The Future of Risale-i Nur Studies in the West

The Said Nursi Chair in Islamic Studies at John Carroll University (JCU) and the Interdisciplinary Journal of Islamic Studies (IJIS) of Respect Graduate School (RGS) are pleased to announce “The Future of Risale-i Nur Studies in the West” conference to be held at the premises of JCU and online between November 14th and November 16th, 2024. For the Said Nursi Chair, this conference will rekindle the academic zeal on the Risale-i Nur studies in the West, first kindled in 2003, when the Chair was established, and then in 2011, when the Chair hosted a major conference on Challenges to Contemporary Islam: The Muslim World 100 Years After Nursi’s Damascus Sermon. For IJIS, it is a chance to impart the spirit of interdisciplinarity into the still burgeoning field of study concerning the works and life of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.

A Welcome Message

Questions of religious faith remain among the most pressing issues for humanity today. One of the most influential modern thinkers, Martin Heidegger (d. 1976), recognized that neither philosophy nor any purely human reflection will be able to effect an immediate change in the current state of our world, famously uttering, “Only a god can save us.” In Turkey, Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (d. 1960), a prominent late Ottoman Islamic scholar and influential Qur’anic exegete, had earlier said something similar: “Religion is the life of life. It is also the light and the foundation of life.” Nursi, whose legacy and influence this conference explores, brought home the ideas of the meaningfulness of the Islamic faith tradition to modern life and peaceful coexistence between faith and the modern secular state to millions of his followers both inside and outside of Turkey. They avidly appropriated his ideas in the second half of the 20th century, bringing about original integrations of history with modernity, faith with reason, traditional governance with the secular state, as well as spearheading new social movements and cultural trends. Building on these ideas, our conference, will seek to further advance the study of Nursi’s thought and legacy and attempt to give answers to such nagging questions as: “Can Nursi’s intellectual and spiritual legacy be effective in the conditions of the 21st century?” “Can one work out Nursi’s method and deploy it to develop his insights even further?” “How can the ideas of non-violence espoused by Nursi be brought to bear upon the present-day realities?” “How can Nursi’s thought help vis-à-vis peaceful coexistence, and fruitful cooperation, between religious and non-religious denizens of the modern state?” This conference is a joint initiative of the Bediüzzaman Said Nursi Chair in Islamic Studies at John Carroll University (JCU) and the Interdisciplinary Journal of Islamic Studies (IJIS) published by Respect Graduate School (RGS). We are happy to engage these and many other questions with you at JCU [and online] this November.

Dr. Zeki Saritoprak,
the Bediuzzaman Said Nursi Chair in Islamic Studies at John Carroll University (JCU)
&
Dr. Albert Frolov,
the editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Islamic Studies (IJIS) published by Respect Graduate School (RGS)