Grappling with Modern Civilization: Said Nursi's Interpreatative Key

By Thomas Michel

1. The need to discern

One of the most difficult challenges which our age presents to every believer in God is to assess critically the modern civilization in which we live. The life in which we find ourselves today is a confusing, even bewildering, mix of contradictions. There is much in modern civilization that is attractive, much that is useful and that makes life easier, more comfortable, and more enjoyable. At the same time, everyone who takes seriously the gift of faith with which God has blessed him or her is aware that modern civilization is not always in agreement with that faith and, in fact, it often seems to oppose the life of faith and obedience to which we are called.

To many people, religion seems unnecessary, for many of the reasons that in former times led people to turn to religion are today handled by science. When modern people are sick, they go to the doctor. When depressed, they see a psychiatrist or counselor. When they need water for their crops, they don’t pray for rain, but install an irrigation system. From that, it is a short step for modern people to say that they no longer need God, for science can provide adequate solutions to the problems that arise in regard to survival, health, and well-being.

For believers, it is not simply that modern civilization tends to exile God to the margins of daily consciousness and activity. Modern civilization also offers a value system that is at odds with that of religion. It defines happiness differently from religious thought. Success and failure are counted in different terms. Self-fulfillment is regarded as a basic human motivation, and possession of consumer goods is considered a mark of personal achievement. It follows from this that competition becomes the moving force of modern life, and the world comes to be divided into the winners and the losers.

For those of us, Muslims, Christians, and others for whom God is the beginning, the center, and the end of our existence, and for whom God’s will is the criterion of good and evil, we need a way to sort out what is truly valuable in modern civilization from what is ephemeral and destructive. We need intellectual tools to be able to analyze the civilization in which we live so that we do not buy rotten fruit along with the fresh, so that we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

In my opinion, it is the lifetime achievement of Said Nursi that in the Risale-i Nur he was able to provide modern Muslims with the interpretative tools they need to analyze modern civilization, so that they can discern what is of genuine and lasting value in modern life and so that they can also see clearly the harmful and self-destructive tendencies that lie beneath its glittering surface. Nursi’s analysis of modern civilization is complex and subtle, and I can do no more than mention several aspects that appear to me as especially worthy of our reflections today. I will approach this topic in two parts, firstly, by summarizing Said Nursi’s critique of modern civilization in the Risale-i Nur and, secondly, by looking at his efforts to reconcile what is good in this civilization with the demands of religious faith.

PART I: NURSI’S CRITIQUE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION

2. Modern civilization is two

What we are accustomed to call “modern civilization” or “Western civilization” Said Nursi usually referred to as “European civilization,” or simply as “Europe.” This is logical, since modernity, not only in the sense of scientific and technological advances, but also in its philosophical underpinnings, first took root in Europe and from there was brought to every corner of the world. Today much of the leadership in propagating the modern world-view and life-style has been taken up by the U.S.A., which employs its extensive financial, military, organizational, and communication resources to this end. The globalization trends which Nursi foresaw almost a century ago have now made what he was accustomed to call collectively “Europe” into a truly worldwide phenomenon, with cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, and Sao Paolo taking their place as focal points of disseminating modernist ideas alongside earlier centers such as Paris, London, Berlin and Washington.

So when Nursi makes his famous statement, “Europe is two,” he is really writing about the modern world in which we are all living today. Looking at our world at the start of the 21st Century, religious believers could well apply Nursi’s basic insight and say “Modern civilization is two.” From this starting point concerning the duality of modern civilization, Nursi posits the need to discern and distinguish among the contradictory phenomena that go to make up globalized modernity. He states: "Europe is two. One follows the sciences which serve justice and right and the industries beneficial for the life of society through the inspiration it has received from true Christianity; this first Europe I am not addressing. I am rather addressing the second, corrupt Europe which, through the darkness of the philosophy of naturalism, supposing the evils of civilization to be its virtues, has driven mankind to vice and misguidance."

