What is Risale-Nur?

The Risale-i Nur collection is a six-thousand-page commentary on the Quran written by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi in accordance with the mentality of the age. Since in our age faith and Islam have been the objects of the attacks launched in the name of so called science and logic, Bediuzaman Said Nursi therefore concentrated in the Risale-i Nur on proving the truths of faith in conformity with modern science through rational proofs and evidence, and by decribing the miraculous aspects of the Quran that relate primarily to our century. This collection now has millions of readers both in and outside of Turkey. Thanks to the Risale-i Nur, the Turks managed to maintain their religion despite the most despotic regimes of the past decades. Although its author faced unbearable persecution, imprisonment, and exile, while no effort was spared to put an end to his service to faith, he was able to complete his writings compromising the Risale-i Nur and raise a vast group of believers who courageously opposed the oppression and preserved the dominance of Islam in the country.
Bediuzzaman understood an essential cause of the decline of the Islamic world to be weakening of the very foundations of belief. This weakening, together with the unprecedented attacks on those foundations in the 19th and 20th centuries carried out by materialists, atheists and others in the name of science and progress, led him to realize that the urgent and over-riding need was to strengthen, and even to save, belief. What was needed was to expend all efforts to reconstruct the edifice of Islam from its foundations, belief, and to answer at that level those attacks with a 'manevi jihad' or 'jihad of the of the word.'
Thus, in exile, Bediuzzaman wrote a body of work, the Risale-i Nur, that would explain and expound the basic tenets of belief, the truths of the Quran, to modern man. His method was to analyse both belief and unbelief and to demonstrate through clearly reasoned arguments that not only is it possible, by following the method of the Quran, to prove rationally all the truths are the only rational explanation of existance, man and the universe.
Bediuzzaman thus demonstrated in the form of easily understood stories, comparisons, explanations, and reasoned proofs that, rather than the truth of religion being incompatible with the findings of modern science, the materialist interpretation of those findings is irrational and absurd. Indeed, Bediuzzaman proved in the Risale-i Nur that science's breathtaking discoveries of the universe's functioning corroborate and reinforce the truths of religion.
The imortance of the Risale-i Nur cannot be overestimated, for through it Bediuzzaman Said Nursi played a major role in preserving and revitalizing the Islamic faith in Turkey in the very darkest days of her history. And indeed its role has continued to increase in importance to the present day. But further to this, the Risale-i Nur is uniquely fitted to address not only all Muslims but indeed all mankind for several reasons. First it is written in accordance with modern man's mentality, a mentality that, whether Muslim or not, has been deeply inbued by materialist philosophy: it specifically answers all the questions, doubts and confusions that this causes. It answers too all the 'why's' that mark the questioning mind of modern man.
Also, it explains the most profound matters of belief, which formerly only advanced scholars studied in detail, in such a way that everyone, even those to whom the subject is new, may understand and gain something without it causing any difficulties or harm.
A further reason is that in explaning the true nature and purposes of man and the universe, the Risale-i Nur shows that true happiness is only to be found in belief and knowledge of God, both in this world and the Hereafter. And it also points out the grevious pain and unhappiness that unbelief causes man's spirit and conscience, which generally the misguided attempt to block out through heedlessness and escapism, so that anyone with any sense may take refuge in belief.

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Recent Articles !

1. Transforming Transience into Immortality
   Emotion and spiritual insight {zevk) have become mixed in this Flash to an extent, and since their exuberance does not much heed the principles of the intellect and the scales of thought nor conform to them, it should not be weighed up on the balance of logic
   
   
2. About Compassion
   There are numerous instances of wisdom in the Names of Most Merciful and Compassionate being included in "In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate" and at the start of all good things. Postponing the explanation of these to another time, I shall for now recount a feeling of mine: My brother, to me the names of Merciful and Compassionate appear as a light so vast it embraces the whole universe and satisfies all the eternal needs of all spirits, and so luminous and powerful it secures a person against all his innumerable enemies. The most important means I have found for attaining to these names, these two vast lights, are poverty and thanks, impotence and compassion.
   
   
3. The image Europeans have of Islam
   What image do Europeans have of Islam and what are the reasons for it? How then should Islam be presented to Europeans? It is a sad fact but the prevailing image that Europeans have of Islam is as 'the religion of the sword.' It is an image that was conjured up during the crusades in the Middle Ages and has been carefuly nurtured ever since both by church and by state. This prejudice, on the part of ordinary people, together with vague notions of harems and veiled women, stem from a general and profound ignorance of Islam.
   
   
4. Women in the West and in Qur'anic civilization
   Women's liberation is a much discussed subject, can you compare the attitudes of materialist Western civilization and Qur'anic civilization towards women and demonstrate where true freedom for women lies?
   
   
5. The image Europeans have of Islam
   What image do Europeans have of Islam and what are the reasons for it? How then should Islam be presented to Europeans? It is a sad fact but the prevailing image that Europeans have of Islam is as 'the religion of the sword.' It is an image that was conjured up during the crusades in the Middle Ages and has been carefuly nurtured ever since both by church and by state. This prejudice, on the part of ordinary people, together with vague notions of harems and veiled women, stem from a general and profound ignorance of Islam.