Information on the Med-Zehra organization in Turkey is scarce.

Med-Zehra is a "radical" Islamist group (Turkish Daily News 26 Sept. 2001) "nicknamed ... after the university, Medresetu'z-Zehra, that Said Nursi had wished to establish in Kurdistan" (Islamic Area Studies Project 1999). Said Nursi, who died in 1969, is the "originator of the Nurcu movement in modern Turkey" (Middle Eastern Studies July 2001). The Nurcu movement has been identified as being "probably ... the most important" religious movement in Turkish Kurdistan (Islamic Area Studies Project 1999), while the Med-Zehra has been described as "the most radical" of the groups that split from the Nurcu movement (ibid.). Emphasizing Nursi's Kurdish background, the Med-Zehra is "an important representative of Kurdish Islamic movements" (Middle Eastern Studies July 2001). Writing about the Nurcu movement in "The Kurds and Islam" for the Islamic Area Studies Project in Tokyo, Japan, Martin van Bruinessen states the following about Med-Zehra:

Its journal Dava is explicit in its embracing of Kurdish nationalism; it has adopted the leader of the first large Kurdish uprising in Turkey, Shaykh Sa'id, as the second great predecessor beside Sa'id-i Nursi, and has sympathetic reports on the Islamic Movement of (Iraqi) Kurdistan (1999).

According to a Turkish Daily News article, Med-Zehra is "a radical minority, [which is] also called Hizb-i Kuran (The Party of Q'uran)" (24 Jan. 1997); however, information corroborating this statement could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

The Turkish Daily News article adds that the group "opposes the present regime and its rules, and thus refuses to employ constitutional methods" (24 Jan. 1997).

Information on the activities and strength of Med-Zehra, treatment of its members by the Turkish government and its agents and reports of its leaders being killed for their involvement with the organization could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Islamic Area Studies Project [Tokyo, Japan]. 1999. Working Paper Series, No. 13. Martin van Bruinessen. "The Kurds and Islam." http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/personal/publications/ [Accessed 10 Mar. 2003]

Martin van Bruinessen is a professor of Kurdish and Turkish studies at the Department of Arabic, Persian and Turkish Languages and Cultures of Utrecht University in the Netherlands (van Bruinessen 25 Nov. 2002). He has traveled to Turkey numerous times since 1974 to conduct research focused on Kurdish and Turkish politics and religious movements (ibid.).