If Nursi’s evaluation of European civilization can sometimes appear to focus on the negative, it is because he has no quarrel with the “first Europe,” which retains the values of faith, justice, and social harmony. He is concerned rather with warning people about what is involved in modern civilization so that they can take the necessary measures to withstand its dangerous charms. He is seeking to refute the corrupt Europe’s false claims and lay bare its harmful philosophical infrastructure. He states: "On my journey of the spirit at that time I said to Europe’s collective personality, which apart from beneficial science and the virtues of civilization, holds in its hand meaningless, harmful philosophy and noxious, dissolute civilization: “Know this, O second Europe! You hold a diseased and misguided philosophy in your right hand, and a harmful and corrupt civilization in your left, and claim, ‘Mankind’s happiness is with these two!’”

Nursi sees modern man at a crossroads. What direction is he going to go? What path will he take? Will he accept and live according to the whole package that modern life offers, or will he take the time and effort to stop to analyze and distinguish? What intellectual and spiritual tools will he employ to sort out the grain from the mass of dirt and stones with which it is gathered? For Nursi, it is the Qur’an that offers the criteria for what is to be saved and what is to be discarded. "Of two brothers, one is a believing spirit and a righteous heart. The other is an unbelieving spirit with a depraved heart. Of the two roads, the one to the right is the way of the Qur’an and belief in God, while the left one is the road of rebellion and denial. The garden on the road is man’s fleeting life in human society and civilization, where good and evil, and things good and bad and clean and dirty are found side by side. The sensible person is he who acts according to the rule: ‘Take what is pleasant and clear, and leave what is distressing and turbid,’ and goes on his way with tranquility of heart."

3. A civilization built on materialist values

In numerous places, Nursi points up the contrast between the societal values proposed by modern civilization and the vision of society presented by the Qur’an. To Nursi the Qur’anic vision differs only in details from what had been proposed by all the prophets before Muhammad, hence it is a vision that Muslims share with “true Christians” who are followers of the prophet Jesus. Jesus’ Christian followers sought to build Europe on these prophetic values, but this effort was sabotaged from the beginning by their reliance on Greco-Roman philosophy.

In the 18th-19th Centuries, by way of the naturalist and materialist philosophies propounded by the scholars of the Enlightenment, even the vestiges of prophetic teaching which remained in European civilization were attacked and abandoned. Thus, the Enlightenment philosophers set about building “modern Europe” on principles of their own making, and modern Western civilization is the fruit of their labors. Since the principles on which they based the new civilization were the result of their human rationalist speculations which rejected the teaching of the prophets, modern civilization offers a very different set of values which should characterize social relations.

Nursi saw the same process that had previously occurred in Europe taking place in Turkey in his own day. Working on the notion that religion was an obstacle to progress, many in the Turkish Republic were attempting to replace religious values and way of life with ways of acting derived from modern Europe, and consequently they opposed the dissemination and study of the Risale-i Nur. In his defense in the Afyon court, Nursi pointed out the futility of the campaign to replace a religious outlook with one of secular modernity. “An irreligious Muslim does not resemble any other person without religion. No sort of progress or civilization can take the place of religion, or righteousness, or the learning of the truths of belief in particular, which are the innate need of the people of this country, who for a thousand years have illumined the world with their religion and heroically preserved their firmness of faith in the face of the assaults of the whole world.”

Those promoting modern values claim that they are simply interested in providing a good life for the majority of the people. Upon examining this concept of the good life, Nursi concludes that it is one of the “deceptive, opiate fantasies of civilization.” What the concept involves is limited to responding to bodily needs, on the supposition that if people have food in their stomachs, a roof over their heads, and access to medical treatment when needed, they have achieved “the good life.” To Nursi, this is a short-sighted understanding of the true needs of humankind. A person also has spiritual needs, which cannot be met by the facilities of modernity. “O foolish friend! Do you suppose your life’s duty is restricted to following the good life according to the requisites of civilization and to gratifying the physical appetites? Do you suppose the sole aim of the delicate and subtle senses, the sensitive faculties and members, the well-ordered limbs and systems, the inquisitive feelings and senses that make up your life is restricted to satisfying the low desires of the base soul in this fleeting life?”

