Shaykh Muhammad Emin Er (c. 1914 – 27 June 2013) was an Islamic scholar trained in the Ottoman tradition who lived a life devoted to teaching and spirituality. He was born in the village of Kuluyan in the Ottoman province of

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is ...

, and his family belonged to a

Kurd Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

ish tribe called Miran. Muhammad Emin was orphaned at the age of ten and spent his early life in difficult circumstances tending sheep on the mountainside. As a child, he had a passionate desire to learn how to read and write. He would carve words into stone with rocks, praying to God that he be given the ability to read the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

. At the age of about 25, after completing the

hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...

, Muhammad Emin set out in pursuit of religious learning across eastern

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

and, later, in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. He studied the traditional disciplines, including Arabic morphology (''ṣarf''), syntax ('' naḥw''), logic ('' manṭiq''), language theory (''ʿilm al-waḍʿ''), rhetoric (''balāgha''), rational theology (''

kalām ''Ilm al-kalam'' or ''ilm al-lahut'', often shortened to ''kalam'', is the scholastic, speculative, or rational study of Islamic theology ('' aqida''). It can also be defined as the science that studies the fundamental doctrines of Islamic fai ...

''), jurisprudence (''

fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...

''), legal theory ('' uṣūl al-fiqh''), Quran exegesis ('' tafsīr''), prophetic traditions ('' uṣūl al-ḥadīth''), memorizing by heart many of the main teaching texts of these sciences. He also devoted himself to the practice of spiritual purification with teachers from the

Naqshbandi Naqshbandi (Persian: نقشبندیه) is a major Sufi order within Sunni Islam, named after its 14th-century founder, Baha' al-Din Naqshband. Practitioners, known as Naqshbandis, trace their spiritual lineage (silsila) directly to the Prophet ...

Sufi order and was known for maintaining a high level of character and palpable spiritual purpose. He met and studied with Bediüzzaman Nursi. Shaykh Emin published a large number of books in Arabic. With a strong pedagogical vision, he focused on the basic disciplines within Arabic

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

(such as

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

, and

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

), but also wrote in more advanced disciplines (such as

Islamic law Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' refers to immutable, intan ...

, especially in relation to spiritual purification, or

Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

). He has stated that a major goal of his scholarship is to adapt the traditional religious sciences of

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

to present-day needs and concerns. Shaykh Emin has made statements concerning the compatibility of Islamic thought with many of the fundamental teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in particular that the rigorous emulation of the life of

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

necessarily leads the believer to the emulation of Jesus and Moses, who are regarded in Islam as central prophets.Muhammad Emin Er, ''Laws of the Heart: A Practical Introduction to the Sufi Path'', Shifâ Publishers, 2008, Shaykh Emin's students include Mokhtar Maghraoui and Khalil Abdur-Rashid.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emin Er, Muhammad Year of birth uncertain 2013 deaths Kurdish historians Turkish Arabists Islamic scholars from the Ottoman Empire Turkish Kurdish people People from Diyarbakır 20th-century Muslim scholars of Islam