Existence and Man

A Study of the Views of Said Nursi and J. P.

Sartre

İbrahim ÖZDEMİR
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Existence and Man

A Study of the Views of Said Nursi and J. P. Sartre

İbrahim Özdemir
iozdemir@yahoo.com

“In the absence of a transcendent Being greater than all

beings men deify themselves.” Karl Barth, German
theologian,
Banalization of Nihilism, 137.
“A palace resides in the heart of every atom, but so long as
you don‟t open it, its door will remain closed to you.”
Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi.
“Depriving a person of his ability to use the set of symbols
which shape his individual approach to God may be a more
distressing blow to him than depriving him of other values.”
Şerif Mardin,
Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey.

I. INTRODUCTION:

Modernity as the Loss of the Sacred and Triumph of the Profane

In this paper, I shall first of all set out briefly the ideas on existence and man of J.
P. Sartre,1 one of the foremost representatives of atheistic existentialism, and then shall
examine Said Nursi‟s ideas on the same subject. This will offer a comparison of the
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discourses developed by the two thinkers, and at the same time give an idea of what the
Risale-i Nur has to offer the people of the present, engaged as they are in a search for
new interpretations.

At the start of a new century people are re-asking an old question: what is the
meaning of man and existence? Is there any particular meaning in being human? Does it
have any value? What is it that makes life worth living? The reason I say “an old
question” is that throughout history people have asked about the origin of the universe
and man‟s place in it, and have sought the answers in various fables, legends, religions
and philosophies. Most of these have been provided by religions and philosophies. The
influence of the explanations of the revealed/divine religions is well-known. But man‟s
intellect has never ceased both to internalize or understand these, and to think up
explanations independently of them. The reason for this may well be the
meaninglessness and impossibility of living in an unknown, incomprehensible, strange,
and meaningless world.

However, the new scientific story/explanations, which, first appearing in the 17th
century and becoming firmly established in the 18th and 19th centuries, put forward the
modern worldview,2 challenged and tried to supersede all existent explanations. In his
work on Nietsche, Heidegger, the inspiration of existentialism and forerunner of the
postmodern thinkers, described the era known as modern, as “the fact of man being the
centre and measure of all things.”3 This is also the process of man‟s self-deification and
his rebellion against the sacred that has affected all of modern times and continues to do
so. In his classic work on modernity, M. Berman says about this phenomenon that still
shapes our lives: “A vital experience shared by people in every corner of today‟s world;
in other words, an experimental method related to space and time, myself and others,
and the possibilities and difficulties of life. (...)

“To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises adventure,

power, fun, development, and the possibility to change ourselves and the world; but on
the other hand, it is an environment that threatens to annihilate everything we have,
everything we know, and everything we are. Modern environments and experiences pass
beyond all boundaries, geographical and ethnic, class and national, religious and
ideological; modernity may be said to have united humanity in this sense. But this is a
paradoxical unity; the unity of division; it constantly draws us into the whirlpool of being
torn apart and put together again, of conflict contradictions, of uncertainty and pain.”4

The clash between science and religion, so often mentioned in the history of
philosophy and science stems from this character of modernity, which I tried to
summarize above. (It should be recalled that this clash was perceived more by
Christianity and the fathers of modern science.) However, the modern world-view has its
successes, but it has its failures too. For the meaningless of the universe and man is one
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of its fundamental principles and this has resulted in spiritual crises in society. The chief
mark of this crisis is man‟s alienation from hhimself and from nature, resulting from their
loss of meaning, or more correctly, the “evaporation” of their meaning.5 And the most
evident sign of this loss of meaning is people seeing no purpose in living, and their
rejecting in the name of alternative lifestyles current moral values, even those commonly
accepted in history, and adopting every sort of lifestyle outside these.

There is no place for spiritual and moral values in this new lifestyle, which,
influenced by the positivist science that emerged in the 19th century and developed in
the 20th, grew out of existentialist, nihilist philosophical currents. Science, “the sole
guide,” took the place of all values characterized as religious, traditional or dogmatic.
Neither the universe nor anything in it has any meaning. Man is a complete alien in this
meaningless world. Having only his will, he has been abandoned in this absurd and
hostile world, or more correctly, he has been flung into it. A result of this is that his
position in it is that of an alien. According to Garaudy, the most penetrating description
of man‟s bewilderment is found in Martin Heidegger‟s (1899-1976) works. Without future
or salvation, human life is lived between empty skies and a disorderly earth. Heidegger
likened the tragic situation of all beings and of man to the situation of a nation and the
people of one of its classes at a time of crisis: “Man no longer has before him God to
show him the way, or sound values and truths; the world is incomprehensible to him and
alien. Before him is nothing, non-existence.”6 And again, “We are only beings who feel
they have been thrown into an unpitying, unfeeling world.”7

Thus, there was only man as the single centre of values in an absurd and
meaningless world in which all transcendent and moral underpinning, and the existence
and efficacy of values were rejected. With their basic premise that “being precedes
essence,” nihilist, humanist, and atheist existentialists challenged religion and every sort
of spiritual/metaphysical value, saying that the cosmos was meaningless and conformed
to no logical order or plan; that it had not been brought into existence or set in order by
an omnipotent, beneficent god or Creator, there was no necessity in anything, everything
was contingent, reality had no meaning, order, or explanation; all order, meaning and
explanations were the products of human intelligence, and reality was incomprehensible.
Since this was so it could not be reduced to a system. Moral values had no existence
outside man‟s mind, and that there was no objective moral order; ethics and values had
been created by man.8

Nevertheless, the answer should be found to a question important from our point
of view: what is the influence today of those ideas, which were so widespread last
century? According to Griffin, atheistic existentialist ideas were influential on the great
majority of people in North America and Europe, and also in other places (if one thinks
how the West affected this country and its culture.) For those people, the world and all it
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contains, including man, ceased to hhave any meaning. Consequently, most people
believe they live in a meaningless, absurd world that has no metaphysical dimension.
Responsible for the spread of this idea were the existentialist ideas of circles associated
with art, literature, philosophy, and theology even. This understanding, which tried to
explain nature and man by stripping them of every sort of spiritual and metaphysical
aspect, is today relinquishing its place to postmodern attitudes.

A philosophical approach underlying the above was existentialist nihilism, itself a

result of the idea propounded by F. Nietzsche (d. 1900) that “God is dead.”9 The
existentialist nihilists denied God and all spiritual values more stealthily than many
contemporary sicknesses that attack man‟s physical being, sapping his spirit, morals, and
inner world, and leaving him bereft of spiritual and moral values. To put it another way,
these European currents were the cause of a serious erosion of morality and spirituality
in other countries; their moral values were swept away by the flood.10 Thus, what Hegel
(1770-1831) called the world‟s spirit was manifested as “Europeanization;” countries
throughout the world looked to Europe and attempted to reorder themselves accordingly.
With the Enlightenment idea of linear development, this “Eurocentrism” defined “the
other” for Western man and legitimized his right to rule them.11

As far as the Islamic world was concerned, after the West‟s colonialist and
imperialist occupation, which began in the second half of the 19th century, the attempt
was made to instil these philosophical ideas nurtured by the West in the Muslims‟ minds
and spirits. While seizing all the physical wealth and resources of these countries, the
imperialist forces challenged with these ideas the Muslims‟ traditional religious and moral
values, and induced the younger generations to oppose their own traditions.

To put it another way, the Western world-view destroyed the Muslims‟ traditional
maps and compasses, and the new maps the West gave them on the one hand broke
them off from their own roots and traditions, or at least caused them tto clash with them,
and on the other, led to the emergence of many contemporary Islamic movements. What
is striking and significant from our point of view, illustrating graphically Nursi‟s mission
and originality, was that he was fully aware of the profound effect -like “contagious
disesases”- of contemporary materialist, nihilist existentialist and positivist philosophical
currents on society and on the way Muslims perceived “themselves and the world,” and
their destructive influence:

“The world is undergoing a terrible spiritual crisis. A disastrous sickness, a plague,

a pestilence, has arisen in Western society, the spiritual foundations of which have been
shaken, and is gradually spreading worldwide. What solutions has Islamic society to offer
for this contagious disease? The West‟s rotten, putrifying, false formulas? Or the ever-
fresh principles of its own beliefs? I see the heads of the great to be sunk in
heedlessness. The rotten pillars of unbelief cannot support the citadel of belief. It is
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because of this that I concentrate all my efforts on belief.”12

Said Nursi did not concern himself with those who did not (or could not)
understand his vision and what they said. He did not take them seriously. However, he
was fully aware of the dangers modernity posed to mankind. It is understood from the
following that this awareness was of such a degree that it caused him to forget his own
personal suffering, pain, and distress:

“The only thing that distresses me are the dangers facing Islam. Formerly, the
dangers came from outside and they were easily withstood. But now they come from
within. The worm is gnawing the trunk and to resist it is difficult. I‟m frightened that the
social structure will not be able to withstand it, for it does not perceive the enemy; it
supposes to be its friend its greatest enemy, that is severing its arteries and drinking its
blood. If society has become so blind, the citadel of belief is in danger. This then is my
only trouble, that causes me distress. I do not have the time to think even of the
difficulties and hardships I myself suffer. If only they could be increased a thousandfold
and the future of the citadel of belief could be safe.”13

Here, Nursi is describing this approach and his alarm at the danger it poses for the
younger generations of Muslims. He is describing too, emotionally and eloquently, his
own mission:

“They say to me: „Why do you fight against this and that?‟ I am not aware of it.
There is a terrible conflagration before me the flames of which are touching the skies. My
sons are burning in it, my faith has caught fire and is burning. I am racing to extinguish
the fire, to save belief. If someone wants to hold me up on the way and I trip on him,
what importance has it? Is such a petty incident of any importance? Narrow ideas,
narrow views! I have sacrificed my life in the hereafter even to save the community‟s
religious belief. I have no longing for Paradise nor fear of Hell. Let not one but a
thousand Said‟s be sacrificed for the sake of the twenty-five million [Turkey‟s population
at that time] strong Turkish ccommunity. I would not want Paradise if the Qur‟an
remained without listeners on the earth. It would be a prison for me. I would be happy to
burn in the flames of Hell to see that my nation‟s belief was firm. For while my body was
burning, my heart would rejoice.”14

A further striking point is that although the Muslims were successful in liberating
their countries and lands from Western imperialism, the same cannot be said about their
intellectual dimensions. To put it another way, the Muslim countries won their political
independence, but due to the profound influence of philosophical thought on the way
their societies perceived themselves, they did not win their cultural and intellectual
independence in the same way. The current secularism of the Muslim countries today and
their Western-type intellectuals furnish the best proof of this. Also true is the fact that
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the conflict and tension between the West and “the other” experienced in the past, today
is experienced in another way. This was conceptualized by S. Huntingdon as “The Clash
of Civilizations.”15 Thus, clashes today are between states and individuals belonging to
different civilizations, rather than between different countries and states. In fact, such
clashes are seen to be continuing fiercely between groups who live in the same country
yet claim to belong to different civilizations. The clashes and tensions in certain Muslim
countries between pro-West and anti-West, and secular and anti-secular discourses are
an indication of this. Pointing out the power and influence of Western civilization, Colin
Turner asserts that the concept of the West has changed and lost the meaning we
understand:

“Another reason why our approach to the West has made little headway is that we
have misunderstood the West. The West is not only a geographical entity, it is also a
metaphor. Geographically, the West was the first place to witness a mass revolt against
the Divine. Modern Western civilization is the first of which we have knowledge that does
not have some formal structure of religious belief at its heart. The West is thus a
metaphor for the setting of the sun of religious belief; a metaphor for the eclipse of God.
And since this eclipse is no longer confined to the geographical West, one may say that
wherever the truths of belief have been discarded, there is the West.”16

Long previously Said Nursi drew attention to the appearance of a new era of
conflict, which he described in terms of “the worm is gnawing at the body,” after that of
civil wars and strife, in which the conflict would be experienced in people‟s own egos and
spirits.17 A basic reason for the emergence of the Islamic rrevival movements of the
second half of the 19th century and 20th century, was not only to oppose the Western
imperialist forces, but also to combat contemporary Western thought, on which this force
leaned and which it nourished, and to develop an Islamic discourse.18 As an original
contemporary Muslim scholar and leader, Said Nursi dedicated his life to this mission.

1. The Importance of Sartre and Nursi

Existentialism in its various forms has been one of the philosophical movements
most influential in both the West and Muslim countries in recent times. Its
representatives included believers in God like Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Jaspers (1883-
1969), and Marcel (1884-1973), as well as atheists like Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus
(1913-1960). It is clear from this that although there was no complete agreement as to
what existentialism was or was not, its atheistic and nihilist varieties were more
influential in the 20th century. This influence continues at the present time in different
form. Conscious of this, John F. Whealon‟s opinion was that “no thinking man or woman
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can develop a philosophy of life without confronting the problems raised by

existentialism.” He said, furthermore: “So long as one does not come to terms with the
problem of absurdity, propounded by contemporary existentialism, it is not possible to
put forward a satisfactory discourse.”19

Thus, without mentioning its name, Said Nursi provided Qur‟anic answers to some
of the fundamental questions posed by the contemporary philosophical discourse, from
the point of view of religion in general and Islam in particular.20 He tried to explain the
meaning the Qur‟anic message expresses for man in “the here and now,” taking as his
aim the guidance of today‟s Muslims with “a brand new lesson of the Qur‟an.” Bearing in
mind the interest shown the Risale-i Nur internationally, one can say his reply bears a
universal character. As Şerif Mardin discerns with the sensitivity of a sociologist, Said
Nursi was not only addressing the local villagers and Muslims of Turkey of that time with
the ideas he set forth in the gardens and orchards of Barla and heights of Cam Mountain,
but all Muslims and all mankind.

