The Risale-i Nur Collection is full of “general principles,” not only related to the Islamic Jurisprudence but also to all the fields of Islam or Islamic life and Islamic branches of knowledge. Based on or specially favored with profound wisdom having its source in the Divine Wisdom or the Divine Name of the All-Wise, the Risale-i Nur Collection contains numerous principles, precepts, or maxims which are standards or brilliant criteria enabling people to think, believe, and live according to Islam, and to evaluate and judge things and events in Islam’s light. They also provide people with the essentials or basic principles on which the branches of Islamic knowledge and Islamic science are based. Thus, we have tried to collect many of these principles in this book under certain titles, and in certain parts or sections according to the fields of thought and branches of knowledge to which they have a greater relevance.
The book delves into the principles associated with concepts like faith, worship, actions, ethics, and life as found in the Risale-i Nur Collection. Furthermore, it clarifies the overarching principles and invaluable standards of Islamic knowledge and rhetoric, encompassing fields such as theology, exegesis, hadith, jurisprudence, and Sufism.
An excerpt from the book:
“The light of reason comes from the heart.[1] Our eye has a white part, which resembles daytime, but it is blind and dark. But there is a pupil in it, which is dark like the night, but illuminated. Without the pupil, that piece of flesh is not an eye, and we can see nothing. Likewise, an ‘eye’ without insight is also worth nothing. So, if the dark pupil of the heart is not present in the white of thought, the contents of the mind will produce no true knowledge or insight. Or as long as the ray of the mind—scientific knowledge—has not been combined with the light of the heart—religious knowledge and faith—the result is darkness, oppression, and ignorance. It is darkness dressed up in a false light.”
Ali Ünal, General Principles in the Risale-i Nur Collection for a True Understanding of Islam, New Jersey: Tughra Books, 2015.
[1] Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Words, New Jersey: The Light, 2013, p. 718.
