Dr Colin Turner

Visiting Reader in Classical Islamic Thought and Persian Literature

Dr Colin Turner, Head of Research at the International Foundation for Muslim Theology, was until 2017 Reader in Islamic Thought at the University of Durham. A trained historian and theologian, his chief areas of interest are Muslim philosophy and theology; anthropology of religion; and Muslim intellectual history, with particular focus on the life and works of the Ottoman scholar Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. He is the author of numerous publications, including the best-selling Islam: The Basics and The Quran Revealed: A Critical Analysis of Said Nursi’s Epistles of Light. He has recently completed a re-translation from Ottoman Turkish into English of the Risale-i Nur, Said Nursi’s six-thousand-page commentary on the Quran, and is currently writing a book on the cultural anthropology of “immortality longing”, with special reference to the Quran.