing the dynamic relationship

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between the social milieu (structure) and the transformation of Nursis own understandings (agency) is imperative. As stated in his semiocial autobiography, Nursis life has three important epochs in which his ideas versus the state apparatus diered signicantly. To understand the development and transformation of Nursis approach to Islam and politics, we need to closely study the dierent stages in his life. In the rst phase of his life, he lived through the turbulent times of the late Ottoman Empire where he was actively involved in politics until his visit to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Trkiye Byk Millet Meclisi) in Ankara in 1922. This phase is called the Old Said (Eski Said) era. The second era began after the Old Said era, which more or less corresponds to the end of the Ottoman Empire and to the rise of the new republic. After he went to Ankara in 1922, Nursi retired from his political activities and began to live a semisecluded life in the city of Van, near his hometown. This marks the era when the country was steadily being secularized from above. This period was the New Said (Yeni Said) era. The Third Said (nc Said) era more or less corresponds to the beginning of the multiparty age when the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, or DP) won the majority vote against the ultra-secular Republican Peoples Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) in 1950 until Nursis death in 1960. Early Life and the Old Said Era (18781920s) Said Nursi was born in 18785 during the turbulent years of the late Ottoman era in the southeastern part of modern-day Turkey. The ocial name of the region was Krdistan, because the majority of the population was Kurdish Muslims (Bruinessen, 1992). His hometown, Bitlis, was a major center for Islamic scholarly research. This Kurdish city was second only to Istanbul in the training of religious sciences (Mardin, 1989).6 Nursi was Kurdish and learned Turkish in his late teens long after he mastered the Arabic and Persian languages, the two major languages taught in the traditional school (medrese) system in the Ottoman era. Nursi was born into a Sayyid family, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.7 Being a Sayyid has been a source of legitimacy for the ulema in the Islamic world (Kilic, 2005).8 Nursis family was a member of the Khalid al-Baghdadi branch of the Naqshbandi order (Vahide, 2005b). The Naqshbandi scholars gave him his rst informal training in the Islamic sciences, especially the study of jurisprudence (Mardin, 1991/2005). However, Nursi never became a formal member of the Naqshbandi order (Vahide, 2005b). In spite of the dominance of the Naqshbandi order in the region, he instead insisted on his selfproclaimed spiritual adherence to the teachings of, among others, Abdulkadir Geylani.9 Nursi often showed a mastery over the traditional curriculum despite his somewhat attenuated educational career (Mardin, 1982).10 In the following years, Nursi pursued a career as a local master teacher while also acting as an arbitrator between the rival tribes in the region. He was named Mullah Said the Famous (Molla Said-i Mehur). Because of this reputation, he was able to

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establish relationships with the local and regional authorities, that is, governors. Sometime after 1896, Nursi met with Tahir Pasha, the governor of the Province of Van. Tahir Pashas political and ocial activities informed Nursi about contemporary debates in Europe. He became Nursis gateway to the political and philosophical discussions in Europe concerning the future of Islam and the Ottoman Empire (Mardin, 1982). According to Nursis own records, one day, Tahir Pasha informed Nursi that the secretary of the British House of Commons made remarks insulting Muslims, their faith, and the place of the Quran in their lives (ahiner, 2006). After learning about this incident, Nursi decided to dedicate himself to make the promotion of the faith and the study Islam as a source of Muslim identity his lifes work (Vahide, 2005a, 2005b).11 At this time, he realized that the traditional form of Islamic theology (kelam) was incapable of providing guidance and solutions to the challenges facing Islam. In order to bridge the gap between traditional Islamic thought and modern sciences, he did extensive readings in modern sciences at the residence of the governor. For traditional ulema of the Ottoman medrese system, this was unheard of (Vahide, 2005b). Displeased with the progressive deterioration of the moral as well as social and economic well-being of the people, he began to look for new ways of reforming society via the educational system (ahiner, 2006). His initial focus was Eastern Turkey.12 During this era, he used to sign his name as Said-i Kurdi (Said the Kurdish). The instrument Nursi intended to use to mediate and solve the pervasive problems was