Religion and Soctal Change

an Modern Turkey
SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies
Said Amir Arjomand, Editor
Religion and Social Change
in Modern Turkey

The Case
of
Beditizzaman Said Nursi

SERIF
MARDIN

State University of New York Press

 To F. C.

Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany

© 1989 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced

in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.

For information, address State University of New York

Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mardin, Serif.
Religion and social change in modern Turkey.

(SUNY series in Near Eastern studies)

Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Nursi, Said, 1873-—1960—Philosophy.
2. Nurculuk. 3. Islam—Turkey—History. 4. Sociology,
Islamic. I. Title. II. Series.
BP80.N89M36 1989 306’.6'09561 89-4280
ISBN 0-88706—996—7
ISBN 0-88706-997-5 (pbk.)

1098765432 1
 Contents

PREFACE vii
TRANSLITERATION ix
Introduction l
II. Life 42
I. Preliminary Approaches to the
Biography of a Turkish Muslim
Fundamentalist Thinker 23
III. Religion, Ideology and Consciousness
in the Ottoman Empire at the End of
the Nineteenth Century 103
IV. Matrix and Meaning 147
V. The Saint and his Followers 183
VI. The Machinery of Nature 203
CONCLUSION 217
BIBLIOGRAPHY 233
APPENDIX 253
INDEX | 257
 Preface

This book is a preliminary exercise in attempting to gain an under-

standing of the ways in which religion and society interlock in modern
Turkey. The specific appeal of Bediiizzaman Said Nursi for his own follow-
ers provides a useful focus for a description of this type of articulation and
for an analysis of the social processes which project the dynamic counterpart
of the intermeshing of religion and social relations. I have tried to follow
parallel developments in a number of fields such as those of the world com-
munication (and communications) revolution, Turkish political and social
reform, Turkish intellectual development and aspects of religious history
that are relevant to a study of Said Nursi’s biography. I have not attempted
to set out any strong causal linkages between these parallel streams. Never-
theless, I believe that they produce pictures which complement one another.
I hope the interconnections I have plotted will serve as a springboard for
further studies of the role of religion in modern Turkish society.
I have to thank many persons for important assistance on my way:
Professor Albert Hourani and the Middle East Center of St. Antony’s Col-
lege, Oxford University, for their invitation to join the college as a visiting
fellow in 1980-82; Professor Hourani for continued encouragement, and for
reading preliminary versions of the manuscript; Dr. Roger Owen for his
remarks on some early chapters. My debt to Professor Ernest Gellner of
Cambridge University is especially that of keeping in mind the questions he
would have asked should he have taken up the same subject for study. Pro-
fessor Dale Eickelman encouraged me to believe in the worth of my analysis
by asking to quote material from one of my chapters. Professors Michael
Meeker and Allen Duben have read the completed versions of the manu-
script. Professor Hamid Algar led me to believe that the analyses of Is-
Vil
vill RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

lamic material I was proposing was not too far off the mark. From all these
contributors I have gained, although the blemishes which may remain in my
exposé are my own responsibility. ,
I owe a special debt of gratitude to my friends in the editorial offices
of the Yenz Nesi/, the newspaper published by the followers of Said Nursi. I
would like in particular to thank Mr. Necmettin Sahiner whose biography
of Said Nursi provides information essential to anyone attempting to study
the Nur movement. Finally, I would not have taken up the figure of
Beditizzaman for study had I not been alerted by the late Cemil Meric to
the former's substantive contribution as a religious thinker. I shall always be
grateful for the insights he let me share with him.
I have not mentioned by name the many friends who read chapters of
the book, but they, of course are not forgotten. I would like to thank Mari-
lyn Semerad of SUNY Press for her excellent care throughout all the stages
of publishing.
 Transliteration

ANY BOOK WHICH covers Ottoman and modern Turkish

history runs into insuperable problems of transliteration. Turkish is a lan-
guage which has a structure that differs fundamentally from that of Arabic.
Yet—and this is where the problem arises—speakers of Turkish and Arabic
share the Arabic culture of the Qur'an, and the terminology devised by the
early Muslim theologians. Ottoman culture has also shared many aspects of
Muslim Persian culture and of its vocabulary. Modern Turks have adopted
the Latin alphabet. Neither Arabs nor Persians have.
In the face of such difficulties the method followed here was to use the
modern Turkish spelling of words which have an Arabic or Persian origin.
This was followed—in the first instance of the use of such words—by a
transliteration based on the system of the International Journal of Middle
East Studies.

Examples:
Cemaleddin or (a moot point) Cemalettin Efgani (Jamal ad-Din al-Afghan1)
Icaz—'Tjaz.

The main exception to the rule is the spelling of Qur’an and ‘ulema.

1X
 Introduction

ISLAMIC STUDIES DID not flourish in Turkey in the early

years of the Turkish Republic (est. 1923). The foundation myth of the
republican regime, based as it was on the idea of a secular state, precluded
such a flowering. The history of the first twenty years of the new Turkey,
with its dramatic secularizing reforms, underlined these aspects of the
myth. Between 1925 and 1950 the main source of information about
the religious debates which had engrossed Ottoman intellectuals in the first
decades of the century was dusty brochures dating from pre-Republican
times.
With the deceleration of secularization since 1950, publications on re-
ligion have grown significantly. Part of the latest religious literature consists
of transcriptions of Islamic classics into the Latin alphabet or into Turkish.
Recent scholarly books on religion, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly
studies of institutional Islam: catalogues of leading seyhilislams, surveys of
educational centers, descriptions of the so-called “learned institutions” (¢/-
miyye in Turkish), i.e., the class of learned Ottoman Muslims who up to the
nineteenth century filled the positions of theologian, judge and professor.
All of this is of interest to the student of religion, but these studies
do not give us a clue to the deep commitment and virulence which appears
in the everyday discussion and debates on religion in contemporary Turkey
as reflected in the local press and a number of polemical books. They do
not indicate that Turkish conservatism rotates around a religious axis and
that a ‘‘progressive” attitude is that of Kemalist Jacobinism. In fact the cur-
rent debate on religion in Turkey is lively, and all Turks realize that it
implicates some of the ideological foundations of republican Turkey with

l
2 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

secularism in the forefront. For some time, Turkish intellectuals have car-
ried a vehement campaign against the resurgence of sect (tartkat) activities,
the spread of religious education and the subversion of young minds by
charismatic preachers. Muslim fundamentalists—nowadays better prepared
to find chinks in their opponents’ stand—have replied with their own
ammunition. Deep-seated world views, values and attitudes clash here, and
these are part and parcel of the arrival of Turkey into the modern world.
Among the religious figures that have attracted the bitterest criticism
on the part of Turkish secularists is Beditizzaman Said Nursi (1876—1960),
a person who, to them, is the very incarnation of backwardness. For many
years his followers had to cover up their religious identity lest charges of
illegal religious propaganda be proferred against them. Their legal status is
sufficiently vague to attract periodically the ire of state prosecutors.
True, since the 1950s a more quizzical concern on the part of the
secular intelligentsia has replaced invective, but the real threat to a secular
mode of life unleashed by the recent regurgence of Islam in Turkey has
again resulted in a hardening of attitudes. One would have expected that
the success of a religious leader like Said Nursi would have aroused the
curiosity of his very detractors and that they would have made an attempt to
unravel the intricacies of his influence. Such adjectives as reactionary, tricky,
and exploitative do not fill this need.
Some ground has been covered in the last ten years by respectable
scholarship in elucidating the religious affiliation of the “urcu’’* and in
addressing other issues raised by Republican secularization. Political scien-
tists have led the field. Marxist theoreticians have also begun to explain the
influence of Islam as a means of protection for and an assertion of the dis-
inherited. But, in fact, the problem has many more aspects to it. The
present work is an attempt to clarify the foundations and origins of the
influence of a man like Said Nursi. It consists of a description of the many
strands of influences which converged on him during his life. It does not
give a systematic explanation of the interrelation of elements which contrib-
uted to his life as a religious leader. It does, however, take a stand -in the
very selection of the elements which it considers important and the concepts
which it considers shed most light on the life of Beditizzaman and his in-
fluence on disciples. These concepts are those of culture and, within culture,
those of idioms of social relations, discourse and social practices. By
“idiom” I refer to a special language used in a specific sphere of social

*Followers of Said Nursi, ‘“Nurculuk’—membership in the movement.

 Introduction 3
relations; by “discourse” the way in which this idiom is structured by a
more specific set of practices.
Every author who has written about Islam has indicated that Islam is
more than simply a religious belief, that it structures the social life of
Islamic societies, that it provides the foundations for political obligation and
that, in short, it penetrates the smallest interstices of daily life and of social
and political organization. What these authors have not elucidated is the
process by which such a society is reproduced. What I suggest is that the
reproduction of Islamic societies is linked to a common use of an Islamic
idiom by the members of such societies.

A Note on the Use of “Idiom” and “Discourse”

A clarification of what I mean by idiom and discourse may be neces-

sary at this point. I can illustrate the meaning of idiom by referring to its
constituent parts, which I shall characterize as root paradigms.
“Root paradigm” is a term used by Victor Turner to characterize
clusters of meaning which serve as cultural “maps” for individuals; they
enable persons to find a path in their own culture. In Turner’s own words:
Where processes are unconditioned, undetermined or unchanneled by explicit
custom and rules, my hypothesis would be that the main actors are neverthe-
less guided by saubjectwe paradigms which may derive from beyond the main
stream of sociocultural process with its ensocializing devices such as educa-
tion and imitation of action models in stereotyped situations. Such paradigms
affect the form, timing and style of behavior of those who bear them.
(Turner, 1974, 67)

In our study we shall see that Said Nursi appeals to a large number of
persons for whom “customs and rules” are either deficient or have been im-
proverished or have been proclaimed to be illegitimate. In these circum-
stances residual root paradigms provided the foundations for Said Nursi’s
influence. An example of a root paradigm would be the variety of meanings
carried by the term gazi (Ar. ghazi) (E.1 .7, Il, 1043-45) in Turkish culture
and the multiplicity of situations in which it operates as an effective frame
for the behavior of Turks.
Ghazi is a general term used in Islam for someone who has scored an
impressive success on the battlefield. The connotation of the concept is seen
against a vast background in which some of its effectiveness in social rela-
tions emerges with greater clarity. A gh@zi is not only a courageous and able
4 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

fighter but, even more important, a fighter for the faith. His deserts are
not only of this world, they shall be counted in the afterlife. The behavior
of thousands of Iranian Shz’ites who take the ghazi as a role-model for sut-
cidal attacks in war suffices as an illustration of its contemporary substance
for Muslims.
However, there exists more than one battlefield in which one can be-
come a ghazi. One’s soul is also the field of a battle waged to control one’s
baser appetites. There is, then, an internal as well as an external dimension
of ghazw, the action imputed to the ghazi. Cibad (At. jihad), the struggle
for internal as well as external mastery is the term more often used for this
control over the self. As to its special place in Turkish culture, gazz is used
to describe the fighters for the faith who are considered to have laid the
foundations of the Ottoman Empire. But the term has never lost its force.
A gazi is an extremely prestigious person in modern Turkish as well
as in ancient Ottoman society. Throughout the history of the Ottoman Em-
pire one encounters gazis, the last one of which is Gazz Mustafa Kemal Pasa
as Atatiirk was first known, in view of his victory over the Greeks and the
fact that he had saved the Muslims of Anatolia from conquest by the infidel.
The town of Antep is known today as Gazzantep; this name was given to it
in the same years because of its resistance against the French.
The gazi-gaza cluster makes up a cultural constellation which is still
active in contemporary Turkey and which shapes social behavior in impor-
tant issues. At the time of the Cyprus conflict it was around the concept of
gaza that large masses were mobilized for action and this seems, by and
large, to have been a spontaneous movement.
The internal dimension to the gaza-cithad cluster is also relevant in
contemporary Turkey. In the periodical Gzrisim, a radical and intellectually
extremely interesting Islamist periodical, jihad is used as the equivalent of
the South American radical consctentizacion, as the name for an active posture
which is meant to raise consciousness among the masses. It is also used to
characterize one’s attitude of militancy to force the recognition of Islam as a
force in international relations.
An adumbration of this use may be found in its use by Said Nursi
in the 1940s. At one stage in his life, pointing to a pile of periodicals
published by his followers and having spread his message he states:
“Gazidirler . . . they are gazis,” i.e., they have waged a battle against un-
belief. (See below p. 205.) This is a rather unusual use of gazz, but one with
which Said Nursi legitimizes the use of mass communication media and the
transition from orality to scripturalism.
 Introduction 5
The gaza-gazi cluster is a root-metaphor providing lines of force
which shape social relations and at the same time enable these to be trans-
formed.
I have selected only one root-paradigm, but I could go on to do the
same exercise with the concept of “haram-harem” (At. haram-haram) as the
core of one constellation of social behavior, the concepts “‘namus’ (Ar. nami)
(honor), “bérmet’” (Ar. hurma) (respect) for family life, “kanaat’” (Ar. gand’a)
(frugality) and “‘rizk” (Ar. rizq) (just deserts) for the sphere of economics,
“hak” (Ar. hagg) (right) and “adalet” (Ar. ‘adala) (justice) for questions re-
garding equality or ‘‘smsan” (Ar. insan) (man), “hayvan” (Ar. haywan) (an-
imal) for issues concerning man. All of these are concepts which are drawn
out of a fund of Islamic culture.
A question still remains unanswered. How is it that the untutored
audience of Said Nursi could bring these concepts into their daily life strat-
egies? After all, they could not read Arabic. Therefore, the production and
reproduction of Ottoman Islamic culture and of its root-paradigms could
not be based on a knowledge of the text of the Qur'an. An immediate an-
swer would be ‘“‘by knowledge transmitted in the family.” But this knowl-
edge itself was nourished by what Nazif Shahrani has called “popular
knowledge of Islam.’’ Shahrani shows (Shahrani, 1985) that in Afghanistan
the sources of this knowledge were popular “‘catechisms,” narratives of the
lives and pious deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, biographies of Muslim
holy men, poetry and love stories placed in an Islamic setting. Exactly the
same holds true for Turkey. Here epic poems and other products of Otto-
man Islamic culture were brought to villages by bards who recited stories
based on the same frame for centuries. A selection of Turkish equivalents of
Shahrani’s inventory of religious folk literature would include the Kara
Davut, Necat il-Miminin, Envar il-Agikin and the Muhammediye of the Yazi-
cizade brothers at the village level, and in more Sufi-inclined circles, the
Mizekki tin-Nufus of Esrefoglu Rumi, the Mebahis-i iman and the Mebahis-i
Salat of Muslihiddin.* All of these are ‘“‘catechisms,’ but their influence can
hardly be compared to that of Mevlud of Siileyman Celebi, a story of the
prophet’s life; a similar work is the Szyer dn-Nebi. Religious epic poems
which had wide circulation were the Muhammed Destan1, the Gavazat-i Ali
der Memleket-i Sind, and the Gamzat-i Bahr-i Umman ve Sanduk. Yusuf ve

*The 17th century author of these two works may be considered a predecessor of
Said Nursi insofar as he speaks of his own mission as an attempt to boil down
compendious works on religion into something easily understood by the people.
6 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Zileyha provided a basic model for innumerable variants of the love story.
In the province of Isparta, where Said Nursi’s message was propagated for
the first time to a rural audience, such knowledge was taken for granted.
Said Nursi’s influence was founded on such priming. One should also keep
in mind the peculiar way which the message was legitimated. In many cases
Said Nursi’s homiletics were read to an audience by persons who already had
acquired religious prestige. Only after the 1950s, after his books were
taken off the list of banned publications, can we speak of a wider circle of
readers for his works. It is the aura carried by this performance which in the
early days legitimated his ideas, rather than the words which he used, which
in many cases could not be understood by villagers or even townsmen.
One may detect at least two levels at which the folk-Islamic texts ex-
erted an influence on social behavior. First, as exemplars which sometimes
subtly and sometimes quite explicitly provided models for conduct. But at a
second level one finds a less visible network of influences where the motive
forces consisted of intimations about values and conduct. In a somewhat dif-
ferent conceptualization which is, nevertheless, meant to convey the same
dichotomy, Anthony Giddens (1979, 5) has distinguished between “‘prac-
tical consciousness, as tacit stocks of knowledge which actors draw upon in
the constitution of social activity and . . . ‘discursive consciousness’ involv-
ing knowledge which actors are able to express on the level of discourse.”’
This double level of signification makes for flexibility in the actor's
interpretation of the exemplary content of the text.
While Shahrani’s clues are important for a study such as mine, I
would wager that the functioning of the “root paradigms” I have mentioned
assume a special color in the Islamic setting which may be loosely described
as ‘linguistic,’ and at this point we go deeper into the process of sharing
the texts of a culture. What I see is that the Islamic “idiom” is pervasive in
the sense that it covers all aspects of life in society and that it is shared
more equally by upper and lower classes than its equivalents are in the
West. Daily life-strategies are framed by the use of the religious idiom, and
the fund of Qur’anic symbols on which it is based has a widespread popular
usage. This sharing of an idiom to structure life strategies may be the
foundation of what observers of Islam see as its ‘“democratic”’ or “populistic”’
aspects. We can then understand why some fundamentalist Muslims cor-
rectly state this ‘““democracy” not to rest anything resembling the parliamen-
tary bodies of the West.
It is because this idiom is shared that there appears something which
we could name ‘“‘social legitimation” in Islamic societies, a legitimation that
 Introduction 7
derives from the widespread use of this idiom. As long as the common id-
iom is used by individuals to procure their needs, the social process func-
tions smoothly, and it is legitimated by use. Anything that upsets this use
of the idiom for everyday purposes becomes illegitimate. Thus, when the
Ottoman reformers of the 19th century began to change the day-to-day
space configuration of women’s activities, allowing them to show themselves
where they had not appeared before this was (in the meaning frame of the
fundamental idiom) an anti-democratic move, a means of escaping from
popular control by changing the idiom used. I believe that Said Nursi’s
success was in part due to the “re-democratization” promised by his revival
of the traditional idiom.
In short then, the concepts which I have described as ‘‘root-paradigms”’
functioned at two levels: as “maps” which provided personal guidance in
and projected a picture of an ideal society but also as items in a cultural
knapsack which integrated the individual’s perception of social rules and
positions with signifiers for images, sounds and colors. In this second sense
what Said Nursi was doing was promoting key concepts in the language of
the periphery, of the underprivileged (Mardin, 1972), a language which
expressed the special character of peripheral status. Latife Tekin, a contem-
porary Turkish novelist who has tried to describe the culture of the Turkish
periphery, underlines the same idea when she says to a Turkish intellectual
during an interview: “You shall never understand the type of knowledge
that underlies the signs with which I communicate with the poor, with the
people of my quarter of town” (Tekin and Savasir, 1985, 146).
Of course, the most important effect of such a fund was in its use,
i.e., in the way in which it not only functioned as a directive but consti-
tuted the materials for personal strategies aiming to promote one’s welfare,
deflect dangers and engineer coalitions. This is what Michel de Certeau has
named knowledge for a “doing” (wn faire) (de Certeau, 1984).
So much for “Idiom.” Discourse is a word which I use to bring in the
plasticity of the root paradigm. The way in which the idiom is used de-
pends on the social position of the user (in this case a cleric trained in
Naksibendi seminaries) the selection made from a large inventory of pos-
sible themes, the particular slant of the message and the way in which the
meanings carried by the themes selected are transformed to suit current
purposes.
My own use of “discourse” has relatively little overlap with the same
term as used by Foucault (Foucault, 1977). Foucault’s discourse is held to-
gether by relations of power; my own use of the term refers to cognitive
8 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

problems. Foucault underlines that the users of discourse are an exclusive set
privileged by this very use. I, on the contrary, try to delineate an aspect of
increasingly wide access to the use of an idiom which exists in the back-
ground of discourse. Foucault’s stress is on the discursive in its classical
sense as well as on discursive as a derivative of discourse. My use covers this
area and, even more, that of metaphorical practices. The overlap between
my use and his consists of seeing discourse as practice and thus constantly
mobile and transformational.

Community and Society in Ottoman Modernization

In the most general sense, structured templates which guide our con-
duct in society are part of our cultural inheritance. The manner in which
we arrange our daily life is no random exercise. We eat, drink, love, kill
and think from within a set of cultural frames which shape our lives. These
frames already exist when we are born, and our maturation consists of
adapting to their imperatives. (For a study of the imperatives for followers of
Bediuizzaman analyzed from the perspective of symbolic exchange see Schif-
fauer, 1984.) It is true that these frames have an entropic quality: the repro-
duction of a cultural pattern as it existed at the time of our birth is not
automatic. Errors, changes in the environment, idiosyncratic perception, in-
terpretations and manipulatory strategies are sources of this instability. But
another element which changes the cultural setting within which we operate
is the intrusion into our lives of alien cultures. When these external forces
impinge upon and force us to change our set ways, we have to decide how
we shall deal with them.
The life and teachings of Bediiizzaman Said Nursi, the Muslim
thinker whose tribulations I try to unfold in the following pages, may be
seen as shaped by a reaction to such an intrusion. Since Said Nursi was a
so-called “‘gate-keeper’”’ of Islamic culture, a cleric, he had a special role to
play in these spheres. Said Nursi’s writings claim to serve one main pur-
pose: to stop the inroads into the Muslim culture of what he saw as the
materialism of the West. To combat materialism he is engaged in mission-
ary work to revitalize the Muslim heritage of Ottoman and, later, Turkish
Muslims. What we also gather from his life history is that many of his
disciples saw the same intrusion in the simpler terms of the advent of an
alien thing.
The point at which Said’s thought met with the silent musings of his
clientele was that, while he combatted materialism because it negated Islam,
 Introduction 9
he also realized that the influences of Western ways (ideas, institutions,
practices) were destroying the cultural frame that Muslims used to establish
a tapport with the everyday world.
An informed reading of Beditizzaman’s arguments enables us to draw a
somewhat fuller picture of the points at which Ottoman reform from 1839
onwards created cultural constraints for a large number of its subjects and
established a foundation for his influence. These areas of friction were un-
derlined even more heavily after the inception of the Turkish Republic and
its secularizing reforms. In the perspective of this second reading, Beditiz-
zaman’s struggle against materialism emerges as a stand taken against a new
image of social relations and a protest against the practices linked to this
image. The novel concept of social relations which came with reform was
one which ignored a code of conduct drawn from Islam and the personal
relations which formed around this code, and superseded them with an un-
derstanding of society as an impersonal machine. A short excursus into
Ottoman history and Western European social thought will explain what
I mean.
The venue into modernism of late-comer nations is one which starts
with a cultural confrontation and a cultural transformation. Often no other
option exists: the process of European nation-building was too far advanced
when Ottoman Turkey clashed head-on with it for the Ortomans to be able
to replicate the European trajectory to modernity. The latter had included a
long gestation of economic forces which was missing in Turkey's experience.
A few earnest Ottoman attempts at industrialization in the 1840s and
1850s having failed, Ottoman reformers of the so-called Tanzimat era
decided to streamline military training, transform education, reform ad-
ministration, secularize courts of justice and modernize communications,
hoping that these changes could eventually win them a place among the
powerful.
This process of cultural transformation occurred relatively quickly, but
its leadership, limited at its inception to a group of top-rank bureaucrats,
was small. For a long time Ottoman culture had been two-tiered, with a
high and a low, or folk, component. High culture was in turn divided into
the more secular culture of bureaucrats and the Islamic culture of the ‘a/ema,
the doctors of Islamic law. The tacit understanding that Islam was the pre-
mier element in Ottoman culture kept all three of these segments inter-
penetrating under an Islamic umbrella.
Through their secularizing reforms, the bureaucrats of the Tanzimat
were alienated from both the doctors of Islamic law and the folk, whereas in
10 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

the past a commom idiom and code of conduct linked these elements. But
in the 1890s something occurred which resulted in a distancing of the new
generation from its Islamic roots. This distancing may have derived from
unstated premises in the thinking of the new intelligentsia shaped by the
bureaucrats’ reforms. Ernest Gellner has described its earlier equivalent in
the West as a ‘universal conceptual currency,’ i.e. “one single language’ to
describe the world (Gellner, 1923, 21).
Scientific objectivism replaced a “faire”, theoretical knowledge over-
whelmed practical knowledge and judgement. The significance of this
change was that practical knowledge had also been the foundation of the
Ottoman elite’s view of the world. In this sense, in the earlier setting the
elite had been closer to popular “know how’ composed as it was of “mul-
tiple but untamed operativities” (de Certeau, 1984, 65) drawn out of Is-
lamic culture than was the scientism of the new generation (for which see
Devereux, 1979 c.f. Bernstein, 1985, 38-39 for further connotations).
A consequence was that the newest generation of reformers of the
1890s was drawn into a conception of social relations that relegated man to
be an epiphenomenon of more general laws of nature and society. In this
perspective, society and nation were seen as real entities to which real per-
sons were and should be subordinated. For them, one worked for the good
of society through laws of nature and not for one’s family as dictated by
traditional norms, i.e., an explanation of how one should act on the basis
that it had happened before. Yet, and this is the crucial point, in the
nation-state—which the new intelligentsia increasingly saw as a necessary
stage of political evolution—all citizens are required to believe that one
works for society. “Society” is the cement of the social order, and this ideal
becomes food for thought in all strata. One single legitimate discourse pre-
vails. Neither Turkish clerics nor the folk took easily to this conception. In
fact, they combatted it tenaciously, and this for the following reason.
Modern theories of society from Hobbes onward start with individuals
and their disposition but then immediately proceed to examine the social
function not of individuals but of aggregates constituted by individuals.
Leviathan, general will, gezst, state, society, are some of the nuances of these
aggregates. The social and political institutions created during modernity
replicated this understanding of a society of blocks.
Islam does provide equivalents of such abstractions, but these do not
paint a picture of a machine-like, self-moving society. (At most, the Otto-
mans used Ibn Khaldun’s sociological ‘amran—civilization—a concept which
was abstract but extremely diffuse.) Inevitably, there existed more or less
 Introduction 11
anthropomorphic views of God in the ideal of an Islamic society. For a
majority of rural Ottoman subjects, the anthropomorphic picture prevailed.
The sacred was personalized and the cult of Muhammad's person was one of
the ways in which traditionalism was modified in the nineteenth century in
what may be named the peripheral areas of society. But in a more funda-
mental sense, Islamic culture made considerable use of concepts which fe-
lated individuals to other persons in society such as the father, the mother,
the master and the sultan. Both in theory and in practice, Islam banked on
human networks and not on “blocks.” Its educational institutions were
based on the relation between a mentor and his pupil, its courts on the
personal intercession of the judge (a shorthand notation for Weber's “kad
justice” — Ar. gadi), and this was still a feature of Ottoman culture before
nineteenth century reform. This characteristic of social relations in Islamic
societies still evokes many contemporary echoes, and numerous examples
may be cited of a modern Muslim nostalgia for an ideal gemetnschaft in
which intimate, face-to-face relations would set the tone. Modern Islamic
radical thinkers and, among them, Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Mus-
lim Brothers in Egypt, look back wistfully to such a golden age. For Qutb,
a fundamental flaw of Western parliamentary institutions is the climate of
anonymity which they promote, whereas to him the Muslim consultative
institution used in the wrzet of Islam, the Shura, was ‘‘personalized and
fraternal” (Carré, 1984, 96-97). Said Nursi has a more positive attitude
towards an Islamized parliamentary system but ‘“‘fraternal’’ relations are as
important for him as for Qutb.
The idea that to understand any Islamic society one has to give a
structural value to persons was one which I found indispensable for analysis.
What gives body to Ottoman civil society, to the areas circumscribed by the
Seriat is the bedrock of personal relations which occupy such an important
place on Beditizzaman’s preachings. These relations have only recently be-
come a legitimate subject of study among social scientists. In Eickelman’s
words, “In many parts of the Islamic Middle East and elsewhere it is in-
creasingly apparent that social structure can also be conceived with persons
as the fundamental units of social structure” (Eickelman, 1976, 89).
If this “‘personalistic’”” component of traditional Ottoman culture did,
in fact, constitute part of the mental “repertoire” of the Sultan's “ordinary”
subjects, then a number of consequences follow. One has to do with the
impact on Ottoman culture—of the European culture of the Enlightenment.
This culture was built on a view of stellar bodies in movement (Galileo-
Newton) which together operated as a system. The projection onto the un-
12 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

derstanding of the state of this particular conception of a system is that the

state is also a system of interrelated parts which operate mechanically: the
state is a machine.
An outcome of the permeation of the Ottoman Empire by Western
ideas concerning the state was that the reformers of the Tanzimat at-
tempted—with variable success—to build such a machine. What they in-
herited from the Ottoman state system made this relatively easy for them.
Not so for the common citizen to the extent that their religious culture
concentrated on persons, their worth and the rules applying to control of
their bodies. My thesis is that adopting the mechanistic view of society was
more difficult for the clientele of Said Nursi than taking over the New-
tonian physical system.
Note that the contrast between society seen as a machine and society
conceptualized as a set of personal networks does not stem from the value
which Muslim theorizing attributes to individualism as we know it in the
West. Neither Said Nursi nor the idiom he is trying to revive have anything
good to say for individualism. Rather, they bank on the gemeinschaftlich as-
pect of interpersonal relations. Said Nursi’s ideas have their own holistic
dimension. They are not those of a society viewed as a machine but those of
a community interlinked with ties of personal obligation. And at still an-
other level, rules for the control of bodily expression (cf. Colonna, 1979).
The changes which occurred in the Ottoman Empire during the Tan-
zimat, and continued during the Republic attacked the traditional Ottoman
system by the extent to which it “de-personalized” it. The role of the patri-
arch, the father, the patrimonial ruler was gradually eroded and bonds of
personal allegiance were replaced by Western-type contractual ties or by the
type of affiliation that prevailed in a society of blocks. I intend to take
up this point in detail in Chapter III. Eventually, it was to be this gap
which Said Nursi filled by setting out to repersonalize Turkish society
through the personalized stamp of the Risale-i Nur—yet giving to deperson-
alization to the extent that he denied the legitimacy of personal guidance
after his own demise.
The mode of life encompassed in the traditional, Muslim, personalistic
system was changed relatively quickly during the reforms of the Tanzimat.
This occurred in two stages. First, there was a reassertion of the state and
its bureaucratic apparatus in the early years of reform. Then came the
Young Turks of the 1890s among whom a subservience to a universalistic
conceptual universe brought in its train a view of society once again under-
lining elements working beyond the person. Individuals were still accepted
 Introduction 13
in this new outlook; they were still seen as units of society, but their in-
terrelation was conceptualized as that of lifeless atoms driven by laws of na-
ture. I do not need to go into greater detail in this modern denial of
organic connections between individuals since it has been studied in many
other contexts. One remark, however, may bring greater depth to a well
known proposition. I refer to the recent discovery that “the ratiocination
by which we understand the world actually occurs more through non-
propositional that propositional means.” In other words, ‘performative
language,’ the use of primary imagination and “displacement through met-
aphors, are actually better confirmatory means of what the world as reality
consists that the true/not true questions of standard, formal logic” (Parkin,
1982, XXVII). What the Young Turks, and later the Republic, had done
was to eliminate the discourse based on non-propositional means which gave
life to inter-personal relations for the average Ottoman. Said Nursi’s contri-
bution was a reaffirmation of the norms set by the Qur’an in such a way as
to re-introduce the traditional Muslim idiom of conduct and of personal
relations into an emerging society of industry and mass communications. |
consider that a large part of his appeal was due to this philosophical-
sociological approach. In the pages that follow, I analyze a number of other
forces that marked his life. However, the centrality of his contribution in
reviving the traditional Ottoman idiom of social conduct and relations and
his own discourse as a variation of the latter constitutes a good synoptic
explanation of his influence in modern Turkey.
A number of important uses of this idiom by the non-govermental,
i.e., middle and lower classes of Turkey, highlight the great value that Be-
ditizzaman’s followers attached to it: it offered them a means for spiritual
development; it provided for their maturation as persons and the building of
their personality; it gave them the means of constructing a social sphere
which may be described as delimited by private law, and also the means for
building a new base of ultimate legitimacy; it generated arguments, if not
instruments, to keep the state at bay when it wanted to invade their sphere;
and, finally, ic was a map for community action. Depending as it did on a
flexible discourse rather than on block-like institutions (such as the Church
in Christianity) it showed a remarkable reliance on and adaptability to mod-
ern conditions while maintaining the integrity of its message.
The perdurance of the Islamic idiom through thick and thin during
the various stages of Ottoman modernization was due to the richness and
flexibilicy of its conceptual apparatus. In our story this apparatus enables
persons steeped in the rural world, but alerted to the transformations that
14 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

were taking place around them, to take their first steps into an increasingly
Western-oriented urban cultural sphere. Said Nursi saw himself as the
guide who would lead them into this stage while at the same time shoring
up their religiosity.
From what I have stated it follows that, in my story, the two camps
which are locked in combat do not take their force from the realm of theo-
ries or theologies but are opposites that spring from the bedrock of everyday
life. Even though they can be seen as the expression of an abstract historical
dialectic, and even though Said Nursi states that he is combatting European
philosophers, “especially atheist philosophy,’ the combat he is waging as-
sumes greater clarity when it is seen as unfolding on a field which is that of
the “common-sense world.”
Let me underline, however, that what we are dealing with here is the
appeal for his followers of what is absent. It is as much a yearning for some-
thing which one feels is missing from the social fabric as it is an interest in
the substance of this element. Beditizzaman’s disciples were drawn to him
by the feeling that a key element had been driven out of the social structure
in which they were immersed, a sense similar to that of a man who is
sitting at a table with one of the legs somewhat shorter than the others. We
may go even further: this element had been driven out at a time when they
dimly perceived that it held out new possibilities for an expansion of their
universe. In our case then a /acuna becomes a sociologically significant ele-
ment. This consciousness of a potential, the charismatic appeal of an eso-
teric style as items in the power that builds up a faith movement such as the
one I study, still remain somewhat mysterious, and I have not attempted to
decipher them but take them as irreducible elements of the religious expe-
rience. The clue to these paradoxes may be that “poetry” and “mystic
marks” are more integral parts of the ‘““common-sense world” than many
would admit.
I think it is clear by now that I see religion—Islam—as social prac-
tice. This approach seems to have suffered undeserved neglect. But then,
that does not clear up the issue of the structural frame within which the
idiom I am pinpointing operates. What I mean is that the idiom has to be
linked to the dynamics of statuses and positions, and that power has also to
figure somewhere in one’s explanation. These interlinkages may be studied
in a Foucauldian or Weberian frame. I have chosen Weber. The relation
between idiom and ‘“‘status-positions” is, in any case, one between two dif-
ferent levels of abstraction. Even if one were to delimit these two contexts as
field or spheres one could probably not find a way of fitting them together.
 Introduction 15
A similar problem is that of the consistency of all the pieces of one’s image
of society. A number of social scientists have speculated that inconsistencies
within a given system of representation are necessary for the functioning of
society (Leach-Gellner). Reminding oneself of this approach also seems sal-
utary at this point. What I would venture to suggest is that there exists a
social dialectic which attempts to overcome these inconsistencies—a major
theme in the pages that follow—but that these are in the end never resolved.

Internal States

Delineating the type of influence which Said Nursi exercised over his
clientele reveals three fundamental axes around which one may build an ex-
planatory frame. One of these is the “idiom” he was reviving, and I have
already covered this aspect of his biography. The other two dimensions of
his effectiveness as a leader are linked first to a world-wide development
which I call the “communications revolution” and second, to his followers
“internal states.” I take up the international relations component of his life-
world in Chapter I. In the following pages I develop the idea of the psychic
demands to which he was responding, placing these in the Ottoman-
Muslim cultural setting.
An analysis of the motivation of individuals proceed at two different
levels. One of these is to take the subject's understanding of his own cul-
tural system as providing a means for his as well as our understanding of
the way society functions (Gidden’s “tacit stocks of knowledge’’). I have at-
tempted to cover this aspect of the behavior of Said Nursi's followers with
the concept of “idiom.” Let me rephrase once more what my use of the
concept implies for me by citing yet another remark by Giddens:
... im a basic way, a social investigator draws upon the same sort of re-
sources as laymen do in making sense of the conduct which it is his aim to
analyse or explain; and vice versa... the practical theorizing of laymen
cannot merely be dismissed by the observer as an obstacle to the “‘scienti-
fic’? understanding of human conduct, but is a vital element whereby that
conduct is constituted or “made to happen” by social actors. . . . . the stocks
of knowledge routinely drawn upon by members of society to make a
meaningful social world depend upon knowledge, largely taken for granted or
implicit, of a pragmatically oriented kind: that is to say, “knowledge” that
the agent is rarely able to express in propositional form, and to which the
ideals of science-precision of formulation, logical exhaustiveness, clear-cut
lexical definitions etc.—are not relevant... the concepts employed by
16 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

the social scientists are linked to or depend upon a prior understanding of,
those used by laymen in sustaining a meaningful social world. (Giddens,
1976, 52-53)

A second level of analysis which would attempt to shed light on the

behavior of the individuals who were attracted to Said Nursi would involve
inquiring into the psychological processes which operate with even less of
a conscious choice than is the case in rule-governed behavior. Because the
nurcu often use items of the Islamic idiom for unconscious processes of
identity-building and accomodation with the ambient world, I believe that a
more psychological tack is necessary to shed light on the inner drives of the
nurcu clientele.
It is clear that the pains that Bediiizzaman took to promote the revi-
talization of Islam were a consequence of changes in his own “internal
states’ as well as those of his clients. His psychological disarray caused by
the penetration of Western European influences into the Ottoman Empire
was paralleled by a similar malaise among his followers. For them too, affil-
ation with the Nar movement appears to have been triggered off by certain
motivations or psychological dispositions. An interpretation of the dynamic
of the movement requires an understanding of these dispositions.
A peculiarity of the times I cover in this study is that a number of
social institutions such as craft guilds, religious orders, religious communi-
ties and powerful families of provincial notables—all of which made up the
mosaic-like peripheral structure of the Ottoman Empire—were undergoing
a process of breakdown and deterioration (Berkes, ed., 1959, passim). How-
ever, a national identity had not yet emerged to take the place of these
segmental affiliations. This was particularly true of the Ottoman provinces.
In many of these outlying areas—one of them being Said Nursi’s first base,
Isparta—sufficient change in the segmented structure had taken place to
create a general feeling of anxiety in the rural and provincial population. In
this perspective it is reasonable to assume that the resources for identity
building which at one time flowed from the controlling force of the periph-
eral institutions were dissipated and that the revitalization of the Muslim
idiom offered by Said Nursi was a bounty that could be made use of in the
elaboration of the self.
Indices which became stronger as I studied the reception of Said
Nursi’s ideas seemed to indicate the persistence of a venue into Nurculuk
linked to psychological quandaries. I therefore have attempted to give
aglimpse of this process at various times in my study.
 Introduction 17
The Person's Involvement in Religion

Said Nursi was a deeply religious man. In contrast with the Islamic
proto-nationalist thinker Cemaleddin Afgani (Ar. Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani),
he eventually abandoned the more clearly instrumental stance he had as-
sumed at the beginning of his practices of Muslims. The materials that were
available to me in the case of Nurculuk brought to the fore an aspect of what
may be termed the mytho-poetic dimensions of religion. This aspect con-
cerns the maintenance of the integrity of the self worked through a sym-
bolic mytho-poetic repertoire. Not all mzrcus fall into his category; for a
number, the revitalization of Islam in order to regain the power it once held
has first priority. For others, whose distinguishing characteristic seems to
have been lower age brackets, the dynamics of the venue into the Nur sect
appear to be linked to the solution of quandaries concerned with the main-
tenance of the integrity of traditional sets of “positions” (Giddens, 1986,
83), and this they work out by embracing religious symbolism. There are
indications that Said’s success in the vicinity of Isparta around 1925—27
may be related to the reaffirmation of the legitimacy of these symbols at
the time they were coming under fire in the Republic. The important con-
tingent of small town dwellers with some education but an inconsistent
status—part modern, part traditional—which one finds among the first
propagators of Bediiizzaman’s message in one of these indices.

Theological Foundations

To see the revitalization movement of Said Nursi as one which sustains

the use of an idiom in a time of troubles is a first step in getting an
understanding of his influence. A second step requires that one brings to
bear into one’s analysis the specific characters that one has attributed to
“Islamicate” cultures (Hodgson, I, 1974, 57) and the way in which they
shape social behavior. Although a repetition of a theme I have already
broached, I have to underline once more at this point that the basic perspec-
tive which I assume is that the believer’s conceptualization of what religion-
means to him in relation to his everyday life cannot be dismissed as an
epiphenomenon which ‘“‘masks” a more basic dynamic of religion.
What has focused the attention of students of Islam in the past has
been an aspect of Islam which is best rendered by the term “revelation”
(Makeen, 1980). It is the ‘“‘revelational” aspect of the Qur'an, the fact that
the Qur’an is the revealed word of God, which sets boundaries to options
available to man. These boundaries provide one clue to the study of modern
18 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Islamic society in the sense that the correct attitude a Muslim should adopt
towards modernization can only be drawn out of the religious sciences.
Here, Said may be seen as an expert in Islamic sciences who has drawn from
the Qur'an principles of Muslim behavior appropriate to our times. Never-
theless, two other pieces of the problem are needed before we can under-
stand Said Nursi’s influence and his transformation of the Islamic
revelational idiom. One of these is the quality which the Islamic idiom as-
sumes in an Ottoman context, another the conditions regulating access to
God in Islam.
In the Qur’anic discourse it is difficult to separate the private and the
personal from the public field. There is no equivalent of the Western sepa-
ration of public and private law. The Ottomans were able to circumvent this
feature of Islam only because they brought their own store of clearly polit-
ical symbols of legitimation with them (Inalcik, 1958). Ottoman institu-
tional specialization produced an extensive vocabulary of politics and a new
mental world related to political action. This special Ottoman demarcation
of the state from religion was one of the reasons for which Ottoman states-
men of the Tanzimat could consider the translation of the French civil code
into Turkish without flinching. Said Nursi was constantly faced in his life
by this mode of thought which accorded the highest priority to the salvation
of the state. Said himself conceptualized the central problem confronting
Ottomans as one of the revitalization of the Islamic community.
This duality of the visions regarding the place of religion vis-a-vis the
state placed many stumbling blocks in Said’s way. The problem gains from
being studied as an aspect of the role of the community in Islamic societies.
Islam first coalesced into a religious community. Leaders of the Islamic
forces were leaders of this religious community, and their prestige arose
from the fact that they were repositories of religious charisma. Somewhat
later, the mechanism of a patrimonial state was imposed upon these arrange-
ments. The Qur’an defined with some detail how the religious community
was to operate, although it was not so precise concerning the structure of
the state. Thus, Islamic societies and their theoreticians had a tendency to
see the state as an extension of the religious community, existing for the
protection of the community. The emphasis was on the life of the commu-
nity, not on the life of the state. An independent body of political formulae,
which attained its highest form in Turko-Mongol-Ottoman practice, did
develop, but this view was somewhat alien to the Islamic theory of the com-
munity insofar as it saw the state as the primary mode of society. Both
 Introduction 19
before and after the Ottomans, the de facto heavier weight of the state (than
had been planned for an ideal Islamic society) was reluctantly accepted by
the ‘ulema but the theoretical hiatus could not be made the subject of pro-
found disquisitions because the very concept of a state was alien to pristine
Islam.
In the Ottoman Empire, the majority of the ‘z/ema who did not have
much contact with state practice, did not confront the secular formulae of
statecraft head on. They brought out what they had learned about political
obligation in Islamic sources whenever the opportunity arose. Even though
daily Ottoman practice differed from what would have been a strict applica-
tion of Islamic principles, their acceptance of the existing institutions did
not mean that the ‘v/ema had rallied to the bureaucrats’ view of the state,
but rather that doctors of Islamic law had better means of testing the
legitimacy of an individual caliph than assailing his machinery of rule. Nei-
ther did they have the practical means of reasserting the power of the com-
munity, except by backing community outbursts against the central power
or palace intrigues to topple an administration. In times of discontent the
‘ulema could invoke Islamic principles to rally the people around them, but
routine administrative practice with its unorthodox features was accepted by
all subjects, including the ‘ulema.
In short, in a study involving the Ottoman Empire one always has to
remember that political legitimacy was bicephalous. Some of the sultans can
be shown to have had a fine understanding of this balance between religion
and the state. Sultan Abdiilhamid II (1876-1909) was—contrary to all that
has been written—a person who deeply sensitive to the concept of the sur-
vival of the state. He used appeals to the Muslim community to band to-
gether, but he could also shape a policy for the Ottoman state which had as
a goal the preservation of the state itself. In search for new sources of in-
come, he could go through the existing religious foundations with a fine
tooth comb. It is probable that what appears to be the sultan’s rebuff to
Bediiizzaman’s own reform proposals in 1896, during an extended stay in
Istanbul (Kutay, 1966-67), was due to his suspiciousness of the special
place that Said gave to the Kurds in his proposals. He may well have be-
lieved that this was a divisive factor which would undermine the unity of the
state. His successors, the founding fathers of the Turkish Republic, were to
level che same accusation against Said in the 1920s. Said Nursi figures as
the representative of the culture of the ‘a/ema, more precisely as a member of
that sub-set of this culture that had strong links with popular culture.
20 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Man's Access to God

That Islam, in its most orthodox aspect, posits a God that is per-
ceived as pure potency and creativeness, and is devoid of anthropocentric
characteristics, has often been underlined. One of the best summaries of
this feature has been given by Robert Bellah:

Without intending any disrespect, one can speak of a certain poverty of sym-
bolic reference to God in the Qur'an. Ancient Israel, according to George
Mendenhall and other contemporary scholars, first built up its conception of a
transcendent God on the model of the ancient Near Eastern great king. God
was above all King, Lord, Ruler. Christianity continued this line of analog-
ical thought, but added to it a stress on God as Father which was much less
central in Israelite thought. In the Qur’an God is understood, first of all,
neither as king nor as father but simply as God. The only analogy for God is
God. (Bellah, 1970,155)

As a proposition about Muslim theology, this may be somewhat one-sided.

But it does highlight one aspect of Islam which one of the most prominent
of Muslim theologians, al-Ghazali, underlined when he stated: “As to God’s
love (for man) there are few who believe in it. Some sages (‘a/im) have even
denied its possibility” (Ghazali Trs., 1925, IV, 533).
This condition is compounded by certain ecological conditions prevail-
ing in the Middle East. Ernest Gellner has shown how, for the tribal illit-
erate, these difficulties of access result in the necessary intercession of holy
men between man and God (Keddie ed., 1972, 311) even though many of
the theologians of Islam decry such an intercession.
The urban Islam of the orthodox ‘alema which is “‘legalistic, re-
strained, arid’’ (Keddie ed., 1972, 309) has opened a door to another un-
derstanding of God, and that is Sufi mysticism. Classification should not
stop here, however, as the votaries of city Sufism also consist of two groups:
the sophisticates, who are learned in the ways of Sufism, and the masses.
Katip Celebi, the Ottoman encyclopaedist of the 17th Century, provides a
description of the mode of affiliation to the latter which was still a received
idea among educated Ottomans in the early 20th century:
“Most of the Khalwati orders have based their rites and observances on the
community of aspirants. They have founded lodges and have made the Hay!
and Hu! which are the essentials of their society . . . This is the reason why
the brutish common people flock to them and votive offerings and pious gifts
pour into their lodges... .” (Katip Celebi, 1957, 43-44)
 Introduction 21
Sufi seyhs were not above providing for such needs or dealing in magic
cures. In modern times the mobilization of the masses has given a new twist
to their mode of participation—not anymore a gross “Hay” or “Hu”; I try
to describe this development and the emphasis on a softer understanding of
man’s relation to God in Chapter V.
For both the learned and the masses, mediation between man and God
was provided by a guide, a pir or mirgid. It is possibly this overwhelming
need to establish a chain linking man and God that explains why so many
of the orthodox ‘ulema were affiliated with a mystic order. For the traditional
Anatolian masses the mediator was the image of the Prophet, which stressed
his kindness, his physical make up, his well-groomed person and his sense
of justice and fairness. The pir, the spiritual guide, is one person who, as
a link in this chain, also emerges as father figure, a father that smooths
access to the ultimate father. What theology denies is provided by day-to-
day practice.
Father images were also in tune with the principles of organization of
Islamic societies which underlined the homologous roles of the pater familias
and the teacher. But if we look at Ottoman Islamic society as a social struc-
ture, we notice that the pr (hypostasis of the personalistic system) figures as
a metaphor of the entire social system: the father image fits into this struc-
tural slot.
In conclusion, two characteristics may be underlined which I believe
are relevant to an understanding of what is ‘‘truly” religious in Nurculuk:
one is the centrality of the symbolic store in a person's involvement in reli-
gion. A second is the malleability of the set of religious symbols at an in-
dividual level. Ernest Gellner, in a seminal article, showed some years ago
that the necessary ambivalence of our symbolic apparatus opens a door to
social change (Gellner, 1970). We may extend this insight to religious sym-
bolism in the sense that there are avenues of freedom in the very process of
using one’s culturally determined apparatus to reach God (as I shall try to
argue in Chapter IV). Gellner was referring to conscious processes, but
there is no reason why his suggestions could not be even truer of uncon-
scious processes. Depriving a person of his ability to use the set of symbols
which shape his individual approach to God may be a more distressing
blow to him than depriving him of other values. It may be easier to take
defeat on the battlefield than to be deprived of the means of personal access
to the sacred, especially if this access is one of the processes that make for
mental equilibrium, personal satisfaction and integration with the rest of
society. If millenarian movements are the product of some form of depriva-
22 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

tion, I would speculate that their driving force is not only a matter of re-
Capturing means of controlling power and influence (Burridge, 1967) but,
in addition, an attempt to reconstitute a shattered ‘“‘numinous grammar”’
which, when re-established, can bring back a mode of reflecting about the
sacred, but also the ambient, world.
I shall try to show that the impoverishment of religious symbolism
was felt with great force among a certain strata of Turkish Muslims at a
time when this symbolic fund was being devalued. I am unable to offer any
“proof” of this proposition, but that Said Nursi’s success was due to his
revitalization of the religious idiom at the individual as well as at the social
level may become more evident as I proceed. Social change, as manifested
by the birth and development of the Nur movement, is unraveled in this
perspective.
Last, but not least, we have taken up problems of power, and here we
have to back-track to the macro aspects of the study. The neglect of micro
studies of social dynamics in Muslim societies has led me to over-emphasize
these aspects in my treatment here. Nevertheless, the ubiquity of power in
an Islamic setting and the extent to which social relations tend to be con-
ceptualized as power relations is a theme which spills over into the sphere of
religious practices. That the life of Said Nursi was framed by power as a
leitmotif and by issues related to the legitimation of power and leadership
emerges even in the most sketchy of descriptions of the sage’s career. It is
precisely because of the segmented structure of Middle East societies that
the role of a charismatic leader such as Said Nursi is highlighted. In this
particular case, the charismatic leader in his role as an innovator imposes
new obligations on his followers, although he works through a traditional
setting.
Said Nursi’s task seems to have been promoted by the new life which
certain traditional Muslim institutions acquired during the process of mod-
ernization in the Ottoman Empire. What we have here may be described as
over-determination. The expansion of medreses in Isparta at the end of the
nineteenth century is only one example of these developments. Others are
the promotion of tarikat activities both in the diffuse sense in which such
bodies as the Sanusi acquired a new function and in the more instrumental
sense in which Sultan Abdtilhamid used Islam as a tool for mobilization
among his Muslim subjects. But at the other end of this over-determination
we have the disenchantment of the modern world and the opportunities cre-
ated by this blow to the integrating mechanism of Muslims in Turkey.
CHAPTER |

Preliminary Approaches to the

Biography of a Turkish Muslim
Fundamentalist Thinker

THE TOWN OF EI Cerrito, California has not made a special

mark by its contribution to the development of contemporary intellectual
history. It is, however, a center from which, in recent years, a series of
pamphlets with special importance for Turkish religious history has been
issued. The Qur’anic commentaries and homiletics which make up the Turk-
ish originals of these brochures are a segment of the published doctrines of
the protagonist of this study, Bediiizzaman (“Nonpareil of Our Times’’)
Said Nursi (1876-1960). Together, these pieces constitute what is known as
the Risale-i Nur (The Epistle of Light).
Even if one takes for granted the well-known eclecticism of California
culture, the speed and the extent of diffusion of Bediiizzaman’s message is
remarkable. To the limited extent that it has thus joined a group of move-
ments of spiritual revitalization—which have recently transcended their local
origins and have stepped on to the world stage—Said Nursi’s message may
be considered to have entered one stream of modernization. The internal
organization of the “faith movement” of the nurcu is a diffuse one which—it
has been advanced—consists of the hierarchically arranged categories of
talebe (student), kardes (brother), dost (friend) and sevgi/i (beloved) (Spuler,
1981, 428). Talebe and kardes are said to have to retain their bachelor status
for the first five to ten years of their “apprenticeship” and to concentrate
exclusively on study and on tests assigned to them. The step from f¢alebe to
kardes depends upon the internalization of the message of the Risale-1 Nur as
well as on establishing an activist record. Organizational responsibilities ap-
pear at the level of the dost. The highest rank consists of persons who have

23
24 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

inherited the tradition of Said Nursi from the man himself. The number
of these is decreasing all the time. Actually, these categories, derived from
the writings of a Turkish journalist have no basis in fact and are distorted
reflections of the way Said addresses himself to his audience. (See Barla
Lahikast and Emirdag Lahikas1). My own observations are that Spuler’s cate-
gories are a reification of more transactional processes where one accedes to
the top through a constant, informal evaluation of the organizational-
Islamist utility of a person and its relation to the goals of the murcu, the
ladder of leadership being lowered from the top down.
There also exists an “assembly” of the nurcu which is convened infor-
mally and meets every few years. An important aspect of Nurculuk (mem-
bership in the faith movement) is that just as men gather every week to
discuss passages from the Risale-i Nur, a number of women’s gatherings are
also convened for similar discussions. This parallel structure is not reflected
in the leadership, which is all male. Schiffauer (1984) has, nonetheless,
shown how the availability of such women’s circles allows some of the Turk-
ish women guest-workers in Germany to achieve an autonomous identity for
which there was no place in their village of origin. In fact, the relation of
the movement to modernization is quite intricate and also begins earlier
than one would suspect (see below, Chapter III).
Modern Muslim revitalization movements have been linked with an
early stage of global modernization processes and one can follow this link
through the effect on revitalization of modern communications. During the
18th century, Mecca was already drawn into the new density of Mediterra-
nean communications, and from Mecca issued the ferment which propelled
Islamic revival movements in Asia and Africa. In the 19th century, the
world communications revolution, though originating outside the Islamic
world, gave a fresh impetus to the enhanced interaction of Muslims. The
rise in the number of Meccan pilgrims has been mentioned by a number of
authors (Geertz, 1968) as a development due to the improvement of com-
munications but, in turn, generating communications effects. The same en-
hanced effectiveness applies to the Nakstbendi ‘“‘sect’”’ with which Said Nursi
had such close links. During the 19th century new opportunities for the
expansion of the Nakszbendis’ proselytizing activities seem to have opened up
in the Ottoman Empire and Said’s life was marked by these antecedents. It
is only the latest expansion of this network which brings into focus the
Risale-i Nur Institute of America.
In Turkey, the Nar movement acquired its most striking universalistic
characteristics between 1950 and 1975. Paradoxically, these followed upon,
 Preliminary Approaches 25

and were organically linked with, the modernizing policies of the Turkish
Republic. The Nar movement may thus be seen as having been carried to
its internationalization on the crest of Turkish Republican modernization.
As we know, during the Republican era (1923 to date), Turkey increased
its interaction with the world at large: it opened up unequivocally to the
Western world by adopting Westernization (garpl1lasma), as one of the ideo-
logical tenets of the new republic (Lewis, 1968, 176f.) This external stance
was duplicated by internal policies of reform that stressed education, science
and secularization. Between 1923 and 1938 the entire cast of Turkish so-
Ciety was penetrated by some of these reforms carried out under the aegis of
Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk. The Nzr movement had, therefore, to accept as a
datum of social life those reforms—such as universal education—which,
gradually, had become part of the birthright of modern Turks. Spuler
(1973, 105), earlier, had already perceived the connection between the Nur
movement and modernization. Her emphasis, however, has to be reversed. It
was not because of the modernization of pan-Islamic propaganda that the
movement acquired new impetus after 1950, but because it could by then
work with modern materials and ideas which had been integrated into the
new culture of Republican Turkey and become part of the patrimony of the
Turks. A striking—alchough not typical—example of this transmutation
may be seen in the question posed by a nuarcu (1983): “Have you ever read
the following quatrain of Rilke? He shows so well what Said Nursi meant.”
The Nur movement also found some of its strength in Republican
failures. Outstanding among these was the inability of secular Republican
ideology to replace Islam as a world view. This failure paralleled what West-
ern civilization was beginning to perceive as a drawback, namely the ab-
sence of strong bonds of belief and the “anomie’’ prevalent in industrial
society. The Nar movement's ability to direct its operations through a cul-
tural framework partly imposed by the Turkish Republic, together with its
rhetoric, which incorporated a strain of Islamic mysticism, answered the
operational mode and the spiritual demands of a Turkish clientele. ‘““Nzr”’
also answered the longing of a new world clientele to which it could now
begin to address itself. This, then, is the process by which El Cerrito came
into the orbit of Bitlis, Said Nursi’s birthplace.
The Nur movement first took shape in western Turkey in the 1920s
at a time when Said Nursi was exiled to a provincial hamlet by the govern-
ment of Republican Turkey. The social characteristics of its earliest follow-
ing, just as those of its present votaries, are difficult to pinpoint. Since it
does not operate on the model of a traditional Islamic sect, but claims it 1s
26 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

a medium for the dissemination of the truth of the Qur'an, its boundaries
are diffuse: every person who joins in the task of dissemination is ipso facto a
disciple. There are no initiation rites and there is no formal organizational
structure; a precise count of the membership is, thus, impossible. It is,
nevertheless, incontrovertible that the fundamentalist views of Beditizzaman
have acquired a large following in Turkey since they were first propagated
in the 1920s.
The specifically Turkish circumstances in which the movement was
born remind us that its most significant aspect is not its improbable en-
counter with the affinity of Californians for esoteric lore. Neither is the Nar
movement best characterized by its recent importation by Turkish guest
workers, into Western Europe thereby adding to its clientele a small con-
tingent of Western Europeans. The Nur movement makes greater ‘‘sense’”’
when it is investigated in the context of a number of similar Islamic move-
ments in the Islamic world. It is this approach that provides us with clues
to an understanding of the complicated social processes which it tapped
in Turkey. I shall, therefore, attempt to bring out its features as an aspect
of the “revitalization” of Islam, a term which seems to me to be a fair
equivalent of tajdid, the word used by Muslims for the process of renewal
in religion (Ayoubi, 1981; Dekmejian, 1980; Dessouki, 1982; Esposito,
1980; Gellner and Vatin, 1981; Gilsenan, 1982; Humphreys, 1979; Ibra-
him, 1980; Mitchell, 1969).
Bediiizzaman was a Muslim thinker who encountered problems similar
to those faced by other Muslim thinkers in other parts of the Islamic world
in the nineteenth century. The religious idiom that he inherited, and the
ways in which he stated problems in this idiom, show a strong Muslim
medieval imprint. The external forces impinging upon him which impelled
him to modify this idiom, however, are thoroughly contemporary: they were
part of the process by which new communications media were penetrating
the globe and reducing its dimension.
The study of the ideas of Said Nursi and the analysis of the social
movement he created, then, fall under at least two headings: one related to
the state of Islam in Turkey in the last century, the second to a world-
encompassing process associated with modernization and—possibly—to a
Turkish version of the spiritual crisis which accompanied moderniza-
tion (Berger, Berger and Kellner, 1973; Wallis, 1978). In short, Said
Nursi's attempt to “revitalize’’ Islam was the product of a change in the
scope of Ottoman social relations which was, in turn, part of a more
universal process known as the “social communication’ mutation. What
may be seen as the more clearly indigenous Ottoman development with
 Preliminary Approaches 27

a dynamic emerging from internal sources generated a separate set of

variables which were just as important for Bediiizzaman as the exo-
genous forces. (An example would be the growth of the medrese network
in the province of Isparta, where Said Nursi was to find his first disci-
ples). Today the perspective one needs to adopt in studying the Nur move-
ment has changed once more: a largely rural movement which gained
strength in small provincial towns has become enmeshed with problems
created by rural-urban migration and by the rapid growth of large cities
in Turkey.
There are other aspects of Said Nursi’s career and contributions which
cut across my basic two-dimensional categorization, one Muslim, the other
universal. The first of these possible alternative classifications is biographi-
cal: Said’s life may be divided into two periods. The first covers his activi-
ties up to the early 1920s; the later one has as its focus the creation of the
Nur movement in Western Anatolia and ends with Said’s death in 1960.

