Spiritual Dimensions of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi s Risale-I Nur

450 pages

English

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State University of New York Press - Cathleen Collins

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450 pages

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The Nur community is one of the most significant religious and social movements in contemporary Turkey, with millions of adherents and a strong institutional and educational system throughout the country. This volume presents a picture of its spiritual dimensions by focusing on the ideas of its founder, Turkish theologian Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1877–1960). Prominent scholars in contemporary Islamic studies and comparative spirituality examine the various facets of Nursi's spirituality as revealed in his magnum opus, Risale-i Nur, which began to take shape in the 1920s and is considered Nursi's deep reflection on the Quran in light of rapidly changing conditions in Turkey. Nursi argued that Islam must be organically linked to empire in order to preserve its identity in the modern era, fostering a spiritual tradition that has steadfastly survived the secular project of Kemalism.
Editor's Introduction
Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi

1. A Survey of the Main Spiritual Themes of the Risale-i Nur
Şükran Vahide

2. The Six-Sided Vision of Said Nursi: Toward a Spiritual Architecture of the Risale-i Nur
Colin Turner

3. Grounded Spirituality: The Challenge of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
Ian Markham

4. At the Heart of the Matter: Faith and Belief in the Poetic Imagery of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
Jane I. Smith

5. Faith Development and Spiritual Maturation in the Works of Said Nursi
Marcia Hermansen

6. The Spirit of Worship and the Result of Sincere Belief: Nursi's Mathnāwī al-'Arabī al-Nūrī as a Handbook for the Contemplative Life
Lucinda Mosher

7. The Chief Characteristics of Spirituality in Said Nursi Religious Thought
Bilal Kuşpınar

8. Dreams and Dream Interpretation in Said Nursi's Risale-i Nur: Islamic, Judaic, and Universal Resonances
Yehezkel Landau

9. "For you, illness is good health": Said Nursi's Spirituality in His Approach to Physical Illness
Thomas Michel

10. Nursi on Hatred as the Root of Violence
Mustafa Ulusoy

11. Taking Faith to Heart: Reconciliation and Peacebuilding in Islam
Asma Afsaruddin

12. Said Nursi's Vision for a New Universal Culture of Dialogue
Abdelaziz Berghout

13. The Threat to Spirituality
Fred A. Reed

14. Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindī and Bediüzzaman Nursi: Some Comparative Considerations
Yohanan Friedmann

15. "Visions of Plurality in Unity": Said Nursi, Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, and the Question of the Unity of Being
Stephen Hirtenstein

16. Exploring the Spiritual Dimensions of Nature: Ahmed-i Jiziri and Said Nursi
M. Sait Özervarlı

17. Sincerity in the Thought of Muhammad Iqbal and Bediuzzman Said Nursi
Ahmet Albayrak

18. Spirit and Spirituality: Linking the Lives of Two
Twentieth-Century Pioneers
Miriam Terese Winter

19. Selections from Nursi's Writings on Spirituality
tr. Şükran Vahide

Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Sujets

History of the Middle East

Middle East

History of religions

Islam

Informations

Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	24 juillet 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780791478158
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	9 Mo

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Spiritual Dimensions of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur

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Spiritual Dimensions of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur

Edited and with an Introduction by Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘

S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Spiritual dimensions of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’sRisale-i Nur/ edited and with an introduction by Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7914-7473-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-7914-7474-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Nursi, Said, 1873–1960. Risale-i Nur. 2. Nurculuk—Doctrines. I. Abu-Rabi‘, Ibrahim M. II. Nursi, Said, 1873–1960. Risale-i nur. English. Selections.