an educational institution, a university that could study and enact changes based on modern sciences and religion (Nursi, 1996).13 The problems of ignorance and turmoil in the Muslim world, for Nursi, could only be resolved if people followed religious principles. Nursi wanted to unite regional communities from different backgrounds through the Medresetuz-Zehra project. Therefore, in the new university (in Nursis words, house of sciencesdarul fnun), education would be in Arabic (vacip, meaning obligatory); Kurdish would be the second language (caiz, meaning permitted) and Turkish would be elective (lazim, meaning necessary) (Nursi, 1996). Although Nursi emerged in a Naqshbandi setting, his university project was beyond the Naqshbandi imagination, which was limited to local medreses (Mardin, 1982).14 The university project was unorthodox and unusually modern-avored (Mardin, 1989) but essential for Nursi.The reason Nursi produced a modern-avored project, however, was because the problems faced by the society were the products of modernity. He was exible enough to accommodate external challenges within his own educational and cultural boundaries. As a result, after long years of establishing himself as a respected scholar in the eastern parts of the Empire, he decided to go to Istanbul, the capital city, hoping to meet with the Sultan in order to receive funding for his university project. It was late 1907 and Nursi was approximately 30 years old. Before coming to Istanbul, he was already informed about the major developments in the world. Despite his previous life in isolation, Nursi was following events

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both inside and outside of the country. Later in his life, his focus would gradually shift from Eastern Turkey to the overall Ottoman Empire within the Islamic world and the political activities that would bind the Muslim world together. In one of the books he published in Istanbul, Divan-i Harbi r, Nursi states that my predecessors in [Islamic Unity] (Ittihad) are Shaykh Cemaleddin-i [Afghani]; the late Mufti of Egypt [Muhammad] Abduh; from the extremist [Turkish] scholars Ali Suavi, Hoca Tahsin; and those who took Islamic Unity as their goals like Namik Kemal and Sultan Selim (Nursi, 1996). Similar to Namik Kemal, one of the major gures of the earliest generation of the Ottomanist thought, Nursi demanded reforms via constitutionalism, which would bring rule of law, freedom, and most importantly, consultation, which he considered as an Islamic requirement. During his years in Istanbul, Nursi began to participate in political debates. After the proclamation of the Second Constitution (kinci Merutiyet) in July 1908, he gave lectures in support of the constitution and the importance of freedom (of thought) for the well-being of the Islamic community.The Second Constitution toppled Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. Because of his pious life and strong support for pan-Islamic causes like the Palestinian issue, he was a hero for many Muslims. However, in the opinion of Nursi, Abdulhamids authoritarian character precluded him from being considered heroic because his administrative style was ultimately counterproductive (Beyhan, 2002; Kara, 1999). While Nursi was becoming an active participant of the political life, he was trying hard to balance his original pro-individual stance. Nursi contributed to public debates on the applicability of constitutionalism and its role in strengthening Islamic unity, and made the additional argument for a renewed focus on education as the most important way of promoting Islam in society. These discussions resulted in two important books, The Reasonings (Muhakemat) and The Debates (Mnazarat), published in 1911 and 1913, respectively. Because of his publications and public appearances, coming from the periphery of power in Turkey, Said Nursi was quite successful in winning the recognition and respect of two major classes in Istanbulthe scholars and the soldiers/politicians. For Nursi, the center of gravity was not necessarily the Ottoman state per se, but the high-ranking groups of actors within the state such as the scholars and politicians. If he could inuence these two classes, he felt he would ultimately be able to inuence the entire society. His aim was to link developments like constitutionalism and other specically modern developments with the future of Muslims as a community, based on morally strong individuals. Often times, he was deeply disappointed with the shortcomings of the political method (Karabasoglu, 2004). In 1911, he went to Damascus and gave one of his most memorable speeches in the Umayyad Mosque. This famous sermon is called the Sermon of Damascus (Hutbe-i amiye). In the sermon, Nursi explained the reasons for underdevelopment in the Islamic world and oered six solutions to what he dened as six moral and spiritual diseases widespread in the Muslim world. According to Nursi, the six diseases were: (1) prevalence of hopelessness or despair

