The Transformation of Islamic Movement in Turkey: Case of Nak ibendî and Nurculuk
27
are established by Islamist groups.
11
Thus, “religious leaders of these
brotherhoods, movements, and sects became heads, and the leadership cadres of
those economic ventures became laymen.”
12
It is useful to recall that religious
brotherhoods, in the beginning, supported religious parties – among them the
Welfare Party – but after they figured out that religious parties’ confrontational
strategy prompted military intervention, that support become especially
disadvantageous (unprofitable) for them. Consequently, they gradually changed
their minds and gave up their support, claiming that religious parties threatened
the future of democracy in Turkey,
13
by which they would benefit in the future.
“… several religious orders withdrew their support from the RP (Welfare Party)
starting in the early 1990s, and even sent word to the National Security Council
that they had terminated their link with that party.”
14
We know that “During recent
decades, two Nak ibendî shaykhs, Kotku and his successor, the present Shaykh
Mahmud Esad Cosan, a professor of theology and the late Kotku’s son-in-law,
have disapproved of the fundamentalist interpretations of Islam by some radical
brotherhoods.”
15
Nak ibendîs have adopted an evolutionary rather than a
revolutionary line on the Islamization of everyday life in Turkey.
16
Nurculuk
17
The Nurculuk represents the modern Turkish religious movement that is
named after its founder and leader, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1876-1960).
18
He
received his education in the Nak ibendî circle, in Bitlis.
19
“… [Nursi’s] outlook
was also shaped by the presence of an Ottoman administration modeling itself
11
Sencer Ayata, “Patronage, Party, and the State: the Politization of Islam in Turkey,”
The Middle East Journal, Winter 1996, Volume 50, Number 1, p. 45.
In Metin Heper,
“Islam and Democracy in Turkey: Toward a Reconciliation?” The Middle East
Journal, Volume 51, Number 1, Winter 1997, p. 38.
12
Metin Heper, “Islam and Democracy in Turkey: Toward a Reconciliation?” The
Middle East Journal, Volume 51, Number 1, Winter 1997, p. 38.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid., p. 39.
15
Ibid.
16
Ru en Çakır, “Ayet ve Slogan,” Istanbul: Metis Yayınları, 1990), p. 23.
17
Here I analyze the original Nurcu Movement of Said Nursi and the “neo-Nurcu”
movement of Fethullah Gülen.
18
erif Mardin, “Nurculuk,” in Ed. In Chief, John L. Esposito, “The Oxford Encyclo-
pedia
of the Modern Islamic World,” New York Oxford, Oxford University Press,
Volume 3, p. 255.
19
Ibid.
David Abesadze
28
increasingly on Western Europe.“
20
After realising that the Turkish modernisation
movement endangered his backward region, Said Nursi decided to take part in
defence of his region. Initially he supported the Young Turk Revolution of 1908,
but after he saw their ambivalence toward Islam he changed his position. Then he
supported the Kemalist national resistance movement, but when his ideas on Islam
came into conflict with the secularist Atat rk’s intentions, he was forced into
exile. During his life, he was exiled and imprisoned several times by the state, on
the grounds that he had established his own religious order which was forbidden
by law.
21
The Nurculuk represented a religious movement of rural areas and
provincial towns, gradually spreading to larger cities. Among its members were
highly educated people, including university professors. The major activity of the
movement was publishing the works of Said Nursi, and brochures on the
foundation of modern science. They were also publishing the newspaper Yeni
Asya (New Asia).
22
Nursi’s readers throughout the country, mostly in
industrialised cities, formed public reading circles (dershanes), where people,
primarily students of several universities usually gathered to read the writings of
Nursi. Today in Turkey, the total number of dershanes is more than 5000.
23
The
Said Nursi movement is regarded as the most powerful text-based faith movement
in Turkey.
24
It is difficult to find any documents that prove the Nurcu movement’s
active participation in uprisings like the Nak ibendî.
The main difference it has with other Islamic movements, as prominent
Turkish scholar Hakan Yavuz asserts, lies in its understanding of Islam, and its
strategy for the transformation of society. “Nursi offers a conceptual framework
for a people undergoing the transformation from a confessional community
(gemeinschaft) to a secular national society (gesellschaft).
25
Nursi’s work
responded to the debates of his time. He tried to show that science and
rationalism were completely compatible with religious belief by trying to
contemporise Islam by Islamising science. He argued that Islam and democracy
(which he said is a necessary condition for a just society) were compatible to
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid., p. 256.
23
M. Hakan Yavuz, “Search for a New Social Contract in Turkey: Fethullah G len, the
Virtue Party and the Kurds,”
SAIS Review, A Journal of International Affairs, Winter-
Spring 1999, Volume XIX, Number one, p. 120.
24
M. Hakan Yavuz, “Towards an Islamic Liberalism?: The Nurcu Movement and Fethu-
llah G len,”
Middle East Journal, Volume 53, Number 4, Autumn 1999, p. 586.
25
Ibid.