Another reason for my drawing comparisons between Said Nursi and an

existentialist philosopher is my opinion that Nursi may be included in the category of
“existentialist” thinkers in Islamic thought. These thinkers differed from the “essentialist”
Peripatetic philosophers who followed the Aristotelian line, and criticized them.21

II. SARTRE’S UNDERSTANDING OF BEING AND MAN

It was no coincidence that Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) rose to prominence as a

philosopher in the 1940‟s. This was a time that as Said Nursi (1877-1960) predicted,
mankind experienced great change and people intensied their search for religion and
truth. The collapse of the liberal paradigm with the First World War caused many people
to lose their belief in history, religion, and all values; starving, destitute, homeless people
who had lost their families, or who were wounded and lost, and without hope of the
future, “came face to face with the human situation” in the harshest and most acute way.

It has to be said that Sartre‟s atheistic existentialist ideas, which emerged in the
above-mentioned context, have been more influential this century (20th). According to
B. Kaufmann, well known for his studies of the subject, existentialism gained prominence
internationally through Sartre‟s works.22 His philosophy was to a large extent influenced
by such philosophers as F. Nietzsche, M. Heidegger, G. W. Hegel, and E. Husserl.
Whether he took ideas from them wholly, or interpreted them partially, he made a new
synthesis of them, and constructed atheist existentialist philosophy on them.23 There are
several reasons for this, the most important of which are: firstly: Sartre was writing in
Europe at a time people had been saved both from the Second World War and from
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repression. Secondly: contrarily to the classical philosophical tradition, he expressed

even the most philosophical of his ideas in novels, essays, plays, and other literary
means, so reaching millions of readers. A further reason was Sartre‟s ideas on free love,
which completely disregarded society‟s moral norms, and his indisputable atheism.24 In
order to understand Sartre‟s nihilist existentialist ideas and their consequences for
humanity, one first has to understand his conceptualization of existence, and his
understanding of man, the result of this.

According to Plato, one of the greatest philosophers of the Western philosophical

tradition, the world of ideas is true existence. The world we see and experience through
our five senses is only a shadow of the world of ideas. This view had a profound influence
on the whole history of philosophy, including Muslim philosophers. The philosopher A. N.
Whitehead (1861-1947) said that Western philosophy was a mere footnote to Plato‟s
works. J. P. Sartre‟s views on being and man are nothing more than discussion of this
ancient subject from a different viewpoint. Sartre made a twofold division of being into
“being for itself,” which we might call consciousness, and “being in itself.” That is, the
being we know through our senses, the object of experiment and observation.

However, what had prime importance for Sartre was “being for itself,” that is,
man. For in his 660-page work Being and Non-Being, he allots only six pages to “being in
itself,” and the rest to the former. And the purpose of those six pages was to act as an
introduction to “being for itself.” In other words, Sartre found the idea on which to base
his philosophy in this “being for itself.” We may now examine these concepts more
closely:

1. Being in itself

In Being and Non-Being, Sartre defines “being in itself” as “whatever being is.”25
It is therefore exactly the opposite of “being for itself.” “Being in itself” is the world of
objects/things; it is whatever is. It is therefore nothing else. Things are not in need of
anything for their existence. They are infinite and meaningless. Moreover, “being in
itself” has no meaning. There being no god or creator, everything simply exists “without
any purpose or meaning.” According to Sartre, therefore, “we have no right to ask where
they (things) come from and why they are here.” “By reducing what exists to a series of
appearances that make it visible, modern thought (phenomenology) made a significant
advance... This new contradiction, the contradiction between the finite and the infinite, or
rather between the infinite within the finite, replaced the dilemma of being and bringing
into being.”26 Garaudy says that this forms the centre of Sartre‟s proof. According to
Sartre, it is a question of finding a transcendental reality, but this is not God; it is the
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world.27

The meaninglessness and absurdity of being is expressed best in Sartre‟s novel,

Nausea. This was his first novel, and reflects the world-views of his masters Husserl and
Heidegger.28 The novel‟s central theme, in reality a philosophical manifesto, is that now
the world has no purpose it expresses nothing at all.29 The author puts the following
words in the hero, Roquentin‟s mouth:

“We were a mass of existents bored and fed up with ourselves. There was not the
slightest reason for any of us being there. Each „being‟ felt within himself a vague and
confused anxiety greater than the others. Being „extra;‟ this was the only relationship I
could form with the trees, the railings, the pebbles.”30

Such a view can result only in bewilderment and anger. Everything is so

meaningless and „existants‟ are so unnecessary that they complain at their existence.
There is no necessary Being to put them there, to show them their place within a totality
of cause and meaning, that is to say, nothing to create them; there could be no God.
Nothing has anything before it or to come after. The thing in itself is only “there.” “One
cannot ask where they all came from or how they are there, the world is nothing‟s place.
There is no meaning in it.”31 As repeated in Nausea, “being is purposeless and
absurd.”32 Having summarized briefly Sartre‟s ideas on being, we can move on to his
understanding of man, which is relevant to the subject of this paper.

2. Being for itself: Man

As mentioned above, Sartre‟s understanding of man, which he defines as „being in

itself,‟ results from his view of existence. Rejecting the idea of a creative God, Sartre
states that like the „being in itself,‟ man does not have a pre-created nature that is fixed
and the same as all other humans. He is „being for itself,‟ which Sartre defines as
consciousness. In his view, all beings other than man, according to the Hegelian theory
of opposites, belong to another group of beings: „being in itself.‟ While studying being for
itself, we shall look at „being for itself‟ as consciousness, that being in itself as non-being.

According to Sartre, basically „being for itself‟ is consciousness, and in this

consciousness it is always the consciousness “of something.” Consciousness considers
everything outside itself that it encounters as “being in itself.” Being in itself is the exact
opposite of consciousness and being can only be known through consciousness. Man may
always be aware of his own consciousness, but this is the consciousness of something
permanent. Nevertheless, this something is different to consciousness and is outside it.
For this reason consciousness always distinguishes between itself and things other than
it. It never sees them as the same as itself.33 Sartre uses the symbol of a mirror in order
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to illustrate the concept of consciousness. A mirror only contains something when it

reflects “something.” On its own, it has neither contents or meaning.34 Similarly, on its
own consciousness contains nothing, so the things it reflects are always other than itself
and outside of it.35 In short, consciousness has no essence and no contents. It is nothing
other than existence. Thus, things and consciousness are interdependent. Without
consciousness, things are meaningless chaos. And the existence of consciousness without
things is inconceivable. For consciousness is apparent only when it reflects things.

According to this, man does not have a nature/essence that was pre-determined
and is universal in the sense that it applies to all human beings. Consequently, it is a
question of “the human situation,” rather than human nature. Thus, all the qualities and
attributes posited universally for man by religions and metaphysical traditions were
rejected by Sartre. As a result, man had no nature he had to comply with or follow, or to
develop by adhering to particular ethical teachings. One of Sartre‟s main theses related
to man crops up here: “Man determines himself, that is, he becomes man, through his
own projects/actions related to the future.” In Maurice Cranston‟s words:

“Man can never be in a specific and final situation; he is bound to always choose,
make decisions, re-enact old projects and put forward new ones. This function comes to
an end only with death.”36

Thus, the meaning of Sartre‟s famous saying “being comes before essence”
becomes clear: man is a being without essence (nature or inborn character). To possess
such an essence would be entirely contradictory to man‟s power to change/fulfil himself
in unlimited fashion. The thing he wants is to be human.37 A further meaning of this
understanding is its rejection of all values that would guide man and illuminate his path.
Man is completely alone in an absurd and meaningless world. His sole attribute, if there
is such a thing, is his being doomed to be free.

Sartre goes even further and proposes that it is man‟s duty to become as God.
Because, “In Sartre‟s works, the complete freedom arising from the non-existence of God
has left man free in his actions, and since as demanded by atheism, there is no outside
cause to direct his behaviour or any sanction by which to correct it, the individual has
taken on himself the whole burden and quite simply cast himself into aloneness.”38
Sartre expresses this as follows:

“Everything happened as though I was bound to be responsible for it. It wasn‟t

that I had been abandoned in life, alone and tossed around like a chip of wood on water,
but as though I was tied to a world for which I alone was responsible and the
responsibility of which I couldn‟t escape from even for a moment. Wwhatever I did I still
had to take it on myself, and suicide was just a way of life of another world like this
one.”39
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The noteworthy point here is that having rejected God‟s existence, the rejection of
both the createdness of the world and its having order and meaning, and of man having
a nature, essence, and meaning. Accordingly, man‟s only attribute is his being free.
Indeed, this is not an attribute, it is something he is condemned to be. As Roger Reneaux
says: “To exist truly is to be conscious, but to be free in a more profound sense. In fact,
„our being in the world‟ constitutes freedom. Man is not free to be free; he is
„condemned‟ to be free.”40 According to Sartre, freedom is the mortar of our
existence.41 So what is this? Reneaux summarizes Sartre‟s view of freedom like this:
“He does not reduce it to will and thinking like the psychologists. For he prefers to debate
and act reasonably rather than following inducements and passions.”42 Sartre‟s idea of
“being comes first and necessitates essence,” which he took from Heidegger, crops up
again here. And as a result of this, man “appears in the world as a mirror reflecting his
own choices, projects, and existence.” In other words, freedom is “to do and to mature
by doing and not to do anything else.”44

3. Some Consequences of Existentialist Atheism

The reason I have offered a brief discussion of these ideas of Sartre is that, with
their view of existence as “absurd and meaningless,” existential atheism and nihilism are
still influential today in various ways. Whether one is aware of it or not, to see all the
things we come across in everyday life, the trees, birds, mountains, forests, seas, lakes,
earth, sun, stars, and planets, in short everything, to be “unnecessary, meaningless, and
absurd,” results from an understanding like the above. To deny or ignore the
transcendent and sacred dimension of nature, and look on it as just „a thing‟ which
formed itself and is just there, holding no meaning, produces various results in daily life.
Such a view does not necessarily have to be as destructive as existentialist nihilism, but
it leads to the loss of religious sensitivity and understanding, and of moral values, and to
degeneration and the alienation of a person from himself and from nature. David Ray
Griffin insists that the existentialist view of the world as absurd and meaningless
underlies many of the problems facing modern man.

Griffin sets out this subject most eloquently when investigating the ideas at the
heart of modernity. He asserts that the universe‟s absurdity/meaningless is one of the
chief marks of existential philosophy. He asks: if as such existential thinkers as Martin
Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and even Franz Kafka (d. 1924) proposed,
the universe has no importance whatsoever and everything consists only of
absurdity/meaninglessness, what possible reason is there for people to live? Why should
they live in such a world? According to Griffin, because people are not offered the
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slightest motive for living, they turn to violence, drink, and drugs as a way of life, or
become regular attenders of mental hospitals, or else commit suicide. Where there is no
meaning, death offers new possibilities. He says that it is interesting to consider alcohol
and drug abuse in modern societies from this point of view, as well as suicide.44 In the
face of this view of existentialist philosophy of the universe, which posits that (things)
cause themselves and in addition are absurd and meaningless, Nursi exclaims in
astonishment:

“Glory be to God! Although all the beings in the universe from the smallest
particles to the sun show that the Creator has choice, each with its own appointed
individuality, order, wisdom, and measure, this blind philosophy refused to see it.”45

It is for this reason that the Risale-i Nur continuously describes how everything
from atoms to the stars, and from the mosquito‟s digestive stystem to the solar system,
is orderly, meaningful, and harmonious, and created. In conclusion, a world in which
everything is in order, including man, cannot the product of chance. Man‟s most
important function is to “Take for [his] object of love and worship One Who possesses
infinite perfection and a beauty that is infinitely sacred, exalted, transcendent, faultless,
flawless and unfading. ... His beauty and perfection are indicated and pointed to by all
the fairness, beauty, virtue and perfection of all lovable and loved objects in the
cosmos.”46 This subject is touched on again and again in the Risale-i Nur‟s many
comparisons of belief and unbelief. Rather than discussing a single philosophical view, he
describes the chief aspects of belief in God as an absolute transcendent being, and those
who deny Him or do not accept Him, or more than that, who try to prove His non-
existence like Sartre. He does not make do with merely clarifying their stands, but
describes in detail the consequences for mankind of both these approaches.47 In order to
explain this further, I shall examine Said Nursi‟s views on existence and man.