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in social life (Yes), (2) the absence of truthfulness in social and political life (Sdkn . . . lmesi), (3) the love of hostility (Adavate Muhabbet), (4) ignoring the bonds that unite and strengthen the believers (Rabtalar bilmemek), (5) pervasive despotism in the lives of people either at home or with other members of society (stibdat), and (6) the exclusive focus of people on personal aggrandizement (Menfaat-i ahsiye, egocentricity) (Nursi, 1996). As seen from his portrayal of diseases, the sources of the problems in the Muslim world are moral and spiritual. Nursi is distinct from many of his contemporaries in locating the problems of his time atomistically in the misbehavior of individual human beings as actors rather than the external factors. His cures for the diseases were also from an individual level of analysis that was, for Nursi, perfectly Islamic. The cures Nursi oered were: (1) hope (Emel), (2) truthfulness and trustworthiness (Sdk), (3) mutual love among Muslims (Muhabbet), (4) solidarity (Rabta), (5) consultation (Meveret), and (6) freedom (Hrriyet-i eriye).15 He argued that he derived his cures for these ailments from the (pharmacy of the) Quran (eczahane-i Kuraniye), for these diseases rst aect the individual Muslim then become pervasive in society (ahiner, 2006). Although, during this period of his life, Nursi mostly preferred an institutional political method to cure societys problems, it is noteworthy to see how even in the Old Said era, his explanations targeted individuals as agents capable of changing the status of the Islamic state. Until the outbreak of World War I (WWI), Nursi traveled back and forth between Istanbul and Eastern Turkey. While in Eastern Turkey, he defended and explained the developments taking place in Istanbul; while in Istanbul, he lobbied for his university project for Eastern Turkey. Before starting his university project, WWI began, and he became a commander in the army and fought on the Eastern Front against Russian and Armenian forces. Later, he was captured by the Russians in 1916 and was able to return to Istanbul only after the Bolshevik Revolution. Afterwards, he lived in Istanbul, on and o, until the end of 1922. During his years in Istanbul, Nursi began to perceive at a deep level the almost unalterable changes in the religious character of society. As the Ottoman state declined in power, the educated elite preferred a Western lifestyle to an Islamic one. Nursi warned his pupils about the impact of these changes in his publications and lectures.16 He published books and became an active member in social organizations where he intended to promote an awareness of individual and social diseases from an Islamic perspective. After WWI, dierent independence movements emerged throughout Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal (Atatrk) began to lead the most prominent, and ultimately, the most successful independence movement in Ankara. Under coercion by the invading Western powers, the Shaykh al-Islam (eyhlislam) Durrizade Abdullah Efendi17 of the Istanbul government issued a fatwa (Islamic legal opinion) against the Ankara governments national struggle. However, Said Nursi supported them and issued a counter fatwa (Turner & Horkuc, 2009). Eventually, he lost his faith in the Istanbul

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governments ability to save the empire and promote the teachings of the religion. This feeling had been with him for some time, but it began to solidify at this time (Nursi, 1996). In late 1922, Nursi accepted an invitation from the governmental body that represented the independence movement in Anatolia and went to Ankara (Yavuz, 2003).18 He attended a welcoming ceremony organized for him and gave a speech in the parliament. His visit to Ankara, where he met with the inuential members of the parliament, increased his discontent with the political method. Upon seeing the saliency of materialism and positivism among the secular elite and their disregard for Islam as a legitimate point of reference in developing a national culture and identity, he tried to call the lawmakers to practice Islam. He began with the basics and wrote a treatise that called politicians to pray daily and perform other acts of worship for the sake of God. He even published it as a booklet on the importance of the ve daily prayers (Karabasoglu, 2004).19 From the perspective of the secular elite in Ankara, it must have been extraordinary to listen to a scholar talking to them about the importance of belief in God and practicing religion while they, themselves, considered Islam to be the main cause of decline in the country. His experiences in Ankara might be considered as a peak of his transformation into a rather apolitical position. Nursi readily admitted that his eorts did not pay (Nursi, 1996). Although he was oered a government position, Nursi rejected it and went back to