This presentation will examine the notion of positive action (müsbet hareket) in the thought of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi at three stages. Initially, it will analyse the similarities and differences between pacifism, civil disobedience, and positive action. Secondly, it will discuss Bediuzzaman’s thoughts on material and spiritual jihad in relation to his notion of positive action. Thirdly, it will investigate the meaning and implications of constructive action in relation to positive action. The paper will emphasize the importance of pure justice in Bediuzzaman’s thought and ethics arguing that pure justice is an inseparable element of positive action in the thought of Bediuzzaman. Positive action stands as a principle of sincere service to the betterment of all.
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GOOD DEEDS AS POSITIVE ACTIONS IN NURSI'S WORK: HUMAN COMMUNICATION PERSPECTIVE
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NURSI’S CRITIQUE OF FARABI AND IBN SINA IN AGREEMENT WITH AL-GHAZALI
As commonly known, Ibn Sina and Farabi, two prominant philosophers and scholars in Islamic history, were well affected from the thoughts of the Greek philosophers, Aristotle and Plato. It is seen that in their famous books, Ibn Sina and Farabi tried to harmonize the ideas of Aristotle and Plato with Islamic way of thinking and interpret even some basic Islamic elements according to their philosophical understanding. However, two other effective Islamic scholars, who lived in different ages than each other, Hujjatu’l Islam al-Ghazali and Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, strictly criticized their ways of thinking and interpretations because these were found not to parallel the Islamic belief from various aspects. Although the level of their criticism is not the same, the points they criticized are similar.
APPROACHES OF IMAM GAZZALI AND SAID NURSI IN THE EDUCATIONAL REVIVAL OF MUSLIM COMMUNITY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
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JOB IN THE RISALE-I NUR: SAID NURSI’S PASTORAL THEOLOGY
Job’s (pbuh) story has been studied from many different per-spectives: from the point of view of psychology; family health; sociology and theology. This paper claims that ‘pastoral theology’, as a recognised theological discipline within Christian tradition, can also be found within Muslim tradition. Hence, the paper at hand is an attempt to re-examine the story of Job from the point of view of pastoral theology, manifest in the Qur’an Exegesis of the contempo-rary Muslim scholar Said Nursi. To facilitate our discussion, our ex-amination of Nursi’s interpretation of the respective Job-verses of the Qur’an will be organised according to Richard Osmer’s notion of the four key questions and tasks of the pastoral theologian, cover-ing a) the descriptive-empirical task; b) the interpretative task; c) the normative task and d) the pragmatic task.