ABSTRACT
As a Turkish Muslim, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi lived a rich life in constant relationship with the West, especially ideationally. Throughout his life, his involvement at different levels o f Ottoman and Turkish political and educational institutions brought him in contact with ideas from and about the West as well as with people sharing different degrees of attraction and repulsion to European things and ideas. Nursi’s limited travels to different parts of Europe, mostly during the First World War, raise two complementary questions: How much were his perceptions of Europe shaped by those experiences? And how much were these perceptions the result of pre-existing notions among Ottoman religious intellectuals? In addition, a number of ethical lessons ensue from Nursi’s dialogue and resistance to Western imperialism in an early age of globalization. Exploring these topics provides insights into inter-civilizational interactions that reveal both useful and unhelpful models of dialogue when facing today’s globalization challenges.