Van, the city he left decades ago, with a dream to study, teach, and live by the Quran. He decided to devote his life to the study of Quran one more time. He was perhaps willing to spend rest of his life in a secluded cave where he used to teach before, this time as a new Said.20 New Said Era (1920s1950) The end of Nursis active political life coincided with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the new republic. Although during his Old Said era he was actively involved in politics, in the new era he tried to seek a balance between the promise of political power and the grave peril of possibly being overcome and corrupted by that power.21 When he nally realized the futility of pursuing positions in state institutions as a means to advance the cause of Islam, he ended his active political life. He coined a famous saying: I seek refuge in God from the Devil and politics.22 Later, the Ankara Parliament declared the Turkish republic on October 29, 1923. The early years of the republic witnessed one of the most comprehensive reforms in Turkish history. On March 3, 1924, the parliament enacted a major law named Unication of Education Law (Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu). The law brought all educational institutions under strict governmental control. This resulted in the closure of all religious medrese schools throughout the country. On the same day, the oce of Shaykh al-Islam was closed and the Islamic caliphate was abolished (Ahmad, 1993). Upon retiring from politics, Nursi argued that political interpretation or

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implementation of the religion was not necessarily the true nature of Islam needed in this age. His argument was straightforwardstate is not the main reason of a corrupt society therefore it cannot be the cure for its deciencies. In 1925, the leading Kurdish groups frustrated with the republican reforms, in addition to not receiving the ocial promises of autonomy, rose up against the Ankara government. The groups led by the famous Kurdish religious gure, Shaykh Said, asked for Said Nursis support. Nursi presented a quasi-Ottomanist argument and argued that the Turkish citizens of the Ottoman Empire should be respected because they had served the cause of Islam for centuries. His principle concern was to ensure that Muslims did not engage in ghting with other Muslims (ahiner, 2006). Because of a rebellion that he opposed, Said Nursi was accused of sedition, taken by government ocials, and sent to exile to Western Anatolia. During his exile in Barla, a village in Western Anatolia, Nursi began to do something that the government ocials did not expect from him; he formed a loyal circle of students in the service of religion. He was living in a very remote and underdeveloped part of the country. Besides, Western Turkey with its somewhat secular residents has been known to be quite distant from practicing religion, although not entirely against it. This was a perfect opportunity for Nursi to build his message from scratch.The elements of the human agency, according to Nursi, were all related to religion as a faith rather than to worldly pursuits or the state.23 Focusing on the text of the Risale-i Nur, Nursi tried to reconstruct an Islamic identity that relied on the power of belief in Allah. Barla was a small village with poor residents just like Nursi himself. His initial audience was illiterate, at least in religious sciences. During his exile in Barla, Nursis writings had become less scholarly and more symbolic. Compared with his previous abstract works, Nursi was becoming practical, trying to relate God to the practical aspect of peoples lives. However, there was a problem; Nursi was not good at writing in Turkish. He learned to speak Turkish in his teenage years, but did not know how to write in the language. He was somewhat familiar with the ocial alphabet in use until 1926, which was a slightly dierent form of Arabic. However, with the new alphabet reform in 1926, he literally became illiterate. The demographic characteristics of Nursis followers changed as his message developed over time. He began to attract a number of students (talebe) from all over the country who were interested in learning, writing, and disseminating the message of the Risale-i Nur. Nursi sought the help of his expanding student body to record his messages in Turkish (Erdagi, 2007).24 Afterwards, he would edit these works to check for errors and discrepancies. Student would reproduce these works by hand because they did not have access to printing presses. His followers in their native towns and cities later secretly disseminated these works.25 In this way, Nursi was able to author most of his major works in Barla and attract followers from the rest of the country who either read his short letters or heard stories about him. The most important aspect of this newly forming movement was that it was connecting the people to the main textual sources of Islam.