The Setting
Said Nursi’s first involvement with Islamic revitalization goes back
to the early part of his life (1876-1896): this is the historical context in
which the variables which turned him into a fundamentalist activist came
into play. For Said, as well as for his contemporaries living in Bitlis, an
outstanding characteristic of the troubled era they were traversing was that
it placed them at the terminus of a chain reaction of social change. This
movement had been set in motion in the West, where it had been proceed-
ing for some time before it finally reached Eastern Anatolia. But what
reached these provinces belonged more to the superstructure of change;
it consisted of items that could be broadly described under the heading
of “communication” such as linkage with the center, government services,
education, conscription. On the other hand, the original communication
revolution which the West had experienced had arisen together with a con-
comitant groundswell of infrastructural transformation; communications
were the multiplier of a material transformation. In Europe, the expansion
of the road network, the propagation of mass media and the growth of
modern educational institutions had been linked to antecedents such as the
expansion of commercial capitalism, the growth of the cities and the birth
of industrial civilization.
Neither the area under study here, nor other parts of the Ottoman
Empire were ever directly involved in all of these features of the infrastruc-
tural modernization of Europe.
28 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Although the Ottoman Empire itself was only drawn into what may
be termed sub-processes of modernization—the most conspicuous aspects of
Ottoman modernization being governmental reform and educational expan-
sion—the involvement of the Kurdish-speaking regions in these changes was
even more limited. Some new educational institutions and the outlines of a
new administration appeared. Yet, while this region experienced almost no
infrastructural development and saw little local change in the technology of
communications, it was, nevertheless, brought into contact with the rela-
tively developed social communications network which grew out of 19th
century Ottoman reform.
This reform movement was the end-product of an extended confronta-
tion of the Ottoman Empire with the West. The sequence of change in the
streamlining of Ottoman institutions was that reform was applied first in
the more developed western parts of the Ottoman Empire. Changes of po-
litical structure were planned in Istanbul, carried out with some loss of
content in Western Anatolia and then—with varying lags—affected the
eastern regions. Changes in economic structure changed life in Beirut and
Aleppo and then trickled to Eastern Anatolia. Economic changes affecting
the Middle East also worked towards eastern Turkey through Persia and
Iraq. In all these cases Bitlis was the end point of the process of change.
While Bitlis did not suffer from the direct intervention of the West—
and thus seems in the short run to have been relatively insulated from the
adverse repercussions of Western industrialization on its manufactures—nei-
ther was it directly affected by economic imperialism. In short, the impact
on Bitlis of the momentous changes which were reshaping the world in the
nineteenth century were mediated, indirect and partial.
The situation was different in the more developed areas of the Otto-
man Empire, where the impact of the West was felt earlier and more di-
rectly. The Anglo-Ottoman Treaty of Commerce of 1838, which set a
model for many others to follow, did impose onerous conditions on Turkish
manufacturers, just as Ottoman administrative and economic reform was di-
rectly inspired by European enlightened despotism. Liberal trade policies
and the copying of legal, administrative and educational institutions of the
West were to become the hallmark of the Ottoman era of reforms.
It will have become clear that I use “communication” in a special
sense. The meaning it carries in my exposé derives from Karl Deutsch’s
“social communication” (Deutsch, 1966). Deutsch takes up the social
changes which took place in Europe up to and during the nineteenth cen-
tury—and nationalism as one product of these changes—as a function of
 Preliminary Approaches 29

their widening of the scope of social relations. In Deutsch’s own words:

“Clusters of settlement, modes of transport, centers of culture, areas and
centers of language, divisions of caste and class, barriers between markets,
sharp regional differences in wealth and interdependence, and the uneven
impact of critical historical events and social institutions all act together to
produce a highly differentiated and clustered world of regions, peoples and
nations” (Deutsch, 1966, 187).
The “clustering” which Deutsch mentions is an important datum of
the history of Eastern Anatolia in the nineteenth century: as the forces of
differentiation set to work in the Kurdish-speaking region, the setting
emerged which shaped Said’s behavior and ideas. The Ottoman government
and administration upset an existing system of authority relations which had
provided tolerable conditions for the rural population. Christian missionary
work expanded the horizons of converts, while the sultans support of
Muslim-Ottoman activism encouraged the sects to work with Islam as a flag
under which Muslims would re-group and be energized. But the theory that
changes in communication patterns can influence social behavior can only be
substantiated if we add to it a corollary which often goes unstated. In a
setting like that of Bitlis the acceleration of social change was promoted by
certain uniquely influential—in our case, psychologically shattering—
events. (Lyman, 1978, 81) For Turkey, a series of clear defeats on the bat-
tlefields had constituted such events and had brought Westernizing reforms
in its wake. For the heavily tarikat-influenced culture of the area in which
Said Nursi was raised, the threat to Islam of an upsurge of activity of Chris-
tian communities had constituted such a salient event. This saliency was
the product of a tradition which incorporated conventional perspectives
for highlighting distinctive aspects of historical developments. We know
that the type of resentment caused by such an event, and by what was
perceived as a slight to Islamic civilization, affected not only Said Nursi,
but a number of persons from contiguous regions. Thus, while Said was—
as we shall see—setting out to elaborate a form of Ottomanism (an inte-
gration of all ethnic groups in the same national unit), three young students
of the military medical preparatory school in the capital, Ishak Sukici,
Abdullah Cevdet and Ziya Gokalp—all from the Eastern Ottoman prov-
inces—were led by a similar sensitivity towards the decline of their ambient
culture to join libertarian movements with a liberal-constitutionalist ide-
ology. The first two of these were among the four founders of the earliest
form of the Young Turk organization, the Committee of Union and
Progress.
30 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

The Tanzimat

The beginning of a policy of institutional reform in the Ottoman

Empire may be traced to the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) and
his successor Abdtilmecid (1839-1861). It was officially inaugurated in
November 1839, by the reading of the Hatt-: Humayin of Gilhane, the
charter which described the aim of reform. It continued to be implemented
up to and beyond the reign of Sultan Abdtilhamid II (1876-1909). The
latter, although systematically maligned as an opponent of the Tanzimat, is
seen in some important recent works as a willing heir to reform policies.
The Young Turks (1908-1918) disassociated themselves from the 19th Cen-
tury reform movement with a claim that they had introduced a radical ele-
ment into reform; however, their policies were in the mainstream of the
Tanzimat. In reality, the Tanzimat continued into the first decade of the
twentieth century, and its latter part thus overlaps with Beditizzaman’s
youth and early manhood.
The general trend of current research on the nineteenth century has
been to belittle the achievements of the Tanzimat. One accent of this criti-
cism is the extent to which peripheral areas of the Ottoman Empire re-
mained untouched by modernization. This was true for the remoter regions,
such as Bitlis, but part of the problems of the Eastern provinces of the
Ottoman Empire was related not to the failure, but, on the contrary, to the
success of the Tanzimat.
Even though these provinces did not profit from industrialization or
commercial capitalism, they were drawn into a vortex created by Ottoman
governmental reform, and had to face at least two developments which were
the outcome of an Ottoman modernist policy. First, the Ottomans under-
took to tighten their own system of provincial administration. This resulted
in the elimination of local rulers who had possessed considerable adminstra-
tive and political autonomy before the 19th century (van Bruinessen, 1978,
220f.). In addition, the new administrative structure of the Ottoman state
began to penetrate into the area.
Still underdeveloped during the Tanzimat, Bitlis and its environs was,
neverthless, drawn into some of the political and social outcomes generated
by the Western communications revolution and its trickling into all of East-
ern Anatolia. For instance, while this region did not benefit from many new
schools, railroads or even highways, it became the field of activity for Prot-
estant missionaries who now had easier access to the region (van Bruinessen,
1978; Darkot, 1944, 660). This is a good example of the mediated effects
 Preliminary Approaches | 31

of the communications revolution proper. It is a development which is

known to have had tragic consequences for the Nestorians, whom the mis-
sionaries were proselytizing (circa 1850).
The restructuring of the central apparatus of Ottoman government
during the Tanzimat had important consequences for social communication.
This recasting introduced new relations of subordination into the bureau-
cratic hierarchy: it brought the central administration of the Ottoman
Empire closer to a true Weberian model of rationalized bureaucracy. ‘“Minis-
tries” emerged, the bureaucratic network itself was much expanded, within
ministries bureaucratic linkages emerged which had not existed before, and
new regulations appeared, accompanied by a novel “administrative law.” All
of these changes created networks of communications which resulted in the
intensification of social interaction at the administrative level, but such de-
velopments also meant that an older system of administration which was
well-worn but understandable was replaced by a new set of subject-official
relations which had yet to be deciphered. Bitlis is a case in point.
A positive aspect of the Eastern Anatolian area's encounter with the
Tanzimat was the increasing competence of provincial governors. The upper
bureaucrats who went into the provinces as governors were expected to
be inspired by a new ideology of reform. Good governors did, indeed, con-
centrate on building road systems, on establishing local governmental ga-
zettes, and on founding systems of agricultural credit; they also tried to
wrest the control of publicly auctioned state projects out of the hands of
corrupt notables. The Ottoman government had established the first Anato-
lian newspaper in Erzurum in 1867 with the purpose of influencing local
public opinion in this leading Eastern province (Yasar, 1971, 30). This,
again, was a novel channel for influencing populations to side with the
government.
A consequence of the expansion of the world communication network
was that, starting with the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, Otto-
man mass media also grew. In the early 1840s, the Ottoman state divested
itself of the monopoly of printing. Some years later, the growth of journal-
ism created a new audience of readers in Istanbul and in some of the larger
provincial towns. It was through his access to newspapers that Said Nursi
learned of the intellectual currents in the Ottoman capital, just as it was
there that he acquired some basic information concerning world affairs.
A further aspect of the changing pattern of social communication was
the transformation of modes of thought. The infiltration of Western literary
genres into the intellectual life of Istanbul between 1840 and 1900 occu-
32 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

pies a central place in this process. Western rationalism and positivism had
a harder time getting established, but were clearly gaining strength in
Istanbul by the end of the nineteenth century (Ulken, 1966, I, 200f.).
Traditional Ottoman literati had been eclectic. They had seen no harm in
taking over ideas, such as those of modern Western education which had
tangible, practical uses (Berkes, 1978). But the new secular philosophy de-
rived from the West had an uncompromisingly materialistic problem-setting
mode which presented novel dangers for religion. This new intellectual out-
look brought its own problems with which Said had to grapple in his ma-
ture years; it must have caused him considerable inner turmoil even during
the years he was in Bitlis (1876-1907).
Another area of change in the Ottoman capital was that the group
characteristics of “carriers” of ideas changed: circles of literati gave way to a
more homegeneous group of an intelligentsia which took up the new West-
ern “culture of critical discourse’ (Gouldner, 1979, 8-44). Esotericism lost
its appeal: explanation became a much more frequent /estmotif in literary
products. The newspapers and magazines replaced expostulation by argu-
ments which were addressed to the presumed shared rationality of the read-
ers, while the readership of printed books made up a public unknown to the
traditional culture of Bitlis. All of these changes found an eventual echo in
the provincial setting. In Van in the 1890s, Said was part of a circle of
bureaucrats surrounding the Governor, who spent many a pleasant afternoon
discussing current developments in world politics and other items of the
Turkish press.
An excerpt of the 1880s from the Bitlis Gazette shows that the Otto-
mans considered they had a “‘civilizing mission’ to carry out in these areas
(Appendix 1). Some of the consequences of the policies of the Tanzimat
were unanticipated even by the reformers themselves. The Ottomans were
content to defeat local princelings and did not attempt to break up the
social structure of the area directly, yet this was the unanticipated conse-
quence of 19th century Ottoman reforms. Simply by imposing centraliza-
tion and a new pattern of territorial sub-divisions, the Ottomans broke up
the earlier social structure and caused what has been described as a “‘retrib-
alization” of the area (van Bruinessen, 1978, 228f.). A movement partially
reversing this trend emerged at the very end of the century. The sultan
relinquished a degree of authority when he placed some tribal leaders at the
head of local militias created for policing the area. But once again, it was
an object of—not a source of—change. The build-up of the strength of
Kurdish notables was an unanticipated outcome of the sultan’s policy, but it
 Preliminary Approaches 33

was not consciously pursued by him. Instruments of rule, yes; autonomous

groups, no.
Important educational reforms were carried out in the Ottoman Em-
pire between 1840 and 1900 which changed the entire cast of Ottoman
education. Among these was the establishment of a basic, three year post-
primary school, the risdtye (Unat, 1964, 42). In the absence of a developed
set of institutions of secondary education, the r#sdtyes served a portion of
the population which up to that time had only received primary education
followed immediately by professional training. Another new educational
stream was that of military education. The system was first tried in Istan-
bul; its expansion into the Ottoman provinces began after 1876. Eastern
Turkey profited somewhat late from the educational benefits of the Tanzi-
mat. In the 1890's only two military lycées functioned in all of eastern
Turkey to the Persian Gulf (Felgenhauer, 1887, 61). In Bitlis, however, a
military riijjdtye was established in 1890 (Griffiths, 1966, 94, note 2). The
point to be made here is not one of scarcity: one military riisdiye in town
and two lycées in surrounding areas were no mean achievement, but the
existing military schools did not operate with the purpose of alerting stu-
dents to the plight of the eastern region. On the contrary, they were estab-
lished to draw their attention to the problems of the center and to socialize
them into becoming loyal members of the Ottoman central bureaucracy.
The contrast between the paucity of educational institutions in the
Bitlis-Van area and western Turkey was marked, but more by “relative”
than by “absolute” deprivation. The best way to describe this is to point out
that Bitlis had (in 1889) four civilian résdzyes. This meant one per 63,500
inhabitants, as compared to Izmir, which had one rigdtye per 25,000 inhab-
itants (Cuinet, 1891). But in Bitlis, this ratio changes to one institution of
secondary education per 1,100 inhabitants if one includes in the reckoning
the 18 medreses which still operated as institutions of secondary education.
The problem for Bitlis, then, was to retain its prestige as an educa-
tional center, a prestige which it had acquired long before the end of the
nineteenth century.
One final item in the pattern of change which affected the Otto-
man Empire during the nineteenth century, and which also had repercus-
sions in the Eastern region, was immigration into Turkey. As the Empire
was diminished in size by a Western diplomacy underpinned by a new war-
making machine, large groups of Muslims left the areas that had to be
ceded to non-Muslim states. Especially after the war of 1877—78 with Rus-
sia, and the Balkan Wars of the first decade of the twentieth century, many
34 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

refugees were settled in Anatolia by the Ottoman state. The exodus had
started much earlier at the time of the Crimean War. One area affected by
this type of migration was Eastern Anatolia (Pinson, 1970; Bishop, 1891)
and the Van area contiguous to Bitlis.
The enumeration of the “modernist” aspects of the policy of the Tan-
zimat should not be taken to signify that these processes worked only in one
direction. The stream of Westernization also sometimes introduced an un-
anticipated bonus for the defense of established religious ideas. The history
of printing in the Ottoman Empire provides us with some examples to this
effect. Printing had been introduced into the Ottoman Empire in 1727-—
1729 (E.1.*, II, 997). After a brilliant first series of publications by the
founder of the trade, it stagnated for a long time, reviving again in the first
half of the nineteenth century. This new expansion brought with it the
opportunity to print and reprint Islamic classics which had been favorites of
the literate public. These went through numerous editions and became more
widely available, selling at a much lower price than their manuscript ver-
sion. An example would be the guide to the lore of Muslim mystics by
Yazicizade A. Bican, which appeared in nine catalogued editions up to
1893 (Karatay, 1956, 60). On the other hand, the number of books on
what may be broadly described as enlightenment philosophy was much
smaller. Consequently, while Said Nursi was propelled by the conviction that
a return to the Qur'an was essential for the moral soundness of the Empire,
he was aware that the modern technology of mass media could be used to
service conservative ends.

Leadership, Power and Ideology

In Bitlis, in both town and country, tarikat leaders, some of whom

had also assumed the role of teachers of religion, played an important role in
community affairs. After the middle of the nineteenth century, new oppor-
tunites appeared for these men. Before the Tanzimat, the influence of the
Ottoman center had filtered through a local structure of Kurdish prince-
lings and of tribal leaders. The TYanzimat crushed the leaders and gave an
end to their rule. Local tribes thereafter became locked into petty feuds
which in the past had been pre-empted by the princes. This gave the reli-
gious leaders—the so-called seyhs—the means of assuming the role of arbi-
trators in areas where they had already established their spiritual prestige
(van Bruinessen, 1978, 291 ff.). Political influence also followed. Said’s re-
action to this state of affairs is interesting: after an initial try, he gave up
 Preliminary Approaches 35

the attempt to fill the position of an arbitrator for tribal disputes, the latter
being one way of establishing one’s reputation as a political leader. Neither
did he work for very long on another project, that of taking on the role of
a community leader protecting the interest of local communities against
the state. He tried his hand at a local variant of city politics which invol-
ved the gathering of a clientele of religious votaries, and failed. His own
final solution to the problem of acquiring personal prestige and entering
a world of action was to propose the establishment of a university (accord-
ing to some commentators, a medrese for higher studies similar to the early
reformed al-Azhar) in eastern Turkey (Sahiner, 1979, 75-76). The pro-
posal was bold and somewhat unorthodox and carried an unusually modern
flavor.
This project of Said Nursi’s, which echoes an idea of the British Mil-
itary Consul in Van in these years (Col. Chermside), goes a long way to
show that the accusation that Bediiizzaman was a Kurdish nationalist in the
1890s should be taken with a grain of salt. Somewhat later, as a conse-
quence of his contact with a type of pan-Islamic thinking which the sultan
supported, a clearly discernible pan-Islamic element did emerge in Bediiiz-
zaman’s outlook. This strand of thought became clearer after the Young
Turk revolution. What we may say with certainty is that, just as it was the
case for the Maronite Church in the Lebanon in the 18th century, the pos-
sibility of transcending networks based on kinship and the operation of
channels activated by the new principle of participation and public interest
were also opening new political horizons for Bediiizzaman (Harik, 1968,
125). This is the structural origin of his unusual concern for the population
of the area.* This attempt to exploit new possibilities was hesitant, tentative
at best, resembling the similar ideas of his contemporary in Syria, Butrus
al-Bustani, who was trying to promote “Ottomanism” and “Arabism’’ at
the same time (Abu Manneh, 1980, 189). Beditizzaman’s concerns were
focused on a distinct Kurdish identity, but he simultaneously expressed
the conviction that all ethnic groups in the Empire could collaborate as
Ottomans.
In the early stage of his activities, in the 1890s, Said Nursi was led to
action by his feelings both that his community was losing ground within
the Ottoman Empire, and by his increasing conviction that the Islamic
world was losing ground to Christianity; it is in this light that his pleas for
educational development should be seen (BSN, 1976, 471).

*For this term see Appendix I.

36 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

The second stage of his career, which resulted in the establishment of

the Nur movement, was shaped in the 1920s. The same reasons which had
caused his concern in the nineteenth century appeared once more, but with
a narrower focus. He was now deeply disturbed by the fear that Turkish
society would disintegrate if the republican government abandoned Islam as
a foundation stone for social organization and intellectual activity, and gave
way to the “inroads of materialism.’ In a sense this materialism, fostered by
the republican regime, was simply the continuation and extension of the
secularizing moves initiated during the Tanzimat. By the early 20th century
the input of Western intellectual influence from Biichner (1890s) to Berg-
son (1920s) was shaping Turkish intellectual life. This cultural penetration
was a continuation of the whittling away of Islamic culture which in the
1890s had alerted Bediiizzaman to the decline of Islamic civilization. By the
1920s Said Nursi himself had become a cause for concern to some of
the founders of the Turkish Republic. They had seen him take part in the
politics of the so-called Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918), and
feared he represented a danger for their new secularist policies. He was,
therefore, exiled to a hamlet in western Turkey, where his activities were
closely watched (Feb.-March 1925). His attempts to win a following for
his religious views in this setting were countered by persecution, im-
prisonment, and displacement to other places where he was kept in enforced
residence.
With the advent of a multi-party government in the 1950s, the Nar
movement was able to expand freely. Eventually, in the 1960s, the influence
of Said Nursi as charismatic leader and inspired teacher was widened by the
impact of his books and his commentaries on the Qur’an. This replacement
of the person by the message is a feature which belongs to our age. It
constitutes a striking departure from the pattern used for the propagation of
the lore of the reformed Sufi order which stood in Said Nursi’s background.
In the latter context, initiation still depended on the guidance of a person,
a mentor, a pir or mirsid.
Another aspect of the development of the Nur movement towards what
may be described as a more open communications system has been its at-
tempt to explain the message of the Qur'an to large audiences, a feature
which already appears in the 1920s. Here we encounter a number of contra-
dictory trends, but the central direction is, nevertheless, clear. To popularize
the Qur'an, Said Nursi had first to transcend a language barrier; he had to
explain the Qur'an in Turkish. The attempt was not new, but Said Nursi’s
aim had a new totalistic, ideological quality: this was more than instruc-
 Preliminary Approaches 37

tion; it was mobilization. Beditizzaman’s literary style remained, neverthe-

less, allusive and metaphorical, a feature one would not usually associate
with a mobilizational stance.
Said’s special idiom has complex origins. Part of it reflected the style
of the medrese, the importance given to solving complex conundrums, the
emphasis on the many layers of meaning contained in the Qur'an. Part of
the effect was unintended: Said only learned Turkish after the age of twenty,
and his style in Turkish is extremely convoluted. It is often obvious that this
results from his use of a syntax which is inappropriate to Turkish. Finally,
the teachings of some of his mentors must have referred to the texts of
mystics such as Ibn al-‘Arabi, whose writings are both elliptic and dense.
Although Said often dismisses mysticism as irrelevant to the most pressing
problems of modern Islam, his own style keeps reflecting the allusive style
of the mystics. In a country where rural Islam was swathed in a layer of
metaphors, the obscurity of Said’s style was not without a hypnotic power.
Despite these contradictory aspects of his religious idiom, his effort to
bring an understanding to the Qur’agn to a widened audience stands out.
This audience seems to have consisted primarily of persons from the provin-
cial periphery who were seeking a means of coming to terms with the dis-
enchantment of the world, and who had a perception of the new world, even
though through the prism of their provincial Muslim culture.
The two characteristics in Said Nursi’s message which I have de-
scribed, i.e., the written text replacing the instructions of the charismatic
leader and the attempt to make the central truths of the Qwr’dn intelligible
to a wide audience, paralleled a Western development in making culture
more accessible. This shows that we should look at Said Nursi as more than
a messiah preaching a return to tradition: once again Bediiizzaman’s mes-
sage was shaped by the modernizing world into which he was thrust. Schol-
ars have stated repeatedly that revitalization movements do not consist
simply of a revival of tradition; new ideas, views and values are added. In
Said Nursi's case, an innovation such as the propagation of a clear under-
standing of the foundations of Islam to the masses was a “coming to terms’
with a world-historical process which went beyond the tradition he had in-
herited. His involvement with Young Turk politics in 1909 had given him a
further understanding of what he could take from the West, particularly the
uses of social mobilization. This appears for instance in his view of the new
means available for the propagation of the message of the Qur'an. His at-
tempt to bring an understanding of the basic themes of the Qur’an to a
large portion of the population was clearly due to a realization of the role
38 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

played by mass media in the propagation of ideas in the West. In his

own words: “Thank God the radio is a complete Azfiz [Qur'an reader] with
a million tongues which is meant to make all of humanity listen to the
Qur'an” (BSN, 1976, 352).
In the contemporary world, two outstanding developments have made
the world-communications picture, which overlaps with Nursi’s intellectual
activities in sO many areas, more complex. The first one of these new char-
acteristics, is that the communications revolution has become truly a “world”
revolution. Second, the world-wide disorientation of the individual and
anomie have been added to the variables that subtly affect the Nur move-
ment.
The world communications revolution, by its cross-cultural influences,
by its imposition of certain communications forms which are becoming in-
creasingly standardized for all cultures, works to diminish the individual-
ized content of the specific characteristics of a movement of spiritual
revitalization such as that of Said Nursi. The world-wide concern for social
organization which has also affected Turkey in the era of post-nationalism
marks movements such as the one we are studying, similarly, by shifting its
focus away from the sacred and onto the social. Recently, a new emphasis
has appeared in Nurcu splinter groups which cannot by any means be de-
scribed as one which denies the primacy of the Qur'an, but which, never-
theless, gives increasing consideration to problems of social and political
organization, cultural integrity, psychological balance and flexible inter-
personal relations. The direction of gradual change is from man in his re-
lations with God, to man in his relations with a new entity: Society.
Such elements were adumbrated in the intellectual climate which became
dominant at the time of Said Nursi’s first appearance on the Ottoman scene
in the 1890's. During the nineteenth century, Ottoman publications—news-
papers and periodicals in particular—increasingly began to use such terms
as “human society’ (cemzyet-i besertye), which gave a new focus to thinking
about collectivities. In the past, in the works of almost all Islamic publi-
cists, human collectivities would have been seen as religious collectivities.
Western currents of thought have a direct as well as a more subterra-
nean and diffuse impact on traditional cultures; these work together simul-
taneously and cumulatively. The formation of a Western intelligentsia in the
Ottoman Empire, with its adoption of Western literary genres, can be cited
as an example of the direct effect. A somewhat more subtle process which
worked through a more indirect trickle effect can be seen in Said Nursi’s
incorporation of ideas originating in the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
 Preliminary Approaches 39

These reappeared in modified form in Western positivist thinking and from

there filtered to Istanbul in the late 19th century, where they were picked
up by Bediiizzaman.

Modernity, the System of Nature and Politics

By the end of the nineteenth century, the rural population of Anatolia

had a special conception of Islamic exemplary conduct: outstanding Islamic
personalities such as the Prophet Muhammad, the Caliph ‘Ali, mythical hero
Abi Muslim and the legends associated with them, provided the pious
Muslims model for Islamic ethics. Said Nursi, by contrast, seems to have
been deeply affected by the philosophical questions which were posed by
Ottoman positivists at the end of the 19th century. These questions were
related not to persons, but to the operation of a system of nature. In partic-
ular, a system of nature where the creator was either nonexistent or consisted
of an impersonal force.
Eventually, this centrality of the system of nature as it appeared in
materialism was reflected in Said’s ideas but with one important difference:
in Said’s ideas, not ‘“‘matter’’ but God appears the undeniable creator of the
laws of nature. This emphasis, in turn, has helped today’s nurcus to place a
modernist stamp on their ideas about the system of nature. Today their
religion has been steered away from simple exemplary models into more
complex ones where Said Nursi, the leader, still figures prominently, but
where the study of the laws of nature has become a quasi-religious obliga-
tion. The adoption by the new entrants into the Nar group of such an
outlook means that their personalistic attachment to a charismatic leader has
imperceptibly been transformed into a more universalistic conception. This
new stance fits in well with the idea of laws of nature which are taught in
Republican schools (even though it cannot be claimed that the curriculum of
the latter provides no niche whatsoever for the cult of personality).
All of this occurs at a moment when much of the younger clientele of
the Nur movement is better educated than before and can boast of a pri-
mary or secondary school diploma. University professors also begin to appear
in nurcu ranks. There is a gradual intellectualization of the order’s concern
which stems from its efforts to penetrate the intellectual establishment at
large and to fight it with its own weapons. A number of nurcu intellectuals
are beginning to underline the harmony that prevails in the physical uni-
verse; both astronomy and modern biology are involved to this end. A series
of small guides to the complexities of celestial bodies and the intricacies of
40 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

physiological processes have thus appeared which presage a more deistic un-
derstanding of the Nur message (Demirkiran, 1978; Simsek, 1979; Songar,
1979). This, as we know, was one aspect of the intellectual history of
modern Europe, and is related to the printing of books and the spread
of literacy.
The recent shift tn emphasis of the Nur group from religion to current
political and social issues has been gradually proceeding since the 1950s. It
has involved their daily, the Yenz Nesz/, in current discussions concerned with
Turkish society, and that is also an important change as compared to their
attitude two decades ago. Does this mean that Bediiizzaman’s decision to
withdraw totally from politics—a decision taken in the 1920s—has been
reversed? Much of the answer to this question depends on one’s definition of
politics. Beditizzaman’s decision had already been modified when a political
party appeared after 1950 which seemed sympathetic to the expression of
religiosity and which did consider the free exercise of Islam to be a funda-
mental right of the Turks. This party, the Demokrat Party, was supported
by Beditizzaman in its years in power—between 1950 and 1960. Yeni Nesi/
today could be described as a paper which directly takes political sides in
the sense in which it supports the Justice Party (1987). A better descrip-
tion of the present setting is that a concept of citizenship has emerged which
brings the nurcu columnist into a new debate and a new arena, that of the
public. This is a new domain the limits of which are different from that of
the Muslim community or zmma. Which one of these two spheres will prove
to have greater force as a stamp on the Nur movement is as yet unclear. But
that Said Nursi’s accent on the zmma—on the Community of Believers—has
been metamorphosed by the wider scope of political communications is clear.
Nurcu proselytizing among Turkish guest workers in Europe functions
partly within this modernist frame which sets boundaries to its traditional
Islamic content but also enables it to propel itself into new clusters of
meaning. Yet, while the ideas of positive science have been welcomed by the
nurcus, some of the symbolic content of Islam has been vigorously reaf-
firmed. Among the latter, the special place ascribed to women, the under-
scoring of Islamic sexual ethics and the separation of sexes have been items
on which they have been uncompromising; these ideas have gone against the
values promoted by the secular civil code of Turkey.
The present options of the Nur movement, then, both in terms of the
involvement of its following and of the ideological constraints within which
it Operates, are somewhat different from what they were at its inception.
That the Nur movement, objectively analyzed, has carved its own, idiosyn-
 Preliminary Approaches 41

cratic niche in the broad, ill-defined and somewhat ambiguous process

which has been labelled modernization, would nevertheless be strongly
contested by the present day Turkish Marxist, Kemalist or ‘liberal’ intelli-
gentsia. All of these groups have combatted the Nur as one of the most
dangerous forms of reaction and obscurantism encountered in the Turkish
republic, a characterization the Nur movement shares with the Nakssbendi
religious order. There are credible reasons why this antagonistic view is so
vehemently held. The first and most obvious is that the secularism of the
Kemalist republic by definition excludes a movement which aims to give a
religious foundation to social life—and possibly—to political systems. Sec-
ondly, the Nur movement attacks materialism and to that extent undermines
the positivistic philosophical bases of Kemalism.
The out-of-hand rejection of the Nur movement by intellectuals has
led to a paradox: while the intelligentsia underline the dangers of the move-
ment for the Republican-secular regime, it has made no attempt to under-
stand its sociological dynamic. Kemalists are conspicuous among those
adopting such a simplistic stance. There is, therefore, no study of the abil-
ity of the Nar movement to operate over an objectively determinable field.
CHAPTER II

Life

SAID NURSI WAS born in the village of Nurs,* township of

Isparit, sub-province of Hizan, province of Bitlis. Like today’s Turkish citi-
zens whose idenity cards record their place of birth according to such
administrative sub-divisions, Said was thereby drawn into a pattern of terri-
torial rationalization whose origins dated back to the French Revolution: it
was then that the French territory had been divided into départements. The
reforming Ottoman statesmen of the nineteenth century had adopted a sim-
ilar scheme as part of their project of modernization for the Ottoman Empire.
Between 1864—1871 the Empire adopted a system of provincial ad-
ministration copied on the model of the French Second Empire. The admin-
istration of the provinces was thereby made to revolve around the office of
governor (ua/1), which was to be filled by an appointed career official who
acted as the transmission belt for directives emanating from the capital. A
movement in the reverse direction bringing demands of the administered to
the center did, also, exist based on the partly representative local councils
(Provincial law as amended in 1871. See Young, 1905-6, I, 49). In Bitlis
(made into a province in 1878, Birken, 1976, 184) the council consisted
of the governor, the méfta, the president of the civil and religious tribunal,
the head accountant, the secretary general, two Muslim and two Christian
notables and the Armenian Gregorian bishop. The notables were elected
(Cuinet, II, 1891, 525-26). The main direction of the flow of policy was

*Detractors have pointed out that the name of the village is pronounced “Nors”’
and that Said Nursi used “Nurs” to be able to use the similarity with “Nur”
(light), which is a key concept in his speculations. Said Nursi’s biographer gives
1876 as his birthdate (Sahiner, 1977, 22).

42
 Life 43
nevertheless from center to periphery, often due to the precarious balance
of local groups (Young, 1905-1906). The attempt to make the governor
the sole legitimate fountainhead of government authority in the provinces
was the culmination of the efforts of the Tanzimat statesmen to introduce
a centralized administrative system into the Empire. Valis had existed be-
fore the Tanzimat but not as cogs within a centralized administrative
machine, with their powers precisely defined and limited. The Tanzimat
statesmen hoped that by using effective administrative machinery to pro-
mote reform they would bring the Empire around to a basic pattern
of modernized institutions, gradually imposed from the center. They
also hoped to facilitate the collection of taxes, a process which had been
badly disorganized during the decline of the Empire. This ambitious
scheme was not immediately successful. A number of sources agree that
in the Bitlis region, for instance, central administration only became ef-
fective toward the end of the nineteenth century. In 1891, Mrs. Isabella
Bird Bishop, who visited the town—then a provincial capital—made her
own pithy summary of the aims and achievements of the administration:
“Bitlis is one of the roughest and most fanatical and turbulent of Turkish
cities, but the present governor, Rauf Pasa, is a man of energy and has
reduced the town and neighbourhood to some degree of order’ (Bishop,
1891, 352).
Bitlis itself was part of a wider region which, at the time, comprised
the vilayets (provinces) of Erzurum, Van and Bitlis. Bitlis was a terri-
tory roughly delimited by the province of Erzurum in the north, Mamuret
ul-Aziz in the west, the province of Diyarbakir in the south and Van in
the east. At the time the Ottomans conquered these regions—in the
16th century—they had granted considerable autonomy to local Kurdish
rulers, and the loose ties of authority thus established with the center
had only been tightened with the inception of the Tanzimat (‘‘Kurds”,
E.1.’, IV, 1132-1155; E.1.*, V, 462). The whole area was still a
crazy-quilt pattern of tribes, loose tribal federations, ethnic units and
religious groups, a feature which is directly relevant to Said Nursi’s
career.
The primary structural cleavage in the population of Bitlis Vilayet was
that between nomads and a settled population of villagers in the more fertile
plains and valleys. Whether the settled population of the fertile regions
worked in conditions close to serfdom as sharecroppers on the estates of
large landholders or owned their own land, it was in their confrontation
44 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

with tribal leaders that many local issues had their origin. Patterns differing
from the above did also exist; one example would be that of the mountain
village where land was owned by independent peasants. ‘“‘Nomads’’ is also
too general a term, which may cover true nomads as well as transhuman
groups both of which existed here. True nomads, however, were a relatively
small group (40,000 “ayzret’” in a total population of 398,000; Cuinet, I,
1891, 528; cf. Blue Books, Turkey, No. 10, p.1150). A process of settle-
ment of tribes had begun shortly before the Ottomans established direct
rule in the region. After 1842, in the Mus region, strictly Kurdish villages
side by side with Armenian villages—a new pattern of settlement—replaced
the earlier symbiotic arrangement in which local tribes had been spending
winters in Armenian villages. In the society into which Said Nursi was
born some of the main sources of social conflict centered around cleavages
between nomads and settled peasantry, between city notables and tribal
chiefs, and between individual tribes. These are primary features of Bitlis
society which, therefore, have to be underlined.
The type of social organization that prevailed in Bitlis is roughly
comparable to that which has been studied in detail among the Pathans
(Ahmed, 1980). There, the contrast was between an economy of moun-
tain tribal groups which was that of reciprocity and autonomous family
production, and a ‘‘distributional” economy where an “‘asymmetrical patron-
relationship defines and binds the landlord and his tenant in a feudal
and hierarchical order” (Ahmed, 1976, 72). A third variant of econo-
mic organization is also present in this type of social structure, i.e., a
market or “modern” economy of towns. In Bitlis in the 1880s the econo-
my of the town was supported by a special type of symbiotic relation
with the state: the expenses of the garrison of 2,500 men (Bishop, 1891,
352).
This external impetus to the economy was, no doubt, important
in activating local economic development. It perpetuated a form of depen-
dency on state purchases, the fluctuating of which Istanbul artisans had
known for centuries. But now, the rationalization of the military establish-
ment and the bureaucratizations of the commissary enabled local producers
to rely on this source of enrichment. Later, during the twentieth century,
having a military contingent continued to be a blessing for Turkish provin-
cial towns.
The upgrading of the town of Bitlis to the rank of provincial capital
followed the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, during which the inhabitants
 Life 45
of Bitlis showed great valor in engagements against the Russians (Allen
and Muratoff, 1953). Many local seyhs had already volunteered to fight
theRussians during the Crimean War.
One characteristic of Bitlis was the composition of its population.
Within the territorial limits of the provincial capital itself (i.e. the sancak
of Bitlis), Cuinet, in a survey carried out in 1889 (and published in 1891),
gives the figures of 254,000 Muslims, 130,000 + Armenians, 6,000 +
Syrian Jacobites, 2,600 Chaldean Catholics, 3,862 Yezidi or “Devil worship-
pers,” 210 Greek Orthodox and 372 Copts (Cuinet, II, 1891, 526). Some
of the outstanding features of this demographic pattern were that the Turks
who lived in towns made up part of the notable class and constituted the
near totality of the bureaucracy. Armenians were both town notables and
villagers, and Kurdish-speakers made up the tribal and village population.
A smaller proportion were townspeople. Such a demographic composition
alerts us to the mosaic-like structure of the area. Here ethnic and religious
groups lived side by side, even though they had widely divergent cultures.
In a region east of Bitlis, a French traveller who was on a fact-gathering
mission for the French Ministry of Education described the situation in the
countryside as follows:

All these hamlets are made up of families of the same religious sect grouped
together and forming a unit entirely distinct from the neighbouring hamlet
in terms of mores, types and language: Armenians, Chaldeans, Kurds,
Nestorians have each a completely different way of life. (Binder, 1887, 152)

This plural ethnic composition was one of the important structural

features of the clashes which became endemic in the last half of the nine-
teenth century. Fragmentation was cross-cut by another cleavage in the so-
cial structure: by the contrast between the lives of the townspeople whatever
their ethnic origin, and those of tribesmen.
Turkish was the language of administration and of city notables, Kur-
dish and Armenian—or a patois in which they overlapped—were the two
prevailing languages of the local population. From information provided by
the French geographer Cuinet, we learn that Bitlis had one mé#fti, or Otto-
man official, in charge of religious affairs of the Islamic community of
the region, four £adis or religious justices of the peace, five Armenian Gre-
gorian, two Armenian Catholic, one Chaldean Catholic and one Nestorian
bishops and the Dominican Mission (Cuinet, II 1891, 525). Armenian Ca-
tholicism was a somewhat late development: it was the fruit borne by Cath-
olic missionary work undertaken during the seventeenth and eighteenth
46 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

century and may be cited as a prime example of the slow, gradual and
mediated penetration of Western influences into the region. The citys com-
munications links were more with Erzurum than with Diyarbekir (Cuinet,
II, 1891, 526), and it was reported to have had a sizeable population of
Christian migratory labor (Cuinet, II, 1891, 527) which worked in coastal
towns. For many centuries Bitlis had functioned as a gateway for the com-
merce of silk, and had never been, therefore, as isolated as its mountainous
configuration would lead one to believe. The local pattern was one where
communications between neighboring villages might be extremely bad,
whereas communications from village to provincial center and from provin-
cial center to Syria or present-day Iraq were often easier. The telegraph of-
fice in Baskale near Van dealt with 100 telegrams a day in 1885-1887
(Binder, 1887, 118). It is this “niche” structure, created by the isolation of
many communities, which allowed many of the dissimilar groups to live
peacefully together, although, before the Tanzimat, the presence of strong
local rulers interested in the welfare of productive citizens was possibly an
even greater factor for community harmony.
Bitlis, described in idyllic terms by some of the European travellers of
the nineteenth century (‘Bitlis’, 1.A., 660), had been spared some of the
strongest blows of the industrial revolution. The missionary Mrs. Isabella
Bird Bishop, who visited Bitlis in 1891, wrote of it as of “the most
romantically-situated city I have seen in Western Asia. ... ” (Bishop,
1891, 350). The competition of cheap foreign goods began to be felt grad-
ually towards the end of the nineteenth century (van Bruinessen, 1978, 27,
note 12), and Mrs. Bishop had already seen “Mankester” wares on sale at
the market (Bishop, 1891, 359). Yet it has also been stated that at the end
of the nineteenth century its dye factories were still active (““Bitlis’”, 660).
Mrs. Bishop said: “Remote as Bitlis seems, and is, its markets are among
the busiest in Turkey and its caravan traffic is enormous for seven or eight
months of the year. Its altitude is only 4,700 feet. . . . Bitlis produces a
very coarse, heavy cotton cloth which after being dyed madder red or dark
blue is exported. . . . It also exports loupes, the walnut whorls . . . oak
galls, wax, wool and manna, chiefly collected from the oak . . .” (Bishop,
1891, 351). The education resources of Bitlis ‘town’ consisted of three
riisdiyes, or secular middle schools, and five medreses, or Muslim “semi-
naries,’ which place it in an enviable position compared to Diyarbekir to
the south (Cuinet, 1891, 534). In 1891 a military riigdiye was added to its
schools. It also had a local offical “gazette” by the late 1880s, as well as a
 Life 47
cafe where “newspapers are read’”’ (Cuinet, II, 1891, 562) and offices of the
Ottoman Public Debt and the Tobacco “Régie.” At lease four important
developments which heavily marked the region during the nineteenth cen-
tury, and directly affected Bitlis, constitute the background of Said Nursi’s
youth and early years as an aspirant cleric. These developments continued to
shape important issues in the years 1908—1918 and particularly affected the
educated or semi-educated Ottomans of the time who lived in the Eastern
provinces of Anatolia. They consisted in the elimination of the local ruling
dynasties, the activities of the Protestant missionaries in the area, the
spread of the Nakszbendi order around Bitlis during the nineteenth century,
and the involvement of Ottoman Armenians in separatist activities towards
the end of the century. The creation of an independent Armenia in the
region of Van, contiguous to Bitlis, was the final goal of Armenian revolu-
tionary “committees” such as the Hincak or Tasnak (Hunchakian and Dash-
naktsuthiun in the original Armenian) which were organized in the 1880s
and 1890s. This had a momentous effect on all Ottoman citizens living in
the Bitlis-Van region.

Local Dynasties

Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) had been the first reforming Otto-

man sultan to opt for strong measures of centralization. By the end of the
eighteenth century Ottoman provincial notables had established effective
control over local affairs in many of the peripheral areas of the Empire. The
sultan brought the powerful Anatolian notables to heel by 1817; direct Ot-
toman rule over the Arab provinces also began to be established at this time
(Shaw and Shaw, 1977, II, 15-16).
Attempts by local leaders to break away from Ottoman rule had arisen
somewhat late in relation to the similar rise of @yans (notables) in other
parts of the Empire. In the area which interests us these movements crys-
tallized at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Ottoman drive to
establish central control over the same area spanned the years 1834-1847.
One local leader, Mir Mehmed of Rawendiz (present day Iraq), had acceded
to the leadership of the “impoverished emirate of Soran” in 1814 (van
Bruinessen, 1978). In two decades he had extended his rule to all of North-
ern Iraq, then part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government's
reaction was a clear instance of the strategy which had characterized Otto-
man rule in the more remote parts of the Empire.
48 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

The Vali of Baghdad, not capable of stopping the mir, recognized his con-
quests and granted him the title of Pasha—in the vain hope of thus retaining
recognition as his superior. Only when the mir sent troops in the direction of
Nesibin and Mardin . . . the Sultan sent Reshid Muhammed Pasha against
him. The Valis of Mosul and Baghdad received orders to assist in the puni-
tive campaign. [The mir] . . . surrendered on conditions very favourable to
him: he was to remain governor of Riwandiz, but had to assert his submis-
sion to the Sultan (1835). He was sent to Istanbul where the Sultan bestowed
many honours upon him: on the return voyage, however, he mysteriously dis-
appeared. His brother Resul then was governor of Riwandiz for a few years,
until, in 1847, the Vali of Baghdad expelled him. That was the end of the
Soran emirate: from then on Riwandiz was governed by the Turkish officals
(van Bruinessen, 1978, 221-22).

The same fate overtook Bedirhan Bey, mir of Botan, a “principality” which,
in 1846, extended from Diyarbekir to Rawendiz. In a series of campaigns
waged by the Ottoman forces between 1836 and 1847 he was subjugated
and forced to surrender. He and his relatives were brought to the Ottoman
capital, he was exiled to Varna and members of his family were dispatched
to other parts of the Empire. During the Crimean War (1854—56) the Be-
dirhans were released in order to get them to participate in the action
against the Russians on the Ottoman Eastern front. Their name next ap-
pears among persons who were working in the area for a resurgence of a
Kurdish entity—as yet ill-defined politically—while collaborating in Young
Turk conspiracies against the sultan (1895 onwards) (Safrastian, 1948, 60).
In Bitlis proper, the rule of local princes, which has been described by
Turkish scholars as “totally free’ (“serazad’’; ‘Bitlis,’ 660), came to an end
in 1849 when the local ruler, Serif Bey, was defeated. But the prestige of
the princely families had not disappeared. In a report on Erzurum and Bitlis
dated 1885, a British consul declared: “. . . the good old times of the
Kurdish Begs are not only spoken of but are fresh in the memory of every
middle-aged man, and though the form of government has disappeared, the
habits, customs and associations remain’ (Duguid, 1979, 155 note 22).
While the destruction of the old principalities did not completely erase
the influence of local leaders, it nevertheless shifted the role of leadership
from princes to tribal leaders and religious seyhs. Some of the most impor-
tant of the tribal leaders were also given a renewed lease on leadership when
Sultan Abdiilhamid II co-opted them to lead local militias in the early
1890's. But from 1850 on, there existed a state of partial anarchy in the
region as well as a power vacuum (van Bruinessen, 1978, 227).
 Life 49
In 1880 in a region lying east of Bitlis, Seyh Ubeydullah of Semdinli
(at present a town in the Province of Hakk4ri) rallied tribal leaders around
him and occupied the Persian town of Urmia. He tied down both Iranian
and Ottoman forces for a long time. As late as 1913, Seyyid Ali, the seyh of
Hizan, the sub-province to which Said’s village was attached, occupied the
city of Bitlis for a week (Safrastian, 1948, 72-74). Said Nursi relates how
he refused to take part in this rebellion, which, according to him, was led
by “religious persons’ and caused by a revulsion against the “atheism” of
Turkish military commanders of the area (Sua/ar, 302). Altogether, then,
Hizan, the sub-province of origin of Said was an area characterized by so-
cial unrest at the time our story begins.
The structural features behind this turbulence have to be underlined
once more:

“The structure fell apart into many quarrelling tribes led by petty chieftains
who were all equally eager to fill in as much as possible of the power vacuum
left by the departure of the mirs. The harsh but reliable rule of the mirs
made place for lawlessness and insecurity. The entire country became haunted
by feuds and tribal disputes. The Otctoman administration was as yet not
capable of restoring equilibrium: chieftains resented its presence, and for
commoners it was too much of a foreign institution to be trusted. . . . In
such periods of crisis and anomie an understandable common response of the
people is to return to religion in order to find there peace and security that is
so lacking in worldly daily life.” (van Bruinessen, 1978, 290)

But while it is crue that local sects and their charismatic leaders as-
sumed a new role in the nineteenth century, they seem to have worked for
more than a conciliation between tribes. A restructuring of the bases of
Muslim power throughout the Muslim world would be one way to describe
this expanded framework of the sect leaders’ purposes. At the time Said
Nursi studied in local seminars such a spirit dominated the pedagogy of his
teachers.
In the 1880s, when Said had reached adolescence, the Ottoman gov-
ernment had scored a relative success in bringing some measure of peace to
these regions, in part by pitting the notables who were in control of the
Cities against the agas (village notables) and tribal leaders of the peripheral
areas (Duguid, passim). This enabled the “miiceddid? (mujeddidi or “renewal-
ist’’) Naksibendi dervishes to underline the pan-Islamic or, better, revitaliz-
ing aspect of their world-view which had lain dormant but which had
already scored some success in the Caucasus in 1785—1790 and also 1830s
50 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

when Naksibendis had taken the lead in opposing Russian inroads into that
region.

Bitlis and the Bitlis Region

In the 1890s in Bitlis the population of towns, and particularly of

larger towns, consisted of Turkish and Armenian artisans as well as of
Turkish and Armenian notables. Some of these notables were descendants of
distinguished families, among which figured the “‘citified’’ remnants of the
Rojeki tribal elite. Some notables were traders and some ‘ulema. Both Mus-
lims and Christians were represented on municipal councils, which had an
authority in the towns which they shared with the governor. The composi-
tion of the population in areas surrounding towns was different. It consisted
of a number of tribes as well as settled Armenian peasants and villages of
various other ethnic groups, including Yezidis or ‘devil worshippers,’ a
heterodox sect which kept no real links with Islam. The Armenian peasants
were clients—in some cases slaves—of the more powerful and wealthy tribal
leaders. Before the local arrangements had been disturbed by the Tanzimat,
the Armenian peasants were relatively prosperous, since they were extended
the protection of their patrons. With the disappearance of the murs, the
Armenians had become prey to small bands of local tribesmen which the
government did not have the power to restrain. Thus arose notorious brig-
ands such as Musa Bey, whom the Porte treated with what can only be
labelled extreme circumspection, despite his well-attested feats of rapine and
murder. A good description of the region is given by the British consul {to
Van}, Col. Chermside.
Col. Chermside underlined two aspects of the local conditions both
of which are of considerable importance in understanding the background
of Said Nursi as well as the political frame in which his proposals for
reform originated. One of these was the extent to which locals were ex-
cluded from positions of influence in the bureaucracy in the governor and
sub-governor offices.

In the course of an extended tour I only came across two Kurdish function-
aries in the executive branch of Government. It seems a matter of regret for
political reasons that the Turks do not pay more attention to the Kurds. They
are a strong, warlike, hardy race and in the time of their Beys, mosques,
medressehs, schools, bridges etc., existed in many districts where such evi-
dence of civilization now only remain in ruins.
 Life 51
The descendants of the Beys are, as a rule, illiterate and lead idle,
purposeless lives, occupied in their tribal and family quarrels, and exacting
all chey can from their own clansmen and Christian rayahs.
Very few are decorated or made much of, or employed in the executive
function of the Government, nor are they fit for such employ. It would, how-
ever, seem well worth the while of the Turks to educate the rising generation
and employ them in the civil and military administration in Kurdistan. (Great
Britain, State Papers, Turkey, 42, 1890, p.20)

Soon thereafter, Sulcan Abdtilhamid II was to start organizing some of the

local tribes into a militia led by their own leaders. He was also to bring
sons of tribal chiefs to be educated in a “Tribes School” in the capital. Said
Nursi’s proposal of 1896 (?) to establish a medrese, a religious seminary on
the shores of Lake Van that would educate tribesmen into becoming a fully-
fledged Ottoman citizens, echoes Col. Chermside’s concern.
The Consul’s second series of remarks were concerned with some of the
consequences of a policy which had been engineered by the sultan even
though he had acted with extreme circumspection.
The policy of the present reign has been consistently to develop the Moslem
feelings of self-reliance, and to bring home to Moslems the expediency of
being a self-supporting community.
Thus Moslems are trained as engineers, doctors, and in the professions
of various other departments, in these branches are gradually replacing the
native or alien Christian employees.
The fostering of the exclusive spirit of Islam combined with the great
jealousy of Moslems at the material prosperity of such a large number of their
Christian fellow-subjects, have stimulated that bitter feeling against Chris-
tians which so strongly pervades the Moslems throughout the Empire... .
(Great Britain, State Papers, Turkey, 45. Vol. 42. [1890] p.19)

The Seyhs

The title of Sey (Shaykh), which appears in the names of some of the
local leaders whom we have had occasion to mention, refers to a peculiarity
of political and social structure of the area which has survived into our
time. In the middle of the nineteenth century this aspect of the area was
beginning to acquire the outline which can still be discerned in the politics
of the eastern regions of Turkey today.
The position of seyh is a ‘“‘set of roles” (van Bruinessen, 1978, 258)
which comprises those of seyyid, (i.e., descendant of the Prophet Muham-
52 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

mad), doctor of Islamic law, (i.e., G/tm, holder of a diploma of religious

studies), mol/la (mulla) or village priest (in the special sense in which this
word is used for the Eastern regions) and sometimes even mahdi or God-
appointed leader (van Bruinessen, 1978, 253).
Two strands can be distinguished in the title. The first is concerned
with establishing an affiliation with the religious hierarchy through the con-
firmation by a teacher of one’s competence as a religious specialist. The
Ottoman state had some control over this aspect of the legitimation of reli-
gious status, but the diploma of religious studies was not of one single
type. The diplomas of provincial institutions of learning were considered to
confer less prestige than those of the Great Medreses of Istanbul. A diploma
of religious studies could also be obtained in villages around Bitlis where
teaching was carried by leaders of the Naksibendi sect. But even these diplo-
mas were graded in the sense that they allowed all or only some of the
subjects on which the master had specialized to be taught by the licentiare.
It is not clear which type of diploma Said received at the end of his studies,
although he cites a long list of books of the contents of which he claims to
have been fully cognizant (Sahiner, 1979, 55).
A minimum of study was all that simple village prayer leaders ever
achieved, and some could be extremely ignorant of Islamic theology. “Seyh’,
in the Bitlis context, could mean a man of religion with some training in
religious sciences on whom hung another quality which possibly conferred
even greater prestige: keramet (karama) or ‘‘gifted spiritual powers’ (Trim-
ingham, 1973, 26). These powers legitimized qualities of wisdom and lead-
ership. Another example of this would be a cleric who held a teaching
certificate, but whose prestige was enhanced because he was a descendant of
the prophet. A third variant would be a learned sect leader who also trained
aspirants in the religious sciences.
Many of the persons who had risen to become leaders of ‘‘mystical”’
orders were attributed charismatic powers. Some of them were originators of
a line of hereditary charisma: their descendants carried the divine spark. In
most cases this quality had to be confirmed by the actions of the descendant
as a person with influence and power as well as charisma, although their
learning might be minimal. Tribal chiefs who took a religious mission
upon themselves also could figure among the chosen who partook of a divine
spark on the emanation of the divine. As van Bruinessen points out, during
the nineteenth century, local political leadership devolved increasingly to the
seyhs. This was a novel feature of local politics. The change was due both to
 Life 53
the elimination of the earlier princely structure and—at a later stage—to
the Islamic horizons which the seyhs’ leadership activated and which Sultan
Abdiilhamid supported. The earlier, less complex, development is exempli-
fied by the case of the Berzenci and then the Barzani family. In this case the
two qualities of political leader and that of charisma-bearer were mutually
reinforcing. Another variant is the conjunction of seyh leadership and na-
tionalist ambitions is seen in the case of the Seyh Said Rebellion in Turkey
(van Bruinessen, 1978, 383; and for the Pathans, Ahmed, 1976, 55). Said
Nursi's career may be seen as an exercise in transcending tribal allegiances
and building units of allegiance with wider boundaries as is clear in his
early life.
In relation to the “roles” of the seyhs mentioned, van Bruinessen states:
All of the roles mentioned above have, at one time or another, been played by
Sheikhs. Their primary roles are, however, that of holy man, object of popular
devotion, and that of leader-instructor in mystical brotherhoods . . . It is
because they are the object of a devotion that sometimes borders on worship
that the roles of Prophet, Mahdi . . . were . . .easily adopted by them or even
forced upon them by their followers. Because of the respect they enjoy, they
are ideal mediators in conflicts (which gives them political leverage). Through
the Dervish orders they are in contact with devoted dervishes all over Kurdi-
stan and are therefore potentially capable of mobilizing large masses. Many
dervish orders exist in the Islamic world, but in Kurdistan only two are
present: the Qadiri and the Naksibendi orders. (van Bruinessen, 1978, 258—
259; cf. Besikci, 1969, 202-203)
It is interesting that alchough van Bruinessen mentions seyds as having
gained their new power in inter-tribal disputes, there is no indication of
this role in the detailed book on tribes by Ziya Gokalp (Gékalp, 1975).
Although on one occasion we see Said Nursi assuming the mantle of an
arbitrator, it is in Biro, much further south than Bitlis, and the tribes
concerned are Arab tribes. This, as well as Said Nursi’s foray into city
politics, makes one suspect that in the 1890s the provincial town was be-
coming an arena for political conflict where local issues were being linked
to Empire-wide concerns, and that it was this arena that promised the
most desirable status to ambitious clerics on the move such as Said Nursi.
The state by its very penetration was creating new economic, judicial and-
educational networks, and the issues which arose within the frame of these
networks were being settled in cities. It would seem as if this new urban
activity also drew in well-established seyhs, as we shall see below.
54 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Bitlis was an environment in which orthodox Islam was just as promi-

nent as the more specialized discipline of the Nakszbendi orders: at the time
of the nadir of the Ottoman Empire the town was considered to be, if not
the leading urban intellectual center of Eastern Anatolia, certainly one with
outstanding prestige (“Bitlis,’ 664), and this pre-eminence had left its
mark even in the nineteenth century. One the other hand, already before
the nineteenth century, Bitlis had been a region where the Naksibendi order
had established its influence. Developments occurred at that time which fur-
ther strengthened the position of the Nakszbendi. One of these was the spread
of the influence of Mevlana Halid and his renewalist (mséceddid1) doctrine.

The Nakszbend: Order

The Naksibendi religious order had been one of the most influential in
the Ottoman Empire. Among the personalities who propagated its teachings
figure Abdullah Ilahi of Simav (d. 1490), who founded the first Nakszbendi
“lodge” in Istanbul and then went on to spread the Naksibendi teaching in
Rumelia. Lami Celebi (d. 1532)—also known for his poetic work— estab-
lished the order in Bursa and Seyh Muhammad Murad Buhari, who died in
Istanbul in 1729 established a ‘lodge’ in the Nisanci Pasa district of
Eytib. The latter became the “fountainhead”’ of a form of Naksibendi pietism
which is directly relevant to this study. The roots of this renewalist Na&sz-
bendi movement went back to the 17th century and to Nakstbendi sages who
operated in the Indian environment (Algar, 1985).
Ahmad Faruqi al-Sirhindi (1563-1624) was fighting the ecclecticism
which was an outcome of the Mughal emperor Akbar’s experiments with
religious syncretism. He felt that the tolerance of this court for Indian civ-
ilization and religion was sweeping away the distinguishing characteristics
of Islam, that it was duping the Muslims into becoming idol worshippers
with little Islamic substance in their belief. To counter this dilution, he
started a movement of spiritual renewal which became known as ‘‘Muced-
didi” or renewalist. Sirhindi’s self-appointed role as the “renewer’’ took its
force from the Muslim tradition that God would “‘send to his community on
the eve of every century a man to renew its ‘din’ ”’ (Friedmann, 1970, 13).
Thus a reformed spiritual tradition came into existence “which played a
prominent role in keeping the threads of the community together in the
political and social chaos that followed the decay of Mughal power’ (Fazlur
Rahman, 1977, cf. Schimmel, 1985, 216 f., and Friedman, 1971, 74).
The Naksibendi order had, from its very inception in the 12th century,
 Life 55
emphasized the inner world as opposed to an outer show of devotion. Pos-
sibly this was a means of bringing under control the ecstatic shamanistic
practices of the Turks of Central Asia, whose pre-Islamic practices did not
sit easily with mainstream Sunni beliefs (Trimingham, 1970, 58, 92).
Time and again Ottoman rulers had had to grapple with heterodox antino-
mian currents (Inalcik, 181-193; cf. Hourani, 1972, 91 with Kopriilti,
1976, 116, and note 52). Earlier, the Nakstbendi had found a way of direct-
ing this stress on mystical trance into orthodox channels by its rigid insis-
tence on the orthodox interpretation of religious obligation and the unicity
of God which did, indeed, shape the commitment of its votaries. Now it
was its ability to shape the esoteric with the exoteric which gave it the force
to overcome syncretist tendencies in Islam’s Indian environment. The “re-
newalist” tradition also provided a sounding board for those who sought
support in ‘‘middle of the road” Sufism. |
The relation of the Naksibendi order to centers of political power was
complex. Baha’ ad-din Nakshband (d. 1389), an eponymous figure in the
early history of the order had “kept his distance from the courts of rulers
because power emmeshes the heart in the affairs of the world and turns it
away from God. In his early life he had a certain experience of public affairs
but {later} . . . turned away from things of the world” (Hourani, 1972,
91). He may well be one of the influences in the life of Said Nursi, who
mentioned “‘Sah-1 Naksibend”’ as one of his sources of inspiration. Like Ba-
haeddin, Said eventually turned away from politics and tried to find a new
spring for his activities in a complete immersion in the inspiration of the
Qur'an.
Although the specific form of Sirhindi’s own involvement in politics is
still controversial, two aspects of his thought provided strong incentives for
a form of Muslim religious activism. The first of these is the synthesis he
devised concerning the Nakszbendi’s attitude towards Sufism. According to
this view, dissolving one’s earthly moorings by the experience of ecstacy is
only one aspect of the right path. The true believer has also to come to grips
with the realities of the world. In Said Nursi this appears as a suspicion of
Sufi activities and a dedication to wordly problems encountered by religious
revitalizers. The very stance propagated by Sirhindi of a constant recollection
of God’s presence while “in” the world established a sense of immiment
intervention of divine forces on behalf of Islam. Said Nursi used a similar
strategy when he exhorted Muslims to ulterly immerse themselves in their
identity as Muslims, this stance, in itself being sufficient, in his view, to
produce political results that favored the Muslim community.
56 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

A second contribution of Sirhindi, more directly related to an activa-

tion of the Muslim community was his theory of the two “mzms”’.
According to the records of Sirhindi’s correspondence, The Mektubat,

{the Prophet} “Muhammad had in his lifetime two individuations (ta’ayyun)

the bodily-human and the spiritual-angelic. These two individuations were
symbolized by the loops of the two mims of his name. The bodily individu-
ation guaranteed the uninterrupted relationship between the Prophet and his
community and consequently ensured its spiritual well-being. The spiritual
one, on the other hand, directed itself toward the Divine and received the
continuous flow of inspiration emanating from that source. A proper balance
was thus maintained between the wordly and the spiritual aspects of Mu-
hammed’s personality, and the Islamic community was continuously under
guidance both prophetic and divine. Since the Prophet's death, however, his
human individuation has been gradually weakening while the spiritual one
has been steadily gaining strengh. Within a thousand years the human indi-
viduation disappeared allcogether. Its symbol the first mim of Muhammad,
disappeared along with it and was replaced by an alif standing for divinity
(ulihiyat). Muhammad came to be Ahmad. He was transformed into a purely
spiritual being, no longer interested in the affairs of the world. The disap-
pearance of his human attributes . . . had . . . an adverse impact on his com-
munity which lost the lights of prophetic guidance emanating from
Muhammad’s human aspect . . . Sirhindi . . . agrees that the ideal prophetic
period was followed by a gradual decline caused by the growing inbalance in
the performance of the prophetic tasks. . . .” (Friedmann, 1971, 15-16)

The process is now to be reversed and on the eve of every century a

“renewer is to revive the seriat.
The revitalization of the inner spring of Muslims was to take a more
active, external form in the case of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi (1703-1762;
Trimingham, 1973, 128), the spiritual successor of Sirhindi.
Wali Allah also had a more extensive political program. He attacked
“the social and economic injustices prevailing in society, criticized the heavy
taxes to which the peasantry was subjected and called upon the Muslims to
build a territorial state which might be integrated into an international
Muslim super-state” (Fazlur Rahman, 1977, 638-39). Both Sirhindi and
Wali Allah stressed combat with the world-negating influences of earlier
mystic orders ([bid., 639). They tried to reform society through the rein-
forcement of the moral fibre of society by recalling the vigor of early Islam
and by a “return to pristine Islam in terms of the Qur’an and the Sunna of
the Prophet” (Idzd.).
 Life 57
Activism emphasized a new set of attitudes towards one’s religious
calling, but it did not do away with the basic philosophy of Naksibendis
which stressed the need “for a life wholly turned towards God: lived in His
presence, filled with love towards Him, directed to worshipping Him with-
out distraction of mediation, and without earthly reward, even that of
praise” (Hourani, 1972, 91). Another aspect of activism which already had
many predecents in Naksibendi history was the view that the strict path of
the Prophet (sunna) should be revived, that ‘‘bad innovations” should be
checked (Abu Manneh, 1982, 13), and that rulers should be required to
adhere strictly to religious law. In a number of cases this placed Naksibendi
leaders in the center of the political process: the “renewalist’” Mevlana Ha-
lid’s influenced filtered through his close relation with the Seyhiilislam Mus-
tafa Asim Efendi (1773—1846)) and spread to the most important urban
centers in Anatolia.
Mevlana Halid (1776—77/1827), also known as Mevlana Halid Bagh-
dadi, was the last—and the most important link—between Sirhindi and
modern Naksibendi activism. He was born in the district of Sehrizor near
Siileymaniye (in the Ottoman province of Musul). This district was at the
time ruled by the Baban family (Hourani, 1972, 94). He traveled exten-
sively during his lifetime, went to India and studied there with a Naksibendi
teacher. It was at this time that he was initiated into the miceddid? view of
the world.
During the nineteenth century, facilitation for activism which had
evolved since Sirhindi’s time acquired a new impetus: Mevlana Halid’s
stamp was more clearly mobilizational in nature than that of his predeces-
sors. We now can begin to describe his stance as a strategy for the mobili-
zation of Muslims. For one Halid described his teachings as a “politics of
guidance” (siyasat al-irshad) (Algar, 1989).
The Naksibend: thereafter established themselves in the center of politi-
cal processes, especially in their fight against imitative Westernization and
Western imperialism. Halidism became a force which confronted the expan-
sion of Russia in the Caucasus in the 1830s. It was to find a similarly
anti-Imperialistic foundation in Indonesia and in Central Asia. The tradi-
tion started by Mevlana Halid was after him to be known as the “Halidi”
tradition.
Until Mevlana Halid’s time, the Kadiri religious order has been most
influential in Eastern Turkey (van Bruinessen, 1978, 277). Halid tried to
propagate the ideas of his own “‘revivalist’’” Nakszbendism both in Syria and in
Eastern regions of the Octoman Empire.
58 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

He succeeded in uniting into a more unified ¢ariga cluster various branches

in Syria, Iraq and eastern Turkey. His attempt did not succeed in that after
his death his Khalifas regarded their groups in Aleppo, Istanbul and other
towns as fully independent organizations.
Shaikh Khalid’s propaganda was successful in causing members of im-
portant Qadiri families in Kurdistan to change over to the Naqshabandiyya,
with considerable effect upon the subsequent history of Kurdish nationalism.
“ ‘Abdallah, son of a prominent Molla Salih, having become Naqshabandi,
made Nehri his centre and the family came to wield temporal power, espe-
cially under ’Ubaidallah (1870-83), who imposed his authority over a wide
area. He was at enmity with another family, the Barzani. One of Khilid’s
khalifas called Taj ad-din had established himself at Barzan a Kurdish area in
Northern Iraq, and his line became an important factor in Kurdish national-
ism... .” (Trimingham, 1973, 124, cf. van Bruinessen, 1985, 112 who
thinks this influence was more extensive)

We have already encountered Seyh Ubeydullah (Ubaidallah), the

leader who was defeated only through the concerted efforts of Ottomans and
Persians in 1880. It seems that, paradoxically, the looseness of the Nakszbendi
order which enabled its lodges (sekke) to emerge as autonomous centers of
teaching was also the cause of the long range success of the Halidis.
The extensive spread of the Kadiri order, on the other hand, was ham-
pered by the fact that authoritative delegation for the establishment of lodges
was difficult for persons who were not in a designated line of succession to
leadership (van Bruinessen, 1978, 285). At a time when the interactive
process was accelerating, Naksibendi advantage cumulated.
The influence of Naksibendi-Halidi communities and lodges spread
from Nehri, west of Lake Urmia, to Hizan, the sub-province into which
Said Nursi was born, and then to Bitlis, Nursin and Mus. These were
places where Said Nursi was to study with Naksztbendi seyhs, some of whom
were carrying on the Ha/zdi tradition. The spread of the lodges occurred
at a time when the services of lodge-leaders as mediators or symbols of
an ordered society were needed by much of the population. The tarikat,
the religious orders, provided the structural framework into which commu-
nity problems as well as political issues could be brought to a head. Seyh
Fehmi, a Naksibendi Halidi seyh who was the leader of the order in Erzin-
can in the 1850's, was “not averse to being considered the Sultaén-i ’Ulamda’
bi'll@h, that spiritual Khalifa who manifests himself once in every genera-
tion” (E.1.°, I, 878).
One person who had a splendid opportunity to witness the working of
 Life 59
these lodges in Eastern Anatolia somewhat earlier—in the years immediately
following the Crimean War—is ‘‘Ascidede’’ Halil Ibrahim, whose memoirs
give us considerable information on the subject. He seems to have gone
through a series of infatuations with sarikat and their spiritual leaders. The
region he describes is Erzincan and Erzurum, located to the northwest and
north of Bitlis. According to him, a large majority of the city dwellers in
Erzincan were Halidis, whereas Erzurum was in the Kadiri “camp.” (The
first Halidi seyh in Erzincan had died in 1848 (E.1., II, 878). Halil related
how the local seyhs took up the protection of interest of lower class persons
against Ottoman officials. The fact that such remonstration sometimes has
little effect shows how the closed realm of bureaucracy set the popular
classes—in alliance with the Naksibendi tarikat—in an opposition to offi-
cialdom. This split between the local population and the officials, who rep-
resented Ottoman government in the area, was one of the major social
cleavages in Bitlis.
The Halidis had found an audience ready to accept revivalist ideals in
Istanbul in the 1820s when the Empire was taking stock of its decline
(Abu Manneh, 1982, 23-25). Turkish officialdom had always been suspi-
cious of the activities of charismatic leaders and self-appointed messiahs who
had caused considerable trouble in Anatolia for centuries. Possibly, the fact
that Mevlana Halid himself had clashed with the representatives of state-
supported religion, the doctors of Islamic law, in Siileymaniye (Hourani,
1971, 97) had alerted the authorities in the capital to the subversive poten-
tial of the order. At any rate, the sultan was not pleased with their popu-
larity, and Mevlana Halid’s deputies were banished from Istanbul on several
occasions (Abu-Manneh, 1982, 25). They were also pursued in Syria.
The Ottoman officials had been correct in their fears. The first at-
tempt at a conspiracy to unseat the government, which followed the grant-
ing of fundamental rights to non-Muslims in 1856, the so-called Kuleli
Rebellion of 1859, which has for many years puzzled students of Ottoman
reform, was, one finds, stirred up by a Halidi seyh (Kuntay, 1949, 689).
In a society such as that in which Said Nursi had been born, to accede
to the local cluster of seyh/y power was one of the important sources of social
mobility open to persons of lower social background. Indeed, Bediiizzaman’'s
adolescence seems to have been spent in such activities, aiming to wrest
such a mantle for himself. Said Nursi was deeply influenced by the example
of Sirhindi. Later in his life came to believe that his own achievements,
showing special spiritual powers, reached back to Sirhindi’s spiritual influ-
ence manifested across the centuries.
60 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Said Nursi mentions both Sirhindi and Mevlana Halid as persons who
influenced him. But the more direct influence seems to be that of Sirhindi
(known in Turkey as Imam-1 Rabbani). Both Said Nursi’s insistence that he
was not simply a Naksibendi but also a Kadiri and his frequent references to
Imam-t Rabbani \ead one to think that by skipping lightly over the Halidi
link in his spiritual ancestry he was trying to justify the novelty and the
distinguishing characteristics of his own movement.
Only in the long run did Beditizzaman choose the high road to Is-
lamic reform which has become parochialized in the seminars of Naksibend:
seyhs in the Eastern setting. The orthodoxy of the Naksibendi tarikat, the
reaffirmation of the tenets of pristine Islam and the slowly emerging inter-
nationalist character of Halidi reformism were eventually more influential in
shaping his behavior than local factors.
Long before pan-Islam provided an inspiration for Ottoman states-
men, the Nakszbendis, as was pointed out, had begun activities which ex-
tended the influence of the order from India to Mecca, to Indonesia, to the
Caucasus and to Central Asia (Trimingham, 1973, 122, 127), and it is in
the reports of these successes that Said Nursi found an inspiration that re-
mained a leitmotif of his policies. Possibly, also, the manipulation of local
conflict was becoming a less attractive option for an ambitious young man,
and taking sides with the centralist Ottoman state was beginning to be
seen as a positive step. But the new polarization of Muslims and Christians
which had produced cohesion in the Muslim population of Bitlis also pro-
vided the opportunity to underline a novel dimension of Islam. The call to
regroup under the flag of Islam was an alternative to the call to gather
around tribal chiefs, a form of proto-nationalism which had already caused
concern to the Ottomans. Said eventually opted for the Islamic solution,
although he was to lend his assistance to the Kurdish autonomists who were
working in the Ottoman capital immediately following the Young Turk
coup of 1908.
One final element in Said Nursi’s propensity to set himself up as a
fearless propagator of new ideas may have been his Safzz (Shafi’) mezhep
(madhhab). This branch of Islam had not followed the Hanefis, (Hanafts), the
main Ottoman mezhep (school of law) in its supine attitude towards the
state (Communication of Hamit Bozarslan, December 1985).

