Chapter One - Childhood and Youth

CHAPTER ONE

Childhood and Youth

#### Birth and Early Childhood

Birth and Early Childhood

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was born early one spring morning in the village of Nurs, a small hamlet in the province of Bitlis in eastern Turkey. The year was 1293 according to the Rumi calendar then in use in the Ottoman Empire, that is, 1877. [^1] The circumstances into which he was born were humble; the house, of sun-dried brick, one of twenty or so built against the south-facing slope of a valley in the towering Taurus Mountains to the south of Lake Van.

[^1]:While a variety of dates for Bediuzzaman's birth are given in available sources, the majority give it as 1293 Rumi.

Even at his birth the child displayed signs of being exceptional. It is said that on coming into the world he peered around attentively, his look fairly frightening those present. It was as if he was going to speak. He did not cry, just clenched his fists. Then they chanted the call to prayer in his ears, and named him Said. [^2]

[^2]:Eşref Edip, Said Nursi, Hayatı, Eserleri, Mesleği, 17.

Said's mother was called Nuriye, and his father, a villager with a smallholding of land, was Mirza. They were a Kurdish family. Said was the fourth of seven children. The two eldest were girls, Dürriye and Hanım, then came his elder brother, Abdullah. Said was followed by two more boys, Mehmed and Abdülmecid, (pronounced Abdulmejid) and last was a girl, Mercan (pronounced Merjan).

Mirza's forbears had come originally from Jizre on the Tigris. [^3] Also known as Sufi Mirza, he died in the 1920's and was buried in the graveyard at Nurse At the head of his grave stands a rough uncut stone with simply the name Mirza etched on it. Nuriye, Said's mother, was from the village of Bilkan, three hours distant from Nurs. [^4] Like her husband, she was

[^3]:N. Şahiner, Nurs Yolu, 68.

[^4]:Şahiner, Said Nursi, 45.