III. SAID NURSI’S VIEWS ON EXISTENCE AND MAN

The main difference between Said Nursi and Sartre stems from their views of
existence. As a contemporary follower of the Islamic tradition and an original Qur‟anic
commentator, Nursi lays emphasis on the wholeness of existence and its metaphysical
dimension.48 While according to the phenomenology that Sartre employed
methodologically, phenomena consist of the direct data of experience, and “the only
reality is the phenomena of the field of existence that we can perceive. There is no
invisible, unknowable being outside the sphere of contingency that the brain cannot
grasp or perceive directly.”49 Sartre said that one cannot speak of any sort of being
outside of phenomena, and he rejected every sort of metaphysical „substance.‟ He
 14

asserted that ontology is not a universal way of explaining things but an extensive
method of describing existence, as we saw above.50

It is not only the phenomenological method that rejects the metaphysical

dimension of existence and stripping the universe of its sacred aspects, shows it to be a
mass of lifeless meaningless “things;” Positivist science and the materialist philosophy
traditions follow a line close to this method.51 This is where Nursi‟s originality becomes
apparent. A remark made about Iqbal may be applied to him too: “He came to us as a
Saviour and restored to life the dead.”52 Under the guidance of the Qur‟an, Nursi also
showed the universe to be living, with all its beings in harmonious and meaningful order,
recognizing their Creator and glorifying Him, and thus all being brothers to one another.
He conjured up in the minds of his readers the picture of a universe that like them was „a
believer‟ and living and meaningful. He as though raised to life everything in the
universe. The Risale-i Nur challenged the tension and cleavage modernity had created
between man and nature, and the resulting problem of alienation of man from nature
and himself.53 If today people from very different backgrounds and countries are reading
the Risale-i Nur and trying to understand it, it is because of this. The following passage,
written by the English Muslim Colin Turner, provides a very good example of it:

“Thanks to the Risale-i Nur, I was now able to see that previously, God had been
something that I hadbrought in to complete the occasion, an unknown factor placed
almost arbitrarily at the beginning of creation to avoid the impossibility of infinite
regression. He had been the „First Cause,‟ the „Prime Mover,‟ a veritable „God of the
gaps.‟ He had been rather a constitutional monarch of the English variety, who must be
treated with the utmost respect but not allowed to interfere in the affairs of everyday life.

“Inspired by the verse La ilaha illa Allah, the Risale-i Nur shows that the signs of
God, these mirrors of His names and attibutes, are revealed to us constantly in new and
ever-changing forms and configurations, eliciting acknowledgement, acceptance,
submission, love and worship. The Risale-i Nur showed that there is a distinct process
involved in being Muslim in the true sense of the word: contemplation to knowledge,
knowledge to affirmation, affirmation to belief or conviction, and from conviction to
submission. ... Thus I can say that I had been a Muslim but not a believer; that which I
had assumed was belief was in reality nothing more than the inability to deny.
Bediuzzaman was not responsible for introducing me to Islam - which anyone could have
done - but for introducing me to belief. Belief through investigation, not through
imitation.”54

Despite this property of the Risale-i Nur, Said Nursi makes no direct references to
either existentialism or phenomenology. Due to his method, with one or two exceptions,
he does not relate the philosophers‟ propositions. Thus, rather than being a philosopher,
which he anyway made no claim to be, he was a Qur‟anic commentator and a propagator
 15

of the Qur‟an. The below passage, which refers to Ghazzali, is equally applicable to Nursi:

“It is certain that by profession he was not a philosopher. He was a naturally

religious sage. He used reason, knowledge, and the Shari‟a as natural means of reaching
his goal. However this does not prevent us pointing out that throughout his intellectual
journey, his exemplary, fine mind both assisted philosophy and was assisted by it.”55

Nursi‟s main concern is with the results for humanity in general and Muslims in
particular of the existential viewpoint, which I tried to summarize above. It is because of
this that he frequently makes “comparisons of the sacred wisdom of the All-Wise Qur‟an
and the wisdom of philosophy.” Utilizing the Qur‟anic method and illustrating his views by
means of parabolic stories, he shows as follows the profound differences between the
Qur‟anic viewpoint and that of philosophy (phenomenology):

“One time, a renowned Ruler who was both religious and a fine craftsman wanted
to write the All-Wise Qur‟an in a script worthy of the sacredness in its meaning and the
miraculousness in its words, so that its marvel-displaying stature would be arrayed in
wondrous apparel. The artist-King therefore wrote the Qur‟an in a truly wonderful
fashion. He used all his precious jewels in its writing. In order to indicate the great
variety of its truths, he wrote some of its embodied letters in diamonds and emeralds,
and some in rubies and agate, and other sorts in brilliants and coral, while others he
inscribed with silver and gold. He adorned and decorated it in such a way that everyone,
those who knew how to read and those who did not, were full of admiration and
astonishment when they beheld it. Especially in the view of the people of truth, since the
outer beauty was an indication of the brilliant beauty and striking adornment in its
meaning, it became a truly precious antique.

“Then the Ruler showed the artistically wrought and bejewelled Qur‟an to a
European philosopher and to a Muslim scholar. In order to test them and for reward, he
commanded them: „Each of you write a work about the wisdom and purposes of this!‟

“First the philosopher, then the scholar composed a book about it. However, the
philosopher‟s book discussed only the decorations of the letters and their relationships
and conditions, and the properties of the jewels, and described them. It did not touch on
their meaning at all, for the European had no knowledge of the Arabic script. He did not
even know that the embellished Qur‟an was a book, a written piece, expressing a
meaning. He rather looked on it as an ornamented antique. He did not know any Arabic,
but he was a very good engineer, and he described things very aptly, and he was a
skilful chemist, and an ingenious jeweller. So this man wrote his work according to those
crafts.

“As for the Muslim scholar, when he looked at the Qur‟an, he understood that it
 16

was the Perspicuous Book, the All-Wise Qur‟an. This truth-loving person neither attached
importance to the external adornments, nor busied himself with the ornamented letters.
He became preoccupied with something that was a million times higher, more elevated,
more subtle, more noble, more beneficial, and more comprehensive than the matters
with which the other man had busied himself. For discussing the sacred truths and lights
of the mysteries beneath the veil of the decorations, he wrote a truly fine commentary.

“Then the two of them took their works and presented them to the Illustrious
Ruler. The Ruler first took the philosopher‟s work. He looked at it and saw that the self-
centred and nature-worshipping man had worked very hard, but had written nothing of
true wisdom. He had understood nothing of its meaning. Indeed, he had confused it and
been disrespectful towards it, and ill-mannered even. For supposing that source of truths,
the Qur‟an, to be meaningless decoration, he had insulted it as being valueless in regard
to meaning. So the Wise Ruler hit him over the head with his work and expelled him from
his presence.

“Then he looked at the work of the other, the truth-loving, scrupulous scholar,
and saw that it was an extremely fine and beneficial commentary, a most wise
composition full of guidance. „Congratulations! May God bless you!‟, he said. Thus,
wisdom is this and they call those who possess it knowledgeable and wise. As for the
other man, he was a craftsman who had exceeded his mark. Then in reward for the
scholar‟s work, he commanded that in return for each letter ten gold pieces should be
given him from his inexhaustible treasury.”56

The truth alluded to by the parable he explains like this:

“The ornamented Qur‟an is this artistically fashioned universe, and the Ruler is the
Pre-Eternal All-Wise One. As for the two men, one -the European- represents philosophy
and its philosophers, and the other, the Qur‟an and its students.

“Yes, the All-Wise Qur‟an is a most elevated expounder, a most eloquent

translator of the Mighty Qur‟an of the Universe. It is the Criterion which instructs man
and the jinn concerning the signs of creation inscribed by the pen of power on the pages
of the universe and on the leaves of time. It regards beings, each of which is a
meaningful letter, as bearing the meaning of another, that is, it looks at them on account
of their Maker. It says, „How beautifully they have been made! How exquisitely they point
to their Maker‟s beauty!‟, thus showing the universe‟s true beauty. But the philosophy
they call natural philosophy or science has plunged into the decorations of the letters of
beings and into their relationships, and has become bewildered; it has confused the way
of reality. While the letters of this mighty book should be looked at as bearing the
 17

meaning of another, that is, on account of God, they have not done this; they have
looked at beings as signifying themselves. That is, they have looked at beings on account
of beings, and have discussed them in that way. Instead of saying, „How beautifully they
have been made,‟ they say „How beautiful they are,‟ and have made them ugly. In doing
this they have insulted the universe, and made it complain about them. Indeed,
philosophy without religion is a sophistry divorced from reality and an insult to the
universe.”57

This long quote broadly illustrates Nursi‟s understanding both of existence and of
man. Primarily, the universe and everything in it is created by God. The essential being is
God, the Transcendent. However, he does not deny the reality of the external world like
some of the Sufis. On the contrary, he states that all the beings of the external world are
reflections, manifestations, and signs of the Absolute, Transcendent Being, so they have
a reality. For Nursi, the universe, which Sartre defined as “being in itself,” is something
completely different; he lays it before us as a book, “the great book of being.” What is
more, he takes us from the change, continuation, order, beauty, and harmony that we
observe in the universe, to the Absolute Being:

“Since things exist and they are full of art, they surely have a maker. As is
decisively proved in the Twenty-Second Word, if everything is not one person‟s, then
each thing becomes as difficult and problematical as all things. Since someone made the
earth and the heavens and created them, for sure that most wise and skilful Being would
not leave to others living beings, which are the fruits, results, and aims of the heavens
and the earth, and spoil his work. Making it futile and without purpose, He would not
hand over to others all His wise works; He would not give their thanks and worship to
others.”

“If you want knowledge of reality and true wisdom, gain knowledge of Almighty
God. For the realities of beings are rays of the divine name of Truth and the
manifestations of His names and attributes. The reality of all things, whether physical,
non-physical, essential, non-essential, and the reality of all human beings, is based on a
name and relies on Its reality. Things are not merely insignificant forms without
reality.”58

The chief purpose of all the beings in the universe, which Sartre called “being in
itself,” is to show the essential Being, Who is transcendent. According to Nursi, beings
perform the function of being mirrors:

“If you look at the aspect of things that is turned towards the divine names and
the hereafter you will see that each seed, a miracle of power, has an aim as vast as a
tree. Each flower, which is like a word of divine wisdom, has meanings as numerous as
 18

the flowers on a tree, and each fruit, a wonder of God‟s workmanship and a poem
dictated by His mercy, has wise purposes as numerous as the fruits of a tree. As for the
fruit serving us as sustenance, it is merely one out of those many thousand wise
purposes; it fulfils its purpose, expresses its meanings, and dies, being buried in our
stomach. Since these transient beings yield eternal fruits in another place, leave there
permanent forms of themselves, and express there everlasting meanings; since they
engage in ceaseless glorification of the Maker; and since man becomes man by
perceiving these aspects of things that are oriented to the hereafter, thus finding his way
to eternity by means of the transient...”59

Nursi later explains with examples how the universe and beings act as
“mirrors” to the divine names, emphasizing that this viewpoint is Qur‟anic:

“Understand therefore that the reality of beings is based on and relies on the
divine names; rather, that their true realities are the manifestations of those names; and
that everything mentions and glorifies its Maker with numerous tongues in numerous
ways. And understand one meaning of the verse: And there is not a single thing but
extols His glory and praise.60 Say, „Glory be to Him Who is hidden in the intensity of His
manifestation.‟ And understand one reason why phrases like the following are repeatedly
mentioned at the end of the Qur‟an‟s verses: And He is the Mighty, the Wise. * And He is
the Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. * And He is All-Knowing, All-Powerful.61

“If you are unable to read the names in a flower and cannot see them clearly, look
at Paradise, study the spring, watch the face of the earth. You will be able to read clearly
the names written there, for they are the huge flowers of mercy. You will be able to see
and understand their impresses and manifestations.”62

As is seen here, according to Nursi, from top to bottom the universe is “fruitful
with aims and purposes, charged with duties from particles to the sun, and subjugated to
the divine commands,” implicitly emphasizing the following point: man is not aimless and
purposeless. It is not possible that in a world as full of meaning as a book or a work of
art, he should be without meaning and aim.

1. The Significative Meaning of Things, and their Nominal Meaning

Here, one of the key concepts of Said Nursi‟s understanding of existence, perhaps
the most important, should be explained. This is the significative meaning of things
(mana-yı harfi) and the nominal meaning (mana-yı ismi). In Bediuzzaman‟s view, the
main reason the Qur‟an speaks of nature and the universe is indirect. That is, it does not
speak of it in order to describe it as modern science does; it does so with a view to
speaking of God, the Creator and Owner of all things. For since the universe was created
 19

by Him, everything in it points to Him and is like a missive from Him.

These concepts, which were used also by the great figures of Sufism,63 are to be
seen also in Nursi‟s early works. While he looked on his early works as seeds and
nurseries of the Risale-i Nur, in the period he called that of the New Said, he reused
these concepts, but in a most lively and effective manner. If we take a look at all his
early works, in the introduction to Mesnevi-yi Nuriye, which was written in Arabic and
later translated into Turkish, we see he draws attention to this question as follows:

“In my forty years of life and thirty years of study, I have learnt only four words
and four phrases. They will be explained later in detail, and here mentioned only briefly.
What is meant by the words is „the significative meaning‟ of things (mana-yı harfi), „the
nominal meaning‟ of things (mana-yı ismi), intention (niyet) and point of view (nazar).
They are as follows:

“All things other than God [the universe] should be looked at as having a
significative meaning (mana-yı harfi), and on His account. It is mistaken to look at them
as signifying only themselves (mana-yı ismi) and on account of causes.

