TOPIC; SAID NURSI BIOGRAPHY AND RISALEI NNUR

REFERENCES; COLLECTION FROM RISALEI NNUR BOOKS

Said Nursi said;
Belief is not restricted to a brief affirmation based on imitation; rather, it has degrees and
stages of development. It is like a seed growing into a fully grown, fruit-bearing tree.
Belief is not something based on blind imitation; rather, it should appeal to both the intellect
or reason and the heart, for it combines reason’s acceptance and affirmation with the heart’s
experience and submission.
true belief should be based on argument and investigation; on continual reflection on God’s
“signs” in the universe.
There is another degree of belief: certainty coming from direct experience of its truths. This
depends on regular worship and reflection. Those with such belief can challenge any
objection. So, our first and foremost duty is to acquire such belief and, in complete sincerity
and purely for God’s sake, spread it to others. A hadith relates that it is better for you if one
embraces belief through you than for you to possess the world.
Said Nursi (1877–1960)
Said Nursi’s achievements, personality, character, and continuing influence make him an
important twentieth-century Muslim figure. A most effective and profound representative of
Islam’s intellectual, moral, and spiritual strengths, he spent his life overflowing with love and
ardor for Islam, pursuing a wise and measured activism based on sound reasoning, and
following the Quran and the Prophetic example. Much has already been said and written
about the lofty ideal he pursued and his deep familiarity with the world and his times, as well
as his simplicity, austerity, tenderness, loyalty, chastity, modesty, and contentedness.
Said Nursi lived during a global crisis. Materialism was triumphant, communism was
widespread, and Muslims were being urged to reject Islam. Shocked by the West’s scientific
and military victories and influenced by modern thought, Muslims were facing a challenge of
losing connection with their roots and sometimes their belief. Said Nursi, however, pointed
people to the source of belief and inculcated in them a strong hope for an overall revival. His
writings showed Islam’s truth and opposed the growing deviation. Relying on God and his
firm conviction in Islam’s truth, and driven by his powerful hope about the future of the
Muslim world, he defended Islam and sought to raise a new generation that would represent
Islam correctly.
Voicing the sighs and laments of the whole Muslim world, as well as its belief, hopes, and
aspirations, he said:
I can bear my own sorrows, but the sorrows arising from the calamities visiting Islam and
Muslims have crushed me. I feel each blow delivered to the Muslim world as delivered first
to my own heart. That is why I have been so shaken.... During my life of over eighty years, I
have tasted no worldly pleasure. My life has passed on battlefields, in prisons or other places
of suffering. They have treated me like a criminal, banishing me from one town to another,
keeping me under constant surveillance. There has been no persecution I have not tasted, no
oppression I have not suffered. I neither care for Paradise nor fear Hell. If I see my nation’s
belief secured, I will not even care about burning in Hell, for while my body is burning my
heart will be as if in a rose garden. (Tarihçe-i Hayat [Biography], Nesil, Istanbul: 1996, vol 2,
p. 2206)
At a time when science and philosophy were used to produce young atheists and nihilism was
widespread; when such things were done in the name of civilization, modernization, and
contemporary thinking; and when resisters were persecuted, Said Nursi worked for a people’s
revival, infusing them with modern and traditional education as well as spiritual training.
Many contemporaries explicitly or tacitly acknowledged him as the most important thinker
and writer of twentieth-century Turkey, or even of the Muslim world. Despite this and his
leadership of a new Islamic religious and intellectual revival, he remained a humble servant
of God.
Said Nursi diagnosed the Muslim world’s long-standing “diseases” and offered the most
effective cures. Basing his activity on the Quran and Sunna (the Prophet’s way or traditions),
as well as the Islamic tradition and natural phenomena (considered signs of Divine Existence
and Unity), he concentrated, respectively, on proving the pillars of Islam; the necessity of
belief, worship, morality, and good conduct; and certain socio-economic issues facing
contemporary Muslims.
Bediüzzaman Said Nursi’s life story In the Ottoman period Said Nursi was born in Nurs,
Bitlis, in 1877, eastern Anatolia, and educated by the district’s best scholars, completing the
normal madrasa (traditional religious school) education when he was fourteen. He soon
surpassed his teachers and earned the title Bediüzzaman (Wonder of the Age). Believing that
modern science and logic was the way of the future, headvocated teaching religious sciences
in secular schools and modern sciences in religious schools.
In 1911, while preaching in Damascus (Damascus Sermon) Umayyad mosque, he stated that
Muslims were being defeated due to the growth of despair, the loss of truthfulness in social
and political life, love of belligerence, ignoring bonds among believers, pervasive despotism,
and egocentricity. He then offered his cure: hope, truthfulness, trustworthiness, mutual love,
consultation, solidarity, and freedom in accordance with Islam. Building on these, he asserted
that the true civilization contained in Islam would dominate the world.
He want to establish university so He return to Istanbul to seek the new Sultan’s support for a
university in Van, eastern Anatolia, he finally secured sufficient funds—19,000 gold liras.
Unfortunately, World War I broke out before the university could be completed.
