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HAZRAT SAID NURSI’S
CRITIQUE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE LIGHT OF
HIS DEFENSE OF DIVINE
REVELATION
By: Prof. Henry Francis B.
Espiritu, M.A. Philo.*
“...
[A]las, I had drunk the philosophical studies in the
belief—a very mistaken one—that the latter are the
source of advancement, completeness, the pivot of
culture, and the enlightenment of the heart. It was those
philosophical issues that polluted my soul greatly and,
indeed, become the obstacle of my spiritual
ennoblement...While I was in that state, the sacred
wisdom of the Qur-an came to my aid, a mercy from
the High and Most Powerful. It washed away the dross of
those philosophical issues and purged my soul of
them...The spiritual darkness emanating from
philosophical studies immersed my soul and steeped it in
beings. Wherever I directed my sight in those studies, I
found no light of flame; I could not breathe or find
relief until the manifest light of monotheism came from
the Holy Qur-an...thus shattering and dispelling the
darkness. My breast was relieved and I breathed
comfortably and securely.”—Hazrat Sayyid Bediuzzaman
Said Nursi (in Lame’at [The Flashes].
*******
Theistic philosophers of various religious persuasions
have written many treatises refuting atheism and
agnosticism by means of philosophical criticisms and
logical analyses. However, since their writings are
overly cerebral and analytically complicated, they fail
to touch the intuitive heart of those searching souls who
seek mystical and innate certainty in their journey of
faith. There is indeed a great spiritual danger in
utilizing philosophy as the basis of refuting atheism and
agnosticism—a philosophical argument used in favor of
God’s existence can be logically controverted and
counter-arguments can be likewise deployed to deny the
existence of the Supreme Being. Thus, using philosophy to
prove or disprove Ultimate Reality is not only
desperately tentative and spiritually counterproductive,
but also outrightly barren. A Sufi saint of medieval
Hazrat
Sayyid Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, the modern Turkish mystic
and theologian (circa, A.D., 1877-1960) echoed Hazrat
Baba Farid’s complaint regarding the uncertainty of a
faith that is solely based on human philosophy.
Philosophy cannot be an indubitable basis of our faith in
God because it is based on the suppositions of the human
mind (Cf. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Mektubat [Letters].
Philosophy
(even if such a philosophy is “theistic”)—as an
incomplete vehicle in ascertaining the existence of God—can
only bring the person to a logical and analytical mental
assent of the possibility of Divine existence. By
deductive as well as inductive reasoning, one is
compelled to assent mentally that indeed God exists.
Theistic philosophy often uses the “Book of nature”
in proving the reality of God’s existence—but this
contemplative reflection of nature is not enough. One
will accept in a cerebral manner the fact of God’s
existence but despite this mental assent, one’s heart
is still void of absolute certainty (haqq-ve-yaqeen).
The heart can never be serene and tranquil until it
reaches what Nursi calls certainty of faith (tahqiq-ul-iman).
Certainty of one’s faith in God can be only attained by
taking hold of the truth of Revelation as found in the Holy
Qur-an; since the Holy Book is God’s
self-revelation of His Person to His creatures. As per
Hazrat Nursi, the Risaleh-i Nur is a veritable
reflective commentary of God’s Words that combines
Nursi’s spiritual and experiential insights of Divine
enlightenment in the course of his prayerful reading and
introspective meditations of the Holy Qur-an.
(See, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Su’alar [The
Supreme Sign], trans. Sukran Vahide.
God’s
revelation of His Person is a gift of grace (ni’mat)
and mercy (rahmat). Hazrat Said Nursi is aware
that understanding the Holy Qur-an can only happen
when God bestows enabling grace to the person reading and
contemplating its message. The holy prophets, saints (awliya),
and regenerators of faith (mujaddid) encountered
the Supreme Lord in a very intimate way. Their very own
saintly lives are perfect models and proofs of the
Reality of God. Thus Said Nursi claims that the Risaleh-i
Nur—as the commentary of the Holy Qur-an in
the contemporary times—is God’s bestowal on
the Islamic Ummah (community) to revitalize the
faith of Islam which was attacked by atheism,
agnosticism, positivistic empiricism, and materialism (Ibid.,
pp. 255-256). The pious believer can show to the
world the reality of God and the truth of His presence in
the universe, because he himself experienced God in his
very own inner life. Whereas a secular philosopher—no
matter how theistic he is in his philosophical
commitment, and no matter how well he proves God’s
existence in his characteristic cold rationalism—can
never produce the spiritual fervor, ecstatic joy, and
divine zeal of the Prophets and saints. Through
revelation; prophets, saints, and regenerators of the
faith perceive in their souls the absolute truth and
certainty of monotheism, as revealed in the pure light of
the Holy Qur-an. Thus, Hazrat Nursi is bold to
testify: “It was those philosophical issues that
polluted my soul greatly and, indeed, become the obstacle
of my spiritual ennoblement...While I was in that state,
the sacred wisdom of the Qur-an came to my aid, a
mercy [rahmat] from the High and Most Powerful. It
washed away the dross of those philosophical issues and
purged my soul of them...The spiritual darkness emanating
from philosophical studies immersed my soul... Wherever I
directed my sight in those studies, I found no light of
flame; I could not breathe or find relief until the
manifest light of monotheism came from the Holy
Qur-an...shattering and dispelling the darkness. My
breast was relieved and I breathed comfortably and
securely.” (Lame’at [The Flashes].
