ABSTRACT
It might seem surprising to hear Thomas Merton and Bediuzzaman Said Nursi mentioned together in the same breath. Merton, after all, was an American Trappist monk. Nursi, on the other hand, was a Turkish-Kurdish Sunni Muslim theologian. There are, of course, obvious differences between these two thinkers. As a Christian Merton is committed to the doctrine of the incarnation and conceives of God in Trinitarian terms. As a Muslim Nursi naturally takes the Qur’an as the definitive source of God’s revelation to humankind, and stresses the unity of God.
