Modernity shifted meaning from the sacred to the self, leading to a fragmented consciousness. Thinkers like Nursi and Gülen respond by offering inner disciplines of faith as holistic responses to secularism’s disintegration of meaning and selfhood.
The modern era has brought about one of the most profound transformations in human history: the descent of meaning from the heavens to the earth—a shift from the sacred to the secular. In this process, individuals began to seek their place in the universe, the purpose of life, and the source of moral goodness not through divinely ordained religious teachings, but through their own conscious choices and experiences. Yet, this emancipation has also introduced a new kind of solitude and a fragmented consciousness. Modern individuals are not confronted with the absence of meaning but rather with its multiplicity and fragmentation.
According to Charles Taylor, secularization does not merely entail the disappearance of religion from public life; more significantly, it refers to belief becoming an option rather than a default. In other words, not only has it become possible to disbelieve in God, but belief itself has turned into one option among many. Taylor argues that this transformation marks a departure from the medieval Western perception of a "cosmic order" to a modern state of consciousness in which individuals seek meaning within their own inner worlds.
In this context, the modern individual’s quest for meaning is no longer a command that comes from the outside, but a call that arises from within. Meaning is no longer a gift from the transcendent but a product of an immanent process of construction. However, this construction is often fragile, temporary, and ultimately unsatisfying. While science, ideology, and individual achievement have all tried at various times to fill the void, none have proven capable of producing absolute or comprehensive meaning. Despite the abundance of choices, modern individuals experience a profound scarcity of meaning.
The narrative that secularization unfolded as a natural and internal process in Western societies fails to explain the developments in other cultural contexts. Talal Asad contends that secularism is not merely a transformation in individual consciousness but also a historical and political structure shaped by the modern state and colonial practices. In his seminal work Formations of the Secular (2003), Asad argues that secularism is not neutral; rather, it constitutes a moral system embedded with its own value judgments. Secularism, according to Asad, does not simply exclude religion from the public sphere; it redefines, transforms, and controls it. The modern state seeks not only to partially influence society, but to shape, manage, and regulate it in its entirety.
This perspective is especially significant for understanding how secularism functions in the modernization experiences of Islamic societies. Unlike in the West, where secularization emerged through an internal evolution, in many Islamic societies it was shaped by external interventions, pressures, and processes of reconstruction. Thus, the search for meaning becomes not merely a personal concern, but a political issue as well. This also helps to explain the ongoing tensions between religion and secularism in the Islamic world. Even when imposed externally, the secularization process eventually begins to follow a natural course of its own.
One of the central challenges modern individuals face in their search for meaning is the fragmentation of consciousness. In traditional societies, meaning was provided in a holistic manner through religion, culture, and social structures. In contrast, the modern individual must choose or construct meaning from among a range of fragmented elements. No dimension of life is now permanent—neither identity, nor values, nor meaning itself. Everything is open to redefinition, modification, and thus, is transient.
This fragmentation at times leads to an ironic rejection of meaning itself, fostering a tendency to "reconcile with meaninglessness." Postmodern thinkers argue that contemporary societies no longer focus on concepts such as truth or meaning, but instead on images, perceptions, and performances. Meaning is no longer a product of truth, but of simulation. While performance is not unique to modernity, their substitution for meaning and presentation as alternatives are distinctly modern phenomena.
Even in this "age of meaninglessness," people continue to generate meaning. Some turn to Eastern mysticism, others to psychological therapy, mindfulness, mental exercises, or personal development practices. Still others return to traditional religious frameworks—but in a more personal and selective manner. In such instances, meaning no longer emerges as a command issued by a central religious authority, but as the outcome of an individual search. Although these quests may at times be attempts to recover meaning, they more often reflect what Baudrillard describes as a “reconciliation with meaninglessness” and attempts to replace meaning with performance.
The modern individual’s search for meaning is not a destination but a journey. In this journey, one must learn to live with the silence of God, the collapse of ideologies, the insufficiency of science, and the indifference of postmodernism. Meaning is no longer a pre-existing truth; it is more like a painting—a canvas upon which the individual patiently layers colors, revising and reinterpreting over time in a gradual articulation of existence.