The Armenian Question

The Cihannuma of Katip Celebi (1609-1657), an Ottoman world-
 Life 61
geography, reported a number of Armenians in the town of Bitlis (“Bitlis,”
659). As to the Muslim-Christian balance, estimates for Bitlis in the early
nineteenth century seem to vary between half and two-thirds Muslim. Ed-
ucated guesses at the end of the century are closer to two-thirds Muslim.
Regardless of these proportions, it is clear that the economy of the region
was dependent upon a symbiotic arrangement between Turks filling the of-
ficial functions, the richer merchants (primarily Armenians?) establishing
commercial links, the artisanate consisting of Armenians and Turks with
part of the remaining population in local towns in the role of unskilled
laborers.
In traditional times, most Christians—-what is meant here are cultiva-
tors—have been said to have been “politically dominated and exploited by
tribal agas {leaders} (van Bruinessen, 1978, 119). Some symbiotic arrange-
ments between Armenian cultivators and nomads also existed (Ibid.). The
attitude of the overlord toward Armenian peasants is expressed in an
incisive statement by van Bruinessen: “Tribesmen are warriors and do not
toil, non-tribals are thought as unfit to fight and it is only natural that
their lords should exploit their labor’ (van Bruinessen, 1978, 117). Yet
there were limits to exploitation which were set by the interests of the ex-
ploiters; the mirs (the princes) were interested in the prosperity of all of
their subjects.
The Christian population of the Ottoman Empire became a target of
missionary activity quite early. The rivalry between the Catholics and the
Protestant missionaries had for long been a subject of considerable concern
to Ottoman statesmen, who looked at the entire proceedings with a jaun-
diced eye. The Armenian Protestant community had been recognized as a
corporate entity before the law and thereby as a politically autonomous unit
in 1850 (Shaw and Shaw, II, 1977, 126). The fact that there existed 200
Protestants in Bitlis (town) at the end of the century was a sign of the
relative success of the Protestant mission in Bitlis, which had been estab-
lished in 1858 (Stone, 1984, 120).
The Protestant Armenians had a “substantial Church edifice with a
congregation of about 400 and a large boarding school for boys and girls”
(Bishop, 1891, 354). American missionaries had a school for girls with fifty
boarders and fifty day students. In 1870 Misses Charlotte and Mary Ely
opened “the Mount Holyoke Girls Seminary for Kurdistan” ([gd., 121). A
network of schools went out from this center as far as the outlying towns
and villages of Bitlis (Ibid., 122). Ottoman officials had feared the
“opening up” of the area to missionary activities because they were aware of
62 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

the outcome of earlier, similar developments. When the Ottomans had

opened the way for missionary presence following the suppression of local
rulers the following had occurred:

Muslim-Christian relations in Kurdistan now grew rapidly worse. In 1843

Kurds of the Botan Emirate invaded the Tiyari district (populated by tribal
Nestorian Christians) killed nearly 10,000 men and carried many women and
children away as slaves. As even Layard admitted, this massacre was at least
partly provoked by the construction of a fortress-like school and boarding
house by American missionaries. But Layard blamed especially for the anti-
Christian feeling, among the Kurds of Botan, the Fanatical Sex Taha who
lived at the court of Bedr xan Beg, the emir of Botan. (van Bruinessen,
1978, 291)

To Beditizzaman, penetration by the Protestants meant the decline of Islam.

In fact, the Boy’s Academy was directed by an Armenian and one of the
local missionaries was expelled by Ottoman authorities for his role in incit-
ing Armenian revolutionaries (Stone, 1984, 122).

Armenian Revolutionary Activities

Armenian revolutionary activity had started as early as 1862 (Nalban-

dian, 1963, 67). In 1881, an underground society called The Protectors
of the Fatherland was established in Erzurum and was uncovered by the
Ottomans (Ibid., 85). In 1882 Mekertitch Portugalian established the
“Central Gymnasium” in Van, the largest town in the vicinity of Bitlis.
This was an attempt to revive Armenian culture. The first Armenian revo-
lutionary party was also founded in Van in 1885 by his students (Idzd.,
1963, 90). The school in Van was closed the same year. Portugalian there-
after left for France and established the Armenian Patriotic Union. In May
1889 three members of the Union left Persia for Van; they were intercepted
by the Turkish police and killed in a fierce encounter. In 1887 Armenian
students who had left Russia to study in Western Europe established the
Hunchakian Revolutionary Party in Geneva. Leaders were sent to a number
of towns in Anatolia. Among its aims were the “political and national in-
dependence of . . . Armenia’ (Idid., 108). Its methods of propaganda, ag-
itation and terror were inspired by the Russian Narodnaya Volya party. In
 Life 63
July 1890, it organized the Kumkap: demonstration in Istanbul. In 1892
and 1893 placards were posted in a number of cities in Turkey addressed to
all Muslims encouraging them to rebel against “oppressors.” In 1890, a
new party working for Armenian independence, the Dasknaktsiuthun was
established in Tiflis (Ibid., 151).
Rumours and fears that the European powers (mainly Britain, France and
Russia) whose great influence on the Ottoman administration did not pass
unnoticed, were allying themselves with the local Christian groups against
the Muslims, led inevitably to an exacerbation of the tension between Kurds
and the Christian groups. . . . (van Bruinessen, 1978, 289)
Some of the Ottoman fears had materialized during the Russo-Turkish
War of 1877—78 when the Russians had appointed officers and administra-
tors of Armenian origin to serve on the Ottoman eastern front (Allen and
Muratoff, 1953, 111). At the peace negotiations, the Armenian Patriarch
Nerses, who lived in Russia, had tried to gain support for the creation of an
Armenian state in eastern Turkey (Shaw & Shaw, 1977, II, 202). Following
the Congress of Berlin which ratified the agreements reached after the war,
Armenian revolutionary societies had, as we saw, greatly increased their rev-
olucionary activity in the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the war, the
Ottoman Empire had been obliged to cede the territories of Kars, Ardahan
and Batum to Russia (Shaw & Shaw, 1977, II, 191). Because the break-
down of law and order in the eastern Turkish territories, with its important
Christian minority population, was well known, the issue of the Christian
inhabitants of the area was one which figured prominently in the negotia-
tions for a peace treaty. A British reform proposal had been accepted by the
Ottomans in 1879. It provided for a European-organized “gendarmerie”
and inspectors of the judiciary (Duguid, 1973, 141) in areas settled by
Armenian minorities. Because of the scattered settlement of the Armenians
and the resulting ineffectiveness of the revolutionaries, as well as the nega-
tive response they caused among Armenian notables, the revolutionaries em-
ployed terrorist tactics both against the Ottoman government and against
Ottoman Armenians (Shaw and Shaw, 1977, II, 202—203). The sultan re-
taliated by establishing a new local militia made up of Kurds and Turcoman
tribes (1891).
The cavalry was formed first in the nomadic areas adjacent to the Russian
border in the provinces of Van, Bitlis and Erzurum, with some 50,000 men
being called to service and grouped into regiments . . . Arms were supposed
to be provided only when they were engaged in combat, but in fact most of
64 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

them managed to keep their traditional arms . . . The regiments were com-
manded by tribal chiefs, but regular army officers also went to train the men.
(Ibid., 1977, Ul, 246)

Armenian revolutionary activity surfaced clearly in 1893-1894, show-

ing ‘signs of obvious planning and co-ordination” (Duguid, 1973, 147).
One incident in particular, in Sason—a sub-province of Bitlis—took many
lives (August 1894; Duguid, 1973, 148). The Armenians had refused to
pay tribute to the Kurds and had repulsed them with arms. They also feared
the solidarity that was beginning to build up among local tribes because of
the ‘‘propaganda of the Sheikhs” (Nalbandian, 1963, 120). The immediate
effect of the Sason incident was to bring about a dramatic increase in the
activity of the local Muslim population.

The government was making attempts to control the Kurds throughout the
fall and winter of 1894, but these attempts did little towards lowering the
level of tension in the area. ... All the consuls noted that the dominant
split in the cities was rapidly becoming a Muslim-Christian one. This had
been true to some extent since the early 1870's, but there had remained a
great deal of cordiality and cooperation between Armenian and Kurdish peas-
ants, Armenian and Turkish merchants and artisans, and among the notables
in the cities. By 1894 this was rapidly changing as the Armenians came to
be seen as a threat . . . the Muslim population was convinced that all Euro-
peans were in league with the revolutionaries and were interested only in
presiding over the disintegration of the Empire. (Duguid, 1973, 149)

By September 1895 there were reports of secret organizations of

Muslims which, in the tradition of the rebellion of 1859, were pledged to
oppose by force reforms introduced solely for the benefit of Christians
(Duguid, 1973, 150). These consular reports mentioned “lower class offi-
cials and religious Sheikhs” (/dd.). Russia, England and France warned
Turkey that she should carry out reform in the provinces of Erzurum, Bit-
lis, Van, Sivas, Mamuret iil-Aziz and Diyarbakir (Nalbandian, 1963, 122).
On September 30th, 1895 there was a Huntchak demonstration in Istanbul,
with riots against the Armenians and much bloodshed, particularly by mi-
grants from Eastern provinces.
When it was announced on October 21, 1895 that the Ottomans had
agreed to implement a British reform proposal, the first reaction came from
Bitlis. On October 25 there was a panic riot in Bitlis in which 200 Arme-
nians were killed. Much graver incidents with many killed occurred in
 Life 65
Istanbul following an Armenian demonstration on August 24, 1896. A few
months thereafter, Said Nursi left for Istanbul with eastern region reform
proposals which he hoped to submit to the sultan.

Said Nursi: Early Life

Even though the social history of Bitlis provides a backdrop for the
extraneous influences which were impinging on Said’s life, this backdrop
did not explain his reaction to his life circumstances. Indeed, Said shows an
attitude towards these events which singles him out from among his con-
temporaries and which in some measure explains his later success as a propa-
gator of his religious views. Bediiizzaman’s very special approach to the
revitalization of Islam—which shows similarities with the opinions which
some Muslim intellectuals were developing in the far-away Ottoman capi-
tal—can partly be explained as a function of an internal psychological dy-
namic. This dynamic is much more difficult to reconstitute than the social
background of his early activities. What seems to have been happening here
is that a somewhat raw expression of vitality slowly assumed a more coherent
form as his youthful exuberance was channelled by his encounters with the
social reality of Bitlis. Still more fundamental changes seem to have oc-
curred after the First World War.
Among the threads of his personality that emerge at an early age ap-
pears a strongheadedness reminiscent of the character traits that have been
attributed to Luther by E. Erikson. His childhood wilfulness, as depicted in
his authorized biography, serves to underline the very early age at which his
vocation appeared and may, therefore, be classified as “hagiographic,” but
his own insistence on aspects of his life that are related to conflict, to strife,
to betrayal by his peers, to lack of understanding by his teachers provide us
with a clue that is important in reconstructing some of the deeper, possibly
subconscious, sources of his motivation. This is a theme which continues to
appear later in his life. His self-confessed extreme misanthropy (Emirdag
Lahikast, 1959, 60) gives us another dimension of internal turmoil.
Said Nursi was born in a “‘clerical’’ family, his father being an impov-
erished village molla with seven children and with a small holding of land.
That there was some drive for status in the family appears from the title of
mirza, which was used by his father and which could be an attribute of
noble descent. His grandmother is stated to have been a relative of Alisan
Pasa, a regional notable, and Said traced her ancestry to the family of the
Prophet Muhammad (Sahiner, 1979, 45). It is clear that he had a very
66 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

strong attachment to his mother. On a number of occasions, Said Nursi

refers to what he considers to be his low social status and underlines his
identification with persons of a similarly modest background, while in one
case he also expresses strictures against the bourgeoisie.
During Said Nursi’s childhood the population of the Nurs area were
clients of a Naksibendi seyh, Seyyid Sibgatullah Efendi, known as the “pole’’
(Gavs) of Hizan (van Bruinessen, 1978, 350; Sahiner, 1979, 47). Said Nursi
told his disciples much later that while his relatives were all Nakszbendi,
already at the age of “8 to 9” (Sikke-i Tasdik-1 Gaybi, 116) he courageously
took sides against them and against the people in the surroundings by be-
coming a follower of Abditilkadir Ceylani (Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani) the
founder of the Kadiri order. This may be a slice of biography that Said
Nursi later added to his life events. Its function would have been to under-
line the idea that Said Nursi had brought so many new elements to Halidi
teachings that he deserved to be seen as the founder of a new branch. Such
a claim of originality and Said’s practice of citing Sirhindi more often than
Mevlana Halid confirm this stance.
Said remained in his father’s house until the age of nine. At that time
he began his education and one of the first schools which he attended was
that of Molla Mehmed Emin Efendi in the village of Tag. Seyh Abdurrah-
man Tagi—who was also the first person in the vicinity of Bitlis admitted
by the latter’s spiritual successor to spread the message of Mevlana Halid
(van Bruinessen, 1978, 351)—was the resident sage in that village. De-
scribing the teaching of his master, Seyh Abdurrahman Tagi, with whom
he studied intermittently in the following years, Said explains:

He trained many students and preachers and learned men, and when all. . .
began to sing his praises, I, immersed in scientific disputations of a high
calibre and placed within a wide circle of science and tarikat, was convinced
that these preachers were about to conquer the earth.
When the famous ’z/ema and the saints (ev/tya) and learned men and
kutbs were mentioned, I, nine or ten years old, would listen with rapt atten-
tion. My heart felt as if these students, then men of learning, had made
extensive conquests in the field of religion.
If a student showed some sign of superior intelligence he would be
accorded great importance. If someone scored a success in a debate around a
problem he would be made much of. I was struck by the fact that I became
animated with the same feelings. There was, in fact, an extraordinarily com-
petitive spirit among the seyhs at the level of township, sub-province and
province. (Emirdag Lahikas:, 1959, 53)
 Life 67
The competitiveness that was encouraged by this mode of teaching is not
necessarily related to the type of conflict that was encouraged by tribal so-
ciety; rather, it appears to be the end-product of a particularity of cultures
of oral learning and transmission in Islamic society. In a setting where
manuscripts are rare and expensive the most efficient way to record knowl-
edge is to consign it to memory. This explains the great number of rhymed
textbooks used by Ottoman pedagogues. But another means of keeping a
tradition or a set of answers to questions lively is to keep discussing the
point and the set answers provided. K. G. Ghurye has underlined this fea-
ture of traditional societies by pointing out that “the knowledge that is
acquired from books and not received from a teacher does not shine in de-
liberate assembly, i.e. is not operative and fruitful” (Ghurye in Goody,
1968, 13). However, deliberate assemblies could become more contentious
in the tribal area because of the underlying pattern of conflict.
The ubiquitous tribal formations in Bitlis and the turbulence which
prevailed in his time made for a tough, male-dominated frontier society.
Individuals carved their reputations by feats of courage or by their ability
to show extreme endurance or to undergo superlative tests of physical priva-
tion. A mans holiness could emerge as a result of his depth of learning or
wisdom, but it was the sum of these qualities of physical and moral stead-
fastness which determined personal influence. As we have seen, contentious-
ness was not excluded in the sub-society made up by the teachers of
religion; Said assumed such a contentious role early in life. His official bi-
ography states that even at this tender age he could not bear the smallest
remark made with a commanding tone. This led him to leave school and
return to his village where he continued his studies (BSN, 31).
The harsh set of values which were imposed on local mountaineers
seems to have clashed with something in himself which rejected them:

When I was ten years old I had an attitude of self-esteem (sftihar) and self-
praise (temeddub). | was acting as if I were doing important things which
required heroic deeds, even though this went against my grain. I would say
to myself, “you are not worth five para; why do you show this self-assurance,
and particularly why are you so keen to appear courageous?” The villagers in
my village of Nurs, as is quite well known to my students and village
friends, loved to shine and show off and test their courage... . (Emirdag
Lahikast, 1959, 52-53)

An insistence that his own view of the world should be given precedence
over received wisdom emerges as a striking personality trait at an early age
68 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

and continued to mark his attitudes throughout his life. This was com-
pounded by the activism contained in Halidi teachings and by the values
prevailing in the Eastern setting. One cannot but recollect in this connec-
tion that the activist puritanism of the Wahhabis emerged in a similarly
tribal background. But a universal dimension could only be acquired by this
activism when it joined a stream which emerged from the West. A con-
densed heading for this new dynamic frame might be the “acceleration of
history,” an expression Daniel Halevy used to describe the effect of what we
know as “modernization” (Halevy, 1948).
In his village, Said studied with his elder brother, who had already
been in the same educational stream for some time. Later, he moved to
Pirmis and then to Hizan, another center to which Mevlana Halid’s influ-
ence had spread (BSN, 31). There he sat at the feet of Seyyid Nur Mu-
hammed Efendi, the grandson of the second person in the chain of
authorized successors of Mevlana Halid (BSN, 31; van Bruinessen, 1978,
351). He speaks of this figure as his Naksibendi iistad or master (Sualar,
n.d., 370). Said did not get along with the students in the medrese who
looked for occasions to pick a fight with him, but he was able to show his
teacher that he was not at fault and that he had been set upon. He remained
in this medrese for a time, and then left for the plateau of Seyhan with his
brother, who was already studying theology. When he questioned the au-
thority of his old teacher Mehmed Emin Efendi, stating that his powers
were derived from the medrese founder Seyh Abdurrahman, Said had once
more to leave. He seems to have been unable to continue his medrese career at
this juncture and therefore returned to his village. He had a dream at this
time, in which he was admitted to see the Prophet Muhammad (BSN, 32);
the vision gave him renewed strength to pursue his studies. Gradually,
then, Said was moving towards a rejection of the seyh/y social structure into
which he was born and was gathering strength from sources which were part
of that world but which hovered above the existing set of social relations
controlled by seyhs. But once more, during this second stint of school atten-
dance he was at loggerheads with a number of teachers including Mehmed
Emin Efendi and had to withdraw. There followed another series of tentative
affiliations with medreses ending with a three-month course in Dogu Bayezit
with Seyh Mehmed Celali. Again, we get a clue as to the reasons for his
inability to settle in any medrese. ‘“The treasures (of learning) you control,”
he said to Seyh Mehmed “are in a strongbox. You have its key. What I
need is a clue to its contents. I will choose whichever I find appropriate.” It
 Life 69
is doubtful that Said could actually have used such direct language, but his
intentions are clear: he was finding the entire long-drawn curriculum too
cumbersome.
This was a remarkably modern perception. The psychological process
underlying this change of perceptions in the mind of a peasant boy born in
a village of twenty houses cannot be recaptured, but the process is clearly
both personal and has to do with Said’s generation. This generation had the
benefit of some of the early reforms of the Tanzimat, such as acquaintance
with the Istanbul press. The new bureaucracy penetrating into the prov-
inces was another regular source of information on the happenings in the
capital. It is interesting that similar thoughts about the cumbersome
weight of religious studies as they were set in the syllabus of religious
teaching had occurred to and entirely different person who made his career
in Western Turkey two decades earlier. This was Ali Suavi, the Young Ot-
toman who had been trained in the medrese. Possibly, the face that a much
larger proportion of the citizenship had to be educated to implement the
institutions of the new society was a new feature which was perceived by
sensitive persons in the religious educational stream as a gap in the existing
institutions of religious education. The Tanzimat statesmen had used their
innovative 3—4 year rigdiye to provide the greater number of functionaries
who were necessary to implement reform. A similar type of ‘‘middle range”
education was necessary to mobilize the literate population within an Is-
lamic frame. Said perceived that in the world which had been initiated by
the reforms of the Tanzimat, an acceleration of history, a more dense inter-
action between individuals—brought about by an extension of communica-
tions networks—would require a recasting of religious studies. Much later,
he was to state that his understanding of the need to simplify religious
studies was a divine inspiration which enabled the Nar sect to make up for
the suppression of religious studies by the Turkish Republic (BSN, 34,
note 2). His authorized biography highlights his insistence on simplifica-
tion, pointing out he thus caused “faith” to be spread to “millions” (Idzd.).
It underlines that while still an adolescent he covered in three months an
education which usually lasted twenty years (Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybi, 143).
According to Sahiner (1979, 55), Beditizzaman obtained his diploma
around 1888 at the age of fifteen, a remarkable achievement. Because of the
variety of Sufi diplomas available, we are not sure what this “graduation”
meant, but certainly in time he became extremely knowledgeable on reli-
gious matters, and, especially, on hadis (hadith).
70 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

It is at this time that Said came across a strain of Islamic thinking

which was later to become a constant theme in his religious imagery and a
central fulcrum of this theories, the theme of light or illumination. (Inter-
view with Sahiner, September 1984). The school of mysticism known as the
ishraqi—or illuminists—believed that a complete knowledge of God could
be attained by striving to reach him through contemplation and asceticism
but that this knowledge could only be achieved in a flash of illumination.
Said also discovered this direction, and this time engaged upon a regime of
mortification and “ziéhd” (zuhd) or world denial while living in the mauso-
leum of the celebrated seventeenth century Kurdish writer Ahmed Hani.
Two aspects of Said Nursi’s thought explain the role illuminism played in
his thinking. For one, illumination was a road to knowledge of God which
bypassed the academicism of his teachers and could surmount their charisma
as Halidi leaders. Secondly, the concept of God as Light of Light, as an
emanation from His Being, which was reflected in all aspects of being, was
one which he seems to have used in preference to the Naksibendi’s strict
monism at this time. Illuminism, in fact, had a potential for a more popu-
listic vision of the Godhead, and one eminently suited to his goal of mak-
ing the idea of the divine comprehensible to persons, who, like himself, did
not have time to waste in complex and time-consuming intellectual initia-
tion. The backdrop of mysticism of Anatolian Islarn predisposed a message
based on the idea of emanation to meet with a sympathetic response: Ana-
tolia had been thoroughly suffused by beliefs in metempsychosis which ap-
peared in widely disseminated poetry. Poetry itself was not simply literature
but also a link to the divine. Said’s own writings, later, may be seen as an
attempt to fuse this inward-looking aspect of Anatolian Islam with a new
sense of destiny.
Anatolian mysticism had found an elective affinity in the ideas of the
mystic Ibn al-‘Arabi, who established no sect but whose influence in Ana-
tolia was pervasive (see E.1.*, II], 707—11). It is interesting that though
there is little evidence of the direct influence of Ibn al-‘Arabi on Said (Said
mostly gives him lukewarm praise), Ibn al-‘Arabi’s idea that the world is the
field and man is the locus where the attributes of God materialize (Fazlur
Rahman, 1979, 146), can also be found at a number of places in Bediiiz-
zaman’s writings. Like Ibn al-‘Arabi, and like many Islamic renovators, Said
was later to regard his early activities as a time of cahiliye, (jahiliya) a period
of incomprehension of the true message of God. He thought that this truth
was to be revealed to him in a vision, once more, a well-known Islamic
source of legitimation for new ideas.
 Life 71
Another sign of his perceptiveness was the populism of his proposals,
and his denial of the authority structure established by the seyhs. Like his
explicit model for behavior, the Muslim theologian al-Ghazali (E.1 7, ID,
1038-41), Said accused the hierarchy of seyhs of using their charisma for
worldly purposes and of not being content with community support of their
minimal needs. According to him, these leaders had imposed additional
zekat (zakat), or religious dues, on their votaries (BSN, 32), which he con-
sidered sheer exploitation.
Nevertheless, Said—as is apparent from his activities already de-
scribed—gladly joined in the fray where a contest for prestige was con-
cerned. The opportunity to mobilize large groups of supporters which had
already involved Mevlana Halid in a truly political battle was not one which
he avoided. For in Said’s time, too, the extent to which part of the popula-
tion would follow a seyh was a basic political datum. Behind this allegiance
could be distinguished the special role that seys had assumed as the voices
of community grievances, even though charisma, Jeraka, an emanation
which only the elect would possess, was also part of the forces working for
those seeking to achieve a position of authority. The power dimension of
“lodge” activity overflowed into both the rivalry between orders and the
political struggles which a novice with ambitions of leadership had to face.
Last, but not least, the Ottoman provincial town, linked to the center by
communications as well as by a new administrative network, with its con-
tingent of city notables as intermediaries between the government and the
people, was acquiring a new importance: it was now part of the centralist
network of the Tanzimat. Town politics had a place for seyds just as tribal
politics did.
Shortly after his graduation Said Nursi decided to visit a number of
famous local ‘zlema to widen his horizons. Dressed in dervish clothes, he
roamed in the uplands, making his way towards Bitlis. Once more we see
him as a student of Mehmed Emin Efendi. Once more, however, he moved
to Siirt to the medrese of a new teacher Molla Fethullah (1889). The latter is
stated to have been highly impressed by Said’s abilities. This perceived bril-
liance led Molla Fethullah to organize a special debate in which his star
pupil was to answer questions asked him by learned doctors of Islamic law.
His success in the interrogation is reported to have caused jealousy among
his fellow-students and ‘ulema, an outcome with which Said Nursi was al-
ready familiar. Conspiracies began to be organized against him, and Said
was saved from bodily harm by that part of the population of Siirt which
had sided with him in the fracas following the examination. These quarrels,
72 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

which now involved part of the population of Siirt, alarmed the governor—
delegate in residence in the town—the mutasarrif—who is stated to have
offered him assistance, which Said rejected (BSN. 37).
After the fracas died down, Said announced that he was ready to take
on anyone who wanted to engage in a physical or intellectual contest.
Shortly thereafter he departed for Bitlis. Possibly, the sub-Governor had de-
cided that Siirt would be calmer without Said’s presence.
In Bitlis, Said took upon himself to give counsels of moderation to
local families of seys who were loggerheads with one another and to stu-
dents in seminaries who were opposing their teachers (BSN, 37). This
seems to be the first instance when he assumed a conciliating role, a role
which clearly underlined his ambitions as a religious—and in that setting—
a political leader. His presumption led the religious notables to complain to
Mehmed Emin Efendi, presumably the one person which still had the great-
est influence with him. The latter could only assure them that these forays
by Said were no more than those of youthful mischief. It is reported that his
master availed himself of this opportunity to test his knowledge once more.
Said, who it is said, successfully surmounted this obstacle, then went on to
preach in the Kureys mosque in Bitlis. The new role provided him with a
set of followers in the town who were now aligned with him against his
detractors. The governor of the province stepped in at this juncture and
asked Said to leave town. Said went to Sirvan (BSN, 38), south of Bitlis.
Once more the pressures of political strife sent Said on to a retreat and into
religious contemplation.
He took refuge in the hamlet of Tillo, (between Sirvan and Siirt), a
place where the 18th century Ottoman encyclopaedist and mystic Ibrahim
Hakki had studied for a time. Some of Said’s concerns with the disintegra-
tion of Eastern society surface in clues which one may find in sections of
his authorized biography which cover the Tillo period. His admiration of the
organization shown by the ants living around Ibrahim Hakki’s tomb were a
reminder of his sensitivity to the upheavals which were surrounding him.
Here too, Said saw tn a dream the founder of the Kadiri order ’Abd al-
Qadir al-Jilani (BSN, 39). Although it was not unusual for members of
orders to harken to the message of more than one farikat, the intervention
of this religious figure does not seem to have been a random occurrence
since Said’s contentiousness had pitted him against the Nakstbendis, who
had been competing with the Kadiris for control of the region. In years to
come, the figure of this sage, given the title of Gavs-i Azam—the Highest
Saint—by Said, was to be one of his main sources of inspiration. In the
 Life 73
dream, ‘Abd al-Qadir ordered him to stop the depredations of Mustafa Pasa,
the chief of the Miran tribe.
The theater of the activities of the Miran tribe was a region which
today straddles Turkey and Syria. The tribe had the reputation of being one
of the strongest in the area: Bedirhan Bey had to incorporate it in his own
emirate by force. Upon the defeat of the Bedirhans by the Ortomans, some
Miran chiefs became contenders for the positions formerly filled by the
Prince and began to extend their power at his expense (van Bruinessen,
1978, 224). It is possible that Mustafa Aga of Miran was granted the title
of “Pasa” by Sultan Abdiilhamid and leader of the local militia or “Ha-
midiye Corps” for this reason. Mustafa Pasa, thereafter, became the “single
most powerful man in the area” (Idid., 228). He took advantage of the
position to establish his own petty kingdom (Id:d., 236) in which Ottoman
administration worked primarily through the capricious implementation of
its policies by Mustafa Pasa. Mustafa Pasa also knew how to keep the Otto-
man powers at bay in what he considered his hunting preserve, namely,
local brigandage.

He also took a heavy coll from passing caravans and from transporation rafts
floating down the Tigris: his men raided the wide surroundings. Thus Mus-
tafa Pasha acquired some of the powers that formerly were the mirs. There
were two important differences however: 1. His power was not based on con-
sensus, but on violence. That became clear in interior intra-tribal conflicts.
These were never brought before him (as they were brought before the mir)
but before one of the Shaikhs. 2. He could maintain his independence vis-
a-vis the civil administration because he had powerful protection. . . . The
superior and protector of the Hamidiye commanders was Zeki Pasha, com-
mander of the 4th Army Corp at Erzincan and brother-in-law of the Sultan
himself. To the great annoyance of the civil officials, Zeki Pasha removed the
Hamidiye (militia) from under their judicial competence and always protected
transgressors. (van Bruinessen, 1978, 236)

Upon receiving the saint’s summons, Said immediately departed for

Mustafa Pasa’s encampment which was in Cizre (present province of Mar-
din). Mustafa Pasa was absent; when the Pasa finally appeared, he enquired
as to who this stranger was and was told that he was the “celebrated Molla
Said” (BSN, 39). Mustafa Pasa, apparently, did not hold much affection for
the ‘ulema, but in the existing situation, with the ‘z/ema still using their
charismatic aura to establish their influence, it was prudent to approach this
intrusion with caution. Mustafa asked Said what the reasons of his presence
74 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

at the camp were. Said answered that he had arrived to make a good Muslim
of Mustafa: in the event Mustafa Pasa refused, death would inevitably fol-
low. Again, it is probable that Mustafa Pasa suspected that there was more
to the presence of Said than could be seen at that instant. He took a walk
outside his tent and returned, asking him once more what his business was
in his camp. Upon receiving the same answer from Said, he pointed at the
rusty sword which Said carried. “With this?’’ Eventually, it appears Mustafa
Pasa was more bemused than frightened by the menaces of the young man.
He too organized a ‘“‘scientific’’ (i.e. theological) debate to test Said’s mettle.
Said’s biography states that he was able to answer all the questions which the
convened examiners posed, that Mustafa Pasa promised him to fulfill his
daily prayer obligations and gave him a rifle as a present to boot.
Rifles and swords are not the usual appurtenances of ‘u/ema, but in the
case of Said they appear as part and parcel of his contentious attitude to-
wards his surroundings. Even later when he was residing in the Ottoman
capital, Said continued to wear the baggy pants of the tribesmen and stuck
two silver daggers in his wide, cummerbund-like belt. Further features of
the frontier style that he had adopted are seen in his willingness to show
Mustafa Pasa his skill as a rider (BSN, 41). Although Said alternated be-
tween Mustafa Pasa’s camp and that of the Arab tribesmen of Biro, he was
eventually asked to leave the camp by Mustafa Pasa’s son. At this stage,
then, the vocation of Said as a conciliator—a task to which he expended
considerable effort in his relations with the Arabs of Biro—was beginning
to acquire clearer outlines. In Biro he was set upon by brigands, who nearly
killed him but who desisted when they found that he had been active as a
holy man. Said thereupon left for Mardin, whose ‘ulema he immediately
challenged to a match of wits (1892).
An important development in his stay in Mardin was his encounter
with two travellers, Muslim students who were followers of two prominent
architects of the Muslim reformist tradition. The reform movement was de-
veloping in Egypt and in the Ottoman capital towards the end of the nine-
teenth century. Two important figures, Cemaleddin Afgani (Jamal ad-Din
al-Afghani) and his follower Muhammad ‘Abdi, were attempting to recast a
modernist form of Islam. Afgani was trying to get the Muslims to gather
round [slam as a banner that would reinstill in them the energy that was
necessary to stop their political decline. Although extremely influential in
Islamic circles, he had been torn between two options which never seemed
to come to a resolution: one of these was to convince individual Muslim
rulers to strengthen their own country, the other was to reinvigorate and tap
 Life 75
the deep sources of religiousity of the large masses of Muslims. This alter-
native was also to create one of the more difficult problems with which Said
was to meet. Said’s consciousness of the problem was not necessarily due to
the influence of Afgani, but he was enmeshed in the same quandary as
that reformer and it was one which continued to confuse issues for him until
the 1920s. The second person Said met in Mardin was a student in the
Sanusi religious order. This order had already gone a long way towards pro-
viding a religious scaffolding for the formation of a modern nation-state in
Cyrenaica (BSN, 42; Sahiner, 1979, 63).
Said Nursi’s official biography states that his first political life began
in Mardin. What is meant by this is not entirely clear. Possibly, the remark
refers to Said’s first attempt to rally Muslims to work together for the
greater glory of Islam. In any case, these activities got him into hot water,
and the mutasarrif of Mardin sent him to Bitlis under armed guard. One of
the first supernatural interventions into Said Nursi’s life is related as having
occurred at this time. His guards had halted their march to pray and found
that Said Nursi had unaccountably gotten out of his handcuffs and was also
praying.
In Bitlis he joined the staff of Governor Omer Pasa (1892-93). He
was given the freedom to devote himself to his own education in exchange
for teaching Omer Pasa’s children. Said remained for two years in the gov-
ernor’s mansion. He now began to study the Muslim classics more inten-
sively than he had hitherto (Sahiner, 1979, 66—G67) and was tutored by Seyh
Mehmed Kiifrevi of a prominent family with hereditary charisma.
Said seems to have been undergoing a process of intellectual confusion
and crisis at the time. He recalls the times as being characterized by an
alternation of sensations of extremely acute perception and a dulling of
thought processes, accompanied by a failure to understand anything that he
was reading. Upon the invitation of the w/t of Van, Hasan Pasa, Said
moved to the town of Van and joined the staff of the governor. It is here
that Said Nursi continued to extend his culture by adding to his Islamic
learning information which he culled from the newspapers which came into
the governor's office. He states that he thereby became aware of such fields
of learning as history, geography, mathematics, geology, physics, chemistry
and astronomy (Sahiner, 1979, 68; cf. BSN, 44-45).
This is not so absurd a statement as it might seem to be on the face of
it. Van had been an early “showcase” of administrative reform (“Van’, I A.,
Fasc. 137, 1982, 201), and the Armenian community of the city was pro-
gressive, enlightened and only partly active in revolutionary movements. In
76 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Istanbul the popularization of science had been proceeding since the 1870s.
During the first year of Sultan Abdiilhamid’s reign a number of pocket
libraries with series on science was published. In 1890 Said could have stud-
ied the following subjects through books and brochures (or textbooks meant
for the higher schools): logarithms (J.A., 7-16, 433), the telephone (7—19),
cosmography (7-19, 192), industrial chemistry (7-19, 199), geometry (7—
19, 200), the formation of the universe (8-13, 465), inorganic chemical
analysis (8-17, 386), nutrition (8-17, 387), zootechnology (7-19, 468),
natural history (8—13, 473), physical anthropology (8-17, 385). He could
have read the description of human anatomy contained in Insan (7-19,
192), in one of the many technical treatises on physiology, or Beer, a book
which stated clearly the thesis that man was to be understood as a function
of his biological make-up rather than his soul. He could have waded through
a text on the then emerging field of atomic physics entitled The Rules of
Changes in the Movements of Atoms. He could have found in the library of his
patron some of the books which were beginning to appear on the role
of women in society and one in particular entitled Famous Islamic Women,
published by the Imperial Press (J.A., 7-16, 429). He could have read
a number of books on world history. He could have followed the apolo-
getic thesis for the decline of Islam in The Civilizational Progress of the Arabs
by Ahmet Rasim or consulted the opinions of the famous journalist
Ahmed Midhat Efendi concerning Progress, or read his translation of Drap-
er's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science or Midhat’s refutation of
materialism entitled Who Am I? (Ben Kimim?). He could have followed Mid-
hat Efendi’s Midafaa (A.H. 1300), a work complaining of missionary at-
tempts to convert Muslims and the counter-polemic resulting from some of
these publications.
As to what influence the daily press could have had on Said Nursi, one
witness of his times commented:

The tone and trend of Turkish papers is to intensify the hold of the Sovereign
and Khalif on the imagination of the new ‘“‘true believers,’ especially in lower
classes, even in the outlying districts of his extensive dominions, thus di-
rectly increasing the influence and prestige of the Central Ottoman Govern-
ment among the non-Ottoman tribes and nationalities. (Duguid, 1973, 140,
citing G. P. Gooch and H. Temperley, British Documents on the Origin of the
War (London, 1938), V, p. 27)

It was his contacts with the officials in the Governor's mansion which con-
vinced him that the classical arguments which he had encountered to refute
 Life 77
the doubts of unbelievers (i.e., the Westernized Tanzimat intellectuals) were
worthless (BSN. 44) and that a study of secular sciences (funén) was neces-
sary to refurbish these arguments.
Said Nursi’s official biography states that it is at this time that he was
given the sobriquet of ‘“Bediiizzaman’” (‘nonpareil’ of the times) because of
the speed with which he had mastered the new secular sciences. His famil-
larization with these subjects must indeed have involved some feat of supe-
rior intelligence, for up to that time he had only been fluent in Kurdish and
he had just begun to learn Turkish (BSN, 46). His first statement of prin-
ciples, which was to be the basis for the Risale-i Nur, was written in Arabic
(cerca, 1920).
Bediiizzaman’s experience with these new subjects convinced him that
he should “enlighten his students by demonstrating the truths of religion in
the manner most appropriate to the understanding of that century” (BSN,
45). Too much time was spent in detailed investigations of theology, while
the real target should have been to win over the “hearts” of people, and
kindness (yefkat-shafaqa) and fellow-feeling had to replace the thrill that the
Sufi spoke of as love for God (ask-‘ishq). This characteristic reference to the
“hearts” of the community of believers alerts us to a similarity with the
vocabulary of a movement, much removed in space, which also had stressed
that salvation was a function of faith rather than of learning, namely Meth-
odism. That two faiths separated not only by distance but by dogmatic dif-
ferences should have converged on a similar style of address to the faithful is
a remarkable feature most probably due to more than a coincidence. In both
cases, the changes which had occurred in society made an appeal for active
participation to the hitherto passive masses.
In the case of Methodism, it was the population uprooted by the in-
dustrial revolution which was seen as constituting the shock batallions of a
revived Christianity (Wilson, 1970, 48). In their state of uprootedness and
spiritual disarray, a direct appeal, a mobilizing thrust were the means of
recapturing them for an increasingly activist society. In the Muslim setting
‘‘agsk” (love) was the means by which the Sufi lost his earthly moorings; but,
for Said Nursi, as for Sirhindi and many of his intellectual heirs, Islam had
to be brought back into this world. The ecstatic practices of Sufism as well
as the mystics’ theory of the “unity of being” were of no use in solving the
contemporary problems of Muslims. In the Ottoman Empire the stagnation
of the traditional structure of religiosity and accelerated social change also
made it incumbent upon religious leaders to elicit a religious mobilization.
Said continued to fight against what he considered the greed of his
78 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

colleagues while acting as religious attaché in the office of the governor of

Van. He served the authorities as a conciliator in tribal disputes. Newspa-
pers were regularly received in the office of the governor, and it is in a news
dispatch from London that Said Nursi states he received the first great shock
that urged him to adopt a crusading spirit in the cause of Islam. The date
was 1895 (Sahiner, 1979, 72). A fracas with Armenians in Istanbul had
aggravated the Armenian problem. Europe was in arms against the Muslim
Ottoman “‘barbarians.” The British secretary of the colonies had made a
speech stating that Muslims never would become civilized unless the Qur'an
was wrested away from them. Said Nursi reacted violently, pledging to show
the world that the Qur'an was “‘unextinguishable.” It was the very same type
of shock which was leading the Young Turks of the capital to post placards
against the rule of Sultan Abdiilhamid II.
Said Nursi’s fiery defense of Islam must have reached the ears of Yahya
Niizhet Pasa, the mutasarrif of Zor (in present day Syria, Deir el-Zor) a
newly created sub-province which had a problem of nomad pacification.
Yahya Nuzhet Pasa was one of the trusted advisers of the palace and pre-
sumably was aware of the elaboration of pan-Islamic propaganda which was
taking place in the immediate circle of the sultan through consultation with
various seyhs (Giindtiz, 1984, 225; Trimingham, 1973, 126-127; Abu
Manneh, 1979). Ntizhet Pasa met Bediiizzaman in Erzincan. He must have
felt that Said was a suitable element to add to the select group of advisers
that the sultan was using. He thus gave a letter of recommendation to Said,
commending him to Abdiilhamid’s Imperial “Birdkeeper,’ Kuscubas: Mus-
tafa Bey. It was through such trusted aides rather than through the formal
governmental structure that the sultan carried out his more secret policies.
The son of Mustafa Bey, Esref Sencer Kuscubasi was later to become a lead-
ing figure in the Secret Service of the Young Turks, the so-called Teskilat-z
Mahsusa, and was a good friend of Said Nursi. It was he who was to im-
plement the pan-Islamic propaganda of the Young Turks during the First
World War to which Said Nursi also contributed.
Said remained in the mansion of Mustafa Bey for a year and a half,
more or less on call to the sultan. His talent, presumably, did not impress
the sultan, because he eventually returned to Van (1899; Sahiner, 1979, 77).
There now follows an interlude of about a decade in which we hear
nothing of Said in his authorized biography. He appears in the Ottoman
capital once more in 1907, moving into a an or hotel which catered to the
Muslim intelligentsia of the capital. This was a place where Mehmed Akif,
 Life 79
the poet, who was also a theoretician of an Islamic cultural revival for
the Ottoman Empire, could be found, as well as a host of other eminent
literateurs.
We do not know what prompted Said to move to the capital at that
date. Perhaps the deterioration of economic conditions throughout the Otto-
man Empire and especially in the east gave a new urgency to his desire to
present the sultan with a reform proposal which he did eventually submit.
The following is a contemporary description of the impression that he
created when he moved into the ‘“Sweetmakers” (Seferci) Han:

It was about the time of the Second Constitutional Period. I was studying in
the Fatih Medrese. I heard that a young man by the name of Bediiizzaman
had arrived in Istanbul and had hung the following sign on his door: “Here
any problem is solved, all questions are answered. But no questions are
asked.”’ I thought someone that presumptuous could only be mad. As I began
to hear of the many flattering comments concerning him and the admiration
expressed by the community of believers and the ‘ulema and students I was
intrigued and tried to get to know him better. I decided I would make up a
list of questions covering the most difficult and subtle problems of theology. I
too was considered quite an expert on such questions at the time. Finally, one
day I went to visit him. I presented him with my problems. The answers |
received were extremely original and showed great depth. He had answered
the questions as if he had been at my side when I had prepared them on the
preceding night. I was completely satisfied with his performance and came to
the conclusion that his knowledge was not like ours acquired (4esbi) but in-
spired (whbi). (Basoglu, in Narculuk, 355-356)

Said Nursi indicates that through prescience (luck?) he had re-read the pre-
vious evening all the books that he needed to answer the questions posed.
Through his connections in the palace Beditizzaman found the way to
present the sultan with a petition. The date of this event is not clear, but
the petition was reprinted in a newspaper entitled The East and Kurdistan
(November 19, 1908; Sahiner, 1979, 85) following the Young Turk Revo-
lution of 1908. In his petition Said stated that although some new schools
had been established in the Eastern area, the local population could not take
advantage of these because the teachers sent by the government knew no
Kurdish. Said Nursi proposed that the government take up a policy of what
has since been called ‘‘reverse-discrimination’” in minority studies of our
time. According to him it was incumbent upon the Ottoman government
80 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

that it sponsor and support a contingent of Kurdish speakers in order that

they be educated in the Ottoman secular school system. In the existing
system they could only be educated in the medreses, because the language
used there was Kurdish. The availability of a more varied educational fare as
well as the opportunity to study in Turkish would eliminate internal fac-
tional strife among the tribes and make them into good Ottoman citizens.
This enterprise could then be capped by establishing an eastern “university’’
which would train the local graduates of these secular schools. The univer-
sity would be built on the model of al-Azhar, the Arab center for higher
theological studies in Cairo. Indeed, at the turn of the century, the Azhar
was being gradually modernized to serve a function similar to that which
Said had in mind. The sultan had already given some thought to the prob-
lem, and had established a special palace school for training the sons of
tribal chiefs.
The option of upgrading existing religious educational establishments
versus their replacement by the type of secular school introduced by the
Tanzimat had already made the substance of an extensive debate in the Or-
toman Empire. Said opted for the first of these solutions. Bediiizzaman was
convinced that a compromise solution could be reached in which the conflict
between “‘religious sciences’ and “philosophical sciences’ was eliminated
and the clash between medrese graduates, tekke graduates and secular school
graduates would become irrelevant (BSN, 46).
As he stated on another occasion:

I had seen the miserable state of the tribes in the Eastern provinces. I under-
stood that what earthly happiness we could attain would be in one respect
through modern science, and a lively channel to establish these sciences would
be the ‘ulema and medrese, for the ‘ulema would thus acquire an understanding
of these sciences. Everyone knows that in those provinces the fate of the semi-
nomadic citizens (vantandas) is in the hands of the ‘ulema. And it 1s this
which led me to come to the capital. . . (BSN, 66).

A proposal for enlightening the rural masses had already been prepared in
the 1870s by a Naksibendi seyh of Erzincan (Giindiiz, 1984, 221). At the
time he presented his petition to the sultan, Beditizzaman is said to have
reminded the ruler of the similar petition which the Central Asian pan-
Islamist Abdiirresid Ibrahim had already given the Ortoman ruler.
Persons present at the audience have testified to Said’s great courage in
exposing his proposals to the sultan and criticizing his passivity as caliph
and leader of the Muslims (Sahiner, 1979, 88). It is this unheard-of behav-
 Life 81
ior which led the sultan’s officials to wonder whether Said was mentally
deranged. He was, therefore, sent to the Toptasi asylum for observation, but
during his interrogation it became evident that he was sane. He explained
that outspokenness was a characteristic of the mountain culture in which he
had originated and that the convention of Ottoman politeness current in the
capital could not be used to judge his behavior. His attitude was also an
outcome of his rebellion against the current apathy which he had found in
the capital, for he had dedicated himself to service to the nation (millet;
milla), religion (din; din) and the state (devlet; dawla). For fifteen years—
possibly since his stay in Mardin—he had been thinking of an idea, “Qur’-
ani freedom” (hiirriyet-i ser’tyye), and now this idea was in danger of being
swamped by an impending revolution by which he presumably meant the
Young Turk conspiracies (Sahiner, 1979, 90-91).
As to his bizarre mountaineer clothing, Said explained it as a means
of drawing attention to the contentiousness with which he wanted to ap-
proach Ottoman society as it existed. His continuous criticism of the ‘ulema
was due to the stagnation into which he felt religious studies had fallen. He
proposed a complete recasting of these.
If the Ottomans had been unable to achieve advances in science it was
due to the existence of three divergent streams of education in Turkey: the
medrese, the tekke (the ‘lodge’ of the Sufi orders) and the secular school
(Ibid., 93). The only way to bring back creativity was to reintroduce reli-
gious studies in the secular schools, to add the study of science to the
program of the medrese and to bring competent ‘a/ema into the tekke.
This was quite an impressive argumentation. The proposition that the
elimination of religion as a philosophical underpinning of studies had led
to sterility in the new schools had already been advanced by Cemaleddin
Afgani. Afgani believed that education as imitation and without a base of
philosophy or ethics was condemned to bear no fruit: graduates of Egyptian
schools were only superficially aware of the meaning of Western civilization
because they did understand its philosophical underpinning. The argument
is still being used in our day by such eminent thinkers as Ali Shariati, who
built up secular support for the Islamic revolution in Iran, and by contem-
porary Turkish thinkers such as Cemil Meric. Said Nursi also pointed out
once more that at a time like the one he was living through, marked as it
was by increased scepticism, asserting the truth of Islam was no longer
sufficient to impress people. It was a time when “‘‘a tendency to investigate
the truthfulness of a statement has awakened among all,” (Sahiner, 1979,
94). The person who advanced a claim had to prove it and convince his
82 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

opposite. This meant also that people could not “retreat in the corners of
old times” and use the ornate classical Ottoman rhetoric. The new era de-
manded that one speak words “in tune with [changing] conditions and
time” ([did.).
Said was disappointed by what he found in the Ottoman capital. In
his own words, which possibly also refer to his voyage of 1896, he stated:
I had grown up in the mountains of Kurdistan. I was imagining the seat of
the Caliphate to be a beautiful place. I arrived in Istanbul and saw that the
hatred which persons nourished against one another made them all into well-
dressed savages. I understood that the reason for the disease was this hypoc-
risy. They called me crazy. But I saw this bitter truth: I saw and understood
that Islam was behind, far behind the civilization of our times . . . There
were three culprits of this decline: the Doctors of Islamic law, those who had
not understood Europe and the members of mystic orders (tekke). (Kutay,
1966 (2), 214)

We next see Said in Salonika, the center where the preparations for a
coup against Abdiilhamid were the most intense. We do not know how long
he stayed in that town before the Young Turk revolution, but his authorized
biography provides us with the text of a speech which he is supposed to
have delivered in Salonika following the success of the Young Turk insurrec-
tion of July 3rd 1908. The sultan’s proclamation that the Ottoman Consti-
tution of 1876 was, once more, in force (Shaw and Shaw, 1977, II, 266—
267) had followed this successful coup.
In his speech, Buditizzaman described himself as a “‘nomad whom free-
dom had awakened”’ (for the speech see BSN, 51 f.) and went on to state:
O, oppressed sons of the fatherland let us enter the doors of progress and
civilization (medenzyet). The first door is that of participating in the common
stream of the serizat, the second is love of one’s nation, the third education, the
fourth human labor, the fifth the adandonment of debauched morals. (BSN,
51-52)
Here also appeared an unusual imagery where technology was made to serve
the ends of religion. Such hybrid metaphors continued thereafter to charac-
terize his style. He went on: ‘With the assistance of the miracle of prophet-
hood, God willing, we shall leave behind us more than a century of lag in
the race for progress and step onto the railroad of the basic laws of the
§ertat, bodily, and mount the prophetic steed of consultation based on reli-
gious law, intellectually” (BSN, 52).
 Life 83
In practice, equality, too, was more than a function of Young Turks’
virtue (fazzlet) and honor. It was a term that had reference to the law and to
the “higher law’ or which the law rested. As to the non-Muslims, their
place in society was a secondary one; they were not to occupy the slots at
the summit of Islamic society (BSN, 76).
That the Young Turks had something different in mind than Said
when they spoke about freedom was to become apparent in the months that
followed. As heirs to the mantle of the Ottoman state they had just as little
patience with uncontrolled religious currents as had the sultans who had
preceded them. Yet the autonomous flowering of religion was one of the
most striking developments that followed upon the revolution. In particular,
they had to take a serious view of pan-Islamic currents which found support
in part of the Ottoman press. Abdiirresid Ibrahim, the Siberian molla who
had travelled throughout the Islamic world and was to produce a two-volume
work on the World of Islam was prominent among those who demanded
assistance from the Ottomans for the Islamic World. He was one of the
publishers of a review which appeared in Istanbul; in it he wrote an open
letter to Beditizzaman. He had read and agreed with the latter’s Speech given
in Salonika, but what was really necessary was to devise a common policy
for all Islamic people (Kutay, 1967 (5), 206).
While in Salonika, Bediiizzaman was on good terms with leading
Young Turk figures. He had participated in social gatherings organized in
the house of the future minister of justice Manyasizade Refik Bey. Young
Turk leaders such as Talat (Pasa), Dr. Nazim, and Ali Fethi Bey had been
present. Talat asked him to accompany him to Istanbul (Kutay, 1977, 345),
but this did not prevent Said from being arrested by the new administration
even before he had departed for Istanbul. The Young Turks must have been
suspicious of his activities as a religious leader riding on the new wave of
freedom.
I have already tried to show how Islam operated in the Eastern prov-
inces as an autonomous political structure encouraged but not entirely con-
trolled by the state. I have also indicated that factions which formed within
the framework of popular Islamic institutions were important building
blocks of provincial politics even during the reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid II.
While these activities continued, a somewhat new phenomenon was also
emerging: Islam was becoming a channel through which persons who had
failed to become integrated into the secular system of the Tanzimat were
engaged in their own project of boundary expansion, and search for free-
84 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

dom. Said Nursi’s protest against the rigidity of religious studies provides
us with an example of how this was being done.
It is clear that the Young Turks, who were rather good at political
manipulation, could not understand that this was a movement which repli-
cated their own search for greater freedom, although in a different form. In
the various associations with an Islamic coloring which were formed after
the revolution of 1908 they saw only clusters of political opposition in
which Islam was used as a banner by cynical manipulators who wanted to
seize power. It is true that in the eastern provinces Islamic institutions were
placing their stamp on community life and in that sense escaped Young
Turk control. Also, there did exist many cynical notables who were ready to
use Islam for their own narrow political purposes. Nevertheless, the Islamic
component of political behavior in the Ottoman Empire was somewhat more
complex than could be derived from the model which the Young Turks had
learned to invoke when they were in Europe, namely that of the Catholic
Church seen as an insidious force undermining the secularism of the French
Third Republic. This image reinforced traditional suspicions which Otto-
man statesmen had always harbored with regard to localistic religiosity. The
Young Turks did appreciate the mobilizing dimension of pan-Islam and had
no qualms in using them, but they were not ready to share power with
groups which had a deeper commitment than their own to Islam, and used
it to shape their own model of an ideal society.
A consequence of this Young Turk attitude towards social movements
which, in their opinion, “endangered” the revolution, was their increasing
persecution of formations which they perceived as traitorous and which oth-
ers perceived as simply incipent political parties with a right to exist. The
reactionary outbreak of March 31st 1909 seemed to justify their fears.
Said Nursi was a founder of the Muslim association known as the
Ittihad-1 Muhammed? (The Muslim Union). The association was established a
week before the military rebellion in Istanbul which has acquired notoriety
in Turkish history as the “incident of March 31st’ (1909). The rebellious
group consisted of privates led by non-commissioned officers. The mouth-
piece of the Ittihad-1 Muhammedi, the Volkan, immediately became a leading
voice among the opposition to the Young Turks. It accused the latter of a
policy intimidation based on terrorism and, at the same time, of attacking
Islamic institutions. Because the “incident” was a reactionary, populist out-
break demanding a return to the seriat, the association was inculpated in
the rebellion. Its most popular writer, Dervis Vahdeti, was hanged. Said
Nursi disculpates himself of complicity in the outbreak. He states that he
 Life 85
harangued the Eastern porters of Istanbul so that they would abandon any
ideas they might have harbored of joining the rebellion.
The founders of the Ittihad-1 Muhammed? seem to have been ‘ulema of
middling and lower social status representing the central Orthodox (but
provincial) Ottoman Muslim tradition. The group had a special attraction
for provincial ‘ulema. The association termed itself a “party” (ftrka)
(Tunaya, 1952, 261; 1984, I, 183). Both its self-image and the sources of
discontent to which it appealed are important in establishing the setting for
Said Nursi’s life history. For one, the creation of this party showed consid-
erable understanding of the workings of voluntary associations. The self-
image of the “Party” which likened itself to “‘Anarchists,” “Jesuits,” or
“Missionaries” showed that it also understood the role of world-revolutionary
or mobilizing organizations. On the other hand, it had a substantive Is-
lamic content. It saw itself as different from political parties in the sense
that it was not the representive of a group but the carrier of an ideology
slated to “awaken Muslim political and social thought” (Tunaya, 1952, I,
270) in all states where Muslims were in “political slavery.’ Its leader was
“the Prophet Muhammad” (Idd., 27). One of its primary aims was to make
the seriat the fountainhead of Parliamentary legislation. Here we have al-
ready an adumbration of the populist Islamic revolution that was to shake
Iran in our time. In a sense, then, the elements of social and political mo-
bilization which brought about these developments were more directly
linked to the expanding communications frame of Muslims and to the clash
between Islamic and Western culture than to the short-term political cir-
cumstances preceeding the outbreaks.
Said Nursi’s familiarity with the terminology of nineteenth century
liberalism emerges clearly in connection with the speech that he pronounced
on the occasion of the re-establishment of the Constitution in 1908 (Bedi-
lizzaman, 1326), a speech of a later date than the Salonika speech. Freedom,
he states on this occasion, is so powerful a force that it has been able to
awaken even a “Kurd like him’ steeped in ignorance. If freedom had not
appeared, the millet would have remained in the prison of slavery ([bid., 4).
Here the term mi//et, which up to that time meant clearly the Muslim na-
tion, begins to acquire connotations of the Ottoman nation. Furthermore, if
the nation uses freedom as a guide, this will enable it to progress (terakk7).
Freedom also demands us to love our nation (muhabbet-i-milltye) (Ibid.); it
has opened the doors of progress and civilization (medenzyet). The time has
come when social bonds (rewbit-i wtimai) and the need for sustenance
(lizum-u taayyis) have increased to such an extent that the nation can only
86 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

be governed by a national assembly. Nevertheless, the newly acquired free-

dom is described once more as “Ser’z’’: it should not be used for ‘“‘indul-
gence in rake-like dissipation” (sefahat) or to achieve “illegitimate pleasures”
(Ibid., 5). Science should be gladly accepted from the foreigners, but this
must be done in such a way as to preserve our national customs (adat-i
milltye) (Ibid., 9). This is what the Japanese have done, and they should be
an example to the Ottomans. The new government is based on “public
opinion” (Ibid., 10) and actions undermining this newly won solidarity
should be shunned. The old times were also times when savagery (ushget)
was dominant and force and compulsion ruled, but in the times of civiliza-
tion it is science and learning which rule. In olden times men were so
circumscribed in their action that they were no different from animals. On
the other hand, if the Ottoman Empire has declined, this is due to the
neglect of the sertat, as much as it is due to autocracy. It is also the result of
being misled by appearance and of slavish imitation of Europe.
All of these are not very original statements of political theory, but
they do show that Said had begun to use the liberal-constitutionalist termi-
nology which figures prominently among the intellectual baggage of the
Young Turks. Somewhat more striking is the stress he places in one of his
later speeches on poverty, ignorance and anarchy as the three main enemies
of the Ottomans. To eliminate these enemies Said advised national union
(ittthad-1 mill?), human exertion (séy-2 insani?), and national solidarity
(muhabbet-i mill?) (Ibid., 20). There is nothing in these sources to justify the
later accusation levelled against him by most of his modern Turkish critics
that he was a Kurdish nationalist. It is true that by 1910 his message to the
inhabitants of the Diyarbakir region was that they should be in control of
the region (G. Lowther to E. Grey, Constantinople, January 22, 1911,
F.0., V, 225). In the perspective of Said’s later career it is fair to evaluate
this attitude as that of an “Ottoman” demanding cultural and administra-
tive autonomy. Before the Turkish Republic this attitude would not have
been misunderstood by many Ottoman officials, who saw the Empire as a
consoctation of ethnic groups.
A second point of theoretical importance concerns the ethic of exertion
that Said continuously invokes in these years. This ethic may not be the full
equivalent of a puritan ethic, but it certainly was an activism which preach-
ers of his time were only beginning to use as a social value with the widest
application. However, the source of this activism has to be sought even ear-
lier, for the Nakstbendi order had acquired this stance long before the con-
frontation with the West to which Ottoman activism is usually attributed.
 Life 87
An additional point would be that Said Nursi’s movement, just as that of
the Naksibendi, had nothing to it that can be described as millenarian. Ic
was pre-millenarian in the sense of being in line with orthodox expectations
as to the future prospects of the Muslim community.
Said moved from Van to Urfa and Diyarbakir. There he met Ziya
Gokalp, a person who was shortly to become a major Young Turk theoreti-
cian and who had had similarly intense religious experiences during his
youth (Sahiner, 1979, 134-136). At the time Gédkalp was slowly adopting
the viewpoint of European positivism and solidarism. Bediiizzaman seems
to have by then established his prestige in the area as an important seyh,
since he was a guest of the most important notable, Mustafa Bey.
In the winter of 1911 Beditizzaman arrived in Damascus (Sahiner,
1979, 136). This may have been a spiritual pilgrimage to a center where
miiceddidi Naksibendism had been established by the Muradi family (Hourani,
1972, 94). He is purported to have given a long sermon in the Umayyad
Mosque in which the main themes were those that Muslims advocating
a revival of Islam had already been developing: while adopting the technol-
ogy of the West, Muslims should not let themselves be overwhelmed
by hopelessness. They should find means of reinforcing the cohesion of
Muslim society: Islam provided a superior spiritual basis for social cohesion.
This Islamic social cement was so strong that, if it were activated, Islam
would spill into the rest of the world and bring it under its sway
(BSN, 83-85).
Said thereafter returned to Istanbul. Sulcan Abdiilhamid had been de-
posed and replaced by the kindly and rather ineffective Sultan Mehmed Re-
sad. The sultan was known to have had an affiliation with the Mevievi order.
Perhaps this is what made him take sympathetic notice of the petition
which Said Nursi presented him: in it he repeated what he had already
asked in his petition to Sultan Abdtilhamid. When the sultan undertook a
journey through the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Said was
co-opted into his personal staff. Taking advantage of the government's lay-
ing the foundations of a new university in Kosovo, Said obtained an alloca-
tion of similar funds for a university in Van (BSN, 254). Returning to Van,
he personally selected a place for the university and saw that the foundations
for this institution were laid. Turkey, however, had by then become em-
broiled in the Balkan War, and the project was abandoned. The Turkish
regular army suffered a series of reverses during this war, which came to an
end in July 1913. The Ottoman inhabitants of the capital were severely
shaken, and desperate schemes began to be proposed in order to assure the
88 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

survival of the Empire. The entry of the Ottoman Empire into the First
World War on the side of the Central Powers was one of these moves.
Said had once more returned to Van and Bitlis to teach in the Horhor
Medrese. It might have been at this time that he was approached by a
number of local personalities who were preparing an insurrection against the
Young Turks:
Those Chiefs and clans who had benefited under the fallen Sultan were being
incited by reactionary circles in the capital to make trouble in outlying prov-
inces and create difficulties for the revolutionary party in power. Widespread
robberies in isolated valleys and out-of-the-way districts and the raiding of
flocks of defenceless peasants increased in proportion to the Turkish defeats
in the Balkans.
There also was a political aspect to it: “Kurdistan for the Kurds” a new
password was being whispered from tek& (a shrine or hostel) to stekké of the
Sheikhs who were convinced that the Ottoman Empire had suffered the great
disaster of 1912-13 because the Young Turks were godless and Farmason
(Masons). (Safrastian, 1948, 72; also Sahiner, 1979, 167)
One person involved in the movement was seyb Sahabettin, son of Said’s
teacher, Nur Mehmed Efendi (van Bruinessen, 1978, 350).
In 1913 an ill-advised w/z of Bitlis who tried to collect taxes due to
the government was faced by a full-scale rebellion. In July 1913, the seyh
who was leading the insurrection occupied Bitlis. Ottoman troops took the
city back within a week (Safrastian, 1948, 73-74). Beditizzaman seems to
have joined the Young Turk secret service soon after this event. He partici-
pated in the drafting of the five Czhad Fetva proclaimed by the Young Turks
upon their entrance into the First War on the side of the Central Powers (for
the text see Albayrak, 1975, 86; for Young Turk propaganda see Green,
1978, 223).
We have a remarkable explanation of Said Nursi’s affiliation with the
Young Turks, who after all had not accorded him the gentlest treatment.
For him the Young Turks represented the last chance of using the Ottoman
armed might to good avail. With the disintegration of the army during the
First World War this opportunity had also disappeared. Said states that all
that was left for him to do then was to reintegrate into his role of the new
Said, the Said who appealed to the religious faith of the community rather
than the Said who worked through political structures.
In 1915 Said went to Tripoli by submarine, being sent by the Young
Turks to encourage the Sanusz to resistance against the Italian occupiers of
Tripolitania (Sahiner, 1979, 153). By August of 1915 he had returned to
 Life 89
Turkey and was fighting on the Anatolian eastern front in the local militia
(Sahiner ed., 1978, 234). The collaboration of some of the Armenians of
the Anatolian regions with the Russians made the struggle a particularly
bitter one.
Said was taken prisoner by the Russians while defending Bitlis (Sa-
hiner, 1979, 172). In Russia he was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in
Kostroma, where he spent two and a half years. He must have been im-
pressed by the attitude of his jailers, for he was later to state that while the
Russians allowed him to gather a congregation for prayer in the camp, the
Turkish Republic had refused him the same right. He lived through the
Russian Revolution and escaped in the spring of 1917. He returned to
Turkey via Petersburg, Warsaw, Berlin, and Vienna (BSN, 104). He later
stated that he had also taken a trip to Switzerland to study how people of
different religious and ethnic stock had been able to make up a modern
state. The Young Turk leaders were still in power when he returned but
were to flee upon the signing of the Armistice in October 1918.
Moves were immediately initiated to make the Young Turk adminis-
tration answer for its actions in involving Turkey in the War. The seyhiilis-
lam Musa Kazim Efendi, who was accused of having helped the secularizing
moves of the Young Turks, was placed on trial. On the other hand, some
measures in the spirit of Said’s proposals were carried out in order to mod-
ernize the medrese structure. One of these was the Dér il-Hikmet il-Islamiye,
an embryonic academy of higher Islamic studies. Bediiizzaman was ap-
pointed to this body (Albayrak, 1973).
A flood of commentary on the religious and cultural policies of the
Young Turks began to appear in the press. Said joined in the debate, writ-
ing a number of pamphlets in which he tried to explain the causes of the
Ottoman debacle. According to him one of the deep causes of the defeat
had been the inability of the Young Turks to integrate Islam into their
ideology. Sunuhat (1920), Hakikat Cekirdekleri (1920 ), Nokta (1921), Ru-
muz ( 1922), Isarat (1923) made up this series. Cenap Sahabettin, a prom-
inent Turkish author (1870—1934), had published an article in the daily
Peyam-1 Sabah stating that he did not see how Islam was going to be pre-
served through a tightening of control over the observance of religion;
rather, he believed it was through the opening up of the door of itihad
(4jtthad; interpretation) that Islam could be integrated into modern life. It
was in this way that aspects of Islam restricting participation in modern
life, such as the interdiction of the drawing of the human figure, could be
avoided. It was in this way, coo, that polygamy could be made a thing of
90 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

the past (Sahiner, 1979, 230). Said Nursi’s answers in such pamphlets as
Tuluat, Lemaat and Hubab replicated those which had already been used by
the school of Islamic reformists in Egypt, the Salafiyya. He stated that there
were two aspects of Qur’anic injunctions. Some were fixed, and no amount
of liberalization could change their meaning. Others were amenable to
change through i¢tihad. This was a somewhat oblique statement but one
which has often constituted the gist of an answer to requests for the opening
of the gate of stthad. What Said Nursi seems to have offered in the place of
ittihad was a means of finding new applications for old principles. He thus
advised that the bookishness which had crept into the pedagogy of the
medrese be replaced by teaching based on a new educational philosophy (Sa-
hiner, 1979, 92-93). Each medrese student also should choose a specializa-
tion for themselves in the non-religious sciences. This seems to be the
meaning of his use of fen in referring to the field of specialization ([hd.).
Some time after the Armistice, a Society for the Promotion of Kurds,
Kurdistan Tealt Cemtyeti, erroneously known as “Kart Teal” (Tunaya, 1986,
II, 186) was formed. It seemed to promote primarily cultural goals (van
Bruinessen, 1985, p. 131) even though some members had more radical
aims than others, and the Diyarbakir association branch was for outright
Kurdish nationalism. Said Nursi is said to have figured among the founders
of this association. But a number of points have to be taken into account
here, which, in fact, absolve Said from the accusation of being a separatist.
Said does not figure among the directorate elected at the first general meet-
ing of the society. He is not mentioned as a founder by the scholar who has
collected the most extensive information about the association (Tunaya, II,
1986, 186f.). He claims that he was always opposed to nationalism, which
he considered an evil doctrine because it had created divisions among the
followers of Islam (Mektubat, 59). In addition, the person who was selected to
head the association, Abdiilkadir, the son of the rebellious Seyh Ubeydullah
of the 1880s, was a supporter of Kurdish autonomy, not of independence.
He was the head of the Ottoman Senate and was considered an Ottoman
agent by his own community.