The basic problem, according to Nursi, is that modern civilization has clouded people’s minds so that they are unable to see the value of the life of the spirit. Modern life focuses on the immediate, the temporal, the ephemeral, and finds it difficult to see beyond to questions of eternal importance. “At this time, due to the domination of European civilization and the supremacy of natural philosophy and the preponderance of the conditions of worldly life, minds and hearts have become scattered, and endeavor and favor divided. Minds have become strangers to non-material matters.” Instead of seeking the truly good life intended by God for people, men and women are caught up in a rat race of seeking wealth, prestige, and political power in the mistaken fantasy that these things will bring them happiness.

The psychological toll of modernity is high, and people can become frozen into inactivity. Modern man, “since his thought is submerged in philosophy, his mind plunged in politics, and his heart is giddy at the life of this world,” is unable to evaluate seriously questions of eternal weight. His mind becomes dulled to reality and he becomes unable to take serious decision and to exert his creativity in a positive direction. “Through philosophical investigation and natural science, and the seductive amusements of dissolute civilization and its intoxicated passions, sick philosophy has both increased the world’s frozen state and inaction, and made denser heedlessness, and increased its opaqueness and turbidity, and caused the Maker and the hereafter to be forgotten. By contrast, the teaching of the Qur’an “gives the world a transparency and removes its turbidity.”

4. Contrast between European and Qur’anic civilization

In the aphorisms that make up the Seeds of Reality, Nursi succinctly summarizes some elements of difference between the two visions. “Modern civilization, he states, has been founded on five negative principles.”

1. Its point of support is force, the mark of which is aggression.

2. Its aim and goal is self-interest, the mark of which is competitive jostling.

3. Its principle in life is conflict, the mark of which is strife.

4. The bond between the masses is racism and negative nationalism, which is nourished through devouring others; its mark is collision.

5. Its enticement is inciting lust and passion and gratifying the desires.

The five principles might be stated as follows: 1) might makes right, 2) self-interest and competition, 3) the law of the jungle, everyone for himself, 4) my race and nation are superior, 5) I have a right to whatever I want. To these principles, which Nursi sees as both destructive and self-destructive, he contrasts the teaching of the Qur’an: "The civilization the shari‘a of Muhammad (PBUH) comprises and commands is this: its point of support is truth instead of force, the mark of which is justice and harmony. Its goal is virtue in place of self-benefit, the mark of which is love and attraction. Its means of unity are the ties of religion, country, and class, in place of racism and nationalism, and the mark of these is sincere brotherhood, peace, and only defense against external aggression. In life is the principle of mutual assistance instead of the principle of conflict, the mark of which is accord and solidarity. It offers guidance instead of lust, the mark of which is human progress and spiritual advancement."

The contrast is clear. In the civilization envisioned by the Qur’an (and the teachings of the earlier prophets), it is truth, not might, which makes right. Virtue, non self-interest, is the proper motivation for human acts. The Qur’anic teaching proposes unity rather than conflict as the basis for social relations, and mutual assistance instead of cutthroat competition. It upholds divine guidance rather than human whims as the norm for ethical behavior. A society built on such principles will be characterized by values such as justice, harmony, love, peace, brotherhood, and solidarity. It will attract others by virtue of its own good qualities, rather than by imposing its views or by dominating and looking down on others.

When a civilization accepts the principle of “might makes right,” the result is injustice. When civilization operates on the principle of immediate gratification of desires, the result is laziness, inactivity, and torpor. Nursi accuses Muslim societies of having too often adopted these negative principles of modern civilization and the result is “hunger, financial loss, and physical trials.” The Qur’an teaches hard work and industry and to share one’s wealth with the poor. But Muslims have not lived according to this teaching and followed instead the principles of modern civilization. He says, “When comparing modern civilization with the principles of the Qur’an, all immorality and instability in the social life of man proceeds from two sources: 1) ‘Once my stomach is full, what do I care if others die of hunger?’ and 2) ‘You work, and I’ll eat.’”

5. Destructive social, political, and spiritual consequences

The effects of trying to recreate society on the basis of a materialist outlook are not found only in the cultural field, but also in the economic and political realm. Nursi saw a clear ideological development from the principles of the French revolution which led eventually to dehumanizing values of Soviet communism. In rejecting and even oppressing the sacred, man removes all limits to class and national conflict and ends in anarchy. Applying the Qur’anic teaching about Gog and Magog to modern history, Nursi traces a direct development from French libertarianism to communism to anarchy.