One of the deepest crises of the modern age is the mental rupture over where and how meaning can be found. In traditional worlds, the existence of God was not a hypothesis but an existential certainty. Modernity, by questioning this transcendence, has forced the individual to reconstruct their mental universe from the ground up. In this regard, Taylor argues that secularism is less an institutional break than a shift in inner consciousness—a transformation in the architecture of the mind.
It is precisely in this context that the intellectual efforts of Said Nursî and Fethullah Gülen can be seen not merely as “social movements,” but as projects of mental reconstruction. Both figures are noteworthy for their attempts to restore a sense of coherence in the fragmented, skeptical, and internally unstable minds of modern individuals.
The primary concern of Bediüzzaman Said Nursî was to make faith once again reasonable, logical, and deeply felt in the minds of individuals. This is not a conventional act of religious preaching but rather an attempt to construct an intellectual architecture. In response to the rupture experienced by the modern individual, the system developed in the Risale-i Nur reestablishes “faith” not merely as a matter of belief, but as a mode of thinking and an interpretation of existence.
In this sense, these texts can be read—as Talal Asad might note—not only as theological doctrines but as techniques of self and training of attention. Michel Foucault’s concept of the “technologies of the self” provides a critical conceptual framework for understanding the relationship modern individuals build with religion in the secular age.
Foucault’s notion of the “technologies of the self” refers to the methods by which individuals transform and shape themselves. This process involves not only self-discipline within social power structures but also the cultivation of an ethical subjectivity. Knowledge, in this context, does not merely function as an external instrument of power but operates as a fundamental component of self-governance and the creation of meaning. Thus, technologies of the self do not imply passive subjugation to authority, but rather constitute practices of active self-regulation and subject formation.
Talal Asad, reinterpreting this concept within an Islamic framework, highlights the role of training of attention and bodily discipline in shaping the moral self of the Islamic subject. For Asad, in Islam, the self is not an autonomous being shaped solely by the free will of a liberal modern individual, but rather a formation produced through repeated rituals and submission to authority. In this context, the self is shaped through practices that involve bodily discipline, discourse, and attentiveness. Islamic ethics, as an alternative to the secular model of moral autonomy based on individual choice, expresses a dynamic structure that is constantly renewed through training and concentration of attention. This perspective is crucial not only for validating Foucault’s theories but also for expanding their boundaries within the cultural and moral practices of Islam.
According to Foucault, self-formation strategies consist of mental, ethical, and spiritual disciplines that individuals undertake to transform themselves in accordance with particular ethical ideals. In the secular age, religious practices are no longer seen solely as ways of relating to God, but also as tools for constructing the self and cultivating a form of internal stability and continuity. This aligns with Charles Taylor’s view of the modern self: meaning is no longer a truth received from a transcendent source but a directionality constructed throughout one’s lifetime. In this light, religiosity is reshaped for the modern individual not only as belief but as a mode of subjectivity, a regime of attention, and a lived practice.
From this perspective, the writings of Said Nursî and Fethullah Gülen are not merely theological commentaries; they function as technologies of the self that discipline the self, reconstruct the world of meaning, and integrate a consciousness fragmented and isolated by secularism.
The strategies of self-formation conceptualized by Michel Foucault refer to the mental, ethical, and spiritual disciplines individuals employ to transform themselves in accordance with specific norms. Through these techniques, individuals both come to know themselves and undergo reconstruction. The concept of training of attention refers to the process by which individuals learn to focus their attention on particular intellectual or spiritual objects and cultivate a mental discipline that sustains such focus over time.
Key concepts frequently encountered in the Risale-i Nur—such as contemplation, representation, and proof — construct a form of faith that engages the rational, aesthetic, and intuitive faculties of the mind simultaneously. What Bediüzzaman accomplished was the following: in the secular age, ready-made meanings are no longer available. The individual must engage in an intellectual and inner struggle to believe in God. In this struggle, the Risale-i Nur functions as a kind of “meaning engineering” that speaks directly to the modern mind. This meaning is not limited to affirming the existence of God; it also reconstructs the individual’s consciousness through a new regime of attention and a renewed metaphysical sensitivity.
