Village renamed after Islamic cleric Said Nursi

BİTLİS - Doğan News Agency

Hürriyet photo

Islamic cleric Said Nursi's birthplace will undergo a name change that will reverse a 1960 move to rename the town of “Nurs” to “Kepirli,” Doğan news agency reported.
 
The new name was never accepted by locals, Justice and Development Party deputies said. “There were undemocratic times in Turkey's past," a statement from AKP deputies Vahit Kiler and Vedat Demiröz said. “'Nurs' was changed to 'Kepirli' in those times. We have been working to change the name for 10 years. Finally, the name 'Nurs' is being officially returned to the village."
 
Kiler and Demiröz said the name change fulfilled their duty of loyalty toward the cleric.
 
Nursi, born in 1878, was an important religious figure who published many writings in his time and was jailed by the early Turkish republican authorities. He is regarded as the founder of the Nur Society, a religious community that has many supporters in Turkey.
 
A successor of the Nur Society is the Gülen Movement, whose founder, Fethullah Gülen, is a Turkish religious leader who has been living in the United States since 1999. Gülen’s movement is considered to be one of the strongest fronts in the civilian struggle for power in Turkey, especially because of its influence over state structures in the country. Worldwide, the Gülen movement is known mostly for the schools it has established in Turkey and in more than 80 countries.