Badiuzzaman ( The Wonder of The Age ) Said Nursi was one of the prominet Islamic Scholars of 20th century lived in Turkey. He was born in Nurs, a Kurdish village in the Ottoman Bitlis Province in eastern Anatolia.[8] He was educated by the district's best scholars, and he soon surpassed them in debates. His profound knowledge of religious and positive sciences which he learned at an early age was acclaimed by the scholars of his time, and due to his sharp intelligence, strong memory and superior abilities, he was called by the name "Bediuzzaman", meaning "The most unique, superior person of the time." He was invited by the governor of the Vilayet of Van to stay within his residency. In the governor's library, Nursî gained access to an archive of scientific knowledge he had not had access to previously. Moreover, Said learned proper Turkish there. During this time, he developed a plan for university education for the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. By combining scientific and religious (Islamic) education, the university was expected to advance the philosophical thoughts of these regions. However, he was put on trial in 1909 for his apparent involvement in the 1909 events on the side opposing the Committee of Union and Progress but he was acquitted and released. He was active during the late Ottoman Caliphate as an educational reformer and advocate of the unity of the peoples of the Caliphate. Bediüzzaman was a worrying-enough influence for the incipient leader of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, to deem it necessary to seek to control him by offering him the position of 'Minister of Religious Affairs' for the eastern provinces of Turkey, a post that Nursi famously refused.[9] This was the beginning of his split from the Kemalist Ideology. During World War I, he was a member of the Special Organization of the Ottoman Empire.[10]
Said Nursi heard that a British Secretary for the Colonies, Gladstone, had even said in a newspaper: "So long as the Muslims have the Qur'an, we shall be unable to dominate them. We must either take it from them, or make them lose their love of it."[11][12] Such threats caused him to declare: "I shall prove and demonstrate to the world that the Qur'an is an undying, inextinguishable Sun!" thus he decided to write his masterpiece, Risale-i Nur.
