Is Bediuzzaman Said Nursi Turk?

Reader comment on item: "A Corrective to the Pipes Worldview"

Submitted by Muhammed (United States), Aug 30, 2005 at 23:10

I read one of your article named "A Corrective to the Pipes Worldview". You were saying in your article that Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was a Turk. ("There are more appropriate places for Markham and Ozdemir to argue with me than in the introduction to an edited study on a Turk about whom I've never written a word.) I am not a racist. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was born at my city in which mainly Kurdish people were and are living. There used to be Armenian and Kurdish people at the time of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.

I have not made any research in that concept and also I am not a historian. I would be happy if you can search this concept and let all the people know the truth.

I know for sure that in some of his books he had some comments about Kurdish people's future and when editing and translating these books these all were changed to Turkish.

I will be waiting for your reply.

Thanks!

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Daniel Pipes replies:

Confusingly, the term "Turk" has two distinct meanings, one ethnic and one national. I was using it in the second sense.

DP