The Traditional Approach of Sid Nursi to Reform Higher education

Abstract

Since the early nineteenth century, the religious-modern sciences dichotomy, continued to represent the most challenging issue for Muslim higher education institution, as a result of the domination of Western secular education. Since then, different initiatives have been taken by prominent Muslim scholars to overcome this issue. This paper highlights the proposal of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi to establish Al-Zahra University in the Eastern province of Turkey, as a part of the comprehensive historical trajectory to reform this institution in Muslim societies, considering the particularity of Turkey as a secular state with multicultural society of Muslim majority, and the special political context within which this initiative was emerged. The paper aims to look at the potentials as well as the shortcomings of Nursi's initiative, in addition to the commons or contradictories with other related initiatives. The paper concluded that, Nursi's reforming philosophy which was emanated from the Islamic educational perspective, aimed at creating a higher education system not only concerns with integrating religious and modern sciences, but also with eliminating exclusion educational policy. In addition, although his reforming proposal shared the same target with other Muslim scholars, yet, had different applying mechanism. The lack of collective work together with the absence of the required political will were among the shortcomings that had led to hinder the realization of Nursi's project. However, his initiative has strongly influenced the contemporary reforming initiatives particularly in Turkey.