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Common Themes in Nursis Ideas during the New Said Era and Later Years During this period, Said Nursi began to argue that the root cause of the problems in the Islamic world was not about the Islamic creed (itikat) or its political implementation. The problem was how these were interpreted by the scholars and conveyed to the masses. In short, there was a need to articulate the traditional values of Islam accessible to the modern mind. From early on, he started to remind his students about God as the cause of all causes (Msebbibl Esbab), all-powerful (Kadir), and shaper of everything (Rab). His idea was to call Muslims to the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God, while his target audience shifted from the residents of eastern Turkey to the greater Muslim world. In The Words, one of his earliest books written in the New Said period, Nursi addressed the role of tradition, calling for a return to the original practice of the earliest Muslim communities and identifying with the cumulative tradition that had developed throughout the Muslim world for centuries (Nursi, 1996).26 In this respect, the major dierence between Nursi and many radical alternatives lay in his ability to create a message embedded in the tradition, critical of modernity but not categorically against it. Nursi argued that the problems that would face Muslims in the twenty-rst century would result from a civilizational crisis that aected human beings individually. The state apparatus, he thought, could not solve a civilizational crisis, because it was not a political problem. Nursi primarily intended to change ideas of people about belief in God. He argued that there were two levels of belief, belief by imitation (taklidi iman) and belief by exploration (tahkiki iman). Nursi argued that when Su orders give excessive emphasis to spiritual pleasure (keramet), it limits the quality of the spiritual life of the entire community. It makes them weak and vulnerable to identity crisis in a modern world that poses serious challenges to the Muslim mind. Among others, Nursis 5th letter is devoted entirely to this issue. This work explains why Nursi diers from excessive Susm and justies why the immediate bond between man and God is more important than personal spiritual pleasures. After the belief in God as the sole creator and owner of the Day of Judgment where all human beings will be held accountable for their deeds in the world, Nursi focused on issues like the role and normative example of the Prophet Muhammad in Islam. His famous work on the importance of Prophet Muhammad, Miracles of Muhammad (Mucizat-i Ahmediye), was published in 1929. In this work (the 19th Letter), Nursi commented on the importance of the Prophet Muhammad and his tradition (snnet) as the second pillar of religious knowledge and practice. For him, prophethood was the link between the divine and worldly. This was an identity construction based on the sources of Islam rather than outside references. Because of the increasing secularization of the society during this time, members of many other religious orders tried to escape from the negative impact

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of society and preferred to live in seclusion seeking spiritual peace. Nursi, on the other hand, argued that the dire condition of humanity in general and Muslims in particular drive believers to sacrice and struggle in order to reconnect human beings with their spiritual core. Nursi argued that the loss of faith in God had become a major impediment, even in interpersonal relations-causing social problems. Based on his bottom-up explanation, he argued that by believing in God, individuals rely on the power of God rather than their limited personal will (Albayrak, 2002). For Nursi, relying on Gods power made people more just while egocentric life led to selshness and injustice. He was giving spiritual solutions to temporal and material problems. For Nursi, a chaotic and brutal portrayal of the world was only possible if human beings desacralized the world. This is a product of the bifurcation of reality into secular and sacred realms. Nursi argued that the fundamental principle of this kind of a world is a constant ght (cidal, meaning conict or chaos in a disorderly world) (Nursi, 1996).27 According to Nursi, although they come from dierent perspectives, religious people who run away from society for moral purposes and those who accept division of the world into sacred and secular realms are all divorced from the reality of God. They all fear that their environment will have a negative impact on them. Because they cannot nd atomistic solutions to institutional problems, both of these understandings lead to authoritarian state understandings, whether it is leviathan or theocracy. This stance is evident in Nursis dissatisfaction with Abdulhamid II and early republican era policies. Said Nursi was unhappy with Abdulhamid IIs authoritarian policies that supposedly intended to improve the position of Islam. Nursi supported the secular Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti) because they promised freedom (Kara, 1999).28 However, after gaining power, the Committee of Union and Progress continued its authoritarian policies. Eventually, its ideology gave birth to the Republican Peoples Partys single-party regime, which did not keep its promises. The atomistic approach as a social reform project is the main dierence between the Nursis renewalism and political Islamists. For social change, Nursis revivalism gave primacy to human beingsone by one, while for political Islamists, it was the state apparatus that shapes and reforms society. As Haddad states, despite [many] similarities in experience with his contemporaries, Nursi developed a radically dierent idea about the means of saving the Muslim ummah (Haddad, 2003). Rising dominance of Western values, therefore, was an important concern for Nursi. He categorically rejected the concept of the West as normative, or of its values as universal (Haddad, 2003). For him, Muslim society had to be based on the sources of Islam itself. Nursis ideas on the West and its degenerating impact on Turkish society were not so dierent from other Islamists. However, the major dierence in Nursis ideas was the absence of a view based on constant conict (or clash in Huntingtonian sense) between Islam and the West.