BP252.S65 2008 297.8'3—dc22

2007042270

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Editor’s Introduction IBRAHIM M. ABU-RABI‘

CONTENTS

1. A Survey of the Main Spiritual Themes of theRisale-i Nur ÜKRAN VAHIDE

2. The Six-Sided Vision of Said Nursi: Toward a Spiritual Architecture of theRisale-i Nur COLIN TURNER

3. Grounded Spirituality: The Challenge of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi IAN MARKHAM

4. At the Heart of the Matter: Faith and Belief in the Poetic Imagery of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi JANE I. SMITH

5. Faith Development and Spiritual Maturation in the Works of Said Nursi MARCIA HERMANSEN

vii

6. The Spirit of Worship and the Result of Sincere Belief: Nursi’s Mathnw al-‘Arab al-Nras a Handbook for the Contemplative Life LUCINDA MOSHER103 7. The Chief Characteristics of Spirituality in Said Nursi’s Religious Thought BILAL KUPINAR125

8. Dreams and Dream Interpretation in Said Nursi’sRisale-i Nur: Islamic, Judaic, and Universal Resonances YEHEZKEL LANDAU v

147

Contents

9. “For you, illness is good health”: Said Nursi’s Spirituality in His Approach to Physical Illness THOMAS MICHEL

10. Nursi on Hatred as the Root of Violence MUSTAFA ULUSOY

11. Taking Faith to Heart: Reconciliation and Peacebuilding in Islam ASMA AFSARUDDIN

12. Said Nursi’s Vision for a New Universal Culture of Dialogue ABDELAZIZ BERGHOUT

13. The Threat to Spirituality FRED A. REED

14. Shaykh Ahmad Sirhind and Bediüzzaman Nursi: Some Comparative Considerations YOHANAN FRIEDMANN

15. “Visions of Plurality in Unity”: Said Nursi, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi, and the Question of the Unity of Being STEPHEN HIRTENSTEIN

16. Exploring the Spiritual Dimensions of Nature: Ahmed-i Jiziri and Said Nursi M. SAIT ÖZERVARLI

17. Sincerity in the Thought of Muhammad Iqbal and Bediuzzman Said Nursi AHMET ALBAYRAK

18. Spirit and Spirituality: Linking the Lives of Two Twentieth-Century Pioneers MIRIAM THERESE WINTER

19. Selections from Nursi’s Writings on Spirituality TR. ÜKRAN VAHIDE

Bibliography List of Contributors Index

175

191

213

231

259

275

287

311

333

353

373 417 427 431

EDITOR’SINTRODUCTION

History, Politics, and Charisma inRisale-i Nur

Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘

he objective of the chapters included herein is to present the reader with a T picture of the spiritual dimensions of a major religious movement in the contemporary Muslim world by focusing on the spiritual ideas of its leader, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. The Nur community is one of the most significant reli-gious and social movements in contemporary Turkey, with millions of adherents and a strong institutional and educational system running across the country. Modernity poses a curious set of problems to the modern and contemporary Muslim world. It is nearly impossible to summarize modernity in a few state-ments; however, it suffices to say that a great number of intellectual forces, insti-tutions, and ideas have emerged within modernity since its historical beginnings in the fifteenth century. Throughout its long history in modern European soci-eties and during European colonialism in various regions in the world, moder-nity has given birth to such modern phenomena as secularism, nationalism, capitalism, socialism, imperialism, colonization, and modern criticism. There were several Ottoman responses to the nineteenth-century question of European modernity and the threat it posed to the integrity of the Ottoman state: first was the response of the modernizing elite in the Ottoman Empire, which opted to modernize the infrastructure of the Empire while preserving the status of Islam in that society. The second response was aimed at preserving the Ottoman Empire without giving any central role to Islam in either society or pol-itics. The third response was nationalist in orientation and was mainly repre-sented by Turkish nationalists who did not much care about empire or religion.

vii

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Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘

