Turkey’s Transition into Modernity and the Response of the ‘Ulamā’
The Case of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
Abstract
Turkey’s transition into modernity is one of the earliest models of modernization in the Muslim world. A complex and controversial process involved significant changes to the country’s political, social, and cultural institutions. Accordingly, Muslim intellectuals responded to the challenges posed by this transition process that endangered the country’s Islamic identity. This paper analyses the historical overview of Turkey’s modernization process, highlighting the key events, institutions, and actors that played a role in shaping the country’s development on one hand. On the other hand, it explores the response of the ‘ulamā’ to the modernization process, with a special emphasis on the contributions of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. It analysed his activist and intellectual struggle to meet the challenges of the modernization process, his criticisms of the secularist approach to modernization, and his efforts to develop an Islamic political theory that provided answers to the new situation.
References
‘Ashāq, Jamāl. “Aḍwā’ ‘alā Ḥarakat al-Nūr fī Turkiyyā,” Majallat al-Ummah 2, no. 15 (1982): 54.
Ahmad, Feroz. “The Young Turk Revolution 1968.” The Middle East Journal of Contemporary History 3, no. 3 (1968): 19-36.
Akhmetova, Elmira. “Said Nursi on Secularism, Religious Rights, Ethics, and Education.” ICR Journal 12, no. 1 (2021): 53–72. https://doi.org/10.52282/icr.v12i1.816.
Al-Nu‘aymī, Aḥmad Nūrī. Al-Ḥarakāt al-Islāmiyah al-Ḥadīthah fī Turkiyyā. Amman: Dār al-Bashīr, 1993.
Al-Nūrsī, Badī‘ al-Zamān Sa‘īd. Al-Khuṭbah al-Jāmi‘ah. Istanbul: Sozlar, 1960.
Al-Nūrsī, Badī‘ al-Zamān Sa‘īd. Ishārāt al-I‘jāz fī Maḍān al-Ījāz. Cairo: Sozlar, 1994.
Al-Nūrsī, Badī‘ al-Zamān Sa‘īd. Munāẓarāt. Istanbul: Sozlar, 1977.
Al-Nūrsī, Badī‘ al-Zamān Sa‘īd. Ṣayqal al-Islām. Istanbul: Sozlar, 1995.
Al-Ṣāliḥī, Iḥsān Qāsim. Badī‘ al-Zamān Sa‘īd al-Nūrsī: Ḥayātuhu wa fikruh. Istanbul: Sozlar, 1991.
Aydınlı, Ersel. “The Turkish Pendulum between Globalization and Security: From the Late Ottoman Era.” Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 3 (2004): 102-33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289914.
Bein, A. The Ulema, Their Institutions, and Politics in the Late Ottoman Empire (1876-1924). Princeton: Princeton University, 2006.
Çoruh, Hakan. Modern Interpretation of the Qur’an: The Contribution of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2019.
Czygan, Christiane. “Reflections on Justice: A Young Ottoman View of the Tanẓīmāt.” Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 6 (2010): 943-56. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27920329.
Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip. “Said Nursi is a Treasury Awaiting Discovery.” In Said Nursi World Conference: The Renewal of Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century and Bediuzzaman Nursi. Istanbul: Nessel Publishing, 1996.
Fadel, Kamil, and Eren Tatari. “A Political Analysis of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Damascus Sermon.” Humanities and Social Sciences Review 5, no. 3 (2016): 303–22.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. The Cambridge History of Turkey: Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Hanioğlu, Şükrü M. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Horkuc, Hasan. “Is Justice Binary? Absolute and Relative Justice in the Teachings of Said Nursi.” Asian Journal of Social Science 38, no. 4 (2010): 583-610. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23677899.
İnal, Vedit. “The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Ottoman Attempts to Catch Up with Europe.” Middle Eastern Studies 47, no. 5 (2011): 725-56. http://www.jstor.com/stable/23054261.
Karataş, Kasım. “Educational Philosophy According to Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.” The Journal of Rısale-i Nur Studies 1, no. 1 (2018): 1-16.
