SAID NURSI BADIUZZAMAN 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 governors library, Nursî 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 Abdul Hamid aiming to put the traditional Madrasah (seminary) training, Sufism (tasawwuf) and the modern sciences in dialogue with each other 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 Bediüzzaman was a worrying-enough influence for the incipient leader of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 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 Kurd Abdullah Cevdet, despite the vast difference between Said Nursis religiosity and Avdullah Cevdets distaste for institutionalized religion and advocacy for secularism. 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 comprehensive Risale-i Nur, a collection of Said Nursis 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.
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 2014 23:14:12 +0000
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