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Nursi blended a detailed criticism of the anthropocentric tenets of modern Western thought with an appreciation of the progress and freedom of European society (Brodeur, 2005). His criticisms of Western inuence were not essentialist because he did not view the West as a monolithic entity. He had a twofold view of European culture: First, the Christian Europe, which was based on the message of Jesus; and second, the Europe of secular materialism and positivism that is responsible for the overall moral and spiritual decay in modern societies (Nursi, 1996).29 In Nursis terms, the second aspect of Europe represented the decadent nature of the European Civilization.30 In the pre-Istanbul and Istanbul periods of his life, he was skeptical of learning from the West or apologetic approaches to secularism. For Nursi, because second Europe was alienated from its Christian origin through the inuence of secularism, he was uneasy with the idea of modernizing Islam along the same lines. Nursi did not think that there was any need to reform or modernize Islam. He only attempted to ground individual believers on the long forgotten principles of Islam. To counter the negative, centrifugal eects of modernity, Nursi felt that it was necessary to fashion a cadre of Muslims whose lives are centered on the Quran (Haddad, 2003). The Third Said Era (19501960) The Third Said era was the last and the shortest period in Nursis life. During this era, the DP government promoted lenient policies toward Muslims and Islam. As soon as it came to power, the government lifted the ban on the Muslim call for prayer (ezan). As a result, Nursi openly supported them, against the ultra-secular Republican Peoples Party. Although he did not get involved in politics, Nursi demanded from the DP government support for and free distribution of his Risale-i Nur. Contrary to his previous demands for total separation of church and state, in the Third Said era, Nursi wanted the government to support religious activities. Nursi did not consider the idea of the state as merely instrumental. He was not contented with the unquestioned political authority of state leaders; however, he knew that Muslims needed the state to provide services like security and safety so that individuals could ourish in moral and free societies. Therefore, although he was critical of the extreme policies of the state, he was not critical of the idea of the state. Nursi maintained this position until his death in 1960. Conclusion In the early republican era, the closure of traditional religious schools, Su orders, and ban on all kinds of religious education made some Muslims more alienated from the modern environment. In this situation, Nursi pushed for reconstruction of the faith from inside out rather from the periphery. Nursi was not an armchair theoretician; he experienced and perceived his future project as an isolated endeavor for sincere

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believers (Haddad, 2003). On the other hand, he was not the only thinker to recognize the challenges and threats to his faith coming from changing external factors. Other inuential gures dealt with the same problems in the rest of the Middle East. As Haddad put forward, like Nursi, [other] reformers [also] focused on reinterpreting Islam for modern life. [However], while [some of them] struggled to modernize Islam and [others] sought to Islamize modernity, Nursis program at the end of his life sought to contain modernity, to devise a course of life that proves the suciency of Islam whatever its environment (Haddad, 2003). In this sense, Nursi was modernist as well as traditionalist; he sought a middleway to address problems endemic to modernity (Kuru, 2003). This traditionalism was based on the belief that the Quran is the last and most complete form of revelation and as such can guide Muslims. Members of the Nur community are modernists in the sense that they engage the changes inherent in modernity and are positive toward scientic advancements; that is, they do not dismiss modernity in its scientic aspect, but they criticize secularism as a self-professed universal ideology. Containing the radical intrusion of modernity on Islam by returning to the primary sources of religious knowledge and making them relevant to the modern man is still a main tenet of overall Nurcu movements. Today, 50 years after his death, Nursis ideas inspire dierent Nur communities that altogether make up the most inuential Islamic social movement in Turkey. Contrary to their dierent, if not conicting, views on a wide variety of subjects, Nursis sympathizers continue to hold on to one fundamental tenet that human beings individually are the foremost important creatures in the entire universe and their foremost goal is nothing but to attain belief in God for eternal salvation (Nursi, 1996). Notes
