Reconciliation with Christianity and the West in Said Nursi's Thought and Practice: An Overview1

1. This paper was first presented at the Fifth International Conference on the Muslim World and the West: Barriers and Bridges, 5–7 September 2006, organized by the International Institute for Muslim Unity, International Islamic University Malaysia, and subsequently at the International Conference on Said Nursi, Sofia University, Bulgaria, 22 November 2006.

Abstract

Said Nursi was a scholar and teacher who made many original contributions to contemporary thought, some of which relate to Christianity and the West. His long life spanned several historical periods, which led inevitably to there being differences in his stance towards the West. This article focuses on the last twenty years of Nursi's life, which included the Second World War and post-war period, during which, within the framework of revealed religion, Nursi advocated reconciliation with the West and cooperation with pious Christians in combating the spiritual and moral depredations of aggressive atheism. He posited that such an approach was foreseen in hadiths about the end of time. A second theme of the article is Nursi's desire to bring together, and present as a new way of teaching the essential qur'anic ‘truths of faith’, various traditional Islamic sciences and modern science. The reconciliation of science and religion, the recombining of these two branches of knowledge, was one of Nursi's lifelong aims, which he intended to achieve with the Risale-i Nur (the body of work that reflects his mature thought), and which in his later years he looked on as a sort of reconciliation with Western civilization in principle. Thus, reconciliation between Muslims and Christians and between Islam and the West, as advanced by Nursi, should be seen in the wider context of his thought generally. Also mentioned is Nursi's concern that ‘awakened humanity’ would find the peace and prosperity it yearned for in Islam, and his hope that the Risale-i Nur, which embodies his thought and methods, would contribute to the achievement of this.

Notes

1. This paper was first presented at the Fifth International Conference on the Muslim World and the West: Barriers and Bridges, 5–7 September 2006, organized by the International Institute for Muslim Unity, International Islamic University Malaysia, and subsequently at the International Conference on Said Nursi, Sofia University, Bulgaria, 22 November 2006.

2. For Nursi's biography, see Vahide, 2005.

3. See, Bukhari, Anbiya', 49; Buyu', 102; Mazalim, 31; Muslim, Iman, 24–27; Abu Da'ud, Malahim, 14; Tirmidhi, Fitan, 54; Ibn Maja, Fitan, 33; Musnad, ii, 240–272.

4. See Nursi, 1992, vol. 1, p. 241; vol. 2, pp. 22, 209; 2004, p. 167; 1996, pp. 30–31.

5. Zülfikar consisted chiefly of the Nineteenth Letter, The Miracles of Muhammad (UWBP), and the Twenty-Fifth Word, about the miraculous nature of the Qur'an. It also contained some shorter parts of the Risale-i Nur, and was put together c. 1945.

6. Patriarch Athenagoras (1886–1972) was Ecumenical Patriarch 1949–1972. He had been Archbishop of North and South America 1930–1948, and was held in high regard by governing circles in the US. He is most famous for his ecumenism and desire to reunite the Eastern and Western Churches, in the cause of which he held a historic meeting with Pope Paul VI in Jerusalem in 1964. The present author has not come across any references to his meeting with other Muslim leaders.

7. For discussion of these principles, see Vahide, 2005, pp. 317–318, 327–329.