Essays on various facets of Nursi’s spirituality as portrayed in his Risale-i Nur.
The Nur community is one of the most significant religious and social movements in contemporary Turkey, with millions of adherents and a strong institutional and educational system throughout the country. This volume presents a picture of its spiritual dimensions by focusing on the ideas of its founder, Turkish theologian Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1877–1960). Prominent scholars in contemporary Islamic studies and comparative spirituality examine the various facets of Nursi’s spirituality as revealed in his magnum opus, Risale-i Nur, which began to take shape in the 1920s and is considered Nursi’s deep reflection on the Quran in light of rapidly changing conditions in Turkey. Nursi argued that Islam must be organically linked to empire in order to preserve its identity in the modern era, fostering a spiritual tradition that has steadfastly survived the secular project of Kemalism.
“...this collection of essays is a most useful introduction to various aspects of Nursian spirituality and of the message of his Risale-i Nur. It is on a par with, if not better than, many other previously published collections of essays on Nursi and the cross-cultural and inter-religious appeal of the Nursian legacy.†— Journal of Islamic Studies
“Nursi is an interesting and highly relevant thinker today. The range of topics included here is impressive, and I especially liked the linking of work on Nursi to aspects of religious thought outside Islam. I suspect the book will be used in courses on Islamic studies as essential reading.†— Oliver Leaman, coauthor of Islam: The Key Concepts
Contributors include Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi, Asma Afsaruddin, Ahmet Albayrak, Abdelaziz Berghout, Yohanan Friedmann, Marcia Hermansen, Stephen Hirtenstein, Bilal Kusçpinar, Yehezkel Landau, Ian Markham, Thomas Michel, Lucinda Mosher, M. Sait Özervarli, Fred A. Reed, Jane I. Smith, Colin Turner, Mustafa Ulusoy, Sçükran Vahide, and Miriam Terese Winter.
