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The Sufi Influence in Said Nursi's Life and Thought A THE SUFI INFLUENCE IN SAID NURSI’S LIFE AND THOUGHT A Dissertation Submitted to The Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Haci Tanis (December 2016) Examining Committee Members: Prof. Khalid Y. Blankinship, Advisory Chair, Department of Religion Prof. John Raines, Department of Religion Prof. Leonard Swidler, Department of Religion Prof. Kathleen Biddick, External Member, Temple University Department of History i © Copyright 2016 by Haci Tanis All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Said Nursi (1878-1960) was the most influential Muslim scholar, intellectual, and activist in the history of modern Turkey. His ideas and activities greatly contributed to the resurgence of Islam in the country. In fact, his influence had a global reach as a result of the initiatives of the grassroots movement he founded. The existing literature on Nursi usually dealt with his contributions to the interfaith dialogue. Few researchers paid attention to Nursi’s relationship with Sufism. They generally suggested that Nursi was not a Sufi while having some sympathy for it. However, they did not examine his works to detect possible Sufi ideas in Nursi’s thought. In my research, I analyze Nursi’s life and thought in the context of larger Sufi tradition. I trace the Sufi influences in his magnum opus, the Risale , about his view of Allah, the cosmos, and humanity. In my search for Sufi worldview in Nursi’s books, I primarily rely on the central Sufi concepts of tashbīh, tanzīh , karâmât, dhikr , sohbet, and service and try to demonstrate that Sufism had a considerable influence on him during the second part of his life which he spent in seclusion. I also show that his understanding and application of these concepts differed from traditional Sufi groups. He presented the Sufi thought and practices in a way that was relevant to his primarily Turkish readers. Hence, I attempt to portray Nursi as an intellectual who rearticulated traditional Sufi thought for his modern audience. I argue that Nursi reflected both popular and intellectual aspects of that tradition in his writings. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I thank Allah for everything he bestowed upon me. I want to extend my special thanks to Dr. Khalid Blankinship for his support, encouragement, and individual attention throughout the program. I would like to offer my deep appreciation to Dr. John Raines and Dr. Leonard Swidler for serving on my examination and dissertation committees. I am grateful to Dr. Kathleen Biddick for her willingness to sit in my dissertation as the external examiner. My heartfelt thanks go to my wife Elif and our children Abdullah, Saliha, and Esra for their patience and support during this exhausting endeavor. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….vi CHAPTERS 1. AN OVERVIEW OF SUFISM …………………….………………...………………1 Definition……………………………………………………….1 Origins………………………………………………………..6 Major Characteristics………………………...…………………………….23 Institutionalization……………………………………………………….33 MajorTarīqas………………………………………………….…….37 Sufism and Tarīqas inAnatolia……………………………………………….……….44 Sufism in theModern Era……………………………………………………….48 Conclusion…………………………………………………...…..57 2. A SURVEY OF SAID NURSI’S LIFE ……………………………………………..61 Childhood Milieu……………………………………………..61 Education……………………………………………..69 Social Activism……………………………………………..74 Crises and Transformation…………………………………….……….92 Years of Exile…………………………………………….100 Conclusion…………………………………………….107 3. THE SUFI ELEMENTS IN NURSI’S LIFE AND WORKS ……………………113 Tashbīh and Tanzīh…………………….113 Karâmât………………….…..146 Dhikr, Sohbet and Service……………………...165 Conclusion……………………...170 4. CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………..173 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………179 GLOSSARY...………………………………………………………………………….184 v INTRODUCTION Said Nursi (1878-1960) was the most influential Muslim scholar, intellectual, and activist in the history of modern Turkey. The resurgence of Islam in Turkey could not properly be understood without the ideas, writings, and the grassroots initiatives of this figure. Born in Eastern Anatolia during the late Ottoman era, Nursi witnessed the fall of that Islamic Empire and the establishment of modern Turkey on secular grounds. Accordingly, he noticed the change of values in society as a result of the modernization reforms in the late Ottoman and early modern Turkish years. He developed a culturally authentic response to counter and possibly reverse that trend. Despite the intimidations, threats, and multiple exiles he had to endure in the early years of modern Turkey, his treatises on the matters