“Yes, everything has two aspects; one looks to the Creator and the other to
creatures. The aspect that looks to creatures should be [seen] as a veil which shows the
aspect looking to its Creator beneath, like a lace veil or a transparent piece of glass. In
which case, when one looks at bounties, the Bestower of bounties should come to mind,
and when looking at the art [in creatures], their Fashioner, and when looks at causes,
the Truly Effective Agent should occur to one. (...) If one looks at material things on
account of causes, it is ignorance, whereas if one looks on account of God, it is
knowledge of God.”64

On understanding the logical structure underlying this concept, one may grasp the
foundation on which the whole Risale-i Nur project is constructed.65 Another point is that
this viewpoint and logic immediately attracted the attention of the first Risale-i Nur
students. The answer he gave to one of these, Ref‟et Bey, in Barla, where the Risale-i
Nur was first written, also indicates his view of nature:

“As for discussion of mana-yı harfi and mana-yı ismi, they are explained at the
beginnings of the all the grammar books. There is also adequate discussion of them in
the treatises called Sözler (The Words) and Mektubat (Letters). Further discussion would
be superfluous for an intelligent and attentive person like yourself. When you look in the
mirror, if you look at the glass, you see it intentionally, and Re‟fet strikes the eyes
secondarily and indirectly. But if you look at the mirror in order to see your blessed face,
you would see lovable Re‟fet intentionally, and would declare: „Blessed be God, the Best
of Creators!‟ The glass would strike the eye secondarily and indirectly. Thus, in the first
case, the glass is mana-yı ismi, and Re‟fet is mana-yı harfi, while in the second case, the
 20

glass is mana-yı harfi, that is, it is not looked at for itself, it is looked at for another
meaning, which is the reflection. The reflection is mana-yı ismi; that is, it indicates a
meaning in itself, which in a way is included in the definition of ism”. And the mirror
indicates a meaning other than itself, which is a definition of harf”. According to the
Qur‟anic view, all the beings of the universe are letters (huržf); according to mana-yı
harfi, they express the meaning of another. That is to say, they make known [the divine]
names and attributes. For the most part, soulless philosophy looks in accordance with
mana-yı ismi, and gets stuck in the mire of nature.”66

The answer Nursi gave to another question is also important in connection with
the above subject. It concerns the reason Nursi headed all his letters with verse 44 of
Sura al-Isra. It is both interesting and gives some important clues about the Risale-i
Nur‟s method:

“You ask the reason for all my letters being headed with And there is nothing but
it glorifies Him with praise. The reason is this: this was the first door opened to me from
the sacred treasuries of the All-Wise Qur‟an. Of the elevated Qur‟anic truths, it was the
truth of this verse that first became clear to me and it is this truth which pervades most
parts of the Risale-i Nur.”67

“A letter written in a book indicates itself in only one way, but it indicates its
writer and describes the one who inscribed it in many ways. Similarly, if all the words
inscribed in embodied form in the book of the universe show themselves to their own
extent, they show their Maker in numerous way, both singly and all together, and display
His names. Each is quite simply an ode written to sing the praises of its Maker through its
attributes, forms, and embroideries.”68

I said above that seeing the universe as a book and reading it is more vital and
effective in the works of the New Said. One of the best examples of this is in the Thirtieth
Flash, which is about the divine names:

“... the greatest manifestation of the divine name of Sapient has made the
universe like a book in every page of which hundreds of books have been written, and in
every line of which hundreds of pages have been included, and in every word of which
are hundreds of lines, and in each letter of which are a hundred words, and in every
point of which is found a short index of the book. The book‟s pages and lines down to the
very points show its Inscriber and Writer with such clarity that that book of the universe
testifies to and proves the existence and unity of its Scribe to a degree far greater than it
shows its own existence. For if a single letter shows its own existence to the extent of a
letter, it shows its Scribe to the extent of a line.

“Yes, one page of this mighty book is the face of the earth. (...) A single line of
the page is a garden. We see that written on this line are well-composed odes to the
 21

number of flowers, trees, and animals, together, one within the other, without error. One
word of the line is a tree which has opened its blossom and put forth its leaves in order
to produce its fruit. This word consists of meaningful passages lauding and praising the
All-Glorious Sapient One to the number of orderly, well-proportioned, adorned leaves,
flowers, and fruits. It is as though like all trees, this tree is a well-composed ode singing
the praises of its Inscriber. (...)

“... in all its blossoms and fruits is a balance. The balance is within an order, and
the order is within an ordering and balancing which is being constantly renewed. The
ordering and balancing is within an art and adornment, and the adornment and art are
within meaningful scents and wise tastes. Thus, each flower points to the All-Glorious
Sapient One to the number of the tree‟s blossoms.

“And in the tree, which is a word, the point of a seed in a fruit, which is like a
letter, is a small coffer containing the index and programme of the whole tree. And so on.
To continue the same analogy, through the manifestation of the name of Sapient and
Wise, all the lines and pages of the book of the universe -and not only its lines, but all its
words, letters, and points- have been made as miracles so that even if all causes should
gather together, they could not make the like of a single point, nor could they dispute it.
Yes, since each of the creational signs of this mighty Qur‟an of the universe displays
miracles to the number of points and letters of those signs...”69

As is seen here, Nursi calls the universe “the mighty Qur‟an of the universe,” and
he repeats it in many places. As was mentioned above, this approach in his early works
acted as the nucleus of the collection of works he later called the Risale-i Nur. Another
important point is that this viewpoint is Qur‟anic, that is, it is derived directly from the
Qur‟an; and it corroborates the line followed by Ghazzali, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, and
Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi.70 To put it another way, some of the points discussed in his
early works, were restated, in Şerif Mardin‟s words, in a “mytho-poetic” style that
addressed everyone.71 The aim of all these is to explain the relationship between the
universe and God, and eencourage the individual to form close relations with Him, based
on this. According to Nursi, the way man can rise to the highest degrees of affirming
divine unity, is to “look with the eye of wisdom at the lines of successive events inscribed
by the Pre-Eternal Inscriber on the broad dimensions of the pages of the world, and
ponder over their reality.”72

Seeing the universe as a missive from a transcendent being (the sublime

assembly), and reading it and drawing conclusions from it, forms the greater part of Said
Nursi‟s endeavours. It is also puts forward what the Qur‟an seeks from the individual:

“Due to the source of assistance and point of support in his heart, man‟s
conscience does not forget the Maker. Even if his mind ceases to work, his conscience
 22

does not; it is preoccupied with two important duties. It is like this: if one refers to his
conscience, [he will see that] like the physical heart conveys life to all the parts of the
body, knowledge of the Maker, the source of life of the heart, spreads life to all man‟s
various desires and inclinations which arise from his unlimited abilities and potentialities;
it affords them pleasure and value and expands and extends them.”73

Another conclusion is that “Knowledge of the Maker is [man‟s] only point of

support in the face of the thousands of misfortunes and troubles that afflict him
successively in this tumultuous life with its strife and clamour.” Powerful belief is thus the
foundation of a strong self; the pyschological state it generates is the force by which a
person may organize his life and withstand every sort of hardship.

It may be said that Said Nursi‟s project was the reestablishment of belief in God
and the other truths of belief. The answer he gave to criticism of this is striking; it both
describes the true nature of belief, and draws the parameters of the relationship between
man, the universe, and God, which should result from such belief:

“Now too in Istanbul, with a still more sinister intention, some hypocrites of
anarchist persuasion who have fallen prey to utter unbelief wish cunningly to deprive
everyone of the truths of the faith that are contained in the Risale-i Nur and are as
essential to man as bread and water. They say: „Every nation and every individual knows
God; we have no great need for new instruction in this matter.‟

“To know God, however, means to have certain belief in His dominicality
encompassing all beings, and in all things, particular and universal, from the atoms to
the stars, being in the grasp of His power, action, and will; it means believing in the
truths of the sacred words, „There is no god but God,‟ and assenting to them with one‟s
heart. For simply to say, „God exists,‟ and then to divide His sovereignty among causes
and Nature and attribute it to them; to recognize causes as sources of authority, as if -
God forbid- they were partners to God; to fail to perceive His will and knowledge as
present with all things; to refuse to recognize His strict commands, and to reject His
attributes, and the messengers and prophets He has sent - this has nothing to do with
the reality of belief in God. The person who does all this, then says „God exists,‟ does so
only in order to find some relief from the torment he suffers in the world after his
unbelief has made it a hell for him. Not to deny is one thing; to believe is something
completely different. No being endowed with consciousness, in the whole universe, can
indeed deny the All-Glorious Creator to Whom every particle of existence bears witness.
Or if he does make such a denial, he will be rebuffed by all of creation, and hence
become silent and diffident.

“But believing in Him is, as the Qur‟an of Mighty Stature informs us, to assent in
one‟s heart to the Creator with all of His attributes and names, supported by the
 23

testimony of the whole universe; to recognize the messengers He has sent and the
commands He has promulgated; and to make sincere repentance and feel genuine regret
for every sin and act of disobedience. Conversely, to commit every kind of sin, and then
never to seek pardon for it or concern oneself with it, is a sure sign of the absence of any
element of faith.”74

The opposite situation is represented by philosophy, which Said Nursi battled

against throughout his life. As was pointed out previously, these are the materialist-
mechanistic and existential nihilist viewpoints, which deny God and every sort of
metaphysical value.

2. Nursi’s Understanding of Man

The natural result of the differences in Sartre‟s and Nursi‟s views of existence is
that their views of man are also different. Sartre‟s saying “existence precedes essence”
sums up best his understanding of man. Rejecting the idea of a creative God, he
necessarily rejected the idea of man possessing an essence (nature) that pre-existed
him. Just like “being in itself,” man‟s being pre-dates every sort of essence. For since
there is no God and man has no pre-determined/created essence, he has to create
everything qualifiable himself; there is no value or transcendental being he has to comply
with. Man has to create all values himself and define their course. And while doing this he
is all alone. In fact, what makes man man is his ability to form this essence. “... in this
way man is saved from being defined by an essence that preceded all individuality and is
the same for all mankind, and is made a being with the ability to some way „create
himself.‟”75 This is the point Sartre deifies man, in Nursi‟s words, where the ego
becomes like the pharaoh, usurping God‟s place.76

In keeping with the understanding of existence we attempted to delineate above,

Said Nursi believes that the universe and man are created by a transcendent, creative
God: “... these beings have elevated positions and important duties; they are dominical
missives, divine mirrors, and divine officials.”77

According to Nursi, “man has been created on the most excellent of patterns and
has been given most comprehensive abilities.” That is, the Creator has given him a pre-
existent essence.78 However, this is not an obstacle to man‟s freedom and his self-
fulfilment, as Sartre supposed. If he grasps “the possibilities” offered him in both the
universe and in his own essence and makes the correct choices, “he may rise or fall to
stations, ranks, and degrees from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high, from
the earth to the Divine Throne, and from minute particles to the sun” in the arena of trial
and examination into which he has been cast.79 It is because of this that man also “has
 24

been sent to this world as a miracle of divine power, the result of creation, and a wonder
of divine art.” Thus, man‟s duty is not to create his own values and deify himself, but
discovering the perfect order/possibilities in the universe and in himself, to consciously
comply with the universal values, which have their basis in the Absolute, Transcendent
Being, and in this way to ascribe meaning to the universe and to his own life.

Nursi explains with the example of a seed that man has a pre-existent essence
and nature and that it is his duty to bring it out with his free will from “the potential” to
“the actual.”80 Once again it is seen from this how interdependent are the views of the
world and of man:

“Indeed, man resembles a seed. This seed has been given significant immaterial
members by divine power and a subtle, valuable programme by divine determining, so
that it may work beneath the ground, and emerging from that narrow world, enter the
broad world of the air, and asking its Creator with the tongue of its disposition to be a
tree, find a perfection worthy of it. If, due to bad temperament, the seed uses the
immaterial members given it in attracting certain harmful substances under the ground,
in a short time it will rot and decay in that narrow place without benefit. But if the seed
conforms to the creational command of, “God is the Splitter of the seed-grain and date-
stone”(6:95) and employs well those immaterial members, it will emerge from that
narrow world, and through becoming a large fruit-bearing tree, its tiny particular reality
and its spirit will take on the form of an extensive universal reality.

“Similarly, significant members and valuable programmes have been deposited in

man‟s nature by divine power and determining. If man uses those immaterial members
on the desires of his soul and on minor pleasures under the soil of worldly life in the
narrow confines of this earthly world, he will decay and decompose in the midst of
difficulties in a brief life in a constricted place like the rotted seed, and load the
responsibility on his unfortunate spirit, then depart from this world.”81

In another place, he describes the nature of the things of the physical world and
man‟s nature, and their relationship:

“All these fruits and the seeds within them are miracles of dominical wisdom,
wonders of divine art, gifts of divine mercy, material proofs of divine unity, bearers of the
good news that divine favours will be granted in the hereafter.

“Just as they are all truthful witnesses to His all-embracing power and knowledge
...

“Furthermore, just as the fruits and seeds are mirrors professing divine unity, so
they are the visible signs of divine determining (kader) and embodied tokens of divine
power. Through these words, divine determining and power intimate the following: „The
many branches and twigs of this tree appeared from a single seed and demonstrate the
 25

unity of the tree‟s Artist in creating it and giving it form. (...)‟

“In the same way, man, who is the fruit of the tree of the universe, is the purpose
of its creation and existence and the aim of the creation of beings. While his heart, which
is the seed of the fruit, is a most brilliant and comprehensive mirror to the universe‟s
Maker.”82

Only if man actualizes these abilities within the framework of Islam‟s values will
his situation be different. If, nurturing this seed of the potentialities entrusted to him in
his creation with the water of Islam and light of belief under the soil of worship, and
obeying the Qur‟anic commands, he directs these immaterial members towards their true
purposes, then his situation will be completely different; he will both advance on the way
of being a “perfect man,” and “a luminous, blessed fruit of the tree of creation.”