Socialism sprang up in the French Revolution from the seed of libertarianism. Since socialism destroyed certain sacred matters, the ideas it inculcated turned into bolshevism. Because bolshevism corrupted even more sacred moral and human values and those of the human heart, of course the seeds it sowed will produce anarchy, which recognizes no restrictions whatsoever and has respect for nothing. For if respect and compassion quit the human heart, those with such hearts become exceedingly cruel beasts and can no longer be governed through politics.

Nursi sees the almost continual warfare that has occurred in the modern age as the most tragic effect of ordering society on materialist principles. He views the two World Wars as “a manifestation of Divine Wrath in punishment for the vice and misguidance of civilization.” This need not be understood as God unleashing divine wrath to bring about wars as punishment for humankind’s misdeeds, but rather in God allowing the natural effects of human error and arrogance to run their destructive course. If people build civilization on the principles of conflict, competition, and enmity, the result will inevitably be war and mutual destruction. He comments on the Qur’anic passage about “the blowers on knots” in the context of 20th Century history.

The sentence the blowers on knots ‘coincides’ with the dates when due to their ambition and greed the Europeans tyrants who caused the two World Wars, instigated a change of Sultan and the Balkan and Italian Wars with the idea of spoiling the consequences of the Constitutional Revolution which favored the Qur’an. Then with the outbreak of the First World War, through the political diplomats blowing their evils, material and immaterial, and their sorcery and poison into everyone’s heads through the tongue of the radio, and inculcating their covert plans into the heart of human destiny, they prepared the evils that would savagely destroy a thousand years of the progress of civilization, which corresponds exactly with the meaning of the blowers on knots.

It is clear from the Risale-i Nur that for Said Nursi, the “spiritual darkness arising from science and philosophy” was not merely an intellectual problem. It was a burden that affected him personally. In his “Treatise for the Elderly,” he records that the struggle brought him great inner pain and inner struggle. He states that “relying on what they had learnt from the people of misguidance and philosophers, my soul and Satan attacked my reason and my heart.” He thanks God for the victory over the despair and confusion against which he was struggling and shared his experience of spiritual crisis in the hope that it might help others who had been led astray in their youth “by matters which though called Western philosophy or the sciences of civilization, are in part misguidance and in part trivia.” Through meditation on the Qur’an, Nursi was able to arrive at an understanding of Divine unity that recognized in all creatures the artwork of a loving Creator. As he says, "And so, through this most subtle, powerful, profound, and clear proof, my soul, which had been a temporary student of Satan and the spokesman for the people of misguidance and the philosophers, was silenced, and, all praise be to God, came to believe completely. It said: “Yes, what I need is a Creator and Sustainer who possesses the power to know the least thoughts of my heart and my most secret wishes, who will answer the most hidden needs of my spirit and will transform the mighty earth into the Hereafter in order to give me eternal happiness.”

6. Demonic influences

In the previous section, we noted that Nursi observed, even in his own thinking, Satan making use of the intellectual underpinnings of Western civilization to tempt him to disbelief. He saw demonic influences responsible for much of the evil in modern society. Modern civilization is ambiguous because its sources of inspiration are varied. From the truths of revealed religion, modern civilization retains basic notions of the importance of love, harmony and justice. However, the destructive elements of modernity come from anti-religious philosophical ideologies and perhaps even from evil spirits. “Modern civilization, which is the product of the thought of all mankind and perhaps the jinn as well, has taken up a position opposed to the Qur’an. With its sorcery it impugns the miraculous nature of the Qur’an.”

He sees in false nationalist ideologies which seek to impose a way of life based on European civilization as a satanic strategy. It promises much, but it offers nothing of value, particularly to pious believers and to those who suffer. Nursi states:

Is the greatest benefit of the believers and the pious to be found in a European-type civilization? Or is it to be found in thinking of eternal happiness by means of the truths of belief, in traveling the way of truth and finding true solace? The way that the misguided and bogus patriots have taken extinguishes the spiritual lights of the pious people of belief, destroys their true consolation, and shows death to be eternal nothingness and the grave to be the door to everlasting separation. Are the benefits of disaster victims, the sick, and those who have despaired of life, to be found in the way of a European-type, irreligious civilization?