of faith reached a wide audience and found acceptance among both the educated and the uneducated. His grassroots movement played an important role in reversing the secularization trend and reviving cultural-religious values in modern Turkey. Nursi was a multi-dimensional person and it is difficult to put him into a particular category. He displayed aspects of traditionalism, modernism, and Sufism. He was also a scholar of Islam, an intellectual, and an activist. He worked hard for the modernization of education and the adoption of constitutional reforms in the late Ottoman era. He was a life-long activist promoting freedom, religious-cultural values, and the unity of Muslims. He excelled in modern sciences and philosophy and participated in intellectual discussions through his articles, speeches, and books. He was also a scholar who wrote about a wide range of issues including theology, the Qur’ânic exegesis, and vi the hadīth . I think, among all these qualities, Nursi was primarily an activist who worked tirelessly for the promotion of the ideas and values he cherished. Nursi was one of the representatives of unofficial Islam in modern Turkey. From the very beginning of the foundation of the Turkish Republic, Nursi was regarded as a threat to the secular worldview promoted by the state. Accordingly, he was persecuted, exiled, imprisoned and his writings were censored. It was only after the end of the one- party rule in 1946, Nursi experienced relative freedom which allowed him to publish his works. However, his ideas and followers were still treated with suspicion by the authorities throughout the history of the modern Turkey. For example, until very recently, there were very few academic studies on Nursi in Turkish universities, which testifies to the degree of stigma attached to him. The existing literature on Nursi can be put into four categories. Much of the available research explored the contributions of Nursi to interfaith dialogue. These studies highlighted Nursi’s promotion of dialogue and his calls for the followers of all religions to work together for the betterment of the world. Some of the topical studies can be put in this category as well, such as Nursi’s view of jihād, environment, and Eurocentrism. The second type of research examined the group founded by Nursi, the Nur Movement, and its role in the revival of Islam in Turkey. Such studies tried to find the reasons behind the success of the movement and listed several reasons, including apolitical faith-based activities, emphasis on individual piety and non-violence, outreach programs, and the cultural authenticity of Nursi’s ideas. Another group of researchers tried to find the commonalities between Nursi and some other Muslim or non-Muslim thinkers. This type of studies explored, in a comparative manner, topics including vii revelation, reason, modernity, and religion. The last type of literature on Nursi examined his approach to spirituality. This literature explored Nursi’s view and practice of spiritual themes including prayers, supplications, the role of belief, and the relationship between Allah and humans. The works on Nursi and Sufism could be put in this category. It should be noted that the studies on Nursi and Sufism are very few. The scarcity of studies may have to do with the stigma attached to Sufism in Turkey and the Islamic world in modern times. In Turkey, the Sufi orders have been outlawed since 1925, which has probably affected potential research on Nursi’s relationship with Sufism. Much of the available research on the topic was articles analyzing Nursi’s view of Sufism. These studies usually highlighted that Nursi was not a Sufi, he differed from them in his view of the human beings and the cosmos, and also his books did not resemble the works of Sufis. The only exception to this was the pioneering work of Şerif Mardin, which presented Nursi as a Sufi and his movement as an extension of Naqshbandiyya tarīqa , in his book Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Said Nursi , published in 1989. Mardin analyzed Sufism and Nursi from a sociological perspective. He drew attention to the role of Sufi saints in Turkish-Anatolian Islam. He argued that the Anatolian version of Islam always incorporated saints who were seen as mediators between the faithful and Allah. Accordingly, he thought, the audience of Nursi viewed him as a saint, and as a result, became attracted to his personality. He also attributed Nursi’s use of Sufi concepts to his awareness of the type of the audience he was dealing with. Mardin’s work provided great insight about the nature of Anatolian Islam and the role of the Sufi saint in it; however, it overlooked
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