The fourth was more mass-oriented than the previous positions, and focused on religious community, text, and Shari‘ah. It is within these four major configurations that one must locate Ottoman debate about religion, civil society, constitution, modernization, and progress. Also, it is within this tumult that a critical appreciation of the Islamic tradition among a small but influential number of Ottoman Muslim intelligentsia emerged. This critical examination of tradition took place on at least on two fronts: (1) the Sufi front, especially the Naqshebandia tariqah and the efforts of Mawlana Khalid al-Naqshebandi to revive Sufism in the nineteenth-century Ottoman empire, and (2) on the front of dialectical theology, orilm kalamor yeni Osmanli kelampioneered by a number of Ottoman intellectuals in the nine-teenth century. This critical examination of Muslim tradition was necessary because the empire itself was going through some major changes, and the Muslim intelli-gentsia felt that it was their duty to revive the Muslim notion ofummahand con-nect it to nation and state. One may argue thatummah, nation, and state are the three terms that most aptly summarize Ottoman political philosophy in the nine-teenth century. Nursi himself dealt with these three concepts in various ways throughout his religious and intellectual life. However, after the defeat of the Ottoman army in World War One, Nursi turned his attention to Islamic spiritual-ity and the spiritual mission of Islamic communities in a new era marked by rad-ical secularism and Westernization. Nursi scholars are fond of dividing the philosopher’s life into the “Old Said” and the “Young Said” periods. In his “old” phase, Nursi was totally immersed in traditional Islamic sciences and was actively pursuing a single mis-sion: saving the Ottoman Empire from further decay and loss. In his “young” phase, Nursi focused less on saving the Empire and more on saving Islamic spir-ituality and ethics in a secular age. In his first phase, Nursi fought on many dif-ferent fronts. He understood that there were deep gaps between ‘center’ and ‘periphery’ in the Ottoman Empire. As someone who belonged to the periphery, he sought to remedy the situation by advocating far-reaching educational, consti-tutional, and social reforms. Nursi did all this with a view toward solidifying the bond betweenummah, nation, and empire in the Ottoman state. That is, he did what he did in the name of Islamic solidarity. He tried to revive the Ibn Khaldunian notion of solidarity in a new age, and he did this on the basis of his understanding of Islamic iden-tity. He thought that it was possible to accept the tremendous institutional and social changes that began within the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century while reviving the great bond betweenummahand empire. Nursi argued that religion (i.e., Islam) must be organically linked to empire to

EDITOR’SINTRODUCTION

preserve its identity in the modern era. He basically did not see any contradic-tion between Islamic bondage and the major changes that had been taking place in the empire since the early days of Tanzimt. However, Nursi went through a radical transformation after World War One. Generally speaking, Nursi was disappointed with the failure of the empire to preserve Islam and began to look into new ways to promote Islam and its spiritu-ality in a radically new phase of modern Turkey. Right after World War One, Nursi became well aware of the fact that it was a matter of time before the empire would be dismantled; that there were powerful forces, both internal and external, that were no longer interested in preserving the political integrity of the Ottoman Empire. He was aware of all of this because he was captured for two years during World War One while fighting for the Ottoman army. While at some point Nursi was ready to let go of the empire, he was not ready to give up on Islam and the Muslimummah. These two concepts began to acquire strong spiritual meaning for him. He still thought of the Muslim world in a universal sense and was anxious to preserve the great bond between the Turkish nation and Islam. He still thought of the Turkish nation not in national-ist terms, but in ummatic terms. And clearly, this went against the grain of the leading political authorities in the post-Ottoman phase of Turkey. The most dominant political current, epitomized by Kemal Ataturk and his comrades, defended the notion of severing ties between the Turkish nation and the Muslim world and attempted to relegate religion to a secondary status in the lives of the Turkish people. Said Nursi and his comrades, on the other hand, were the only group to intellectually defend the traditional bond between the Turkish nation and the Muslimummah. As we know, Nursi refused to subscribe to the European notion of nation when he denied assistance to the Shaykh Said rebellion, a Kurdish rebellion against the state in the mid-1920s. As mentioned, empire, nation, andummahplayed significant roles in Nursi’s intellectual life, especially before World War One. With the progress of years, a new constellation of forces came to the fore in Nursi’s life and that of his community in a secularized Turkey. This new constellation of forces can be called text-individual-community. The text is, of course, Nursi’s magnum opus,Risale-i Nur, which begins to take shape from the 1920s on. And theRisale-i Nurmust be seen as Nursi’s deep reflection on the Quran in light of the modern and rapidly changing conditions in Turkey. However, there is a central dimension of the text that many scholars have overlooked. The text was not a simple exegesis of the Quran; it was a prod-uct of Nursi’s crisis, imprisonment, exile, and alienation. I believe his experi-ences giveRisale-i Nura unique edge. The text is similar in this sense to the