Nursi also sees a diabolical element in the tendencies toward material luxury and self-satisfaction, a conscious effort to replace the Paradise intended by God for those who believe with an earthly paradise. This is the work of Dajjal, whom Nursi finds in the collective personality of the “second Europe.” The Dajjal is superficially like a human being. He is arrogant and Pharaoh-like and has forgotten God, a foolish satan and intriguing person who calls his superficial, tyrannical rule godhead. His huge current of atheism, his collective personality, is truly vast...The Dajjal’s false paradise are the alluring amusements and enticements of civilization. [He] brings a false paradise for the dissolute and the worldly, while for the people of religion and Islam, like the angels of Hell it brings dangers in the hand of civilization, and casts them into captivity and poverty.

Nursi is not pessimistic, however. He feels that a union of Muslims and Christians will in the future succeed in defeating the Dajjal and its false promises. The need for unity in combating the attacks of atheistic philosophy and behavior Nursi sees as one of the strongest motivations for true Christians and Muslims to come to an understanding between themselves.

At that point, when the current appears to be very strong, the religion of true Christianity, which comprises the collective personality of Jesus (Upon whom be peace), will emerge. It will descend from the skies of Divine Mercy. Present-day Christianity will be purified in the face of that reality; it will cast off superstition and distortion, and unite with the truths of Islam. Christianity will in effect be transformed into a sort of Islam. Following the Qur’an, the collective personality of Christianity will be in the rank of follower, and Islam, in that of leader. True religion will become a mighty force as a result of this union. Although defeated before the atheistic current while separate, Christianity and Islam will have the capability to defeat and rout it as a result of their union.

7. The dangers of consumerism

One of the most pernicious aspects of modern civilization is the proliferation of material goods and the consequent urge to convince people that they need such goods to obtain happiness. This is not by accident. Nursi sees this preoccupation with the material as a direct result of the abandonment of the spiritual side of life. Having rejected the value of loving obedience to God in daily behavior and given up the hope of everlasting life with God, modern people become obsessed with the acquisition of material goods and comforts in order to give meaning to their lives. In a letter written near the end of his life after visits to Istanbul, Said Nursi wrote: "Since modern Western civilization acts contrary to the fundamental laws of the revealed religions, its evils have come to outweigh its good aspects, its errors and harmful aspects its benefits. General tranquility and a happy worldly life, the true aims of civilization, have been destroyed. Since wastefulness and extravagance have taken the place of frugality and contentment, and laziness and the desire for ease have overcome endeavor and the sense of service, it has made unfortunate mankind both extremely poor and extremely lazy. In explaining the fundamental law of the revealed Qur’an: Eat and drink, but waste not in excess, and Man possesses naught save that which he strives, the Risale-i Nur says: Man’s happiness in this life lies in frugality and endeavor, and it is through them that the rich and poor will be reconciled."

Nursi explains that in former times, people only needed a few material things to make them content and they were willing to work hard to obtain those basic needs. In modern life, however, “through wastefulness, misuse, stimulation of the appetites, and such things as custom and addiction, present-day civilization has made inessential needs seem essential, and in place of the four things which someone used to need, modern civilized man is now in need of twenty.”

To Nursi, consumerism is directly linked to the abandonment of religion. It is at once an impoverishment and a source of depravity and aggression. If in former times, wars were fought for reasons of religion and justice, today they are fought for possession of oil fields, water rights, and control of markets. Said Nursi states: "Since modern Western civilization has not truly heeded the revealed religions, it has both impoverished man and increased his needs. It has destroyed the principle of frugality and contentment, and increased wastefulness, greed, and covetousness. It has opened the way to tyranny and what is unlawful…It has encouraged depravity and dissipation, and wasted lives on useless things.”

PART II: RECONCILING RELIGION AND MODERN CIVILIZATION

8. Thanking God for human progress

If one were to read only Said Nursi’s critique of modern civilization, one might conclude that he is fixated on the past, intent on promoting a nostalgic return to a romanticized past age when life was in better order. Such a conclusion would, in my opinion, be a misreading of the Risale-i Nur.