Another noteworthy point here is the symbolic use of three of the four elements,
water, light, and earth, in connection with man‟s spiritual advancement and maturation,
and the function with which man is charged. In any event, man has to actively build his
personality and self, and strive to be a „perfect man.‟83

A further point is that by nature man is “connected to and in need of most of tthe
varieties of beings in the universe.” As a result “his needs spread through every part of
the world, and his desires extend to eternity.”84 Here, Nursi is using a psychological
approach, and is investigating man‟s being either happy or unhappy in connection with
“the human situation.” This plays a part in whether or not he is happy, and is a
fundamental characteristic distinguishing him from the animals and other beings. For
man then, who is created in this way (Heidegger and Sartre would say “flung into the
world),” “the only true object of worship will be one in whose hand are the reins of all
things, with whom are the treasuries of all things, who sees all things, and is present
everywhere, who is beyond space, exempt from impotence, free of fault, and far above
all defect; an All-Powerful One of Glory, an All-Compassionate One of Beauty, an All-Wise
One of Perfection.”85 For it is only one possessing infinite power and knowledge who can
answer all man‟s infinite needs. In which case, it is only He Who is fit to be worshipped.

3. Man’s Nature and ‘I’

When making a comparison of Sartre and Nursi another question to consider is

that of the „I‟ or ego, for this concept or the way the „I‟ perceives and constructs itself,
constitutes an important part of their systems. The „I‟ or ego has held an important place
in Western philosophy since Descartes laid the foundations of modern philosophy. While
in the Islamic tradition, the concept goes back to Bayazid Bistami (d. 848) and Hallaj al-
Mansur (d. 922).86
 26

When Descartes wanted to construct his system on unshakeable foundations, he

did so on “the thinking I,” that is, the „I‟ or ego. He doubted everything, but because he
doubted was not doubtful, and finally made his famous statement, “I think; therefore I
am.” Since Descartes, the „I‟ or consciousness, as the subject who knows himself, has
been accorded a very important place in philosophy. For with these words, Descartes was
also introducing body-spirit dualism into philosophical debates as though it were
something unsolvable. It may be said that at base the debates of philosophers both
atheist and theist have centred on the body-spirit question. The results of this dualism in
science is another, lengthy, matter.87

Sartre too, when setting out his views on “being in itself,” posited
“consciousness,” that is, the „I‟, as the being who knows itself as opposed to the former,
and is aware of itself.88 Said Nursi addresses the question of the „I‟ or ego in the
Thirtieth Word. However, the „I‟ as Nursi describes it, is what human consciousness, or to
put it another way what man is, in relation to God, the Absolute Being. It is of the
greatest importance to understand the „I‟s true nature from this point of view.89 For
whether a person is a believer or unbeliever depends on his attitude to the „I‟ and how he
understands it. What is more:

“Just as the „I‟ is the key to the divine names, which are hidden treasures, so is it
the key to the locked talisman of creation; it is a problem-solving riddle, a wondrous
talisman. When its nature is known, both the „I‟ itself, that strange riddle, that amazing
talisman, is disclosed, and it discloses the talisman of the universe and the treasures of
the Necessary World.”

What is noteworthy here is that Nursi describes both the essence (mahiyet) of the
„I‟, and what it is. Firstly, in essence, the „I‟ is created by God and entrusted to man.
Then, having established this, it becomes the „I‟ that distinguishes one person from
another, making him what he is, original or otherwise. While the former aspect is given,
and in Descartes‟ words knowledge of it is “obvious,” the existence of the latter aspect is
tied to man. That is, it is man‟s moving towards the Absolute Being through his own
limited powers and faculties as a result of understanding himself. That is, in this second
sense, the „I‟s existence is functional; it is a means and measure for knowing the
Essential Being. Nevertheless, this is not a simple matter as is supposed, but one of the
most complex in the history of philosophy.

As in the Descartes example, he was aware of his own consciousness (the „I‟) aas
the clearest fact, then realizing his own limited nature deduced God‟s existence as a
perfect, transcendent Being. Then from God‟s existence he established the existence of
the outside world.90

However, after Descartes, his successors bifurcated into two. Some veered into
 27

the metaphysical world from the „I‟, and others, basing the „I‟ on “the body,” became
entirely engulfed in materialism, like Sartre and his thesis of “existence precedes
essence.” The debate still continues. As was mentioned above, in Nursi‟s view, this
supreme importance of the „I‟s formation and shaping is because it governs whether or
not a person is a believer:

“The key to the world is in the hand of man and is attached to his self. For while
being apparently open, the doors of the universe are in fact closed. God Almighty has
given to man by way of a Trust, such a key, called the „I‟, that it opens all the doors of
the world; He has given him an enigmatic „I‟ with which he may discover the hidden
treasures of the Creator of the universe. But the „I‟ is also an extremely complicated
riddle and a talisman that is difficult to solve. When its true nature and the purpose of its
creation are known, as it is itself solved, so will be the universe.”91

According to Nursi, the All-Wise Creator gave man his „I‟ as a trust. As was stated
above, the Trust mentioned in the Qur‟an, which the heavens, earth, and mountains
refused to undertake because they were daunted by it, is related to the „I‟. It is due to
this that mankind‟s history has been shaped in accordance with how the „I‟ has been
understood. The striking point here is the resemblance between Nursi‟s understanding of
the „I‟ and the Islamic tradition on the one hand, particularly, the Sufistic understanding,
and that of Descartes, according to whom “the „I‟ does not have an independent reality;
it is something whose existence is dependent on another and whose chief function is to
show that true existence.”92 In other words, the „I‟s existence is relative. It is relative in
the face of the Absolute Being‟s expressing and showing Himself; its existence is not of
itself. In Nursi‟s words:

“The All-Wise Maker gave to man as a Trust an „I‟ which comprises indications and
samples that show and cause to recognize the truths of the attributes and functions of
His dominicality, so that the „I‟ might be a unit of measurement and the attributes of
dominicality and functions of Divinity might be known. However, it is not necessary for a
unit of measurement to have actual existence; like hypothetical lines in geometry, a unit
of measurement may be formed by hypothesis and supposition. It is not necessary for its
actual existence to be established by concrete knowledge and proofs.”93

In explaining why knowledge of God‟s attributes and names is tied to the „I,‟ Nursi
follows logic similar to Descartes, basing his argument on God‟s being ppre-eternal, post-
eternal, and absolute, and man‟s being limited. He says that an Absolute Being cannot be
known, and that something hypothetical or imaginary is necessary so that He may be
known:

“Since an absolute and all-encompassing thing has no limits or end, neither may a
shape be given to it, nor may a form be conferred on it, nor may it be determined; what
 28

its quiddity is may not be comprehended. For example, an endless light without darkness
may not be known or perceived. But if a line of real or imaginary darkness is drawn, then
it becomes known. Thus, since God Almighty‟s attributes like knowledge and power, and
names like All-Wise and All-Compassionate are all-encompassing, limitless, and without
like, they may not be determined, and what they are may not be known or perceived.
Therefore, since they do not have limits or an actual end, it is necessary to draw a
hypothetical and imaginary limit. The „I‟ does this. It imagines in itself a fictitious
dominicality, ownership, power, and knowledge: it draws a line. By doing this it places an
imaginary limit on the all-encompassing attributes, saying, „Up to here, mine, after that,
His;‟ it makes a division. With the tiny units of measurement in itself, it slowly
understands the true nature of the attributes.”94

Nursi gives an example of this, and pointing out the things man owns(!),
investigates who the true owner is. The crux of the matter is this concept of ownership.
Who do I belong to, and who does the world about me belong to?95 This is the starting
point of man‟s perception of himself and things outside of himself. According to Nursi,

“... with its imagined dominicality over what it owns, the „I‟ may understand the
dominicality of its Creator over contingent creation. And with its apparent ownership, it
may understand the true ownership of its Creator, saying: „Like I am the owner of this
house, so too is the Creator the owner of the universe.‟ And with its partial knowledge, it
may understand His knowledge, and with its small amount of acquired art, it may
understand the originative art of the Glorious Maker. For example, the „I‟ says: „As I
made this house and arranged it, so someone must have made the universe and
arranged it,‟ and so on.”96

Nursi says that “Thousands of mysterious states, attributes, and perceptions

which make known and show to a degree all the divine attributes and functions are
contained within the „I‟.” Once again, his position is the reverse of the existentialist view,
which rejects the idea that man has an essence and nature that pre-existed him. On the
contrary, “the „I‟ is mirror-like, and, like a unit of measurement and tool for discovery, it
has an indicative meaning; having no meaning in itself, it shows the meaning of others.
It is a conscious strand from the thick rope of the human being, a fine thread from the
raiment of the essence of humanity, it is an Alif from the book of the character of
mankind, and it has two faces.”

Nursi explains these two faces of the „I‟ with the concepts of the significative
meaning of things (mana-yı harfi) and their nominal meaning (mana-yı ismi). These were
discussed above. However, in this context, “the real nature of the „I‟ is indicative; it
shows the meaning of things other than itself. Its dominicality is imaginary. Its existence
 29

is so weak and insubstantial that in itself it cannot bear or support anything at all.
Rather, it is a sort of scale or measure, like a thermometer or barometer, that indicates
the degrees and amounts of things; it is a measure that makes known the absolute, all-
encompassing and limitless attributes of the Necessary Being.”97

Nursi says that one “who knows his own self in this way, and realizes and acts
according to it, is included in the good news of, „Truly he succeeds who purifies it.‟(91:9)
He truly carries out the Trust, and through the telescope of his „I‟, he sees what the
universe is and what duties it is performing. When he obtains information about the
universe, he sees that his „I‟ confirms it. This knowledge will remain as light and wisdom
for him, and will not be transformed into darkness and futility. When the „I‟ fulfils its duty
in this way, it abandons its imaginary dominicality and supposed ownership, which are
the units of measurement, and it says: „His is the sovereignty and to Him is due all
praise; His is the judgement and to Him will you all be brought back.‟ It achieves true
worship. It attains the rank of „the Most Excellent of Patterns.‟”98

In Nursi‟s view, this is the „I‟s true aim and its face that makes man into a true
human being. All the revealed religions see man as the free addressee of the Absolute
Being. And the aim of religion is raise man to the level of „the perfect man‟ through his
own free consciousness, thus realizing the potentialities lodged in his nature by God.
However, “if, forgetting the wisdom of its creation and abandoning the duty of its nature,
the „I‟ views itself solely in the light of its nominal and apparent meaning, if it believes
that it owns itself, then it betrays the Trust, and it comes under the category of, „And he
fails who corrupts its.‟(91:11) It was of this aspect of the Trust, therefore, which gives
rise to all ascribing of partners to God, evil, and misguidance, that the heavens, earth,
and mountains were terrified; they were frightened of associating hypothetical partners
with God.”

4. The Relationship Between the Universe, the Unbeliever, and the

Believer

According to Said Nursi, the universe and all it contains does not only point to
God; it is also a question of it having relationships with those who either recognize Him
or do not recognize Him, and either loving them or loathing them. He says that all the
beings in the universe are concerned with how men perceive them and act towards them.
Quoting verse 8 of Sura al-Mulk, he says that the universe and elements become angry
with the people of misguidance. This is because, in the Qur‟anic context, all beings are
charged with elevated duties, and are divine officials, so while they are performing these
functions and glorifying their Sustainer, to deny and disbelieve in them casts them down
 30

from this high rank, “showing them to be lifeless, transitory, meaningless creatures.”

“The Wise Qur‟an states in miraculous fashion that the universe grows angry at
the evil of the people of misguidance, and the universal elements becomes wrathful, and
all beings, furious. In awesome fashion it depicts the storm visited on the people of Noah
and the assaults of the heavens and earth, the anger of the element air at the denial of
the „Ad and Thamud peoples, and the fury of the sea and element water at the people of
Pharaoh, and the rage of the element earth at Qarun, and in accordance with the verse,
„Almost bursting with fury,‟(67:8) the vehemence and anger of Hell at the people of
unbelief in the hereafter, and the rage of the other beings at the unbelievers and people
of misguidance; in miraculous fashion it restrains the people of misguidance and
rebellion.”99

When expounding verse 29 of Sura al-Dukhan, “The heavens and the earth wept
not over them,” which refers to the people of misguidance, Nursi is again drawing
attention to this dimension of the man-universe relationship:

“The explicit meaning of the verse is that the heavens and the earth do not weep
when the people of misguidance die. The implied meaning is that the heavens and the
earth do weep when the people of belief depart this world. For the people of
misguidance, through their denial of the duties and functions of the heavens and earth,
their ignorance of their meaning, their rejection of their value, their refusal to recognize
their Maker, are in fact acting insultingly and with hostility toward them. So, of course,
the heavens and earth will not weep over them, but in fact curse them and rejoice at
their death.