During World War I, Said Nursi commanded a volunteers’ regiment on the Caucasian front
and in eastern Anatolia. His heroism was admired by the commanders. He also dictated (to
his students) his famous introduction to the Qur’anic commentary, Isharat al-I’jaz (Signs of
Miraculousness), during the war.
Eventually captured, he spent over two years in a prisoners’ camp in Kostroma, northwestern
Russia. Amid the Russian revolution, Said Nursi escaped and returned to Istanbul. After
receiving a medal and rejecting all government appointments, he joined the Dar al-Hikmat
al-Islamiya (the religious academy) on the army’s recommendation. When imperial Europe
invaded the collapsed Ottoman State to grab what it could, Said Nursi protested against the
British presence in Istanbul and the invasion of Turkey.
After the collapse of the multi-ethnic, multi-religious Ottoman State and the Turkish War of
Independence, the new Republic of Turkey was founded (1923). Following the founding of
the republic a large number of cultural, social and political reforms were enacted in the period
up to the end of the 1930s. Eventually, the principles of republicanism, nationalism,
populism, statism, secularism, and revolution (meaning continuing change in the state and
society) were“officially” accepted as the essential principles to guide the new Turkey.
When a revolt broke out in southeastern Turkey in 1925, Said Nursi rejected the rebels’ call
to support them, saying that Muslims should not fight each other and that many innocent
people would die for the benefit of a few criminals. However, because of his influence on
people, the government exiled him to Burdur, south-western Anatolia, where he was kept
under surveillance. Then he was sent to Barla, an out-of-the-way village surrounded by
mountains within the borders of Isparta, situated to the north-west of Burdur. However, he
found true consolation in the Omnipresence of God and in complete submission to Him. The
basic works of the Risale-i Nur Collection (Epistles of Light), The Words and The Letters,
were written in Barla. Hand-made copies soon circulated throughout Turkey.
In 1935 he was arrested and remained in prison for eleven months with 125 of his students
throughout the period of their trial at Eskişehir Criminal Court. He passed from one prison to
another, and arrested frequently. Once again he was remanded in custody until 1944, during
which time he taught the other prisoners and produced some parts of the Risale-i Nur. He was
eventually acquitted but he was once more subjected to internal exile, this time in Emirdağ in
Afyon, central Turkey.
In 1948 a new case was opened against him and 53 students in Afyon Criminal Court, and he
was jailed for 20 months in Afyon Prison. However, in 1956, he and his students were
declared innocent by the Supreme Court. After his release, he stayed for brief periods in
Emirdağ, Isparta, Afyon, Istanbul, and elsewhere. In 1950, the multiparty system was
introduced and restrictions on the Religion were relaxed. Said Nursi was arrested only once
after this in 1952, when he was tried for his publication of Guide for Youth. He was acquitted
by unanimous decision.
On Bediüzzaman’s death in Urfa on March 23, 1960, the coroner fixed his estate as a simple
garment, and 20 lira. He left this world with complete honor, dignity and victory. His works,
the real legacy of this hero of Islam and humanity, the 6,000-page Risale-i Nur Collection,
remain highly influential and a lighthouse guiding us on our way back to God.
The Risale-i Nur
The problems of Muslims from Said Nursi’s viewpoint In the Risale-i Nur Said Nursi
identifies the cause of the Muslim world’s decline as the weakening of belief’s foundations.
Together with the unceasing attacks of scientific materialism and atheism, this weakening
was seen by Said Nursi as a great cloud of denial and doubt hovering over the Muslim world.
To neutralize it, having decided that when the freedom of conscience or belief and thought
was accepted in the world under the principle of secularism, Islam no longer demanded
physical “jihad,” he undertook a “jihad of the word with the diamond principles of the
Qur’an” designed to strengthen belief by reconstructing Islam from its foundations of pure
belief.
During his time and our own, ignorance of God and the Prophet, upon him be peace and
blessings, heedlessness of religious commands, indifference to the Islamic dynamics of
prosperity in both worlds, and ignorance of modern scientific knowledge were leading causes
of Muslim backwardness.
He stated that Muslims could escape this backwardness only through modern scientific and
religious knowledge as well as systematic thought, and could protect themselves against
deviation only by acquiring true knowledge.
Ignorance was a source of Muslim poverty, internal conflict, and other problems. Ignorance
of Islam’s truth, when added to ignorance of science and technology, resulted in vast
uncultivated plains and the Muslims’ poverty. Said Nursi explained the Ottoman collapse in
the following terms in his Sunuhat (“Inspirations”) and the Treatise of Lemeat (“The Treatise
of Gleams”) at the end of Sözler (“The Words”):
Said Nursi believed that this “building of an Islam” could be protected by presenting Islam’s
essentials to all the faculties of modern people. Also, Muslims’ actions had to display the
perfection of Islamic moral qualities and the truths of Belief, knowledge of God, and
worship.
Before the republic, Said Nursi had already changed from “Old Said” to “New Said”; that is
to say, he withdrew from public life, and began to devote himself to defending and explaining
Islam’s main principles of thought, belief, worship, and morality. His words reached
numerous people through the copies of the Risale-i Nur handwritten by him and his students.