1. Nursi is known as Bedizzaman, which means nonpareil of the time (Mardin, 1989). After the Surname Law of 1934, which required all Turkish citizens to have a last name, Nursi was given the last name of nlkul. nlkul means famous servant (of God). According to ocial government records, therefore, Bedizzaman Said Nursi is Said nlkul. Said Nursi, however, has never used the nlkul last name. 2. In Turkey, the movement is popularly known as Nurculuk. 3. The discussion here is in line with the agent-structure debate in International Relations theory. A dierent version is available in Kuru and Kuru (2008). 4. I would like to thank Professor Mohiaddin Mesbahi for bringing this issue to my attention. 5. There are dierent accounts of when Said Nursi was born. Conversion problems between three dierent calendars caused this confusion.There were two calendars used during the Ottoman era. They were the Hicri (Islamic Lunar) calendar that was used for religious issues and the Rumi (Ottoman Solar) calendar for administrative and economic issues. After 1926, the Miladi (Gregorian) calendar began to be used. By relying on dierent sources, Mardin (1989), Kosoglu (2004), and many others argue that Nursi was born in 1873. ahiner (2006), the most famous biographer of Nursi, argues that Nursi was born in 1876. On the other hand, Nursis (1996) semiocial autobiography states that Nursi was born in 1877. Most recently, however, after a detailed analysis, an editorial article in Kpr (a journal published by young

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Digest of Middle East Studies generation Nur scholars in Istanbul) convincingly argued that Nursi was born in 1878 (Bediuzzaman hangi tarihte dogdu [When was Bediuzzaman born?], 2000). I take 1878 as the most accurate account. 6. See also Mardin (1991/2005) where Mardin argues that the students of the Khalid al-Bagdadadi branch of the Naqshbandi order were instrumental in making the region a hub of Islamic studies. 7. Although it is a widely accepted issue among his followers, Algar (2001) presents a dierent view about the Sayyedness of Said Nursi. 8. In some of Prophet Muhammads sayings (hadith) and more importantly in the Quran, the family of Muhammad was exalted. The 33rd verse of the 33rd chapter in the Quran is an example (Ahzab/33). According to conventional understanding, members of Muhammads family were descendent from his daughter Fatima (wife of Ali and mother of Husayn and Hasan). For Muslims in general and Muslims in Turkey, it is a traditional honor to establish a lineage to the house of the prophet known as Al al-Bayt (Ehl-i Beyt). Initially, it was an informal declaration, however, since the later periods of the Ottoman Empire, Husayni and Hasani Muslims, were ocially recorded in government records, in some cases because of their special tax-exempt status. 9. Geylani (or Jilani) is the founder of the Qadiri tarikat, a relatively less popular but still highly esteemed order in Turkey. For more on Nursis emphasis on Geylani, see Nursi (1996, pp. 20832092). 10. Nursis education only lasted 3 months. Mardin (1982, p. 68) states that because he was much younger than his peers, Nursis educational career ended with a controversial graduation ceremony in 1888. 11. This event happened in the Islamic calendar year 1316, which corresponds roughly to May 1898April 1899. ahiner (2006) argues that the British Secretary was William Evart Gladstone. ahiner is the main source of this information. However, Vahide (2005a), missing almost two years in calendar conversion, argues that 1316 corresponds to the turn of the century that is roughly two years after Gladstone died. In line with Vahides explanation, although her calendar conversion is wrong, Nursi probably learned of the remarks of Gladstone sometime after the latter made them. 12. Although he considers the importance of a science university valid for all Muslims, he specically mentions Eastern Turkey as the main area for his project. Nursi says, Sark bir darulfununa muhtac (East[ern Turkey] needs a science university). 13. Nursi said, The enlightenment of the soul comes from religious sciences.The light of the mind comes from modern sciences. Therefore, he said, We need to unite [modern] new sciences with the [religious] sciences of medreses. 14. Mardin argues that the inuential Naqshbandi medreses were not able to compete with missionary schools opened in the region by the Protestant missionaries which intended to support the local Armenian minority, who at the time made up slightly less than one third of Bitliss 400,000 residents. 15. By Hurriyet-i eriye Nursi means that Islam supports freedom. 16. Said Nursi was displeased with the developments of his age. He was one of the earliest scholars to recognize the impact of globalization in transforming the world into a village. His revivalist predecessors, such as Imam Rabbani and Khalid al-Baghdadi, were also aware of the changing environment during their lives; however, none of the transformations taking place in their era was as far-reaching as the eect of secularism and modernization.

