At the Vanguard of Contemporary Muslim Thought: Reading Said Nursi into the Islamic Tradition

Abstract

At the Vanguard of Contemporary Muslim Thought: Reading Said Nursî into the Islamic Tradition Mustafa Tuna The Kurdish-origin Turkish scholar of Islam Said Nursî's (1878-1960) system of theological contemplation (tafakkur) innovatively expands the limits of Muslim religious thought from within the Sunni Islamic tradition. It incorporates aspects of the Muslim creed that scholars of dialectical theology (kalam) have conventionally substantiated based on textual evidence as opposed to rational proofs, such as resurrection or the existence of angels, into the realm of rational argumentation. And it bolsters the place of contemplation in Sufi practice, if we understand Sufism (taṣawwuf) in its broadest sense as seeking excellence through knowledge of God (maʿrifat Allah). As such, Nursî stands at the vanguard of contemporary Muslim thought. More than half a century after his death, however, Nursî also remains a "famous unknown." 1 His name evokes wide reverential acknowledgement among world Muslims as a rare great scholar from post-Ottoman Turkey but without a sustained engagement with the intellectual content of his oeuvre, Risâle-i Nur Külliyatı (The Epistles of Light Collection). Besides Şerif Mardin's pioneering study from 1989 and Coling Turner's recent The Qur'an Revealed, 2 English-language academic publications on Nursî's life and works primarily comprise solicited contributions to conferences and edited volumes sponsored by his followers in Turkey. There are 1 To borrow a recent description of another similarly influential but underappreciated thinker from the tenth century,

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“…Nursi wanted to engage his students, mainly common people, in his state or Nurculuk to fight his first enemy, objectivism of science, and to reinforce shari'ah (Islamic law) (Mardin 1989). For this reason, Maryam Jameelah (Nursi 1993g) and Mustafa Tuna (2017) said that Islamic faith still remains in Turkey to this day because of Nursi's efforts. What Jameelah and Tuna said reinforces the finding of this study; that is, Nursi agreed with the implementation and enforcement of shari'ah.…”

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“…Nilai, tradisi dan kebutuhan yang ada pada masyarakat harus menjadi bahan pertimbangan. Perbaikan tersebut harus melakukan sintesis antara modernitas dan tradisi (Tuna, 2017). Di mata pengikut Nurcu, kegagalan pendidikan, jauhnya sains dan teknologi di Turki disebabkan oleh kegagalan Kemalisme.…”

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“…At the level of oneness [aḥadiyaẗ], God is witnessed as something very abstract beyond the reach of the intellectual, and that which does not have a name, nature and will at all. In this level, God is seen as a very secret being, in solitude and unimaginable at all [kanzun manfiyun laisa kamiṯlihi šaiʾun](Tuna 2017). Symbolically, this level is represented by an empty circle.At the waḥdaẗ level, God is witnessed to have manifested for the first time what is called the second manifestation [ta'ayyun ṯāni].…”