Bediüzzaman Said Nursi and Louis Massignon in Pursuit of God's Word: A Muslim and a Christian on the Straight Path

Abstract

Said Nursi (1876–1960) and Louis Massignon (1883–1962) were contemporaries. Both of them were men of God in whose lives dramatic turning points changed the direction of their thinking and led them to devote themselves to the cause of re-awakening the religious consciousness of the people of their time. This article explores the striking parallels in their personal journeys, offers a comparison of their leading ideas and describes the far-reaching effects their lives and works have had in their respective faith communities. The biographies of faithful witnesses in modern times in both Islam and Christianity have much to teach those of us in the twenty-first century who seek to find the way to a harmonious convivencia for our two, global faith communities.

Notes

1. In 1934, Massignon, together with his friend Mary Kahil, founded a sodality for Arabic-speaking Christians which they called the Badaliyya; their purpose was to pray for the well-being of the Muslims among whom they lived, whose language and culture they shared.

2. For the biography of Nursi, see Vahide, 1992.

3. See Ünal & Williams, 2000; Yavuz & Esposito, 2003; Saritoprak, 2005.

4. See in particular Harpigny, 1981. The principal biography of Massignon is Destremau & Moncelon, 1994. See also Gude, 1996.

5. Massignon found al-Ḥallāj's verses quoted in Farīd ad-Dīn al-^cAṭṭār's (d. c. 1229) ‘Recollections of the Saints’ (Tadhkirāt al-awliyā'): ‘Two prostrations suffice in love (as at dawn and in war), but the preliminary ablution must be made in blood’ (see Harpigny, 1981, p. 30).

6. One might suggest that the English word ‘patrons’ is a better translation for the Arabic term awliyā'a in this context than the traditional word ‘friends’.

7. For more in this vein, see also Spuler, 1993, pp. 24–34.

8. Michel has the passage from Nursi's Lem'alar, p. 111.

9. See the passage in context in Nursi, 1995, p. 204, n. 7. For some fuller remarks on this theme see Nursi, 1998, p. 108.

10. See Vahide, 1992, p. 344; Michel, 1999, pp. 331–332. Nursi even thought that religious Christians who have been killed by the enemies of religion may at the end of time be martyrs of sorts. See Nursi, 1998, p. 369.

11. These essays were published only in 1997, edited by Massignon's son Daniel Massignon, who included much helpful circumstantial information and commentary. See Massignon, 1997b.

12. In this connection, one recalls Nursi's remark that Christians are pleased to be called kāfir (cf. Saritoprak, 2000, p. 328).

13. The term ‘negative’ here, as will be mentioned later, is not a pejorative term. It indicates that the Prophet rejects what cannot be truly said of God.

14. The phrase, ‘the voice proclaiming in the desert’, echoes the phrase, borrowed from Isaiah 40:3, used in Matthew 3:3 to describe John the Baptist: ‘The voice of one crying in the desert [ϵρημω]’ (vox clamantis in deserto).

15. For a certain parallel with Massignon's views of these matters on the part of Nursi, see Nursi, 1998, p. 108.

16. See, e.g., some passages from his letters in Nursi, 1997b, pp. 383–384, 508–511 et passim.

17. See the description in Harpigny, 1981, pp. 113–124.

18. The principal consultants for the Islam section of Nostra Aetate were: Georges Anawati, Jean Corbon, Joseph M. Cuoq, and Robert Caspar, working with the Vatican staff liaison person, Fr John Long, SJ. Together they composed the text as the council fathers approved it and as we now have it.

19. See Vahide, 1992, pp. 167–168, 253–255. See also the brief remarks in her greetings to fellow conferees by Anna Masala (1993, pp. 18–21).

20. On an interreligious note, it is interesting to see that Massignon quoted with approval a remark by the Dutch Islamicist, Christian Snouck Hurgronje (1857–1936): ‘Through its mysticism Islam has found the means to rise to a height from which it can see farther than its own, severely limited horizon … in it there is something interreligional’ (Massignon, 1997a, p. 9). Correlatively, one might also cite in this connection the ideas of Fethullah Gülen, someone much inspired by Nursi, for whom, and for whose followers, the Sufi traditions have been very influential, not least in their fostering of interreligious dialogue. See Gülen, 2004.

21. See in this connection the remarks of Patrick Laude on Massignon and modernity in Laude, 2001, esp. pp. 179–180.