4. BEDIUZZAMAN SAID NURSI (1876-1960)

4. BEDIUZZAMAN SAID NURSI (1876-1960)

        Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (بديع الزمان سعيد النورسي) was 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 on the Commentary 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)", meaning “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’ān were not irreconcilable he felt that through it the truths revealed in the Qur’ān 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 way,” he said, “the people of the school will be protected from unbelief, and 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 (المَدْرَسَةُ الزَّهْرَاء) (“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’ān 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 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 him the position of ‘Minister of Religious 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’ān, 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’ān is an undying, inextinguishable Sun." He defended the Qur’ān 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 rebellion in the eastern Turkey. The rebels had sought his help for his strong influence over people, but he rejected, and told them, “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 criminals.”  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’ānic evidence of their fallacy, and in the meantime it strengthens the Muslims’ belief in 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 be “repaired” by the “healing” truth of the Qur’ān.

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’ān, that   it explains the truth of belief, such as the Divine existence and Unity, the Divine Attributes, the Resurrection, Divine Decree, Prophethood, and man’s duties to worship Allah. It explains how the Qur’ān addresses people based on the standard of their understanding. It cites many verses of the Qur’ān 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’ān.

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 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).