A Brief Look at Bediuzzaman Said Nursi's Life, the Risale-i Nur, and The Flashes Collection
A Brief Look at Bediuzzaman Said Nursi's
Life, the Risale-i Nur, and The Flashes Collection
The Flashes Collection forms the third volume of the Risale-i Nur Collection, a Qur'anic commentary written in Turkish by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and inspiration of a movement for the strengthening and renewal of belief that has continued to gain momentum from the time it was written to the present. Like the first two volumes, this collection consists of thirty-three treatises or parts, set in order by the author. On various subjects, the main purpose of the pieces is similar to that of the Risale-i Nur as a whole; that is, the expounding of various Qur'anic verses and its teachings concerning the fundamentals of belief in a way that addresses the needs of the people of today. In order to assist readers in understanding better the nature of The Flashes Collection, included here is an outline of Said Nursi's life and the writing of the Risale-i Nur.
Bediuzzaman's Life
Bediuzzaman's Life
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was born in 1877 in eastern Turkey and died in 1960 in Urfa in Turkey. Readers may refer to his biography for details of his long and exemplary life, which spanned the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, its collapse after the First World War and the setting up of the Republic, then the twenty-five years of single-party rule, followed by the ten years of Democrat rule, when conditions eased a little.
Bediuzzaman displayed an extraordinary intelligence and ability to learn from an early age, completing the normal course of medrese (religious school) education at the early age of fourteen, when he obtained his diploma. He became famous for both his prodigious memory and his unbeaten record in debating with other religious scholars. Another characteristic Bediuzzaman displayed from an early age was an instinctive dissatisfaction with the existing education system, which when older he formulated into comprehensive proposals for its reform. The heart of these proposals was the bringing together and joint teaching of the traditional religious sciences and the modern sciences, together with the founding of a university in the Eastern Provinces of the Empire, the Medresetü'z-Zehra,