G.M.K Team
G.M.K Team
رد: Religion in Kurdistan
was in contact with both Muslim modernists and leading Kurdish nationalists and where he
became involved in attempts at popular education. In the Balkan War and World War I he
served as a commander of Kurdish militia troops, distinguishing himself incidentally by
saving Armenian families from the massacres of 1915. His dream was to educate his people
and lift them from the ignorance and backwardness in which they lived. The tariqats, in their
state then were to him part of that backwardness. The education he proposed was both
Islamic and scientific.
In the early 1920s Sa`id broke with the Kurdish nationalist movement, in which he had
belonged to the non-separatist wing, and devoted himself to writing his magnum opus Risalei
Nur (Treatise on the [Divine] Light). This is a series of texts of varying length on various
moral and religious subjects, based on dreams and visions, strongly mystical in tone, and
written in an idiosyncratic, old-fashioned Turkish. It became the sacred text of Sa`id's
increasing numbers of disciples, who came to be known as Nurjus, "Devotees of the [Divine]
Light." The Nurju movement, in spite of persecution by the state, kept growing in numbers
and has at present several million followers throughout Turkey, Turks as well as Kurds.25
The Nurjus constitute probably the most tolerant and open-minded of the various Sunni
Muslim movements in Turkey and have from the beginning distinguished themselves by their
positive attitude toward modem science. This is not to say that among the followers of so
large a movement there are not here and there fanatical groups. It is ironical, given Sa`id
Nursi's rejection of the sufi orders, that the Nurju movement has itself assumed some of the
structural characteristics of a tariqat, with a hierarchical organisation based on closeness to
the late master and degrees of initiation in the arcane secrets of the master's texts. I have even
met Nurjus among the Kurds who were also Naqshbandis.
There are at present several separate tendencies within the Nurju movement emerging out
of conflicting views on the political stand that the movement should adopt. Among the
Kurdish Nurjus a moderately nationalist tendency has emerged in the 1980s that names itself
after the Medreset-üz-Zahra, the university that Sa`id Nursi had dreamt of establishing in
25 0n Sa`id-i Nursi and his religious teachings, see Hamid Algar, "Said Nursi and the Risala-i Nur", in Islamic
Perspectives: Studies in Honor of Sayyid Abul A!a Mawdudi (London, 1978), pp. 313-333; Serif Mardin,
Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1989). On the Nurju movement see Paul Dumont "Disciples of the Light: The Nurju
Movement in Turkey," Central Asian Survey 5:2 (1986): 330. See also Rusen Çakır's observations in Ayet ve
slogan, pp. 77-99.
became involved in attempts at popular education. In the Balkan War and World War I he
served as a commander of Kurdish militia troops, distinguishing himself incidentally by
saving Armenian families from the massacres of 1915. His dream was to educate his people
and lift them from the ignorance and backwardness in which they lived. The tariqats, in their
state then were to him part of that backwardness. The education he proposed was both
Islamic and scientific.
In the early 1920s Sa`id broke with the Kurdish nationalist movement, in which he had
belonged to the non-separatist wing, and devoted himself to writing his magnum opus Risalei
Nur (Treatise on the [Divine] Light). This is a series of texts of varying length on various
moral and religious subjects, based on dreams and visions, strongly mystical in tone, and
written in an idiosyncratic, old-fashioned Turkish. It became the sacred text of Sa`id's
increasing numbers of disciples, who came to be known as Nurjus, "Devotees of the [Divine]
Light." The Nurju movement, in spite of persecution by the state, kept growing in numbers
and has at present several million followers throughout Turkey, Turks as well as Kurds.25
The Nurjus constitute probably the most tolerant and open-minded of the various Sunni
Muslim movements in Turkey and have from the beginning distinguished themselves by their
positive attitude toward modem science. This is not to say that among the followers of so
large a movement there are not here and there fanatical groups. It is ironical, given Sa`id
Nursi's rejection of the sufi orders, that the Nurju movement has itself assumed some of the
structural characteristics of a tariqat, with a hierarchical organisation based on closeness to
the late master and degrees of initiation in the arcane secrets of the master's texts. I have even
met Nurjus among the Kurds who were also Naqshbandis.
There are at present several separate tendencies within the Nurju movement emerging out
of conflicting views on the political stand that the movement should adopt. Among the
Kurdish Nurjus a moderately nationalist tendency has emerged in the 1980s that names itself
after the Medreset-üz-Zahra, the university that Sa`id Nursi had dreamt of establishing in
25 0n Sa`id-i Nursi and his religious teachings, see Hamid Algar, "Said Nursi and the Risala-i Nur", in Islamic
Perspectives: Studies in Honor of Sayyid Abul A!a Mawdudi (London, 1978), pp. 313-333; Serif Mardin,
Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1989). On the Nurju movement see Paul Dumont "Disciples of the Light: The Nurju
Movement in Turkey," Central Asian Survey 5:2 (1986): 330. See also Rusen Çakır's observations in Ayet ve
slogan, pp. 77-99.