To view Nursi as unalterably opposed to all forms of progress and to all aspects of modernity is to forget his basic premise: that modern civilization is by its nature dualistic. “Europe [that is, modern civilization] is two.” Against the first he has no complaint; it is the “second Europe” of irreligious philosophers, scientists, and politicians that he directed his criticisms.

Said Nursi was not an obstinate traditionalist who sought to turn back the clock. He affirmed that “there are numerous virtues in [modern] civilization,” and went on to hold that the positive values of modern life were not solely the products of Europe, but are the property of all and arise from “the combined thought of humankind, the laws of the revealed religions, innate need, and in particular from the Islamic revolution brought about by the shari’a of Muhammad.” With such elements of modern civilization, religious people have no quarrel, but rather, they accept and rejoice in the benefits this civilization brings to humankind.

In fact, during his lifetime Nursi was often accused by his opponents of being totally opposed to progress and the advancement of civilization. Such accusations were regularly leveled against him in the frequent court proceedings at which he was forced to appear. In the charges brought against him in the Denizli Court, he was accused, for “having criticized the evils and faults of modern civilization,” of rejecting the use of the radio, airplanes, and trains. In his defense speech, Nursi had to defend himself against what he regarded as preposterous accusations. He stated that such technological achievements were actually blessings from God, but instead of thanking God wholeheartedly for guiding men to invent such modern wonders, men have used them to attack and destroy one another.

Almighty God’s great bounties of the airplane, railway, and radio should be responded to with great thanks, yet mankind had not done this and had rained down bombs on men’s heads with the planes. While thanks for the vast bounty of the radio would be shown by making it a universal million-tongued reciter of the Qur’an, which would allow people all over the earth to listen to the Qur’an... Although I urged Muslims to work towards these wonders, I am accused “opposing modern advances like the railway, airplane, and radio.”

In his court defense, Nursi repeatedly claims that he has been unjustly deprived of the very rights that the proponents of modernity claim to be championing. He states: “The way I have been treated these six years has been arbitrary and outside the law. They looked on me as though I had been stripped of all the rights of civilization and even of all worldly rights.” In his righteous anger, he challenges those who have persecuted and imprisoned him on the basis of their modernist philosophies to act according to the upright principles they proclaim. If they speak of human rights and justice, they should apply those also in his case.

Through the strength of the All-Wise Qur’an, I challenge all Europe including your irreligious people. Through the lights of belief I have published, I have razed the sturdy bastions they call the physical sciences and Nature. I have cast down lower than animals their greatest irreligious philosophers. If all Europe, of which your irreligious people are a part, were to gather, through God’s assistance, they could not make me recant a single matter of that way of mine.

It is the false proponents of modern civilization who violate their own principles. “What right do you have to propose to me the principles of your civilization?” he asks. “Casting me outside the laws of civilization, you have wrongfully forced me to reside in a village for five years prohibited from all social intercourse and correspondence. While you left all the exiles in the town with their friends and relations, then gave them the papers granting them an amnesty, without reason you isolated me and did not allow me to meet with anyone from my native region with one or two exceptions. You do not count me as a member of this nation and a citizen. How can you propose to me that I apply your civil code to myself?”

9. Reconciling religious and secular education: the Medresetü’z-Zehra

Nursi’s great dream, which was never realized due to political circumstances, was to erect the university-level Madrasat al-Zahra’ (Medresetü’z-Zehra) in Eastern Turkey. This grand project, for which he planned and sought funds as late as 1951, was to have two main goals: 1) to promote Islamic unity by bringing together Kurds, Turks, Arabs, and students from the Caucasus and Central Asia, and 2) to “reconcile the sciences of philosophy and those of religion, and make peace between European civilization and the truths of Islam.”

For this school, Nursi envisioned a new type of education, one which would unite secular and religious education. He foresaw a truly modern school in agreement with the teaching of the Qur’an. If, as he says, that the great enemies of humankind are “ignorance, disunity, and poverty,” it is easy to understand Nursi’s passionate desire for the medrese in Eastern Turkey which would combat all three enemies in one single project.