For instance, Bediüzzaman writes:
This wisdom sufficed me for about a year. But after a year, especially as the miraculous and subtle artistry in living beings became manifest, I realized that such intricacy and beauty could not exist merely for conscious beings to observe. (30th Flash)
Here, he initially thought that the wisdom in the creation of beings was for human understanding, but later realized that this was an incomplete perspective. The beauty and intricacy of creation cannot be limited to human perception alone; rather, they reflect the divine attributes and names of God. When he says, “This wisdom sufficed me for a time, but later proved inadequate,” he expresses that meaning is not a fixed acquisition but the result of an ongoing effort and a dynamic spiritual motion.
Meaning, in this context, is inherently individual. What one person finds meaningful may not resonate with another, and even personally meaningful insights may lose their significance over time. Nursî underscores the individual and evolving nature of this process when he addresses his readers: “I am speaking to myself; listen along with my soul.”
In the modern period, religiosity has often evolved into a form of belief shaped by individual choices and tailored to personal needs. This transformation demonstrates that secularization not only alters the visibility of religion in the public sphere but also transforms the very nature of religious experience. At this point, Wael Hallaq’s reinterpretation of Foucault’s technologies of the self within an Islamic framework is noteworthy for offering a distinctive model of ethical subjectivity.
According to Hallaq, within the Islamic tradition, religiosity is not merely an identity or a declaration of belief. Rather, it is lived as a continuous process of moral transformation. This transformation entails an internal shaping of the self driven by a sense of responsibility before God, disciplining the ego (nafs), and internalizing virtues such as justice and compassion in social relations. Hallaq’s proposed model of ethical subjectivity offers a meaningful, integrated, and sustained form of religiosity—contrasting sharply with the fragmented and superficial forms often associated with modern expressions of belief. In this way, religiosity transcends the role of fulfilling psychological needs and becomes a lived practice that determines one’s existential orientation.
The writings of Fethullah Gülen, which resonate with Hallaq’s model, can be read as efforts to deepen Said Nursî’s intellectual project by emphasizing inner discipline and spiritual refinement. In Gülen’s work, reason and heart are constantly intertwined; faith is not merely cognitive but also a point of emotional and ethical balance.
Gülen envisions a type of consciousness that, even within the complex structures of the secular world, remains both vigilant and spiritually composed. His concept of the “thinking heart” should be approached on two levels: as both a mental technique and a metaphorical representation. On the one hand, it designates a cognitive practice in which the heart functions not merely as an organ but as the locus of consciousness, intention, and inner reflection. In this way, the heart, united with the mind, enables deeper contemplation and the pursuit of meaning. On the other hand, the “thinking heart” symbolizes the holistic human being—one whose rational, emotional, and spiritual dimensions are integrated. Here, the heart is conceived as a field of consciousness infused with love, compassion, and moral depth—a space where thought and emotion coalesce. Thus, the “thinking heart” emerges as one of the central concepts in the text, expressing both an individual mental process and a holistic human experience in the search for meaning.
Gülen’s emphasis on education is also directly related to this mental and spiritual unity. For him, education is not merely the transmission of knowledge but the cultivation of an atmosphere where mind and heart are trained together. In such an environment, faith is nurtured not only through information but through constant self-observation and attentiveness.
Both thinkers recognized the sense of loss and inner void produced by secular modernity. Yet, their responses diverge: Bediüzzaman focuses on intellectually reconstructing faith for the modern mind, while Gülen seeks to reinforce this intellectual effort with emotional and moral equilibrium.
At the very point where Taylor claims that “faith is now a choice” in the secular age, both figures offer individuals the intellectual and spiritual tools needed to make that choice.
These efforts can also be interpreted as attempts to construct an alternative regime of inner consciousness in the face of secularism’s imposition of a competing regime of truth. The issue is not merely a “return to religion,” but a set of deeper questions: How shall we think? What shall we attend to? With what emotions do we direct ourselves toward which truths? The fragmentation experienced by modern individuals manifests most intensely in the mind. Meaning is no longer external, but must be constructed internally. These thinkers assert the following: in the secular age, faith is still possible—but it is no longer a given; it is a state of consciousness earned through effort.
This journey exceeds the boundaries of any religious community; it is a search for truth that unfolds within the inner world of the individual. In the modern world, faith is no longer a social position but a mode of attention, an ethics of thinking, and a discipline of the soul. And perhaps, this is one of the most enduring responses to the inner void that secularism has produced.