“As for the implied meaning, that the heavens and earth weep over the death of
the people of belief, this is because they know the duties and functions of the heavens
and earth, assent to their true realities, and understand, through belief, the meanings
they express. They say, „How beautifully they have been made, how finely they are
carrying out their duties.‟ They respect them and assign them their true worth. They love
them and the names they mirror for the sake of God Almighty. And so it is for this reason
that the heavens and earth grieve over the death of the people of belief as if
weeping.”100

Thus, in Nursi‟s view, everything is living, meaningful, and interrelated. All the
beings in the universe, animate and inanimate, both recognize God, and glorify Him.
They hear and obey His commands. Some of the stories of the prophets in the Qur‟an are
striking in this respect.101 What is more, in the face of HHeidegger‟s and Sartre‟s lonely
and anxious man, cast into the world and abandoned, Nursi portrays the true believer
“responds with love and fervour to the Most Merciful‟s making Himself known through the
fruits of His mercy, exclaiming „it is the miracles of Your artefacts that make You known!‟,
 31

feeling himself to be completely at home.” A question one is justified in asking here is

how the people of today who have no belief, are alienated from themselves, anxious and
unhappy -how can they stand it and carry on living? This is an important question. It has
been asked by the leading psychoanalysts of today, who have supplied various answers.
One of the most important of these is Eric Fromm, who says: “Modern man is alienated
from himself, from those around him, and from nature.”102 The most signficant reason
he gives for this is man being looked on as an object in modern society, and as consumer
goods, and as one of the herd. Modern man is alone. “... his loneliness is submerged in a
profound lack of confidence, unhappiness, and sense of guilt.”103

So what is the answer? Is there nothing to dispel this aloneness and unhappiness,
that will make him embrace life? Fromm says there must be, and adds:

“Our civilization has many distractions preventing awareness of this aloneness;

the strict, mechanized working conditions render people unaware of their most basic
human needs... they try to save themselves from the resulting distress through
amusements and the music and films provided by the entertainment industry; they try to
console themselves by continually buying new things; their characters are built on barter,
acquiring things, using them, and changing them. Whatever there is, spiritual or physical,
every thing becomes an object of consumerism and barter.”104

Said Nursi foresaw the pathetic situation of contemporary man that Fromm
describes here, before it happened, and insisted that man/humanity could not be happy
when he discarded religious values and lost his belief in God. He predicted that if the
irresistible attraction for capitalist society of science and technology united with the
instinctual desires of contemporary man, who in the search for happiness in this world
(for him the only world) abandons all religious values, he would be confronted by a
situation exactly the reverse of what he expects. This vision of Nursi sprang from his
profound understanding of existence and man. The following passage is striking:

“For if man does not recognize God and place his trust in Him, he becomes
extremely weak and impotent, needy and impoverished, a suffering, grieving and
ephemeral animal, exposed to endless misfortunes. Suffering continuously the pain of
separation from all the objects of love and attachment, he will ultimately abandon all of
his loved ones and go alone to the darkness of the grave. Throughout his life, he
struggles vainly, with an extremely limited will, slight power, a short lifespan and dull
mind, against infinite pains and hopes. To no avail he strives to attain innumerable
desires and goals. Even though he is unable tto bear the burden of his own being, he
takes the load of the vast world onto his wretched shoulders and mind. He suffers the
torment of Hell before even arriving there.”105

So how can he be saved from this hellish situation? As Fromm indicated,

 32

contemporary man tries to be saved through the distractions offered him by civilization.
“... in order to avoid feeling this grievous pain, this awesome spiritual torment, the
people of misguidance have recourse to a drunkenness that is like a form of stupor and
thus are temporarily able to avoid feeling their pain. But when they do feel it, they
suddenly feel the proximity of the grave.”

However, Nursi emphasizes that whatever civilization offers man to distract him, it
cannot satisfy his spirit, which yearns for eternity. He explains this as follows:

“For whoever is not a true bondsman of God Almighty will imagine that he owns
himself. But with his partial and limited will and his petty power and strength, he is
unable to administer and control his being in this tempestuous world. He sees thousands
of different sorts of enemy attacking his life, from harmful microbes to earthquakes. In
an awesome state of painful fear he looks towards the door of the grave, that at all times
appears dreadful to him.

“While in this state, man will also be troubled by the state of the world and of
mankind, for as a human being he is attached to both. But, he does not imagine them to
be in the control of One All-Wise, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Merciful and Generous, and
has attributed them instead to chance and to nature. And so, together with his own
pains, he suffers also the pains of the world and of mankind. Earthquakes, plagues,
storms, famine and scarcity, separation and decease; all of this torments him in the most
painful and sombre fashion.”106

It is exactly at this point that he addresses those who want to uproot religion and
spiritual matters from the life of the individual and society, and build a secular, irreligious
society:

“O wretched people of misguidance and dissipation! What accomplishment of

yours, what art, what perfection, what civilization, what progress, can confront this
awesome silence of the grave, this crushing despair? Where can you find that true
consolation that is the most urgent need of the human spirit?

“What nature, what causality, what partner ascribed by you to God, what
discovery, what nationality, what false object of worship, in each of which you place so
much trust and to which you attribute God‟s works and His sustaining bounties, which of
them can deliver you from the darkness of death that you imagine to be eternal
annihilation? Which of them can enable you to cross the frontiers of the grave, the
boundaries of the intermediate realm, the marches of the plain of resurrection, the
Bridge of Sirat? Or can bring about your eternal happiness? But know that most definitely
you will travel on this path for you cannot close the door of the grave.”107

It is interesting that in another work, when pointing out that “true happiness” is to
be found in belief in God and in recognizing and loving Him, Nursi introduces the
 33

discussion by mentioning the main aims of creation. Logically, we may list these as
follows:

“Be certain of this, that

(i) the highest aim of creation and its most important result is belief in God.

(ii) The most exalted rank in humanity and its highest degree is the knowledge of
God contained within belief in God.

(iii) The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for jinn and human beings is
the love of God contained within the knowledge of God.

(iv) And the purest joy for the human spirit and the sheerest delight for man‟s
heart is the rapture of the spirit contained within the love of God.”

So, to conclude, “all true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties, and untroubled
pleasure lie in knowledge of God and love of God; they cannot exist without them. One
who knows and loves God Almighty is potentially able to receive endless bounties,
happiness, lights, and mysteries. While one who does not truly know and love him is
afflicted spiritually and materially by endless misery, pain, and fears.”108

According to Nursi, “Even if such an impotent and miserable person owned the
whole world, it would be worth nothing for him, for it would seem to him that he was
living a fruitless life among the vagrant human race in a wretched world without owner or
protector. Everyone may understand just how wretched and bewildered is man among
the vagrant human race in this bewildering fleeting world if he does not know his Owner,
if he does not discover his Master. But if he does discover and know Him, he will seek
refuge in His mercy and will rely on His power. The desolate world will turn into a place of
recreation and pleasure, it will become a place of trade for the hereafter.”109

According to Nursi, the person who recognizes his Creator and Object of worship
is not an alien in this world, which means he has a positive relationship with all beings.
Thus, the believer may say:

“„My Compassionate Sustainer has made the world a house for me, the sun and
moon lamps for it, and the spring, a bunch of flowers for me, and summer, a table of
bounties, and the animals, He has made my servants. And He has made plants the
decorated furnishings of my house.‟”110

CONCLUSION

With both the thinkers I have attempted to study, their understandings of

existence are fundamental to their views of man, and with both there is a close link
between the two. As an atheistic thinker, Sartre rejected all spiritual values and tried to
 34

explain existence in terms of „being in itself‟ and „being for itself.‟ Everything other than
man, „being in itself,‟ was there of itself and was in need of nothing for its existence. He
claimed in consequence of this that complete futility, absurdity, chaos, and meaningless
prevailed over the universe. In such a universe, man could not have much meaning. He
had been flung into the world and abandoned there and he could not be saved from
meaningless. Man could only live in the face of all this absurdity by replying with
complete nihilism, and, denying all existent values, create his own. Or not live. For there
was no purpose in life and suicide was a way of life. Because Sartre propagated his ideas
in novels, plays, and essays, he was more influential than other existentialist writers. The
most prominent characteristics of man in such a situation, were “anxiety, fear,
uncertainty, and unhappiness.” In Kenan Gürsoy‟s words:

“Being faced with a purposeless, absurd world, and not accepting the existence of
any transcendent being -in the face of this double meaninglessness, man will suffer
profound anxiety. Since there is no God and no force outside himself to direct his actions,
he will feel himself to be abandoned in a complete void. He will realize that he will have
to create all his own values and that he is chained by his own absolute freedom. Since he
feels that he alone has the responsibility for himself and for everything in the world in
which he lives, he will experience absolute aloneness and absolute unhappiness within a
godless freedom that allows for no guilt, sin, repentance, forgiveness, or
contentment.”111

As a thinker, Said Nursi did not confined himself to the Qur‟anic line. He attached
the line‟s beginning to Adam and its end to the end of time. Opposing this line were
those who deny the revelational traditions. Nursi followed the revelational traditions and
their product, those approaches that ascribe existence to God. By imbuing existence and
man with meaning, this line „humanized‟ man and raised him to the highest level, that of
“the perfect man” on “the best of patterns.” According to Nursi, an overall view of human
history placed all the key figures who made positive contributions to humanity and
advanced it from its existent situation in this line. For the essential being is God, Who is
transcendent and absolute. God is the Creator of the universe including man. Man is the
last link in the chain of being, but the most important. He is the only being that, through
his free consciousness, can know both himself and the universe, and thus can recognize
or deny the Absolute Being. Since through his free will he can be conscious of himself
and the Absolute Being, the world he lives in is not alien or purposeless. He is the
Creator‟s “honoured guest” in this world. There are no splits in his ego or loneliness. He
finds happiness in the presence of the Absolute, transcendent Being. He has relations
with everything in the universe, for which reason everything is a sign or “missive”
making known the Absolute One.

Turner recognized that the Risale-i Nur offers new possibilities for understanding
 35

man and the universe. He says: “A work such as the Risale-i Nur, which reflects the light
of the Qur'an and illuminates the cosmos, cannot be ignored. For only Islam stands
between modern man and catastrophe, and I believe tthat the future of Islam depends
on the Risale-i Nur and on those who follow and are inspired by its teachings.”112 It may
be said that what underlies the interest shown the Risale-i Nur in Turkey, the Islamic
world, and in the West, is the universality of the Qur‟anic answers it sets out concerning
the questions of existence and man. This means that this interest will further increase in
the future and that the Risale-i Nur will continue to be an important text for all mankind.

Doçent Dr. İBRAHÜM ÖZDEMÜR

Faculty of Theology, Ankara University

1. Existentialism was a philosophical movement that appeared in the 19th

century. According to Walter Kaufmann, an expert on the subject, existentialism was not
a philosophy but the name given to several different „revolts‟ against traditional
philosophy. See, Kaufmann, Dostoyevski’den Sartre’a Varoluşculuk [Turk. trans. Akşit
Göktürk] (Istanbul: de yayınları, 1964), 5.

2. What is meant by the modern world-view are the ideas of people like Galileo,
Descartes, Bacon, Boyle, and Newton in the 17th century, which spreading in the 18th
century, came to be known as the Enlightenment. It underwent considerable changes in
the 18th and 19th centuries, coming to signify very different meanings. See, David Ray
Griffin, God and Religion in Postmodern Theology (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 52.

3. Martin Heidegger, Nietsche (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), iv, 28.

4. Michael Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity
(New York: 1982).

5. Berman, op. cit.

5. Berman, op. cit.

6. Roger Garaudy, 20. Yüzyıl Felsefesi: Garaudy’nin Felsefi Vasiyetleri [Turk.

trans.] (Ankara: Fecr Yayınevi, 1989), 74-5.

7. Griffin, God and Religion in Postmodern Theology, 17.

8. Ahmet Cevizci, art. “Humanist,” in Felsefe Sözlüğü (Istanbul: Paradigma,

1999), 431.

9. See, G. Marcel. “Theism and Personal Relationships,” in Cross Currents (1950-

1), v, 36.

10. See, Enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas: The Eclipse of “the
 36

Other” and the Myth of Modernity [Trans. Michael D. Barber] (New York: Continuum,
n.d.), Part One.

11. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), whom Garaudy called “the father of modern
Western philosophy,” followed in Hegel‟s tracks and defined the West‟s “other,”
legitimizing its right to rule. He asserted that the great divide between the ancient
Greeks and the barbarians still continued. Having recalled that the “being-man” scheme
first appeared with the Greeks, he wrote that by way of this “decision to be” and Plato‟s
discovery of “ideas,” the Europeans were the only people to know Being and Truth: “Due
this decision of the Greeks, rather than being a simple anthropological type like the
Chinese or Indians, European man had decided whether or not he bore within him an
absolute idea.” See, Garaudy, 20. Yüzyıl Felsefesi, 55-6. The distinction Nursi makes
while criticizing Europe is striking. In his view, Europe is twofold: one is the product of
ancient Greek and Roman philosophical geniuses, which deifies itself, and is materialist
and imperialist. And the other is the sincerely Christian Europe, which follows or tries to
follow the gist of Jesus‟ teachings. Nursi was opposed only to the first, which is hostile to
all spiritual values, responsible for moral degeneration, vice, and their resulting
problems, and which tries to conceal this with its entertainments sector and depravities.
See, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, The Flashes Collection [Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: Sözler
Publications, 2000), 160. For criticism of „Eurocentrism,‟ see, Samir Amin, Avrupa
Merkezicilik: Bir İdeolojinin Eleştirisi (Istanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları, 1993); Dussel, The
Invention of the Americas. See also, Pauline Moffitt Watt‟s review of the latter: “Review
of Dussel, The Invention of the Americas,” in American Historical Review, 102 No: 2,
(April 1997), 425-6; Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).

12. Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, Tarihçe-i Hayatı (Istanbul: Envar Neşriyat, 1996),
628-9.

13. Nursi, Tarihçe, 628.

14. Nursi, Tarihçe, 630.

15. Samuel Huntingdon is a world-famous political scientist and strategy expert,

and teaches in Harvard University. He sprang to fame on the publication on his entitled
“The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order,” in the journal Foreign
Affairs (Summer 1993; Nov/Dec 1993), of which he was the founder/editor. The ideas he
expressed provoked an immediate response worldwide, and hundreds of conferences,
panels, and symposia were organized to debate them. It was translated into various
languages, and numerous articles and books were written both in support and against.
The article was subsequently expanded and published in book form: The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

16. Colin Turner, “The Risale-i Nur: A Revolution of Belief,” in Panel I,

 37

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 1993), 156.