METHODOLOGIES OF RISALEI-NNUR
Bediüzzaman’s sound, scholarly knowledge of Islam, coupled with his life experience of
enduring hardship and persecution enabled him to explain Islam and belief to modern people
in apparently simple terms and in a way that could account for their experiences and
worldview. Analyzing both belief and unbelief, he used clearly reasoned arguments to
explain and prove the Qur’anic conception of God and His Unity, Prophethood and bodily
Resurrection, and human duty of worship.
Using easily understood “parables,” comparisons, and explanations, Said Nursi produced
categorical proofs showing that modern scientific discoveries actually support and reinforce
the truths of the Religion. He used the Qur’anic methodology of addressing each person’s
intellect, and all inner and outer facilities, to encourage people to study the universe and its
functioning in order to understand creation’s true nature and purposes. This, in turn, leads to
learning the One Creator’s Attributes and our own duties as God’s servants.
Said Nursi explained the universe’s true nature as being a comprehensive sign of its Creator,
and showed via clear arguments that all fundamentals of belief can be proven rationally when
the universe is read in this way. As belief is then grounded in modern science, it remains firm
and immune to materialism, naturalism, and atheism.
In this framework of belief all scientific and technological advances merely uncover the
workings of the cosmos. If the cosmos is thus viewed as a vast and infinitely complex and
meaningful unified book describing its Single Author, all discoveries and advances reinforce,
deepen, and expand belief.
So, the believers’ most fundamental needs—to worship God by recognizing Him with His
Most Beautiful Names and Attributes, and to obey Him—are met. He focused on the
essentials of belief and worship and the Qur’an’s main purposes: explaining and proving
Divine Existence and Unity, Prophethood, Resurrection, and the need for worship and justice.
He explains in various places of his The Words, The Letters, and Lahikalar (Addenda):
Creation’s highest aim and most sublime result is belief in God. The most exalted rank of
humanity is knowledge of God. The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for jinn and
humanity is love of God contained within knowledge of Him; the spirit’s purest joy and the
heart’s purest delight is spiritual ecstasy contained within love of God. All true happiness,
pure joy, sweet bounties, and unclouded pleasure are contained within the knowledge and
love of God.

TRUE BELIEF ACCORDING TO SAID NURSI

Belief is not restricted to a brief affirmation based on imitation; rather, it has degrees and
stages of development. It is like a seed growing into a fully grown, fruit-bearing tree, belief
based on imitation can be refuted through doubt and questions raised by modern thought.
Belief based on argument and investigation has as many degrees and grades of manifestation
as the number of Divine Names. Those who attain certainty of belief coming from direct
observation of the truths on which belief is based study the universe as a kind of Quran.
The Qur’an, the universe, and humanity are three kinds of manifestations of one truth. The
Qur’an, issuing from the Divine Attribute of Speech, may be regarded as the written or
composed universe. The universe, originating in the Divine Attributes of Power and Will,
may be considered as the created Qur’an. Since the universe is the Qur’an’s counterpart and,
in one respect, the collection of Divine laws of creation, sciences that study the universe must
be compatible with Islam. Therefore now (when science prevails) and in the future (the age of
knowledge), true belief should be based on argument and investigation; on continual
reflection on God’s “signs” in the universe; and on natural, social, historical, and
psychological phenomena. Belief is not something based on blind imitation; rather, it should
appeal to both the intellect or reason and the heart, for it combines reason’s acceptance and
affirmation with the heart’s experience and submission.
There is another degree of belief: certainty coming from direct experience of its truths. This
depends on regular worship and reflection. Those with such belief can challenge any
objection. So, our first and foremost duty is to acquire such belief and, in complete sincerity
and purely for God’s sake, spread it to others. A hadith relates that it is better for you if one
embraces belief through you than for you to possess the world.
In short, Said Nursi argues that belief consists of acquiring Islam in its entirety.
KNOWLEDGE
Said Nursi emphasized that true knowledge yields happiness in this world and in the one to
come, and that humanity came to this world to be perfected through knowledge and prayer.
Thus “knowledge without the heart’s insight is ignorance,” for our minds need to absorb
revealed religious truth, to which our heart is a mirror. “Revealed truth is reasonable, but
reason on its own cannot attain it.”
The heart’s insight comes from the Qur’an; the mind’s insight comes from the other sciences.
He writes:
The reality of the universe and all beings is based on the Divine Names. The reality of every
being is based on one or many Names. All sciences and arts are based on and rely upon a
Name. The true science of philosophy is based on the Name the All-Wise (al-Hakim), true
medicine on the Name the All-Healing (ash-Shafi), geometry on the Name the All-
Determining (al- Muqaddir), and so on. Just as each science is based on and ultimately ends
in a Name, the realities of all arts, sciences, and human perfections are based on the Divine
Names. Said Nursi concludes that knowledge gained by studying the universe in God’s name
is true knowledge. Science interprets the universe, which is a symbolic creation of God
pointing to a Truth beyond itself.