Hazrat
Sayyid Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, through his writings
(specifically, the Risaleh-i Nur), exerted
his utmost to revitalize the faith of the Turkish peoples
when it was vehemently attacked by anti-Islamic forces
after the dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate. By giving
rational, mystical, as well as spiritual proofs on the
truth of Islam, Hazrat Nursi guided the Turkish Muslims
in that difficult and torturous period of their Islamic
faith. At the end of the Ottoman Caliphate, irreligious
forces inimical to Islam strived to remove the inborn
love of Islam in the heart of the Turks by imposing laws
that endeavored to efface the beautiful Turkish (Ottoman)
Islamic heritage—a civilization which was largely
inspired by Islam. Secularist ideologies, naturalism, as
well as materialistic and positivistic empiricist
philosophies aided the anti-Islamic forces in denigrating
Islamic faith and traditions. Against this historical
backdrop, the defense and renewal of Islam were the
reasons that impelled Hazrat Said Nursi to criticize all
man-made philosophies. Human knowledge devoid of the
guidance of the All Intelligent God will cause the
weakening and loss of faith, degradation of morals, and
laxity in worship, and loss of a compassionate heart
characterizing the proper human being. In the “Twelfth
Word”, Said Nursi—seeing the extreme poverty of human
philosophy in explaining the purpose of life—warned the
Turkish people not to trust in the directions of human
minds not sanctified in the truths of faith. To quote
from Nursi: “But philosophy has plunged into the
decorations of beings and the multiplicity of their
relationships...while forgetting the Being who makes
possible the existence of these multitudes of beings—thus
philosophy has become bewildered; it has confused the way
of Reality...Indeed, philosophy without religion is a
sophistry divorced from Reality and an insult to the
universe.” (Al-Kalimat [The Word]. loc.cit.).
Simply put, Nursi says that philosophy (devoid of Divine
revelation) has become enamored with the disparate
material phenomena of this world and is obsessed with the
study of the varied creatures and relations at the
expense of truly knowing and acknowledging the Supreme
Creator of these creatures. Thus missing its priority,
philosophy has become nothing but a fruitless play of
words and relations, an “insult to the universe”
(i.e., philosophy failed to know and probe the unitive
and ultimate purpose of the cosmos—i.e., to
worship God and to give Him glory).
Western
philosophy’s claim to knowledge and certainty failed to
convince Hazrat Said Nursi. Even at the beginning of the
Turkish secularist republic (just after the demise of the
Ottoman Caliphate) where modern Western philosophy is
outrightly encouraged, Hazrat Nursi firmly held to, and
tenaciously defended the truths of Islam. His faith had
never been affected by the constant and consistent
bombardments of worldly philosophers against the Islamic
faith. Whenever there is a clash between modernist
philosophies and Islam, Hazrat Nursi would never become
powerless in the face of such philosophies. His writings
in the Risaleh-i Nur courageously protected the
creed of Islam by using sound philosophical truths and
Qur-anic expositions to establish Islam and pin down the
mistakes of Western philosophy (Sukran Vahide, op.
cit., p.168).