Crisis of Conscience

A turning point in Said Nursi’s life was the “Crisis of Conscience”

which he experienced following his return from Russia. The Young Turk
 Life 91
triumvirate had fled in the fall of 1918. In February 1919 an Allied fleet
anchored in Istanbul, and General Franchet d’Esperay rode into the city on
a white horse, a gift of the Greek community. The new sultan, Vahdettin,
had dissolved the Chamber of Deputies and appointed a grand vizier known
for his conservative leanings. Tendencies opposed to the radicalism of the
Young Turks were emerging. The Young Turks had given a fair share of
attention to religious issues but in the long run a secularist pattern could be
seen to emerge from their solicitude for Islam. Much of family law, for
example, had been taken out of the jurisdiction of religious courts in their
time (Bouvat, 1921).
Now a more truly religious experiment, aiming to salvage and rein-
force Islamic institutions, was being attempted.
Mustafa Sabri Efendi, known for his conservatism, became seyhilislam.
The year he was appointed his refutation to the liberal approach to Islam
appeared entitled The Sczentific Values of the New Interpreters of Islam (Yeni
Islam Miictehitlerinin Kzrymet-i Iimiyyesi) (Berkes, 1964, note 3, 434). In it,
Sabri criticized the reformist approach of Musa Carullah, a Muslim religious
thinker from Russia. Mustafa Sabri claimed that the idea of freedom of
conscience had no Islamic base. We do not know what Said thought of the
debate at the time. At a later date he stated that both Mustafa Sabri and
Musa Carullah had adopted extreme positions.
In the Ottoman capital, Said was given a position in the newly estab-
lished Islamic Academy, the Dér &/-Hikmet il-Islamiye (BSN, 112-117). He
writes of these years as being ones during which he was extremely happy.
He lived in Camlica, on the Bosphorus, and shared his lodgings with his
nephew Abdurrahman, who acted as his secretary. Despite these happy as-
sociations, the years he spent in Istanbul (1919-1921) were also a time of
crisis for the Ottoman Empire, and he could not but share in the burden of
defeat and occupation by enemy troops. These were also years during which
a crisis of conscience was to change his views radically. His years at the
Islamic Academy were marked by repeated breakdowns in health (Albayrak,
1973, 188). Since an early age Said had been in the center of provincial
and later national politics, now he had to turn away from political involve-
ment and work at the grass roots level. This transformation occurred rela-
tively slowly and culminated with his exile in 1925, a development which
Said considered to be a sign of his new vocation.
The crisis of 1921 was precipitated by what he describes as a totally
unexpected betrayal by one of his close friends (Lem’alar, 225). A feeling of
helplessness, reinforced by the realization that he had passed the prime of
92 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

life, began to dawn. All of this plunged him into dark thoughts followed
by complete despair. His own description of this crisis is quite clear:
With the stark recognition (sntibah) that resulted from old age (thtiyarlzk) |
first saw the mortality (fanilik) of the ephemeral things in which I was inter-
ested. At that time, my soul, which was seeking permanence and which
became fixated on the impermanent believing it was permanent, forcefully
impressed on me the following: Since my body is mortal, what can I gain
from these ephemeral things. Since I am powerless, what good can come from
the powerless. I must find an ever-lasting protector (Bakz-i Sermed?) an eternal
power (Kadir-i Ezel?). (Lem’alar, 225)

Bediiizzaman described the changes which he experienced in a series of

brochures published in Arabic in 1921 (Lem’alar, 104). The starting point
of his spiritual voyage was the discovery that he had been captivated by the
philosophical sciences (Ulim-u Felsefe) (Lem’alar, 225) and had given them
weight equal to that of religion (Ulém-u Islamiye). These philosophical sci-
ences had muddied his soul and become an obstacle to his moral progress.
The pessimism that philosophy generated resulted in his soul being
“strangled’’ by the Universe. A sudden flash originating in his reading of
the Qur’an impressed upon him the idea that there was no God but Allah
(La tlaha illa bu) and “cleaned out all those impurities.”” His own recollec-
tion of the intellectual change he experienced is as follows:

Forty or fifty years ago, Old Said who had been steeped too deeply in intel-
lectual and philosophical sciences (Ulim-u akltyye ve felseftye) tried to find the
ultimate truth among the followers of mystic orders tarikat and the investi-
gators of ultimate reality (eh/-2 tarikat, ehl-i hakikat). He could not be satis-
fied like most of the followers of tartkat with an impetus coming from the
heart because his intellectual faculties carried the wound of philosophical dis-
course. He had to be cured. He then tried to follow some of the investigators
who had combined heart and mind. Every one of them had a different attrac-
tion. He was confused as to which one to follow. The Imam-1 Rabbani
{Sirhindi} transmitted to him a hidden message (gaybi) which carried the
meaning of “unify your &b/a”’ or, in other words, find a single master. This
deeply wounded heart of the old Said who then thought: ‘The true master
(ustad) is the Qur'an. Finding a single master will be only possible with that
one.’ Thus, following the guidance of this divine master, his heart and his
soul began to rise up in a strange way. His selfhood (mnefs-i emmaresi) with its
own failings (sé#kuk ve siitbehatiyle) forced him to a spiritual and intellectual
confrontation. But not with his eyes closed; he journeyed with his eyes open
just as the Imam-i Gazzali, Mevlana Celaleddin and the Imam-1 Rabbani had
 Life 93
journeyed with the eyes of their heart, soul and wisdom open in the same
places where the absent minded had closed their mind’s eye. Praise be to God
. . . he found a path to truth through the lesson, the guidance of the Qur’an.
(Mesnevi-1 Nuriye, 1977, 7)

The process by which Said’s reasoning self was convinced of the central
importance of the unicity of God was one in which he put to a critical test
what he knew about biology and botany. Prior to the flash of illumination
he had believed that natural phenomena were to be explained by natural
causes: the tree produced the fruit (Lem’alar, 226). The new insight he
received was that effects (the fruit) as well as causes (the trees) were the prod-
uct of the direct unmediated intervention of God. If one were to survey the
processes which took place in the fruit, one would find that they were no
less complex than those taking place in the tree. But if the product (or
effect) was infinitely complex, there was no possible way of correlating this
complexity with that of the cause (tree). Also, since something could not
arise of nothing, the tissues, and other complex biological entities which
appeared in the full-grown plant existed as a potential in some location
before the maturation of the plant, yet they could not be observed anywhere
before this maturation. Therefore, the structure of the plant could only be
attributed to a divine plan, particularly since every species went through its
appointed paces without a deviation from the plan, without a mistake ever
occurring.
Said Nursi’s concentration on “final causes” was a natural outcome of
the fashion in which philosophical debates had been carried by the Ottoman
intellectuals of his time. Both agnostics and conservatives had chosen biol-
ogy, life and creation as the arena in which to wage the war of materialism
against spiritualism. The same debate had also marked European intellec-
tual history in the nineteenth century, but in that context, creation could
still be seen as a remote event which had set the universe in motion. The
laws of physics were the means by which the creator had enabled the dy-
namic of creation to be perpetuated. Muslim, Ash’ari, philosophy had al-
ways accorded a more direct role to God, who was conceived as recreating
the world at every instant. The doctrine of ‘emanation’ which saw the
events of the world as an emanation from the being of God was the mystic’s
somewhat different explanation of the primal force.
The reason Said Nursi had fastened on biology in his refutation was
related to the peculiarities of the spread of Western science in the Ottoman
Empire in the nineteenth century. In the Ottoman Empire the sciences of
94 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

life—biology, botany, physiology—had developed quite early through their

incorporation into the program of the medical schools. It is on this ground
that scepticism had grown, for in the medical school life processes were
shown to have a physical or chemical origin. This was the breeding ground
for scepticism, and it must have been that upon which Said focused his
attention. His later writings constantly take up the processes of biology and
botany as proofs of the creative force of divinity.
Said states that the works which helped him clear the way to a resolu-
tion of his own confusion were the Me&tubat of Sirhindi and the Futéh al-
Ghayb or sermons of ’Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (for these sources, Triming-
ham, 1973, 41), the sternness and soberness of which (Schimmel, 1978,
247) seems to have given him a cathartic jolt.
It is probable in this latter source that he found the inspiration for
another idea which was to reappear in his own work—but which is a main
theme of Islamic reformism—that of the unicity of God as a guiding prin-
ciple. Said Nursi gained from the idea of the unicity of God an internal
confirmation of belief which was also to effect his strategy of revivalism.
This internal turmoil made him view the circumstances of his day-to-day
life in Istanbul with disgust, which led him to return to Van (1920-1921).
Here he found the medrese where he had taught in the past, the Horhor
Medrese, in ruins, its students dispersed and both the Armenian and the
Muslim quarters of Bitlis gutted by the war.
He felt abandoned by all; his nephew and secretary, Abdurrahman,
had left, and, although he eventually received some news from him, Abdur-
rahman died shortly thereafter. This loss shook Said Nursi. He states that
one half of his private world had disappeared with the death of his mother;
Abdurrahman’s death meant the loss of the remaining half of his private
universe. Abdurrahman’s death was shortly thereafter to be compensated for
by another young man who dedicated himself to Said’s service and to the
propagation of his writings (Lem’alar, 232).
Beditizzaman had published a brochure (Sahiner, 1979, 226) in which
he attacked the Greek occupation of Western Anatolia and the British policy
which had made this occupation possible. He also protested at the fetw of
the seyhilislam Dirrizade Abdullah (April 11, 1920) which proclaimed
Mustafa Kemal to be an outlaw (Sahiner, 1979, 236). The Ankara govern-
ment formed in opposition to that of the sultan seems to have been im-
pressed and invited him to join the movement. Bediiizzaman arrived in the
summer of 1922 (Sahiner, 1979, 240). In one passage of the Emirdag La-
hikast (1959, 10) he states that Mustafa Kemal asked him to perform a
 Life 95
function similar to that which the Sanus: leaders had performed for Lybia,
a unification of the population by providing a religious focus of allegiance.
Mustafa Kemal had himself been in charge in 1916 of an army corps which
was to have rescued Bitlis, but he had arrived too late (Allen & Muratoff,
1953); he therefore was aware of Said Nursi’s heroism on that occasion.
The Grand National Assembly allocated 150,000 liras for a university
in Van (BSN, 254). However, in January of 1923 Said Nursi was already
circulating in parliament a broadsheet which pointed out that it was
through God’s grace that the Turkish War of Independence had been won,
and yet nothing had been done to bring Turkey to a more Muslim way
of life. He was now warning the deputies of the Grand National Assembly
that he feared a dangerous wave of destructive secularism would submerge
Turkey.

The instrument of your victory and the body which recognize your services
are one, they are the community of believers, and in particular the lower
Classes who are solid Muslims. . . . And it is therefore incumbent upon you
to act in accordance with Qur’anic injunctions. To prefer the pitiable, rootless
(milliyetsiz = nationless), Europe-worshipping imitators of Frankish customs
who are detaching themselves from Islam to the masses of the Muslim people
(avam) is against Islamic custom and will lead the world of Islam to direct its
gaze in another direction and request assistance from others. (BSN, 126)

Beditizzaman still believed that the Turks should make use of the forces
of Islam throughout the world, a policy which the Young Turks had also
followed. At the same time, this was just before the government's move
toward secularization of March 3rd, 1924, which abolished the caliphate.
He must have had an inkling of the way the wind was blowing in the
immediate circle around Mustafa Kemal since he also made the point that
the religious legitimation derived from the caliphate placed the ruler of
Turkey in an unusually strong position in an age when community ties of
religion were acquiring an enhanced value. He returned to Van in the
spring of 1923, where he remained until February—March 1925. The up-
rising of Seyh Said was now in full swing, and Said Nursi was accused of
having links with its perpetrators (van Bruinessen, 1978, 380). Beditiz-
zaman himself denies this and states that he tried to prevent the rebellion
(BSN, 135); at any rate, he was arrested with a number of other local no-
tables and herded into a school building in Van. The group was directed to
Antalya, from where Said was sent to Burdur and Isparta (Sahiner, 1979,
260—G61; and compare with Son Sahitler, 11, 212 which gives the first place as
96 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Isparta). At Isparta he continued to teach in a medrese, but the crowds he

attracted forced the governor to move him to the village of Barla (Son
Sahitler, WI, 212).
The circumstances which now pitted Said Nursi against the Turkish
authorities constitute one of the most colorful episodes in his life. They also
underline the type of fear which Said Nursi inspired in the authorities.
Finally, they show that later, in the 1950s, after the defeat of Turkish Ja-
cobin secularism, the Turkish judiciary gave a creditable performance of
impartiality in cases in which the basic charge was the undermining of the
constitutional principle of laicism or secularism. This principle was defined
by a series of statutes which made up its substantive content. Among these
figured the law abolishing the medrese and the ‘ulema hierarchy, the adoption
of the Swiss Civil Code and the disestablishment of Islam. In 1932 the
Arabic call to prayer was made illegal. In July of the same year Said Nursi
was arrested for having given the call in Arabic in the village where he
resided. Somebody must have been waiting for the occasion because the law
was not as yet being strictly applied. Nothing seems to have come of this
particular accusation against him. In 1934 he was transferred from Barla to
Isparta (Sahiner, 1979, 297). By that time, the number of persons who were
spreading the message contained in the many lectures he had written was
increasing. It is this accumulation of followers and disciples acquiring in-
creasing renown as the “‘students of Nur’ which seems to have alerted the
government. Beditizzaman was transferred to Eskisehir under military escort
and placed in the town jail (1935). The conditions in which the prisoners
lived seem to have been particularly bad. Said Nursi was eventually con-
demned to eleven months in jail as the author of the pamphlets which had
been found in the houses of his disciples. Fifteen of his followers were con-
demned to six months in jail and 105 were acquitted.
In his defense, Said Nursi stated that whatever writings he had writ-
ten, he, nevertheless, had not published anything that would be counter to
the new secular laws. He also pointed out that reading the brochures, the
totality of which were now called the Risale-i Nur (The Epistle of Light), was
a means of shoring up law and order, not of undermining it. He was not
trying to set up a new ¢arikat and this for a simple reason: many people
who were not members of a religious order had been able to go to paradise
but none who lacked faith had been able to achieve this. The point, then,
was to encourage faith, not to spread religious orders. One of the questions
he asked was the following: taking someone like himself who had shown his
 Life 97
mettle in the defense of Turkish national goals, would it be dangerous to
have some Turks establish a bond of “brotherhood in the hereafter’ (ahret
kardesi) with him? “I am before all else a Muslim . . . ,” he argued, “‘but I
did serve the Turks and of all the services I rendered, ninety-nine percent
were to the Turks.” He added: “In Asia it is religion which is the dominant
force. There can be no doubt that the Republican regime which may be
seen as the commanding force in Asia will try to take advantage of this
force.” Said was arguing that his teachings constituted a force for good in
two respects: as a support for law and order inside Turkey, and also as a
means of eliciting the sympathy of the other Asian nations. Again, this was
a point at which Said Nursi showed remarkable perspicacity.
In 1936 Beditizzaman was released. He was sent to Kastamonu under
a gendarme escort. He remained there for seven years. He had retained
contacts with Isparta, in particular with the villages of Bedre, Ilema, Ku-
leonii, Islamkiy, Sav and Atabey (Sahiner, 1979, 310). These were villages
where veritable rural printing presses had sprung up and where his works
were being copied for distribution. One person in this network, known as
the “Nur Exchange” was the imam of the village of Bedre, Sabri Efendi,
who made thousands of duplicates of the letters which Said sent to followers.
It is stated that 60,000 copies of the various chapters of what was to become
the Risale-1 Nur were distributed at this time (Idd.). This figure is obvi-
ously exaggerated but that his message was beginning to be heard in the
surrounding area is clear.
In Kastamonu the same activity continued. To the lycée students who
came to him because they stated they had been given no knowledge about
God (Sahiner, 1979, 314), he answered:

All of the sciences which you are studying proclaim the name of God in
their own terms and testify to the name of a creator. (Sahiner, 1979, 314 and
for confirmation, Abdullah Yegin in Aydsnlar Konusuyor, 245)

In 1943 Bediiizzaman was again arrested and taken to Ankara. He

was thereafter exiled to Denizli. All of his followers, a total of 126, gath-
ered from Isparta, Kastamonu and other towns, were arrested. A jury made
up of experts on religion were given the task of looking through his writ-
ings. They came to the conclusion that these were concerned with faith and
religion and that there was no evidence that they constituted the ideology of
a secret religious society. In 1944 he and his students were acquitted by the
98 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Denizli higher court. Said was ordered to establish obligatory residence in

Emirdag near Afyon, where he was under constant observation.
In 1948 (Sahiner, 1979, 347) Said once again was accused of estab-
lishing a secret society with political goals. It is quite clear that this time
his followers were very badly treated while in prison under arrest. In Decem-
ber 1948 he was condemned to 20 months in jail; one of his followers was
condemned to 18 months, and twenty to six months each. Said Nursi was
being kept in the Denizli prison in preventive detention while his case was
being judged. He was released when a general amnesty was proclaimed by
the new Demokrat administration in May 1950. After a stay of two years in
Emirdag he moved to Eskisehir; in 1951 he went to Isparta. In 1952, the
public prosecutor in Istanbul once more opened a case against him for ille-
gal religious propaganda because of a book entitled Guide to Youth which
had just been published (in Latin characters since only these were legal
since 1928).
Said Nursi’s trial became a public event of huge proportions. Now an
old man, Said Nursi entered the courtroom supported by university stu-
dents. He was wearing a black frock and the officially proscribed turban.
By the second session of the case—one month later—a large crowd, partly
made up of university students, was in attendance in the courtroom and
filled the streets. Said Nursi was acquitted. He was once more acquitted in
a trial in 1953.
By 1956, with a government somewhat more sympathetic to Islam in
office since 1950, Said Nursi announced that it was incumbent upon his
followers to support the new Demokrat Party. Thus began a third phase in
his life in which he kept personally aloof from politics while encouraging his
followers to take part in it. In 1957, for instance, he encouraged his fol-
lowers to vote for Dr. Tahsin Tola, a Demokrat Party candidate who later
edited Beditizzaman’s authorized biography. In 1952, Tola had been tried by
his own party for anti-secular (anti-/aic) activities together with another rep-
resentative from Isparta, Said Bilgic.
A letter which Said Nursi wrote to his followers at that time clarifies
his stand. To a self-posed question as to why for a time he had given up
politics he answered: ‘I did not engage in politics, because at some point
the individual had to sacrifice his desires to the good of the community. It
is this common good that the Risale-i Nur tries to proclaim.” To a second
question: ““Why do you speak of contemporary ‘civilization’ as a civilization
that has nothing civil in it? Had you not attempted to convince the Nomads
of the advantages of civilization and progress?” he answered:
 Life 99
Because Western civilization as it stands today has contravened the divine
fundamental laws, its evils have proved greater than its benefits. The real
goals of civilization which are general well-being and happiness in this world
have been subverted. Instead of economy and abstemiousness (kanaat) we have
waste and debauchery, instead of work and service we have laziness and sloth.
Thus humanity has simultaneously become very poor and very lazy. The fun-
damental law of the Qur'an, which originated in the firmament (semav2), is
that the happiness in life of humanity is in economy and in concentration on
work and it is around this principle that the masses and the elite can come
together. And to explain this principle which is already in the Risale-i Nur let
me add one or two points.
First: In the state of nomadism people only needed three or four
things. And those who could not obtain these three or four products were
two out of ten. The present oppressive Western civilization in consequence of
its consumption and waste and the stimulation of its appetites has brought
nonessentials to become essentials and because of mores and habituation this
so-called civilized man instead of four has twenty needs. And yet he can only
obtain two of these twenty. He still needs eighteen. Therefore, contemporary
civilization impoverishes man very much.. .
Second: As the Résale-i Nur points out, while the radio is a great boon
(nimet), which has partly been used for social purposes (and, therefore, should
elicit our gratefulness) on the other hand, four fifths of it is being devoted to
fancy, to superficial matters. .. .

Said concluded that contemporary civilization had reached this impasse be-
cause it had diverged from the path of heavenly religion (meaning monothe-
istic religion—semavi dinler).
Said, as is clear from the foregoing, often had to face accusations that
he wanted to re-establish the rule of the sertat in Turkey. In fact, the steps
by which he believed Islam could be revitalized show a progression which
allowed him to argue that he was not, in his own lifetime, engaged in
undermining the secular laws of the Turkish Republic. In one of his works,
the Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybi, which is in part an analysis of the signs confirm-
ing his divine selection for the task to which he had devoted his life since
the 1920s, he emphasized that some of his followers had gone too far, and
offered them a clarification of the place of his own contributions to Islam.
The primary duty of the unnamed person (or persons), for whose
appearance “sometime in the future” (ghir zaman) the Islamic community
had been waiting, would be to strengthen faith. The spiritual message
which would shape this revitalization had been in process of formation for
many centuries. In fact, the Caliph ‘Ali, Sirhindi and Halid had all contrib-
100 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

uted to it. (There ts no particular Shz’ste emphasis in this enumeration; for

Said, Shz’ztes were mistaken but retrievable into the bosom of Islam.) Bedi-
iizzaman was one link tn this chain. The second duty of the elect of God
would be to apply the serzat integrally. This demanded a very great material
force and sovereign power which the Nwr movement could not begin to
claim since it had just begun working on the first stage of the program.
The third stage was the unification of the Islamic world. He believed his
work, the Risale-1 Nur, would make the Shz’ites join forces with the Swnnz.
Bediiizzaman consigned steps two and three to an indefinite future. He
advised his followers not to come to the erroneous conclusion that the time
was ripe for their implementation.
On the occasion of Turkey's adherence to CENTO, he again pointed
out his own support of Muslim union. For him, the true nationality—
among others of Turks and Arabs—was Islam (Sahiner, 1979, 389).
Said Nursi was also quite sanguine, now, about the possibilities
opened up for the spread of Islam throughout the world:

The paroxysm of cruelty and oppression of this last World War, with its
pitiless destruction and with the misery it imposed upon hundreds for the
sake of one enemy; the awesome crushed spirit of the defeated, the indecent
haste of the victors and their attempts to shore up their authority, the enor-
mousness of their remorse deriving from their inability to repair the wanton
destruction they have wrought, the fact that life on earth is, in any case,
ephemeral and transitory and the general perception that the superficial froth
of civilization is misleading and anaesthetizing, the fact that the humanitar-
ian aspect of man’s higher dispositions has received a tremendous blow, the
tumultuous awakening of the feeling for the eternal and the naturally humane
inclinations of Man, the smashing by the diamond sword of the Qur'an of the
worship for nature, most stupid and treasonable, the unmasking of politics as
the deluding, stifling and most widespread face of stupidity and treason, as
the result of the manifestation of its true countenance, ugly and oppressive,
will, without any doubt whatsoever, lead mankind, as is already apparent in
the West and in America, to seek with all its energy its true love and quest
which is the life that remains forever (424). And no doubt, the miracle of the
declaration of the Qur'an which, in a span of 1,360 years has gathered 350
million students in every country, whose every truth and goal millions of
believers in truth have confirmed and sealed with their signature, which is a
sacred presence in the hearts of millions of Qur'an readers every minute,
whose language provides lessons for humanity and the good news of continu-
ing life and eternal happiness and treats the wounds of mankind in ways
unequalled, who through its thousands of vessels . . . backed by unshakeable
 Life 101
proof, possibly tens of thousands of times, will if humanity does not com-
pletely lose its head, be sought by Sweden, Norway, Finland, and England
whose celebrated orators are trying to get the Qur'an accepted as well as by
the very important American association whose goal is to find the right reli-
gion (din-i hak), and having understood its proofs will cling to it with all
the might of their soul and life. (Szkke-2 Tasdik-1 Gaybi, 6-7)
Until 1956, the Risale-t Nur could still be prosecuted because it was
published in Arabic characters. Tahsin Tola, obtained permission for it to be
published in Latin characters. A second important publication was the au-
thorized biography of Said Nursi which was printed in 1958 and began to
sell at a relatively high price for the time.
In the last months of 1959 Said Nursi visited a number of provincial
towns, everywhere attracting huge crowds. That part of the press which saw
itself as a protector of the principle of laicism began to sound the alarm.
Even in his last writings Said Nursi continued to stress the theme of altru-
ism and dedication. It was these qualities, he said, which would triumph
against egoism, self-centeredness, the qualities which modern civilization
fostered. But there was an ambiguity in Said’s demand of dedication. Was
it dedication so that common social goals could be attained, or was it ded-
ication to the Nur community which was in the process of dawning? This
question had not been resolved when he died. In January 1960 Said Nursi’s
followers in Ankara decided to invite him to the capital. Said was now in
residence at Emirdag in the vicinity of Afyon. He set out for Ankara but
was stopped by the police and sent back to Emirdag; he was forbidden to
move from the city.
Said Nursi died and was buried in Urfa. Three months later a military
coup overthrew the Demokrat Party. In July 1960 he was disinterred and
his bones were transported by military plane to the vicinity of Isparta,
where he was buried in an unknown place in the mountains. This seemed
to be a fitting end to the brilliant little mountain boy who had appeared
more than eighty years before out of nowhere with a new view of the uses
to which Islam should be placed.
Possibly the most interesting aspect of the writings of Said Nursi is
that those which appeared after 1925 do not mention the caliphate as a
central Muslim institution. This may be linked to his belief that the caliph-
ate should be fused with the corporate personality of representative institu-
tions (Miirsel, 1976, 273). The focus of his discourse is the believer in his
interaction with his fellow believers. This shift of emphasis from the leader
of Islam to the Islamic community as such was only to be gradually ac-
102 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

cepted in other Islamic societies. That Said Nursi should have dispensed
with it so easily may well be an additional proof of a theme which appears
again and again in his life history: the need to mobilize Muslims as indi-
viduals and as members of a community but not as subjects of a political order.
This denial of the primacy of politics and the stress he placed on social
mobilization is, possibly, that aspect of his theories which caused the great-
est apprehension for the rulers of the Republic.
CHAPTER III

Religion, Ideology and Consciousness

in the Ottoman Emptre at the
End of the Nineteenth Century
Ic is hardly possible to exaggerate the evil influence of the Turkish news-
papers. The old “storytellers” of the bazaars and cafes have given place to
the newspaper reader, the arrival of the mail is watched for, and the reader
at the cafe is surrounded by listeners who carry away to their villages such
versions of politics as is contained in the articles of ‘Vakit’, ‘Hakikat’ and
other papers. The hostile feeling against England has been entirely created
in this manner. Arabi Pasha is looked upon as a champion of Islam. . . .

Lt. Col. Wilson to [Lord] Duffries, August 25, 1882 (Farooqgi, 1983).

The pluralization of social life-worlds has a very important effect in the area
of religion. Through most empirically available human history, religion has
played a vital role in providing the overarching canopy of symbols for the
meaningful integration of society. The various meanings, values and beliefs
Operative in a society were ultimately ‘held together’ in a comprehensive in-
terpretation of reality that related human life to the cosmos as a whole. In-
deed, from a sociological and socio-psychological point of view, religion can
be defined as a cognitive and normative structure that makes it possible for
man to feel ‘at home’ in the universe. This age-old function of religion is
seriously threatened by pluralization. Different sectors of social life now come
to be governed by widely discrepant meanings and meaning systems. Not
only does it become increasingly difficult for religious traditions, and for the
institutions that embody these, to integrate this plurality of social life-worlds
in one overarching and comprehensive world view, but even more basically,
the plausibility of religious definitions of reality is threatened from within,
that is, within the subjective consciousness of the individual. (Berger, Berger
and Kellner, 1973)

103
104 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

SAID NURSI WAS born in a region of Turkey which exhibited

a particular structure, that of a semi-tribal society in which figure both
nomadic and sedentary groups. His mature thought, however, was the prod-
uct of a confrontation with a process of Ottoman modernization and secu-
larization which had begun far away from his birthplace. This process had
been initiated in the Ottoman capital and had been proceeding since the
1840s, raising such issues as the permissible extent of secularization in an
Islamic society. Said Nursi had to face both these developments and their
repercussions three times during his lifetime. In the first instance he had
become aware that large scale changes had taken place in the Muslim defi-
nition of administration through his contact with Ottoman administrative
institutions during his early years in Bitlis and Van. In the second instance,
he eagerly participated in the subdued discussions and controversies concern-
ing Islam, culture and progress that were current in the capital during his
stay there in 1896-98. The experience recurred and took a much larger
scope after the Young Turk revolution, and during his residence in the cap-
ital in 1918-21. But what he had to face were not only debates concerning
the applicability of “modernity” in the Octoman Empire. He had to con-
front the structural consequences of the modernization policy that had been
followed since the middle of the nineteenth century. For instance, a conse-
quence of these policies had been an increasing gap between persons edu-
cated in the new educational institutions established by the reformers and
the population which still owed its educational formation to the medrese sys-
tem. His preaching was partly addressed to those who had been left out of
the modern stream. He also had to work with an ideologization of Islam
which had taken shape after 1870. These various outcomes of the Tanzimat
reforms which confronted Said Nursi should also be placed in the context of
an asymptotic convergence toward the ideal-typical Weberian model of a
rationalized, bureaucratized, disenchanted society. The following is a de-
scription of this historical process. It is only remembering that Said Nursi’s
proposals were formulated within such an “immersion” into historical de-
velopments that we can make sense of them. In the following chapter I try to
pinpoint the extent of the religious change to which he had become an heir.

Islam: Stability and Change

Often, words mislead by their implied promise of stable, unchanging
meanings. Thus the word “Islam” is used to describe the dominant religion
 The Ottoman Empire 105

in the Ottoman Empire both at the beginning and at the end of the nine-
teenth century. In fact, Islam was a different sort of enterprise at each one of
these moments. Were “Islam’’ to be used purely in the context of early
nineteenth century Ottoman history, it would still be misleading since it
would refer to two divergent realities: on the one hand, state-supported,
orthodox religion, on the other, folk Islam, a force shaped by more elusive
and subterranean forces operating at the grass roots level. Matters became
more complex during the nineteenth century. A process of differentiation
brought about the gradual separation of the sphere of religion from politics,
and the leadership of the political elite began to look askance at the Islamic
component of Ottoman culture. The Muslim lower classes did not follow the
rulers in this secular stance, and the cleavage between the governing elite
and the governed, which had always existed, became starker and now refo-
cused on a religious axis. Paradoxically, this was a time when the elite was
becoming increasingly dependent upon the masses: the program of modern-
ization of Ottoman institutions could succeed only if it obtained the acqui-
escence and support of a plurality of the population. Participation was a
much more central aspect of the new system that the Ottoman reformist
statesmen were sponsoring than it had been of the traditional Ottoman sys-
tem. The architects of the Tanzimat realized their need to rely on participa-
tion, but they saw this as a purely economic concern on the one hand, and
as one of a consociation of religious groups on the other. Neither did they
realize the ideological backlash of modernization: in the 1840s modernism
meant a carefully controlled, nevertheless clearly discernible program of sec-
ularization, but already in the 1860s and 1870s educated Turks were redis-
covering the use of religion as a social cement. A more detailed picture of
these institutional and ideological development follows. In the most general
sense, the ideologization of religion brought with it a rigidity which con-
trasted with the relative tolerance, the adaptability to local circumstances of
the antecedent system.

The Religious Hierarchy

The corps of doctors of Islamic law was one of the central institutions
regulating the functioning of Ottoman society. Its vital role can best be
understand in function of the occupations it controlled. Before the Tanzimat,
judges and jurists, professors and teachers, doctors and healers, priests and
mystics, mathematicians and logicians, astronomers and astrologists, musi-
106 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

cologists and librarians and, to a much lesser degree, administrators and

officials originated almost exclusively in the so-called “learned institution,”
the t/mzyye.
At the beginning of the Tanzimat a number of groups could be dis-
cerned among the ‘ulema. These groups were also strata within a hierarchi-
cally organized institution where prestige and power clustered towards the
top. At the apex of the pyramid figures a well-heeled “patriciate”’, the
members of which occupied the higher positions in the judiciary. In theory,
these posts could only be filled by persons who had graduated from institu-
tions of higher learning which capped the entire religious edifice. In fact,
long before the 19th century, persons who belonged to the influential fam-
ilies of mollas (incumbents in the position of superior court justices) were
given special consideration, and the examination for the post was a mere
formality in their case (Repp, 1971, 31). Often the judicial post to which
the molla was appointed was farmed out to naibs (substitute judges), who
were sometimes illiterate (“Naip’’, [.A., IX, p.50).
Yet the kadi, the magistrate, to whom fell most of the responsibility
for the day-to-day administration and distribution of justice before the Tan-
zimat, had always been a mainstay of Ottoman administration. Kadis had
relatively low subsidies, although these seem to have been higher than those
granted to the teaching profession. Due to the overcrowding of the profes-
sion, the term of office of the kad: had eventually shrunk to 12 months.
After this term, they were shifted to inactive duty and had to wait for
another appointment to receive a full salary. The temptation to recoup one’s
losses during the short term of office was overwhelming and resulted in the
corruption of the judiciary (Karal, Tarih, VI, 138; ‘“‘Ilmiyye” E.1.7, Il,
1152-1154). At the bottom of this hierarchical pyramid of the learned in-
stitution could be found students living off the endowments of pious foun-
dations and medreses.
The Ottoman reform movement which had preceded the Tanzimat had
begun by establishing a new army and by trying to uncover new sources of
taxations to support the creation of a standing army. It was extended after
1839 with the creation of a new administrative, judicial and educational
network. The reform movement had originated in the higher ranks of the
emerging Ottoman bureaucracy. This corps, whose ancestry was the staff of
officials trained in the Palace School, had a much more secular cast than the
body of ‘alema trained in medreses. The early reform of the army was not a
direct threat to the ‘ulema. In fact, some higher ranking ‘ulema had collab-
orated with the reforms of Selim III (1789—1807) and Mahmud II (1808—
 The Ottoman Empire 107

1839). It was only with the gradual westernization of Ottoman institutions

that their position was undermined. Progressively eased out of the central
processes of government, they were also denied all but marginal roles in
administration, in the judiciary and in the educational system. When the
deeper basis of their power—their legitimizing role—was questioned, then
only did they raise a more or less organized protest.
To recapture the complex set of attitudes one discerns among the reli-
gious personnel of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century one
has also to remember that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, reli-
gion and religious institutions were still part of the Ottoman governmental
and administrative machine. It is familiarity wich political roles and issues
which enabled some eighteenth and nineteenth century ‘a/ema—admittedly a
minority among them—to place the preservation of the Ottoman state
through modernizing reform at the head of their priorities. This also ex-
plains why some of them collaborated with the Ottoman reformist statesmen
of the Tanzimat (1839-1976). The secularizing policies of the men of the
Tanzimat gradually deprived the higher ‘u/ema of their share in the prepara-
tion, elaboration and execution of state policy. Religion was gradually seg-
regated from judicial and administrative affairs, and educational institutions
were secularized. Many of the official positions which demanded states-
manly behavior as well as theological learning from incumbents were severed
from the sources of power. An example may be provided in the changes
which occurred in the composition of the Imperial Council, the Divan, in
1837. The two chief justices (Rkazasker) sitting on the council were turned
over to the office of the seyhilislam, the highest religious authority in the
Empire. “Thus the latter’s office, which was originally only for interpreta-
tion and consultation on religious-legal matters concerning temporal affairs,
became the highest office of the judiciary regarded as ‘religious’ and hav-
ing jurisdiction only over Muslims, and believed to remain beyond the scope
of reform’ (Berkes, 1964, 98). More important, even, had been the deci-
sion which turned the administration of pious foundations over to a new
ministry established (1826) for that purpose, the Ministry of Evkaf (E.I.°,
III, 1153; Unat, 1964, 2). Later the income of pious foundations was si-
phoned away by various budgetary changes (“‘Vakif,” I.A., fasc. 137, 1982,
184). It is true that in the Tanzimat era a number of ‘a/ema were nominated
to government posts, either after they had agreed to be “defrocked”’ or even
when they maintained their positions as clerics, but this was different from
the institutionally legitimized, politically influential positions they had en-
joyed before the Tanzimat.
108 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

The strains introduced among the ‘u/ema by the secularization of the

judicial and educational system were of two types. On the one hand, the
‘ulema had been relegated to a narrow field of political influence; on the
other, their occupational opportunities were narrowed. They had to relin-
quish control of a number of occupational slots which they had almost mo-
nopolized in the past. Thus the position of imperial physician (bekzmbasz)
which was filled by Abdiilhak Molla (1786-1865), was turned over to the
civil branch of government after 1836 (‘“Hakim-Bashi’, E.] *, IE, 339-
340). The effect of this transformation was to be seen somewhat late be-
cause at the beginning of the reform movement personnel with modern
training were unavailable and the positions continued to be filled by old
style incumbents with religious training.
The changes introduced into the judicial system, the establishment of
a system of secular courts parallel to the religious courts, also, did not re-
quire the judicial personnel to abandon their posts at once; the change was
gradual. Here, turbaned (i.e. religious) personnel continued to fill the po-
sition of judge for a long time. Many of the new secular positions had to be
staffed by ‘ulema. Also, special schools were established to train competent
kadis and, later, to teach the new skills of advocate of public prosecutor as
well as matters of procedure to those candidates who were still considering a
career in the ser’2 courts. But few aims took advantage of this olive branch.
Public instruction was placed in a new secular frame in an uncompro-
mising manner by the creation in 1846 of a Ministry of Public Instruction
(Unat, 1964, 19). In 1847 the state took hold of primary education by
replacing the old system of neighborhood schools financed by charitable
grants or private support by a system of state financed primary schools
(Unat, 1964, 38). The program of primary schools was also modified. Prior
to the Tanzimat, primary instruction had consisted in learning the Qur'an
by rote together with reading, writing and elementary notions of arith-
metic. Some of the better primary schools concentrated on non-Qur’anic ed-
ucation, but the majority emphasized Qur’anic recitation. Now, extra-
Quranic learning was given increased weight (“Mektep’, 1.A., 652-659,
here 656; Unat, 1964, 2—3). In the 1850s and the 1860s a new system of
post-primary education began to spread throughout Turkey. This major ed-
ucational achievement of the Tanzimat was the risdiye, the capstone of the
Tanzimat’s policy for general education and the training of cadres. It created
a pool of persons who could be recruited to government offices and who
could fill in the personnel needs of the reformers. The spread of the risdzye
 The Ottoman Empire 109

was followed by a wave of lycée building inspired by the program of French

lycée. Between 1882 and 1900 Ottoman provincial capitals each gradually
acquired a lycée (Unat, 1964, 45). The secularization of education had con-
tinued even earlier with the establishment of educational institutions of uni-
versity level. The French grandes écoles provided the model here. One of the
earliest of these was the School of Political Science (1859) (Unat, 1964, 70).
Beginning with the 1880s, executive posts in the administration were in-
creasingly staffed by graduates of these schools. A new, secular law school
began to function in the terminal classes of the lycée of Galatasaray in
1875. Galatasaray itself had been founded in 1868 as an experiment in
French education on Turkish soil (Davison, 1963, 246-248). A secular fac-
ulty of law was founded in 1880 (Mardin, 1946, 238; Unat, 1964, 74).
Nevertheless, the attempt to establish a university in 1869 failed. The
‘ulema objected to a lecture which showed that some of the basic concepts of
Islam could be interpreted from a perspective which echoed a controversial
“gnostic” intepretation of the role of prophethood. (The position, of the nabi
as contrasted with that of the w/z; Berkes, 1964, 185-187, compare with
Schimmel, 1980 for a better insight into the problem.) As in the case of
the dispute involving the draft of a civil code, which had occurred in the
late 1860s, this reaction pointed to a new hardening of attitude among the
‘ulema. Their sensitivity stood at the confluence of a number of currents
which seemed to meet in the 1860s. First, one could notice a stronger stand
against Western cultural penetration. This had begun with the riots that
followed the edict of 1856, a document which had gone a long way to mak-
ing Ottoman Muslims and non-Muslims equal under the law.
At the beginning of the Tanzimat, when the ‘ulema still constituted
the main reservoir of the educated, the new secular schools such as the Mil-
itary Academy had to a large extent to be staffed by them. In 1853, when
twenty-five new middle-schools (riigdzye) were opened up, even though teach-
ers graduated from the new normal school were available, it was still an
alim, Vehbi Molla, who became the director of riisdiye education at the Min-
istry of Public Instruction (Unat, 1964, 43). Often, even the student body
of the schools had to be siphoned from the medrese.
Because of this overlap of personnel and clientele between the old and
new educational system, the inception of reforms did not produce fewer,
but more jobs for ‘u/ema who were willing to seize this opportunity. The
situation gradually changed in the 1870s, when newly trained secular per-
sonnel became available as students graduated from new schools.
110 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Reform of the Medrese

The reform of the learned institutions, and, in particular, of the me-

drese system was a subject which Tanzimat statesmen would have preferred to
ignore. Throughout the nineteenth century, the option of letting the medrese
system decay further was one which a number of statesmen chose, and this
for a good reason. Kemal Efendi (1808-1888), the first Ottoman Minister
of Public Instruction had attempted to tackle this issue but faced strong
Opposition from the ‘ulema and had to be whisked out of Turkey (Ergin,
1939-43, I, 92). The men of the Tanzimat were most successful in whit-
tling down the top-heavy judicial aristocracy. By isolating mollas from po-
sitions of influence, by restructuring the ranks and the salaries of the entire
profession, by insisting on competitive examinations for the post of kad:
(Mardin, 1946, 27) and by creating new centers for the training of judges
tO acquire competence in the rules of civil procedure as well as in ser’z law
they gradually transformed this stratum. Cevdet Pasa stated that the Nakzb
uil-Esraf (Recorder of Descendants of the Prophet) Tahir Bey, who was the
doyen of the ‘ulema and who died in A.H. 1278 (circa 1860), was the last
“person to live in the style of the old judges” (Ahmet Cevdet, 1953).
By the 1860s the new liberal intelligentsia, as well as the seyhilis-
lamate, were once more broaching the problem of the reform of the medrese
system. In 1867, fifteen leading ‘ulema were given the task of studying the
reform of the medrese and prepared a report on the subject. But the recom-
mendations of the committee were concentrated on matters of form rather
than content, one exception being a recommendation that students should
study mathematics during their vacation (Unat, 1964, 86). The proposals of
the cleric Ali Suavi, who had joined forces with the Young Ottomans, the
group of intellectually inclined bureaucrats who challenged the men of the
Janzimat in the 1860s, were similar.
Ali Suavi had very precise criticism to direct against the medrese of
which he was a product. He had studied belagat (balagha; rhetoric), but he
could neither understand a sophisticated product of traditional literature nor
did he have enough confidence to compose a text according to these tradi-
tional canons. He had studied logic, but he could not apply these principles
to distinguish right from wrong in his daily life. He had studied religious
law (ftkth; figh) from classical texts, but he knew no more of theology than
a court assessor in Islamic courts (maib; na’1b) could learn from court prac-
tice. He had studied systematic theology (kalam; kalam), but he had been
unable to penetrate the system of thought; he had simply mastered its ter-
 The Ottoman Empire 111

minology. He had studied philosophy (A:kmet; hikma), but he found that the
problems analyzed by this science were irrelevant. What he had been taught
in school as natural science (hikmet-i tabitye) was only a distant cry from
modern physics, which had been harnessed in modern times to education
and industry. As to classical literature, the only thing it could inspire was
immorality, drinking, lust and sensual pleasure, a criticism which was later
to be replicated by the publicist Ahmed Mithat Efendi (Mzhéir, 21 Ramazan
1283, 27 January 1867; Ergin, 1939-1943, I, 88-89). What is interest-
ing about this statement is the extent to which the Victorian ethics of in-
dustry and the taming of the material world had become central for Suavi,
and made up the substance of his criticism.
The idea of medrese reform was one also prompted by others and the
most systematic attempt to implement these ideas was offered by Siileyman
Pasa, a general who was, for a time, director of military education.
In the months that followed the deposition of Sultan Abdiilaziz in
1876, an Ottoman parliament, the first ever, was convened. Parliament also
took up the problem of the ‘s/ema, and complaints about 4/ims who had
received titles without adequate studies were heard once more. But it would
appear that one of the main problems even at that time was the training of
cadres for secular schools. As one of the leading deputies in the parliament
and an 4lim by profession, stated:

Some days ago, someone read a statement to the effect that the medrese should
be abolished. Your humble servant, however, has the following to say. I ob-
serve that since the days of the late Sultan Mahmud, many military schools
and universities and the like were created. Later, middle schools and lycées
were set up. Teachers are being posted to these schools. What I see, however,
is that teachers of English and French still come from France and that teachers
in the middle schools still come from the medrese. (Us, II, 210)

As late as 1892 the official historian of the Empire was lamenting that the
medrese had not reformed to cover Western scientific subjects (Sungu, 1964,
21). The damage caused by the rift between the new secular schools of the
Tanzimat and the medrese (and the tekke) was, as we have seen, to be a prom-
inent theme in Beditizzaman’s ideas.
Sultan Abdiilhamid II, who had seen the dethronement of his uncle
Abdiilaziz sanctified by the fetw of the seyhilisl@m, had also seen the part
played in it by demonstrations of the students of religion who were known
to constitute part of the clientéle of the Young Ottomans, who were clam-
ouring for an Ottoman constitution. The ancient Ortoman system of mobi-
112 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

lizing these so-called softas against an unpopular government had been used
once more on that occasion. The sultan was therefore extremely wary about
the revitalization of the learned institution. His tactic was to let the ‘ulema
sink into a morass. Only in 1898 was a section on higher religious studies
(Ulém-u Aliyye-i Dintye) attached to the newly created Istanbul University
(Ergin, 1939-1943, I, 93). Said Nursi could not but he shocked by this
attrition of religious studies, which was so different from the liveliness of
the tekkes of his region.
But the government's policy of change and neglect had unanticipated
consequences; with the increasing retrenchment of the profession, a growing
number of persons in the religious estate were forced to focus on the prima-
rily religious aspect of their vocation. Religion thus became more of a sub-
ject matter or a field of specialization than a pervasive social function. This,
in turn, led a number of more intellectualistic clerics to begin to think of
the role of religion in society. The trend emerged towards the end of the
century and produced a mode of argumentation in defense of religion which
was entirely novel.
On the other hand, ‘w/ema of lower social origins, who in the past
could only have risen by claims to greater moral perfection and/or charis-
matic powers, could now use the emerging mass media to assume the role of
opinion leaders. Their effectiveness in this respect was increased by what
appears to have been an emerging Muslim-Ottoman public opinion. This
was not entirely a product of the educational reforms of the Tanzimat (or of
the mass media) since an earlier form of it had existed in Muslim culture.
Cevdet Pasa describes the new mode of influence of public opinion by re-
ferring to the reserve which was displayed by the congregation attending the
burial services of the Grand Vizier Ali Pasa. Ali Pasa had died in 1871. As
usual, his coffin was placed in the courtyard of the mosque where prayers
would be said for his soul. But when the time came to ask those attending
the funeral how they remembered the deceased, there was total silence in-
stead of the usual formula which would release him from the sins commit-
ted towards those still alive. This was because of the somewhat abrupt
Westernizing policies of the deceased vizier. Cevdet Pasa who had collabo-
rated with the secular reformers on a number of policies in the first years of
the Tanzimat states that he was careful, thereafter, to refrain from actions
which “ran counter to public opinion’ (Ahmet Cevdet, 1965, 44).
Cevdet traces the first emergence of public opinion to the Crimean
War. It is also instructive that the posting of bills critical of the govern-
ment became a method of rousing public opinion in mid-century (Ahmet
 The Ottoman Empire 113

Cevdet, 1965, 23). A certain amount of propaganda seems already to have

accompanied the attempted coup of 1859, which we shall recall was di-
rected by a Naksibendi seyh (Kuntay, 1949, 687). A synthesis of old and new
propaganda patterns was the use of mosque preachers’ sermons for constitu-
tionalist agitation by the Young Ottomans in the 1860s. Clearly Islam was
acquiring a new “ideological” cast.

The Ottoman Bureaucracy and the Secularizing

Reform of the Tanzimat

Although the Ottoman secular bureaucracy shared the elaboration of

symbols of political legitimation with the ‘ulema, they were often in dis-
agreement with them. Officials saw themselves as the preservers of the sul-
tanic prerogative, a feature of Ottoman rule which had Central Asian
antecedents. They had a set of values in which political necessity and reason
of state predominated. It is in the light of the survival of the theory of
autonomy of the state, and its reinforcement at the end of the eighteenth
century by a class of emerging reforming bureaucrats, that we have to view
the swiftness with which Ottoman statesmen adopted policies which dis-
placed the ‘u/ema from their influential position in government. It would be
difficult, otherwise, to understand how a personality such as the statesman
and minister of public instruction Saffet Pasa (1814-1883) could, in the
1870s, urge Turkey to accept the “civilization of Europe in its entirety; in
short, to prove itself a “civilized state” (Berkes, 1964, 185 quoting a letter
of Saffet). This statement was not part of public declaration, but Saffet Pasa
did also put himself on record in similarly strong-worded public statements
(Berkes, 1978, 234).
The distance travelled by Saffet in relation to his early life is quite
remarkable, since he was trained in the medrese. The formative influence in
his youth, however, was that he was very early apprentice to a bureau of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was the bureau in which the careers of
other reformist statesmen before him had been shaped.
The policies of the leading statesmen of second generation Tanzimat
leaders such as Ali Pasa and Fuad Pasa show an increasing propensity to
disregard the ‘u/ema. Both statesmen realized that some cultural anchor for
the Ottomans was necessary, but believed that good government and the
development of commerce and education would fill the gap left by the grad-
ual receding of Islam. This rationalism was shared by many future reform-
ers of Turkey who had a similar disregard for the function of religion. In
114 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

fact, the 1870s represent a point at which the pragmatism of an Ottoman

bureaucracy which had allowed them to welcome reform was imperceptibly
being transformed into support for a positivistic world view.
The hoary Ottoman bureaucratic tradition had, by the time the Tanzz-
mat reforms were initiated, created a fund of secular legislation and legisla-
tive practice. This predisposed the builders of the Tanzimat to visualize
statutory regulations as the lever which would ensure the implementation of
their plans. The Tanzimat was thus characterized by a flood of statutes, reg-
ulations, laws and by-laws (“Diistur”, E.] .“, IV, 640). In the era preceding
the Tanzimat there had been overt collisions between religious law (seriat)
and statute law (kanun), the enactment of which was controlled by officials
who regarded the interests of the state as ultimately overriding all other
considerations (““Kanan’, E.I.*, IV, 560).
The increased volume of regulations was, by its very nature, secular.
It originated in the bureaux of the Porte, and set very specific targets for
the implementations of administrative, financial or educational policies.
The practice was not an innovation, but new administrative rationale and
regulations which had been “exceptions” in the past were becoming the
core of the system. The religious law content of administrative practice was
also on its way out. Central to this change was the transfer of the adminis-
trative functions of the magistrate, the kadi, to a new official, the admin-
istrative employee.
Gradually, also, as mentioned above, a system of secular courts
emerged where the cases adjudicated were those which arose in the applica-
tion of the new legal corpus of the Tanzimat (Shaw and Shaw, II, 118-119;
Berkes, 1978, 170 cf., 216). The religious law, the seriat, thus became
more clearly a matter of private law and was relegated to the ser’ courts
which dealt primarily with matters of personal status such as marriage and
inheritance. But already in the 1860s, there appeared a reaction against
this trend. As a consequence of the widespread application of the Tanzimat
codes which had been copied from Western law codes, principles of civil law
as they appeared in the Code Napoleon had begun to infiltrate Ottoman
legal practice. In addition, Tanzimat codes had been revised on an ad hoc
basis without a common rationale being devised. A group of Ottoman
statesmen led by Kabuli Pasa now proposed that the Code Napoleon be
adopted in its entirety by the Ottoman Empire. The proposal was rejected.
Ahmed Cevdet Pasa, a doctor of Islamic law who had started his career by
being detached from a “‘clerical” professorship to serve as an advisor to the
leader of the reform movement Mustafa Resid Pasa, had objected with the
 The Ottoman Empire 115

argument that a civil code was one of the foundation stones of a state; it
therefore had to be in harmony with the general spirit animating chat state.
Cevdet Pasa’s view received the approval of the Council of Ministers (Mar-
din, 1946, 66) which appointed him to chair a committee to codify Mus-
lim law in areas corresponding to those covered by the civil code (1868).
The basic document that emerged from the work of this committee, the
mecelle (majalla), was drafted after years of discussion and was never com-
pleted, but it is considered a monument of Ottoman jurisprudence.
While the religious hierarchy was depoliticized and its religious role
highlighted, the ‘a/ema were not completely dispossessed: within two de-
cades of the inception of the Tanzimat, the problem of political mobilization
brought with it the question of the formula to adopt as a guideline for the
reform movement. This search for a political and social formula, and a prin-
ciple of legitimation, opened up a new field for ‘u/ema ideological thrust and
influence at a time when a new interest for religion was appearing among a
younger generation of bureaucrats. Their ideas provided grist for the mill of
the developing Ottoman press. Ali Suavi, an ex-medrese man took up the
writing of provocative, politically motivated leading articles for the Muhbir
in the 1860s. This new role potential of the ‘u/ema is one of the reasons for
which clerics appear in the ranks of the Young Ottomans, in these years.
By the 1860s ‘az/ema and persons with a conservative religious attitude
had begun to realize that a real Ku/turkampf was in the offing and that they
might be on the losing side of the battle. Here, too, Islam could not re-
main silent: the theme of the cultural content of Islam as a civilization was
brought out and its superiority to Western civilization emphatically af-
firmed. The more intellectualistic of these schemes were produced by a ba-
sically secular intelligentsia—the Young Ottomans being the clearest
example—working to revive Islamic cultural premises. The need to find a
foundation for the Ottoman state which was more explicit than the tradi-
tional formula—‘‘the state and religion are twins’—was rising. This need
was the direct result of the new discourse introduced with secular schools
and the secular literature which was on the way to becoming the new lan-
guage of educated Turks. The newer Islam used by ideologues as a legiti-
mizing discourse and a cultural foundation was undoubtedly different from
traditional Islam. On the other hand, the ‘ulema seemed to be able to devise
an Islamic populism appealing to the traditionalist masses more readily than
was the case with the secular intelligentsia.
While the Tanzimat statesmen had scored some success in displacing
the ‘a/ema from administration, education and the judiciary, the mobilization
116 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

of resources necessary for their plan to fully succeed could only be achieved
by harnessing the energies of their subjects to a new political formula pro-
viding wider political participation for these subjects. The Tanzimat states-
men were wary of initiating too rash a movement in this direction, and it
was left to their critics of the 1860s, the Young Ottomans, to make an issue
of the matter. The latter realized that the thrust of reform was towards
creating a nation-state. The viability of this state was dependent upon soli-
darity and support by the mass of the population, and their proposal of
representative government followed from this premise.
The Tanzimat statesmen had tackled the problem in the light of a
theory of the enlightenment which postulated the basic similarity of men.
To the question “How can one make Muslim and non-Muslim subjects of
the Ottoman Empire support the same political formula?” the answer of the
Tanzimat’s advisors had been ‘“‘by good government.’ Good government was
a religiously neutral practice which for administrative purposes could bring
together the religious group into which the Ottoman Empire had been tra-
ditionally divided. To the Tanzimat statesmen’s proposal of good government
framed by an enlightened despotism, their foes, the Young Ottomans, re-
plied by their own conception of good government as defined by constitu-
tional liberalism: for them it was participation in the process of government
which would rally Muslims to reforms and eliminate the barriers between
different religious groups. It was in this way that one could create an Ot-
toman patriotism which would elicit allegiance to the Ottoman state re-
gardless of religious affiliation. But at the time the Young Ortomans first
formulated their theories, in the 1860s, Patriotism had already been over-
taken by a new formula, Nationalism. It emerged by fastening onto a sense
of identity that had already been built up by the non-Muslim religious com-
munities in the Empire and promoted by their churches. That this identity
could often turn out to be fictitious was beside the point. An institutional
boundary for a new identity was sought by non-Muslim Ottomans and,
ambiguous or not, some root of identity was located by the Greeks, Serbs,
Romanians, Bulgarians and Armenians in their several churches. Even the
Greek-Orthodox community, which had incorporated sub-communities
such as the Serbs, was split by the new national aspiration of Serbs and
Bulgarians. |
The Church origins of Balkan proto-nationalism shows how estab-
lished the practice had been for churches to act as vessels of identity in the
traditional system. This was also, therefore, a time when Muslim Ottomans
 The Ottoman Empire 117

similarly began to ponder on the ability of the Muslims within the Empire
to re-group as Muslims. From this followed reflections on the suitability of
Islam as a social cement. Pan-Islam was the international dimension of this
revival of interest for Islam and was an Ottoman answer to Russia's spon-
soring of pan-Slavism. There is, then, a politicizing and ideologizing of
Islam which emerges as we proceed along the 19th century, in response to
political developments. Said Nursi was thoroughly aware of this dimension
of religion.

Structural Change and Change in Consciousness

Ottoman secularization had started with officials wresting a number of

institutions away from the ‘alema in the fourth decade of the nineteenth
century. Accounts of the developments which were thus set in motion are
now widely available, although it would be difficult to say that they super-
sede the first, brilliant, essay on the Tanzimat by Engelhardt (1882). These
descriptions, however, only initiate an understanding of social change. In
order to bring fresh understanding to a period of history now well covered
by competent research, one has to try to unravel the social-structural trans-
formation which was precipitated by the Tanzimat.
The first finding in this respect, is that some individuals set them-
selves against Ottoman reform because they had the rug pulled out from
under them: the positions which they filled were given to others or elimi-
nated (Inalcik, 1973). I have attempted to show above that this was not the
main cause for the somewhat later development of a new rallying around
Islam, and that the use of Islam as a banner, i.e., as a means to elicit the
ideological-mobilizational energizing of Ottoman Muslims, was also in-
volved. A second element in the situation was the frustration of upper and
lower class Ottomans when faced with new institutions. This was not be-
cause the Tanzimat officials enforced reforms with bayonets, but because
they had changed the rules of the practice of social relations and seemed to
continue to change them as the Tanzimat proceeded. The desperation of
those who clung to the old culture and its system of knowledge becomes
clearer when we remember that knowledge is a system which has a much
larger background than the individual items it subsumes. It includes ‘‘a vast
body of . . . knowledge which is present and taken for granted in. . . ev-
eryday consciousness, although of course [any person} . . . does not possess
118 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

this larger knowledge” (Berger, et. a/., 1973, 30). Effectiveness was depen-
dent on learning the new rules of the game, comprising not only school
knowledge but all kinds of attitudes to which this knowledge was linked,
and the set of philosophical premises underlying them.
Another way of taking stock of popular reactions, themselves affected
by the changing cast of Islam at the time, is to remember that Islam had
already been transformed by the third decade of the 19th century. It had
stopped being something which was lived and not questioned. Secularizing
reforms had made Islam more “Islamic’’; religion emerged on its own well-
delineated field. A rationale had to be devised for this new religion. Soon,
religion became identified with the civilization of the Arabs (Smith, 1962).
For Ahmet Cevdet Pasa, the same motivation led to his painstaking elabo-
ration of the Muslim legal code which we know as the mecelle. Middle-of-
the-road Muslim reformers also went on to separate the cultural core of
Islam from its implementation in everyday life. This postulated cultural core
was now considered as important and as characteristically Islamic as the rit-
ual side of Islam.
Thus, culture as a setting becomes increasingly important in under-
standing what was happening to Ottoman society at the end of the nine-
teenth century, and this may be observed among the religious-minded of all
walks of life: ‘ulema who had not been pre-empted by the Tanzimat were
elaborating their own theories about the superiority of Islam and its contri-
bution to democracy or science. Clerics close to the lower classes, like Ali
Suavi, on the other hand, were trying to revive what they saw as the direct
democracy of pristine Islam as a way of life. As for the lower classes, a
feeling that the hegemonic position of Muslims had been shaken by the
reforms was accompanied by a nostalgia for the looseness of the old society,
its ability to compromise at all times, its swift reversals of good fortune due
to despotic caprice which could destroy the rich and the mighty at one
blow.
Pre-Tanzimat education had focused on revelation. The pattern of rev-
elation found in the Qur'an, its symbolism, its cues as to preferred attitudes
and approved conduct was the filter through which one had to work in every
field of endeavor. Religion was the frame through which the common man
understood his obligations of citizenship. In this sense the Qur'an had had a
“mythical,” Malinowskian, function. Its guidelines allowed enough elastic-
ity to take into account many different situations. Education centered on
the Qzr’an at the primary school level provided a common ethical founda-
tion: it was the equivalent of Western humanities.
 The Ottoman Empire 119

The Qur'an had been the device that enabled the various Muslim sci-
ences to claim that they had the same religious foundation. But, in fact,
this foundation did not allow for the type of permutations and combinations
which were the stuff of modern Western science. The Enlightenment schema
of knowledge was different at one crucial point: it rested on the conception
of a universal cognitive currency which enabled combinations of items of
knowledge unheard of its societies where knowledge was compartmentalized.
Ernest Gellner has spoken of this as follows:
By the common or single conceptual currency I mean that all facts are located
within a single continuous logical space, that statements reporting them can
be conjoined and generally related to each other, so that, in principle, one
single language describes the world and is internally unitary; or on the neg-
ative side, that there are no special, privileged, insulated facts or realms,
protected from contamination or contradiction by others, and living in insu-
lated, independent logical spaces of their own. (Gellner, 1983, 21)
Mathematics as the operator of this single conceptual currency was different
from Islamic mathematics which was embedded in a religious field. In fact,
not only the ideas propagated by modern education but its very operation
showed marks of the new conceptual currency insofar as it was rationalized
and depersonalized.
One master, initiating his students into the intricacies of the classics
in his own field, and, in secondary studies, one book, learned by rote,
passed around from student to student, brought out of the cupboard to
resolve new questions; these were the central features of the old educational
system. Now, with the rijdiye and the Ottoman grandes écoles a new system
emerged: schoolbooks for all, or at lease for those who had passed the en-
trance examinations. This was a major cultural watershed, for it replaced a
system of face-to-face contacts in learning and teaching. The personalistic
aspect of the old system was not different from that which prevailed
throughout traditional Ottoman social relations. It was by such bonds of
personal relations that this society had been structured. Even status was
transacted through personal relations. Now, through the reform of the ed-
ucational system, a number of modifications were working cumulatively to
change this personalistic dimension of social structure.* The master was
increasingly replaced by his textbooks. Encyclopedias, dictionaries (printed
dictionaries replacing the rhyming dictionaries of old), manuals, novels,
*In primary school “writing” had meant “calligraphy,” not the ability to write a
text; now the second took over (Ergin, 1939-43, I, 70-73).
120 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

were the new fountainhead of knowledge. Mehmet Kaplan has stated that it
was ‘‘book knowledge” which made the difference between the generation of
the 1870s and the generation of the 1890s, which was the first to graduate
from the fully operative schools of the Tanzimat. Among the latter, it was as
if “‘school and book had severed their links with life’ (Kaplan, 1946, 19).
Speculation and projection of information culled from books opened up a
Pandora's box roughly similar to that which had informed early modern
criticism of the text of the Bible in Europe. But even more was afoot:
young officials preparing plans for new institutions were now propelled
into a realm of abstract possibilities which was beginning to seem much
more real than the conglomerate of rickety frame houses, crumbling public
buildings and venal officials from which they started. This ability to tran-
scend the present and soar into the future was new for Ottoman thought:
at the beginning of the Tanzimat, ‘reform’ had had a much shorter concep-
tual span. The first reformers believed that they were doing much the same
as would have been promoted by their hard-headed bureaucratic predeces-
sors. Now, the feeling that reform meant pre-empting an inexorable, if
progressively better future was creeping into reformist thought. However,
the generation which had first acquired these new tools was not entirely
aware of the distance it had travelled from the metaphor of the fulfill-
ment of God's design to that of progress. This speculative, abstracting, uto-
pian and futuristic cast of thought now separated the ignorant from the
educated.
The transition from a history in which the perfectibility of man was
seen within the frame of an eschatological promise to a plan for a secular
utopia, and finally to the idea of “Paradise now” had been gradual. The
change was partly due to the influence of Western ideas, but one of the
most effective of these had been the idea of youth as the guardian of Tur-
key’s fate. With the establishment of an education system of 11 years dura-
tion, with sub-parts fitted into one another and making up a whole, a
secular student body different from the body of religious students, was now
a reality, and a secular student identity followed. The process went a long
way back, to the first years of the Tanzimat: when Sultan Mahmud II had
opened the School of Military Medicine (1827), he had given a speech to the
students and entrusted them with the future of the Ottoman Empire. Youth
was moving in to replace the grey beards to which one would have entrusted
the Empire in the past. In the 1880s, on the first day of his entrance to the
School of Political Science, Ahmed Ihsan, a future publisher, heard his di-
rector, the historian Abdurrahman Seref address the students as follows:
 The Ottoman Empire 121

Gentlemen, all of the places you see on the map [which were formerly Otto-
man territory} were lost because of ignorance. I consider it a special privilege
to have at least fifty young men in the Empire who can understand this map
when they see it. Study and apply yourselves; become the informed officials
which our country needs. . . . (Tokgéz, 1930, 1, 21-22)

The young men took his words to heart and each in his own way began to
make up for lost time.
Just as the Tanzimat educational system brought about important
changes, so, too, the concept of a field of learning changed. Rather than a
product of the educational system, this was more directly related to the
general process of differentiation and secularization. Islamic law had covered
a wide area where strictly judicial matters were not separate from Muslim
ritual. Both were part of a system of religiously grounded obligation. Now
Islamic law was becoming a specialty, a technique for the solution of well—
delimited problems. Not only were the things that one learned in the
schools different, the routines which one used to approach government or
to be a useful citizen had been transformed. The Islamic canopy had pro-
vided a common language for the rulers and the ruled despite the distance
that separated them. Islamic messages were still listened to with respect but
had lost their old (limited but real) effectiveness in communicating with the
new bureaucrats.
Differentiation had not closed the space between strata or the distance
separating persons on the hierarchical ladder; it had increased it. The lazy
Janissary, said many travellers to Turkey, lay on the training field and only
answered diffidently to commands because there was too much familiarity
between him and his officer. Drill the dunces in company formation, mould
them into the cohesive pieces of a unit, separate their daily lives from that of
their officers, train officers in institutes of higher education and a modern
army will emerge. Indeed, at the end of this process of internalizing drill
manuals, the Turkish officer looked at his recruits somewhat like the Ger-
man officer in East Africa would have looked at the askari. The military
regulation was now the uncompromising ‘“‘book”’ which regulated military
life from the company level upward. Its rationalized, legalistic spirit was
made to ensure unstinting obedience: protest became a real feat of courage.
At the beginning of the Tanzimat there had existed an overlap of ca-
reers, an absence of systematic thinking about institutions and a set of hu-
manizing relations which were in harmony with the patrimonial cast of the
entire society. This diffuseness appeared as chaos to Western observers, but
122 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

the same apparent disorder was also characterized by a tolerance for disso-
nances. In this respect, the so-called traditional system was more tolerant
than the new system in which rationalization brought in procrustean sys-
tematization. It was because the religiously informed intellectuals of the
capital and, in particular, persons in the Mev/evi community of Istanbul,
had detected similar intolerant traits among the Halidi Naksibendj that they
had condemned fundamentalism which went counter to the leniency of so-
phisticated Muslims of the capital (Ziya, n.d., 196). But then, the new,
mobilizing political and social stance of the Naksibendis was more in tune
with the 19th century than the broadmindedness of the Meviev.