It is clear from this lifetime project of Nursi’s that he found much in modern civilization which was not contradictory to religious belief. He held that the study of science was essential for modern believers, a conviction which he proved in his own life by spending much time in scientific studies. He notes that the Qur’an does not prohibit Muslims from having “admiration for the civilization and progress” of Europe, or from borrowing from what is good in their civilization.

10. Human progress in civilization should lead to the awareness of the Creator

It was often the context of Nursi’s court trials that occasioned some of his strongest statements in favor of the positive elements of civilization. At his 1948 defense of Risale students in Afyon, he denied that he was encouraging the students of the Risale-i Nur to reject modernity. Rather, he claimed that by reading the Risale-i Nur his students were laying the foundation for a true modern civilization grounded in the teaching of the Qur’an and defending the nation against the communist threat. He concludes: "The basis of all human society, and especially the Islamic nation, are earnest love between relatives, concerned relations between tribes and groups, brotherhood and moral assistance for fellow believers arising from Islamic nationhood, self-sacrificing concern for one’s fellow-countrymen and the members of one’s nation, and unshakeable attachment and devotion to and support for the truths of the Qur’an…It is only by denying these bonds, which secure the life of society, and by accepting the Red Peril - which is scattering the terrible seed of anarchy in the north, destroying nations and their youth, and by drawing everyone’s children to itself, annihilates kinship and nationhood, and opens the way to the total corruption of human civilization and society - that the Risale-i Nur students can be called a political society in the sense of its being a crime. The Risale-i Nur students therefore do not hesitate to display their attachment to the truths of the Qur’an and their firm relations with their brothers of the hereafter.

It is not simply a case of believers tolerating and passively accepting the human progress embodied in modern civilization. Said Nursi believes that reflection on the fruits of civilization should actually lead people to God and to an understanding of the Divine plan of creation. He recounts this in the parable of a man from a primitive society who enters a palace but cannot understand its marks of civilization or where they came from.

The palace represents the world, and its furnishings represent the “fruits of civilization.” He compares the man in the parable to a modern atheist, who looks at the world and the accomplishments of human endeavor and yet fails to recognize the God who has created this and guided human progress and achievement. The naturalist philosopher thinks that all this came about by accident and that human progress is the effect of unguided human design. To this person Nursi says: “Study His decree, listen to the Qur’an! Be delivered from your delirious raving!

As Nursi looks to the future, he envisions a new civilization which will arise from the destructive international and national relations of the present day, which will be firmly rooted in the Islamic shari’a and will incorporate the positive features of modern civilization. This new civilization, which will overcome and move beyond the present dichotomy between religion and science, will be one that Muslims will be the first to accept.

For wondrously this calamity has made unfold compassion, Islamic solidarity and brotherhood, the leaven of our lives, and has expedited the shaking, the destruction, of civilization. Present-day low civilization will change form and its system will fall apart. Then Islamic civilization will emerge, and Muslims will certainly be the first to enter it voluntarily.

11. Engagement in and withdrawal from civilization

I hesitate to raise this final aspect of Said Nursi’s approach to civilization, for the topic deserves a serious paper to itself. It is the whole question of involvement of the religious believer in worldly society and withdrawal from that society. Civilization, as we have seen, not only encompasses advances in technology – in Said Nursi’s day, cars, trains, and airplanes; in our day, computers, internet, and cellular handphones – but it includes the active engagement in worldly affairs.

A fundamental question which every believer must answer for himself or herself is whether it is God’s will that they should live out their religious commitments in the context of the complexities and dangers of worldly life, or whether they are called to retire from the activities of civilization. Many of the Sufis felt that in order to pursue their goal of achieving a union of love and will with God that they must withdraw from the world which presented temptations and obstacles to reaching their goal. Similarly, in Christianity, many followers of Jesus down through the centuries have felt called to “renounce the world” in order to pursue a monastic life dedicated to the worship of God, good deeds, and hospitality.