Lest we
misinterpret Hazrat Nursi to be an inveterate enemy of
philosophy, let it be understood that what Nursi was
against is the philosophy or philosophies that aim to
destroy religious principles—philosophies that are
utilized by anti-Muslims to attack the Islamic faith
(e.g., empiricism, positivism, materialism, agnosticism,
atheistic philosophies, etc.). Likewise, Hazrat Nursi
asserts that philosophies that tend to support the
logical concept of a Divine Being (i.e., theistic
philosophies, naturalized theologies, theistic
existentialism, etc.), if devoid of the sure guidance of
Divine Revelation, such philosophies cannot be infallible
guides in reaching to the reality (haqiqat) or
certainty (yaqeenan) of God’s existence. The
above-mentioned points must be remembered when one seeks
to properly understand Hazrat Nursi’s scathing
criticisms of human philosophies. If one looks at Risaleh-i
Nur, one will clearly notice that Nursi employed
logical reasoning and rational proofs in elucidating and
explaining the Islamic faith. He utilized analogies and
metaphors as examples, in the same way that he deployed
deductive and inductive reasoning in expounding the
truths of Islam. Therefore, for Nursi, the real purpose
of philosophy is in giving logical support and analytic
proofs of Divine Revelation. Philosophy finds its
nobility in being a servant to the truths of the Holy
Qur-an in the same way that science is likewise a
means to explain theological principles. (See Shukran
Vahide, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi: The Author of the
Risaleh-i Nur Collection, op.cit., pp. 379-382).
Therefore, Hazrat Nursi’s view regarding the
cooperative use of science and philosophy for confirming
Islamic belief perfectly echoes the view of the medieval
Muslim theologian and mujaddid (regenerator of
Islam), Hazrat Imam al-Ghazali (circa, A.D., 1058-1111)
in his celebrated book, The Incoherence of the
Philosophers. In this book, Hazrat Imam al-Ghazali
likewise utilized evidences in philosophy to prove that
without the guiding revelation of God as found in the Holy
Qur-an, the enterprise of philosophy will simply
self-destruct since philosophy due to its varied and
conflicting theories will only lead the seeking soul to
mental confusions and spiritual turbulence (See, Oliver
Leamann, A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy.
Hazrat
Said Nursi’s critique of philosophy in his
mystical-theology is geared towards confirming and
ascertaining the revelatory foundation of Islam as an
authentic revealed religion. He repeatedly points in his
writings that the fundamental basis of Islamic faith is
the Holy Qur-an and all other areas of knowledge
are subordinate to and in service of the Qur-anic
revelation. It is God Himself Who guarantees the truth of
the Qur-an since it is God Who revealed the Qur-an
to the world. Therefore faith (iman) in the
One God and trust in the Divine revelation (the Holy
Qur-an) as given by God to the Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) constitute the foundational grounds
of the Islamic faith. By defending the truths of the Qur-an
against the onslaughts of secular philosophies,
Hazrat Nursi had performed a great service to all
revealed religions in that he has totally upheld the
primacy of Divine revelation (i.e., belief in the primacy
of the revealed scriptures) which is the very basis of
all revealed faiths; whether Judaism, Christianity, or
Islam. By putting philosophy and the sciences as servants
of Revelation, he sets forth his deep conviction that
true science and philosophy do not contradict Divine
revelation rather support, exemplify, and confirm it.
Hazrat
Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi advised the philosophers of his
day and age: “Ey-keh khwandee hikmat-i Yunanian va
aql-i Hindian, arifi va ilm-i musalmanian ra ham
be-khwan.” The rough translation of this Persian
couplet is; “Hey, you who have read the knowledge of
the Greeks and the knowledge of the Indians; please
consider also the crystal-clear wisdom of the Muslims”
(in Faisal Khan Chughtai, Maulana Rum ka Naseehat [Maulana
Rumi’s Advices]. Larkana
Therefore,
we should be thankful to God Almighty for the holy life
of Hazrat Nursi—a life that exemplifies genuine faith
in Divine Providence despite persecutions, imprisonments,
exiles, all sorts of sufferings, and hardships. We should
also be grateful to God for the Risaleh-i Nur, which
provides clear proofs of the Reality of God—thus
dispelling the darkness of unbelief and skepticism in our
spirits. I pray that through the guidance of the Qur-anic
revelation as explained in the Risaleh-i Nur, we
will be conferred the certainty of our faith and the
absolute confirmation of the very Reality of God in our
lives. I further pray that with the absolute certainty
and assurance of the truth of our Islamic Faith, we will
become diligent worshippers of the One True God.
Likewise, with the confidence and serenity in our hearts
wrought by reading the Holy Qur-an as explained in
the Risaleh-i Nur, we will be productive persons
who will (Insh’allah) abound in all goodness (aamal-i-saleehat)
for the glory of God and for the well-being of all God’s
creatures. Amen!
(* Prof.
Henry Francis B. Espiritu is an Assistant Professor IV in
Philosophy at the University of the Philippines-Cebu City
Campus. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Philosophy at
the Ateneo de Manila University. He is a convert to
Islam, and a fervent student of the mystical writings of
the Turkish Islamic saint and savant, Hazrat Sayyid
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. His Islamic name is Abdil
Ghaffar. Reactions, queries, and comments can be sent
through email: espirituhenryfrancis@yahoo.com)