17. Gaston Berger defined the true philosopher and thinker like this: “the
philosopher may sometimes express contemporary knowledge, in which case he is not
the greatest. He is the greatest when he foretells what will happen tomorrow or when he
changes today‟s situation.” See, Garaudy, 20. Yüzyıl Felsefesi, 63.

18. Ibrahim Abu Rabi, Çağdaş İslami Hareketlerin Fikri Kökenleri [Turk. trans. M.
Ali Demirci] (Istanbul: Yöneliş, 1998); Ibrahim Abu Rabi, Islamic Resurgence and the
Challenge of the Contemporary World: A Round Table Discussion with Prof. Khurshid
Ahmad (Tampa: The World of Islam Institute).

19. Francis J. Lescoe, Existentialism, With or Without God (New York: Alba House,
1974).

20. Said Nursi must have been conversant with the philosophical debates
prevalent when he first came to Istanbul in 1907 and settled the Sweetmakers‟ Han. He
makes frequent reference to philosophy in the Risale-i Nur, which he started to write in
1926, and is severely critical of the philosophical discourse. In the collection of works he
wrote in Arabic before 1922 and collected together under the title of Mesnevi-i Nuriye, he
makes comparisons of the Qur‟an‟s discourse and that of philosophy, and criticizes and
refutes the philosophical approaches he calls “hostile to the Qur‟an.” This work was later
partially translated into Turkish by Nursi‟s brother, Abdülmecid, for which edition he
wrote a long and important introduction. See, Mesnevi-i Nuriye [Turk. trans. Abdülmecid
Nursi] (Istanbul: Envar Neşriyat, 1994). The work was translated in its entirety by
Abülkadir Badıllı (2nd. edn. 1998). In the 1940‟s or 50‟s, with the intention of breaking or
lessening Nursi‟s influence in schools and among university students in particular,
rumours were spread that Nursi was the enemy of science and philosophy. Whereupon
he clarified his position on the subject, approaching the question from a Qur‟anic angle:
“The philosophy at which the Risale-i Nur deals severe blows and attacks is not absolute;
it is rather its harmful sort. For the sort of philosophy that has served human society and
morality and achievement, and the advance of arts and industries, is reconciled with the
Qur‟an. Indeed, it serves the Qur‟an‟s wisdom and does not contest it. The Risale-i Nur
does not attack this sort.” However, there are other sorts of philosophy: (i) Those that
lead to misguidance, atheism, and „nature;‟ (ii) that through vice and amusements result
in heedlessness and misguidance; (iii) that oppose the Qur‟an‟s miraculous truths with
such „wonders‟ as magic. Thus, Nursi says that as a Qur‟anic commentary, “with most of
its parts, the Risale-i Nur challenges with its comparisons and powerful proofs the
misguided sort of philosophy, dealing it slaps. It does not bother with rightly-guided,
beneficial philosophy. It is because of this that students of the secular schools embrace
the Risale-i Nur unhesitatingly, without objecting to it, and so they should.” Emirdağ
Lahikası (Istanbul: Envar Neşriyat, 1992), i, 181-2. For Nursi‟s views about philosophy
 38

and his criticisms of philosophers see also, SŸleyman Hayri Bolay, “Bediuzzaman‟s View
of Philosophy,” in Third International Symposium on Bediuzzaman [Eng. trans.]
(Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 1997), i, 252-79; Alparslan Açıkgenç, “An Evaluation of
the Risale-i Nur from the Point of View of Knowledge and the Categorization of
Knowledge,” in Third International Symposium, ii, 101-116; Mehmed Aydın, “The
Problem of Evil in the Risale-i Nur,” in Third International Symposium, i, 243-51; Turner,
“The Risale-i Nur: A Revolution of Belief;” Abdülkadir Harmancı, Said Nursi’nin
Risalelerinde Kelam-Felsefe Problemleri (Istanbul: Ayışığı

Kitapları, n.d.).

21. See, Alparslan Açıkgenç, Being and Existence in the Works of Sadra and
Heidegger (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1993), 1-13.

22. Ayhan Aydın, Düşünce Tarihi ve İnsan Doğası (Istanbul: Alfa, 2000), 249.

23. See, Lescoe, Existentialism, 274-5; See also, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sözcükler: Az
Yaşam Öyküsü (Istanbul: Ada, 1983).

24. See, Lescoe, Existentialism; Kenan Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre Ateizmi’nin Doğurduğu

Problemler (Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 1987).

25. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 14.

26. As quoted in, Garaudy, 20. Yüzyıl Felsefesi, 83.

27. Garaudy, ibid.; Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 4.

28. Jean-Paul Sartre, Bulantı [Turk. trans.] (Istanbul: Varlık Yayınları, 1987).

29. Garaudy, 20. Yüzyıl Felsefesi, 81.

30. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 20.

31. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 21.

32. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 21.

33. Sartre, Varlık ve Yokluk; Jean Wahl, A Short History of Existentialism [Eng.
trans. F. Williams and S. Maron] (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 28-9; Colin
Wilson, Introduction to New Existentialism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1960), 58.

34. It is interesting that the mirror symbol is encountered frequently in Sufism

and in Nursi‟s works. However, the conclusions reached are very different.

35. Lescoe, Existentialism, 280-1. It appears that Sartre was influenced by

Heidegger‟s concept of dasein when he was developing his concept of consciousness.

36. Lescoe, Existentialism, 283.

37. Paul Tillich, “Existentialism and Psychotherapy,” in Review of Existential

Psychology and Psychiatry, I, No: 1, 9.

38. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 96/

 39

39. Quoted from, Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 96. Said Nursi makes frequent comparisons
of belief and unbelief, sometimes illustrating the states of mind of atheists. Although he
does not name existentialism, the types he portrays in the following fit very well. It is a
comparison of a believer who places his trust in God, and an unbeliever who does not:
“One time two men loaded heavy burdens onto both their backs and heads, and buying
tickets, boarded a large ship. As soon as they boarded it, one of them left his load on the
deck, and sitting on it guarded it. The other, however, since he was both stupid and
arrogant, did not put down his load. When he was told: „Leave that heavy load on the
deck and be comfortable,‟ he replied: „No, I won‟t put it down, it might get lost. I am
strong, I‟ll guard my property by carrying it on my head and back.‟ He was told again:
„This reliable royal ship which is carrying you and us is stronger, it can protect it better
than you. You may get giddy and fall into the sea together with your load. Anyway you
will gradually lose your strength, and by degrees those loads will get heavier and your
bent back and brainless head will not have the power to bear them. And if the Captain
sees you in this state, he will either say that you are crazy and expel you from the ship,
or he will think you are ungrateful, accusing our ship and jeering at us, and he will order
you to be put into prison. Also you are making a fool of yourself in front of everyone. For
the perceptive see that you are displaying weakness through your conceit, impotence
through your pride, and abasement and hypocrisy through your pretence, and have thus
made yourself a laughing-stock in the eyes of the people. Everyone‟s laughing at you.‟
Whereupon the unfortunate man came to his senses. He put down his load on the deck
and sat on it. He said to the other: „Ah! May God be pleased with you. I‟ve been saved
from that difficulty, from prison, and from making a fool of myself.‟” Nursi, The Words
[Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 1998), 323.

40. Roger Reneaux, Egzistansiyalizm Üzerine Dersler [Turk. trans. Murtaza

Korlaelçi] (Kayseri: 1994).

41. Reneaux, Egzistansiyalizm, 70.

42. Reneaux, Egzistansiyalizm, 70.

43. Reneaux, Egzistansiyalizm, 70.

44. Griffin, God and Religion, 17.

45. Nursi, The Words, 566.

46. Nursi, The Words, 667.

47. For the comparison of the two men on the boat, see, Nursi, The Words, 323.
See also, Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 96ff.

48. In the Islamic tradition, the word existence is used to refer to God alone. A
classic expression of this is to be found in Ghazzali‟s Mishkat al-Anwar. There are two
sorts of existence, necessary existence and contingent existence. Contingent existence is
 40

not self-subsistent; it is borrowed, on trust. Essentially, contingent existence is non-

existent; it exists only in relation to another. True existence is God. There is nothing
other than God in existence. And everything will cease to be other than His countenance.
See, Gazzali, Mişkatü’l-Envar [Turk. trans. Süleyman Ateş] (Istanbul: Bedir Yayınevi,
1994), 29-30. Consequently, Ghazzali says that everything has two faces, one of which
looks to the thing itself, while the other looks to God: “In respect of its own face, a thing
is non-existent, but in regard to God‟s aspect, it is existent. In which case, there is no
existent other than God and His aspect. So too, everything is death-tainted except His
pre-eternal, post-eternal face.” (See, ibid., 30) This concept of existence has certain
results for man in this world too. Ghazzali says that one does not have to wait till the Day
of Resurrection to hear the verse, “Whose will be the dominion that day? That of God,
the One, the Irresistible!” (40:16); indeed, it is constantly ringing in the ears of the
unbelievers. It is striking that Heidegger defines man as dasein in the face of existence,
and that some of the most prominent attributes of dasein are worry and anxiety. It is
interesting that seeing nothing to prevent man challenging the Absolute Being and
deifying himself, the existentialist tradition‟s most important concepts are “a feeling lost,
nothingness, non-existence, absurdity, anxiety, worry, fear, and despair.” For in the
Islamic tradition, there is a direct connection between recognizing the Absolute Being and
assuming a position before Him, and being happy or unhappy. For the relation between
belief in God, knowledge of God, and love of God and the resultant happiness in this
world and the next, see, Nursi, Letters 1928-1932 [Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: Sözler
Publications, 1997), 265.

49. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 4.

50. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 103. (Italics added)

51. For a comparison between the approaches to natural events of science and
the Risale-i Nur, see, Yamina Bouguenaya Mermer, “Cause and Effect in the Risale-i Nur,”
in Third International Symposium on Bediuzzaman, i, 40-53.

52. Muhammad Iqbal, The Secrets of the Self [Eng. trans. Reynold Nicholson]
(Lahore: Ashraf Printing, 1920).

52. Muhammad Iqbal, The Secrets of the Self [Eng. trans. Reynold Nicholson]
(Lahore: Ashraf Printing, 1920).

53. For Nursi‟s philosophy of the environment and its results for mankind, see,
İbrahim Özdemir, “Bediuzzaman Said Nursi‟s Approach to the Environment,” in Fourth
International Symposium on Bediuzzaman, 1998 [Eng. trans.] (Istanbul: Sözler
Publications, 2000), 680-703; Sadık Kılıç, “The Message of the Risale-i Nur in the
Ecological Context,” in Fourth International Symposium, 660-79; Kadir Canatan, “The
Paradigmatic Background to the Ecological Crisis and Said Nursi‟s Cosmological
 41

Teachings,” in Fourth International Symposium, 609-24; Oliver Leaman, “Islam, the

Environment, and Said Nursi,” unpublished paper presented at the Fifth International
Symposium on Bediuzzaman, 2000.

54. Turner, “The Risale-i Nur: A Revolution of Belief,” in Panel, 154-5.

55. Muhammad Lutfı Jum‟a, Tarıkh Falsafat al-Islam fi’l-Mashriq wa’l-Maghrib

(Jeddah: Dar al-Baz, 1345H), 78; quoted in, Yousuf Dadoo, “The Institution of
Prophethood for Three Sunni Scholars, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Imam Ghazzali, Shah
Wali Allah;” in, Fifth International Symposium on Bediuzzaman, 2000 (Istanbul: Sözler
Publications, 2002), 252.

56. Nursi, The Words, 143-4. (Italics added)

57. Nursi, The Words, 144-5.

58. Nursi, The Words, 488-9. In another place, he says the following about the
same subject: “The realities of all beings and of the universe are based on the divine
names. Each being‟s reality is based on one name or on many. The attributes of things
and the arts they display are also based on and rely upon a name. True natural science is
based on the name of All-Wise, true medicine on the name of Healer, and geometry on
the name of Determiner, and so on. In the same way that all the sciences are based on
and come to an end in a name, the realities of all arts and sciences, and of all human
attainments, are based on the divine names. Indeed, one group of the most learned of
the saints stated that the divine names constitute the true reality of things, while the
essences of things are only shadows of that reality.” (The Words, 655)

59. Nursi, The Words, 98-99 (italics added). In another context, it is put like this:
“If it be asked, „why do your parables consist chiefly of flowers, seeds and fruits?‟ our
answer is that they are the most wondrous, remarkable and delicate of the miracles of
God‟s power. Moreover, since naturalists, philosophers and the people of misguidance
have been unable to read the subtle script written upon them by the pen of destiny and
power, they have choked on them, and fallen into the swamp of nature.” (The Words, 99
fn 31)

60. Qur‟an, 17:44.

61. Qur‟an, 3:62; 42:5; 30:54, etc.

62. Nursi, The Words, 660.

63. For the relationship in Sufism between man and nature, and the views of the
great Sufi figures concerning this, see, Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of
God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1994); S. Hossein Nasr, Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (London: 1978);
Nasr, Sufi Essays (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991); Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature
(New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
 42

64. Nursi, Mesnevi-i Nuriye, 51.

65. Calling the style he employed “mytho-poetic,” some scholars have suggested
that Nursi reused these concepts most effectively in the period known as the New Said,
and that the power of the Risale-i Nur stemmed from this. See, Şerif Mardin, Religion and
Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: SUNY
Press, 1989), 17, 181, 205, 207, 217; Said Nursi developed his earlier ideas in his works
of the New Said period, and said that his previous works were a sort of “seed” and
“nursery” for the Risale-i Nur. See, Mesnevi-i Nuriye, 8.

