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4. BEDIUZZAMAN SAID NURSI (1876-1960)

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi )‫ (بديع الزمان سعيد النورسي‬was a
Turkish religious leader and an Islamic philosopher and
theologian. He was born in the village of Nurs in Bitlis province
of the Ottoman Empire in eastern Anatolia in Turkey in 1876
from a devout and humble Kurdish family and died in1960 in
Urfa in Turkey. He was the author of the Risale-i Nur Collection
o the Co e tar of the Qur ān containing over five
thousand pages. He was one of the most influential figures of
the 20th-century in the Muslim world. He had great influence in
Middle Eastern politics and religion and through his writings
and teachings he helped to inspire the resurgence of Islam.
Said Nursi received his basic education from the best-
known scholars of the district. He completed his education at
the normal course of Madrasah (religious school) at the early
age of fourteen, and at sixteen he could hold debates with
distinguished scholars. He was well-known in his hometown his
mastery in theological debates with other religious scholars.
He showed in his early age the extraordinary intelligence and
capability of learning so that he became popular with his
teachers, colleagues and people. This kind of debate recurred
several more times with various groups of scholars. For his
extraordinary photographic memory and his great analytic
abilities, as well as his reputation in Islamic knowledge he was
nicknamed "Bediuzzaman (‫" بديع الزمان‬, ea i g The Peerless
of Time, the Marvelous of Time, The Wonder of the Age or
"The most Unique and Superior Person of the Time".
After studying physical sciences, mathematics and
philosophy Nursi came to the conclusion that the classical
traditional Turkish madrasah education was inadequate. Its
theological curriculum would not be sufficient to remove the
doubts regarding the truth of the Quran and Islam. As he
believed that modern physical sciences and the Qur ā were
not irreconcilable he felt that through it the truths revealed in
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the Qur ā would be better and easily understood by people.

He advocated teaching religious sciences in secular schools and
modern sciences in religious schools as he believed in the
importance of modern science and logic. This wa , he said,
the people of the s hool will e prote ted fro u elief, a d
those of the religious institutions from fanaticism.
In order to simultaneously eliminate disbelief on one
hand and fanaticism on the other, Nursi developed an Islamic
educational curriculum that combined both theological
teachings and modern sciences, both of which should be
provided at religious and modern schools. For this purpose in
1917 he went to Istanbul to promote a plan to Sultan Abdul
Hamid to establish a university called Medrstu’s Zehra ‫(الم ْدرسة‬
َ
)‫الزهْ راء‬ the Resplendent Madrasah ) in the city of Van,
eastern Anatolia. The construction of its building was halted
with the outbreak of World War I.
During the war, Nursi commanded a Volunteer Regiment
assigned to the Caucasian front in eastern Anatolia. He received
a medal for demonstrating his bravery and heroism in the
battle. During the war he began composing a commentary on
the Qur ān in Arabic combining religious and natural sciences.
He wrote it while traveling on horseback and in the trenches on
the front line. It was entitled Risale–i Nur (Epistle of Light,
Letters of Divine Light). It was a collection of Said Nursi's own
commentaries and interpretations of the Qur ā and Islam.
The work was interrupted when Nursi was wounded and
captured while fighting in a battle against invading Russian
forces, along with ninety other officers and sent to a camp in
Kostroma, in the northwestern region of Russia. During his two
year of imprisonment, he was sentenced to death by firing
squad after insulting a Russian General, Nicola Nikolayevich; he
was the commander of the Caucasian front and was Czar
Nicholas II's uncle. But at the very last moment the death
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sentence was cancelled, while he was reciting his prayers

