One of the most famous Turkish Islamic scholars of the last century was Said Nursi. Nursi, who had a great influence on Turkish people, wrote over 50 books and spent most of his life behind bars. Today, his teachings are admired by Turkey’s young generation and millions of Muslims all over the world. Nursi was born in 1877 in eastern Turkey. Bediuzzaman displayed an extraordinary intelligence and ability to learn from an early age, completing the normal course of religious school education by the age of fourteen, when he obtained his diploma. He became famous for both his excellent memory and his unrivalled record in de- bating with other religious scholars. From an early age Bediuzzaman displayed an instinctive dissatisfaction with the existing education system, which later in life he formulated into comprehensive proposals for educational reform, writing his books in his reformist style.
NURSI’S CONCEPT OF SCIENCE
The time Bediuzzaman Said Nursi spent in education paved the way in his mind for the thought that at a time when the world was entering a new and different age, where science and logic would prevail, the classical educational system of theology would not be sufficient to remove doubts concerning faith. He concluded that religious sciences should be taught at modern schools on the one hand, and modern sciences on the other. “This way,” he said, “the people of the school will be protected from unbelief, and those of the religious institutions from fanaticism.”
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi deemed the most severe disease afflicting man in the present age is his search for true happiness to be weakness in belief in God, and diagnosed the source of this disease as being the tendency to regard the modern sciences and religious science as separate and irreconcilable entities. Since man is, in reality, a being composed of both matter and spirit, to consider existence from the viewpoint of only one of this pair can yield no result other than an intensification of the crisis into which man has fallen. Unfortunately, modern science has remained totally incapable of finding a remedy for the spiritual wounds of mankind, despite all its brilliance. Confronted by this situation, as a man of science appreciating the necessity for reconciliation between religion and modern science, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi examined the foundations of faith in a fashion suited to the mind of the age and in so doing produced the 6,000+ page work known as the Risale-i Nur.
Muslims used to dominate and contribute to science development for more than 350 years, contemporary Muslim countries are struggling to regain their sciences. They are left behind in science development and application. Lack of curiosity, uredines, apathy, hostility, colonialism or Mongol invasion may be the factors behind the downfall of Muslim countries in the development of science. But Bediuzzaman Said Nursi plays a unique and important role in inspiring science development in Muslim countries. Being well grounded in traditional Islamic sciences, Nursi was “aware of the apparent discrepancy between traditional cosmology articulated by Muslim philosophers and Sufis, and the Newtonian worldview, but instead of rejecting the mechanistic view of the universe presented by Newtonian science, he tried to appropriate it. Nursi put a very strong emphasis on the importance of science and technology in the life of human being. “For sure,” he said, “at the end of time, mankind will pour into science and technology. It will obtain all its power from science. Power and dominion will pass to the hand of science”1 For Nursi scientific approach is the most effective way to persuade the civilized world. In the future, he explains, truth will take the place of force, and proof the place of sophistry. In his words: “Through the endeavours of science, what will prevail entirely in the present and totally in the future, is truth instead of force, proof instead of sophistry, and reason instead of nature”2
Nursi warns his fellow Muslims not to undervalue or neglect science if they are to regain their superiority among world nations. “The limitation of science”, he stresses, “can render these powers dangerous and destructive”3. Nursi also stresses that “science is a great tool, but its limitations render it highly unsuitable for its use out of the region of its scope” Nursi believes that “the success of scienceplaces tremendous powers in our hands”3.For the success of science development in Muslim society, Nursi suggests some ideas to be discussed below.
For Nursi, there are two major sources of Islamic sciences: the nature and the Qur’an. In his view, developing sciences is part of a means to prove the authenticity of the Qur’an. As he writes: “In the future,when the intellect,science and technology prevail, of a certainty, that will be the time the Qur’an will gain ascendancy, which relies on rational proofs and invites the intellect to confirm its pronounce”4. Nursi’s understanding and interpretation of the Qur’an are scientific and or connected to scientific endeavors. One of his readers writes:
“His greatest achievement was to develop a way of expounding the teachings of the Qur’an on ‘the truths of belief’ that incorporates the traditional Islamic sciences and modern scientific knowledge, and that while instilling those truths effectively refutes the bases of materialist philosophy”5.
Nursi believes that miracles of the prophets are the source of scientific guidance and inspirations. He says miracles encourage, motivate, guide, and direct scientific endeavors.There are nine Prophets’ miracles that that Nursi notes to be the object of scientific exploration for Muslim scientists. The miracles include:
1 The miracle of Adam (PUH) inspires science for names (Qur’an, 2: 31), (2).
2 The miracle of Noah (PUH) inspires science for the creation of ship(sailors).
3 The miracle of Joseph (PUH) inspires science for the clock (watch makers).
4 The miracle of Idris (PUH) inspires science for tailors.
5 The miracle of Solomon (PUH) inspires science for air transportation(Qur’an, 34: 12)
6 The miracle of Moses (PUH) inspires science for clean water exploration (Qur’an, 2: 60).6
7 The miracle of Jesus (PUH) inspires science for (medicine) healing spiritual ills and physical sicknesses (Qur’an, 3: 49).