Kasaba, Reşat. The Cambridge History of Turkey: Turkey in the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Kawtharānī, Wajīh. “Al-Tanẓīmāt al-‘Uthmāniyyah wa ’l-Dastūr: Bawākīr al-Fikr al-Dastūrī Naṣṣan wa Taṭbīqan wa Mafhūman.” Tabayyun 1, no. 3 (2013): 7-22. https://tabayyun.dohainstitute.org/ar/issue003/Pages/Tabayun03-2013_wajih%20kawtharani.pdf.
Kawtharani, Wajih. “The Ottoman Tanzimat and the Constitution.” AlMuntaqa 1, no. 1 (2018): 51-65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep12682.
Kaya, Ilimdar. “Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and Adnan Menderes.” Yeniasya. August 24, 2023. https://www.yeniasya.com.tr/ilimdar-kaya/bediuzzaman-said-nursi-ve-adnan-menderes_529040.
Keskin, Zuleyha. “Said Nursi’s Tawḥīd-Centric Worldview and Inner Peace.” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 9, no. 2 (2019): 76-84. http://dx.doi.org/10.30845/ijhss.v9n2p11.
Kili, Suna. “Kemalism in Contemporary Turkey.” International Political Science Review 1, no. 3 (1980): 381-404. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1601123.
Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. London: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Mardin, Şerif. Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962.
Mardin, Şerif. Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989.
Mengüç, Murat C. “Young Ottomans.” In Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, edited by Richard C. Martin, 737-39. New York: Thomson Gale, 2004.
Miller, W. The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1801-1927. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Mulyantiningsih, Sri Indah, and Anita Puji Astutik. “The Concept of Faith and Moral in Badiuzzaman Said Nursi’s Philosophy.” Jurnal Transformatif 6, no. 1 (2022): 21-32. https://doi.org/10.23971/tf.v6i1.3936.
Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said, and Şükran Vahide. The Letters. Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 2008.
Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said. The Damascus Sermon. Translated by Şükran Vahide. Istanbul: Reyhan, 1996.
Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said. The Damascus Sermon. Translated by Şükran Vahide. Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 2002.
Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said. The Letters, Translated by Şükran Vahide. Istanbul: Sozler Publications, 1994.
Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said. The Words. Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 1998.
Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said. The Words. Translated by Şükran Vahide. Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 2008.
Petrov, Milen V. “Everyday Forms of Compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864-1868.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 46, no. 4 (2004): 730–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3879508.
Sarıtoprak, Zeki. “Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.” In The Islamic World, edited by Andrew Rippin. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Saritoprak, Zeki. “Islam and Politics in the Light of Said Nursi’s Writings.” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 19, no. 1, (2008): 113–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510340701770337.
Surya, Maulana Andi, Mhd. Syahminan, and Abrar M. Dawud Faza. “Thought of Kalam Badî Al-Zamân Said Nursi.” Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal 5, no. 1 (2022): 4475-86.
Tapper, Richard L. Islam in Modern Turkey: Religion, Politics, and Literature in a Secular State. London: I. B. Tauris, 1984.
Veinstein, Gilles. “On the Ottoman Janissaries (Fourteenth-Nineteenth Centuries).” In Fighting for a Living: A Comparative Study of Military Labour 1500-2000, edited by Erik-Jan Zürcher, 115-118. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt6wp6pg.7.
Worringer, Renée. “Sick Man of Europe or Japan of the Near East? Constructing Ottoman Modernity in the Hamidian and Young Turk Erash.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36, no. 2 (2004): 207-30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3880032.
Zürcher, Erik Jan. The Unionist Factor: The Rôle of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement 1905-1926. Leiden: Brill, 1984.
Publication of material in the journal means that the author assigns copyright to Islamic Studies including the rights to electronic publishing. This is, inter alia, to ensure the efficient handling of requests from third parties to reproduce articles as well as to enable wide dissemination of the published material. Authors may, however, use their material in other publications acknowledging Islamic Studies as the original place of publication. Requests by third parties for permission to reprint should be addressed to the Editor, Islamic Studies.
.jpg)
