Said Nurs

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Said-i Nursi

Said Nursi portrait

Born

1877[1]
Nurs,[2][3] Bitlis Vilayet,Ottoman Empire

Died

23 March 1960 (aged 8283)[4]

Urfa, Turkey

Era

19th20th century[5]

Region

Anatolia

Religion

Islam

Denomination

Sunni

Jurisprudence

Shafi`i

Creed

Ash'ari[6]

Main interest(s)

Theology,[7] Theosophy,Tafsir,[7] Revival of Faith[8]

Notable work(s)

Risale-i Nur[9]

Influenced by[show]

Influenced[show]

Said Nurs (Ottoman Turkish: / Central Kurdish: ; 1877 23 March

1960), also spelled Said-i Nurs, officially Said Okur and commonly known with the
honorific Bedizzaman ( , Bad' al-Zamn), was a Kurdish Sunni Muslimtheologian.
He wrote the Risale-i Nur Collection, a body of Qur'anic commentary exceeding six thousand
pages. Believing that modern science and logic was the way of the future, he advocated
teaching religious sciences in secular schools and modern sciences in religious schools.
[1]

[13]

[14]

[15][16]

[15][16][17]

Nursi inspired a faith movement that has played a vital role in the revival of Islam in Turkey
and now numbers several millions of followers world wide. His followers, often known
as the "Nurcu movement" or the "Nur cemaati", often call him by the
veneratingmononymic stad ("the Master").
[18][19]

[20][21]

Bediuzzaman displayed an extraordinary intelligence and ability to learn from an early age,
completing the normal course of Madrasa (religious school) education at the early age of
fourteen, when he obtained his diploma. He became famous for both his prodigious memory
and his unbeaten record in debating with other religious scholars. Another characteristic
Bediuzzaman displayed from an early age was an instinctive dissatisfaction with the existing
education system, which when older he formulated into comprehensive proposals for its
reform.
[22]

[hide]

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Contents
[hide]

1Early life

2Distribution of works and movement

3Later life

4See also

5References

6Sources

7Further reading

8External links

Early life[edit]
Said Nursi was born in Nurs, a Kurdish village in the Bitlis Vilayet (province) of the Ottoman
Empire, in eastern Anatolia. He received his early education from scholars of his hometown,
where he showed mastery in theological debates. After developing a reputation for Islamic
knowledge, he was nicknamed "Bediuzzaman", meaning "The most unique and superior
person of the time". He was invited by the governor of the Vilayet of Van to stay within his
residency.
In the governor's library, Nurs gained access to an archive of scientific
knowledge he had not had access to previously. Said Nursi also learned the Ottoman Turkish
language there. During this time, he developed a plan for university education for
the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
By combining scientific and religious
(Islamic) education, the university was expected to advance the philosophical thoughts of
these regions. However, he was put on trial in 1909 for his apparent involvement in
the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 against the liberal reform movement named
the Committee of Union and Progress, but he was acquitted and released. He was active
during the late Ottoman Caliphate as an educational reformer and advocate of the unity of
the peoples of the Caliphate. He proposed educational reforms to the Ottoman Sultan
AbdulHamid aiming to put the traditional Madrasah (seminary) training, Sufism (tasawwuf)
and the modern sciences in dialogue with each other.
[23]

[citation needed]

[citation needed]

[24]

[7][25]

During World War I, he was a member of the Special Organization of the Ottoman Empire.
Nursi was taken to Russia as a prisoner of war, where he spent over 2 years. He escaped
from a Russian camp in the spring of 1918 and made his way to Istanbul. His return
welcomed in Istanbul and he was chosen to be a member of Dar-al Hikmat al-Islamiye, an
Islamic academy seeking solution for growing problems of ummah
[26]

[25][27]

[28]

