Forming Spiritual Resources for Muslims in a Secular Environment: The Dershane Gatherings of the Nur Community in Turkey
[Thesis]
Mehmet Salih Sayilgan
Valkenberg, Wilhelmus
The Catholic University of America
2017
293
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-0-355-66293-1
Ph.D.
Religion and Culture
The Catholic University of America
2017
Muslims in modern Turkey went through a dramatic and painful experience of secularism. It was not an organic process. The secular establishment emerged at the expense of religious freedom as well as access to spiritual resources. As part of the secular agenda, institutions providing religious education and spiritual formation were completely shut down. The new Republic embarked on a journey of forming individuals based on scientific materialism and Turkish nationalism. Within this new context, Muslim communities sought resources to form faithful believers. One of these communities was the Nur community founded by Said Nursi (d. 1960). This dissertation researches the dershanes (place of study) gatherings of the Nur Community. It argues that the Nur Community has been able to offer a non-violent and non-political approach in cultivating Islamic spirituality and Muslim communal life in modern Turkey. In actualizing this goal, the spiritual gatherings in the dershanes in which Nursi's magnum opus, the Risale-i Nur, is read and discussed have played a key role. This endeavor has become the community's non-violent jihad.
Religion; Islamic Studies; Near Eastern Studies; Spirituality
Philosophy, religion and theology;Social sciences;Islamic spirituality;Muslim spiritual gatherings;Nursi, Bediüzzaman Said;Religious readings;Secularism in modern Turkey;The dershanes of the Nur community