before the firing squad.
In the spring of 1918, during the communist revolution,
Nursi escaped from the prison camp and, after a long journey,
made his way back to Istanbul via Warsaw, Berlin, and Vienna.
At his homeland, he received a war medallion and accepted an
appointment as a member of Dār al–Ḥikmat al–Islāmiyyah, a
religious academy seeking solution for growing problems of the
ummah. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881–1938), the founder and
first president of modern Turkey, in order to control him,
offered hi the positio of Mi ister of ‘eligious Affairs for the
eastern provinces of Turkey which he refused, as he was
against the Kemalist ideology of secularism.
As the British Secretary for the Colonies intended to
discredit the Qur ā , stating that it was the only way the British
could truly dominate the Muslims, Nursi vowed to prove and
demonstrated to the world that the Qur ā is an undying,
inextinguishable Sun." He defended the Qur ā against the
allegation of its being incompatible with science and progress
through his knowledge of both traditional religious and modern
sciences. He gave evidence to prove its miraculous nature and
its truth in the light of modern and advanced science.
Nursi led a nonviolent struggle against the British
occupation of Istanbul through his writings. The leaders of the
newly established Republic of Turkey honored him for his
action and invited him to Ankara to give a speech at the
parliament. Then a debate started between Nursi and Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk had abolished many religious
institutions inherited from the Ottoman state, especially
dealing with faith and prayer. Nursi disagreed with Ataturk and
returned to eastern Anatolia, his hometown.
The secular new government took steps towards
secularization reducing the power of Islam within the State, and
its eradication from Turkish life. In early 1925 there was a
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rebellion in the eastern Turkey. The rebels had sought his help
for his strong influence over people, but he rejected, and told
the , The Sword is to be used against the outside enemy; it is
not to be used inside. Give up your attempt, for it is doomed to
failure and may end up in the annihilation of thousands of
innocent men and women because of a few ri i als. Despite
of his innocence, he was arrested and sent to Barla, a remote
village located in the mountains of the Isparta province along
with many hundreds of others. He then unjustly began
suffering twenty-years of exile, imprisonment, and oppression.
According Nursi the true enemies in this age of science,
reason, and civilization are materialism and atheism, and their
source, materialist philosophy. In his Risale-i Nur he gives
scientific rational and Qur ā ic evidence of their fallacy, and in
the meantime it stre gthe s the Musli s elief i their
religion. Besides his writings, the success of his movement
against his enemy is his use of two methods: (1) mânevî jihad,
namely, jihad with word, or non-physical jihad, and (2) positive
action. He insists that his students do not use any force and
avoid any disruption. Public order and security have to be
maintained, and any damage caused by unbelief forces could
e repaired the heali g truth of the Qur ā .
From 1926 to 1934 the Risale-i Nur was written. Nursi
dictated it to a scribe in the mountains and in the countryside.
Handwritten copies were then made, secretly copied out and
passed from village to village, and then from town to town, till
they spread throughout Turkey. It has a major role in
maintaining Islamic faith in Turkey and in the subsequent
resurgence of Islam in that area.
The Risale-i Nur is what is known as Tafseer-i Manawi, or
a commentary which expounds the truths of the Qur ā , that
it explains the truth of belief, such as the Divine existence and
Unity, the Divine Attributes, the Resurrection, Divine Decree,
Prophethood, a d a s duties to worship Allah. It e plai s
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how the Qur ā addresses people based on the standard of

their understanding. It cites many verses of the Qur ā inviting
people to observe and contemplate the wonder of the
universe, like reading a book, and eventually they would
increase their belief and obtain the true belief, namely, Islam.
Here Nursi proves that religion is compatible with science, that
there is no contradiction or conflict between the two. He also
explains the wisdom behind the creation of everything in the
light of the Qur ā .
In 1935, Nursi and some of his students were arrested
and imprisoned. Inspired by the story of Prophet Joseph who
taught his inmate the true faith in the prison, Nursi also
regarded the prison as Joseph’s Madrasah to teach and advise
his inmates, namely, his students in prison.
In 1943, because of his essay on God he was arrested
again and sent to prison. Although he was eventually acquitted,
he was sent to Emirdag, another remote village, where he was
arrested again and was sent to Afyon prison, where he endured
suffering. He spent two harsh winters in an isolated cell with
broken windows, afflicted with several illnesses in his seventies.
He was also poisoned, but he survived.
In 1952 Nursi was interviewed by a well-known journalist
Esref Edit. He said that he would sacrifice both his life in this
world and the Hereafter to save the faith of the nation. He had
known no worldly pleasures during his lifetime of eighty years
and more. He had lived out his entire life either in the
battlefield, in captivity, in dungeons or prisons, or in the courts
of his native land. He had encountered all kinds of suffering and
pain. He had been treated as a criminal at martial courts and
exiled from one province to another like a vagabond. He had
not been allowed visits in confinements, and he had been
poisoned time and time again [19 times] and insulted in many
ways, to the extent that sometimes he had preferred death
over life. If Islam did not prohibit committing suicide he might
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have done it. His life had passed through many sufferings,
trials, calamities, and disasters. He had devoted himself and his
life to the cause of faith, security and salvation of the nation.
He said further that he had claimed nothing and he did
not call down curses upon those who were against him,
because in this way his Risale-i Nur would have become a
means to save the faith of some hundred thousand or a million
people. He said that he would save only himself by dying, but
by enduring such sufferings and trials he was able to help save
the faith of a great many people. Praising Allah the Exalted, he
would sacrifice his salvation for the safety of the faith of the
society. Being a very pious man he said that he was neither
fond of Heaven nor afraid of Hell. He expected that a thousand
Saids be sacrificed for the faith of the nation!
At the age of 87, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi passed away on
23 March, 1960 (27 Ramadan, 1379), in Urfa, Turkey.
(CIVIC, 21 April, 2017)
Sources:
http://www.nurpublishers.com/about-said-nursi/his-life/
http://www.bediuzzamansaidnursi.org/en/hakkinda/who-
bediuzzaman-said-nursi
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5100217._
http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-
religion/islam-biographies/said-nursi
http://real-life-villains.wikia.com/wiki/Said_Nurs%C3%AE
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-
9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0147.xml
http://www.risale-inur.com.tr/rnk/eng/tarihce/bsn.htm
(November 10, 2007).
http://www.islamicinformationservice.com/Biography%20text.
htm (November 10, 2007).
http://www.ummah.net/Al_adaab/biography/Nursî.html
(November 10, 2007).