8 The miracle of David (PUH) inspires science for iron technology (Qur’an,34: 10) and science for decision making (Qur’an, 38: 20).7
9 The miracle of Muhammad (PUH) inspires science for rhetoric and linguistic.
Apart from these there are various examples which show Nursi’s concern towards science and its development. According to Nursi, it is Muslims’ failure to explore scientific ideas in the miracles of the Prophets that have caused the backwardness of their sciences. He was certain that if Muslims are to understand and explore the Prophet’s miracles well, they can overtake the Europeans in science development.
NURSI’S CONCEPT OF GOD
It is important to emphasize that Said Nursi was deeply committed to Islam and its main source, The Qur’an and Hadith. Belief is the foundation of his work Risale-I Nur. Nursi saw the drastic changes in the world and viewed them as the greatest threat to the religion. He was of the opinion that many problems of the time were due to the weakness of belief in the pillars of faith. Diagnosing the illness of the age as weakness of belief, he dedicated his writings and endeavours to the cause of strengthening the faith. His main aim was transforming cultural and implicit belief into a conscious and justified belief. He saw that cultural and implicit belief was too weak to stand before the doubt-including questions of the time that could be resisted only with a faith sustained by reasonable proofs. According to Nursi there are three main things given by God to human beings i.e. The Universe, The prophet and The Qur’an8. He also added one thing i.e. The consciousness9. His primary purpose on focusing all these aspects is to cultivate faith and prove its vitality for human happiness both for the worldly life and the life thereafter. Nursi states that each of these channels indicates the necessity of God and His existence, His divine Art and Actions. Every reflection is a manifestation of God’s divine names through which the Almighty is known to His conscious creation. Multiplicity of reflection of the divine names does not contradict with the concept of Tawhid, Divine unity. Tawhid, “The mighty truth of Divine unity”10 as Nursi refers to it, has an immense emphasis in the Risale-I Nur as one of the four major themes of the Qur’an.
“The oneness of the divine essence together with the universality of the divine acts, the unity of Almighty God’s person together with His unassisted comprehensive dominicality, His singleness together with His unshared all-embracing disposal, His being beyond space and yet present everywhere, His infinite exaltedness together with being close to all things, and His being One yet Himself holding all matters in His hand, are among the truths of the Qur’an.”11
Oneness and the unity are two indissoluble aspects of understanding God and accordingly the Divine names. An important component deserving attention is the absoluteness of Divine ones which does not accept any fragmentation. Nursi himself elaborates,
“The most pure and holy one is without like, necessarily existent, utterly remote from matter and beyond space; His fragmentation and division is impossible in every respect as is any sort of change or alteration; His being needy or impotent is beyond the bounds of possibility.”12
The main precept of his philosophy was that God had sent people two kinds of books; one that is written and one that is created. Namely, these two books are the Qur’an and the Universe. Since both of these came from the same God as guidance for humanity, there can be no conflict between them. Indeed, it is impossible to understand one of them without the other, because they reveal and explain one another. While the universe can be compared to a book that is filled with multiple manifestations of God’s exalted names and attributes, which are displayed for all existence, the Qur’an can be compared to a manual that guides us through these manifestations on the path to finding God. Therefore, believers should make no distinction between the Qur’an and the universe.
In his writings, Nursi examines the universe in the way indicated by the Holy Qur’an that is reading it for its meaning, learning The Divine Names and Attributes, and other truths of belief. The purpose of this book is to describe its Author and Maker, and to subscribe all evidence of life in the universe to their Creator. Thus, an important element when studying the writings of Nursi, the Risale-i Nur, is to reflect or contemplate, i.e. to ‘read the Book of the Universe in order to increase one’s knowledge of God and to affirm faith in His existence’. By using this method Bediuzzaman solves many mysteries of religion in the Risale-i Nur, such as bodily resurrection, Divine Destiny, man’s will, the riddle of the constant activity of the universe and the motion of particles.
CONCLUSION
After completing a lifetime of almost a century, with every minute spent in the service of faith, at the advanced age of 87, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi departed from this world on the morning of March 23, 1960 (Ramadan 27, 1379), in Urfa, Turkey, with complete honor, dignity and victory. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi left behind the Risale-i Nur Collection that would illuminate this and the forthcoming centuries and a love that would be handed over from generation to generation until eternity.
REFERENCES
1 The words, Nineteenth Word, P 243
2 Mesnevi-i-Nursiya, Nokta P 208-215
3 Nursi The word, 298
4 Ibid, 209
5 Said Nursi, The Flasher, (Soz Press 2009)
6 Nursi (1977, P 275)
7 Nursi (1977, P 32)
8 Choudary, 2004, P 54)
9 Sukran Vahide 1978
10 Vahide 2003, P, 1
11 The miracle of Prophet Moses predicts the development of modern drilling techniques to dig out such indispensible substance of modern industry as oil mineral water and natural gas (Muzaffar Iqbal, 2002, P 5)
12 When the Iron had been softened for David it becomes a sign of the future significance of Iron and steel for modern industry. (Muzaffar Iqbal 2002 P 5)