Fatma Nezihe Araz (11 May 1920 – 25 July 2009) was a Turkish writer and journalist. In addition to her 1959 best seller on the saints of Anatolia, she wrote several plays for television and the stage as well as three books about Atatürk. Early life Araz was born on 11 May 1920 in Konya. She hailed from the eminent Bulgurzade family, renamed Araz after the Surname Law. Her father, Rıfat Araz, was an officer in Ziraat Bankası and was the bank's director in Konya at the time of her birth; he would later become a Member of Parliament for the Republican People's Party. Her mother's name for Müzeyye and she was the second wife of her father. She graduated from Ankara Girls' High School in 1941 and from the Department of Psychology and Philosophy in the Faculty of Language, History of Geography in Ankara University. Whilst at university, she was heavily influenced by two of her lecturers, Muzaffer Şerif Başoğlu, who introduced the university to psychology, and Behice Boran. She was an ardent follower of their magazine Yurt ve Dünya and later, when they started publishing the magazine Adımlar, which was aligned with the Turkish Communist Party, she became a volunteer. Career After she graduated, Araz became an assistant to Boran. However, when Boran was expelled from the university in 1948, Araz quit her job and was taken to Istanbul by her family, who wanted to take her away from leftist circles. The Araz family had always been religious and Araz's father was already affiliated with the religious order headed by Kenan Rıfai. By 1948, Araz had also become affiliated with this Sufi order and dropped her plans to become a scholar after meetings at Istanbul University. In 1950, she published her first book, Benim Dünyam ("My World"), a collection of poems. In 1951, after the death of Rıfai, she co-authored the book Ken’an Rifai ve Yirminci Asrın Işığında Müslümanlık ("Ken'an Rıfai and Islam in the Light of the 20th Century") with Samiha Ayverdi, Safiye Erol and Sofi Huri. In 1952, she started her career in journalism at the magazine Resimli Hayat, owned by Şevket Rado. She later continued working with the same team in the magazine Hayat. In 1953, she published the book Fatih'in Deruni Tarihi, a biographical work on Mehmed II in the light of her religious approach. In 1956, Araz started working in the newspaper Havadis,