It is inevitable that a spiritual master like Said Nursi would be asked about the issue. Some disciples noted that the great Sufi saints had abandoned the world, yet the Companions of the Prophet were usually very actively involved in worldly affairs. Said Nursi was challenged to defend his view that the least of the Companions was greater than even the holiest saint. Nursi responded that to the Companions, the world was an arable field which had to be sowed, plowed, and reaped. It is true that they were greatly involved in the concerns of the civilization of their time, but this did not alienate them from their commitment to follow the Qur’an.

The world, he teaches, has a face that looks toward the Hereafter, and for believers to love that face is a path to attaining perfection. Moreover, there is an aspect to all worldly life, including the civilization of the present time, that reflects the Divine Names, that is, that point to and show forth the various qualities of God. In other words, to involve oneself in civilized life with a view to carrying out God’s work – the sowing and reaping – does not separate one from the life of faith, nor does the effort to discover the beautiful qualities of the Creator in all that He has provided. The Companions of Muhammad engaged themselves in worldly activities in this spirit, and as such attained a high degree of goodness and uprightness.

The mistake made by misguided people is to love the world and civilization for its own sake, a love that can never be reciprocated. He paraphrases someone who hold such a view: “I consider happiness in this world and life’s pleasures, and the progress of civilization and perfection of arts as all lying in refusal to think of the hereafter and to know God, in love of this world, in absolute freedom and license and in relying exclusively on myself.” Nursi notes that the love that such people should direct to God, they waste in triviality and self-interest, and for this they suffer the consequences. In short, engagement in the life of civilization without recognizing or serving God is both self-defeating and self-destructive.

In accordance with the principles that ‘the consequence of an illicit love is suffering a merciless torment,’ you are suffering a fully justified punishment, for you are unlawfully employing your innate capacity for love, knowledge, thanks and worship that relate properly to the essence, attributes and Names of God Almighty, on your own soul and the life of this world. You have lavished the love that belongs to God Almighty on yourself. Your own soul has become your beloved and will cause you endless suffering: you are not giving true peace to that beloved.

However, there comes a time in the life of the believer when it is necessary to withdraw from the world, to meditate in solitude, to devote oneself to pursuits of eternal import. Circumstances often dictate such times; sickness, old age, or imprisonment, all of which Said Nursi experienced in his own life led him to an attitude of retirement. In the beautiful “Treatise for the Elderly,” he notes that such times are not to be regarded as loss, but can be a source of spiritual riches, growth in understanding of God’s will, and a preparation for death. After one of his final visits to Istanbul, he wrote of his retreat to Sarıyer to study the teachings of the spiritual masters, and offers his experience as counsel to elderly disciples:

After receiving this reminder of the Qur’an, the graveyard became more familiar to me than Istanbul. Solitude and retirement became more pleasurable to me than conversation and company. I found a place of seclusion for myself in Sariyer on the Bosphorus. There, Ghawth al-A’zam (May God be pleased with him) became a master, doctor, and guide for me…, while Imam-i Rabbani (May God be pleased with him) became a companion, sympathetic friend, and teacher…I was extremely happy I had approached old age, withdrawn from civilization, and free of social life. I thanked God. And so, respected persons who have entered upon old age and who frequently recall death through its warnings! In accordance with the light of the teachings of belief taught by the Qur’an, we should look favorably on old age, death, and illness, and even love them in one respect. Since we have an infinitely precious bounty like belief, both old age is agreeable, and illness, and death.

In short, for Said Nursi, it is not a question of which is better, engagement or retirement, but the attitude with which either is faced. If one is seeking to do God’s will and to discover the Divine Names in one’s circumstances, even imprisonment, old age, and death can be seen as blessings. Civilization becomes a destructive alternative to a life of faith when it is regarded as an end in itself, as a way of loving and serving oneself, rather than of loving and serving the Creator and Final Goal of life. Ultimately, there are aspects of modern life which reflect God’s qualities. These can be accepted and one should thank God for them. But those aspects of modernity that deny or ignore God or banish God to the margins of consciousness and activity make lying promises they cannot keep. It is divine wisdom to recognize and reject these false promises, but to accomplish this, the modern believer must discern and distinguish the good from the bad in modern civilization according to the interpretative light of the teaching of the Qur’an.