Who Was Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and What is The Risale-i Nur?

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WHO WAS
BEDIUZZAMAN SAID NURSI
AND
WHAT IS THE RISALE-I NUR?

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was born in eastern Turkey in 1877 and died in 1960 at the age of 83 after a life of exemplary struggle and self-sacrifice in the cause of Islam. He was a scholar of the highest standing having studied not only all the traditional religious sciences but also modern science and had earned the name Bediuzzaman, Wonder of the Age, in his youth as a result of his outstanding ability and learning.

Bediuzzaman’s lifetime spanned the final decades of the caliphate and Ottoman Empire, its collapse and dismemberment after the First World War, and after the setting up of the Republic the twenty-five years of single-party rule followed by ten years of Democrat rule, when conditions eased a little for Bediuzzaman.

Until the years following the First World War, his struggles in the cause of Islam were active and in the public domain. He not only taught many students and engaged in debate and discussion with leading