Bedizzaman was a worrying-enough influence for the incipient leader of the Turkish
Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, to deem it necessary to seek to control him by offering
him the position of Minister of Religious Affairs for the eastern provinces of Turkey, a post
that Nursi famously refused. This was the beginning of his split from the Kemalist Ideology,
although Said Nursi had a relatively friendly relationship with fellow ethnic KurdAbdullah
Cevdet, despite the vast difference between Said Nursi's religiosity and Avdullah Cevdet's
distaste for institutionalized religion and advocacy for secularism.
[29]

[30][31]

[32]

After arriving in Istanbul, Said Nursi declared: "I shall prove and demonstrate to the world
that the Quran is an undying, inexhaustible Sun!", setting out to write his
comprehensiveRisale-i Nur, a collection of Said Nursi's own commentaries and
interpretations of the Quran, as well as writings about his own life. In Risale-i Nur, Said Nursi
claimed a personal level of closeness to God.

Distribution of works and movement[edit]

Said Nursi wearing Kurdish traditional clothes

Said Nursi was exiled to the Isparta Province for, amongst other things, performing the call to
prayer in the Arabic language. After his teachings attracted people in the area, the governor
of Isparta sent him to a village named Barla where he wrote two-thirds of hisRisale-i Nur.
These manuscripts were sent to Sav, another village in the region, where people duplicated
them in Arabic script (which was officially replaced by the modern Turkish alphabet in 1928).
After being finished, these books were sent to Nursi's disciples all over Turkey via the
"Nurcu postal system".
Nursi repeatedly stated that all the persecutions and hardships
inflicted on him by the secularist regime were God's blessings and that having destroyed the
formal religious establishment, they had unwittingly left popular Islam as the only authentic
faith of the Turks.
[33]

[34]

[35]

[33][35]

[citation needed]

[35]

Besides these powerful writings themselves, a major factor in the success of the movement
may be attributed to the very method Bediuzzaman had chosen, which may be summarized
with two phrases: 'mnev jihad,' that is, 'jihad of the word' or 'non-physical jihad', and
'positive action.' For Bediuzzaman considered the true enemies in this age of science,
reason, and civilization to be materialism and atheism, and their source, materialist
philosophy. Thus just as he combated and 'utterly defeated' these with the reasoned proofs
of the Risale-i Nur, so through strengthening the belief of Muslims and raising it to the level of
'true, verified belief,' the Risale-i Nur was the most effective barrier against the corruption of
society caused by these enemies. In order to be able to pursue this 'jihad of the word,'
Bediuzzaman insisted that his students avoided any use of force and disruptive action.
Through 'positive action,' and the maintenance of public order and security, the supposed
damage caused by the forces of unbelief could be 'repaired' by the 'healing' truths of the
Quran. Said Nursi lived much of his life in prison and in exile, persecuted by the secularist
state for having invested in religious revival.
[36][37]

[38]

[39]

Later life[edit]

Alarmed by the growing popularity of Nursi's teachings, which had spread even among the
intellectuals and the military officers, the government wrongly arrested him for allegedly
violating laws mandating secularism and sent him to exile. He was acquitted of all these
charges in 1956.
[35]

In the last decade of his life, Said Nursi settled in the city of Isparta. After the introduction of
the multi-party system, he advised his followers to vote for the Democratic Party of Adnan
Menderes, which had restored some religious freedom. Said Nurs was a staunchantiCommunist, denouncing Communism as the greatest danger of the time. In 1956, he was
allowed to have his writings printed. His books are collected under the name Risale-i
Nur ("Letters of Divine Light").
[35]

He died of exhaustion after travelling to Urfa. He was buried in a tomb which according to
some Muslims is the shrine of prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). After the military coup d'tat in
Turkey in 1960, a group of soldiers led by the later extreme right-wing politicianAlparslan
Trke opened his grave and buried him at an unknown place near Isparta during July 1960
in order to prevent popular veneration. His followers are reported to have found his grave
after years of searching in the area, and took his remains to a secret place in an effort to
protect his body from further disturbance.
[40]

[41][42]

[43][44]

See also[edit]
Islam portal

Biography portal

God's Faithful Servant: Barla

Fethullah Glen