The Young Ottomans

The importance that religion as an ideology was acquiring in the Ot-

toman Empire at the time of the modernization of its institutions is exem-
plified by the importance that the Young Ottomans accorded to it. These
young intellectuals, formed in the bureau of the Porte and widely read in
Western sources, were quite aware of the decay of the medrese system. They
were also aware that in the provinces the local Islamic hierarchy could exert
a baneful influence in their capacity as local notables. Yet their leader,
Namik Kemal, based the legitimation of his theory of representative govern-
ment on Islamic premises. A somewhat different theory which he also
adopted was that the Ottomans could not cut themselves off from what, in
effect, were their basic cultural foundations. Turks could not adopt modern
institutions without basing them on deeper foundations. Islam was the
mold in which Islamic-Ottoman social personality had crystallized, and
Namik Kemal believed this could not be neglected in a new political theory.
There were a number of contexts in which the Islamic cast of Ottoman
thought was underlined by Kemal. One was that in the traditional society a
kind of rough social justice had been achieved, linked to the transitoriness
of political status. Second, the new constitutional system of the Ottomans
had to rest on Islamic ethical foundations in order for the entire edifice to
stand. Third, while Ottoman constitutionalism would take its inspiration
from the seriat, law-making in parliament would be once-removed from the
sertat and could, therefore, apply to all the religious groups in the Empire.
Finally, the Young Ottomans had followed the development of pan-Slavism
with some apprehension and were beginning to wonder whether it did not
 The Ottoman Empire 123

provide a model for the Ottomans’ relations with Muslims dispersed

throughout Asia and Africa. The policy would have started by tightening
the bonds between the Ottoman Empire and its tributary provinces such as
Egypt and Tunisia, with whom the connection had all but snapped (Mar-
din, 1962, 60). Namik Kemal was aware that changes in world communi-
cations had created opportunities for links to be established with other
Muslim nations (Ozén, 1938, 78, 91).
The true representative of the early pan-Islamist trend thus initiated
was the newspaper Baszret, which appeared in Istanbul for a decade between
1869 and 1879 (“Ali Efendi’, Aylzk Ansiklopedi, 1929). A Polish exile,
Mustafa Celaleddin, who had already begun to write about the prestigious
origins of the Turks in Central Asia, was among its major contributors, as
was the Young Ottoman, Ayetullah Bey. The Baszret had supported Ger-
many in the Franco-Prussian War; at the end of the war, a grateful German
government offered its editor, Ali Efendi, a free trip to Germany and a
large grant plus a complete set of German presses. After 1876, the Bastret
began to give increasing importance to Islamic elements in Ottoman cul-
ture and to Islamic cultures outside the Ottoman state. To what extent this
was a policy still dictated by Ali Efendi’s obligation to Germany is a matter
for speculation. Interestingly enough, Ali Suavi, the d/im who had for a
while collaborated with the Young Ottomans, set himself against mechani-
cal pan-Islam in a remarkably cogent way:

Our semi-official gazette, the Turquie, stated that the time has now arrived
for the Porte to follow the example of Italy and Prussia, adopt the cause of
nationality (kavmiyyet) and assemble all Muslims. It is advised that Egypt
should be made into just another province like the province of Edirne. Do
our ministers realize that the question of nationalities is one special to the
Europeans and that we do not have a nationalities problem? Nationality ques-
tions would cause our ruin. To gather Muslims together would be at most a
religious question but not a question of national origin. (Mardin, 1962, 372)

But while Ali Suavi indicated the political difficulties that were inherent for
the Ottoman Empire in following a policy of nationalities, he did not object
to Islam being used as a flag to rouse Muslim populations. Sultan Abdiil-
hamid had the finesse to keep these two aspects of pan-Islam separate, and
this is probably the reason why it has been difficult to retrace his own steps
in the matter.
124 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Sultan Abdiilhamid’s Islamic Policy

In the draft of the first Ottoman constitution of 1876 prepared by the

sultan’s liberal grand vizier, Midhat Pasa, there had been no mention of the
office of seyhiilislam or of state religion. In the next draft, which was finally
adopted, there were clauses which delineated the respective positions of the
state and of the religious institution. Now, the sultan had executive author-
ity with regard to the application of the sertat as well as in the application of
secular laws. The jseyhilislam was included in the council of ministers
(Karal, VIII, 303). These were clauses which, no doubt, pleased the sultan,
because they provided him with the means of establishing control over the
religious institution. The sultan feared the latter because of the extent to
which the students of the medrese had been involved in the coup against his
uncle Abdiilaziz. The sultan also looked for an occasion to get rid of the
seyhiilislam, Hayrullah Efendi, who had legitimized Abdiilaziz’s deposition.
Hayrullah was exiled to Medina and then to Taif (Govsa, ed., 174). There-
after, the sultan kept the seyhilislamate under strict control (Tahsin, 1931,
39). Nothing was done about a proposal dated 1877 to reform the medrese
(Unat, 1964, 80).
The fact that some members of the sultan'’s family were affiliated with
Sufi orders caused additional worry for the sultan. The heir to the throne,
Mehmed Resad Efendi, was a member of the Mevievi order. If communica-
tion were established between Resad Efendi and the Celebi Efendi, the
leader of the order, a cabal against the sultan could take shape. The Celebi
Efendi was, therefore, under constant surveillance, and persons who had
contacts with him were taken into the sultan’s net of suspicion (Tahsin,
1931, 67). During Abdiilhamid’s reign, meetings of students of religion
were forbidden (Karal, 1983, 305). The sultan had a policy of benign ne-
glect towards the medrese, one exception being his approval of the establish-
ment of a faculty of theology at the time of the creation of the first
university in 1898. But the very name of this faculty showed that the sultan
was not a supporter of the medrese (Ergin, 1939-43, I, 93). Despite all of
these internal controls, the sultan did proceed towards an Islamic policy
which bore his own imprint. This was his often misunderstood policy of
pan-Islam, which has to be distinguished from his policy vis-a-vis the Arab
provinces of the Empire with which it overlapped.
The origins of widespread interest in pan-Islam in the 1870s were
complex (Davison, 1963, 274-277), but both intellectuals and governing
officials seemed to meet on this common ground. Thus, during the crisis of
 The Ottoman Empire 125

1876, which had developed from a confrontation between Christians and

Muslims in Bulgaria, a vizirial proclamation stated that those who wanted
to destroy the Ottoman state would be faced by “the whole family of Islam’”’
(Ibid., 347) and that troops were being mobilized ‘in the name of Islam’’
(Ibid.). In 1877, the grand vizier Kamil Pasa, in a somewhat different vein,
was warning the sultan that Ottoman children who were in foreign mission-
ary schools were being torn from their own culture.
The sultan believed that Western civilization could be divided into
“technology” and “ideas.” Technology was the door to progress, but the
“ideas” of the West were poisonous (Karal, 1983, 249-250). It is in this
light of Islam as culture that the question as to whether Islam could consti-
tute the principle of internal cohesion for the Empire emerges once again
after 1878. As a consequence of its signature of the Treaty of Berlin, the
Ottoman Empire had lost considerable territory in Europe. The proportion
of the Arabic-speaking population of the Empire had shot up. Sultan Ab-
diilhamid was aware of this change in the demographic balance of Ottoman
lands (Karal, 1983, 331), and his concern for the Arabs was so keen that at
one time he thought of making Arabic the official language of the Ottoman
Empire (Karal, 1983, 546 and Tahsin, 1931, 150-151). Nevertheless, the
Emperor also wanted to underline the common cultural element which
united Egypt, the Arab portions of the Empire and the Turkish-speaking
populations (Karal, 1983, 545-547). He was aware that Islam was a cul-
tural force and a source of Ottoman patriotism (Karal, 1983, 543-546). It
could be exploited for the social and political mobilization of his subjects,
and also “to create a feeling of hope’ among them (Duguid, 1973, 140
quoting Ramsay, 1915-16, 408).
The many strands which appear in any undertaking by the sultan and
his secretiveness increase the difficulties of isolating his pan-Islamic policy
from his concern for Islam as a principle of solidarity for his subjects. Such
a policy did exist and is not simply a reflection of his “superstitious” nature
(Abu Manneh, 1979, 138 for a list of theories centered on superstition). Sir
W. Ramsay, who trekked through the Meander Valley and adjoining regions
in the 1880s and 1890, mentions on the authority of a “foreign consul”
how in about 1882 the de/s/s, the men who were organizing the lists of
pilgrims, began to be “people of a different class.” “They were educated
men with whom begging was a mere pretense, and who stirred up people to
make a great effort for the regeneration of Mohammedan power’ (Ramsay,
1896, 188). This he attributed to the sultan’s policy. The international di-
mensions of that policy appeared in the emissaries he dispatched to Java,
126 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Iran, Turkestan, China, India and Africa. Concurrently, the sultan arranged
for delegations from distant lands to pay homage to him (Karal, 1956,
546-547). Both moves projected a new meaning onto the institutions of
the caliphate, that of the protection of Muslims throughout the world.*
A second facet of pan-Islam involved the sultan’s use of Muslim reli-
gious orders. In the nineteenth century, these had “anticipated the need
for reform,” rejecting “such practices as compromised the unity and tran-
scendence of God” and stressing “a return to the simplicity of mythical,
unadulterated Islam” (Trimingham, 1973, 104). Nineteenth century Sufi
revivalism resulted in the creation of a number of new orders, redirected the
energies of some of the most venerable and ‘‘was primarily directed towards
and effective in missionary activities” in fringe areas of the Muslim world
(Trimingham, 1973, 132). This development served the sultan in his
own policy of fighting colonialism by working for the disaffection of the
Muslim populations under colonial rule. We know that he used the Ha/idi-
Naksibendi seyhs—as well as others—in the 1880s (Le Chatelier, 1910, 54—
58; Guindiiz, 1984, 304).
To give the institution of the caliphate a new gloss, and to underline
the image of his leadership of all Muslims, the sultan needed a somewhat
different policy, and here he had the assistance of the Arab sey Abul Huda
al-Sayyadi (1850-1909). Abul Huda was from a family with roots in a
town near Aleppo (Abu Manneh, 1979, 131). By 1875, he had already
scored some success in a career in the Learned Institution (Ibid., 134). His
conservative leanings earned him the confidence of the sultan, who brought

*The sultan suspected that one of the persons intriguing to undermine his caliph-
ate was the Khedive of Egypt (Hirsowicz, 1972, 303). Similar dangers originated
in Arabia. From the very beginning of his reign the sultan had tried to honor and
placate Arabia by placing the provinces of Mecca and Medina at the head of Otto-
man provinces in government listings. In the late 1880s the sultan made a special
effort to recruit Arab students from the Hijaz, Yemen and Tripolitania into the
Military Academy (Ergin, 1939-1943, HI, 973). In 1892, he established the
“Tribes School” (Asiret Mektebi) in Istanbul. This school was to recruit the children
of prominent leaders in Arabia and to use the graduates to enhance feelings of
attachment to the empire (Ergin, 1939-43, III, 980; Karal, 1962, 401). Later,
children of Albanian and East Anatolian notables were brought in. The school was
closed in 1907 following a food riot which seems to have been a preliminary to
more concrete demands (Ergin, 1939-43, III, 973).
 The Ottoman Empire 127

him to Istanbul as an “adviser” ([bid., 137). There, Abul Huda set to work
in propagating in towns and cities of Syria the Rifai (Rifa@’i) order to which
he belonged. He was also asked to write and publish ‘‘religious and Sufi
works” (Ibid., 140).
Between 1880 and 1908 he fulfilled this obligation with gusto, writ-
ing no less than 212 books and brochures. Throughout, he repeated the
main theme which he had broached in his first publication (A. Manneh,
1979, 141). This concept, which he sought to convey in the booklet was
that:

. . . absolute government was the primary system of government in Islam,

contrary to the view that it had developed in the course of Islamic his-
tory. .. . By his will, God has created and regulated this world. He then
sent prophets to lead mankind to Him, like shepherds to His subjects. . . .
The greatest of these prophets, Muhammed, drew the hearts of the believers
to God and laid down the foundations of unity on a stronger basis. . . .
In time, ... the Caliphate was transmitted to the Ottomans and
reached Sultan Abdiilhamid II. Already known for his virtue and devotion,
the Sultan, after his ascendancy, showed religious zeal, upheld the Shari'a and
worked for the protection of the wma. As demanded by their faith, Muslims
ought to be obedient to Him... .
Sufi shaikhs obliged their followers to bind their hearts in loyalty to
the commander of the faithful and taught them to help him in words and
deeds. . . . By stating these and many other commandments, Abul Huda
wanted to convince his readers that unqualified obedience to the Caliph was a
basic duty in Islam. . . . Indeed, for the sake of defending the wmma and the
land of Islam, Muslims ought not only to be submissive to the Caliph but
also unite and bind their hearts to him. (Ibid. )

Butrus Abu Manneh has stated that the sultan’s strategy was to create
a pan-Islamic focus for the inhabitants of Syria and thereby defuse their
incipient Syrian nationalism. This is a plausible thesis but one which ac-
quires greater depth both in the general context of the sultan’s conciliatory
moves to the Arabs and also in the context of other Arab propagandists
whom he patronized. Among these, an important personality was the son of
the founder of the Madaniya (Darqawiyya) order, Seyh Muhammad Ibn
Hamza Zafir al-Madani, of Misurata in Libya. The Madaniya was one link
in the chain of orders ultimately traceable to the North African Ahmad bin
Idris (1760—1837). Idris had included in his teaching a new, “higher
128 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

purpose,” i.e., “the unity of the endeavour of Muslims united in the bonds
of Islam” (Trimingham, 1973, 115 citing Idris’ biographer Shams ad-din
b. ‘Abd al-Muta‘al). This aspect of Idris’ work was resurrected in Seyh
Zafir's An Nur As-Sati (The Brilliant Light, publ. Istanbul, 1884; Triming-
ham, 1973, 126, note 1).

The Sultan allotted him a home near the Palace of Yildiz Kiosk and three
Madani Tekkés were established in Istanbul. From these went out propaganda
seeking to influence Shaikhs of various orders. Emissaries, protected through
the imperial power, won recruits among Algerians employed by the
French . . . but in Morocco its relationship with the Turkish government
discredited it. In Barka it became linked with the Sanusiyya . . . Mugaddams
{A sectional leader in a Sufi order, Trimingham, 1973, 307} were also found
in Egypt and the Hijaz. (Trimingham, 1973, 126)

Whether Abul Huda was able to maintain his influence over the Sul-
tan through “astrological and divinatory powers” (Idid., 127) or because of
his influence over the tarikat is not known.
In 1892, the sultan added the Muslim reformist Cemaleddin Afgani
to the pan-Islamic propagandists which he kept on tap. The sultan was
aware that Cemaleddin had been associated with schemes to create an Arabic
caliphate (Keddie, 1972, 374), but he seems to have thought of using him
to elicit the co-operation of Shz’ztes in schemes of Islamic union (Keddie,
1972, 380-381). However, the sultan found that Afgani had his own am-
bitious schemes which had embarrassing consequences for the external policy
of the Ottoman Empire vis-a-vis Iran. Cemaleddin died in 1897, more
or less disgraced, and watched by the sultan’s police. His influence while
in Istanbul may have touched a number of budding intellectuals such as
the poet Mehmed Emin, who later combined a strong Islamic commitment
with Turkish and populist nationalism.
Persons who congregated in Istanbul and discussed the revitalization of
Islamic culture, primarily with an eye to its political consequences, were not
only those invited by the sultan. One Islamic propagandist who, presum-
ably, arrived in Istanbul without invitation (circa 1885) (ed. G6vsa, 14) was
Abdiirresid Ibrahim. Born in Siberia in 1853, he had studied in the medre-
ses in Mecca and Medina and had also established contacts with Namik
Kemal and Ahmed Vefik Pasa during a stay in Istanbul (Jdid.). The link
with Vefik Pasa is important, in the sense that this Ottoman statesman was
one of the first personalities in Turkey to try to find roots for Turks in
 The Ottoman Empire 129

their early Central Asian culture. Returning to Siberia after this interlude,
Abdiirresid had established schools there on the model of what he had seen
in Istanbul. He is stated to have convinced 100,000 Siberian Muslims to
migrate to Istanbul (Idd.). In 1893 he was elected kad: of Orenburg. At
about the same time (?)(1895) he published in Istanbul a work entitled
Culpan Ytildiz1 (The Morning Star), “a violent diatribe against the Czarist
regime and an inflamed appeal for the political and cultural rebirth of the
Muslim world” (Benningsen and Quelquejay, 1964, 44 Note 1). He also
published a number of attacks against the activities of Russian missionaries.
Said Nursi was in touch with him in 1907—1908. During the Balkan War
of 1912-1913 Ibrahim published articles in Turkish newspapers in which
he preached holy war. After 1908 he travelled throughout Asia to survey the
state of Muslims in Asia. The result of his researches appeared in a two-
volume work entitled The World of Islam. ,
In 1889, the new German Emperor William II made his first visit to
Istanbul. This seems to have been the turning point in a new, pan-Islamic
thrust. Pan-Islam was now required to support German diplomacy (Emin,
1930, 38). After a second visit to the Kaiser in 1898, the sultan embarked
on the construction of a new railway line to Arabia, the Hicaz (Hijaz) Rail-
road, financed by donations of Muslims throughout the world. It was the
most tangible form of his pan-Islamic policy. This was a means of securing
access to the sacred places of pilgrimage in Arabia~-Mecca and Medina
(Landau, 1971, 19-20).
On a number of occasions the pan-Islamic policy of the sultan has
been minimized. Some authors try to point out that the idea of a revived
caliphate had been inspired by a British poet and Middle East “expert”
Wilfrid Scaven Blunt (Berkes, 1964, 268). But even without foreign stim-
ulation the attractiveness of such a policy seems self-evident (cf. Le Chatelier,
1910, 54 and Yalman, 1930, 180).
It was from Islam that the Muslim Ottomans could draw the emo-
tional resonance that would mobilize both upper and lower classes. It was
Islam that would provide a store of symbols which could compete with the
national symbols of the Greeks or the Serbs. It might well be that when
those educated in the medrese tried to write religious tracts for the common
people, “they produced masterpieces of gibberish” that sounded like
“magical incantations” (Berkes, 1964, 193), but it was this incantatory
quality which gave these tracts the ability to re-contextualize a religion
which was on the way to becoming a pale reflection of its golden image.
Re-contextualization here refers to a reaction to the way in which the whole
130 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

ness of Islam in traditional society had been transformed into something

fragmented, driven out of the context of political and economic life, even as
it survived in the religious-social context.
Islam as ‘“‘culture’” meant the culture of the Arabs, and the first decade
of the reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid was a time during which the intellectual
virtues of the Arabs and the value of their classics were at a premium in the
Ottoman capital. Some have attributed this to the sultan’s conservatism,
which no doubt was tangible. But the sultan’s influence does not explain the
heated debate beginning in 1882 that went on between the defenders of the
ancients (Arabs) and the moderns (i.e., Ottoman Turks influenced by the
civilization of the West).
On the one side figured Hac: Ibrahim Efendi, a man who had estab-
lished a reputation for modernizing the teaching of Arabic in Ottoman
schools. On the other side were Ebiizziya Tevfik, a former Young Ottoman,
and Said Bey, the son of Kemal Efendi, the reformer of religious schools (see
above p. 110).
The defenders of the Arabic thesis, argued that it was not Turkish
which constituted the root of Ottoman, the language used by the educated
elite, but Arabic. This was also true with regard to grammar: “If Arabic
rules are not observed, the language will be damaged. If none of the ob-
served rules are kept, it will be necessary to extract from the language all
the Arabic words, as well. If we do this we shall have to speak without a
language” (‘“Tekmile’, Idid., August 3rd, 1882; Kushner, 1977, 65).
Hac: Ibrahim also made the connection between language and culture.
Arabic was the core of ‘‘arabism”’ (arabiyet), a rooted, cultural heritage.

From where did the Muslim faith and the Illustrious Law, which admittedly
accompanies all moral virtues, come to us? From the Arabs. From which lan-
guage did the religion of Islam and the Law of the Prophet emanate? From
the Arabic language. Can one understand the Faith and the Law without
knowing Arabic? No. One cannot. (‘‘Ihtarat’”’, Terciiman-1 Hakikat, July 26,
1882, Kushner, 1977, 67)

The Hac: Ibrahim controversy was not an artificial creation by a conservative

sultan but, on the contrary, part of a dialogue between Ottomans who were
trying to find their roots. The sultan knew how to use this search for an
identity, but there is no evidence that he had initiated it. Another person,
who, at the very same time, was trying a similar experiment was the writer
‘“Muallim” Naci.
 The Ottoman Empire 131

Muallim Naci

In the 1870s Siileyman Hiisnii Pasa had prepared anthologies in which

the great deeds of the earliest Turks would be underlined; and he used these
in the Ottoman military schools to fire patriotism among the students. This
development has been fairly well covered by recent research. It is seldom
realized that a parallel attempt to interest students—future intellectuals—in
the products of Eastern culture was also taking place in the 1880s. These
pieces were the translations from Arabic and Persian of the Turkish litera-
teur “Muallim” Naci (Tansel, 1961, 161). Naci’s writings give a conspicu-
ous place to his belief in Islamic values. Some of his poems are based on
events of Islamic history. He seems to have navigated a middle course be-
tween an understanding of the benefits of Western civilization and a deep
belief in the authenticity of the message of the Prophet Muhammed. This
enabled him to attack the bigotry of some of the Muslims he saw around
him (Tansel, 1961, 168) and to berate others who refused to acknowledge
the new conditions created by the technological advances of the West. Naci’s
epic poem Musa bin-EVil Gazan yabut Hamtyyet, published in 1881 related
how an Andalusian Arab general had fought single-mindedly and without
help to maintain the integrity of an Arab kingdom in Andalusia. One of
the lessons that he attempted to get through to his readers was that the
Arabs of Andalusia were once unified and could therefore resist foreign en-
croachments (Tansel, 1961, 169). At the same time, Andalusia was a coun-
try where science had progressed because skills were rewarded by the ruler.
Because those in power had later forgotten their responsibilities and had
plunged into dissipation, the protection accorded to men of science disap-
peared, and the state was thus weakened. At a time when the Arabs only
kept Granada, Musa entertained thoughts of surrender. In Naci’s poem,
Musa, defeated in battle, commits suicide. This poem was an immediate
success and was used in schools for the purpose for which it had been
meant, namely the inculcation of a new inner commitment to the preserva-
tion of the empire (Tansel, 1961, 172).
In a number of works on religion, Naci tried to provide comments
which would place a work such as the Qur'an in perspective for those who
did not know Arabic: an adumbration of one of Bediiizzaman'ss approaches
(I’caz-1 Kur’an, Istanbul, 1883; Tansel, 1961, 176, note 1). In a book
entitled Hikem-i Rifai, he tried to provide an anthology of the sayings
of the founder of the Rifai (Rifa’iyya) order, Ahmad al-Rifa’i. The book by
132 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

al-Rifa’1 had already been seized upon as a fitting piece of propaganda for
Sultan Abdiilhamid’s Islamic propaganda expert, Abul Huda. Naci used
Abul Huda's work to prepare an anthology with a commentary (Tansel,
1961, 177).
What is interesting about this activity is the extent to which Naci
is using the Islamic classics to make them available to a class of readers
who presumably would not have had access to them in earlier times because
they could not read the originals in Arabic. Now, the greater literacy
of the Tanzimat school population allowed these works to be disseminated
in a fashion that had not been attempted before in Islamic history. The
stratum of ‘‘carriers’ of the Islamic message was being widened to include
persons who were not Islamic intellectuals but who could now act as middle
range Islamic propagandists. The extent to which Naci’s and Abul Huda’s
activities were coordinated is not known, but some general agreement
between them as to the new opportunities that were opened up by the
new educational plant of the Tanzimat for the spread of Islamic culture must
have existed.
The sultan, as well as many leading Ottoman intellectuals, had tried
to use Islam as the basis for an ideology because all felt the need to coun-
teract the centripetal forces of differentiation which were forcing Ottoman
ethnic groups away from a center. In the sultan’s plans, Islam was, once
more, to assume this function. An Islamic ideology was also to remedy the
increasing distance between cultural strata which were now in process of
formation. This was a new phenomenon: the imperviousness of the new
cultural strata— Westernized/traditional—was replacing a system where per-
sonalistic forces had been much stronger, strata more diffuse. But things
did not work as the sultan proposed: the educated became increasingly dif-
ferentiated from those still immersed in the traditional stream, and the mo-
bilization of Ottoman Muslim masses around a new Islamic culture was an
immense task which at all times exceeded his means. Two important devel-
opments added to the already existing rift in Ottoman society which was
being reorganized around a Western cultural pole, the spread of Western
modes of daily life among the officials and the influence of positivism
among intellectuals.

The Ottoman Capital in the 1890s

When Said Nursi arrived in Istanbul in 1896, he was stepping into
an urban setting which had changed considerably since the first years of the
 The Ottoman Empire 133

Tanzimat. According to Arminius Vambery, a Hungarian orientalist with a

life-long interest in the history of the Turks, these changes had been gath-
ering momentum since the end of the Crimean War (1854-1856). Vambery
who had closely followed the events of the reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid, and
had met with the sultan, portrayed the sharp contrast between the Turkey
he had known in earlier times and the Turkey of the 1890s.
Allow me to cite certain characteristic facts expressing the state of things
which prevailed in those times and the general disposition of minds in that
epoch. Despite an intimate and exclusive frequentation of Turkish society in
those years, I had only come across a few Turks who, while on one hand
learning the languages, the mores and the usages of the Occident, were also
inspired by its energy, its perseverance and its activity, those fundamental
qualities of cultivated persons in Europe. Even among the men who were
leading the movement {of reform] and who were the least influenced by reli-
gious fanaticism, one could remark a strong dose of indolence, of apathy and
indecision as well as a look veiled by fanaticism. (Vambery, 1898, 10—11)

It is probable that, despite the ethnocentric references which crop up in

Vambery’s pamphlet, the original impetus for its production had been the
desire to encourage Ottoman officials. Throughout the pamphlet Vambery
implied that the most crucial changes in the Ottoman Empire had occurred
during the reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid I]. This emphasis was meant to
refute the picture of the sultan as a mean despot which was building up in
European public opinion. Vambery went on to describe a change which may
be described as one of social consciousness:

In my time even enlightened Turks, with the exception of a few higher func-
tionaries influenced by European civilization, had only a very vague notion of
the ideas of nationality and the fatherland. The historical past and the ancient
Ottoman grandeur was present only in the minds of some, for the study of
national history was completely neglected. Religious discussions and unim-
portant details of the life of Muhammad or of the first period of Islam had
exercised a greater attraction on the minds than the history of the formation
of the Ottoman Empire. (Vambery, 1898, 21)

What is remarkable about this description is that the subjects which

Vambery described as preeminently interesting to Ottoman officials in the
1850s were the same subjects which, according to the founder of the Com-
mittee of Union and Progress, Ibrahim Temo, were discussed among the
more conservatively inclined provincial adolescents who were accepted to the
Military Medical School preparatory section in the 1880s. We may say that
134 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

one of the things that changed between 1800 and 1895 was the “problem-
setting mode’ of educated Ottomans while that of the provinces remained
unchanged, despite superstructural changes.
In the early stages of the Tanzimat, the perception of historical reality
was filtered through the historical-conceptual scheme of educated Ottomans
of the time. This scheme was a Muslim Ottoman world-view and seems
to have continued to function as the intellectual frame of reference in the
Ottoman provinces long after the Ottoman capital had changed in this
respect. No doubt Said Nursi’s ability to achieve considerable resonance
with his message in the provinces in the 1920s was still partly related to
this lag.
The more intellectualistic arguments that Vambery adduced for the
progress of the Ottoman Empire appeared together with more superficial
arguments about the appearance of Turkish officers: “Instead of the officers
of olden times, dirty and dressed negligently, one encounters today elegant
soldiers with a well-groomed look.” Superficially, the description of these
sartorial characteristics appear to be marginal to Vambery’s main argument
about intellectual change. In fact, it points to an aspect of social change
that was probably as important as that in the superstructure, namely the
increasingly functional differentiation of Ortoman society during the nine-
teenth century. Thus, in the era covered by Vambery, the army was trans-
formed from a “slovenly” band into the regimented, disciplined and docile
instrument, led by a corps of officers whose specialized skills of command
were magnified and transformed into a profession by Prussian manuals of
soldiering. General von der Goltz, who was in charge of Ottoman military
training after 1883, was to produce such a manual entitled The Nation in
Arms, in which the officer was made into an exemplary figure leading by
the force of his moral dedication symbolized by his impeccable gear. Von der
Goltz was a prominent military thinker who “saw the military in its total
relationship to the society in which it existed” (Griffiths, 1966, 58). For
him the officer cadre made up a social class; its life-style had to be con-
sciously manipulated and its boundaries defined to make it into a solidary,
compact group. This manual was translated into Turkish in A.H. 1300
(1882-83), but its influence no doubt antedates the translations.
The intellectual atmosphere which prevailed in the Ottoman capital
also appears to have been more lively than can be gathered by the existing,
mostly negative, accounts of Sultan Abdiilhamid’s reign. This contention
can certainly be supported up to the early 1890s. It is true that we cannot
describe what was going on in Istanbul in the 1880s as a flowering of
 The Ottoman Empire 135

Ottoman culture, but the intellectual experimentation which was taking

place was remarkable and is attested by the rich publishing history which
coincided with the first decade of the sultan’s reign.
In those years Ottoman intellectuals had begun to cut loose their
moorings to official circles and government bureaus which in the past had
provided for their employment, sustenance and intellectual stimulation.
With the increasing readership of newspapers and edifying articles in mag-
azines, an audience had formed for the mass media. Intellectuals were as-
suming the characteristics of an intelligentsia, linked to the public by a new
function shaped by the newspaper, that of weighing public policy. In the
press and in the other publications of the time, however, two themes can be
recaptured. One, already of long duration, was the malaise caused by a new
species of over-Westernized Turk. The second theme, much more latent, was
the increasing unconcern for religion, which, in its more definite or philo-
sophical form, may be termed “‘positivism.”

Les Précieux Ridicules

The Tanzimat statesmen and their cohorts had established in the upper
spheres of officialdom in the capital a fair replica of the type of life which
one could find in the great European capitals. Istanbul had been invaded,
not only by imported cloth and by printing presses, but by cafés and dance
halls. These new-fangled institutions were concentrated in Péra, the Euro-
pean quarter of the capital, where the Royal Prussian orchestra gave con-
certs, Sarah Bernhardt performed and where the Café Couronne had
gathered pretty Austrian girls as serveuses. In Péra one could receive mail
through the uncensored postal services of foreign powers; one could also buy
books and newspapers which would have placed their purveyors in greater
jeopardy on the Turkish side of the town across the Galata bridge.
By the 1880s there existed a Turkish clientéle, partly made up of
young fops who originated in the upper class circles of the Tanzimat, and
who catered exclusively to Péra’s way of life. A satire of this superficial in-
tegration with Western civilization was embodied in one of the first impor-
tant Turkish novels of the century, Recaizade Ekrem’s Araba Sevdas: (The
Low of Carriages). The hero of this novel, Bihruz Bey, is someone totally
alienated from local Ottoman culture and disgusted by popular mores. Bih-
ruz spends his father’s wealth in acquiring the most elegant horse-drawn
carriages. He has his suits made at the best Western tailor in Péra. He
spends a few minutes in his government bureau every day but looks for
136 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

adventures in the city parks the rest of the time. Meeting lower class Turks
who are on an outing in the Park, and witnessing their strange oriental
garb, he wonders whether “/e carnaval est arrné’ (In French in the novel.).
The change in orientation symbolized by Bihruz Bey was deeply offensive to
traditional Ottoman society. At the most superficial level this new behavior
was a denial of Ottoman-Islamic culture. But there were additional levels at
which Ottoman culture was being subverted. Ottoman wealth had always
been embedded in a social nexus which limited its effect. Great wealth was
the apanage of officials in the traditional system but it was also—theoreti-
cally and often in fact—limited by its function which was also largely po-
litical. Wealth was used to generate prestige; it was used by officials for the
upkeep of a personal staff of subalrern officials in a patrimonial system, and
for the expenses generated by their office. If the sultan decided that they
were not serving these political ends, the official’s wealth was confiscated, a
practice which stopped only in 1826. What was happening now was that
economic transactions were acquiring an autonomy which was undermined
by the old ideal of Ortoman economics subservient to political goals. Bihruz
Bey and his mindless expenditures represented this erosion of an old ideal.
At a time when the old Ottoman guild and craft system was crumbling,
this subversion caused serious repercussions. But it is remarkable that the
idea of uncontrolled economic activity never acquired widespread legitimacy
in the Empire despite the greed which individual statesmen showed during
the Tanzimat era and the fortunes which some of them were able to amass.

Positivism

The hard-headed attitude of the Ottoman statesmen in the years an-

tedating the Tanzimat shows their willingness to enforce a species of raison
d'etat. This political attitude accorded no special dispensation to the men of
religion when the security of the state was at stake. It also brought with it
a pragmatism which predisposed Ottoman statesmen to positivism. The
philosophical underpinning of positivism, was of course, different from that
underlying the views of Ottoman officials, but the pragmatism underlying
western European science did provide a common ground for both. The prac-
tical benefits of industry, in the sense that modern industry served to make
an industrially advanced state a forceful international factor, had not escaped
the Young Ottomans. Science and industry were thus key words for Turkish
modernizers, but the early nineteenth century Ottoman experience with
 The Ottoman Empire 137

industry had been bitter, and science seemed a way of mastering the
power held by Western states which had more widespread applicability than
industry.
A survey of the books published in Turkey in the first decade of the
reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid II reinforces the conclusion that measures taken
for the modernization of the Ottoman Empire were also forcing a pattern of
translations and publications which were focused on science. These appeared
primarily as an adjunct to the new technologies that were being introduced
into the empire. Thus we witness a rise in the number of books on the
geography of Turkey and of the world. Manuals of mathematics with books
on integral and differential calculus come into use. Handbooks for engi-
neers, conversion tables for weights and measures, works on topography and
geography surface. Part of the publications were the consequence of what
appears to have been a partial adoption of the metric system in 1882 (J.A.
Sth Ser., 13, 428-442).
Turkish literateurs of the time showed an interest in science which
expressed itself in a wide range of translations from the West of populariza-
tions of science. These became common in the 1890s (Tansel, 1946—51, 4—5).
The debate concerning materialism as a philosophy had begun some-
what earlier and was fuelled by the short, but productive, life of Besir Fuad.
Besir Fuad was the editor of the first Turkish literary periodical to place a
special emphasis on the development of science and the scientific world
view. *
In 1886 Besir Fuad published a book with the title of Beger (Human-
ity). In his preface he stated that Herbert Spencer's classification of the sci-
ences placed those aimed at the preservation of health at the head of the list,
and he noted that the development of the arts was placed at the tail end of
this list (Okay, n.d., 105). He implied that in the Ottoman civilization of

*The journal was entitled Haver and appeared for four issues in 1884. The extent to
which the term science could be a cause for misunderstanding was well documented
by one of the major disputes that erupted on the editorial board of the Haver.
Western mathematico-physical sciences had been introduced into Turkey under the
rubric of “fen.” This differentiated modern science from traditional religious sci-
ences known as “z/im.”” A member of the ‘a/ema class apparently thought that these
were the sciences on which the journal was to concentrate. He accepted to sit on the
editorial board but later protested that the only science was the ‘‘science of kelam’’,
i.e., the science of dogmatics (Okay, n.d., 49-51) and resigned from his post.
138 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

his time the contrary held true. The book consisted of a popularization of
the advances scored in physiology and seems to have been strongly influ-
enced by Claude Bernard's Introduction a l’Etude de la Médecine Expérimentale.
Other contributions of Besir Fuad were also in physiology. One of his most
interesting works on the physiology of the brain may have been inspired by
Biichner’s Kraft und Stoff (Okay, n.d., 112, note 28). A number of Fuad’s
articles were translations of pieces having appeared in popular magazines
such as La Science pour Tous and Die Natur (Okay, n.d., 117). His literary-
interests were focused on Zola, who, for him, represented the literary equiv-
alent of the scientific attitude. Zola was, indeed, trying to apply to the
analysis of society some of the approaches that Claude Bernard had used for
physiology (Okay, n.d., 150). The cumulative cultural change experienced
by Ottomans was having an effect on their religion. Thus the Turkish nov-
elist Halit Ziya [Usakligil}, who lived in the more cosmopolitan setting of
Izmir, was already disgusted at the time of his adolescence by the ignorance
displayed by zmam in their sermons (Usakligil, 196, 229).
The relatively open nature of Turkish intellectual activities in
the 1880s can be seen in that Ahmed Mithat Efendi, while publishing
contributions by the advocate of Islamic classicism, Ibrahim Efendi, also
gave a sympathetic hearing to Besir Fuad. Ahmed Mithat Efendi himself
now tried his hand at “naturalism’’ (Okay, n.d., 230). His son-in-law
‘“Muallim” Naci, whose contributions to the re-Islamization of Ottoman
culture we have surveyed, joined in these activities, taking up the transla-
tion of Emile Zola’s Therése Raquin. Thus, experimentation in the best sense
of the word seems to have been the hallmark of Turkish intellectual life in
these times. But the relatively unsophisticated attempt to catch up—and
make everyone else catch up—with Western thought ground to a halt in the
mid-1890s. Turkish literateurs now adopted the tactic of taking the pre-
mises of Western scientific thought for granted without making too much
fuss about them. *

*The change may have been due to the tightened censorship which was imple-
mented after 1895 and to the blow by Ottoman censorship which stopped the pe-
riodical Mektep the author of an article on Indian (?) Pantheism had been taken to
task after a denunciation that he was spreading materialism. An alternative expla-
nation would be that the psychological positivism of Paul Bourget, and his analyses
of Western pessimism which replaced Turkish scientism were more apposite to the
mood of the Turkish intelligentsia at the time. The sultan’s shadow was lengthen-
ing and the entire cast of Turkish life was becoming more oppressive.
 The Ottoman Empire 139

Distantiation

In the aftermath of the new censorship of the 1890s symbolism was

adopted by a new generation of Turkish literateurs. This generation was also
increasingly alienated from the ‘‘carnaml” and had a tendency to distance
itself from popular culture. Distantiation was a relatively new development
in Turkish intellectual life; it was also the mark of the new generation's
attitude towards religion. But this was only one aspect of their alienation-
from the general cast of traditional Ottoman culture. In that culture, re-
finement and sophistication had been outstanding, but on the other hand,
an aspect of modern Western European bourgeois culture which was in the
process of formation had not yet taken hold. In Europe both legislation and
city planning were gradually turning the city into a place where the upper
classes were physically isolated from the lower. This was one way of separat-
ing “vagabonds” and “criminals” from the productive strate of society (Sen-
nett, 1973). In the Ottoman Empire, this Victorian trend to a real
differentiation had not been so clear. The world of baggy pantaloons which
Bihruz Bey found so distasteful had previously been part of the world in
which the upper classes were immersed even though their life conditions
were different. The officials were in touch with the world of shadow play
and people’s romances. This was a grand guignolesque world whose repre-
sentation of sexual acts on the scene placed prudish Victorian onlookers in a
state of shock. The new generation of the 1890s emphatically distanced
themselves from these populistic features of traditional culture. In literature
this appeared in the disappearance of the device whereby the narrator would
take the reader aside to explain what was afoot. Ahmed Mithat Efendi had
used this method constantly, but it was soon to be considered jejune by the
generation that took over from him.
To understand the causes and the effects of this distancing of the ed-
ucated from the masses we have to look at the work of Goody and Watt
(1968, 57) and the parallel findings of Sennet. Goody and Watt point out
that the advent of literate culture enables a person to avoid culture in a way
that would not be possible before extensive literacy was obtained. Pre-
literate communication being principally through forcibly shared symbols
and rituals, the individual is immersed in contact with his immediate
group through these channels. The symbolic system of literacy changes all
this by enabling the symbol-user to keep in touch with society without be-
ing in constant, personal, face-to-face contact with the community. Sennet
(1973) has shown that nineteenth century culture, and especially the culture
140 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

of its new cities, led to types of ecological concentration that increased this
isolation effect. A similar effect may be postulated for Istanbul, where the
number of publications inspired by Western literature suddenly shows a
steep rise in the 1870s, and where the build-up of the new quarters away
from the “rabble” was taking place at the same time. Thus, communica-
tions developments were taking the literate elite of the Ottomans away from
the people, but once again, through the characteristics carried by a new
patterning of communications rather than by the specific ideas of the West.
Preciosity, positivism and distantiation all came to a head in 1896
when Hiiseyin Cahid Yalcin, yet to be one of the leading journalists of
Turkey, turned his wrath on Arab culture and flatly declared that Ottomans
had no need for it. A number of ‘u/ema rose up in alarm at these “lucubra-
tions” and the decadence they underlined. The original article and the pro-
tests together produced a cause célébre. The most violent protest was that of
the future seyhilislam Mustafa Sabri Efendi, who had to go into exile after
the Republic was proclaimed in Turkey in 1923 (Berkes, 1978).
Already, beginning with the 1860s, a type of apologetic literature had
emerged, rushing to the defense of Islam as a superior culture to which the
parlous condition of Islamic states could not be attributed. Ahmed Mithat
Efendi, who could not quite make up his mind as to where he stood in
relation to the European dispute regarding the conflict between religion and
science, had, nevertheless, bravely taken up the defense of Islam shortly
thereafter. Neither was this a completely unambiguous stand, since he col-
lated his defense to a translation of Draper's History of the Conflict between
Religion and Science. The literary production was paralleled by a much more
fundamental reassessment of Islam which found its source in the contribu-
tions of Cemaleddin Afgani, the premier Muslim reformist of the nine-
teenth century. Cemaleddin had clashed head on with the Ottoman ‘xlema
when he had claimed that prophethood was an “art’’ in the Ottoman capital
in 1869. These deistic inclinations were forgotten when, later in the cen-
tury, he started an attack against materialism. Two more strands in his
thinking were to have an influence after his death in Istanbul in 1897. One
was the idea that the revitalization of Islam would only be achieved through
the revitalization of Islamic states and the recapture of their strength on the
international scene. The second, which Professor Fazlur Rahman has pin-
pointed, was a new humanism, an interest in man as man. Cemaleddin was
so sure of the superiority of Islam that he believed that Europe would, in
the long run, embrace Islam in the place of Christianity, an idea which
recurs in Said Nursi. Afgani’s influence was perpetuated through the re-
 The Ottoman Empire 141

formist program of his disciple, Muhammad ‘Abdi, whose life was centered
on the idea of the unity of God and the conviction that reform meant fore-
most the reinstilling of the conception of God as the unique and sole master
of the universe (Hourani, 1962; Kerr, 1966). Muslims had to study the
Qur'an and immerse themselves in its idiom to recapture this primal ele-
ment in Islamic faith. Again, an echo of Muhammad ‘Abdu’s idea of an
immersion in the Qur'an as well as his attempt to reach the masses reap-
pears in the teachings of Said Nursi. A third person in this well-known
triumvirate of Islamic reform was Rashid Rida, in whom Muhammad
‘Abdi’s stress on the unicity of God took the form of a strict puritanism
and an attack on Sufism. To a limited extent we also find echoes of these
ideas in Said Nursi, but in him the formalistic rejection of Sufism is con-
tradicted by a revaluation of the mystical world view.
The more profound problems of philosophy which cut across the ideas
of the three major reformers of Islam, one which they never faced as a for-
mal proposition of metaphysics, was the basic disjunction between the world
view of the Enlightenment and that of Islamic thinkers. As Hamilton Gibb
has pointed out, two important changes occurred in the philosophical stance
of Europe during the eighteenth century which transformed Christian the-
ology. One of these was the idea that God was not simply a transcendent
Being, “quite distinct from the world which He had created,” but that He
was immanent either in the conceptual apparatus of humans or in the more
general sense in nature. The second was the belief that the ultimate sanction
of religion was not to be given in the hereafter but that religious values were
to be shaped inside the world (Gibb, 1945, 41). In the long run, orthodox
Muslim reformers who were well grounded in religious studies could not
readily agree to these ideas: they spotlighted the transcendence of God.
Said’s ideas also constitute an answer to these formal problems. Mysticism
as an attitude of wonderment at God's creation, as a way of integrating
oneself with the harmony prevailing in God's creation set a mood which de-
flected Islamic resistance to philosophical speculation on immanentism.
Similarly, the idea of the phenomenal world as God’s reflection allowed him
to bring in what can only be described as a deistic picture of the workings
of nature.
Said Nursi was able to work on this intellectual inheritance because of
the explosion of writing, comment and discussion which followed upon the
Young Turk Revolution of 1908. The Young Turk era was also one in which
the materialistic inclinations of some Young Turk intellectuals surfaced and,
conversely, some Turkish Muslim super-conservatives began to voice their
142 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

skepticism about the achievements of Muslim reformers. A number of

themes appear in this setting which have to be pinpointed insofar as they
establish a background for Said Nursi’s views.
The Young Turk Revolution ushered in a decade of intellectual con-
troversy among intellectuals in Turkey during which a number of positions
crystallized, the survival of which was carried into Said Nursi’s project to
abandon politics and devote himself to the Muslim education of a rural cli-
entele. The confrontation of “religious” and “‘idealistic’” views of life with
“materialistic” visions played a particularly important role in these develop-
ments of the Young Turk era.
Between 1908 and 1918 materialism appeared under two main
guises. One was a somewhat crude materialism of Biichner, the second a
form of deism. The Young Turks were sympathetic to this second form
because it allowed them to praise Islam as the most excellent and advanced
of all religions while engaging in positivistic reforms of society. Among the
latter the reform of the marriage and family laws of 1917 was the most
conspicuous (Bouvat, 1921).
Biichner came to the fore primarily in the ideas of Baha Tevfik
(1881-1916), a journalist who, with his brother Fikri, started a series of
publishing ventures to popularize the ideas of the leading Western expo-
nents of materialism. Among these one may count the Library of Scientific
and Philosophical Progress (Bolay, 1967, 25), the Journal of Philosophy (1911)
and the periodical Intelligence (1912). Baha Tevfik impartially attacked all
persons he considered charlatans, religious reactionaries or nationalist ideol-
ogists. He translated Biichner’s Kraft und Stoff,* Ernst Haeckel, Fouillé’s
History of Philosophy and wrote Sensibility and the New Morality and Nietzsche.
He is the first person to have leveled a sustained attack against the separa-
tion of sexes in Turkey because he considered it to undermine normal fam-
ily relations.
Baha Tevfik was the prime target of conservative Muslims, but neither
did they spare the deist Celal Nuri, whom they considered to be a sly hyp-
ocrite trying to introduce materialistic conceptions under the guise of a
defense of Islam. What Celal Nuri was trying to do in his work entitled
The History of the Future (Tarih-i Istikbal) was to propagate the idea that
Islamic tenets amounted to an acceptance of the laws of nature. He should

*which already was clandestinely circulated among students in the 1890s and
against which a refutation had already been written in those years (Adivar, 1944,
II, 56, note 2).
 The Ottoman Empire 143

have known better since the similar ideas propagated by the Indian Sayyid
Ahmad Khan had already caused considerable scandal in the preceding cen-
tury. Celal Nuri was faced by a two-pronged attack in which on one hand
figured Sehbenderzade Ahmet Hilmi speaking for orthodox Islam and on
the other Ismail Fenni (Ertugrul) voicing the synthesis of mysticism and
orthodoxy. The important difference between these two writers was that
while Hilmi had only negative arguments with which he tried to destroy
Biichner and Haeckel’s theses, Ismail Fenni offered his readers a model of
integration with the cosmos modelled on the theosophy of Ibn al-‘Arabi.
This adumbrated a view of the universe that we find in some of Said Nursi’s
ideas. We have already seen how Said Nursi was drawn into this controversy.
Of a more radical cast was the reformism of the Russian Musa Carul-
lah Bigi, the person who had commended Said Nursi for his defense of
freedom. Musa Carullah took to task all of traditional Islamic learning and
especially the scholasticism of kalam thinking. He was therefore roundly
attacked by the more conservative thinkers among whom appears Mustafa
Sabri, the man who had rallied Muslims for an attack on literary decadents.
Bediiizzaman considered both to have taken extreme positions. He believed
Mustafa Sabri to have a slight edge over Musa Carullah, but was repelled by
Mustafa Sabri’s denigration of Ibn al-‘Arabi (Lem’alar, 259).
In the years 1908-1918, intellectual circles in Istanbul eagerly took
up the discussion of Islam’s place in Ottoman society. A somewhat unex-
pected aspect of the following debates was the coolness with which many
prominent Turkish-speaking Ottoman ‘u/ema met the reformist current
which had been brought to maturation in the Muslim world during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by such outstanding personalities
as the Egyptian 4/sm Muhammad ‘Abdi. The opponents of reformist Islam
voiced their ideas in the Beyan ul-Hak and were led by Mustafa Sabri
Efendi, who was to become seyhilislam in the year 1919-1922 after the
flight of the Young Turk triumvirate. These circles were particularly dis-
turbed by the proposal to re-open “the gate of interpretation” (étihad) to
Islam and to bypass the precedents established by the classical commentators
of Islam. For the truly conservative as well as for the masses it represented
an extreme rationalization of Islam or, alternatively, a destruction of the ac-
commodation which Islam had reached with localistic practices. For the
‘ulema it meant an undermining of the traditional legalistic apparatus. Since
orthodox interpretation of religious law flowed from the commentaries of the
founders of the Islamic schools of law, incursion into freer hermeneutics
meant to part company with those schools. Those who engaged in these
144 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

practices were accused of being “without school” (mezhepsiz), an attack that

implied that one was feckless and irresponsible. This accusation is one which
still has weight in Turkey today.
Forward-looking ‘a/ema and laymen, by contrast, expressed their views
in the periodical Szrat-2 Mustakim (later Sebil itr-Resad) and did take sides
with ‘Abdu’s school, the Sa/aftya. One of the leaders of this group was the
poet Mehmed Akif, whose epic Safahat had aspects of a program of socio-
religious reform. Included in the ranks were learned Muslims such as Mar-
dinizade Ebiiliila, Bereketzade Ismail Hakki, “Manastirl:” Ismail Hakks
and M. Semsettin. The latter, who was later to take the family name of
Giinaltay, played an unusual role in the history of Turkish Islam in the
twentieth century and deserves more than cursory attention. In 1914 his
Zulmetten Nura (From Darkness to Light) set a program for the retrieval from
current Ottoman Islam of what—in the light of the then received Western
ideology—could be considered the most progressive aspect of Islam. In
1928, after the proclamation of the Republic, he emerges once more as a
figure in an Istanbul university commission formed to modernize Islamic
ritual and the setting of the mosque. In the commission's proposal, ritual
was to be made ‘‘clean’” and “orderly,’ the language of worship was to be-
come Turkish, ritual was to be shaped so as to offer an “aesthetic appeal,”
and the service was to be led by persons who understood the “social con-
tent” of the Qur'an (Jaschke, 1972, 39-41). Giinaltay later took part in the
politics of the single party of the Turkish Republic, the CHP, and emerged
aS prime minister in 1949. Some of the liberalizing moves that the CHP
took with regard to its strict secularism bear his imprint.
Ziya Gokalp, the ideologue of the Young Turks shows many similar-
ities with Giinaltay in his stand towards religion but with a starker sociol-
ogism due to the influence of Durkheim. He wanted Islam to be made
understandable to Turkish-speaking worshippers. He saw religion as the
foundation of a national ‘‘collective conscience” but at the same time as an
item of personal ethic. Prayers were to be in Turkish and the “Turkifica-
tion’ of ritual was to him a means of anchoring the religious commitment
of the rural population. His inspiration had partly mystic-sufi origins, and
a major theme in his work was the replacement of the fear of damnation and
the promise of the rewards of paradise with an internalized ethic.
Conservative and progressive Ottomans seem to have shared the convic-
tion that Anatolian Islam, both as it appeared in the Sufi lodge or tekke and
the medrese, was suffused with superstition, alchough different reasons were
proferred for this state of affairs and different solutions were proposed.
 The Ottoman Empire 145

Young Turk religious reforms proceeded in a stream parallel to “pro-

gressive” thought. Among these one may count (Jaschke, 1972, 70) the
reorganization of the program of instruction of the medrese, the training
school for kadis (medreset ul-kuzat), the school for preachers (medreset il-
wzizin), the school for the training of administrators of pious foundations,
and the new statutes on the administration of the medrese. Educational req-
uisites of a higher type were now mandatory for preachers, the Council on
Muslim Judicial Rulings (Hey’et-z Iftaiye) was required to take into consid-
eration all schools of Muslim law in reaching a decision, the duties of méftiis
were delineated, and family law was rationalized in 1917 (jaschke, 1972,
55 and 70 f.). The reform of the Islamic institutions continued after the
flight of the Young Turk leaders with the establishment of an Islamic Acad-
emy (Dar il-Hikmet il-Islamiye) (March 5, 1918; Jaschke, 1972, 56). Said
Nursi was, as we saw, appointed to this academy upon his return from
Russia. Among his colleagues figured Mehmed Akif and “Izmirli” Ismail
Hakk:i. Said seems to have suffered his breakdown at this time, and this
prevented him from participating in the work of the academy.
The goals of the academy as they appear in its program show parallels
to the modernizing aims of the Young Turks. The academy was to propa-
gate Islamic principles through the preparation of sermons, catechisms,
manuals for medreses, and the publication of classics of Islam required for the
teaching of theology. However, the decisions of the academy seem to show a
much more simplistic, moralistic tone than the aims implied (Albayrak,
1973).
One cannot but be impressed when one covers the history of these
years by a common theme which is the attempt to draw a personal ethic out
of the fund of Islamic mysticism. This trend, popularized by Sehbenderzade
Ahmed Hilmi in his novel Amék-1 Hayal (1910), continued during the Re-
public, and one of its most prominent contributors, now working as a pri-
vate person, was “Izmirli” Ismail Hakki. A man much less in the limelight
in the 1920s and 1930s was the sociologist and Istanbul University Profes-
sor Hilmi Ziya Ulken. Today he can be counted among the persons who
throughout the 1940s and 1950s carried the torch of a social ethic drawn
out of Islamic mysticism (Ozberki, Master's Thesis, Bogazici). Uken’s im-
mersion into Marxism in the 1930s only serves to underline the continuity
of his early and late thought with respect to the potential of Sufi ethics.
Said Nursi’s reliance on the undiluted message of the Qur'an, the fact
that he addressed himself to the rural population, and his use of a Sufi
resonance to try to devise a social ethic may have been influenced by the
146 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

preceding background. However, in a striking departure from this setting,

he shunned the obviously Durkheimian scaffolding that appeared in the
ideas of some of the religiously influential thinkers of the years 1908-1918,
and which one can even find in the program of the Dar il-Hikmet il-
Islamiye. We now get a better understanding of the transformation that was
involved when the “old” Said shed his persona to become the “new” Said.
The new Said was taking leave from the intellectualization of religion to
grasp the bedrock of the ‘““mysterium tremendum.” For him, faith now over-
took religion as ‘reasonable,’ although the latter still occupied an important
place in his teachings.
CHAPTER IV

Matrix and Meaning

A: Nurculuk and the Outer World

TO ANALYZE THE convolutions and describe the components

of a movement as complex as Nurculuk necessarily involves a degree of arti-
ficialicy and simplification. Nevertheless, a preliminary distinction which
brings some order into the picture consists of separating the forces that
shaped the external mechanisms printing the social tracks onto which the
movement could be switched from the satisfaction of “inner needs’ of its
disciples. I shall try to outline these external forces in this section while
describing mechanisms related to “inner needs” in the next.
The most remote of the external determinants, those that operated as
long-term trends, are part of a world-historical development to which a
number of labels may be attached. Whether these labels highlight the
spread of an “Atlantic” cluster of cultures, or the formation of a system of
world-economy, or the increasingly hegemonic position of the European
state system, or even the penetration of colonialism and imperialism in the
Middle East, they refer basically to the same phenomenon of a communica-
tions revolution which increased the interconnections between the less devel-
oped and more developed parts of the world. For the Ottoman Empire this
process would be congruent with structural changes that followed upon the
Tanzimat. I have attempted to show how forces which fall under this heading
operated in the Bitlis area in the 1870s in my introductory chapter. I took
up the structural transformations of the Ottoman Empire in Ch. III. But
world-historical structural changes also changed the dynamics of Islam as a
system of social relations. Ottoman Islam was also drawn into this process
and the outcome affected the readiness of the rural masses to listen to the
message of the Risale-i Nur. Among these developments we may count the
gradual inclusion of larger sections of the population into the social com-
munication network and, among processes once removed from this world
trend, the expanded scope of tarikat activity in the Muslim world and the
survival of religious networks in Turkey during the Republican era. As a

147
148 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

world-historical development, these may be subsumed under the rubric of

the “mobilization of the periphery.”

Religion and the Expansion of Communication

By the end of the nineteenth century a much larger part of the

population of Istanbul had been drawn into new configurations of social
life than was the case even in the middle years of the Tanzimat, but the
provinces, too, were becoming less isolated. The way in which Said Nursi
could receive information about the ideas of Muhammad ‘Abdi from
students passing through the province Mardin gives us an inkling of the
consequences of the global communications change for its inhabitants. An
accurate description of these communications links cannot but take into
account the fact that they already were quite developed in the Islamic
world at a much earlier date; also, that Mardin was on one of the trade
routes which had been used for centuries to link various parts of the Islamic
world.
With the decline of commerce in the East the economic dimension of
inter-Islamic communications had shrunk, but its religious function had
survived.
Ahmed gives us a striking description of its importance in the 19th
century:

Islamic societies are notorious in requiring a holistic framework of analysis

due to their homologous structural arrangements and in the universality of
their politico-religious symbolism which are maintained . . . with contiguous
Islamic communities and persistent contact, in particular, with Mecca and
Medina. These latter cities act both as Islamic source points for socio-
religious activities and as disseminating points for revivalistic-reformist ideas
and movements. Conceptually, this locational factor gives the Islamic world a
physical orientation around which to order its existence and from which to
derive its spiritual inspiration. Universal and easily identified Islamic symbols
are carried into and exist in most remote Muslim societies: numerous iden-
tical words and verbs, common socio-religious festivals and certain normative
values. Various groups, both formal and informal, keep the channels of com-
munication open without the Islamic world: hajjis, pilgrims, missionaries,
scholars, migrants and traders. These channels sometimes block up or fall
into disuse but have generally remained functional. It is this channel, for
example, that provided news of a Turkish victory over the Greeks in Europe
in the late 1890s and stirred enthusiasm among the Pathans in the North
West frontier of India against the British. (Ahmed, 1980, 85)
 Matrix and Meaning 149
Ic is a homologous segment of this communications network, shaped at the
local level, which provided the basic facilities for the spread of Said Nursi’s
ideas.

The Revival of Sufi Orders |

Recent scholarship has chronicled the revival of Sufi orders during the
nineteenth century. It has also described their shift to a more worldly stance
in which figure socio-political mobilization and the politicization of Sufi pérs
(Trimingham, 1973; Metcalf, 1982, 8). The spread of Nakszbend: miiced-
didism was, in fact, part of this larger revival which was to transform the
Islamic world. The manner in which Sultan Abdiilhamid II engineered his
own policy of proto-nationalist propaganda carried through the Sufi orders
was another eddy in the same stream (Abu Manneh, 1979). In Rumelia
too, developments occurred which, emerging from a different sultan, never-
theless paralleled those initiated by Mevlana Halid in the East. Here, a more
latitudinarian current, that of the Me/ami acquired a new vitality during the
nineteenth century. In earlier centuries in the Ottoman Empire the Melami
had at times acquired notoriety as religious groups suspect of some form of
threat to the state. The revival of the order, however, underscored the same
pietistic characteristics which appeared in the miiceddidi Nakstbendi. The
substance of this quite novel proselytizing in the Balkans may be described
as an attempt to re-awaken the Islamic community of believers (Gdlpinarl1,
1931). When the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire shrank, in the after-
math of the Balkan War, some Melamis emigrated to what remained of the
territory of the Empire. Although they are considered to have fueled conser-
vative Currents among the young Turks, no mention is made of the name of
the order concerned. At least one account of those times mentions that it
was ‘“‘dervishes’” who were partly to blame for disrupting the relations be-
tween Muslims and Greeks in Western Anatolia (Sotiriu, 1980, 78). The
underground revival of Islamic orders in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th
century, therefore, seems to have been widespread and to have taken in the
Balkans as well as Eastern Anatolia and possibly even Western Anatolia.
Although we have few details of the way the movement affected Isparta—
Said Nursi’s designated place of exile—we know that the provinces provided
fertile ground for its persistence.
Ottoman provinces witnessed the decline of the Ottoman Empire
through a number of contrasts which developed during the nineteenth cen-
tury. There was, at first, the rise of non-Muslim minorities on a new tide of
privileges. The presence of foreign consuls to which great deference had to
150 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

be accorded was new and it rankled. Towards the end of the nineteenth
century Greeks started a slow take-over of the distribution of foodstuffs and
of essential implements for the rural populations in western Turkey. Retreat
on all these fronts produced an apathy which must have been enhanced by
the ravages of continued wars on the population. Provincial Turks who saw
themselves as Ottomans and Muslims perceived all of this as a decline of
Islam. Sir William Ramsay states that, already in the 1880s, a ray of hope
had emerged in Western Anatolia as a result of the support by Abdiilhamid
of Muslim activism (Ramsay, 1915-16, 407-408). Yet in the 1920s a
widespread anomie was all that could be seen in Anatolia by foreign observ-
ers. This was partly the consequence of intra-communal squabbles involving
non-Muslim minorities (1908-1915) and the destruction wrought by the
Greek invasion of 1919. Said Nursi emerged at a time when the exchange
of population between Turkey and Greece had created a new demographic
picture and had left many economic slots unmanned in western Turkey.
Young Turkey, the Provinces and Religion

By the beginning of the 20th century the cultural gap between the
Westernized, often agnostic or atheistic intellectual and the lower classes
had created a feeling of popular suspicion against secularist modernizers.
This feeling became widespread at the time of Young Turk rule: many pi-
ous Muslims considered them to be men of no religion (dinsiz). Since the
Young Turks, influenced by a positivism of sorts, directed their efforts to
the spread of educational opportunities, the improvement of agriculture and
the elimination of the influence of local notables who were exploiting the
peasants, this reaction is understandable. Part of it was due to the defensive
reaction of the religious establishment. Part of it has to be attributed to the
Young Turks’ rather devious and purely formal attempt to use religious
sentiment. In order to win support for their reformist program, they orga-
nized their own Islamic propaganda for internal as well as external con-
sumption, but had little use for the religiosity of the small town or the
village. Here, life was still centered on the common participation in Friday
prayers, the observance of Muslim feasts and the observance of Muslim rit-
ual. Not the least of these influences was the way in which the aesthetic
appeal of religion worked as a focal point to create a general climate of
sacrality as distinguished from the varying strength of piety among indi-
vidual townsmen. An Ottoman intellectual who later opted for Marxism
remembered that religion had affected him in this particular mode in his
childhood (circa 1900):
 Matrix and Meaning 151
In our city, that is to say in Edirne, religion, more than a fear or mystery
was like an ordering of the world. From the top of every hill in the city,
mosques rose, each with its own characteristic and every one lovelier than the
other. The city owed so much of its ornamentation to these that when one
lived in their shadow it was impossible for anyone to escape being influenced
by the meaning of these minarets and domes, each one of the products of the
skills of a greater master builder than the other. (Aydemir, 1967, 31)
But while the sober Islam of the craftsman in Ottoman cities re-
mained unshaken, this did not mean that the situation which confronted
Islam had not changed even in the rural and the small town setting. Both
towns and villages were being propelled into new situations if only because
of the greater penetration of government into areas where its influence had
been much more indirect in the past. The population of the Ottoman Em-
pire which had not had much contact with its center was now increasingly
in touch with it due to the new administrative system, the modest but
increasing expansion of the road network, the important projects of railroad
construction and the spread of a national market from the west toward Cen-
tral Anatolia.

