NURSI, SAID (1876–1960)

Said Nursi (also known as Bediuzzaman, or Light of the Times) was born in Bitlis in eastern Turkey. He received his early education at various religious schools in the region, mostly under the direction of the teachers who belonged to the Naqshbandi order (an orthodox Sufi order). In 1907 and 1908 in Istanbul and Salonica, he advocated the establishment of a university in Erzurum where physical sciences would be taught alongside religious topics, and supported the Young Turks's constitutional revolution.

Although he supported Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) during the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922), he was arrested in 1925 and exiled to Barla in the province of Isparta for his alleged participation in the Shaikh Said (Ar., Shaykh Sa id) revolt in eastern Turkey. Here he began writing his Risale-i Nur (Epistle of light), the basis for the religious-intellectual movement known as Nurculuk.

Distrusted and opposed for his religious views by the Kemalist state, Said Nursi was arrested, imprisoned, and exiled to various Anatolian cities, although the accusations were never proved. During the elections of the 1950s he supported the newly formed Democratic Party. It was at this time that his major works were published in Latin script. After a brief illness he died in Urfa in southeastern Turkey. Later in the same year his grave was moved to an unknown location in Isparta.

Through his writings Said Nursi argued that religion reflects the social and human environment and that Islam could be interpreted according to the current needs of society. His Risale-i Nur, a commentary on the Qur˒an, explains and expounds the "truth" in the Holy Book. There he also argues that materialistic philosophy challenges Islamic ethics and the concepts of social and economic justice.

See alsoNur Movement ; Young Ottomans ; Young Turks .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mardin, Şerif. Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey. Albany: State University of New York, 1989.

A. Uner Turgay