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Muhammed Mustafa SAV
Said Nursi
Said Nursi, also widely
known as Bediuzzaman (the Wonder of the Age) was born in 1877 in eastern
Turkey. Bediuzzaman displayed an extraordinary intelligence and ability
to learn from an early
age, completing the
normal course of 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.
The heart of these
proposals was the bringing together and joint teaching of the
traditional religious sciences and the modern sciences, with the
founding of a university in the Eastern Provinces of the Ottoman Empire,
the Medresetü'z-Zehra, where this and his other proposals would be put
into practice. In 1907 his endeavors in this field took him to Istanbul
and an audience with Sultan Abdulhamid II. Although subsequently he
twice received funds for the construction of his university, and its
foundations were laid in 1913, it was never completed due to war.
Contrary to the practice
of religious scholars at that time, Bediuzzaman himself studied and
mastered almost all the physical and mathematical sciences, and later
studied philosophy. In the course of time, modern sciences had been
dropped from the religious schools curriculum, which had contributed
directly to the Ottoman decline relative to the advance of the West.
Bediuzzaman's endeavor was to prove and demonstrate that Islam is
compatible with modern sciences and progress, the Holy Book was the
source of true progress and civilization.
The years up to the
end of the First World War were the final decades of the Ottoman Empire
and were, in the words of Bediuzzaman, the period of the 'OldSaid'. In
additions to his endeavors in the field of learning, he has had active
involvement in social life and the public domain. In the War, he
commanded the militia forces on the Caucasian Front against the invading
Russians, for which he as later awarded a War Medal. To maintain the
morale of his men he himself disdainedto enter the
trenches against heavy shelling, and it was while withstanding the
overwhelming assaults of the enemy that he wrote his celebrated the Holy
Book's commentary, Signs of Miraculousness, dictating to a scribe while
on horseback'stating that the Holy Book encompasses the sciences which
make known modern sciences, the commentary is an original and important
work which in Bediuzzaman's words, forms a sort model for commentaries
he hoped would be written in the future, which would bring together the
religious and modern sciences in the way he proposed. Bediuzzaman was
taken prisoner in March 1916 and held in Russia for two years before
escaping in early 1918, and returning to Istanbul via Warsaw, Berlin,
and Vienna.
The defeat of the Ottomans
saw the end of the Empire and its dismemberment, and the occupation of
Istanbul and parts of Turkey by foreign forces. These bitter years saw
also the transformation of the Old Said into the New Said, the second
main period of Bediuzzaman's life. Bediuzzaman underwent a profound
mental and spiritual change in the process of which he turned his back
on the world. Realizing the inadequacy of the 'human' science and
philosophy he had studied as a means of reaching the truth, he took the
revealed Qur'an as his 'sole guide.' In recognition of his services to
the Independence Struggle, Mustafa Kemal (the founder of modern Turkey)
invited Bediuzzaman to Ankara. Remaining some eight months in Ankara, he
was offered various posts and benefits by Mustafa Kemal. He declined
them and left Ankara for Van, where he withdrew into a life of worship
and contemplation; he was seeking the best way to proceed.
In early 1925 there was a
rebellion in the east in which Bediuzzaman played no part, but as a
consequence of which was sent into in western Anatolia along with many
hundreds of others. When he started to speak about oppression of thought
and beliefs unjustly began twenty-five years of exile, imprisonment, and
unlawful oppression for Bediuzzaman. He was sent to Barla, a tiny
village in the mountains of Isparta Province. However, the attempt to
entirely and silence him had the reverse effect, for Bediuzzaman was
both prepared and uniquely qualified to face the new challenge. He has
spend these years writing of the Risale-i Nur collection, which silently
spread and took root, combating in the most constructive way the attempt
to uproot freedom of religion and expression in today's modern Turkey.He
died when he was in exile in Urfa, Turkey in 1960.
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