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Fall 2011 17. Shaykh al-Islam as the utmost religious authority was the head of the Ministry of Sharia and Religious Foundations (eriye ve Evkaf Vekaleti) and oversaw the compatibility of the actions of the state with the Sharia constitution. 18. In his sympathetic account of Nursis life, Akar (2008) argues that Nursi was invited to Ankara more than 15 times, some of which by Mustafa Kemal himself. 19. Nursi argues that in Ankara, he saw a group of people in disbelief in God. Therefore, he tried to refute the ideas of positivists (Naturalists, Tabiiyyun) by publishing some booklets on nature. However, he admits that it did not work (tesirini gostermedi in Turkish). For more, see the Epistle on Nature (Tabiat Risalesi). 20. The cave famously known as Horhor Medresesi was mostly used by Su masters as an informal and underground school. 21. Among other places, Nursi explains the reasons of his anti-political stance in Lahikalar (Addendum), which is a part of the 27th Letter (27. Mektub) published separately in Emirda Lahikasi. 22. In its Arabic origin (written in Turkish, as in Risale-i Nur), Euzu billahi min e eytan ves Siyaset. This saying is in one of Nursis book called Snhat. It was written before 1920 and is not necessarily part of the core of the Risale-i Nur. Said Nursi also discussed the same issue in other places like his book Letters (Mektubat) that was written after 1926. 23. Zubaida (2005) makes the distinction that religion as a faith involves elements related to the belief system rather than to religion as an ideology of the state. 24. In some cases, Nursi dictated some of his books when he was in jail. His followers used to write what he said on cigarette papers and then take these draft copies to the villages where the entire village secretly reproduced the books late at night. Erdagi tells this and many other stories told by the sympathizers of Nursi. 25. This method became so widespread that it even became a branch of Nur movement later on which opposed the printing of the Risale in the Latin alphabet. This group was called the scribers (Yazicilar). Yazicilar, a small group within the Nur community, argued that copying and distributing Risale in Arabic also kept the people connected with the Arabic scripture. 26. Nursi argues that tradition (majority of the scholars) has to accept new ideas (in Turkish, Bir kre davet, cumhur-u ulemann kabulne vbestedir. Yoksa davet bidattr, reddedilir). 27. According to Nursi, the modern world accepts power as its point of reference in the life of society. It considers its aim to be self-interest. The principle of its life is conict (cidal). A similar version of this statement is also available, among others, in The Words. 28. Committee of Union and Progress was very popular not only within the bureaucracy but also among the many religious scholars. The main commonality was their strong opposition to Abdulhamid IIs Islamist but authoritarian regime. As Kara informs us, Tunali Hilmi Bey, a major bureaucrat, often published religious sermons embedded with Quranic verses and Muhamads sayings that were outside of an ordinary bureaucrats area of expertise. Kara states that this was probably a result of Ulemas support to the bureaucracy in their ght against Abdulhamid. 29. Nursi says, It shouldnt be misunderstood, Europe is two. One that follows sciences that serve justice and rights that are benecial for the social life through the inspiration it has received from the true religion of Christianity. 30. [I criticize] the second Europe, corrupted through the darkness of the philosophy of Naturalism, that took the humanity to vice and misguidance by supposing the evils of civilization to be virtuous. For more, see Aydin (2005).

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