“Tri-angular” Approach of Badiuzzaman Said Nursi to Education

The education setup of almost all the Muslim societies in the past as well as in the contemporary times is not in coherence with the modern challenges. On the one hand, the Western societies lay strong emphasis on the modern sciences marginalizing the „religious studies‟ while contrary, on the other hand, the Muslim societies do the reverse. The former excelled in the scientific advancements least bother about religion while the later, hold fast to the traditional education ignoring the modern sciences. This resulted in the wide gulf between the Western societies and the Muslim societies. Apart from this, there is a vast section in Muslim societies which negate the esoteric aspect of Islam (spirituality) which further compounds the problem. In this backdrop many scholars, from time to time, tried to knot reason and revelation, modernity and traditionalism, the secular and the sacred and science and the Quran in a coherent manner to pave way for the unification of people, belonging to different ideologies, across the globe for the betterment in this world and the hereafter. Among such galaxy of scholars, Badiuzzaman Said Nursi (1876-1960) of Turkey envisioned an integrated “curriculum” which blends traditional religious, modern secular and Islamic spiritual education into an efficient and comprehensive system of education by restructuring the whole curriculum for the real development of Muslim Ummah in special, and the whole humanity in general. The present paper aims to critically analyze the “tri-angular” approach of Badiuzzaman Said Nursi to education vis-a-vis the Madrasah al-Zahra.