Said Nursî was an Ottoman theologian and scholar of Kurdish decent who wrote the Risale-i Nur (The Treatise of Light) Collection, a body of Qur’anic commentary exceeding six thousand pages. His works would later influence some contemporary Turkish scholars, most notably Fethullah Gulen. During his time in the service of the governer of Van Province, he devised a plan for university education for the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. By combining scientific and religious (Islamic) education, the university was expected to advance the philosophical thoughts of these regions. Though not a Traditionalist, in the strictest sense, he did lay forth some of the more esoteric aspects of Sunni Islam in plain terms.
1. The prescription for a sick age, an ailing nation, an ill member, is to follow the Qur’an.
2. The prescription for a glorious though unfortunate continent, an illustrious though hapless state, a noble though ownerless people, is Islamic Unity.
3. One who does not have the strength to raise and turn the earth and all the stars and suns as though they were beads of a tesbih cannot lay claim to creating anything in the universe. For everything is tied to everything else.
4. The raising to life of all animate beings at the resurrection of the dead can be no more difficult for Divine Power than restoring to life a fly in the spring, heavy with the death-stained sleep of winter. For Pre-Eternal Power is essential; it does not change; impotence cannot penetrate it; obstacles cannot intervene in it; there can be no degrees in it; everything is the same in relation to it.
5. He who created the eye of the mosquito is the one who created the sun.
6. The one who ordered the stomach of a flea is also the one who ordered the solar system.
7. There is such miraculousness in the universe’s compilation that if to suppose the impossible all natural causes possessed will and the power to act, they would still prostrate in utter impotence before such miraculousness, exclaiming: “Glory be unto You! We have no power; indeed You are the Mighty, the Wise!”
8. An actual effect has not been given to causes, for Divine Unity and Glory require it to be thus. Only, in the outer aspect of things, causes are a veil to the Hand of Power; and this, Divine Dignity and Grandeur require, so that in the superficial view the Hand of Power should not be seen to be directly in contact with lowly things.
9. The inner dimensions of things, where Divine Power has its connection, are transparent and pure.
10. The Manifest World is a lace veil strewn over the Worlds of the Unseen.
11. An infinite power sufficient to create all the universe is necessary to create a single point and set it in its place. For every letter of this Mighty Book of the Universe, and particularly all its living letters, has a face looking to all the sentences, and an eye that beholds them.
12. It is well-known: they all looked for the crescent moon of the ‘Id, but no one could see it. An elderly man swore he had seen it. But what he had seen was not the crescent moon; it was a curved white eyelash. What is an eyelash compared with the moon?… What is the motion of minute particles compared with the one who fashions all beings?
13. Nature resembles a printing-press, not the printer. It is an embroidery, not the Embroiderer. It is passive, not active. It is a pattern, not a source. It is an order, and not the Orderer. It is a law, not a Power. It is a code of laws proceeding from a will, not an external reality.
14. The lure and attraction in the conscience, which is the essential nature of conscious beings, is felt through the appeal of a drawing truth.
15. The essential nature of beings does not lie. The inclination to grow in a seed declares: “I shall sprout and produce fruit!” It speaks the truth. In an egg is the desire for life; it says: “I shall be a hen!,” and this comes about, with Divine permission. It speaks the truth. Due to the inclination to freeze, a handful of water says: “I shall take up more space!,” and unyielding iron cannot give it the lie; the rightness of its words splits the iron. These inclinations are the manifestations of the creative commands proceeding from Divine Will.
16. God, who did not leave ants without a prince, or bees without a queen, certainly does not leave mankind without prophets.
17. The two phrases of the confession of faith testify to each other. The first is ‘the proof of cause to effect’ of the second, while the second is ‘the proof of effect to cause’ of the first.
18. Life is a sort of manifestation of Unity within multiplicity, and therefore leads to unity. Life makes one thing the owner of everything.
19. Spirit is a law possessing external existence, a conscious law. Like the stable and enduring laws of creation, spirit comes from the World of the Divine Command and the attribute of Will. Divine Power clothes it an existence decked out with senses. He makes a subtle, flowing being the shell to that jewel. Existent spirit is the brother of the conceivable law. They are both enduring and come from the World of the Divine Command. If Pre-Eternal Power had clothed the laws governing in the species of beings in external existence, they would have been spirits. And if the spirit banishes consciousness, it still would be an undying law.
20. Beings are visible through light, and their existence is known through life. Both are revealers.
22. It is the sacredness of the authority more than proof that drives the mass of the people to conform.
23. The essentials and incontestable matters of religion, which form ninety-nine per cent, are each diamond pillars, while the controversial matters which are open to interpretation form only ten per cent. Ninety diamond pillars may not be put under the protection of ten gold pillars. Books and interpretations should be telescopes for observing the Qur’an; they should be mirrors; not shadows or deputies!
24. Anyone who is capable may make interpretations of the Law for his own self; but he cannot make the Law.
25. Calling others to accept an idea is dependent on acceptance by the ‘Ulama; otherwise it is innovation, and should be rejected.
26. Since by nature man is noble, he seeks the truth. Sometimes he encounters the false, but supposing it to be the truth preserves it in his heart. Then, when delving into reality, without his willing it, misguidance strikes him on the head; supposing it to be reality, he plunges his head into it.
27. Divine Power has many mirrors, each more subtle and transparent than the last; they vary from water to air, and air to ether, and ether to the World of Similitudes; from the World of Similitudes to the World of Spirits, and even to time, and to thought. A single word in the mirror of the air becomes millions of words. The Pen of Power writes this mystery of reproduction in truly wondrous manner. The reflection contains either its identity or its identity together with its nature. The images of dense beings are moving but dead. While the images of a luminous spirit in their own mirrors are living and linked with it; even if they are not identical, they are not other than it.
29. If the light of thought is not illuminated with the light of the heart and blended with it, it is darkness and breeds tyranny. If the white of the eye, which resembles day, was not together with its black pupil, which resembles night, the eye would not be the eye; it would be unseeing. Similarly, if the black core of the heart is not present in white thought, it lacks insight.
30. If knowledge lacks the insight of the heart, it is ignorance. Taking the part of something is one thing, belief is something else.
Hey Dawud, great research! Beduizzaman, which means the miracle of the time, as this nickname was given to him by His Madrasa master as an appreciation to his unbelievable keen intelligence and understanding of the Quran. Gulen one of his followers has perfect understanding of his works and other Islamic resources. Gulen not only influenced Turkey, but also the whole world. I visited him during Eid; that was very a Sufi environment with wisdom and spectacular realm of being with someone whom you know Allah opens his heart to the unknown (Gayb) to attain hidden knowledge (Batini).
Bediuzzaman was the only scholar of islam to give the scientific facts in interperation of Quran. that s why we call him the scholar who bring modern education and traditional education togather. What actually did he do? he combined traditional Islamic knoweldge with modern science and education. He also wrote a math book and he solved the “Ebced” calculation.
Gulen was also a great voice for Islamic revival. He doesn’t have any political aim to achieve or any contraversial issue has no place in his time. He was at top of the most influential intellectual person living the world by Foreign Policy Magazine. Actually even it s not good to mention it. because when they told him he was the most influential man in the world today, he pretended not hear it.