Isparta: 1926
When the Turkish government exiled Said Nursi to Isparta it unwit-
tingly provided him with a most suitable base for proselytizing. Isparta was
a Western version of Bitlis with many differences but with a number of
striking similarities.
Isparta was in an isolated, mountainous region which, in Ottoman
times, specialized in the production of men of religion. The many medreses
and tekkes scattered throughout the province were the institutional base of
this specialization. But the province differed from the Eastern regions of
Anatolia in that the network of Islamic education was much looser, less
pervasive. Said Nursi’s work was to fill in these interstices. A certain divi-
sion of labor characteristic of the province also prevailed. In the center of
the province and in the peripheral districts functioned a number of religious
“colleges” (medrese). In towns, and especially in the main center craftsmen
specialized in leatherware and rug weaving. The villages produced cereals,
raisins and opium. In 1892, Cuinet’s figures showed a net favorable balance
of trade for the province of 35,000 T.L. Trade was controlled by Armenians
and Greeks. Figures for 1885 and 1914 (Shaw) indicate that the Muslim
population of the central sub-province of Isparta (Merkez Kaza) which was
43,000 (rounded figures) in 1885 grew to 46,000 in 1914. By contrast the
152 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Greek population of the same administrative unit grew from 4,000

(rounded figures) to 6,000. We cannot follow this growth within the limits
of Isparta township, but Cuinet’s figures mention a Muslim population of
13,000 and a Greek population of 7,000 in what one surmises are figures
for the township. The notorious unreliability of 19th century statistics do
not allow any speculation on this score except that the growth of the Greek
population in the township must have followed that recorded for the central
sub-province of Isparta (Cuinet, 1890, I, 846-852; “Isparta,” 3504—-
3655).
In the late nineteenth century educational networks comprised about
200 Qur’anic primary schools serving a population of about the same num-
ber of villages. Tarikat were also ubiquitous: Mevlevis and Naksibendis pre-
vailed. A tomb of ‘Abd al-Qadir does not seem to have referred to the
illustrious founder of the Kadiri order but to a namesake. The religious life
of the masses in the province was centered on visits to tombs of prominent
alims who had originated in the province and who had acquired the status
of holy men. About 30 to 40 medreses continued to provide religious train-
ing in the 1870s.
Developments during the nineteenth century disturbed what seems to
have been a stable, symbiotic arrangement with Muslims concentrating on
their religious institutions while Greeks, Muslim immigrants and a much
smaller number of Armenians controlled business. The Tanzimat, with its
opening up of new trade and other channels was the source of these
changes. The final achievement of the late Tanzimat (or of the years of the
reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid II, 1876-1909) was the establishment of one
middle school (ri#sdzye) in each sub-provincial center and the founding of a
lycée in the provincial center. The already-existing specialization of Isparta
in education may have been the reason for which a girls’ teacher training
school was established already in 1875. (Accounts of the educational devel-
opment of Republican times point out that it was the ubiquity of the medrese
which facilitated the spread of the secular ‘“‘laic’’ education of the newly
founded Republic.) But the medrese network itself expanded considerably in
the late nineteenth century. Educational statistics for 1903 mention a total
of 60 medrese, twenty more than in 1877. As difficult as it is to give cre-
dence to the sultan’s statistics, some remarkable increase in the number of
medrese students must have occurred (statistics show an increase of more than
100%). The change is plausible in the light of a number of structural
changes in the province. One of these was the general demographic in-
crease. Again, we note that the population of the province as a whole had
 Matrix and Meaning 153
doubled during the reign of Sultan Abdiilhamid. A source of this increase
was refugees from the Balkans who were settled in the province following
the war of 1877—78 with Russia. A source of expansion of the medrese pop-
ulation may have been the rise in the rate of unemployment following the
influx of refugees, i.e., of young men who could find nothing better to do
than to fill the medrese. There exist verses by a local poet which lampoon
these students and the lowering of religious learning which this dilution had
caused. Changes in the demographic picture had already occurred in 1877
when Circassians from the Caucasus were settled in the province. This was
repeated after the Balkan wars of 1913, refugees being settled this time in
the sub-province of Keciborlu. On the other hand, the growth of the Mus-
lim educational network may have been part of governmental policy. One
aspect of the policies of the Tanzimat was the expansion of educational facil-
ities which would set up new methods of instruction: the risdiye was the
institution which exemplified this change. Often, however, the risdiye was
too expensive to staff. Ahmed Serif in his voyage through Anatolia found
such a riisdiye in an undeveloped part of Isparta: the building had been
constructed, but there were no benches or teachers (A. Serif, 1909). Under
these circumstances it must have been a temptation for the architects of the
Tanzimat to either expand or to close their eyes to the expansion of the
medrese network, which demanded neither new teachers nor pay for them,
since the teacher of the medrese was primarily supported by the local popu-
lation. At any rate, Tanzimat administrative rulings show continued support
of the government for medreses (interview with Mehmet Genc, November,
1984). The special conditions of Sultan Abdiilhamid’s reign only empha-
sized such an end. The local Greek population had been creating modern
schools in Isparta, and their educational establishment was flourishing.
Here, again, we have some difficulty with statistics, but regardless of which
way these are interpreted the Greek rate of scholarization—in middle
schools—is clearly much higher than that of Muslims. This was also true of
Armenians. In a sense, then, the local Greek population provided the same
demonstration effect that the missionaries had shown in Bitlis.
The upward trend of the Greek population of the province is closely
linked with the expansion of the coastal economy. The latter was now con-
nected with new roads and railway links to the hinterland of which Isparta
was a part. The province showed an important agricultural potential. The
trade in opium was so profitable that in the early 19th century the state had
made it a state monopoly, but there were too many leaks in the system, and
the state eventually abandoned the field. Another source of income for
154 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Isparta was the distilling of rose oil, the technology of which had been
brought by the Balkan immigrants of 1878. After 1890 the state encour-
aged the weaving of proper carpets, thus replacing the local production of
kilims by more valuable rugs. The government also established a school for
rug weaving in Isparta in 1891. In all cases, however, the value added to the
products of Isparta was siphoned off to Aegean ports and to the clearing
house town of Aydin. It was because they understood the opportunities
opened up by the sale of this produce of Isparta that Greeks, already estab-
lished in the province, had flocked in much larger numbers to the hinter-
land during the late nineteenth century.
This trend was reversed at the end of W.W.I.: Greeks began to emi-
grate from the area even before the official exchange of populations of 1924
between Greece and Turkey. There must have been severe strains which
developed between Greeks and Muslims antedating the Greek-Turkish con-
frontation in the 1920s. Both movements together emptied positions in the
structure of the business community which Turks now began to fill: Turks
stepped into occupations as middlemen and traders that they never had filled
before. Another political development of benefit to the Muslim population
was that during the Turkish War of Independence of 1919~22 the province
was providentially drawn into politics and emerged with a shining image
vis-a-vis the Ankara government. The background of this political coup was
that during the war of independence Isparta was in the region occupied by
Italians. The méifté of Isparta organized a guerrilla unit against the Italians
which he called The Iron Regiment. One cannot but see in this terminol-
ogy the influence of Turkish nationalist rhetoric of the Young Turk era.
The Italians, however, were gentle in their response and kept out of trouble.
The local resistance forces were primarily involved in the incarceration of the
representative of the sultan, whom they refused to turn over to Istanbul.
After the establishment of the Republic, the méfti of Isparta and a number
of other notables took their seat in Parliament. Isparta notables thus became
allies of the Republican People’s Party, the single party of the Republic.
That they were rewarded is clear from the ease with which the industrial-
ization of the province followed the founding of the new regime. A yarn
factory was established in 1924-26, and this was followed by the founding
of the Sarkikaraagac Bank (1927). But while the notables were becoming
increasingly city-oriented, the rural population was losing the organic link
it had established with the ‘u/ema since the doctors of Islamic law had been
disestablished by the Republican government on March 3, 1924. The ‘ulema
had lived in their midst even in the most remote districts. A society which
 Matrix and Meaning 155

was primarily kept together by cultural relations with a parallel symbiotic

economic structure was being shaken; a new social entity, established on the
basis of market transactions and close relations between the notables and
government, was rising. A rural-urban cleavage developed which had a cul-
tural, rather than strictly economic, character. Said Nursi owed some of his
support to the persons who were disoriented by this fundamental change in
the pattern of social relations.
Secularization

Following the inception of the Republic, the new regime undertook

momentous steps towards secularization. On March 3rd, 1924 the caliphate
was abolished. So were the Ministry of Religious Affairs and that of the
Pious Foundations, as were all religious schools (medrese). The training of
men of religion was placed under the auspices of the government and suf-
fered a sharp decline. In 1926 the Swiss Civil Code was adopted (Toprak,
1981, 54 f.). This was followed by an educational ideology which, in pri-
mary schools, impugned the ‘w/ema for the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
In the new schools they were described as ignorant and reactionary fanatics
who had exploited the Turkish people. The uneasy conjunction of this image
with that of a Turk as a Muslim attentive to his religious duties still per-
sists in the present-day school program. *
There were a number of reasons for which this secularizing stance un-
hinged the provincial population of Anatolia. The mere description of this
transformation from a setting in which Islam had occupied a central place
to a secular “‘laic” society gives us an inkling of the radical change which
was achieved in a short time. Nevertheless, the type of disruption caused by
the change only emerges when one brings up the details of this slice of
Turkish social history. In Isparta—as in Bitlis—the ‘alema had not only
been men of religion, they had formed a net of lower order social leaders;
they had been rural beacons linking the culture of the masses to the “great’’
culture of the cities. All of these blows to the religio-social structure of
Isparta had resulted in a situation in which traditional symbols were clung
to with the tenacity of those who felt they are about to lose their ‘““map’”’ of
the world. However, this new clientele required to know more about this
map than their ancestors would have.

*This was written in 1984. The extent to which Islamization has progressed since
can be followed in that the sentence is no longer as true as it was in 1984.
156 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

In Barla, Said Nursi gathered around him a clientele both different

and more numerous than the persons who had gravitated to him in earlier
times. His early followers had consisted primarily of his students at the
Horhor Medrese in Bitlis and also of intellectual peers who appreciated his
learning. Now the intellectuals with whom he had discussed the future of
Islam in Turkey were replaced by peasants, craftsmen, small traders and
their sons, who were beginning to attend the lower grades of the Republican
educational establishment. This cohort was led by men who had been
trained in medreses and whose social origins are best described as provincial
middle and lower-middle class. Among them figured a minor notable and
imam of the village of Barla, where Bediiizzaman was in enforced residence,
Said Nursi’s personal servant, a trader, the son of an officer with a long
residence in Damascus bearing the sobriquet of hafzz (Qur'an reciter), a pri-
mary school teacher, a man who had risen to the rank of sergeant during his
military service, the :mam of the village of Bedre, a barber, three men of
modest background whose professions could not be ascertained, and the son
of a lower ranking religious functionary (Aoca) (Sahiner, 1978 and 1986, II,
101—120).

First Followers

A number of letters addressed to Said Nursi by some of his followers at

the time when he was exiled in Barla provide us with clues concerning the
appeal of his message. Since these letters are written by followers with a
background of medrese studies (in one case a military academy background),
they are not necessarily representative of the value which his message had for
his illiterate followers, but they do make up a set of responses that were
important in the formative stages of the movement.
The most articulate of his followers (in relation to the number of
printed letters) turns out to be Hulusi Yahyagil, whose biography I give
below in Chap. V. An officer with the rank of captain at the time he first
met Said, Hulusi was obviously a person who was highly responsive to reli-
gious “music.” For him, Said Nursi’s primary contribution resided in infor-
mation concerning theological issues which provided him with clues that,
apparently, enabled him to solve theological puzzles which he had been un-
able to unravel on his own. Hulusi seems to have been primarily interested
in the mystical-theosophical tradition, but he also appeared to be seeking a
satisfactory picture of the cosmos (Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybi, 1960, 43, 49-
51, 52, 84, 91, 95, 104). For another follower, the zmam of the village of
Bedre, Said Nursi’s contribution was his ability to overcome the zmam’s own
 Matrix and Meaning 157
pessimism: he felt that Said’s writings were a “balm” at a time of confusion
(Ibid., 36, 43, 56). The zmam was also grateful for information about Islam
that was unobtainable in other sources (I[did., 35). For the Aafiz “Little” Ali
of the village of Islamkéy, Bediiizzaman provided an answer to the question
‘Where do we come from and where are we going?” (Ibid., 36, 70). To him
it was a way of nullifying the effects of the “dead end of philosophy.”
A common element in all these comments is dissatisfaction with the
available information on religion. Disciples are interested in having a better
understanding of the elements of Islam; they are trying to elaborate a more
internally consistent picture of their religion. They have inquiring minds
and even “‘Little’’ Ali has something to say about “philosophy,” i.e., the
speculations of Western secular thinkers.
One person to whom Said Nursi gave particular attention was an ex-
officer, Re’fet by name, with whom he had an extensive correspondence. He
appears to have been delighted by Said’s combat against what Re’fet de-
scribed as “becoming beggars of Europe for science and enlightenment’
when the Qur'an could be used for these ends. An important aspect of the
style of these letters and of Said’s own pronouncements is that they freely use
such concepts as electricity, motor, factory in the context of the revitaliza-
tion of religion. The teachings of Said are described in one instance as ‘‘the
electric bulbs of the Nur factory.” One of the earliest messengers of the
group is still known as “Santral’” (telephone exchange) Sabri. Here again,
the impact of the mechanization of the ambient world seems to have been
effective in as isolated a region as Isparta. These questions about religion
were generated by the Nurcu’s confrontation with a new body of knowledge
acquired by chance or through the channels which made some of the ‘“‘mod-
ernization’” of the center trickle into the countryside. One level of their re-
ligious understanding which was affected was the issue of Islam in the world
at large.
The Republic had started a secular attack on the idea of an Islamic
community which had been the ultimate legitimating symbol of society in
the Ottoman Empire. This aspect of Muslim “‘collective representations’’ was
denied a role in Republican Turkey. The Kemalist system replaced them
with the secular ideology of the Republic, with a new creation myth which
sought the roots of modern Turkey in the achievements of the Turks of
Central Asia, and a new social propellant, namely the idea that the future
of Turkey consisted in the elaboration of a modern society taking its cues
from Western solidarism and positivism. The socially less-favored Muslims
of the provinces also had greater need than before for a legitimating canopy
158 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

since they had begun to be drawn into a more complex system of national
communications where they were seeking their place. In the views of this
early clientéle of Nurculuk, Islamic discourse was a beacon that provided a
solution for such a search.
Networks

The criss-crossing network of the many Sufi orders which had a hold
in Anatolia set the stage for the operation of more restricted, smaller com-
munications systems which operated according to similar principles of net-
work formation; one of those crystallized around the person of Said Nursi.
The basic matrix for this replication was the Halidi establishment in eastern
Turkey and the notables of the Bitlis region who had more or less solid links
with the Halid:. Said Nursi had been a lecturer at the Horhor Medrese at
the time of his exile and, therefore, kept this connection alive with a number
of his students in the years that followed his departure from Bitlis. A num-
ber of his Halidi friends who taught in other medreses also kept in touch
with him. Religious leaders and tribal chiefs who had been part of the
group which left Bitlis to establish obligatory residence in various parts of
Turkey in 1925 also kept their contacts. This was done either through cor-
respondence or by the intermediary of persons travelling from East to West
who brought him greetings and information. It was through this network
that the news was spread that Said had turned over a leaf in his life and that
he was producing some new commentaries on the Qur’an. A survey of per-
sons who figured among a large group of sympathizers (Sahiner ed., 1978)
shows that many of these came from the middling stratum of Turkish pro-
vincial towns and that among them contact with Said was established
through personal connections more than by an exposure to his theories. Let-
ters which were written to Said by his first disciples show that the move-
ment was organized in the vicinity of Barla by a “staff’ composed of men
of religion of lower rank or laymen knowledgeable about religion, and that
they communicated with persons of a similar background spreading the
message further afield (Barla Lahikas1, passim).
Networks and Politics

The involvement of the Nar movement in Turkish politics has often

been a theme which has been invoked to attack it. That such an involvement
exists today cannot be denied. One instance would be the support which
the Nurcu gave the Demokrat Party in the 1950s and the Turkish clerical
party, the MSP, in the elections of 1973. The movement then switched its
 Matrix and Meaning 159

support to the Justice Party. Said Nursi’s own relation to politics shows a
more complex pattern, which explains the involvement of Turkish religious
groups in the political process better than does a simple tally of support for
political parties.
Said Nursi’s first career is an instance of an intermeshing of personal,
ideological and political concerns. His second career, that of a teacher of the
truths of Islam, showed what may be called a long-range political purpose,
which was the revitalization of Islam as a world force, but he did eventually
add shorter term political goals to this purpose temporarily. The appearance
of the Demokrat Party as a hegemonic political party in the 1950s set a new
field for the influence of religion in politics. As we already saw, Said took
advantage of this setting to get one of his followers who had been elected
representative from Isparta in 1954, Dr. Tahsin Tola, to lift the interdiction
against the printing of the Risale-i Nur.
The Demokrat Party, however, did not let its guard down in its atti-
tude towards the Nur movement. It did not allow Said Nursi to enter An-
kara when, towards the end of his life, his followers attempted a show of
strength by inviting him to visit the capital (1959). Thereafter he was also
forbidden to move from his place of residence. Even though he was on the
move again, shortly after this interdiction, the attitude of the authorities
toward the measures to be taken to restrict the scope of his burial ceremo-
nies shows that they were apprehensive of political repercussions related to
his image even after his death.
During the Demokrat era (1950-1960) a number of notables from the
eastern provinces of Turkey were elected to the Turkish parliament. Of ne-
cessity, the membership of this group overlapped with those of sarikat for-
mations. Sometimes this was so because tribal leaders (who were part of the
local notability) were also religious leaders, or because these representatives
had relatives among religious leaders, or because they had attended religious
training. Links with Said Nursi emerged from such propinquity. An exam-
ple would be the relation between Said Nursi and the local notable, Kinyas
Kartal. Kartal was elected to Parliament in the 1960s as a representative of
the Van province. In his attestations for Said Nursi, Kartal relates chat
when in 1925 the notables of the Bitlis-Van area, a mix of tribal leaders
(Kartal’s role as a “‘tribal’”’ leader is one he assumed after his migration from
Russia, where he was an officer in the Czarist Army) and religious person-
alicies (Son Sahitler, II, 16 f.) were arrested, was also taken into the net. The
group included Said Nursi; they were shepherded together to western Tur-
key, although Kartal was sent to enforced residence to another town. A
160 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

similar picture emerges from the statements of Giyaseddin Emre, indepen-

dent representative from Mus in 1954, elected on the Demokrat Party ticket
in 1957 and arrested after the military intervention of 1960 (Ibid., 49 f.).
Emre took upon himself to speak for Said Nursi on a number of occasions
during his political tenure.
All of these strands show that the interweaving of family ties, notable
status, tartkat membership, religious education and bonds of friendship
made up a network which was both instrumental in recruitment to Narculuk
and, also, legitimized Said’s message. This network found opportunities to
perpetuate itself on the national scale as a result of the more intense social
mobilization of Turkey after 1950. Following the death of Beditizzaman, its
ideological focus shifted from his person to that of his writings. In a sense,
then, the step taken by Said Nursi in the 1920s, adumbrated by the steps
in his maturation and the transition from the teachings of a charismatic
leader to theses expounded in print (the Risale-1 Nur)—was a correct assess-
ment of the potential presented by the new field of action for religion ini-
tiated by changes of social structure during the twentieth century.
The support of the tarikat-notable network of Eastern Turkey was par-
alleled by a similar but different network which operated within the general
area of Isparta-Eskisehir-Afyon in the western provinces of Turkey. Here,
local political influence appears to have been much less an elite process than
it was in Eastern Turkey and showed a much more populistic tinge. In
Isparta, religious leaders also wielded considerable social prestige, but there
were no notables with power comparable to that of tribal leaders. Of the first
twelve disciples of Said Nursi almost all are from the western region and are
characterized by this populistic syndrome. Their social origins are varied;
some of them of a truly rustic cast, others obviously with wider connec-
tions. At least six of them had family or more direct ties to the religious
establishment and religious institutions ([did., 101-120).
The lines of force which drew persons to Said overlap and work cu-
mulatively, but I shall try to underline one of the dimensions more mark-
edly in each of the case histories I examine in the next section.

B: The “Inner” World

One of the puzzling features of Said Nursi’s writings, which emerges

from the corpus known as the Risale-i Nur, is its helter-skelrer, relatively
unsystematic structure. A section of these collected sermons such as Lem’alar
(Flashes of Light), for instance, covers the following subjects in its first few
 Matrix and Meaning 161

hundred pages: Jonah, the meaning of his tribulations; the affliction of Job
(Ibid., 19f.); an interpretation of the Qur’anic verse of Man's attachment to
the transitory as summarized in a Naksibendi axiom, commentary on a verse
of the Qur’an concerning the leadership of the Muslim community (Fazlur
Rahman, 1979, 170); an interpretation of S#ra 48 (‘Victory’) on the moral
strength instilled by Islam even in times when this religion appears to have
lost its moral authority; God’s way of warning humans; following the path
of the Prophet Muhammad at a time when unauthorized innovations (b:d’at)
are rife; an answer to Re’fet Bey’s two questions concerning God's control of
one’s deserts (rizk) and the seven layers of heaven and earth. The list goes on
with such questions as: How is it that partisans of the devil are able to score
successes in this world?; Teachers of religion state that the earth stands on a
steer and a fish, but geography shows that the earth is suspended in space
(there is neither steer nor fish). What is the truth of this matter?; What is
the mystery of the expression “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the
Merciful?”; Why didn’t the predictions of such clerics as Caprazzade Abdul-
lah Efendi, who, during the preceding month of Ramazan predicted that
the Muslim community would experience important reversals of bad for-
tune, materialize?; Explanation of the causes of Said Nursi’s “Crisis of Con-
science’ of 1921.
To unravel these utterances we have to fit into the shoes of those to
whom they were addressed, and this involves a reconstruction of the entire
mental map of Bediiizzaman’s followers.
The external developments which promoted the spread of Nurculuk
provide us with a pattern of tracks which shaped the opportunities and
delineated the boundaries of the movement. This is a feature in the growth
of Nurculuk which one has relatively little difficulty in tracing. To recapture
the inner spring that animated the Nurcus is more arduous, because these
ideas present a number of interpenetrating facets.
In the most general sense, Beditizzaman was making use of an exist-
ing Islamic ‘idiom’ to establish resonance among a clientele whose day-
to-day life was integrated into this set of meanings. We may start with the
resonance created by a concept which reappears frequently in Said Nursi’s
homiletics, that of the Islamic community or wmma (See Gibb, 1963, pas-
sim; Hodgson, I, 173-74; Wate, 1960).
Hodgson gives a cogent description of this structure:

Muslims share their experience in a total society, comprehending (in princi-

ple) the whole of human life, the Ummah, built upon standards derived from
162 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

the prophetic vision; comprising a homogeneous brotherhood, bearing a com-

mon witness brought to mind daily in the salat worship and impressively
reaffirmed en masse each year at Mecca. (Hodgson, 1974, II, 338)

The “mma was a conception which was used by Muslims to apprehend the
central realities of Islam. In the Muslim theological frame, its definition
and conditions of emergence as well as the promise of its perpetuation were
contained in the Qur’gnic injunction to Muslims to ‘‘Propagate the Good
and arrest Evil” (Hodgson, I, 387). The attempt to follow this injunction
took a variety of forms during the centuries that followed the Prophet’s mis-
sion. One which comes to mind is the construction of canonical frames for a
Muslim society as was the case among the 10th century Muslim conserva-
tives known as the ‘‘AA/ al-Hadith” (persons who lived by the example of the
Prophet Muhammad). Sometimes the dedication to “‘arrest’” evil appeared as
a reaffirmation of the Muslim ruler’s obligation to enforce Islamic values. A
concrete example of this in the Ottoman Empire was the puritanical move-
ment of the times of Sultan Murad IV, which opposed social practices such
as smoking tobacco and innovations in Muslim ritual. Birgi, the home of
Kadi Birgevi, the cleric who was the inspiration for this movement was, like
Isparta, a mountain fastness of Orthodoxy. In the 20th century the Muslim
brothers show a third version of the same type of grouping (Mitchell,
1969).
A characteristic feature of the wma is the license the community
of believers arrogates to itself in taking a critical stand towards the author-
ity of officials. The recent Iranian revolution has been built on this poten-
tial for contestation which all Islamic societies hold. In Iran, the potential
was exploited to the full, but the study of Islamic revitalization movements
in the contemporary world shows that this was no isolated instance. In
Muslim societies modernization has been accompanied by a reactivation
of contestation legitimized by the theory of the community’s rights—and
obligations.
All of these aspects of the action of the amma in its actual settings do
not give us more than a derived “macro” image of its nature. A means of
getting closer to its social morphology would be to disentangle the reper-
toire of social relations which the wmma brings with it. By repertoire I
mean a series of vocables, values, concepts, material implements, life strate-
gies, social positions and spaces, myths, sacralized locations and time scales.
One may get a deeper insight into the wmma not by analyzing these ele-
ments in their isolation but by seeing them as a constellation with changing
 Matrix and Meaning 163
interrelations. This is what Foucault calls a ‘discourse’ (Foucault, 1977). I
believe this to be—among others—a convenient approach to the analysis of
the action frame of the Nzrcas.
Said Nursi was re-establishing himself inside this discourse, and he
assumed a directing role in its re-emergence when he shifted his stand from
that of the old to that of the “new” Said. He was now using a lever which
was that of Muslim “civil society” to achieve political ends, i.e., the mobili-
zation of Muslim Turks as Muslims. While Said used components of this
discourse (i.e., the position of an Glim {a learned cleric], the figure of a Saint,
the tradition which opposed pious Muslims to ‘“‘Pharaoh,” the style of the
mystics, etc.), he also transformed it. The transformational possibilities he
brought to each were centered on three “second order’ (i.e., more abstract)
features of this discourse. These were a conceptualization of social relations
as personalistic, a folk cosmology with imagistic moorings, and an allusive,
obscure, highly metaphorical rhetoric.
A Personalistic View of Soctety

For those who have inherited the Western European conceptualization

of social relations, “society” exists. It exists as a pulsating, integrated,
supra-individual being which has “needs,” gives “orders” or requires ‘‘sacri-
fices.” In Adam Miiller’s pithy summary it is: “Ein grosses, energisches,
unendlich bewegtes und lebendiges Ganzes.” This, of course, is an artifact
which is no older than the modern nation-state from which it takes its ped-
igree. We see society as a totality which has priority over individual wishes.
This totality is conceived as integrating a number of second-level compo-
nents. The latter are abstract entities which operate in pursuit of their own
“needs” and which can be understood without reference to the persons of
whom they are composed. Among these so-called sub-systems figure The
Family, Labor and Social Class or Strata, The Educational System or The
Government. A somewhat different picture of society was held by Ottomans
and especially by the Muslim Ottoman living on the margin of the political
elite of officials. It is this view of the world that we also find in Said Nursi.
It portrays society as made up of constituents such as “fathers and mothers,”
“our ruler” or “rulers.” It mentions the Master and his Pupils, master
craftsmen and hard working artisans. The linkages between these figures
are pictured as consisting of “‘filial piety,’ “keeping one’s engagements,”
‘the sacredness of an oath,” “establishing bonds of friendship,’ ‘‘fitting into
the neighborhood,” and ‘‘trying to establish a respectable status as a mem-
ber of a (partly) religious community.”
164 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

All of these concepts may be described as personalistic. I have already

pointed out that this stand is not a defense of individualism. The concepts
depend on a view of society as composed of “‘real’’ persons interlinked with
bonds which acquire their meaning from the human element subsuming
them. Roy Mottahedeh’s Loyalty and Leadership in an Islamic Society has
shown to what large extent such personalistic links were involved in shoring
up the political institutions of the Buyids, a 10th century Muslim dynasty.
The European feudal parallel immediately comes to mind.
In the Ottoman Empire, with its extensive crystallization of institu-
tions, the situation differed from that of the Buyids. Ottoman statesmen
did have a conception of society as made up of a state and also of orders
(erkdn), and their stance in the affairs of state was shaped by this model.
Another way of describing this characteristic would be to point out that
Ottoman public law (érf-# sultani) was more highly developed than that
of earlier Muslim empires. Conversely, in the Ottoman Empire, the
civil sector of society, that part of society which operated outside official-
dom, may have been more deeply suffused by the serzat. The latter operated
as an approximate equivalent of private law. Also, the world of serzat, that of
the private individual as framed by Islamic society, was, of necessity, a
personalistic world since the message of the Prophet Muhammad, the
Qur'an, was a message to men and not to society. In Hamid Enayat’s pithy
summary: “The Qur’an recognizes man (imsan) irrespective of his political
beliefs and political standing but has no word for “ ‘citizen’ ” (Enayat,
1982, 127).
In empires preceding the Ottoman, men of religion, doctors of Is-
lamic law, i.e., the upholders of the seriat were often the representatives of
the people vis-a-vis the class of officials. The Ottomans settled the problem
this posed for the center by making state officials of the most prestigious
section of the ‘z/ema, but they could not modify the populistic formulation
of politics which took its strength from the serzat.
In an ideal-typical Islamic society the efficacy of personalistic relations
which underlie the exercise of ser’: civil rights arises from the fact that per-
sonalism constitutes a system of social relations in its own right. This sys-
tem cuts across the system of public law: on it depend, in large part, the
strategies that will lose or gain status, and the cohesive forces that keep
society together. In such a society oral performances are a greater test of
one’s worthiness as a repository of knowledge than the production of re-
search papers. Personalistic relations and performances of speech are neatly
imbricated in the system.
 Matrix and Meaning 165
In town life personalistic strategies and forces are highlighted by the
quarter (mahalle) of the town, a basic unit of social life. As has been pointed
out in the case of Morocco:

Ideally, the households of a quarter are considered to be bound together by

multiple personal ties and common interests. These complex ties are said to
symbolize garaba, a key concept which, literally, means “closeness”. As used
by urban and rural Moroccans, garaba carries contextual meanings which
range imperceptibly from asserted and recognized ties of kinship to partici-
pation in factional alliances, ties of patronage and clientship and common
bonds developed out of residential propinquity. (Eickelman, 1976, 96)

Seem as a system of social relations, the personalistic element explains

some aspects of the religious strategy of Said Nursi, i.e., his special empha-
sis on changing man’s inner world as the touchstone of a revitalized Islam.
Here again, two forces worked concurrently: the mobilized self was one of
the requirements that had been brought about by the modernization of the
social structure, but the best way to implement the mobilization was to
anchor it in persons by making faith something that was cultivated by truly
autonomous individuals. Islam as an ideological canopy would provide the
external impetus to mobilization, Islam internalized would provide the in-
ternal thrust coming from individuals. The importance of this internaliza-
tion followed logically from the personalistic system, for where there are no
holistic conceptions of society to work with—other than ‘“‘Islam’’—then the
end one pursues is not to change society as a whole but the individual and
his “heart.” It is this set of opportunities for the mobilization of the heart
that Said Nursi seems to have had in mind when he shifted from politics to
the conversion of individuals.
Another characteristic of the personalistic universe of Islam is that zba-
det (‘thada) (worship of God) undertaken by an individual creates lines of
force which set him on a precise course, individually and socially. Said
Nursi would have agreed (had he been cognizant of Weber) that sbadet ra-
tionalizes life by framing it in a set of moral constraints which switch all
persons who worship simultaneously in the same direction. Said repeatedly
points to this aspect of worship. He mentions, for instance, that when one
person says “God is great” he has to realize that he is only one of thousands
who at that moment, i.e., at the time of prayer, are repeating the same
words. In a number of passages we are reminded of al-Ghazali’s ideas that
faich in and by itself generates a power of which the Faithful themselves are
unaware.
166 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

In Islamic society, the elaboration of identity according to Islamic

rules is not only an internal process; the same process has an outward di-
mension which links the personalistic system with social interaction. The
self-image elaborated in the silence of one’s internal struggles has to be
tested against the conceptions that others hold of oneself. This is true of all
societies, but it acquires an added importance in the society I have tried to
describe to the extent that the internalized pieces of the culture are much
more frequently tested in outward actions or statements (Eickelman, 1976,
132-214). This is the field where the self-image works or fails to work,
i.e., does or does not produce the expected social outcomes. In a personal-
istic setting the solidity of an institution is dependent on the reciprocal
process of the subject’s being able to withstand constant questioning. One
of the consequences of this institutionalized strategy is that social status also
acquires provisionality. Here the questioning mood is set by the communi-
ties dispensation to make the Good prevail and combat Evil. The unstable
equilibrium which follows from testing builds one of the strongest bulwarks
of the Muslim conception of social equality.

God’s will legitimates the present—and ephemeral—distribution of social

honor as a God-given state of affairs. The ranking of individuals in relation
to one another is never taken for granted but is constantly empirically tested.
Provisionality is the very essence of the cosmos. Consequently, attention is
focused upon assessing exact differentials of wealth, success, power and social
honor among particular men as a prelude to effective, specific social
action. . . . (Eickelman, 1976, 126)

We can now understand how, in Said Nursi’s writings, “children,”

and the “aged,’ both functions of the concept of zmsam (man) are two basic
analytical categories used by him to conceptualize social relations (Mektubat,
394). Said Nursi was making use of folk conceptions in which znmsan was
more important than erkén (orders). The latter, the concept of orders of
society, the bureaucrat’s way of describing social relations. Said Nursi’s per-
sonalistic classification appears also in the thought of other modern Islamic
fundamentalists such as Mawdudi, in whose scheme of social reform or-
phans make up a similar fundamental category (Enayat, 1982, 109). This
system, where the person is at the center of economic and social relations,
differs radically from one in which mechanical social processes have taken
over. An example would be the contrast between the Muslim system of eco-
nomics in which, ideally, personal welfare is the unit against which the ef-
 Matrix and Meaning 167
ficiency of the market is measured and the liberal economists’ market
system, where it is the efficiency of the market which is the main point of
interest.
In the same vein, in Said Nursi’s writings, social security is concep-
tualized as a function of the elaboration and support of strong family ties:
the feeling of responsibility of the young for the old takes the place of social
insurance (Mektubat, 240). Zekat (obligatory almsgiving) emerges as a con-
tribution to equity, social order and stability.
There exists an undeniable, potentially authoritarian element in these
patterns of relations which emerges most clearly in the one-sided obligation
of children to obey their parents and for parents to obey God. A contempo-
rary Nurcu woman now a “guest-worker’” in Germany complained that it
was because she recognized this one-sided obligation that despite the fact
that her horizons had broadened in Germany and she had gradually acquired
a new confidence in herself and autonomy towards her husband she did not
object to his sending 200-300 DM from her own earnings back to the
village to her husband’s parents (Schiffauer, 1924, 493). But the relation is
authoritarian only for those who perceive it as such. In the case of Said
Nursi’s followers, the positive aspects of obligation towards parents when
placed within the total system of Islamic relations appears to be greater than the
burdens it generates.
Personalism in the sense in which we see it used by Said Nursi has a
number of further connotations. Since Adam was the first man to be taught
the name of Allah, which embraces all of his other names (theophanies), the
concept ‘‘descendants of Adam” is the conceptual unit through which soci-
ety should be apprehended. A speculation of Bediiizzaman which is related
to this trend of thought is his assertion that one should remember that one
of the Names of God (through which the phenomenal works is activated) is
Farid, or “The Individual” (BSN, 271). Thus even individuality has as its
referent, the divine and not the person’s make-up or characteristics.
Notice that “‘personalism”’ as a conceptual template is not a psycholo-
gism but rather a non-psychological explanation. The characters in the plot
presented by Bediiizzaman are functions of their place in the family circle.
Their actions are seen as explained by the position they occupy; it is this
position or status which produces the dynamic of social action. The focus is
not on the subject but on the predicate. It is this view of society as a set of
positions informed by Qwr’anic requirements that builds the image of soci-
ety. Society, then, is not directly explainable by the Qur’an but more cor-
168 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

rectly by the positional set derived from Qur'an injunctions. The reproduc-
tion of the system in a new setting now becomes easy for the Muslim ideo-
logue in the sense that it is these positions which have to be reproduced,
and that he can easily reassemble them in the correct order since they are
limited in number.
Personalism and Ethics

Of all the themes he presented in the Rzsale-1 Nur, Said Nursi was
most adamant about the necessity to revitalize Islamic ethics. Sometimes
this emphasis had pragmatic overtones, as when he described religion as a
balm to the wound suffered by individuals. More often it was a theme
which underlined the harmony that one would achieve by remaining in tune
with the frame of the universe as taught by Islam.
Nevertheless, for Said Nursi the Qur'an is primarily a means of placing
restraints on the dangerous appetites of man. As he put it:
The aims of the Qur'an are to provide a barrier against the appetites of man
(hevesat-1 nefsantye) thus encouraging him to engage in higher pursuits, giv-
ing satisfaction to his higher aspirations and directing him towards the
achievements of human perfection. (Mirsel, 1976, 1975 citing Beditizzaman,
Sozler, 138-139)

His fundamental fear is that the me will take over in a Muslim’s life. This,
according to him, has been promoted by contemporary materialism. An-
other of his fears is that of the disintegration of society. These two thoughts
are Closely interlinked: in fact, the salvation of the Islamic nation lies in
one’s keeping immersed in the network of relations between relatives and
believers (Mursel, 1976, 174, citing Bediiizzaman, Swalar, 355) and the
ethical concerns that are generated in such a setting. This view is projected
onto Said’s ideas concerning society and the nation:
One's country too is a house, and the fatherland is the house of a natural
family. If the belief in the hereafter rules in these large houses, an immediate
consequence is the inception of the development of sincere respect, serious
compassion, affection and helpfulness which do not depend on material re-
wards; guileless service, sociability and generosity without hypocrisy, and vir-
tue and greatness without pride and the flowering of human qualities
(meztyet). It says to children: ‘There is a paradise: abandon sloth.” It says to
young men: “Hell exists, stop your drunkenness.” It says to the tyrant:
“There is a reckoning with utmost suffering; you shall be struck,” and forces
him to bow his head to justice. It says to the old: “There is a most exalted,
divine and continuous happiness greater than any which you may have lost,
 Matrix and Meaning 169
and a fresh, permanent youth which awaits you; try to gain these,’ and
it changes his tears to laughter. (Miirsel, 1976, 168, citing, Bediiizzaman,
Sualar, 262)

Thus Bediiizzaman’s world of ethical commands proceeds from the family

and the community—the basic components of society according to Said
Nursi—to the state. It is for the family and the community that the state is
created rather than vice versa. We can understand, in this light, how the
rival, “godless” theory of an autonomous state, created to bring happiness
to society, would have been considered a liberating influence for secular rad-
icals such as the young Turks. It is in this respect that the view of the state
of Turkish bureaucrats, developed during the Tanzimat and emerging with a
new dimension in the ideas of the Young Turks, may be seen as a liberation
from the shackles of community life.
The conceptual constellation of women, family, community, and man
as a prisoner of his appetites which anchor this type of ethic agrees with
observations about Islamic societies in other parts of the world. The absence
of a real boundary between the private and the public—in the sense that the
geriat claims to control the public realm—provides the clue to this ethic. In
a number of instances Beditizzaman states that the real foundation of the
moral incompatibility between Islam and modern, Western (materialistic)
civilization is that the former takes persons as basic units of social life while
the latter is based on concepts such as the nation (Sahiner, 1979, 200-201).
One of the most interesting aspects of the personalistic view of life is
the way in which it centers history on the formative years of Islam. The
latter is explained in function of the primordial role of Islamic Urzezt and
its mythical figures. The role of the unusually gifted person, and elect of
God, thus finds one more conceptual crag onto which it fastens.
Underlying the entire personalistic scheme is the assumption that the
search for truth also should be conducted in a personalistic mode, in the
sense that it is prophets, and, after them, saints—persons who have been
selected by God for special dispensation of his grace—who are the interme-
diates between God as the creating principle and the world he has created
(Beditizzaman, Mektubat, 74). Saints are the repositories of truth. Here
again the success of Beditizzaman was due to his ambiguous stand regard-
ing the role of the Saint (gzr or w/z) which he adopted but also transformed.
Bediiizzaman’s stress on the personalistic element provided the rural
population which flocked to him with a map of social relations that Ke-
malism had neglected. Kemalist ideology was long on views concerning the
170 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

virtues of Turks, the benefit of secular republicanism for personality expan-

sion, and the contribution of universal education to progress. It was short on
methods that would enable individuals to tackle issues arising in the family
circle. It did not answer queries relating to the authority of the father, or as
to what the new place of women in society would be after republican secu-
larization and the adoption of the Swiss Civil Code in anything approaching
the detail of the most commonplace Islamic ‘“‘catechism’ with rural diffu-
sion. Neither did Kemalists have a view of rituals that would give meaning
to life-stations such as birth, adolescence, marriage and death. Anyone who
has had the occasion to witness the groping attempts of brides, bride-
grooms and their families to infuse some color and warmth into the bleak
process of Turkish civil marriages will know what I mean. The superficial-
ity and lack of organic linkages with society, of Kemalism—-which was suc-
cessful in many other ways, as we have seen—appeared in such lacunae.
Said Nursi’s teachings filled this gap by providing such a map of family
norms, in particular the respect to be shown to the father and to elders.
In addition, the traditional Islamic idiom of personal and social values
was the social foundation which could be used as a springboard, in the
search for a more meaningful universe going beyond the family.
In his discourse about society, Said Nursi does not see himself as a
subject who states propositions about an external entity, society, without
taking into account his personal involvement in it; for him society is not an
“Ie” but an “I.’ Two quotations will make my point clearer. The first is
Cooley's definition of the primary group:
By primary group, I mean those characterized by intimate, face-to-face asso-
Ciation and cooperation. The result of intimate association, psychologically, is
a certain fusion of individualities in a common whole, so that one’s very self,
for many purposes at least, is the common life and purpose of the group.
(Goody, 1977, 157 quoting Cooley, Social Organization, 1909, 23)
A second source gives us a description of what knowledge meant for the
Ancient Greeks. For them:
knowledge was not something . . . acquired as a possession but something in
which they participated, allowing themselves to be directed and even pos-
sessed by their knowledge. In this way the Greeks achieved an approach to
truth that went beyond the limitation of modern subject-object thinking
rooted in subjectively certain knowledge. (Palmer, 1969, 165)
Said Nursi’s attitude towards society, as well as his conception of knowl-
edge, could not be better described.
 Matrix and Meaning 171

What I mean by an “I” is also better understood in relation to what

we know about the contrast between oral and scriptural cultures. Ong de-
scribes this difference as follows:

In the absence of elaborate analytical categories that depend on writing to

structure knowledge at a distance from lived experience, oral cultures must
conceptualize and verbalize all their knowledge with more or less close refer-
ences to the human lifeworld, assimilating the alien, objective world to the
more immediate, familiar interaction of human beings. (Ong, 1982, 42)

I would propose that—although very closely linked to a culture of writ-

ing—the culture fund which Said Nursi taps is one where there are still
survivals of orality. Furthermore, that this appears as a tension between
those aspects of his style that are highly abstract and refer to the divine and
aspects that are highly personalistic and apply to day-to-day social relations.
There remains something of an understanding of society taken from an oral
culture in his message.
A summary of findings concerning the sociological imagination of
Said Nursi would emphasize one main point: Bediiizzaman does not have a
holistic understanding of society: he sees society as made up of persons. But
here we have to emphasize another feature which runs counter to this first
finding: these persons are not real but “virtual’’ persons. They are defined
not as individuals but as positions or roles that those persons would fill. The
“Good Society” is one where this pyramid of roles—derived from the
Qur’an—is constituted. If we take “discourse” in a restricted sense to mean
the instrumentality enabling a person to speak about society, we can see
how the elimination from the social vocabulary of the names of these roles,
as was done by Republican Turkey,—that is, an incomplete conceptual
set—miay lead to the inability of a person to form propositions about soci-
ety, to speak out about it intelligently. The ensuing frustration was as-
suaged by the discovery that such a discourse was one of the facilities offered
by Said Nursi.
Innouation

Even though Said consistently used a personalistic classification for

concerns which we would classify as social, he also brings some modifica-
tions into this classification. New terms begin to appear in his writings
which are taken out of the Ottoman reformist officials’ or Ottoman intel-
lectuals’ vocabulary. Such is the concept of hayat-2 ictimatye-i besertye, a no-
tion which is used as a synonym for “civilization” (Emirdag Lahikasi, 178).
172 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

A similar term is that of hayat-2 ictimatye (Mektubat, 69) or “‘social life,”

which sometimes takes the form of hayat-z begeriye-1 Islamtye, (the social life
of Islam). However, on this occasion too, the description of the functions of
an official is characteristically traditional. The official (memur) has two du-
ties to perform in society: to keep dangerous characters at bay (muzir eghas)
and to help persons who are useful (afi). The imprint of truly Islamic
views concerning the boundaries of society also appears in Beditizzaman’s
criticism of Turkish nationalism and his support for inter-Islamic solidarity
(Mektubat, 298).
Said Nursi lived at a time when antithetical ideas of progress were
clashing in Europe. There was, on the one hand, the residue of the idea of
progress as it had been proclaimed by the Enlightenment philosophers. But
there was also the late 19th century discouragement with Western civiliza-
tion and denial of its assessment of human potential for good. Nevertheless,
there seems to have been a diffuse sense in which the optimism of the earlier
period prevailed and affected even persons such as Said Nursi. While there
is no conclusive proof of this venue into his ideas about morality, and even
though the medium that he used to crystallize these ideas was that of Mus-
lim mysticism, we discern in his preaching a softening of the orthodox
Sunni stress on the torments of Hell which are promised to sinners. There
is, conversely, a new stress on the benevolence of God and on Sefkat (affec-
tion) as the bond that links God and the believer.
In the most general sense, Said Nursi is aware that his time, the time
of modernity, bears a special mark. He sees the three concepts which char-
acterize these times as maliktyet (private property), serbestryyet (freedom), and
the growth of science. The era preceding the era of freedom is that of eco-
nomic exploitation (ecirlik devri) (Sdzler, 661), which Said Nursi describes as
follows:

The rich, which constitute the elite, have made the poor and the lower classes
(avam) into servants in exchange for a wage. That is the owners of capital
have employed those who only dispose of their labor (eh/-1 s@y) and workers for
a small wage. In this stage exploitation has increased to such a degree that
while a capital owner sits in his palace and earns a million a day through the
banks, a poor worker labors in the mines underground for a pittance. This
condition created so much hatred and rage that the lower classes rebelled
against the upper.

These thoughts were presumably inspired by the two years that Said Nursi
spent in Russian camps just before the Russian Revolution. In one in-
 Matrix and Meaning 173
stance, Beditizzaman states that Islam constitutes an alternative to commu-
nism (Miirsel, 1976, note 13, citing Rumuz, 23). There is, then, a sense in
which Said Nursi appropriates the notion of historical progress. And, in
another light, the poor can only be influenced by forces that affect their
“heart” (Mektubat, 416). Conscious of the extent to which “bolshevism and
socialism” were becoming powerful forces (Mektubat, 41 ) he considered na-
tionalism passé and Islam a current which would show renewed freshness.
Another liberating addition to Said Nursi’s repertoire was the idea, already
alluded to in Ch. III, of the rationality of Muslim ethics. The thesis that
religion could not any more be simply declarative (one of Said’s oft-repeated
statements) but had to rely on convincing arguments (which, incidentally
does not mean the arguments of philosophy) was, no doubt, an aspect of his
shrewd understanding of the process of modernization as it grew in Turkey
after 1908. A German anthropologist has recently confirmed this insight.
Werner Schiffauer, whom we have already quoted, gives us an extremely in-
teresting description of the process by which the rationale of an ethico-
religious command in an urban (German) Narcu frame leading to a
negotiating stance replaces the rigidity these values carry in the Turkish
rural setting. What Said Nursi spotlighted in a time dimension, i.e.,
against the background of modernization, Schiffauer studies spatially, i.e.,
during the move of a woman from her village to Berlin. In Berlin the
woman takes up house-cleaning work while her husband is unemployed. She
joins the Nurcu at first because she has to defend herself against the
“other’”—the Germans—and has to set a frame of identity for herself. But
once in the group she becomes intellectually and ethically much more mo-
bile than she was in the village. The symbolically charged performances of
daily life which are inflexible and obligatory in the narrow frame of village
life (e.g., covering one’s head with a shawl) acquire more play in the per-
spective of the meaning which is now considered to underlie the act itself.
This meaning opens up new options for use of this performance. Meaning
becomes the deeper legitimizer of religious value (Schiffauer, 1984).
Folk Conceptions Mobilized

Modern Islamic fundamentalist reformers have exerted themselves to

conjure out of Islam what they consider to be unwarranted, superstitious
accretions upon its “‘pristine state.’ They point out that it was this extra-
neous, irrelevant layer of superstitious beliefs which caused the stagnation of
Islamic civilization. Accretions resulted in the Muslims’ forfeiting their role
as vanguards of civilization and progress (Kerr, 1966, 106, 108). This, of
174 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

course, indicates that Muslim reformers accepted some of the accusations

against Islam that were elaborated in nineteenth century Europe. It also
shows that an existing Islamic suspicion of the theological sapience of the
masses fitted in nicely with the thesis that Islam was backward, since the
reformers stated that such idolatrous practices had fastened primarily on folk
Islam. The reformers’ efforts were therefore in part directed to stamping
out folk Islam.
For purposes of mass mobilizations that was a mistake. The extent of
this error, which with time was to beget dire consequences for the strategy
of the elite reformers, has been elegantly analyzed by the late ‘Abd al-
Hamid el-Zein, whose analysis cannot be improved upon (el-Zein, 1977,
246):

. . . the authority claimed by theological Islam is contested by the recogni-

tion that in any given cultural system, a folk theology may be found which
rivals formal theology in its degree of abstraction, systematization and cosmo-
logical implication. It is even possible to argue that this folk Islam constitutes
the real Islam and that the traditions of the Ulema developed historically out
of already established principles of the spiritual reality entwined with the life
of the Islamic community. In fact these opposing theologies are complemen-
tary. Because each form both defines and necessitates the other, the problem
of determining a real as opposed to an ideological Islam becomes an illusion.
On the most general level of abstraction, folk theology involves reflec-
tion on principles of ultimate reality, nature, God, man and history which
are formally expressed in traditional literature, folk tales, heroic stories, prov-
erbs and poetry. For instance, in the tale of Sesf bin dhi Yazan, the reality of
the world according to Islamic principles and the existence of the Prophet
was known before the actual historical birth of Mohammed and his articula-
tion of that doctrine. Therefore, in the folk conception, counter to the view
of historians and Islamicists, direct reflection upon the order of the world,
rather than the actual statements of the Prophet and Quran, lead the mind to
the origin of that order.
The order of both the natural and human world rests (sic.) upon a
hierarchical principle which arranges each thing or person continually in an
ascending order: fire to water, the segments of a tribe to the tribal section, to
the tribe as a whole. . . . At the end this order arrives at the World of Spir-
ituality which both creates and maintains these connections. . . . The entire
world becomes an open text where God reveals his language and his will. The
Quran, too, is read and interpreted within this paradigm.
Ideally, the human mind must admit to itself this natural logic. How-
ever, because man deviates from this destiny by imposing false and alien con-
 Matrix and Meaning 175
cepts upon the world, mind and nature are not initially in correspondence.
The role of the Prophet and the saints is to bring these two dimensions
together. . . . History in this paradigm never refers to the ever-changing cre-
ation of new meanings in human life but co the struggle to recapture and
immobilize an eternal experience.
While nature is continuous and ordered, history remains discontinuous
and chaotic. In folk theology the remembrance of the Prophet, the actions of
the saints, and all rituals attempt to transform the discontinuities of history
into the natural order by processes of ritual repetition which stops the passage
of time... .
While in the folk tradition the order of nature and the Quran were
regarded as metaphors, the strict and formal theological interpretations gave
complete authority to the sacred book to define the order of the world. (el-
Zein, 1977, 246-247)
Part of what el-Zein considered to be “folk Islam’ in fact is of Neo-Platonic
origin and figures more in the theosophy of the mystic orders than in folk
Islam. But, in the case of Turkey, it is true that the folk conception may be
seen as a direct reflection upon the order of the world. Thus an interpreta-
tion of the Qur’an which linked it to the order of the world, that of Said
Nursi, found an eager audience for reasons that went back to features of
folk Islam as well as for reasons linked to modernization and the spread of
communications.
To look at Said Nursi’s ideas in the perspective of Orthodox Muslim
theology therefore yields a relatively poor harvest. Works critical of Said
Nursi written by modern academic Islamists such as those of Armaner and
Kutluay miss the point entirely when they parade these theories as strange
and confused. It is much more rewarding to see Said as using both the
Qur’an and residues of Anatolian mysticism as a transformational medium
which allow him to engage in a number of simultaneous operations, estab-
lish contact with popular religion, draw followers of the folk variety of Islam
in the direction of a belief focused on the unicity of God, shift the dead
weight of traditional Islamic orthodoxy and join the stream of an under-
standing of the laws of nature as it appears in modern Western European
thought.
In fact, this activist use of mysticism has other parallels in the history
of reformist Islam. The description by Trimingham of the use of mysticism
by the 18th century tarikat activists would be quite apposite in our case:
Their ways maintained established liturgical and ethical sufism, having little
in their method and training that old Sufis would have regarded as mystical.
176 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

This is shown by their practice, lack of guidance of neophytes and rejection

of esoteric teaching, and by such aspects as the kind of material drawn from
classical Sufism, especially the prophetic tradition, which they incorporated
into their manuals to justify every statement. (Trimingham, 1973, 107)

Mytho-poetic Integration

Even though Said was educated in the tradition of the mystic orders,
he assumed an antagonistic stance towards them because he believed that
re-instilling faith in the hearts of Muslims was more important than subtle
arguments about the ways in which the divine showed itself. Nevertheless,
his understanding and especially his interpretation of the Qur’an is marked
by the mystic’s style. This appears, in particular, in his interest in the met-
aphorical suras of the Qur’an and in his elaborate disquisition on the
“secrets” that may be unravelled through a Quranic hermeneutic. It is on
these metaphorical suras that he fastens in his own commentaries, and it is
this approach which allows him to find meanings and directives in the
Qur’an which, according to him, have relevance for all times. Another, more
utilitarian, justification that he uses in support of his language is that al-
lusive and metaphorical rhetoric has a direct impact upon people's hearts
which classical theology cannot match. Possibly these are the two sides of
the same coin: the quality of the Qur'an that confers hermeneutic freedom
on the exegete is the same which appeals to the heart of the believer.

Style and Symbol

The modern historian Vico was one of the first thinkers to point out
that the dynamic of human behavior has greater affinities with poetry than
with mathematics. Said Nursi’s appeals have a charm which derives from an
intuitive understanding of this quality. By his use of the idiom of mysti-
cism, Said Nursi avoided the trap into which fundamentalists such as Mu-
hammad ‘Abdu had fallen, namely to close the ‘emotional outlet afforded
by Sufi mysticism” (Gibb, 1945, 75).
The Anatolian population to which he addressed himself, on the other
hand, had for long been living in a twilight zone where poetry, religion and
mythology blended easily. This was partly the consequence of the trickling
down to lower classes of the theosophy of Muhyiddin ibn al-‘Arabi. In fact,
Said Nursi believed this theoretician of Muslim mysticism to be in error. He
pointed out that the latter’s theosophy (phzlosophia dwinalis—hikmet-i ilabtye)
had the effect of nullifying the necessary distinction between the duties due
 Matrix and Meaning 177
to the creator and man’s nature as a reflection of the creator among many
believers who took him as a spiritual guide.
Conversations with contemporary Nwrcus confirm the feeling that the
incantatory style of Said Nursi still plays an important part in attracting a
clientele to the order. The magnetic effect of Said’s arch, convoluted style
and the import of what often amounts simply to ungrammatical phrases is
difficult to understand for persons who come from the state-subsidized or-
thodox Muslim elite establishment, i.e., the Faculty of Divinity at Ankara.
Be this as it may, the allusive, and superficially obscure, style of the sage,
has had an undeniable power in winning over disciples. This power
may have derived from an irreducible core which can best be understood
in our attraction to magic realism in literature (Jameson, 1986). As for
Bediiizzaman’s style, it can be traced to two different sources. For one,
Said Nursi’s mother tongue was Kurdish. He became fluent in Turkish only
after the age of twenty. His second language was Arabic, the traces of which
can be seen in his rich arabicized vocabulary which gives a special ring
to his Turkish phrases; there is even something evocative of the Qur'an in
his rhetoric.
The manner favored by the mystics which he studied in his youth is
no doubt another source of obscurity. Persons like Ibn al-‘Arabi were rela-
tively clear when they tried to explain how their doctrines stood in relation
to those of the Islamic philosophers but were almost incomprehensible when
they explained their own thought. This hermetic quality also appears in
Said’s works. However, it was not only the tradition to which the leader was
heir that shaped this hermetism: the clients were also ready for it. Two
elements in the intellectual background of his clientele seem to have been
involved here. First, Anatolia—as I have already alluded—was a land where
the theosophical speculations of the mystics were transmitted to the masses
by learned Ottoman Muslims. A much wider appeal was that of the ineffa-
ble meaning which mysticism was considered to conceal. The power of Be-
ditizzaman over lower-class followers has to be understood at this second
level. What we are dealing with in the majority of his works is a comment
on the mystery (#caz; 7‘jaz) of the Qur'an and now we enter an area where
Said does not any more pursue proof which figures so prominently in some
of his statements. Here, symbols and metaphors appear much more charged
with indescribable meaning than in the discursive-learned tradition. For the
less educated this aspect of the Risale-1 Nur was no doubt apprehended as
quasi-magic.
178 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Two examples from the Risale-i Nur will illustrate the imagistic fund
which Bediiizzaman was revitalizing:

Know, aberrant and confused Said that to be able to achieve the revealed
knowledge of spiritual truth and look and see the flourishes in the verses of
the Qur'an with its armor of proofs it is necessary that you . . . refrain from
extending your hand to seize a light that shines upon you. . . . I have ob-
served that the witnesses and proofs of spiritual truth are three in number:
Some are like water, they can be seen and felt but cannot be seized. In
this part it is necessary to dismiss thought and plunge into it... . The
second part is like rain. It is felt but cannot be seen or held. Turn against its
forgiving breeze with your face, your mouth, your soul. . . . The third part:
it is like light. It is seen but cannot be felt or held. Therefore turn yourself
towards it with the eye of your soul. . . . (Mesnevi-1 Nurtye, 153)
The higher recipients of knowledge have preceded us in faith and con-
firmation not by knowledge and conceptualization but by two modes which
are much more exalted and valuable than these. One is to study the book of
the universe and to look at objective knowledge such as is found in sources
like the Ayet-i Kiibra, the Hizb iin-Nuriye and the Hiilasat il-Hiilasa. The
other and the strongest is to peruse the map of human verities which ema-
nates so purely from conscience and feeling that it may be characterized as
equal to the Real [Hagq al-Yaqin,—'‘The vision of the Reality of Absolute
Truth” (Schimmel, 1975, 176)} which belongs partly to the phenomenal
world and is also an index to human pride and to its nature and thus rises
up to the state of a belief free of all doubt and perplexity... . (Emirdag
Lahikas1, 143)

Muslim Idiom and Self

Recent studies of societies in change have once more underlined the

relations between the dynamics of identity formation and religion. Comte
and Saint Simon (taking their cue from de Maistre and de Bonald) both
have a niche in the ancestry of contemporary thinkers who emphasize the
important function that religion should continue to assume during modern-
ization. Comte (who had in mind the disestablishment of the Catholic
Church in France) believed that the secularization of society by the French
Revolution had deprived French society of the cement that bound it to-
gether. He thus voiced a thoroughly ‘“Durkheimian” opinion. But another
level at which religion is drawn into our study of modernization is the im-
poverishment of the traditional means available for individuals in building
their selfhood and identity. In Brittain’s words: “There is no longer an in-
 Matrix and Meaning 179
stitutional source from which individuals can draw their values and locate
their identity” (Brittain, 1977, 45).
This occurs at a time when the expansion of social horizons caused by
urbanization and the change in social communication patterns requires
many persons who are moving from the village into the city (or who are
exposed to the new problems of the city in the village) to use their religious
affiliation as a mooring for their identity. Mattison Minnes, in an article on
the Muslims of Tamilnadu in India shows that in the circumscribed life of
the village, Islam is taken as a “given” of everyday life both by the Muslim
and the Hindu population of the villages: neither of these groups feels the
need to underline their religious affiliation. In the city, where life-styles are
more fluid, where tradition is not part of everyday life as in the village,
Muslims begin to wear Islam as a “badge” and become dependent upon
religion for a definition of their identity (Minnes, 1975).
The specific mechanisms through which individuals draw their
identity from religious symbolism seems to be confirmed by the studies of
child psychology of Melanie Klein, but also by a host of social scientists
with differing approaches. The superb study of the Freudian anthropologist
Morris Carstairs in a community of high-caste Hindus is one example
(Carstairs, 1961, passim).
Whether mystical seekers of the old, traditional type who rallied to
Bediiizzaman because of their quest for a grail, or sons of peasants who were
receiving a secular primary school education in the Republican educational
system, all his clients were deprived of a resource which operated at a deep
individual level: they were not entirely cut off from the symbolic apparatus
of Islam, but they could only use these resources with stealth. Because Is-
lamic cues which directed this process had not been disturbed in the family
by 20th century secularization, the picture of the moral universe which
capped these family values was of necessity also left as a relatively undis-
curbed residue. This residue clashed with the positivistic world view pro-
moted by Kemalism and thus Bediiizzaman had fertile ground on which to
sow his ideas concerning the cotal involvement of the individual in Islam as
a solution for the tensions generated in the individual.
For one of the more interesting hypotheses concerning the way in
which this process worked we have to go to C. G. Jung. In Jung’s view the
self is not only maintained in one’s encounter with others; there is a sub-
conscious level of the building of the self which is related to the use of
symbolism, and among this symbolism, religious symbolism figures most
prominently.
180 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

In Jung’s work this appears as the idea of an “organizing center active

in the psyche” (Frey-Rohn, 1974, 68). This organizing activity takes place
through a stock of archetypal images (Ibd., 285). Men's ideas about God
are part of this stock of archetypes which humans use for the purposes of
“individuation” or to discover their ‘‘self’’ to become a separate entity or
whole (Hillman, 1974, 66). In this view the formation of the self is a
conscious as well as sub-conscious process. The archetypes which are evoked
during this process have a “distinctly numinous quality” (Jbd., 282). In a
sense, then, archetypes prefigure the idea of God as well as providing man
with a base for developing his identity as well as a self. The internal mech-
anisms which Jung called ‘“‘archetypes as such” are parallel to the culturally
determined conceptions that we have of deities. The archetypal images pro-
vided by culture trigger the internal mechanism of archetype activation
which eventually leads to the discovery of the fullness of the self.
For Jung, therefore, religion is an internal process, one which relates
to finding the fullness of the self through the intermediary of archetypes
which are supra-cultural but at the same time recur in recognizable form in
each culture. But at the same time, when individuals share a common
myth, the projection of this shared God-image into the focus of the reli-
gious community, such as the church in Christianity, makes the stuff of a
religious collectivity (Edinger, 1973, 65). What Jung tells us, then, is that
the symbols of a culture are organic products which cannot be discounted at
will. To the extent that the Turkish rural world was cut off from its mytho-
poetic moorings by Republican secularization, it experienced the loss not
only of the moral directives contained in the discursive arguments of Islamic
ethics but also of the dynamic element allowing man to come to terms with
his self. The traditional symbolism understood as a means of coming to
grips with one's life prospects was an important aspect of Said’s charisma.
For many Turks—of lower or upper class—religion as a mystery had pro-
vided an open door for the solution of a number of problems of individual
adjustment that the orthodox scripturalists of the city had ruled out as ir-
relevant to religion. Not only did mysticism, Sufism, allow full scope to
mans intuitive spiritual senses, but it allowed the psychological mechanisms
linked to this intuition—mechanisms which were linked to a transformation
of the self—to come into operation. To understand the mechanism that Be-
ditizzaman'’s preaching activated we have to see that ethics do not consist
only of moral commands but also provide means of integrating a person
into ‘‘an environment felt as a cosmos” (Hodgson, 1974, I, 362).
 Matrix and Meaning 181

A fund of charged symbolism is, of course, most useful in trying to

materialize a project such as the one which Said had set himself. But we
have to look at a second dimension of morality and ethics to understand
both his project and the readiness of some to take it up. Marshall Hodgson
has spoken of this dimension as follows:

Exploring the meaning that given symbols can bear seems a major part of any
comprehensive attempt to make sense of one’s self and the universe. For when
one tries to present ultimate cosmic and moral insights, one is at the limit of
conceptual discourse; that is, at the point where the terms in which logical
sequences issue, are strictly speaking, indeterminate (e.g. the finiteness or
infinity of the universe, the causal determinacy of all sequences at once, the
value of any calculation). Here, logical deductions produce antinomies. Hence
one must speak, if at all, in symbolic images that evoke emergent associations
rather than fixed propositions, and this is done most richly in what are called
mythopoetic forms, adumbrating truths about life that every hearer can grasp
at his own level of understanding. (Hodgson, 1974, I, 224)

At a time when the world was being progressively de-mythologized and

bureaucratized, these mytho-poetic forms were also being chased out of
modern Turkey. They consequently assumed the value of scarcity in the in-
ner world of Turkish Muslims.
A methodological point which is of key interest for an understanding
of the way in which Said Nursi’s idiom worked is that morality as command
depends on discursive resources whereas morality as means of finding an
integration with the cosmos is dependent just as much on semiotic re-
sources, i.e., on the resonance created in the individuals by these symbols.
Said Nursi’s discourse contained resources of both types. This is where he
had a superiority over the more orthodox Islamic reformists.
The threshold of communications which Turkey had reached during
Said Nursi’s life has also to be taken into account at this point. Said Nursi
had decided, somewhat reluctantly—as I point out on a number of occa-
sions—that he was not going to establish a tarizkat. What he was interested
in was the perpetuation of the message which he offered to his followers.
The printed word, i.e., Said’s Risale, thus took over from the traditional
pattern of a charismatic leader selecting another charismatic leader to suc-
ceed him. Since the Risale-i Nur was to carry this charisma, his followers
and their successors, using his book as a guide, were to work for themselves
instead of concentrating on the Master. In other words, they were thrown
182 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

upon their own resources. This internalization was, once more, a shift in
the direction of setting for persons an inward world of morality and ethics,
albeit within the frame set by the Qur'an and its interpretation by Said
Nurs.
Of central importance for us is that:
1. the discourse which Said was using now increasingly was
directed to the use of a mobilized rural population.
2. that these constituted a specific repertoire; that Said was
making a special use of the “discourse,” and that he was
transforming the totality represented by the relation between
pir and miirid, \eader and disciple while saving the idiom in
which it was embedded.
In Said Nursi’s message a beginning is made in shifting the central
role of the leader to the message itself, thus establishing a new form of
integration into Islam. A much more universalistic mode of integration is
thus opened up to followers. The process of transference to a pir is modified
and shifted onto the symbol of the unicity of God and, on the other hand,
onto the Risal-1 Nur. Together with this is offered a new set of symbols
which are those of nature. Here figure, and are underlined, the vegetable
and animal universe. Said Nursi constantly mentions trees, plants, flowers,
bees, birds and insects as witnesses to the act of creation. Notwithstanding
all of Said Nursi’s protests against materialism, there is therefore a shift of
emphasis from the pir to a more abstract deity on the one hand, and a
focusing of attention on the biological universe on the other.
CHAPTER V

The Saint and his Followers

IN THE RURAL settings in which he acquired his largest

group of followers, Said Nursi was considered a Muslim saint, a person to
whom extraordinary powers are attributed, but one whose saintliness was
not acquired by an act of canonization. In Islam, sainthood is an attribute of
the religious prestige which persons build up in their community during
their lifetime. Thus sainthood is a somewhat different matter than it is in
Christianity. Muslim “sainthood” involves a whole set of distinguishing
characteristics which I shall try to cover below. Once this Islamic framework
has been described, the more properly sociological problems to be resolved
concern the way in which a saint was able to act as a magnetic pole in
relation to his disciples. This involves questions relating to the quality of
leadership, to collective representations, to charisma, social networks and the
psychological needs of persons who were drawn to the saint.

Said as a Holy Man

For the Naksibendi, sainthood is the “pivot of all spiritual realization”

(Chodkiewicz, 1986, 23). It is this numinous content which made Na&sz-
bendi seyhs charismatic organizers of the masses. Mevlana Halid had added
one item of his own thought which gave even greater spiritual power to
seyhs: namely, that in his case, the link which brought master and pupil
together would survive his demise. Bediiizzaman’s counsels to disassoci-
ate oneself from such personal bonds must therefore be seen as a signifi-
cant departure from his predecessor's practice. It was only after the age of
forty—in the image of the Prophet Muhammad—that Said Nursi began to

183
184 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

acquire a large number of followers who may be described as disciples. From

that point onward (1926) his attraction and prestige were not only depen-
dent on his learning or on the unusual figure he cut among the ‘ulema, but
on his quality as a holy man. It was after his exile and enforced residence in
western Turkey that such charisma as was attributed to a living saint was
added to his prestige as a recognized teacher of religion. Said writes about
his exile in an isolated hamlet in the lake region of Western Anatolia,
Barla, as having been a veritable bounty for the demarcation of this reli-
giously purer vocation and for his return to the true faith. By this he meant
that he had been taken out of the hurly-burly of political life from which he
had—possibly half-heartedly—tried to escape on a number of occasions.

