Author: Mustafa Eren Bozoklu

In 1920s America, Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, decided to utilize his uncle’s psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious for an entirely different purpose. The task was simple: to habituate American women to smoking. Major tobacco companies saw a massive market void, as women did not smoke in public spaces. Bernays found the solution in marketing the cigarette not as a simple tobacco product, but as an existential instrument of meaning. In 1929, during the Easter Parade in New York, he arranged for hired models to publicly light cigarettes and pitched this action to the press as "Torches of Freedom." The cigarette instantly became a symbol of female emancipation. The product itself had not changed; however, the meaning attached to it was radically transformed. Sales skyrocketed in a short time.

Bernays's intervention was not a temporary marketing trick. That day, for the first time in human history, the following was proven: Human desires and behaviors can be systematically subjected to engineering. Need can be manufactured, desire can be constructed, and consumption can be designed as a self-reinforcing loop of domination.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, entirely unaware of Bernays or the American advertising industry of the 1920s, diagnosed the exact same reality from an entirely different epistemological perspective: "Sufyan, by encouraging extravagance, awakens an intense greed and avarice, thereby seizing people through those weak points of theirs and subjugating them to himself."

Sufyan is the branch of the Dajjal—the grand tribulation of the End Times—that will emerge among Muslims. He will execute the Dajjalic fitnah through a distinct methodology: appearing under the guise of righteousness, deceiving, convincing and securing the support of many, and presenting himself as a benefactor. In this respect, encouraging consumption—one of the most critical instruments of the Dajjal—will also be a defining characteristic of his.

Nursi does not deliver a simple moral sermon here; he directly performs a modern analysis of power. A clear causal chain is evident in the anatomy of the text: First, the mechanism is engineered (encouraging extravagance); then the psychological effect is designed (awakening greed and avarice); the target audience (those with weak points) is identified; and the outcome is achieved (subjugating, that is, bringing to heel and enslaving).

The metaphor of "a hole in the hand" plays a pivotal role here. In transmitting the relevant narration, Nursi moves away from shallow literalism, indicating the necessity of deep interpretation. A person with "a hole in their hand" is someone through whose hand everything slips, who cannot accumulate, and who dissolves their existence and wealth in waste. Nursi’s true originality lies in defining this attitude not as a personal moral flaw, but as a systematic management strategy. Sufyan establishes an order to dispossess the masses and encourages extravagance. And behind this encouragement lies a rational calculation: "Subjugation"... To bring to heel, command, bind to oneself, and spellbind.

So how does this mechanism operate today? Currently, global advertising and marketing expenditure exceeds 700 billion dollars annually. The purpose of this vast spending is not to inform consumers, but to directly engineer the desires of the masses. Neuromarketing, social media algorithms, data mining, and gamification techniques are all locked onto finding human weak points. Smartphone software teams focus not on processing power, but on the user's addiction loop. E-commerce giants' "one-click buy" patents are designed to eliminate the mere milliseconds where conscience and logic intervene. Expressed in Nursi’s terminology: Sufyan the Hole-in-Hand is no longer a single biological individual; it has evolved into a corporate intellect (the corporatocratic world system) equipped with algorithms, behavioral psychology, and the advertising industry.

Yeni Asya English