Modernist Islam, Isrāʾīliyyāt, and Saʿīd Nūrsī

Since the late nineteenth century, Modernist Muslim commentators have argued for the ejection of “foreign” texts, Isrāʾīliyyāt, and a return to an “untainted” Islam. In academic literature, however, the connections between the late-Ottoman ʿulamāʾ and the Arab Modernist exegetes are often neglected.