Sainthood

The study of Islamic sainthood relies on investigations which have fo-

cused on the Maghreb, Africa, India and Indonesia, but neither our knowl-
edge of marabouts nor the fund of information on Indian Islam apply to the
Ottoman sphere. Here, Islamic sainthood requires a special problematique
which no one has yet elaborated. Once more, the greater institutionalization
of religion in the Ottoman Empire, as compared to other areas of Islamicate
culture, is the datum which demands that one place Ottoman sainthood and
the conception Ottomans held of it in a special compartment. While pop-
ular saints were revered locally, the central religious establishment (z/mzyye
in Turkish) saw sainthood as the product of a disciplined vocation, and this
discipline was located in the rules of the tarikat.
The close links Ottoman tarikat had with the Ottoman state induced
the leaders of these fraternities to carefully weigh their power options as
local leaders and keep the countervailing power of the state in mind at all
times. Since with few exceptions intellectual creativity in the tartkat was of
a high level, this quality elicited a certain deference among the bureaucracy,
many of whose members had multiple arikat affiliations. Ottoman tarikat
bore the imprint of these contradictory statuses.
All of this was reflected in Said Nursi’s assessment of religious orders.
The contentiousness he adopted in his relations with his Halidi teachers was
eventually replaced by a relative aloofness, which one may follow in his
judgements concerning five areas directly related to the issue of sainthood in
the Ottoman Empire. These were the proper role of the tarikat, the value of
Sufism for a Muslim, the rightful place of a te, or elect of God, the inter-
 The Saint and his Followers 185

pretation to be given to the idea that a mahdi or millenarian figure would

rise up in times of trouble to save Islam, and finally, the correct standcon-
cerning Ibn al-‘Arabi’s idea of the unity of being (uchdet-i viicid).
In the Ottoman Empire tarikat played a major role as purveyors of
local social services, as centers where the authority of lodge elders was used
to sort out various local problems and also as educational facilities as well as
channels between the rural population and the government. Sufism, the
search for a direct link with the divine, was an aspect of supernumerary
religious acts and was regulated by internal tarikat codes. Intellectualistic
forms of Sufism based on meditation were held in great respect, while the
more ostentatious ascetic practices were considered crudely populistic. Since
many of the sarikat lodges disposed of vast resources (Farughi, 1984), they
were also kept under strict surveillance by the government. Conversely, their
influence extended to Istanbul, where various ‘x/ema defended their corpo-
rate interest (Gibb and Bowen, 1957). It is this last feature which distin-
guishes the majority of Ottoman farikat from their equivalent in other parts
of the Muslim world. Faced with the controls imposed by an array of sophis-
ticated clerics who also showed a suspicious and skeptical mind, a local pop-
ular saint did not elicit official deference unless he had a well—established
reputation. He was nevertheless a person who wielded considerable influence
in his locality.
The issue of how to recognize a wel was subtly different since the
position of such a recipient of divine illumination was well-established in
Islam. In the Sufi tradition of Islam, religion was not only a revelation but
also a mystery (Trimingham, 1973, 133). Some men could acquire esoteric
knowledge by a method of “spiritual progression” (Idid., 135) achieved
through the intercession of a chain of elect masters, or by direct inspiration
from God. Some men, however, had special gifts which gave them an un-
mediated mystical understanding of life without intercession or ascetic dis-
cipline (Ibid., 140). Here again, two types appeared, those chosen by God
from eternity and those who received his favor in the immediate present.
Two theories converged in this understanding of the ways in which
esoteric knowledge could be gained. One was the doctrine of an-Nar
al-Muhammadi or the idea of the Muhammadan light. This was the “image
of God in its primary entity, the divine consciousness, the pre-creation
light from which everything was created. . . . The world is a manifestation
of that Light; it became incarnate in Adam, the prophets and the Agtab
(sing. Qutb, ‘Axis’), each of whom is a/-Insan al-Kamil (The Perfect Man)”
(Ibid., 161).
186 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

The second theosophical theory explained the nature of the Qutb: ‘“The
need for the direct knowledge of the Word of God brings a/-Hagigat al-
Muhammadtiyya, the Logos, in every epoch to take on the form of one known
as Qutb zamanihi (the Axis of his age), who manifests himself only to a few
chosen mystics” ([bid., 163). This theory was a major contribution of Ibn
al-‘Arabi (1165-1240), the mystic whose influence on Anatolian folk Islam
I have described as pervasive. In fact, the order of ideas in this set could be
reversed, for the theory of “light’’ was evolved to provide a “philosophical
basis for the practical devotion to saints and prophets” ([dzd., 161). In the
ages succeeding the elaboration of this theory, the conception was vulgar-
ized, and all types of holy man began to claim the status of guth. In Ana-
tolia, local saints or ze/zs were revered in many places: villages, towns or
cities. Threatened at the time of its foundation and also later by a series of
popular movements led by charismatic leaders, the Ottoman state kept a
strict surveillance on would-be gutbs and wlis.
The mahdi or sahib zubur was a figure who was much talked of among
the populace but whose conditions of emergence was interpreted with ut-
most caution by the ‘wlema.
Vahdet-i Vucid was the esoteric doctrine propounded by Ibn al-‘Arabi.
Many of the most sophisticated pious believers held these pantheistic beliefs
(Fazlur Rahman, 1979, 145), but without advertising them since this doc-
trine of the Unity of Being had often served as a target for the attack of
puritanical ‘ulema.
From Said Nursi’s answers given to queries which were posed to him
between 1925 and 1950 we understand that all these issues were still in the
forefront of the minds of his supporters in the Isparta-Afyon region. There
are three levels at which Said Nursi’s encounter with sainthood may be an-
alyzed. The first is the statements regarding sainthood we find in his writ-
ings. There are often answers to questions posed by his clientéle. A second
is the ambiguous attitude or the issue he adopted during his lifetime.
A third level takes in the perceptions of his followers as to his own merits
as a welt,

Tarikat and Tasavvuf

For Said Nursi the “purpose and end” of tarikat are gnosis (mérifet)
and also to pursue an understanding of religious varieties (inkisaf-i hakatk-i
imantye). It is a means of underscoring the superiority of Qur’anic truth
“through a voyage undertaken with the gait of the heart, due to and af-
 The Saint and his Followers 187

forded the protection of revelation. A voyage appealing to the senses but

embarked upon bare [{i.e., stripped of worldly attachments} and endowing
the traveller with a partial gift of ultimate perception.” “Tarikat is, under
the name of tasavvuf, (tasawwuf) a mystery offered to humans and a step in
the maturity of mankind” (Mektubat, 415).
God has made man’s heart part of the cosmic “machine” (Mektubat,
416), and the most important task that can be given to the heart is to
direct it to repeat the names of God (Zzkr-i i/@hi), thereby gaining a means
of communicating with the divinity. Persons who are affiliated to a tarikat
have an easier time keeping their faith intact when faced by the intimida-
tion of the Godless (Mektubat, 417). For those who live isolated “in moun-
tains or riverbeds,” or, for the aged, tartkat is a means of showing that the
“savage’’ material world which they face can still hold a “smile” for them.
Tartkat are also a resource that enables Muslims to close ranks when faced by
the “‘politics of Christianity” (Mektubat, 417).

The Veli and the Mahdi

The quality which descends upon a ze/i is a “proof of the prophetic

mission.” It is also a proof of revelation, a mystery on the road to a full
understanding of Islam and a resource for the development of Islam (Js-
lamtyet strrtyla bir maden-i terakkiyat; Mektubat, 416). The vocation of a w/z is
both very easy and very problematical, very short and very long, very pre-
cious and very dangerous. Persons who feel inspired often take this to be a
sign of having been chosen as a ze/i. In many cases they are simply deluded.
Bediiizzaman adds that he had seen many people who thought of themselves
as mahdi but simply deceived themselves and did great harm to Islam. Like
the orthodox ‘ulema Bediiizzaman was cautious about the validity of
“uniquely privileged mystical knowledge” (Fazlur Rahman, 1979, 161).

Vahdet-i Viicid

To Beditizzaman, those who believe in this theory are threatened by

the danger of appraising the phenomenal world as the projected shadow of
the divine essence, which to them becomes the sole reality. They thus radi-
cally undermine one’s relation to wordly matters. But faith cannot be built
on shadows and demands that the world be taken as real. Followers of this
extreme stance can only cause the weakening of Islam.
188 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

To the extent that both sey and welz were expected to intercede for
them with divine powers for wordly concerns or to perform miracles, the
average, unsophisticated Muslim would have difficulty discriminating be-
tween these two roles. But at this point Said was adamant: he refused to be
drawn into the role of miracle-maker.
To those who expected him to show his miraculous powers, he offered
an amusing parable. “One day,’ he related, “a man took his son to a jew-
eller’s shop. He intended to buy him some beautiful jewel. But the son was
very young. Upon entering the shop he noticed multi-coloured balloons
hanging from the ceiling. When his father asked him what he would like,
the son pointed to the balloons and not to a single valuable object.” “I,” he
would add, ‘“‘am not a balloon peddler.”
Both for Sirhindi and for Said Nursi the problem of conciliating the
unicity of God with the status of guth created a delicate problem of logical
consistency. Sirhindi has fought pantheism and had come up on the side of
the image of a single, all-powerful God. But at the same time he did not
supress completely the idea of an “axis” and of his own special spiritual
gifts, powers and authoritativeness as a religion leader (Friedman, 1971,
passim). Said Nursi, too, thought of Sirhindi as a qutb. With some hesita-
tion, as can be seen in some passages of the Résale-1 Nur, he wondered
whether he himself had not been chosen by God for such a role and looked
at the signs which would show this election. Thus we know that he accepted
as a gift a coat worn by Mevlana Halid in view of the conviction that he was
his spiritual successor (BSN, 1976, 287). He also took for granted the
concept of wlayet (wilaya; Trimingham, 1973, 134; Lem’alar, 22), i.e., the
status of a God-chosen elect. But there are many other passages in this writ-
ings where he rejects the idea that he possesses extraordinary powers and
defines his role as simply that of a teacher of religion. The gist of his teach-
ing, with its emphasis on the unicity of God and his suspicion of persons
who took upon themselves the attributes of saints, stresses a transcendent
power which, indeed, is a characteristic of his work as a whole. For him,
true faith mattered more than the persons who had pretensions of filling the
role of guth. On another occasion, he speaks of a qutb as living in Mecca the
way one would speak of any contemporary religious official, stating that the
judgment of the guth on how to deal with a particularly heinous Turkish
secularizing politician (Ismet Indnii?) had been wrong, and his own judge-
ment had been right. But in the last instance, it seems justifiable to think
that Said Nursi came to the conclusion that the creative power of God was a
more universalistic theological umbrella under which to work for the unifi-
 The Saint and his Followers 189

cation of Muslims than the congery of saints who each had a prestige lim-
ited to a province of, at most, a country. There were few saints whose
resonance carried across Islam.
Following are a number of illustrations of the way in which the various
strands which are found in Nurculuk drew disciples around Said. The life of
Abdiilkadir Badilli, taken from a volume of attestation of his disciples con-
cerning the influence of the Master on their life, provides a good example of
the way in which traditional social networks continued to operate during the
Republic, giving substance to Said Nursi’s influence.

Abdiilkadir Badilli

Badilli was from a transhuman Eastern tribe. His family was that of
the tribal chiefs. His father and his brother are described as having been
drawn to tartkat. His childhood was thus markedly influenced by what Ba-
dilli calls “the attempt to live, to some extent, by the precepts of tarikat,
which, in our childhood, we had learned to be the only means of salvation’
(Sahiner ed., 1977, 294). He continues, “There existed in me, just as in all
of us, a desire to find a miirsid-i kamil (perfect guide).”
He had heard his uncles mention the incident of Said Nursi’s exile
many times, a recollection to which his uncles added their praise of Said.
Greater details about Bediiizzaman’s life were provided by Tahsin Efendi, a
man who acted as tax collector for the village, who was also from Eastern
Anatolia and who had met with Said during the latter’s enforced stay in
Kastamonu (1936-1943). In 1953 Badilli’s father returned from a trip to
Urfa. He brought the news that some of the disciples of Bediiizzaman
known as the Nur ‘“‘students” had established themselves in Urfa.
Badilli had been given a Muslim education in the village. This con-
sisted of a knowledge of Arabic characters which enabled him to read the
Qur'an. There were no government schools in the vicinity, but his father
thought this was an advantage since it kept the children from going to town
and being subverted by what he described as movies and song. He encour-
aged his children to familiarize themselves with the rural setting and par-
ticularly to ride and hunt.
One day, again, his father went to Urfa and met with two Nar stu-
dents. He talked to them of his son and asked them to take over his son’s
education, as Abdiilkadir’s mother had died. He also gave a petition to the
governor, a man described as “leaning towards the Demokrat Party.” This
probably meant that this governor was sympathetic to the liberalization of
190 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

the strict policy of secularism which had prevailed in Turkey until 1950.
The petition demanded that the surveillance of the students by the police
should be terminated since the Risale-i Nur, the compendium of writings by
Said, was a positive influence for Turkish society.
The junior Badilli went to Urfa, found these two disciples, and de-
manded to be admitted to the order by Said Nursi. He was informed that
Said Nursi was no sey and that to join the group one had to study Bedi-
lizzaman’s books. Abdiilkadir states that he could not believe that such a
famous religious figure would not “provide one with the way” (tartkat ver-
mek). He was not convinced by the arguments of Said’s disciples, suspected
he had been tricked, and demanded to see Said Nursi. He was then in-
formed that if he copied the full length of a brochure of Said Nursi’s writ-
ings he would acquire the right to see the leader. He took the brochure with
him and returned three days later, triumphant, having copies of the entire
text in Arabic script. He was then allowed to make his way to Isparta and
gain access to Said Nursi. Said gave him a warm welcome and Abdiilkadir
thereafter returned to Urfa. He sold his hunting gun and his gear and be-
gan to work on Said Nursi’s writings for two years together with a group of
initiates in Urfa. On his mother’s death he had inherited forty sheep, and
he decided that he would devote the proceeds of these to buy a reproducing
machine so as to spread the word of Said Nursi. He set out on the road to
Istanbul to buy the machine. He visited his spiritual guide both on the
first lap of his trip and on the return.
An interesting insight into the way finances were transacted in the
sect appears at this juncture. The Nwr sect was primarily financed by the
sale of the brochures of Said Nursi. Said himself did not accept money
offerings of gifts. Old style offerings in kind were thus effectively blocked.
When Abdiilkadir arrived in Barla on his return trip, he remembered that
one of the important sermons of Said Nursi which had inspired particular
reverence in him had been printed in one of the ephemeral journals that the
group published from time to time. However, the journal had been seized
by the prosecutor's office some years before, and Said was keeping what he
had been able to recover, following the dismissal of the charges against this
publication, in his own room. Abdiilkadir asked whether he could have a
copy of one of the periodicals. Said answered that these copies were ex-
tremely precious since they had been engaged in a fight for the faith
(gazidirler). They were worth one hundred lira each—a very large sum at the
time. “I shall give you one for ten liras,’ Said said. Receiving the money,
he then handed it to one of his attendants. This scene seems quite charac-
teristic of the shrewdness with which the sale of the Risale-i Nur was made
 The Saint and his Followers 191

to support the movement, although Said himself with his meagre diet, un-
furnished room and frayed shirt cannot by any means be considered a
recipient of any largesse.
In the case of Abdiilkadir Badilli, we have patterns of affiliation which
may be considered to be a continuation of a mode of membership in a
religious group that had not changed for centuries, although Badilli’s search
did not have the obsessive quality which we see in the next subject.

Hulusi Yahyagil

Hulusi Yahyagil was born in 1895, in an area of Turkey west of Bitlis

(Elazig, Elaziz or Mamuret iil-Aziz as it has been known at various times).
His father was that peculiar product of the Tanzimat which was known as an
officer from the ranks (a/ay/z), one of the détes notres of the Young Turks and
of progressives in general. Officers promoted from the ranks were made of-
ficers without having completed their regular studies in the military acad-
emy, either because they had some quality which made them good leaders in
the field or because they carried some authority outside the army which was
needed for the army. In this case, Yahyagil’s father must have been made an
officer because he was a member of a locally prominent family of notables
(Sahiner ed., 1978, 35). Hulusi also chose a military career and did enroll
in the Military Academy, but was unable to complete his studies because of
the onset of the First World War. He was sent to the front, saw considerable
action, and came back to complete his studies in the Military Academy. He
was later engaged in the repression of the Kurdish rebellion of 1938, and
we understand from his correspondence with Said that this was an unusually
painful duty for him. But even though he was a loyal soldier, Hulusi seems
to have been a “marginal” in two respects. For one, the army did not mean
for him the total involvement in a new war machine which it was for many
career officers. Second, the relatively minor reward for his services in the
army may have resulted from the fact that he was still not trusted because
he came from a region of Turkey where rebellion was endemic. His eventual
retirement with the rank of colonel points in that direction. Possibly, it was
this marginal status which did not allow Hulusi to immerse himself in the
behemoth of military organization and power but rather led him to seek the
meaning of Islamic mysteries.
There is something compulsive about Yahyagil’s attempt to decipher
the mysteries of Islamic lore which points to a deep-seated drive, an attempt
to find the means of solving a basic conundrum which, one suspects, is
related to a basic aspect of identity or of the self. In 1916, with bullets
192 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

flying around him on the Turkish eastern front, Hulusi was trying to find
the authorship of a mystical poem. The poem was concerned with the au-
thor’s desire to be brought in to the presence of God—even if it be in the
way in which Kitmir, the dog of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, had been
brought into the presence of God through His infinite mercifulness. Hulusi
found only one person interested in discussing the poem with him: the
son-in-law of Seyh Riza Talabani, the head of a Kadri tekke and the scion of
a prominent family with hereditary charisma. Two items emerge from this
account: Hulusi’s friends and acquaintances were persons who were also in-
terested in religion; second, Hulusi was embarked on a voyage of explora-
tion, most probably a voyage of self-exploration.
In 1928 Hulusi was posted in Egridir, a small provincial town near
the place of exile of Said Nursi. One of his friends was a local man of
religion, a person considered as simple-minded, who bore the sobriquet of
Mustafa the Madman. Mustafa showed Hulusi a copy of Said Nursi’s ser-
mons known as The Little Words and told him that he would find in Said the
answer to his search.
For anyone who has read Ottoman provincial religious history, the
group which thereupon set out to find Said gives one a strong impression of
the re-enactment of many similar expeditions to find a holy man. Here they
were, a small party on horseback, Hulusi, by then a captain in the army,
“Mad” Mustafa, flanked by another Mustafa, ‘“Yellow Knife’ by name, and
“Dread” Hiiseyin, a veritable cross-section of middle class Turkish provin-
cial life on a trek across the mountains. The party found Said, Hulusi had a
long conversation with him, and then they departed.
Hulusi established a relation with Said Nursi which was built on a
stream of letters in which Hulusi would ask Said Nursi to enlighten him on
problems of Islamic culture or religion. Through Hulusi too, Said Nursi
kept his contacts with local sages in the eastern regions such as Mehmed
Litfi of Pasinler, Erzurum, and a halifa of Mehmed Kiifrevi, the latter a sect
leader who had given Said his last lesson as a student (Sahiner ed., 1978,
55). But while there is no doubt that these exchanges were set in a tradi-
tional mode, they contained a new element. This appears quite clearly in the
reception which Hulusi received from Said: at their first meeting Said stated
quite categorically that the party had come to the wrong place if they were
looking for a seyh. He added that he was no seyh but an smam (leader of the
community), adding, “Like Gazali or Sirhindi” (Sahiner ed., 1977, 85).
Hulusi later affirmed that it was, indeed, in Said Nursi’s books that
one should look for the message and not in the man. Although whenever he
 The Saint and his Followers 193

was able to do so, he attended the meetings of the sect—which consisted in

reading an excerpt from Said’s writings and proposing suitable commentar-
ies—what he saw in these writings was the same ineffable quality he had
sought in the saint (Ibd., 86).
This concentrated spirituality which pervades the career of a military
man is an aspect of the attraction of many persons to Said which has to be
tackled to unravel the foundation of his charismatic appeal. For it is quite
clear that charisma here has the meaning of an answer to a problem—often
shared by many others—which originates within the psyche of the person
subject to the charismatic influence. To understand the institutionalization
of Said’s sect, the issue of internal force-propelling persons like Hulusi has
to be broached.
In the case of Hulusi and that of Abdiilkadir Badilli, che quest was
one for a leader. This was partly a matter of following established procedures
or harkening to clues which in the Turkish setting were as plain as those
plotting the lines of a spiritual itinerary in the Medieval West. But the
road leading to the Sufi master or even to the Orthodox medrese teacher was
more restricted. In seems to have consisted of a duplication of the relations
established between father and son. It thus prepared the field for both the
acceptance of religious symbols and their anchoring of the self. How this
constricted process of self-definition worked in its details is another matter
which cannot but be the subject of speculation. It is an area of empirical
research which must develop before the phenomenon of affiliation to mystical
orders is further clarified.
The same juxtaposition of external constraints, i.e., social networks,
and cultural resources for the solution of internal problems, appears in the
case of Mustafa Sungur, who became one of the closest companions of Said
Nursi. Here, in addition, we have an ideological, cognitive dimension. In
this case we observe a link between the internal and the external dimension
of religion: we feel that what is being worked out is the ability to find one’s
inner, unchanging self through clarifying the function of a cognitive frame,
in this case, particularly concerned with time.

Mustafa Sungur
Mustafa Sungur was born in 1929 in Eflani in the Black Sea region to
a family of modest peasants. This is how he describes his first contact with
the Nzr group:
194 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

The first time I came into contact with the Risale-1 Nur I had been handed a
set of the Ayet-2 Kubra [Reprinted in Sxalar n.d. n.p. 88]. This was a bro-
chure of twenty type-written pages. In the summer of 1946 I was seated ina
barber’s chair and was reading these lines for the first time. The lines which
I was reading were striking thunderbolts in me. The emanations which
emerged from these lines went right to the core of my soul. (Sahiner, 1977,
368)

The Ayet- Kubra was one of the Flashes of Light which Said’s followers had
been propagating, and its introductory paragraph read as follows:
Whenever a visitor arrives in our country and opens his eyes his sees the
following sight: a most generous feast table and a most artfully prepared
exhibit hall and a most impressive army headquarters and field for drill and
an itinerary on which appear amazing sights which encourage one to go fur-
ther and a place of study full of meaning and philosophical sustenance.
When he begins to wonder about the owner of these beautiful guesthouses he
sees, first, the beautiful writing of light which proclaims to him that they
have the answer to his search. He then looks and sees that there is an appear-
ance of the divinity which makes hundreds of thousands of heavenly objects
one thousand times larger than our earth. Some of them go seventy times
faster than a cannon-ball held up without the help of any props and gyrate
incredibly fast and harmoniously without having to oil this mechanism which
constantly lights innumerable lamps and directs boundlessly large masses
without a single grating noise or irregularity and who, just as he makes the
sun and the moon attend to its duties without any rebellion, makes these
masses attend to their duties . . . and within the activity of this divinity, a
magical emanation of true planning, administering, regulating, purifying
and assigning duties. (Sua/ar, 88)

The progression here is from a perception of the harmony of nature to a

search for the author of this harmony, and it was this progression which
presumably was so satisfying to Mustafa Sungur. Mustafa Sungur continues:
That same year, for the second time and in the same month I listened to a
lecture on faith from a notebook where the text was written in Arabic char-
acters. I had this text read and re-read to me several times. I later found that
this was the text of the Twenty-Third Word.

The Twenty-Third Word was a sermon on faith which began as follows:

Man reaches the highest perfection through faith, and he thereby acquires a
value which makes him worthy of Paradise. And, conversely, steeped in the
darkness of unbelief he descends to lower depths and becomes fit for Hell. For
 The Saint and his Followers 195

faith enables man to link man to his exalted creator. Faith is a joining, and,
thereafter, man assumes a value in virtue of divine arts and the embossing of
the divine names on men. Unbelief severs this link and this severing causes
the divine artfulness to be disguised. Its value, thereafter amounts simply to
the value of its material component. As to matter, since it is bound to be
ephemeral and transitory and is of the nature of temporary, animal life, it is
totally worthless. (Emirdag Lahikast, 289)

Mustafa Sungur thereafter got hold of a few more of the brochures of

Said Nursi. He states that it was as if he were breathing them “like air,
drinking them like water.” |
. . . for indeed, I had achieved the true light of faith. This was to bring me
new and fresh life. The passage I had listened to was a comment on the
Qur’anic verse about the believers emerging from darkness into light. The
truth of the verse, the lesson in the brochure and my internal state fitted
together exactly. It was as if a boundless universe which had been stretching
from earliest time to eternity was being revived for me, as if, as a conse-
quence of these sermons, I was finding a happiness which derived from the
feeling that a boundless cosmos stretched from the beginning of time into
infinity. I later understood that this was a manifestation of the light of faith.

This passage is one which shows how the inner state of a follower, rather
than his network affiliation, could become a propelling force that made fol-
lowers join Said Nursi. It also shows that the metaphysical speculations of
Said Nursi and the demands of the newly emerging educated group in Tur-
key would in some cases meet at mid-point. Mustafa Sungur was the son of
peasant parents. It was from persons with such a socio-economic status that
students for the so-called village institutes which Mustafa was attending
in 1946 were recruited. The schools were developed in the 1940s to train
enlightened village teachers at the primary level who would also become
village leaders. The programme of the schools was strictly secular, co-
educational and emphasized group and community control by the students
themselves. It tried to bring the students into contact with Western cul-
ture, literature, music and even social thought. At the same time the
schools attempted to underline the practical tasks that would face a village
teacher, such as advising peasants as to how best to till their land and mar-
shall supplies for the village. The architects of this type of education were
later to be accused of establishing a Trojan horse that would create the
conditions necessary for the spreading of socialism and communism in rural
areas. For some, the village institutes were dens of iniquity because they
196 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

showed the influence of Marxism; for others, because the students were ex-
posed to the teachings of Freud.
In the Black Sea region where he had originated, Mustafa Sungur was
exposed to a type of strict puritanical Islam characteristic of this region. It
is quite clear that despite the teachings of his own village institute, Mustafa
did not have a clue that would enable him to build a complete cosmological
system, however elementary. Sungur’s insistence on the recapture of time
and space through the medium of the sermons is particularly instructive. It
was because he had finally been provided with a time scale that he felt so
elated. His adolescent status probably had some relation to this perceived
need for bearings, but it was the metaphysical content of the Nur teaching
which made his re-integration into an acceptable time scale possible: this
time scale was that of sacred time. This is not an isolated instance of edu-
cated persons finding that their need for a time scale was not being met by
schools. Much of Turkish modernization during the nineteenth century had
produced consequences which undermined the traditional sense of time. Part
of this was an outcome of what Daniel Halevy (1948) calls the “acceleration
of history.” Part of it appeared in the change of the pace of life as regulated
by religious rituals. But in the provincial town setting, the effect of this
change was seen in the more shattering denial of the entire structure of
Muslim time.
Ahmet Hasim, the Turkish poet who established his name in the sec-
ond decade of the twentieth century, observed the following about the “ac-
celeration” of time in Turkey at the beginning of the twentieth century:

In olden times, just as we had a way of life, of thinking, of dressing which

we could call our own, just as we possessed a sense of the beautiful which
took its liveliness from religion, race and tradition, so too, we had control
over our own “hours” and “days” which were in tune with this type of life.
The beginning of the Muslim day was set by the glowing of sunrise and the
end of the evening's last rays. The hands of the old, innocent watches which
were protected by their strong metallic casings would amble past their enam-
eled numerals in a way more or less connected with the pace of the sun, and,
in a gait that was reminiscent of the tired feet of insects, would inform their
owners of the time with the precision of approximation. Time was an endless
garden and the hours therein were flowers whose colors were reflected from
the sun and who inclined sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left.
Before we became accustomed to foreign hours we did not know, in these
climes, the twenty-four hour ‘‘day,” black at both edges with the blackness of
night, its back painted with various contrasting colors, with red, yellow or
 The Saint and his Followers 197

dark blue pigments, stretching like a large dragon from one midnight to the
other. We had an easy, light, day of twelve hours which began and ended
with light, an easily-lived day. Times which had been times of happiness for
Muslims were measured in such “days.” The Muslims recorded events which
instilled pride and honor in them with such days. It is true that according to
astronomical computations this hour was a false and primitive hour. But this
hour was the sacred hour of remembrance. The acceptance of the Frankish
hour in our customs and transactions and the fading away of the Alaturka
hour into the mosques, ritual time-reckoning offices, and tombs was not
without its momentous consequences on our view of the world. (Ahmed
Hasim, 1969, 102-105)

The void in the structure of time which Mustafa Sungur felt was one which
was, at the most general level of analysis, caused by changes brought about
by the Republic when it instituted obligatorily the Gregorian calendar and
time-keeping in 1928. It is not only that the time which was ushered in by
the change as a different type of time but, as Ahmet Hasim points out, the
metaphorical content of time had been lost. For Sungur and for many others
from a similar background this was probably one of the important unher-
alded consequences of the secularizing moves of the Turkish Republic which
had been proceeding since the early 1920s. What I mean here by metaphor-
ical time is the image of time which an individual holds.
Just as biblical imagery provided the basic framework “for imaginative
thought in America up until quite recent times” (Bellah, 1975, 12), so too
it was on the metaphors of the Qur'an that Muslims depended and still
depend for imaginative creation, for self-placement and self-realization. For
Sungur, it is at this point that the cultural process had been shattered, the
metaphor of Muslim time had been erased. But the loss of the analytical,
dynamic mechanism centered on the formation of the self chat the metaphor
controlled. Through the discovery of sacred time Mustafa Sungur had been
able to place himself outside calendar time and recover a feeling of equilib-
rium at a personal level which the banning of sacred time by the Republic
had precluded. Another element which Mustafa Sungur recovered with his
integration into sacred time was a sense of history. In sacred time he was at
the center of an eschatological process whose language was familiar to him.
The time dimension of the Republic, on the other hand, was alien. The
Republican severing of a cue which had enabled Sungur’s predecessors to
build their own time dimension had occurred at the very time when the
ideologizing of Islam, which I described in a previous chapter, had made
such an historical perspective necessary for the building of collective iden-
198 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

tity. Here we reach another boundary of the self, namely, the new Turks’
conception of history.
History as an unfolding of secular stages was lost for the Turkish
Republic because the only idea of history that emerged from its schools was
that of youth on the march, building the future of Turkey. This image had
replaced the Islamic metaphor of ‘‘the life of the single, indivisible entity,
mankind” made possible by “God’s contemplation, through all time of the
human race made one and indivisible through God’s creation of Adam”
(Nisbet, 1970, 64). Although my quotation here is one which describes the
Augustinian theory of history, it is close in its essentials to the Islamic
feeling for history.
Mircea Eliade has said all that is relevant about time as ‘‘the most
important fact in discovering man’s relationship to the sacred’”’ (cited by
Shippee, 1974, 99, note 79). Mustafa Sungur’s involvement is just one of
the examples that justifies Eliade’s view.

Abdullah Yegin

In the case of Abdullah Yegin, another follower of Said Nursi, we have

an example of social mobility within the Nur sect which seems to set a fairly
general pattern for the background of the leaders of this group.
One of the cities into which Said Nursi was sent into enforced exile
after his stint in Barla was Kastamonu, a provincial capital and a center of
Islamic conservatism, learning and anti-reformist currents. Beditiizzaman re-
mained in Kastamonu between 1936 and 1942. It is here that he met
Abdullah Yegin, one of his most important future lieutenants.
In 1940-41 Abdullah Yegin was in the second grade of “middle
school.” He learned that the owner of the house Said Nursi was renting as
well as other men spoke of Said in flattering terms. He was thereby moved
to find more about him. One of his schoolmates knew the sage and had
gone to see him a number of times. They then arranged to visit him to-
gether. Said gave them a sympathetic reception and talked to them about the
beauty of faith, about death and resurrection. Yegin states that Said Nursi
took up issues which were by no means esoteric but themes which the boys
were already familiar with, such as the unicity of God, the limits of man’s
freedom and the danger of the times through which they were living. After
this conversation some of Yegin’s anti-religious attitudes, which he attributes
to the teachings of schoolmasters, disappeared. He was driven to ask the
teacher to talk about the creator, a subject which, naturally, had never been
 The Saint and his Followers 199

broached in class. Said continued to lecture to the young boys and took
them on nature hikes in which passages from the Risa/e-i Nur would be read
when they paused. The school got wind of the student’s forays and expelled
them temporarily from school. The police stepped in and the government
prosecutor interrogated the boys. When they stated that they had sought
religious instruction, the prosecutor retorted that they could just as well
have gone to the official in charge of religious affairs, the provincial mufti.
Yegin’s own comment is, “I answered I did not know the mifti.” This an-
swer was not simply a means of getting the interrogators to relent: it
pointed to the difference between a citizen's access to officials and to reli-
gious networks, a difference which had existed for centuries. Among the
adolescents, no one in his right mind would have tried to gain access to the
miuftui, for the student stood outside the interaction of officials: students
figured among “non-persons.” Here again, the Republic was in error in
thinking that adolescents in Kastamonu were, like Western adolescents, only
adolescents, i.e., in the traditional Western understanding isolated from the
stream of day-to-day adult concerns. In fact, the category of helpers which
Said Nursi recruited from such young men made up a staff which was later
to keep with him through thick and thin.

Mehmet Emin Birinci

One of the most complete accounts we have of a process of affiliation

with the Nur movement is that of Mehmet Emin Birinci, again a young
man of extremely modest background.
Birinci states that his association goes back to the year 1947. Birinci
was in the last grade of primary school. This was a time of economic hard-
ship for all. Birinci states that Qur’ans had to be hidden from the sight of
tax collectors because they could be sold for villagers’ debts to the state. In
Birinci’s village the inhabitants had banded together to pay for the village
imam to provide religious teaching for the village children. Every year two
men who were relatives of Birinci went to the Kizilirmak estuary as migrant
workers to make up part of their cash income. In 1948 they returned to the
village with a new attitude: they had become pious Muslims as a result of
entering a tarikat. The next year they left once again for the estuary and
found out that a holy man by the name of Beditizzaman was living in the
vicinity of Afyon. The news created considerable turmoil in the men who
set Out to acquire Said Nursi’s writings before they returned to the village.
The books were expensive, and they could not find the money needed to
200 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

buy them. With the help of friends they were able to collect 33 lira. The
books were ordered, and Sefer Usta, the village cobbler, brought them to
the village in his sack. The sack was opened, and everyone tried to read the
texts which were in Arabic characters. One of them read to Birinci the text
of the Fifth Ray. Birinci states that this was exactly the type of message for
which he was looking.
The enthusiasm of the newly-formed circle spread: Birinci read the
brochure and talked of them to his friends. A number of villagers then
decided to buy a subscription to the periodical which the Nur community
was publishing. The periodicals arrived with an unanticipated bonus: the
text of Beditizzaman’s defense in court. The general subject of conversation
in the village now began to center on the Narcu and their activities. Links
were forged between the village and the Nurcus of the towns of Bafra and
Inebolu in the vicinity and also with Narcus in Istanbul. Birinci failed in
the eighth grade, possibly because he was spending too much time with the
Nur movement. He decided to drop out of school for a year. This gave him
the opportunity to go to Samsun and to witness the trial of Mustafa Sun-
gur, whom he visited in jail.
In 1952 Birinci tried to enter the Naval School but was rejected for
reasons of health. He took up a job as a clerk in an hotel. Soon thereafter
Beditizzaman had to appear in court in Istanbul. Birinci witnessed the pro-
ceedings of the court and tried to contact Beditizzaman without success. He
ran a number of small errands for persons around Said, hoping to gain
access to the leader. He could not contain himself any more and one day
“stormed” Beditizzaman’s hotel room. Said Nursi, hearing of his repeated
attempts, promised that Birinci would be included in his train. Birinci,
elated by this meeting, eventually left his hotel job and, relying only on his
savings, began to live in a sort of commune which was devoted to the study
of the works of the Master.
Birinci now returned to his village. His uncle, who was unusually
bold in his propagandizing activities, was being persecuted by the authori-
ties. When acquitted, he went around the village with a sack of books on
his back—the writings of Said—proclaiming to all who could hear: “These
are the instruments which I used to blast the foundations of the State.”
Eventually Birinci was able to get a post as a village teacher. He was also
prosecuted for religious activity but was acquitted. Returning to Istanbul
in 1953, he found that his former commune had been dispersed. While he
was trying to recreate it, a stove-maker who had just bought a house let the
 The Saint and his Followers 201

young man use it as a center for the new commune. The stove-maker was
also drawn into proselytizing activities.
In 1957, when the Risale-i Nur began to be printed in Latin charac-
ters, Birinci was in Ankara helping with the work. By then, one of the
Nzr students, Dr. Tahsin Tola, who was also the editor of his works, had
been elected to Parliament. The first batch of books to come off the press
was sent to Istanbul under his protective eye. Birinci was arrested shortly
thereafter. He was released and continued to work in the printing activities
of the Nzrcu.

The Person and Religious Resources

The preceding examples of venue into the Nzr ‘“‘sect’’ have no statisti-
cal validity. They, nevertheless, seem to capture processes which are different
to study with statistical techniques because of the many variables they con-
tain and because of the way in which they constitute part of a flexible set of
strategies. Religious dogma and institution stand outside this process as
resources which individuals use. It would seem as if a particular quandary
affecting a person or a collectivity results in the more intensive use of one of
these resources. Religious resources are thereby focused onto one specific
area and this brings out the characteristics of that religion as it is practized
at a particular time and place. But external structural constraints such as
the increased need for a new view of history also, and simultaneously, affect
religion. This variable is independent to the extent that it is the outcome of
a process which takes place at the societal and world level, a process over
which the individual does not have much control. Religious involvement,
then, consists of relatively disconnected elements; nevertheless, all of them
have to be taken into account if the total process is to be understood.
One process that the individual may control if he uses traditional re-
ligious symbols as part of his cultural baggage is to orient his life strategies
with elements of his traditional religious, moral and intellectual equipment.
With that relation established, external reality can be put into an Islamic
framework.
Up to this point my description of Said Nursi’s influence has centered
on the processes which attracted a clientele through the relevance of his
teachings to this set of persons in their quality as individuals. These were
problems concerned with the elaboration of the self, issues related to the
shaping of an identity. One gets a somewhat different view of things when
202 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

one looks at these individuals as units in a group which formed around the
sage. What strikes one immediately, in this perspective, is that the group so
formed originally included no women. Even though Nurcu groups of women
now function in a segregated, parallel stream to the activities of men, there
were no women who actively contributed to the movement for a number of
years. This purely male undertaking replicates a form of Middle East group
formation which one also finds in the shaping of sects, military groups and
literary cenacles.
The study of the group dynamic of Nurculuk, especially at the time of
its formation, when such elements can be relatively easily isolated, shows
what we may describe as a libidinal element which keeps the group to-
gether. Said Nursi’s brittleness in his relations with his followers and his
deep suspiciousness of some of those followers are reverse aspects of the co-
hesive power of these group relations. As I mentioned earlier, “depersonal-
ization,’ the passage to a society of ‘‘blocks” and the idea of society as made
up of such blocks was not an easy intellectual-cognitive watershed for Orto-
mans to negotiate. However, the establishment of the particular type of
mechanistic-narcissistic group bond I have just described does in fact re-
quire a personalistic society. If group agglutination functioned in the tradi-
tional society on the basis of such bonding, if this was a basic resource of
the society at large, then the emergence of a society of blocks must have
been deeply frustrating for at least a section of rural society. It may well be
that the deepest stimulant of Said Nursi’s followers in clustering around
him were the lines of force drawn by the implicitly learned strategies for
social action in groups which the instructional modernization of the late
Ottoman Empire and the Republic had displaced. The loss of such an in-
strumentality for clustering—underscored by the personalistic aspect of so-
ciety and the segregation of sexes—may have been a form of social relations
that could simply not be driven out of society. Here, once more, we have a
development transforming libidinal foundations of social relations which is
reminiscent of the same trend in Victorian England and in 19th century
Europe. The general cast of social change as it occurred in Western Europe
during modernization thus seems, once more, to be reflected in Ottoman
society.
CHAPTER VI

The Machinery of Nature

THROUGHOUT SAID NURSI'S writings one encounters evi-

dence of the impact of Western scientific advances. These passages are not
isolated instances of an admiration for the magic quality of Western tech-
nology but, rather, well thought-out portions of a general view regarding
the importance of science in the modern world. The following statement is
characteristic of these musings:
No doubt, mankind will, in the future, turn to science and technology. It
shall take its strength from science. Sovereignty and force will pass into the
hands of science. . . . (Séz/er, 330)

At times, Said Nursi’s approach to science shows the imprint of what may
be termed pre-positivistic conceptualizations. This appears, for instance, in
his classification of rhetoric as the most brilliant of sciences. But this view,
supported by his contention that rhetoric is stated to achieve its greatest
effect and popularity in our time, is most probably the product of a per-
ceptive assessment of the power of mass media in modern society. After all,
Said Nursi lived through the era of the Republic in Turkey, at the time
when communications were opening up and its effect was being widely felt
as a novel input into politics and social life in that country.
In the majority of cases, Said’s views of science are best summarized
by the quotation given above. On one occasion during his exile in Kasta-
monu students of the local lycée visited him and asked how they could elicit
the most favorable setting for the worship of God. In answer, he advised
them to concentrate on their studies of science. Undoubtedly, this emphasis
was due to his conviction that the development of Western European science
had caused Western civilization to outstrip Islamic civilization (Miirsel, 566

203
204 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

citing Divan-1 Harb-i Orfi, 62). Indeed, during the nineteenth century, sci-
ence had been one of the major areas on which the defensive and apologetic
attitude of Muslims had been focused.
In the Ottoman Empire, the history of this confrontation had become
part and parcel of intellectual history. On the occasion of Ernest Renan’s
quasi-racist remark regarding the inability of the Arabs to think scientifi-
cally (1883), Namik Kemal, the Young Ottoman with the best worked-
out political ideology, had produced a well-known rebuttal. Kemal based
his riposte on the scientific productivity of the Arabs, thus being drawn
into an argument which was basically irrelevant for the Ottomans as a
whole. But this stance was characteristic of many Ottomans and Muslims
to which Westerners trumpeted the congenital inability of Orientals to
produce science. In India, an early conciliatory response to Western scien-
tific hubris, that of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, had run into a frontal attack by
the Muslim reformist thinker Cemaleddin Afgani. Ahmad Khan had pro-
posed that Islam be understood as a religion which incorporated the modern
view of the system of nature. This was branded by Afgani as blasphemous
materialism.
Afgani’s negative reaction contained a shrewd assessment of the force
of Islam as idiom, as an interconnected set of propositions which owed their
impact to their ability to create a separate world of meanings and affective
commitment. But he too argued against Renan that there was nothing that
inherently prevented Muslims from understanding science. The men of the
Tanzimat, their opponents the Young Ottomans, and even Sultan Abdiil-
hamid II were all of one mind regarding the urgency of establishing control
over science by the Ottomans. Both the Young Ottomans and the sultan,
however, appeared confident that the values of Islam and those of Western
science could be merged in a new synthesis.
By broaching the problem of the place of modern science in Islamic
societies, Said showed that he had an understanding of the relation between
science and the power of the states who had harnessed science to their own
purposes. Japan, a name that was often invoked by the Young Turks, con-
stituted the model of his inspiration in this respect: science could be
adopted without changing traditional culture. However, Bediiizzaman at-
tacked the problem of the legitimation of science at a more fundamental
level than the Young Turks had. The Young Turks had started with an
intellectual revolution at the elite level and had tried to impose a vague form
of positivism together with their various ideologies. Their support of reli-
gion was also part of this stance, in that they believed it underpinned social
 The Machinery of Nature 205

order and equilibrium. Beditizzaman set out to create a native feeling for
science at a much more fundamental level: he attempted to draw it out of
religious symbols. Although he possibly did not realize it, this was a pro-
cess to which modern science owed part of its origins. In early Renaissance
Europe the symbolic resources of mysticism had operated as a springboard
to secular scientific thought, and Said Nursi was following the same course.
The extent to which a modification of the traditional Islamic message was
consciously pursued is not quite clear, but that Said realized he was herald-
ing many new emphases of Islam cannot be doubted.
The difficulties that would have to be faced by a Muslim who did not
proceed from a tradition which contained mytho-poetic elements have been
described by Sayyid Husayn Nasr:

It is true that modern sciences have borrowed many techniques and ideas from
the ancient and medieval sciences, but the point of view in the two cases is
completely different. The Muslim sciences breathed in a universe in which
God was everywhere. They were based upon certainty and searched after the
principle of unity in things which is reached through synthesis and integra-
tion. The modern sciences, on the contrary, live in a world in which God is
nowhere or, even if there, He is ignored as far as the sciences are concerned.
They are based on doubt and having turned their back on the unifying prin-
ciples of things seek to analyse and divide the contents of nature in an even
greater degree moving towards multiplicity and away from unity. That is
why studying them causes a dislocation with respect to the Islamic tradition
for the majority of Muslim students. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to
see the heavens as both the Pedestal of God’s Throne and incandescent matter
whirling through space. Therefore, the curriculum of the schools and univer-
sities in the Muslim countries, by teaching the various modern European arts
and sciences which are for the most part alien to the Islamic perspective, has,
to a large degree, injected an element of secularism into the mind of a fairly
sizeable segment of Islamic society. (Nasr, 1961, 124-25)

To practice “Western” science as Said Nursi encouraged it meant to

start from certain basic premises about a system of nature. Here any Muslim
was faced with difficulties, for he had to link the system of nature to an act
of creation and to the Creator himself.
In the writings of the orthodox Muslim theologians, God appeared
both as tremendously powerful and, at the same time, distant. There was
therefore no means of integrating God’s ubiquity with Newton's system of
nature. But for the mystics this linking was much easier, for God was not
only everywhere, He was everywhere as a material reflection of his essence.
206 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

In Europe a relatively workable transition had been effected between reli-

gious and secular thought in the years preceding the high tide of Enlight-
enment. For one, the medieval metaphysical belief in the idea that a basic
“but unseen harmony underlies the apparent discord of the world” (Anchor,
1967, 11) was easily translated into the Enlightenment idea of the regular-
ity of the physical laws of nature. The bridge between religious and secular
ideas had been provided not only by deism but by thinkers like Leibnitz.
The many subtle graduations of enlightened secular thought also allowed for
an eventual infiltration of the findings of physical science into the thought
of Christian theologians. In Turkey there was no such intellectual bridge
and, of necessity, it was the creative powers of the divinity which had to be
underlined in making modern ideas of science fit with religious belief. Said
Nursi used this idea to a large extent in legitimizing the conceptions of
laws of nature which operated as the extension of God's design. Here he
could work on the affective popular resonance of the idea of the pre-eternal
light of God out of which came the clay of Adam and the body of the
Prophet (Schimmel, 123f: here 126), and he could simultaneously rely on
the mystic’s symbols, which he was overtly fighting all the time.
In the context of the ongoing modernization of Turkey, the process
that highlighted the importance of science were not simply those of a con-
frontation with the West. Other question marks emerged from the very pen-
etration of science into Ottoman culture during the 20th century. Muslims
who, in the 1930s, asked the questions reported in Said’s Flashes of Light
(“Is the earth supported on the horns of a steer?’’) were sincerely concerned
with the lack of congruence between the cosmology which appeared in pop-
ular treatises on religion dating to the 16th century and the explanations
provided by modern science. It was up to Muslim thinkers to find a con-
ciliation between these diverging understandings of the cosmos. To the ex-
tent that Said Nursi was able to propagate his ideas, this was due, in some
measure, to his ability to show that there were no incompatibilities between
the Qur'an and modern science. Part of the shift was effected in the some-
what superficial spirit of the so-called “‘scientific’’ interpretation of the
Qur'an. bacteria were “‘proved” to have been adumbrated by Qur’anic suras
(Gansen, 1974, 44), but part of Said Nursi’s transition had deeper philo-
sophical moorings.
A passage in Said Nursi’s Letters (Mektubat, 187) in which he explains
the relation between the Qur'an and the created world shows that he sees the
Qur'an as fulfilling two functions. First, the Qur'an does mention the phe-
nomenal world but gives only uncomplicated images of it which are under-
 The Machinery of Nature 207

standable to all (suret-i basitane-i zahirane). The Qur'an glosses over our
sophisticated phenomenologically grounded knowledge of the world because
its primary function is to draw the believer's perception towards the Creator
and not to the created. In a sense, then, the created is virgin territory yet
to be explored. But there was more to Said’s approach than this. By fram-
ing the system of nature in a mytho-poetic setting, in the way Muslim
mysticism made it possible, by stressing the creative power of God, Said
was able to create the feeling that the contents of the Qur'an opened up a
view of a universe in movement and that this could be used to build a new
image of the cosmos. Through affective resonances which fastened on the
evocative power of the style of the Qyur’aén, such a new resource was made
available to persons who, in the past, would have been passive participants
in the “miracle” of the Qur’an (E.1.*, III, 1018-1020). Said’s theses, ex-
pressed in the heavily arabicized style of the theosophers, was not so much
an explanation of the system of nature as a call to consider the potential for
creativeness that God had infused into the world. He was explaining the
Qur’an in Turkish but without impoverishing its affective hold. In addition,
he was providing his followers with a means of activating their view of the
universe. This element worked in tandem with his demands for greater re-
ligious activism on the part of Muslims.
To recognize that science had become a social pursuit, one that was
important for the strengthening of Muslim society, was not tantamount to
presenting a theological justification for this shift of focus. For, indeed, the
new emphasis on nature did constitute a shift of emphasis as compared
to the earlier, overwhelming importance of the relations between Man and
his Maker. A passage from the Risale-i Nur, one of the many in the same
vein, provides a model of this transition, from the relation between God
and man to the relation between Man and “things,” i.e., physical objects or
biological processes.

Then shall anyone who has done an atom’s weight of good and anyone who
has done an atom’s weight of evil, see it (Qur'an, 99, 7-8). If you want proof
of this truth of the Wise Qur’an look at the pages of the universe that are
written on the pattern of the Perspicuous Book: and you will see in its many
aspects the supreme manifestation of the Name of the Preserver and the sam-
ple of a sublime truth of this noble verse. For example take a handful of seeds
of varied plants, which serve as little cases for many different kinds of plants,
flowers, and trees, and bury and scatter them in the darkness of the soil
which is nothing more than a simple inanimate substance. Then pour on that
soil some water that has no discriminating faculty and goes wherever you
208 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

pour it. And come back the next spring—at a time when the annual resur-
rection takes place, when the angel of thunder calls upon the rain—like the
angel who blows the trumpet of resurrection—and those seeds receive the
joyful tidings of recreation. Behold how those seeds buried under the ground
in utmost mutual resemblance and confusion of arrangement will faultlessly
obey the command of revival coming from the Wise Creator and will come to
life under the manifestation of the name of the Preserver. Truly, in such fash-
ion do they obey the command of their Creator. . . . Because you see that
those little seeds resembling each other become distinct and differentiated.
(Beditizzaman, Lem’alar, 1974, 51-52)

There are many passages in the Risa/e-1 Nur in which the regularities of
nature (nizam-intizam) are described at length as proof of the work of a
Creator.
In short, a justification was needed for the new emphasis on matter
which went counter to the focus of traditional teaching as it appeared in
popular catechisms highlighting theological and moral rather than cos-
mological concerns. It is difficult to state outright that Said Nursi came
forth with a fully formulated theory about nature, but that he was using
a number of cues found in the mystical tradition is clear. Even though
the reconstruction of the way he used these cues turns out to be more
systematic than what Said intended, the fact that a latent frame underlies
his system of nature cannot be questioned. The following attempts to trace
this frame.
Said Nursi had set himself against mysticism because he believed that
it deflected Muslims from taking up the specific duties that were prescribed
for them in the Qur’an. For him, faith, “the heart,’ was essential in the
Muslim’s commitment. But this faith had to be an active faith, informed
and guided by the specific injunctions of the Qur’an. The wide latitude
allowed by the teachings of the mystics did not produce the mobilized Mus-
lim he wanted to create. In this objection to mysticism, Bediiizzaman was
dead center in the orthodox scripturalist and fundamentalist tradition, as
exemplified, for instance by the Muslim fundamentalist Ibn Taimiyya
(1263-1328), who attacked the mystic’s doctrine that “He who witnessed
the Will of God feels no longer bound by the command of God” (Fazlur
Rahman, 1979, 113).
Often Bediiizzaman, too, dismisses Ibn al-‘Arabi’s influence as harm-
ful for the modern Muslim: wehdet-i viicud may promote materialism (among
the unenlightened masses) and monstrous pride among others. Yet, his ar-
guments are replete with echoes from this very man. We know through his
 The Machinery of Nature 209

use of the technical vocabulary of the mystics (rububiyet, hiivvtyet, enantyet,

alem-1 sahadet, alem-i misal) that his intellectual apparatus carries the trace of
Ibn al-‘Arabi’s influence. He, therefore, must also have known the cosmo-
logical models that derived from the latter, either through Ibn al-‘Arabi's
own writings, or more plausibly through the work of his commentators. As
we proceed we shall see that indeed he relies on the Muslim sage’s argu-
ments. These very sophisticated speculations provided him with the means
of taking a first step towards an accommodation with the Newtonian model
of the universe. Said had better resources at his disposal for such a task than
the more orthodox, anti-Sufi Turkish thinkers of his time. Islamic philoso-
phers also had an elaborate cosmology (Nasr, 1978), but the mystics were
ahead of even the philosophers insofar as semiotic resources were concerned,
i.e., where it became necessary to draw on the image of the cosmos. Said
does not seem to have pursued this source of inspriation consciously, but in
the end, his elegiac descriptions of the miracle of the ‘book of nature”
derive from such a background.
One may think of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s influence on Said as a triggering
effect, an idea which fits well with what Marshall Hodgson has to say of the
effects of mysticism on Muslim thought:

We have come to realize that the speculation of Ibn al-‘Arabi . . . was not the
passive monism that had been imagined, but a powerfully stimulating syn-
thesis in which the human person, as microcosm in an infinitely meaningful
cosmos was assigned vast potentialities in every phase of activity. (Hodgson,
1970)

It is true that the speculations of Ibn al-‘Arabi did not provide a sufficient
philosophical base to retrieve mechanistic Newtonianism for the Nurcu world
picture. There were a number of difficulties of different orders that were
concealed in the task Said had to accomplish in this respect. One was sim-
ply a matter of different emphasis. Even though traditional Islamic philos-
ophy had developed a complex cosmology from the earliest time onward, the
19th century reformers of Islam had shown greater interest in faith, ritual,
and conduct than in pictures of the cosmos.
Could Said Nursi introduce a new focus of religion that would prove
as important? Another difficulty was that the centrality of the physical sys-
tem of nature in human consensus—an aspect of the world-view derived
from Newton—yarred with the direction of the mystic’s thought. The latter
leaned towards recapturing God's unity rather than studying the universe's
diversity.
210 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

In other words, even though Sufi thinking was a sophisticated elabo-

ration of ontology, since the direction of the mystic’s speculations was away
from phenomena and towards elucidating the mystery of Being in relation
to the Creator, Said Nursi had to turn the Sufi point of view on its head.
For this Sufi approach was an outlook which stressed that “entities do not
‘borrow’ existence from God. Nor do they share in Being, become ‘con-
nected’ to it, nor act as ‘receptables’ for it. All of these expressions are only
matters of speaking. They are images employed to explain a phenomenon
whose reality is almost inexplicable... . ’’ (Chittick, 1981, 181)
The strategic focus of the philosophical leap that Bediiizzaman had to
undertake while maintaining his orthodox stand was the conception of the
activity of God in nature. The orthodox Ash’@rite stand considered divine
intervention into the movement of nature to be direct and continuous. Ev-
ery movement of nature was an act of God. To elaborate a system where
God was removed from the immediacy of His will, and where He worked
through matter in movement, was not an easy task. Matter had to be ac-
cepted first as a basic element which either was pre-existent to God or was
subject to laws which could be construed by literal interpreters of orthodox
Islam as a limitation on the absolute power of God.
Some of the difficulties in reaching an accommodation with an idea of
nature that bore the imprint of Newton's discoveries can be pinpointed by
recollecting key aspects of the Enlightenment view of the universe and of
the accommodation of deists to this new picture.
For the deists of the 18th century, man was part of a system of matter
in movement, and his privilieged position in the center of the universe had
already been withdrawn from him by the new scientific discourse. The se-
quence of the Great Chain of Being now went from God to the machinery
of the universe, and from there to man. Many thinkers in Europe adduced
the new discoveries and the system of Newton as evidences for faith and
Said Nursi was to adopt the same position. However, the Enlightenment
argument followed a path which differed considerably from that of his own.
Thus in 1662, Simon Patrick, later Bishop of Ely, defended both latitudi-
marian religion and ‘‘the new and free philosophy” in the pages of a pam-
phlet (Gay, 1966, 315). This was possible because Patrick also took the
movement of matter in the “theater of nature’ to be an intermediate link
between the Creator and Man. The regularities of nature, and its potential
for generating effects did not need to be linked to the Creator's immediate
intervention. By contrast, in the mystic’s cosmology this intermediate was
the “World of Archetypes,’ a realm which bore no resemblance to the en-
 The Machinery of Nature 211

lightenment’s nature. The mystic’s “World of Archetypes” is clearly de-

scribed by Chittick:

The World of Spirits precedes the World of Corporeal Bodies (‘alam al-
ajsam) . . . both in being and in level. The Divine Succour which reaches the
corporeal-bodies depends upon the intermediary of the Spirits between the
corporeal-bodies and God. Moreover, the governing (tadbir) of the corporeal-
bodies is entrusted to the Spirits, but no inter-relationship can exist between
the two sides, because of the intrinsic disparity between the composite and
the noncomposite: All corporeal-bodies are composite, while the Spirits are
noncomposite, so there is no affinity (mundsaba) between them, and thus no
interrelationship. As long as there is no interrelationship there can be no
actualization of the exercising and receiving of effects, . . . nor of the giving
and receiving of succour . . . so God created the World of Image-exemplars
as an Isthmus comprehending the World of the Spirits and the World of the
Corporeal-Bodies, in order that each of the two worlds may establish a rela-
tionship with the other. (Chittick, 1982, 113-114 Quoting Sadrettin
Konev!)

The names of Allah and his attributes set the archetypes that have the power
to create the phenomenal world as perceived.

The attribute of “sight” for example which on the one hand manifests itself
in God’s vision of Himself becomes manifested in all of the myriad possible
forms it can assume as an independent—or rather semi-independent—reality.
In the physical world it manifests itself in countless individuals as the sight
of man and animals, the photo-sensitivity of plants, the vision of sages etc.
Each mode of manifestation exists potentially within the reality of Sight
within God's knowledge, but it exists in actuality only through separative
existence in the manifested universe. (Chittick, 1979, 149)

Thus, for Said Nursi “Ism-i Hakem and Ism-i Hakim” (the name of Judge
and Sovereign) “Ism-i Adl ve Adil” (the name of Justice and Just) together
determine what we see as the regularity and balance of nature (Lem’alar,
228, cf. Fazlur Rahman, 1979, 92).
In terms of practical attitudes towards the study of nature, such a
springboard would lead the innovator to concentrate on the mystery of the
Names of God and His attributes in trying to derive new knowledge about
the mystery of creation rather than on the regularities of nature. Said had to
do both. We know that Bediiizzaman did effect the translation by giving
considerable attention to the “theater of Nature” or, in his own words, ‘““The
Great Book of Nature.”
212 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

In the Sufi's world, Adam, the archetype of the perfect man, is the
specific intermediate between God and man, and he has a special relation
to the physical world. “In the physical world all the celestial spheres, the
elements, the animals, the vegetables and minerals are included within
him” (Chittick, 1981), rather than as an autonomous realm outside him.
“If it were not for the fact he acts as the isthmus unopposed to either
of the two sides... the world would cease to exist’? (Chittick, 1979,
153-154). Once more, what we see here is a reverse of the sequence of
relations between the creator and nature which appears in the universe of
18th century deists.
One final difficulty which Said Nursi had to face was the attractiveness
of the study of form as opposed to that of the discrete phenomena in the
world of planets and atoms. ‘“The Sufts understand ‘form’ (surah) to signify
the means whereby unseen realities (haga’iq ghaybiyyah)—which are disen-
gaged (mufarrad) from and transcend physical reality—can be understood.
In other words, the Form of a transcendent reality—-perhaps symbol would
be a better translation—in the means whereby that reality (hagigah) or the
meaning (ma’na, the term employed in contradistinction to surah) manifests
itself in the physical world. The form is ontologically connected to its own
meaning. Hence man as the form of Allah is ontologically the manifestation
of Allah and the means whereby He is known in the physical world. With-
out man the Name ‘“‘Allah” would have no single locus of manifestation’
(Chittick, 1979, 145).
In the face of such a complex cosmology, one of Said Nursi’s strategies
seems to have been to advance the thesis (correctly in view of the preceding)
that the world of archetypes (alem-i misal) and the world of phenomena
(alem-i suhud) are two different cognitive realms. The world of archetypes
cannot be analyzed by means of concepts of the world of phenomena even
though it is the source of that world of phenomena. Said Nursi attributes
this idea to Ibn al-‘Arabi and goes on from there to criticize crude populist
ideas of religion which project the realm of phenomena onto the world of
archetypes (Muhakemat, 1977, 56).
As to the world of phenomena itself and ‘“‘nature” about which per-
sons keep “‘blabbering” (Muahakemat, 1977, 112), it is nothing but the
“corpse” (ceset) of creation. The most important characteristic of creation is
that it is supported, or kept there so to speak, by an internal, Godly spring
(sertat-2 fitriyye). Here Said Nursi seems to have been less willing than Ibn
al-‘Arabi to accord an autonomous unfolding to the externalization of God’s
attributes.
 The Machinery of Nature 213

In another place in his writings Said Nursi explains his stand thus:
there are three modern arguments concerning the dynamics of nature which
have all distracted man: Causality, self-moving matter (tesekhiil-i bi nefsthi)
and the “requisites of nature.” All three are balderdash (Lem’alar, 167).

“Let us think,” argues Said, ‘‘of a clockmaker. Would it be easier for him to
make the wheels of a clock and then set up the mechanism of the clock or to
make a wondrous machine with these wheels and then give the manufacture
of the clock to the machine? Or a secretary: he has brought ink, pen and
paper. Is it easier for him to write the book himself or to make a more
excellent, more difficult writing machine with the ink, pen and paper only
for the composition of that particular machine devoid of consciousness
(suursuz) and say “Very well, write it now.” (Lem’alar, 176)

Furthermore, God does not allow anything or anyone to share power with
Him as would have been the case above (Ibid., 177). And also, if the world
of minerals, plants and animals has been created for man, how could one
imagine that God would abandon these to an impersonal mechanism?
Said Nursi’s explanation of the regularities to be found in nature was
that (1) the regularities of lifeless matter can only be explained if the
premise is accepted that an active intelligence set a pattern, a plan, for the
regulations; (2) this pattern is written into the hv-1 mahfuz (the preserved
tables) or the infinite set of regulatory devices which are contained in a
“heavenly index” (Miirsel, 1976, 56 citing Sozler, 581-582).
Creation is of two kinds: an original act of creation of the varieties of
inanimate nature and of the species, and an act of creation which is an art
and which combines these primary elements. This process is characteristic of
the regularities of organic nature. The innovation here is the idea of a plan
which, in fact, goes beyond the cosmological mechanisms of Ibn al-‘Arabi.
According to Said Nursi, there exists a homology—due to their com-
mon origin in a divine source—between the processes of nature and those
that open up the perception and understanding of nature in man. This is
the way in which a man grasps the processes of nature and has in him the
ability to understand them.
Mektubat is one of his later works. In it Said unequivocally identifies
nature as ‘‘a machine of the all-powerful” (1977, 212). Thus emerges what
can only be described as a mechanistic view of nature. We can attribute this
important shift of emphasis to the increasing importance—and prestige—
that was given to science in the day-to-day life of the Turkish Republic,
especially by secondary school teachers, who took the ideology of positive
214 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

science into the provinces. This factor probably worked in tandem with
another which appears quite early in the ideas of Said Nursi: namely, the
admiration for the harnessing by man of the forces that lay dormant in
nature and the power that it gave to nations. The easiest way to recapture
this admiration is to follow the extent to which, from the beginning, Said
Nursi's—and his followers——vocabularies were infiltrated by conceptions
taken from nineteenth century thermodynamics and electricity. Thus, one
should “mount the train of religious law’ (Bediiizzaman, 1976, 52); the
world is a fabrika-i kdinat (factory of the universe) (Lem’alar, 287); life is a
“machine of the future from the exalted benchwork of the universe” (hayat
kdinatin tezgah-i azaminda ... bir istikbal makinesidir) (Lem’alar, 371). Sa-
bri, one of the first disciples of Beditizzaman, speaks of ‘machines which
produce the electricity of the Nur factory” when speaking of the work of
disciples (Bediiizzaman, 1976, 173). Sabri himself is known as Santral
(switchboard) Sabri. This interest in steam and electricity seems already to
have marked ‘‘old’”’ Said (Lem’alar, 166). Later the proof he adduces for the
“centralized” command of God over the processes of nature is one where he
uses as an analogy the rationality of giving the production of military
equipment to “‘one factory and one ruler” (Lem’alar, 181).
While the speculations of the mystics brought up a fund of imagery
which could trigger Said Nursi’s accommodation with the Newtonian world
view, there existed another popularized version of this type of thought, (see
above pp., 196-197) which is best described by relating it to the Western
idea of the Great Chain of Being, and this appears most clearly in his
description of the biological world. One of the characteristics of Said Nursi’s
view of nature is the extent to which he subsumes it under biological pro-
cesses. Thus birds and bees, flowers and trees, insects and gardens come
immediately after the stars in his imagery of nature. Here again, one can-
not but be reminded of the similar imagery of the mystics and particularly
of the symbolism of plants that appears in Anatolian mysticism.
An example taken from his writings would be the following passage of
which many variations can be found:
And, for instance, just as a book may be found every line of which is itself a
finely written book and every word of which is a sura of the Qur'an, ex-
tremely meaningful, its propositions concerning each other and a wondrous
compendium showing its scribe and author to be compassionate and powerful
in the extreme, with no deviation, manifesting its scribe and producer's per-
fection and skill and thus the universe . . . which is only a single one of its
 The Machinery of Nature 215

pages—and in the spring—which is only one set of its pages—shows three

hundred thousand different books as three hundred thousand botanical and
zoological species, imbricated in one another, without error, without failure,
without mixing things, without confusion, perfect and regular and revealing
in a word that is a tree a qasida, and in a point such as fruit’s kernel a pen
writing an entire index for a book which we can see writing without our
own eyes in chis infinitely significant cosmos and this majestic gur’anic
universe. . . . (Sualar, 174)

The symbolism of rebirth is also part of this imagery. Some of the deeper
connotations of this imagery may be found in the insistence on the seed as
an image. This, once again, points to elements which have to be studied in
a psychoanalytic frame. For the moment these have to remain as cue for
further explorations into Bediiizzaman’s personality.
In the popular view of the Great Chain of Being Said Nursi had
found a tradition which could make up for what late Islamic philosophy
entailed as a “denial of trust in the natural properties and immanent pro-
cesses of nature...” (Fazlur Rahman, 1979, 99). Already, in Suhraward1,
the illuminist who possibly may have influenced the young Bediiizzaman,
there had been an infiltration of the “philosophical doctrine of the eternity
of matter” (Idid.). The popularized mystical tradition gave Said Nursi a
means of using the Islamic version of Plotinus, i.e., the principle of the
“grades of being” (Ibid., 124).
The enduring quality of the mystic’s imagery and symbolism was both
a help and a hindrance to Said Nursi in trying to propagate a view of
Islamic faith which had to address itself to a number of social classes and to
persons with different educational achievements. Why, some of his followers
asked him, did Ibn al-‘Arabi state that the earth was made of seven different
layers, a statement patently disproved by geography? Said Nursi answered
that what Ibn al-‘Arabi had seen was a vision. The statement was true only
to the extent chat the vision was true. But to draw conclusions concerning
the phenomenal world from visions was wrong. It was wrong for two rea-
sons: first, because the world of visions could not be assimilated to the
world of phenomena, and second, because a vision could not be interpreted
by the visionary himself (Mektubat, 74). Only those who, like the Brethren
of Purity (Asftyaz), were the touchstone of the true tradition of the Prophet
could interpret these visions. What was meant by the Brethren of Purity
was those who, in the tradition of Sirhindi, had not succumbed to a further
corollary drawn from the theory that all was God: namely that all actions
216 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

came from God and that therefore there was no clear line between good and
evil or that God could be seen in the phenomena of nature themselves and
did not have an existence outside them.
Bediiizzaman’s stand in relation to this picture of nature thus straddles
the mystical tradition: it is useful to paint a picture of nature more complex
than that offered in the superficial interpretation of the Qur’an, but danger-
ous if used by the masses to evade moral constraints.
Regardless of his view of nature as a machine, Said still considered
the laws of nature to be appearances which heralded the presence of the real,
i.e., the Godhead. Nature as a theophany of God and its study by science
thus acquired a sacred quality. In the long run, this sacralization of science
has resulted in a series of popularizations of science of a very high level
published by the murcu at their printing plant in Istanbul. The publications
are devoid of propaganda and have such titles as ““Cybernetics,’ “The Big
Bang,’ “The Blood and Circulation,” “Space and the World,’ “Energy and
Life,’ “From the Cell to Man,” or “The Air Around Us.” The works are
produced by reputable scientists, some with positions in the university, or
by journalists who are careful to give a scientific account of the process they
are studying. Only at the end is a theological point put forth: such extraor-
dinarily involved but regular processes can only attest to the presence of a
Maker, God.
 Conclusion

IN THE MOST general sense my findings are concerned with

human intelligence and with language and idiom as part of the adaptive
instrumentalities of intelligence. But there are three general—and irreduc-
ible—dqualitative aspects of the idiom I encountered. First, the idiom is con-
cerned with “spiritual beings” and takes its force from a basic premise
about the existence of God. Why a particular idiom would set out from this
point is a question I do not investigage and for which I have no answer. But
once this is accepted, I find that the idiom serves as an instrumentality for
three things. First, for maintaining a sense of the mytho-poetic which
works to produce a relation of enchantment or alternatively of daemonization
with the ambient world. Power seems to me a force that originates in this
locus. Again, I have no answer as to why the idiom I study should work
through these channels. Second, the idiom to which I refer means that it
can be used for what I can only describe as the expansion of one’s personality
or identity. Third, it serves to spin out a cognitive model of the universe
and the world. None of these three dimensions prevail in their pure form.
They have a mutual relation which is that of colors blending into one an-
other, leaving some identifiable trails disappearing in the blend and reap-
pearing at points as flakes or points.
Said Nursi’s appeal to his followers—the problem that to me seemed
most intriguing when I undertook the study—may be evaluated in the con-
text of two main dimensions.
For one, the idiom that Said Nursi was reviving had also to be en-
riched. By enriched I mean enabled to confront the processes of a modern,
more highly differentiated society. At this point we may refer to the ideas
of Niklas Luhmann to bring out more clearly what this adaptation involved.