66. Nursi, Barla Lahikası (Istanbul: Envar Neşriyat, 1994) 348. “According to the
apparent meaning of things, which looks to each thing itself, everything is transitory,
lacking, accidental, non-existent. But according to the meaning that signifies something
other than itself and in respect of each thing being a mirror to the All-Glorious Maker‟s
names and charged with various duties, each is a witness, it is witnessed, and it is
existent.” (The Words, 493) Moreover, “Love this world and the creatures in it as pointing
to a meaning beyond themselves, like a word. Do not love them just for themselves.
Say, „How beautifully they have been made.‟ Do not say, „How beautiful they are.‟ Do not
give any opportunity to other loves to enter into your inner heart because the inner heart
is the mirror of the Eternally Besought One and pertains only to Him.” (The Words, 670)

66. Nursi, Barla Lahikası (Istanbul: Envar Neşriyat, 1994) 348. “According to the
apparent meaning of things, which looks to each thing itself, everything is transitory,
lacking, accidental, non-existent. But according to the meaning that signifies something
other than itself and in respect of each thing being a mirror to the All-Glorious Maker‟s
names and charged with various duties, each is a witness, it is witnessed, and it is
existent.” (The Words, 493) Moreover, “Love this world and the creatures in it as pointing
to a meaning beyond themselves, like a word. Do not love them just for themselves.
Say, „How beautifully they have been made.‟ Do not say, „How beautiful they are.‟ Do not
give any opportunity to other loves to enter into your inner heart because the inner heart
is the mirror of the Eternally Besought One and pertains only to Him.” (The Words, 670)

67. Nursi, Barla Lahikası, 335.

68. Nursi, Mesnevi-i Nuriye, 14. (Italics added)

69. Nursi, The Flashes Collection, 404-5.

70. Nursi describes this as follows: “Since the Old Said proceeded more in the
rational and philosophical sciences, he started to look for a way to the essence of reality
like that of the Sufis (ehl-i tarikat) and the mystics (ehl-i hakikat). But he was not
content to proceed with the heart only like the Sufis, for his intellect and thought were to
a degree wounded by philosophy; a cure was needed. Then, he wanted to follow some of
the great mystics, who approached reality with both the heart and the mind. He looked,
 43

and each of them had different points of attraction. He was bewildered as to which of
them to follow. Imam Rabbani imparted to him from behind the veil of the Unseen: „Take
only one as your qibla.‟ That is, „Follow only one master.‟ It occurred to the much-
wounded heart of the Old Said that „the Qur‟an is the true master. It should be the one
master to follow.‟ Then through the guidance of that sacred master both his heart and his
spirit started to „journey‟ in truly strange fashion, while through its doubts and misgivings
his evil-commanding soul compelled him to struggle both spiritually and on the level of
scholarship. He journeyed through the stations that those immersed in divine
contemplation journeyed with the eyes closed, like Imam Ghazzali, Mawlana Jalaluddin,
and Imam Rabbani with the eyes of the heart, spirit, and intellect all open. All thanks be
to God Almighty, through the instruction and guidance of the Qur‟an, he found a way to
reality and entered upon it. In fact, he showed through the Risale-i Nur of the New Said
that it reflected the truth expressed by the saying „And in everything is a sign indicating
that He is One.‟” (Mesnevi, 7)

In another place, he points out that in distinction to the great Islamic philosophers
and some Sufis, he had taken the Qur‟an as his guide: “If you say: „Who do think you are
to challenge these famous philosophers? You are like a mere fly and yet you meddle in
the flight of eagles,‟ I would reply: „While having a pre-eternal teacher like the Qur‟an, in
matters concerning truth and the knowledge of God, I do not have to attach as much
value as that of a fly‟s wing to those eagles, who are the students of misguided
philosophy and deluded intellect. However inferior I am to them, their teacher is a
thousand times more inferior than mine. With the help of my teacher, whatever caused
them to become submerged did not so much as dampen my toes. An insignificant private
who acts in accordance with the laws and commands of a great king is able to achieve
more than a great field marshal of an insignificant king...‟” (The Words, 568 fn 19)

71. Şerif Mardin, Religion and Social Change.

72. Nursi, Mesnevi-i Nuriye, 247.

72. Nursi, Mesnevi-i Nuriye, 247.

73. Nursi, Muhakemat (Istanbul: Sözler Yayınevi, 1977), 106.

74. Nursi, Emirdağ Lahikası (Istanbul: Envar Neşriyat, 1992), i, 203 / The Key To
Belief, 100-2.

75. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 61. For discussion of this, see, Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 66ff.
The English thinker Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a contemporary of Sartre and open
atheist like him, agreed on man‟s self-deification. Although their arguments were
different, their starting points were both denial of God and they agreed on the universe‟s
meaninglessness and man‟s self-deification. See, Robert E. Enger and Lester E. Dennon
(Eds.), The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959 (New York: Simon & Schuster,
 44

1961), 67ff.

76. Nursi, The Words, 557ff.

77. Nursi, The Words, 329. Also, “The nature of man and the „I‟ within his nature
have been Ş (77. cont.) explained clearly and in detail in the Eleventh Word, as
indicating something other than themselves. They are shown to be a most sensitive scale
and accurate measure, an encompassing index and perfect map, a comprehensive
mirror, and a fitting calendar and diary for the universe.” (The Words, 560-1)

78. Nursi, The Words, 328.

79. Nursi, The Words, 328.

80. Note should be taken of the concepts „active (fa’al) and „activity‟ (fa’aliyet). As
E. Fromm says, rather than meaning performing some action in daily life or being
activated or working hard to get something, „activity‟ means “intense thinking, the
highest activity possible.” That is, action of the spirit. Fromm says that this can be
achieved only with inner freedom and independence. The meaning today however, is to
expend effort to achieve some outward aims. (Fromm, Sevme Sanatı [Turk. trans. IşÝtan
Gündüz] (Istanbul: Say Yayınları, 1993), 29-30.

81. Nursi, The Words, 330-1.

81. Nursi, The Words, 330-1.

82. Nursi, The Words, 640-1.

83. In Sufism, this struggle or spiritual journeying is undertaken under the

guidance of a shaykh. But in the Risale-i Nur‟s method, there is no shaykh but the text.
One researcher explains as follows the responsibility the Risale-i Nur lays on the
individual, in distinction to Sufism, and the personal effort and activity he has to perform
in order to overcome his „I‟: The absence of a shaykh and presence of written knowledge
tend to produce a more individualistic person accustomed to using his intelligence. It
takes a lot of time and much effort to read thousands of pages. Each reader profits
according to his own mental capacity and enthusiasm to learn. So what each learns from
the Risale-i Nur will differ according to his mental abilities. The reader has to employ the
highest degree of logic and reason in order to grasp the ideas in the books. (...)
Moreover, the main aim of the readings within the community are not only “the heart and
spirit,” but also “reason and logic.” What is interesting here is that the activities of logic,
reading, and reasoning greatly strengthen the impulses of the heart. See, Uğur
Kömeçoğlu, “Kutsal ile Kamusal: Fethullah Gülen Cemaat Hareketi,” in Nilüfer Göle (ed.),
İslamın Yeni Kamusal Yüzleri, Bir Atölye çalışması (Istanbul: Metis, 2000), 161. (Italics
added)

84. Nursi, The Words, 328.

 45

84. Nursi, The Words, 328.

85. Nursi, The Words, 328. This idea of God as transcendent, living, and all-
present everywhere, is to be found everywhere in Nursi‟s works and teachings. The true
believer is continuously in the divine presence. However, unlike with Kierkegaard, “with
fear and trembling” in the presence of the transcendent being, but with a true sense of
the divine presence. According to Nursi, the Risale-i Nur student, “Attaining a sense of
the Divine presence through the strength of certain, verified belief and through the lights
proceeding from reflective thought on creatures which leads to knowledge of the Maker;
thinking that the Compassionate Creator is all-present and seeing; not seeking the
attention of any other than He, and realizing that looking to others in His presence or
seeking help from them is contrary to right conduct in His presence; one may be saved
from such hypocrisy and gain sincerity.”(The Flashes Collection, 217) The key concept
here is „huzur‟ or sense of the divine presence, but he uses it in such a way that he
makes a direct connection between the Sufi „rank‟ of „huzur‟ and the word in its meaning
of happiness and peace of mind. Besides inferring that true peace of mind can be
attained only by rising to the rank of awareness of the divine presence, he points out that
the Risale-i Nur method comprises reflective thought on creatures and benefits from the
effulgence proceeding from this, which shows where it departs from the traditional Sufi
understanding.

86. In Arabic, „ana‟ is the first person singular personal pronoun, meaning „I‟.
Some early Sufis such as Bayazid al-Bistami and Hallaj al-Mansur used it as „I‟. Hallaj
prayed, “My „I‟ is a veil between us; remove what is between my „I‟ and Yours,” and
distinguished between the lower „I‟ and the transcendent „I‟. Ghazzali (d. 1111) stated
that the soul (ego) was the first veil between God and His servants, and was a divine
subtle faculty. Most of the scholars of kalam believed that the „I‟ indicated the body,
which had gained existence through the spirit, while the Maturidis said it referred not to
the body, but to the humanity (articulate soul - al-nafs al-natiqa), through which it had
existence. Another interesting view of the „I‟ was that of Ibn Khaldun, who looked on it as
an element of social and political life. He said that egoism was a part of human nature
that could so far as self-deification. See, Süleyman Uludağ, art. “Ene,” in Türkiye Diyanet
Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: TDV, 1995), xi, 232-3.

87. See, Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point (London: HarperCollins, 1983).

87. See, Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point (London: HarperCollins, 1983).

88. According to Iris Murdoch, by centering his philosophy on analysis of the

consciousness, Sartre was a Cartesian philosopher. See, Sartre Yazarlığı ve Felsefesi
(Istanbul: de Yayınları, 1964), 70.

89. In Mesnevi-i Nuriye, a work of his early period, Nursi insistently discusses the
 46

„I‟, saying that it has posed a problem for him for thirty years: “For thirty years I have
been struggling with two idols. One of these is the „I‟ in man, and the other is „nature‟ in
the world. As for the „I‟, I saw it to be a shadow-like mirror that reflects one other than
itself, but because man looks at it for itself and as signifying itself, it becomes
overweening like a pharaoh or nimrod. Also, I saw that nature was divine art and a
dominical colouring, but because man looks at it without due thought, it is transformed
and in the eyes of the naturalists becomes nature and is looked on as a god. It therefore
becomes a source of ingratitude for bounties and leads to unbelief.” See, Mesnevi-i
Nuriye [Turk. trans. Abdülkadir Badıllı], 262, 440-3. (Seeing that this was written in
1922, thirty years previously was 1892, which is interesting from the point of view of
understanding the place of the „I‟ in the formation of Nursi‟s thought. The „I‟ was
subsequently discussed in detail in the Thirtieth Word.)

90. Descartes, Metod Üzerine Konuşma [Turk. trans. Mehmet Karasan] (Ankara:
MEB, 1947), part 4. See also, Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy (New York:
Image Books, 1963), iv, 95.

90. Descartes, Metod Üzerine Konuşma [Turk. trans. Mehmet Karasan] (Ankara:
MEB, 1947), part 4. See also, Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy (New York:
Image Books, 1963), iv, 95.

91. Nursi, The Words, 558.

92. Descartes, Metod Üzerine Konuşma, 42-5.

93. Nursi, The Words, 558.

94. Nursi, The Words, 558.

95. It is noteworthy that nowadays even religiously minded people say, “I‟ll live
my life as I please, I‟ll spend my money as I want,” which springs from the idea of “my
life, my property.” It might be thought normal for those who reject the idea of an
Absolute Being and Owner of all things and deify the „I‟ to say this, but if those who claim
to believe say it, it is a good example of how existentialist and nihilist ideas have spread.

96. Nursi, The Words, 558-9.

97. Addressing himself, Nursi describes the true nature of life: “It is an index of
wonders pertaining to the divine names; a scale for measuring the divine attributes; a
balance of the worlds within the universe; a list of the mighty world; a map of the
cosmos; a summary of the vast book of the universe; a bunch of keys with which to open
the hidden treasuries of divine power; and a most excellent pattern of the perfections
scattered over beings and attached to time.” (The Words, 141)

98. Nursi, The Words, 559.

99. Nursi, The Flashes Collection, 119.

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100. Nursi, The Words, 667-8.

101. When discussing the stories of the prophets, Nursi described how the fire did
not burn Abraham, and the seas parted for Moses but overwhelmed Pharaoh, and water
poured forth when Moses struck his staff on the rock, and the moon split in two at the
sign made by Muhammad (PBUH), which shows that he looked on the universe as living
and conscious and heeding the divine commands, and at the divine command behaved
differently for the prophets. See, The Words, 17, 253-275.

102. E. Fromm, The Sane Society (New York: Rinehart and Co., 1955); Fromm,
Sevme Sanatı, 87.

103. Fromm, Sevme Sanatı, 88.

104. Fromm, Sevme Sanatı, 88.

105. Nursi, The Words, 661-2.

106. Nursi, The Words, 662.

107. Nursi, The Words, 663.

108. Nursi, Letters, 265.

109. Nursi, Letters, 265.

110. Nursi, The Words, 338.

111. Gürsoy, J. P. Sartre, 105.

112. Turner, “The Risale-i Nur: A Revolution of Belief,” in Panel, 159.