This is the story of a very known Turkish Muslim thinker.

Badiuzzaman Said Nursi was born in the village of Nurs in BitlisProvince, located in eastern Anatolia in 1876. This was the year when Sultan Abdul Hamid II ascended to the hrone of the Ottoman Empire. He was later given the title Badiuzzaman (The Glory of the Period).

This Kurdish scholar, however, did not speak Turkish until he moved to the city of Van. While in Van, he made an analysis of the level of understanding on Islam within the local community, especially among the Kurds.

Finally, he concluded that he needed to learn the sciences, in order to synergize it with core Islamic teachings. Badiuzzaman Said Nursi spent some time learning geography, physics and astronomy.