217
218 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Luhmann is known for his work on the type of social communication that,
in his view, has become characteristic of modern society. According to him,
a difference exists between the sources which in “‘traditional” societies se-
crete the social cement productive of order as contrasted with those of mod-
ern societies. If trust in the way things will work themselves out in our
lives—if, in other words, trust in society—is a basic component of this
cement, then in traditional societies such trust depends on an emotional
bonding with persons, or with myths or religion. But in modern times,
members of society having been mobilized for wider participation, it is the
workings of the system as a whole in which they have to place their trust.
This requires a transition from reliance on a normative system to a system
based on cognitive skills (Luhmann, 1979, 46). Ethical theory is, therefore,
relegated to an auxilary role as legitimator. A typical example, relevant in
the case of Said Nursi, would be z¢tihad elicited at weekly meetings of the
brethren replacing the guidance of the par.
The structural logic of Said Nursi’s position was the need to achieve
an accommodation with these specific external constraints that gave such a
central role to flexible cognitive mechanisms. The problem which he encoun-
tered may thus be seen as a collapsing into a much shorter period of time of
an extended Western experience in transiting from an earlier normative to a
later cognitive phase. Today, when the young Turkish fundamentalists fol-
lowing in Said Nursi’s path point out in the periodical Girisim (May, 1987)
that what is needed for Islam is a ‘paradigm’ that will enable Muslims to
draw meaning from the Qur'an they are wending their way along a path
opened up by said Nursi.
To complete this picture of transition to a new society we have to refer
to still another dimension of Said Nursi’s contribution. At this point he
may be seen as having shaped the identity of a group among which the
materials for identity had existed for a long time but which were brought to
the fore by our sage. Remember that Said Nursi was seeking support
among persons who had not climbed on the bandwagon of the modernist
elite, t.e., among the underprivileged, who were still under the influence of
their local culture. I would describe such persons as linked by a loose net-
work and thus constituting a potential ‘team’ for concerted action in soci-
ety. A characteristic of this “quasi-group” (Dahrendorf, 1958) was that it
was made up of persons who, to a greater or lesser extent, took their value
cues from and organized their daily life strategies around the so-called ‘un-
bounded sea of the sertat’’. This “virtual” group had a legitimation which
was that of the just. Facing them was another team which took its values
 Conclusion 219
from sultanic practice—in the Weberian sense (or in more caricatural terms
from “Oriental Despotism’’). The boundaries of these two groups were the
very product of Ottoman social organization, in the sense that the team of
the just was also the group that paid taxes while the second group was that
of persons exempted from taxes. We may therefore understand how the sul-
tanic team, could be seen as the team of the unjust to which ordinary
citizens gave habitual but no doubt often grudging obeisance. Cornell Fleis-
cher has shown us how even one of the sons of an early Ottoman sultan
rebelled against the practice of the unjust (unpublished speech, Istanbul,
October, 1987).
Two characteristics of the team of the just need to be underlined.
First, the elite of this team, the ‘v/ema had often led the masses in move-
ments that protested the practices of the unjust. Second, a more common
form of protest against the unjust was the set of adversary, underground
strategies directed to deflect and subvert the burdens generated by these
policies. One of the more obvious of these tactics was gossip about the
Great. Another, more clearly directed against the canon of the Great Tradi-
tion was the discourse of the central character in the Turkish shadow play,
Karagoz. The seriat played an important role in these strategies in the sense
that it insured the protection of basic rights, including that of life and
property, of the common citizen, in a way that was not true of the sultanic
team. The serat therefore constituted a shield from behind which the pop-
ular fronde could be carried out.
These secret, and often semi-conscious and collective strategies have
been studied by Michel de Certeau. He has highlighted the ways in which
the totality of such stratagems subvert the canon of the discourse of the
powerful, and has called this locus the “everyday’’ (/e quotidien) (de Certeau,
1984). What Said Nursi was doing was fastening onto a fund of cultural
resources—the religious idiom—which had an important place in the Otto-
man everyday but also enriching it to fit the requirements of a modern
society. Another, parallel, transformation was that by concentrating on the
religious component of the everyday life of Ottomans and modern Turks he
was able to bring it out with a new form, a collective identity which we
could describe as populistic in mode.
Such an analysis of Said Nursi’s ideas, however, only sets the broadest
frame for their understanding. Other dimensions have to be evoked if we
are to get a more precise understanding of Nurculuk. For one, Said Nursi’s
basic arsenal of a normative frame was not without its own philosophically
compelling foundation. John Dunn, who takes up Locke’s view of the sub-
220 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

ject, reminds us that ‘“‘despite the indispensability of casual analysis of

society . . . there is considerably more than we recognize today to be said
from the pre-modern perspective on this question’ (Dunn, 1934, 282).
Locke’s argument is that if trust is the prerequisite of any legitimation of a
social order, this trust has to rest on ethical foundations rather than on cog-
nitive technique.
Of related interest is the point which I have attempted to make a
number of times, i.e., that the expanded external frame provided by the
new world communications revolution also provides opportunities for ex-
panding one’s spiritual frame, which I define as one dimension of personal-
ity. The expansion of horizons which the modern state promotes through its
educational policies brings not only the need for enhanced social status—an
issue which has been studied many times—but also a need for spiritual
plenitude. This does not mean that the process will work only in that di-
rection. A cue that such a dimension of progress exists at all is provided
more by the instances of its perversion in the modern world than by direct
evidence. H. Rosenberg and his coterie of half-educated fascist intellectuals
are not so far behind us that we may forget their own resolution of the issue
in the form of the “Myth of the Twentieth Century’: the vicious ideologies
of totalitarianism may be interpreted as a need for spiritual plenitude which
has gone awry. An apposite illustration may be given from the history of
Muslim revivalism in Egypt.
In December 1981 in Cairo the manifesto appeared of an Islamic fun-
damentalist group entitled The Forgotten Obligation (Kepel, 1983). It was
the work of a twenty-six year old Egyptian technician by the name of Ab-
dessalam Faraj. In it Faraj gave his personal interpretation of some of the
ideas of the great Islamic Medieval thinker Ibn Taimiyya (1263-1328). The
brochure invited its audience to re-think the requirements of a truly Islamic
society and reached the conclusion that Islamic political leaders who did not
wholeheartedly work for the promotion of an Islamic society might as well
be eliminated physically. The opuscule can be seen as the product and out-
come of an enlarged educational system and the entry into the reading and
writing public of a stratum of Egyptians mid-way between the rural masses
and the learned ‘ulema. This new public did not rely any more on the au-
thority of representatives of the “High” tradition to understand whar their
religion enjoined. The piece was consequently lambasted by the Azhar, the
institutional representative of this culture in Egypt. But the most disturb-
ing effect of the brochures was the impetus it provided to the assassination
of A. Sadat.
 Conclusion 221
The daemonic aspect of this particular development does not invalidate
the need to consider spiritual dimensions on the reverse side of the coin.
This is an item which is not adequately described when one mentions the
need of modern men to have a picture of the cosmos or a map of social
relations. It is related to a cognitive scheme, but it is also qualitatively dif-
ferent. In the case of Said Nursi, the Ottoman rural populations were not so
far removed from the effects of modernization to fail to be aroused to a need
for a new expansion of human horizons. This they could only express with
the one language capable of carrying that weight, the language of religion.
What I am arguing here is that students of social change who associate the
growth of social communcation with an expanded vision of the world seem
to forget that spiritual needs are also expanded as part of this change. This
expansion comes at a time when a new populistic thrust 1s also emerging.
Indeed, there is a democratized aspect in the very rise of Nurculuk since it
provided an opportunity for persons with a lower class background to devise
their own interpretation of the religious message.
This appears more clearly in Said’s de-coupling of the linkage between
esotericism and elitism in traditional Ottoman culture. Mysticism in one
special form, i.e., the arcane knowledge of Islamic theosophy, the interpre-
tation of the metaphorical content of the Qur'an was considered to be the
stuff that only persons with special intellectual and spiritual disposition
could tackle, understand and control. In a sense, then, mysticism was the
language of the elect, of a spiritual elite. This spiritual elite was not nec-
essarily part of the ruling group of officials, but it had a special, preferred
status which, through its cognitive selectivity, placed it in a position dis-
tinct from that of the mass of believers. Again, this does not mean the
spiritual elect had no contact with the masses and did not serve their spir-
itual needs. The most intellectually aristocratic of the orders we know, that
of Melami, who were bent on provoking outward blame only to contrast it
with the immaculate nature of their internally held faith, were constantly in
touch with the average believer. Icaz, the mystery, however, was a dimension
of the Qur'an into which they refused to bring this average believer.
By contrast, in the intellectual format of the ordinary believer there
was a demand for ethical guidance, for spiritual support, for answers to
problems posed by day-to-day life and for a sense of the enchantedness of the
world rather than the search for the abstract, ineffable meaning of the
Qur'an. Modernization shattered this two-tiered religious stratification by
propelling the ordinary citizen into an area which stood in between these
two spheres.
222 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Already in the nineteenth century there are indications that this cog-
nitive boundary was softening. In modern times, a new, intermediate
sphere, that of politics, arrived and drew philosophers, mystics and good
burghers alike into participation; this also included what may be described
as intellectual participation. During the three decades from 1930 to 1960,
social mobilization, the penetration of the market nexus into the rural areas
and the beginnings of political participation accelerated this tendency in
Turkey. It could thus be predicted that to the existing material demands of
the believers of rural areas would be added a demand for a picture of the
world, for a cosmology (an ideology) more sophisticated than the one they
had used in the past. This is one of the meanings of Said’s emphasis on the
proofs of Islam. But for Said, the time had also come when the middling
religious man could and should be given a more extensive glimpse of the
itaz. He still believed in the tiered nature of the religious message, but was
ready to bring in an increasing number of believers and to show them the
rich content, the layered nature, the multiplicity of explanations encapsu-
lated in the message of the Prophet. It seems as if he thought that it is this
richness rather than authoritative pronouncements which would draw his fol-
lowers to the Qur’an. Now the boundaries between the two tiers of religious
knowledge had become more diffuse.
Underlying the new demand for a better understanding of religion we
note the rise in effectiveness of what may be seen as a new “‘class,” i.e., the
middling level of the rural and small-town population in Turkey. This stra-
tum is engaged in a diffuse and very tentative attempt to capture power for
itself. Its main symbolic resource which it uses for this project is also the
fund of religious symbolism. I have not had the opportunity to study this
gradual, slow and diffuse process in detail or in depth. Nevertheless, once
aware of such a development one realizes that the present revival of Islam in
Turkey is better studied in this frame than from the vantage point of con-
spiracy theories of history. What seems involved here is a pre-political form
of organization, itself influenced by the ambient politization of modern Tur-
key and held together by nothing more than a principle of hope, a principle
which nevertheless has been taken seriously by at least one modern philoso-
pher (Bloch, 1986).
In this class perspective Said Nursi may be considered to be an ideo-
logue into whose preachings an infrastructural change, the ‘mobilization of
the periphery,’ breathed new life. He was meeting a demand arising out of
this mobilization. The idea that reformers such as Afgani “led’’ movements
of Islamic reform could be reversed: It was the new social setting which
propelled persons like Afgani into the role of reformers. Had this setting
 Conclusion 223
been missing they would not have been heard, just as the miiceddid? failed to
be heard by the men of the Tanzimat.
There are, however, specifically Muslim aspects which affected the un-
folding of the Nur movement. Said Nursi’s biography brings out a number
of dimensions of the process of social change in an Islamic environment.
There is, first, the moral rearmament dimension of change, the em-
phasis on the revitalization of the ethical system. Scudies of Muslim societies
through the centuries show that this was a primary concern of Muslim reli-
gious thinkers. These studies also show that the concern acquired a sense of
renewed urgency in India during the seventeenth century. Another, similar
cluster of activity appears from the middle to the late eighteenth century
and surfaces in Arabia, India and in the Maghrib. A third focus of ethical
revivalism emerges in the more central regions of Islam during the nine-
teenth century. These three moments of Muslim ethical renewal may be
unconnected, although in the case of India we can follow lines of continuity
into the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the three faces of Muslim revital-
ization have the same substratum, namely, the centrality of the ethically
righteous community in Islam. What the Muslim reformers, who took the
leadership of renovation, share, is a determination to create an Islamic ac-
tivism based on faith as a guide for personal conduct. These views empha-
size an outward, formalistic integument of practice which, they consider,
will provide the primary channel into which faith will flow, but inner com-
mitment is the goal they are after. This commitment also provides a new
focus for Sufism: the externalities of “vitiated” mysticism are replaced by an
inner search for God which pursues the same aim as the mystics but tames
it with a constrictive morality. This new frame will also make good citizens
of Muslims. In all three cases of Muslim revival, practices such as saint
worship and the intercession of holy men are condemned, strict observance
of ritual is enjoined, although the most difficult transition seems to be that
which concerns the role of Holy men to which leaders themselves aspire and
through which they receive a valuable formal legitimation. The reformist
ethical thrust has also aspects which remind one of the history of Western
European philosophy: Muslim scholars with an understanding of the West-
ern intellectual tradition who have taken a retrospective look at the move-
ment of religious revitalization see the ethical problem which confronted
Muslim reformists as one of the “immanentization” of ethics. The issue is
outlined by Fazlur Rahman:

The question is not merely that of an antiquated cosmology in varying de-

grees, for this is relatively easy, but primarily chat of ‘‘the other world” or the
224 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

‘hereafter,’ how to transfer their transcendence into some form of im-

manence. . . . Religion, in other words, must be secularized if the secular is
to be made religious. But Islamic theology and dogma have not yet under-
gone this transformation to be acceptable to the modern mind... .

Here Said Nursi scores once more. To show his originality we may begin by
setting the stage in the traditional Islamic sphere.
Let us take the great work of a Muslim theologian of the eleventh
century, al-Ghazali’s [hya ‘Ulam ad-Din. There are two main thrusts of his
argument. First, a Muslim may capture the essence of his faith by the ob-
servance of ritual. His book, therefore, has a great deal to say about correct
ritual (Ghazali [Trs. 1975} I, 273-572). A second theme which he under-
lines is God as the source of all existence. God has no rival. Nothing such
as the eternity of a /ogos which would have preceded His own active capacity
should be placed on the same level with Him. By contrast Said Nursi’s
writings have relatively little to say about ritual. They are primarily con-
cerned with the second theme, i.e., with affirming the unicity of God. The
reason for this shift of emphasis is that Bediiizzaman is combatting the idea
of an eternally existent nature, the theme propounded by his adversaries, the
Ottoman materialists of his time. The primordial force of the universe that
Said Nursi thus underlines is the very same force which sets the normative
system of Islam. These normative obligations are not described by Bediiiz-
zaman as ritual but instead as moral obligations. His own emphasis then is
on the meaningful aspect of Islamic ethics rather than on its ritualistic as-
pect. His percipience thus appears in his understanding that meaning has
become central in an age of intensified communication. This emphasis on
meaning also allows him to draw a meaningful derivation from the idea of
the unicity of God which is that of the wondrous world of nature created by
Him. Through this type of argumentation he can place himself in a differ-
ent position than that of the naturists of the early nineteenth century such
as Sayyid Ahmad Khan. In Beditizzaman’s thought, nature is at one remove
from God and not on the same level as He. It also follows that none of the
ethical obligations of a Muslim can be drawn directly from nature; a
“higher” reference to the commands of God to Muslims is demanded. Thus
ethics is saved for Muslims at the same time that the system of nature is
legitimized; also the new stress on meaning ‘“‘secularizes” religion.
The explanation is of considerable use in unravelling the otherwise ob-
scure religious commentaries of Said Nursi. The same is true of the rele-
vance of sociological concepts for the study of Muslim revitalization. In this
 Conclusion 225
sociological perspective, Muslim ethical revitalization movements may be
studied as involving the transformation of symbolic systems, and the trans-
formation of the symbolic system used as an approach to understanding the
Risale-i Nur sheds light on aspects of Said Nursi’s system of thought, which
otherwise remains opaque.
The second major dimension of intellectual change in Islamic societies
in the modern era arises somewhat later than the concern with ethical re-
newal. It consists of the felt necessity among nineteenth century Muslim
thinkers to reach an accommodation with the world of Western science.
This slant involves the building of a new cosmology which would bring
Muslim thought, as it existed at that time, in harmony with the mechanis-
tic views which underlay nineteenth century Western European science.
Finally, the psychological dissonance which caused Muslim thinkers to
raise the issue in the first place and which gives these movements their
peculiar force appears to have originated in a perception of a loss of power
by Islamic societies. It is an outcome of the confrontation of Islamic societ-
ies with an alien cultural system infiltrating it. This perception is not lim-
ited to Muslim religious personnel but appears as a malaise affecting all
strata of society. Once again, the peculiarities of Islamic society appear in
the definition of the “other” as another religious system. Muslim publicists
prefer to emphasize the Muslim drive towards ethical renewal in the process
of social change. This approach is justified in the perspective which I have
tried to underline, that of the centrality of religious organization for Mus-
lim societies. Muslim societies are societies which—ideally—have to realize
the kingdom of Heaven on earth. The stress of ethics which I find so central
nevertheless beclouds the enormous importance of power in Muslim societies
and the trauma caused by what is perceived as a loss of power. It therefore
has to be counted together with other propellants of Islamic revitalization.
The involvement of Muslim society in power is transparent. Islam has
been militane from the beginning, in a sense that Buddhism or Hinduism
do not share. Because of the features of Middle Eastern society which I have
already described, traditional Islam does not have an ecumenic tradition. It
converts, conquers and relegates those who have not been taken into this net
to the category of residuals. Second, Orthodox Muslims, and the traditional
middle classes and lower classes which, in a sense, share the label of “People
of the Hadith,” carry the conviction of belonging to a community to which
has been assigned the task of establishing a society framed and ruled by a
religious message. They see Islam as having a destiny in this world which
includes an international dimension. Two variants of this orthodox stand are
226 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

those of Ottoman officialdom, which never concealed the primacy it gave to

the state, and mysticism, which is the door through which a humanism,
softening the stark fundamentalism of the “People of the Hadith,” could
enter Islam.
Bitlis, the area where Said Nursi spent his youth, was a region where
Opportunities for the seizure of power at the community level were high-
lighted by the history of the area. The entire setting of nineteenth century
Bitlis highlighted power as an element of day-to-day life. It was ubiquitous
in inter-tribal relations; it had been lost by the murs, it was present in the
form of the Ottoman administration, and it was a key element in the
miiceddidi Naksibendi program of expansion. Islam’s loss of power was sym-
bolized by the presence of Protestant missionaries in Bitlis and by the edu-
cational and community achievements of the Armenians of eastern Turkey as
well as by their revolutionary actions. This was the basic trauma which even-
tually propelled Said Nursi towards his version of pan-Islam. Even before
this stage, however, Said was involved in seminary politics and in commu-
nity power contests. It was because of the militancy of miceddidi Nakt-
bendism that his eyes were turned to the outer world. Again, it was because
steam and the machines it propelled were metaphors of power that the ter-
minology of thermodynamics and electricity occupied such a prominent
place in Said’s discourse. It was also its latent power-base that made modern
science so attractive to him. All of this does not mean that power as a given
of Islamic societies should be equated with brute force, but rather that it is
associated with a tradition of seizing power at times when chaos threatens
the Muslim community. Nevertheless, this fixation of Islam with power of-
ten results in Muslims bringing their own definition of society and its
needs into contexts where their definitions do not apply. It is doubtful that
without a number of innovations even the ayetullahs can equilibrate their
regime with a definition of society as enduringly dependent on power rela-
tions as they have produced. Said Nursi was able to transcend this element
through the humanitarian facet of his thought, which originated both in
his personal character and in the mysticism from which he took his inspi-
ration. This emphasis on the humanitarian bedrock of the Qur’an, reminis-
cent of pietism in Europe, is one which has little relation to Naksibendi
puritanism. The latter, as we remember, also affected him in his views
about inner discipline.
For the ‘a/ema who represent the central traditions of Islam, the expan-
sion of another creed at one’s expense is a scandal. Sirhindi’s movement in
India and nineteenth century Muslim revitalization are clearly linked to re-
 Conclusion 227
actions to an expanding rival creed. For Sirhindi, “the other” was Hindu-
ism; for nineteenth century Muslims it was Western European culture. But
Western European culture was identified with that of Christianity, an atti-
tude which we can still locate in the ideas of Professor Erbakan, a contem-
porary Turkish Muslim ideologist and a leader of the now defunct National
Salvation Party of Turkey. The eighteenth century setting is somewhat more
difficult to analyze. But it is no coincidence that the Islamic proto-
nationalism of the eighteenth century found such convenient moorings in
religion. In the Isparta region, the lower class clerics (ower in the sense of
modest, provincial origins) who gathered around Said Nursi brought one
more element of power into the picture: they were set on saving the universe
of discourse, which was the stuff of their influence and social position.
Power is also a central aspect of the life of an individual in Islamic
societies. It is central for a paradoxical reason. Islamic socieities, with the
possible exception of the Ortoman Empire, lack penetrative institutional
structures in the traditional setting. They make up a social mosaic which I
have attempted to describe on a number of occasions in this book. There is
thus a recurring need for persons who can use power to seize it for the
establishment of law and order at a number of levels of social organization.
The search for a charismatic leader which so often appears as one of the
features of Islamic history and which is the central one in the case of Said
Nursi is also an aspect of the search for order in times of disorder. Possibly
this characteristic is a universalistic one: charismatic leaders are by definition
persons who establish a new order in times of trouble. This feature acquires
particular saliency in the case of Said Nursi: Bediiizzaman was offering a
new Islamic solution to his followers, who had been deflected by the secu-
larization of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. The emphasis
here is on the new as well as on the Islamic. Last, but not least, Beditiz-
zaman's new order was a paradigm for the solution of the every-day problems
of life. The Turkish Republic was not interested in elaborating a map of
every-day relations. In a society where persons defined their own stand in
life and their power against the State through a religious idiom which
served as such a map, this was a grave oversight. Said Nursi, by reviving
the religious idiom, was revitalizing a total language for social life.
But “order” and “map” are still ambiguous constructions. In fact,
Said Nursi set out to establish a new order at a number of levels. One of
these was the revaluation of the family vis-a-vis the state. The core of per-
sonalism, an aspect of what I have named his discourse, is the familistic
pattern. A second use of personalism was the re-setting of man’s history in
228 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

a context in which the cyclical time of history with its shattering turns (the
time of Ottoman conquest, the time of Ottoman decline and the time of
Republican success) was replaced by a more secure “time” with greater and
more precise linearity. This was the time scale of Islamic destiny, one in
which beginning and end were set. A third use of religious idiom and
discourse was in providing an instrument for consensus. Now the Book,
with a capital “B,” the divine revelation in Arabic, was apprehended
through the book, Said Nursi’s Risale. The Risale became the means of form-
ing Muslim opinion on a variety of items of every-day life. This is the
function the book has kept today. It is through the dynamic of persons
meeting every Saturday in a variety of houses throughout Turkey to discuss
a passage of the Risa/e that the immanentization of ethics is taking place. A
new form of icma consensus, through s¢tihad (exertion for interpretation),
thus appears even though the gates of imdwidual interpretation are still
closed (see Peters, 1980). This transformation into a hermeneutic practice
with a worldly base through an interpretation of the Qur'an, which has its
foundation in the speculations of a “reformed” mysticism, parallels what
Voegelin tells us about a similar process in the West during the Renais-
sance, namely the overcoming of the uncertainty of faith “by receding from
transcendence and endowing man and his intramundane range of actions
with the meaning of eschatological fulfillment” (Voegelin, 1952, 129). In-
terestingly Voegelin ascribes this step to ‘‘gnostic speculation’. First,
miiceddid? Naksibendism had done away with semi-magical practices associated
with mysticism. Nevertheless, the more humanistic background of mysti-
cism had remained as a substratum in Said’s thought.
I believe that Said Nursi did not fully realize that hermeneutics as
applied to the Risale-i Nur would open up a new field of interpretation. He
wanted to provide the widest access to the correct methodology of right
religion. Nevertheless, the increasing range and variety of problems encoun-
tered in modern society have encouraged reinterpretations of his own
Qur’anic interpretations, which enable many practices of modern society to
be legitimized as Muslim practices.
The immanentization achieved here concerns the interpretation of the
Qur'an as a guide to action in the every-day world. The substantive content
of Islamic ethics among the Nurcus has changed much less, and the literal-
ness of the more precise injunctions of the Qur'an is still evident in Nurcu
approaches to ethics. This is a point of crucial importance in the study
of Islamic modernization, for the same type of conservatism—an anti-
hermeneutic attitude—is characteristic of a number of Muslim movements.
 Conclusion 229
A tentative explanation of this characteristic would be that modern
industrial society—and science in tandem—have forced modernizing Mus-
lim societies to adopt the cosmology of Newton whether they like it or not.
Faced by the Newtonian disenchantment of the cosmos, the dimensions of
ethical systems—and of traditional mytho-poetic systems—enable individu-
als to preserve the basic fund of symbols which they have to use to come to
terms with the world, and give a meaning to themselves as persons distinct
from objects.
In the case of Said Nursi, the cosmology of Sufi theosophy was used to
Operate a smooth transition to an acceptance of the laws of nature as taught
in the West. What remains for the Narcus to guide them through the pro-
cess of self-formation—at whatever level and in whatever form this takes
place—is ethical discourse, with its peculiar emphasis on the pitfalls of the
animal self, the underlining of community life, the separate place of
women, and uninterrupted communion with the Creator.
But in the final instance, the private mechanism of integration is
probably overshadowed by the possibilities that inhere in the Islamic idiom
for the creation of a private sphere which can then be defended against the
incursions of the modern state. This is what makes the political revolutions
of Islam revolutions which take their force from religion. That the Islamic
revolution when carried out does not fulfill these hopes is beside the point:
the Islamic idiom is a utopia and directs persons in the way other utopias
have done. It is the fund of hope which the traditionalist controls, which he
can manipulate because he knows how it works.
I have underlined an aspect of religion which we may label ideological
but which itself consists of many layers. The outermost of these are the
effects of privatization in the contemporary world. Atatiirk wanted to make
religion a private concern, but unanticipated social consequences soon caught
up with him. As the boundaries of the private have become enlarged in
Turkey an unforeseen development has occured. As private every-day life has
increasingly been given a new richness and variety, religion has become a
central focus of life and acquired a new power. Religion has received a new
uplift from the privatizing wave; private religious instruction, Islamic fash-
ion in clothes, manufacturing and music, Islamic learned journals, all of
them aspects of private life, have made Islam pervasive in a modern sense in
Turkish society, and have worked against religion becoming a private belief.
If there is a historical moral to the story I have been telling, it is that
there are indeed watersheds in religious history, and that the history of
Islam in Turkey is no exception. Turkish newspapers today write about the
230 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

continuing influence of Turkish Sufi orders. The Naksibendi order—the root

organization from which Nurculuk emerged—is taken to task most fre-
quently by them because of its pre-eminence in Turkish history. But if this
is understood as the guidance of seyhs, it is only completely true for regions
of Turkey which had a special social tradition of Sufi influence. Here the
seyhs continue to fill a role as leaders of communities, as arbiters between
disputes of tribal groups or of groups which take lineage as an anchor for
group identity. Algar has claimed that, by contrast, in western Turkey the
Naksibendi order—as the source of spiritual learning of the highest order—
has nowadays dwindled into insignificance. But this is because in a setting
where universal education has been implemented with success, where indus-
trial relations and mass communications are looming larger every day, Sufi
orders are transformed into mass religious movements which show new dis-
tinctive characteristics. They may be described as faith movements. In these
the charisma of the religious leader is rivalled by an increasing need to
understand the message and to focus on the charisma of the text. The eso-
teric lore of the Sufi orders—its theosophy—has receded into the back-
ground and textual-Qur’anic-interpretation plays a larger role than before in
the life of the believer. The cosmology of the Sufi orders is replaced by a
popularized Newtonian cosmology which has some overlap with what 1s
taught in secular schools. Periodicals such as the Naksibendi Ilim ve Sanat
(Science and Art) try to capture the discourse of secular intellectuals. Clients
will join such a movement because it provides a bridge between the benefit
of positive science and the internally consistent religious idiom of Islam. If
such movements have an autonomous influence in the social sphere, it ap-
pears in the way in which the Islamic social idiom is still able to elicit
social consequences. The very special social accommodation which Schiffau-
er’s ‘““Nurcu” woman achieves in West Berlin provides an example of such
social consequences of an idiom and of the way it is used for self-placement.
The deep primordially-anchored foundation for such an idiom, on the other
hand was recently described by a Turkish psychiatrist writing in the daily
Cumhuriyet. The theme he developed was that in his boyhood, spent in a
Central Anatolian village, he had only known “ego ideals’ derived from
Islamic religious history, the sword of Ali “cutting fifty heads when it
swung right, seventy heads when it swung left . . . the justice of the Ca-
liph ‘Umar... . ”
At the national level the contemporary effects of the Islamic idiom
appear primarily in the way in which social relations are conceptualized as
family relations. The manner in which the present government of Turkey
 Conclusion 231
has been motivated to pass laws against the corruption of the young and the
protection of the family (1985—1986) shows this influence. The Turkish
cabinets may only have indirect connections with the Narcuz, but they harken
to the same voice.
A word seems necessary, at this point, to assess the weight of Said
Nursi’s view of society; what I have, in the preceding pages, labelled ‘‘per-
sonalism.” At a time when sociologists are rediscovering a conception of
society as consisting of an interaction of individuals “embedded in a net-
work of relationships and statuses—fathers, sons, masters, workers, burgh-
ers, peasants” (Plummer, 1983), this theory seems less unscientific than it
would have been in the heyday of positivism. Its importance, however, lies
in another aspect: it shows the element which most Muslims draw from
their religious ideas for a construction of their own, private conceptualiza-
tion of society. It is as if in the West, Lockean conceptions of the polity had
been shared by his Christian audience in the construction of their own po-
litical views. Such a partial congruence no doubt existed, but seems stron-
ger in the Muslim setting. Here, again, we achieve an understanding of the
ubiquity of Muslim idiom.
What we have to offer for social theory at the end of this work is a
mixed bag: a number of approaches to the study of religion are simulta-
neously vindicated. For one, there seems to be a sense in which methodolog-
ical individualism allows us to penetrate into the religious universe of
certain individuals whom I shall call “‘traditionals on the move.” Said Nursi
seems to have drawn his followers from this stratum. The label is quite
different from that of “transitional”; it refers to a mix of traditionalism and
modernity in which traditional values nevertheless keep their grip on the
individual. What we have here are persons for whom the family as an in-
stitution, and way-stations in life—birth, adolescence, adulthood, marriage,
old age, death—remain primordial social forces. Yet these persons are also
moving into the more complex urban world of modernity. The traditional
idiom serves both as a map of statuses and authority relations and at the
same time defines a horizon of time-flow rates as well as life-expectations.
The Islamic idiom which I postulated that Said Nursi recaptured and reju-
venated is what allows followers to conceptualize and reproduce these social
relations.
Spirituality we find to be more complex than just a yearning for the
absolute: in fact, as one transits from the old society to the new, the picture
of a religious elite based on the distinction between the elect and the masses
is transformed, and one observes the entry of the non-elect in a borderline
232 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

area where spirituality and enlightenment comingle. But there still exists an
irreducible aspect of spirituality and religiosity—the mysterium—which
transcends both the use of religion as a map of social relations and its foun-
dation for a theory of the elect, or, conversely, a means of social mobility. To
me, after the research has ended, this still seems best explained by the way
in which Islamic symbols were able to serve a person in building up an
identity. Some of the idiosyncratic aspects of Islam, such as the absence of a
society of blocks, and the necessity to uphold an identity at a personal and
family level, underscore these processes.
At the end of my research I find that there still is much support for
Durkheimian theories of ‘‘collective representations.’ When we look at our
story as the unfolding of an historical process, we detect an aspect of Islam
as communal cement and bond for solidarity, which easily belongs in that
realm. With the special role that culture acquires in the modern nation
state, the leaders of Islamic communities and states and persons who are
propelled into new roles of leadership have used, manipulated and trans-
formed these representations. If we are interested in studying these variables
in detail, however, we shall have to use concepts such as authority relations,
domination and legitimacy, and return to Weber at still another level.
It is by looking in at least the two aspects of methodological individ-
ualism and ‘“‘collective representation” that we can make some sense of the
process.
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Watt, W. Montgomery (1960). “The Charismatic Community in Islam,’
Numen 7: 77-90.
Weber, Max (1946). From Max Weber (ed. Trs. Hans Gerth and C. W.
Mills), New York, Oxford University Press.
Wilson, B. R. (1970). Religious Sects, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
{Yalman}, Ahmet Emin (1930). Turkey in the World War, New Haven, Yale
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Yasar, Muammer (1971). Anadolu’da ilk Tiirk Gazetest: Envar-1 Sarkiyye, An-
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Yildirim, Dursun (1972). “Dede Korkut ve Yunus Emre’de Hayat, Tabiat,
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Matbaas.
 Appendix

Inclosure 3 in No. 4.

Extract from the “Bitlis Gazette’ of October 17, 1889.

(Translation. )
ARREST AND PUNISHMENT OF BRIGANDS IN SASSOUN.—When
Sassoun Caza is spoken of, most of our readers would doubtless think of a
well-ordered place where the inhabitants are blessed with the advantages of
civilization.
In respect of this caza, though it is hoped that under the Sultan’s aus-
pices the order, tranquillity, and civilization imagined by our readers, who
are ignorant of local conditions, will be established—yet its present condi-
tion is entirely wanting in such order and civilization.
This district comprises over a hundred villages, and depends for its
civil administration on Moush, and for its judicial on Sert; it is about four-
teen or fifteen hours distant from the former, and ten or eleven from the
latter town.
Besides the importance of this caza, and the wild and nomad character
of the inhabitants—so to speak, just as in the Cazas of Modiki and Carzan,
the fact of its being surrounded by these cazas and Khyan and Pernashin
and such-like “nahiyyes,” and that it should be limitroph with such difficult
of access, but important spots, clearly gives special reasons for its local im-
portance being greatly augmented.
In view of the wildness of the inhabitants, local conditions having
prevented any census* being taken so far, the exact number of inhabitants is
unknown, but, males and females together, it may be approximately taken
as exceeding 6,000, of whom four-fifths are Kurds, and the rest Armenians.
If, on account of its mountainous situation and remoteness, Sassoun
has remained quite obscured from the rays of careful attention, inspection,

*Colonel Everett estimated in 1884: Armenians, 5,957; Kurds, 3,043.

253
254 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

and reform, no less has that which depends on the light of prosperity—
education—entirely failed to penetrate.
Inasmuch as they had none among them capable of explaining the true
creed, or of appreciating law and morality, the inhabitants, both Moslem
and non-Moslem, have remained in gross ignorance and abjectness of under-
standing, and, whilst knowing nothing of religious duties or institutions,
have even forgotten their language.
The language they at present generally use, which resembles a species
of Arabic without any system, is in suitable relation to the strange barbar-
ism which has produced it from the blending and mixing up of the Kurd-
ish, Zaza, and Armenian languages.
Kurds and Armenians converse in this tongue, and the individuals of
both nations in the exercise of brute violence are as wild beasts, and in their
actions and habits perseveringly give free licence to villany and aggression.
That the Government functionaries of this caza, which from time to
time has had to be administered by military force, have been compelled to
accommodate their ideas and action to the requirements of local conditions,
and that often enough in respect of necessary local business inaction has
been incumbent, is no secret.
For the purpose of establishing and rendering firm the necessary secu-
rity under His Majesty the Sultan as against this peace-breaking condition,
which occasions local perturbation, and for the seizing of the murderers of a
certain Stepan who was killed by robbers in his house at night, a recent
effect of this savageness, two detachments of troops were lately dispatched to
the caza by Imperial command.
When news was received that this force was unequal to cope with the
situation and to re-establish order effectively, two battalions of infantry sum-
moned from Moush and neighboring posts and placed under the command
of Mehmed Bey, a Lieutenant-Colonel of the regulars from Van, together
with two mountain guns, were further sent, so that the chastising force
thus attained a sufficient degree of efficiency.
When for some days nothing was heard of the operations of this force,
upon repeated communications to the proper quarter whereby the necessity
and importance of taking measures and action was pointed out by the Vali’s
representative pro tem., the Defterdar, for this most urgent pursuit—to sum
up the official information handed in, the prescribed measures followed out
by Mehmed Bey in accordance with the communications and desires of the
central authorities resulted in complete success.
 Appendix 255
The military force returned safely to Khato, the caza town of Sassoun,
having seized under the Sultan’s authority the four wicked robbers, the sons
of Bedr Khan, suspected of having ventured on the odious deed of murder,
and renowned in crime, with their abettors they were found in the village
Morshen of Garzan, where they had taken refuge but were unable to escape
the military power. The inhabitants of Sassoun, practised and accomplished
in wickedness, were reduced to complete submission by the troops, who
were successful in this manner.
That so great a solicitude which must be reviewed in relation to the
difficulty and predisposition of the situation, taken together with the wild
and wandering habits of the inhabitants, should have been done away with
by the above described gentle and safety-giving methods, through the won-
derful effects produced by the Sultan, whose study is the causes of prosper-
ity, devoting his special quality of majesty and his private talents of grace to
removing every difficulty and obstacle to make way for facility and ease,
which is all in accord with his dignity, therefore do we offer special prayers
on behalf of His Majesty in pure devotion of spirit, and record gratefully
the serious efforts, zeal, and measures which have happily resulted in these
high fortunate events as desired by the Vali and the troops, and in particular
their commander, and by the local authorities.
 Index

Abdiilhak Molla (1786-1865) 108 Ahmed Hasim 196-7

Abdullah Ilahi of Simav (d. 1490) 54 al-Afghani, Jamal ad-Din, see Afgani
Abdurrahman Seref 120 al-Arabi, Muhyiddin ibn 37, 70, 143, 176,
Abdurrahman, nephew of Said Nursi 177, 185, 186, 208, 209, 212, 215
91, 94 al-Azhar 35, 80
Abdiirresid Ibrahim, Siberian molla 80, 83, al-Bustani, Butrus 35
128-9 al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid 20, 71, 92,
Abu-Manneh, Butrus 7, 35, 59, 78, 125, 165, 224
126, 127, 149 al-Insan al-Kamil 185
Abu Muslim 39 al-Jilani, Abd al-Qadir, see Ceylani
activism 86 al-Madani, Muhammad ibn Hamza
Adam 167, 212 Zafir 127
Adbu, Muhammad 74, 141, 143, 148 al-Rifa’i, Ahmad 131-2
Adivar, Adnan 142f. al-Sayyadi, Abul Huda 126, 128, 132
administrative system 31, 151 al-Sirhindi, Ahmad Faruqi (1563-1624)
aesthetic 150 54-55, 56, 60, 92, 94, 99, 188,
Afgani, Cemaleddin 17, 74-5, 81, 92, 215, 226
128, 140, 204, 222 Albayrak, Sadik 88, 89, 91, 145
Afyon 101, 160, 186, 199 Aleppo 126
Ahbl al-Hadith 162, 225-6 Algar, Hamid 57, 130
Ahmad bin Idris 127 Ali Fethi Bey 83
Ahmed, Akbar S. 44, 53, 148 Ali Pasa, Grand Vizier (d.1871) 112-3
Ahmed Cevdet Pasa 112, 114, 118 Ali Suavi 110, 118, 69, 123
Ahmed Hani 70 alim 52
Ahmed Mithat Efendi 76, 111, 138, Allen, W. E. D. and P. Muratoff 63, 95
139, 140 aleruism 101
Ahmed Rasim 76 Amak-t Hayal 145
Ahmed Serif 153 an Nur as-Sati 128

: 257
Ahmed Vefik Pasa 128 an-Nur al-Muhamaddi 185
258 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Anchor, Robert 206 Bernard, Claude 138

ancients and moderns 130 Bernhardt, Sarah 135
Andalusia 131 Berzenci family 53
Ankara 97, 101 Beser (Humanity) 137
anomie 25 Besikci, Ismail 53
Arab culture 118, 130, 140, 204, 223 Besir Fuad 137
Araba Sevdast 135 Beyan iil-Hakk 143
Arabic 131, 177, 233 Bican, A. Yazicizade 34
Arabism (arabtyet) 35 Bihruz Bey 135-6
archetypes 180, 212 Bilgic, Said 98
Armaner Neda and Yasar Kutluay 175 Binder, Henry 45
Armenians 42, 50, 78, 151—2, 226 biology 93, 94, 182, 214
Ascidede Halil Ibrahim 59 Birgevi, Kadi 162
Asfiya (Brethren of Purity) 215 Birinci, Mehmet Emin 199-201
Ash’ari philosophy 93, 210 Biro 53, 74
Atatiirk, Kemal 25, 94-5, 229 Bishop, Isabella L. Bird 34, 43, 46, 61
Aydemir, Sevket Siireyya 151 Bitlis 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 42, 43,
Ayet-i-Kibra 194 44, 46, 48, 50-51, 53, 58, 60, 61, 64,
Ayetullah Bey 123 65, 67, 71, 72, 88, 95, 104, 147, 153,
155, 159, 191, 226
Baban family 57 Bloch, Ernst 222
Badilli, Abdiilkadir 189-191, 193 Blue Books, Turkey 44
Bafra 200 Blunt, William Scaven 129
Baha Tevfik 142 Bolay, Siileyman Hayri 142
Balkan Wars 33, 87, 153 Bourget, Paul 138f.
Barla 96, 156, 158, 184, 198 Bouvat, L. 142
Barla Lahikas1 24, 158 Brittain, Arthur 179
Barzani family 53 Biichner, Eduard 36
Basiret 123 Buddhism 225
Bedirhan Bey, mir of Botan, 47 Burdur 95
‘“Bediiizzaman” (nonpareil of the times) 77 Burridge, K. O. L. 22
BSN (Risale-i Nur Killiyats Muellifi
Bediiizzaman Said Nursi Hayati-Meslegi- Caliph ’Ali 39, 99
Terciime-i Hali) 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, caliphate 95, 101, 155
73, 74, 75, 82, 83, 87, 89, 95, 167, Caprazzade Abdullah Efendi 161
188, 214 Carré, Olivier 11
Bellah, Robert 20, 197 Carstairs, Morris 179
Benningsen, Alexandre and C. Quelquejay Carullah, Musa 91
129 Catholic Church 84
Bereketzade Ismail Hakki 144 Caucasus 153
Berger, Peter L., Brigitte Berger and Celal Nuri 142, 143
Hansfield Kellner 26, 103, 118 Celaleddin, Mustafa 123
Bergson, Henri 36 Celebi Efendi 124
Berkes, Niyazi 16, 32, 107, 109, Cenap Sahabettin 89
113, 129 censorship, 138f.
 Index 259
CENTO 100 Dahrendorf, R. 218
Cevdet, Abdullah 29 Damascus 87
Ceylani, Abdiilkadir 66, 72, 94 Dar iil-Hikmet il-Islamiye 89, 91, 145, 146
charisma 22, 52, 181, 227 Darkot, Besim and Miikrimin Halil
Chermside, Colonel 35, 50—51 Yinang 30
Chittick William G. 210, 211, 212 Dashnaktsuthiun Revolutionary Federation
Chodkiewicz, Michel 183 47, 63
CHP Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi 144 Davison, Roderic H. 109, 124
Cihad Fetva 88 de Certeau, Michel 10, 219
Cihannuma 60-61 deists 210
Circassians 153 Demokrat Party 40, 98, 101, 158,
civil society 163 159, 160
civilization 173, 203 Denizli 97-8
Western 99, 131, 169, 172 Dervis Vahdeti 84
Cizre 73 Deutsch, Karl 28—29
class, social 17, 118, 156, 163, 164, 167, Devereux, Robert 10
172, 218, 221, 222 dinsiz 150
Code Napoleon 114 discourse 2, 3, 8, 77, 163, 171, 181
cognition 119, 218 distantiation 139
collective representations 231 Divan 107
colonialism 147 Diyarbakir 43, 64, 86, 87
Colonna, F. 12 dogma 200
Committee of Union and Progress 133 Dogu Bayezit 68
communications, social 9, 24, 27, 28, 31, Duguid, Stephen 48, 49, 63, 64, 76, 125
140, 218 Dunn, John 219-20
revolution 15, 26, 220 Durkheim, Emile 144, 146, 178, 231
systems 158
Communism 173 EbiizziyaTevfik 130 |
Comte, Auguste 178 ecirlik devri 172
conscientizacion 4 economy 9, 135, 153
Congress of Berlin 63 Edinger, Edward F. 180
conscription 27 education 11, 27, 80-83, 109, 111, 120,
consensus 228 152, 163, 179, 226 :
207, 221 lycée 109
cosmology 209, 222, 229, 103, 166, 206, grand écoles 109

Council on Muslim Judicial Rulings 145 Military Medical School 133

Crimean War (1854—56) 34, 47, 133 military 33, 121
Cuinet, Vidal 33, 42, 44, 47, 151-2 religious 112, 118, 199
culture 2, 8, 9, 104, 117, 122, 130, 218 riisdiye 33, 46, 69, 108, 119, 152
Arab 140, 118, 130, 140, 204, 223 School of Military Medicine 120
oral 171 School of Political Science 120
Ottoman 135, 139, 221 Tribes School 5, 126f.
Victorian 139 village 195
Western 195, 227 reforms 33
Western penetration 109 Eflani 193
260 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Egridir 192 Friedmann, Johannan 54, 56, 188

Eickelman, Dale F. 11, 165, 166 Fuad Pasa 113
el-Zein, “Abd al-Hamid 174
Elazigz 64, 191 Galileo-Newton 11
Eliade, Mircea 198 Gazauat-1 Ali der Memleket-i Sind 5
elite, political 105 Gazaut-1 Bahri Umman ve Sanduk 5
emanation, doctrine of 93 Gay, Peter 210
Emin, Yalman 129 gazi 3, 4, 190
Emin, Mehmed 128 Gaziantep 4
Emirdag 98, 101 Gellner, Ernest 10, 20, 21, 119
Emirda& Lahtkast 24, 65, 66, 67, 171, gemeinschaft 11
178, 195 Genc, Mehmed 153
Emperor William II 129 Ghurye, K. G. 67
Emre, Giyaseddin 160 Gibb H. A. R. and Harold Bowen 185
Enayat, Hamid 164, 166 Gibb, Hamilton 141, 161, 176
Engelhardt, Edouard 117 Giddens, Anthony 6, 15, 16
enlightened despotism 28 Girisim 4, 218
Enlightenment 11, 38, 119, 172, 206, gnosticism 186, 228
210, 231 Gokalp, Ziya 29, 53, 87, 144
Emuar ul-Agikin 5 Gdlpinarli, Abdiilbaki 149
Erbakan, Necmettin 227 Goody Jack and I. R. Watt 139
Ergin, Osman Nuri 110, 111, 112, 119f., Goody, Jack 67, 170
124, 126f. Gouldner, Alvin W. 32
Erzincan 59, 78, 80 government 27, 151
Erzurum 31, 43, 48, 59, 64, 192 Govsa, Ibrahim Alaettin 124, 128
Eskisehir 96, 160 Grand National Assembly 95
ethics 86, 122, 180, 224, 228, 145 Great Chain of Being 210, 214, 215
foundations 122 Great Tradition 219, 220
revivalism 223, 225 Greeks 149, 150, 151-2, 154
Ancient 170
Faculty of Divinity, Ankara 177 Green, Arnold H. 88
family 163, 170, 227, 230 Griffiths, M. A. 33, 134
Faroghi, Suraiya, 185 Gilhane, Hatt-: Humayun 30
Fazlur Rahman 54, 56, 70, 140, 161, 187, Giinaltay, M. Semsettin 144
208, 211, 215, 223 Giindiiz, Irfan 78, 80, 126
Felgenhauer, I. von 33
fetu 94, 111 Hac: Ibrahim Efendi 130
Flashes of Light (see Lem’alar) hadis (hadith) 69
Fleischer, Cornell 219 Haeckel, Ernst 142
folk Islam 173-5 hafiz 156
Foucault, Michel 7, 8, 163 Hakkari 49
Foucauldian frame 14 Halevy, Daniel 68, 196
freedom 85, 172 Halidi 58, 59, 66, 70, 122, 126,
Frey-Rohn, Liliane 180 158, 184
 Index 261
Hanefi mezhep 60 intellectuals 2, 10, 32, 38, 39, 77, 132,
Harik, Iliya 35 135, 150
Hasan Pasa, wii of Van 75 Intelligence 142
Hasim, Ahmed 196-7 Introduction a l’Etude de la Médecine
Hey’et-i Isfaiye 145 Expérimentale 138
Hicaz 129 Iran 128, 162
Hikem-i Rifai 131 Iron Regiment 154
Hillman 180 Islam 3, 8, 143, 148, 150, 203, 224, 231
Hingak Party, see Hunchakian Revolutionary folk Islam 105, 174-5
Party revitalization (tajdid) 26, 64, 140
Hinduism 225, 227 Islamic Academy 145
History of the Conflict Between Religion and Islamic studies 1
Science 140 Islamkoy 97, 157
Hobbes, Thomas 10 Ismail Fenni (Ercugrul) 143
Hodgson, Marshall 17, 161, 162, 180, Isparta 16, 17, 22, 95, 96, 98, 101, 149,
181, 209 151-5, 155, 157, 160, 186, 227
Horhor Medrese 88, 158 Istanbul 98, 132, 140, 200, 216
Hourani, Albert 55, 57, 59, 87, 141 Ittihad-1 Mubammedi (The Muslim Union)
humanism 140 84, 85
Hunchakian Revolutionary Party 42, 47, “Tzmirli” Ismail Hakki 145
58, 62, 68
Jameson, Frederic 177
l’caz-i Kur’an 131, 177, 221, 222 Jansen, J. J. G. 206
Ibn Taymiya 208, 220 Japan 204
Ibrahim Efendi 138 Jaschke, G. 144, 145
Ibrahim Hakk: 72 Journal of Philosophy 142
ittihad 89, 90, 143, 228 Jung, C. G. 179, 180
identity 201 Justice Party 40, 159
ideology 117, 132, 159, 165, 168, justice 11, 122
222
idiom 2, 3, 7, 13, 15, 16, 26, 181, 217, Kabuli Pasa 114
219, 227, 229, 230 kad: 11, 106, 108, 110, 129
Ihya’ ’Ulum ad-Din 224 Kadiri 57-60, 66, 72, 152, 192
Ilim ve Sanat 230 Kamil Paga 125 |
imam 156 Kaplan, Mehmet 120
Imam-1 Rabbani (see al-Sirhindi) Kara Davut 5
imperialism 28, 147 Karagéz 219
Inalcik, Halil 18, 55, 117 Karal, Enver Ziya 106, 124, 125, 126
India 179, 204, 223 Karatay, Fethi Ethem 34
individualism 12, 165, 167, 179, 231 Kartal, Kinyas 159
individuation 180 Kastamonu 97, 189, 198, 203
industrialization 9, 28 Katip Celebi 20, 60-61
Inebolu 200 Keciborlu 153
insan 164, 166 Keddie, Nikki R. 20, 128
262 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

Kemal Efendi (1808-1888) 110, 130 Mamuret iil-Aziz, see Elazig

Kemal Pasa, Mustafa (see Atattirk) “Manastrli” Ismail Hakki 144
Kemalism 1, 41, 157, 169, 170, 179 Manyasizade Refik Bey 83
Kerr, Malcolm H. 141, 173 Mardin 74, 148
Kizilirmak 199 Mardin, Ebul’iila (Mardinizade Ebuliila)
Klein, Melanie 179 109, 115, 144
Koprilii, Fuad 55 Maronite Church 35
Kosovo 87 mass media 17, 31, 135
Kraft and Stoff 138, 142 materialism 9, 36, 169, 182, 142, 169
Kuleli Rebellion (1859) 59 mathematics 137
Kulturkampf 115 Mawdudi, A. 166
Kumkapi demonstration 63 Mebahis-i iman 5
Kuntay, Mithat Cemal 59, 112 Mebahis-i Salat 5
Kurdish autonomy 60, 90 Mecca 14, 126f, 128, 129, 162, 188
language as a patois 177, appendix mecelle 115, 118
nationalist 35 Medina 126f, 128, 129
rebellion of 1938 191 medrese 22, 35, 37, 46, 52, 68, 69,
Kuscubas: Mustafa Bey 78 71, 80, 81, 94, 96, 104, 106, 110,
Kuscubas1, Esref Sencer 78 111, 122, 124, 129, 144, 145, 151,
Kushner, David 130 156, 193
Kutay, Cemal 19, 82, 83 Mehmed Akif 78, 144, 145
Die Natur 138 Mehmed Emin Efendi 72
Mehmed Kiifrevi 192
La Science pour Tous 138 Mehmed Liitfi of Pasinler, Erzurum 192
Lami Celebi (d. 1532) 54 Mektep 138f.
language, Turkish 130 Mektubat 90, 94, 166, 167, 169, 172,
Le Chatelier 126, 129 173, 187, 206, 213, 215
lehv-1 mabfuz 213 Melami 149, 221
Lem’alar (Flashes of Light) 91, 92, 93, Meric, Cemil 81
94, 143, 160, 188, 194, 206, 211, Mesnevi-t Nuriye 93, 178
213, 214 metaphor 221, 226
liberalism 85 Metcalf, Barbara Daly 149
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm 206 Mevlana Halid (Baghdadi) (1776/7—1827)
life-worlds 103 57, 59, 68, 71, 99, 149, 183, 188
“Little” Ali 157 Mevlevi 87, 122, 124, 152
Locke, John 220, 231 Mevléd 5
Logos 186, 224 Midhat Pasa, Grand Vizier 124
Luhmann, Niklas 217—8 military establishment 33, 121, 133,
Lyman, Stanford M. 29 134, 191
millet 85
Madaniya order 127 Ministry of Pious Foundations 155
Maghrib 223 Ministry of Public Instruction 108
mahdi 185, 186, 187 Ministry of Religious Affairs 155
Makeen, Abdul Majid Mohammed 17 Minnes, Mattison 179
Malinowsky, Bronislav 118 Mir Mehmed of Rawendiz 47
 Index 263
Miran tribe 73 Namuik Kemal 122, 123, 128, 204
missionaries 47, 61, 62, 226 Narodnaya Volya party 62
Mitchell, R. P. 162 Nasr, Sayyid Husayn 205, 209
mobilization, political 125, 222 National Salvation Party 227
social 173 nature 138, 175, 205-6, 224
modernization 2, 9, 23, 25, 68, 104, 105, as machine 213, 216
150, 162, 196, 221 Necat ul-Miminin 5
moderns vs. ancients 130 Nehri 58
Molla Fethullah (1889) 71 networks 158-60, 199
Molla Mehmed Emin Efendi 66 Newton, Sir Isaac 12, 130, 205, 209, 210,
mola 106, 110 214, 229
Morocco 165 Nietzsche 143
motivations 16 Nisbet, Robert 198
Mottahedeh, Roy 164 notables 47, 71, 160
MSP (Milli Selamet Partisi) 158 Narcu 2, 7, 16, 24, 38, 39, 157, 163,
‘“Muallim” Naci 130, 131, 138 177, 200, 202, 216, 228, 229, 231
miiceddidi Naksibendism 54, 57, 87, 147, in Europe 40, 167, 173
223, 226 Nurculuk 16, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27,
Muhakemat 212 36, 38, 40-41, 69, 79, 100, 147,
Muhammed Destani 5 159, 161, 189, 190, 196, 202, 221,
Muhammedtye 5 223, 230
Muradi family 87 Nursin 58
Miirsel, Safa 101, 168, 169, 173, 203
Mus 58, 160 Okay, M. Orhan 137, 138
Musa Bey 50 Omer Pasa, governor
Musa bin-EV11 Gazan yahut Hamtyyet 131 Ong, Walter 171
Musa Carullah Bigi 143 oral culture 171
Mustafa Aga of Miran 73, 74 Ortoman Empire 4, 5, 9, 12, 18, 19, 22,
Mustafa Asim Efendi, Seyhiilislam 26, 27-28, 30, 31, 42
(1773-1846) 57 culture 135, 139, 221
Mustafa Sabri Efendi, Seyhiilislim 143 constitution 124
Miizekki iin-Nifus 5 public law 164
mysticism 25, 70, 175, 176, 179, 180, reform, see Tanzimat
205, 207, 208, 209, 213, 214, 216, state 34, 107
221, 228 “Ottomanism” 35
myth 118 Ozon, M. N. 123
mytho-poetic 17, 181, 205, 207, 217, 229
Palace School 106
Nakib il-Esraf 110 Palmer, Richard E. 170
Naksibendi 24, 47, 49-50, 52, 54-60, pan-Islam 117, 124, 125, 226, 49
70, 80, 87, 112, 122, 126, 152, 161, Parkin, David 13
183, 230 parliament 111, 122
Naksibendi miiceddidism, see miiceddidi Pathans 44, 53, 148
Naksibendism patriotism 116, 125
Nalbandian, Louise 62, 64 performative language 13
264 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

periphery 7, 43, 222 190, 194, 199, 207-8, 228

personalistic system 11, 119, 132, 164, see B.S.N.
165, 167, 169, 170, 171, 231 Risale-i Nur Institute of America 24
Peters, Rudolf 228 ritual 144, 209, 170
Peyam-1 Sabah 89 root paradigm 3
pietism 226 Rosenberg, H. 220
Pinson, Mark 34 Rumelia 149
pir 21, 36, 169, 182, 218 riusdiye, see education
Plummer, Ken 231 Russian Revolution 89, 172
pluralization 103 Russo-Turkish war (1877-78)
poetry 70, 176
populism 6, 115, 164 Sabri Efendi, imam of Bedre 97
Portugalian, Mekertich 62 Safahat 144
positional set 17, 168 Saffet Pasa (1814—1883) 113
positivism 32, 39, 132, 136-138, 157 Safii mezhep 60
power 22, 217, 225, 226 Safrastian, Arshak 88
practical knowledge 10 sahib zubur 186
primary group 170 Sahiner, Necmeddin 35, 42f., 52, 65, 69,
privatization 229 70, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 87, 88, 89, 94,
problem-setting 134 95, 97, 98, 100, 156, 158, 169, 189,
progress 82, 104, 120, 173 191, 192, 194
Prophet Muhammad 5, 39, 68, 85, 161 Said Bey, son of Kemal Efendi 130
Protectors of the Fatherland 62 Saint Simon, Claude Henri de Rouvroy 178
sainthood 163, 169, 183-9, 193, 223
Quelquejay, Chantal 129 Salafiyya 90, 144
Qur'an 108, 118-9, 131, 141, 144, 145, Salonika 82, 83, 85
148, 161, 162, 164, 167, 168, 171, Samsun 200
174, 175, 176, 182, 197, 199, 206, “Sancral” (telephone exchange) Sabri
207, 208, 216, 218, 221, 222, 226, 228 157, 214
gutb 185, 186, 188 Sanusit 22, 88, 95
Sarkikaraagac Bank 154
Ramsay, Sir William M. 125, 150 Sayyid Ahmad Khan 143, 204, 224
Rashid Rida 141 Schiffauer, Werner 8, 24, 167, 173
rationalism 32 Schimmel, Annemarie 54, 94, 206
Recaizade Ekrem 135 Science and Art 230
Re’fet Bey 161 science 10, 76, 86, 119, 137, 172, 203,
religion 21, 103, 158, 159, 173, 174, 205, 208, 216
176, 195-6, 208, 209, 213, 219, 228 Second Constitutional Period (1908—1918)
Renan, Ernest 204 36
Republican People’s Party 154 Second Empire 42
revivalism 140, 159, 223 sects 2, 51-54
Rifai order 127, 131 secular courts 41, 114
Risale-i Nur (The Epistle of Light) 12, 23, secularization 1, 150, 155-6, 180, 227
77, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 147, Sehbenderzade Ahmet Hilmi 143, 145
159, 160, 168, 177-8, 181, 182, 188, Sekerci Han 79
 Index 265
self 165, 166, 201 solidarism 157
Sennett, Richard 139 Son Sahitler 96, 159
Sensibility and the New Morality 143 Songar, M. 40
§eriat 99, 100, 114, 121, 122, 124, Sotiriu, Dido 149
164, 218 Sdzler 168, 172, 203
Serif Bey 48 Spencer, Herbert 137
Seyh Abdurrahman Tagi 66, 68 spirituality 193, 221, 231-2
Seyh Fehmi 58 Spuler, C. 23-4, 25
Seyh Mehmed Celali 68 state 10, 116, 147
Seyh Mehmed Kiifrevi 75 Stone, Frank Andrew 61, 62
Seyh Muhammad Murad Buhari (d. 1729) Sualar 68, 168, 169, 194, 215
54 Suavi, Ali see Ali Suavi
Seyh Riza Talabani 192 Sufism 20, 21, 55, 77, 126, 141, 144,
Seyh Said Rebellion 53, 95 145, 149, 158, 176, 193, 209, 210,
Seyh Ubeydullah of Semdinli 49, 58, 90 212, 229, 230
seyhs 34, 45, 48, 51-54, 66, 71, 72, 88, Suhrawardi, Ziaeddin 215
183, 188, 190, 192, 230 Sukiti, Ishak 29
Seyhiilislam Diirrizide Abdullah 94 Siileyman Hiisnii Pasa 131
Seyhiilislam Hayrullah Efendi 124 Siileymaniye 59
Seyhiilislam Musa Kazim Efendi 89 Sultan Abdulaziz 113, 124
Seyhiilislam Mustafa Sabri Efendi 91, Sulean Abdulhamid 11, 19, 22, 48,
140, 143 51, 53, 73, 76, 83, 87, 123, 130,
seyhiilislam 1, 110, 111, 124 133, 134, 137, 149, 150, 152, 153,
Seyyid Ali, seyb of Hizan 49 154, 204
Seyyid Nur Muhammed Efendi 68 Sultan Abdiilmecid 30
Seyyid Sibgatullah Efendi 66 Sulcan Mahmud II 30, 106, 120
seyyid 51 Sultan Murad IV 162
Shah Wali Allah of Delhi (1703—1762) 56 Sultan Mehmet V 87, 124
Shahrani, Nazif 6 Sulcan Selim III 106
Shariati, Ali 81 Sultan Vahdeddin see Sultan Vahideddin
Shaw, Stanford J. and Ezel Kuran Shaw 47, — Sultan Vahideddin 91
61, 63, 82 Sungur, Mustafa 193-198
Shi'ite 4, 100, 128 Swiss Civil Code 96, 155, 170
Shipper, R. 198 symbolism 21, 179, 180, 205, 225
Surt 71, 72 Syria 59, 27
Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybi 66, 69, 99, 101, 156
Simon, Patrick; Bishop of Ely 210 Tahsin Efendi 189
Simsek, Umit 40 Tahsin Pasa 124, 125
Strat-1 Mustakim 144 Talat (Pasa) 83
Sirhindi, see al-Sirhindi Tansel, Fevziye Abdullah 131, 132, 137
Sirvan 72 Tanzimat 9, 12, 18, 30, 31, 34, 36, 42,
Sivas 64 43, 46, 69, 80, 104, 105, 106, 107,
Siyer un-Nebi 5 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115,
social structure 2, 10, 38, 164, 166, 167 116, 118, 120, 121, 132, 133, 134,
society, civil 163 135, 136, 147, 148, 152, 169, 223
266 RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN TURKEY

tarikat 2, 22, 29, 34, 59, 60, 96, 128, 113, 115, 118, 137f, 140, 143, 144,
147, 152, 159, 160, 175, 181, 184, 155, 164, 183, 185, 186, 219,
185, 186, 187, 199 220, 226
tasavuuf 187 Ulken, Hilmi Ziya 32, 145
Tagnak; see Dashnaktsuthiun Ulum-u Felsefe 92
technology 125, 137, 203 umma 40, 161
Tekin, Latife and Iskender Savasir 7 Unat, Faik Resit 33, 107, 108, 109,
tehke 58, 80, 81, 112, 144, 151, 192 110, 124
Temo, {brahim 133 Urfa 87, 101, 189, 190
Teskilat-1 Mahsusa 78 Usakligil, Halit Ziya 138
The Fifth Ray 200
The Forgotten Obligation 220 uahdet-i viicid 187, 208
The History of the Future (Tarth-i Istikbal) vali 42, 43, 109
143 Vambery, Arminius 132-3
The Love of Carriages 135 Van 32, 34, 43, 62, 78, 87, 94, 95,
The Nation in Arms 134 104, 159
The World of Islam 129 van Bruissen, M. M. 30, 32, 34, 47, 48,
theophany 216 49, 51-52, 53, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 66,
theosophy 176, 186, 221 68, 73, 88, 90
Therese Raquin 138 Vehbi Molla 109
Third Republic 84 uelayet 169, 184, 186, 187, 188
Tillo 72 Vico, Gianbattista 176
time, concept of 196-8, 228 Voegelin, Eric 228
Tokgéz, Ahmed Ihsan 120-1 Volkan 84
Tola, Dr. Tahsin 98, 101, 159, 201 von der Goltz, General 134
tolerance 121
Toprak, Binnaz 155 Wallace, Anthony F. C. 26
Toptasi asylum 81 Wallis, Roy 26
Treaty of Berlin 125 War of Independence 95
tribal society 42-79, 104, 158, Watt, W. Montgomery 161
160, 189 Weber, Max 14, 31, 165
Tribes School (“Astret Mektebi”’) 51, 126f. Western civilization 9, 30, 36, 99, 120,
Trimingham, J. Spencer 52, 55, 56, 58, 131, 169, 172, 195, 203, 205

188 203, 205

60, 78, 94, 126, 128, 149, 176, 185, Westernization (garplilasma) 25, 36, 120,

Tripoli 88 Wilson, B. R. 77
Tunaya, Tarik Z. 85, 90 World War I 88, 191
Turkish Republic 1, 9, 13, 25, 69, 155,
157, 203 Yahya Nuzhet Pasa 78
Turko-Mongol-Ottoman practice 18 Yahyagil, Hulusi 156, 191-193
Turner, Victor 3 Yalcin, Huseyn Cahid 140
Twenty-Third Word 194 Yasar, Muammer 31
Yegin, Abdullah 198—9
‘ulema 9, 19, 21, 50, 66, 71, 73, 74, 81, Yeni Nesil 40
85, 96, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, Yezidis 50
 Index 267
Young Ottomans 111, 112, 115, 116, Yusuf ve Ziileyha 5
122, 123, 138, 204
Young Turks 12, 29, 30, 37, 78, 82, 83, |
84, 86, 88, 89, 91, 141-2, 144, 145, oes nile 138
150, 154, 169 oul hen Nene 144
Young, George 42, 43 uimetion NuTa