Belief and Unbelief : New

Discussions and Comparisons,

*[A5+] Hardback - 219 pages,

by Shaykh Bediuzzaman Said Nursi,
Translated by Huseyin Akarsu,

Published by Tughra Books, Turkey,

from The Risale i Nur Collection.

Description :

Belief and Unbelief : Discussions and Comparisons vividly demonstrates the true natures of and difference between belief and unbelief through both concrete and rational arguments and producing the human conscience and basic nature as witnesses, especially through comparisons of belief and unbelief, of right guidance and misguidance.


Using easily understood stories, comparisons, and explanations, the author produces categorical proofs, showing that modern scientific discoveries actually support and reinforce the truths of faith. Said Nursi uses the Qur'anic methodology of addressing each person's intellect, and other inner and outer faculties, to encourage people to study the universe and its functioning in order to understand creation's true nature and purposes, which will, in turn, lead to learning the Attributes of the One and Only Creator as well as their own duties as God's servants.

About the Author :

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was born a century ago, in 1873, in a village in eastern Anatolia, Nurs, from which he received the name Nursi. He received his basic education from the best-known scholars of the district. The extraordinary intelligence and capability of learning that he showed at a very early age made him popular with his teachers, colleagues and the people.


When he was sixteen years old, he silenced the distinguished scholars who had invited him to a debate (debate was then a popular practice among scholars). This later recurred several more times with various groups of scholars, and he thereby began to be called Bediuzzaman (Wonder of the Age). The time he spent in education paved the way in his mind for the thought that at a time when the world was entering a new and different age, where science and logic would prevail, the classical educational system of theology would not be sufficient to remove doubts concerning the Qur'an and Islam.


He concluded that religious sciences should be taught at modern schools on the one hand, and modern sciences at religious schools on the other. "This way," he said, "the people of the school will be protected from unbelief, and those of the madrasa from fanaticism." After completing a lifetime of almost a century, with every minute spent in the service of faith, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi departed from this world on the morning of March 23, 1960, with complete honour, dignity and victory, leaving behind him the Risale-i Nur Collection that would illuminate this and the forthcoming centuries and a love that would be handed over from generation to generation until eternity.

Selection of works from the Author.

Table of Contents :

---Preface: Comparisons between Belief and Unbelief

---The First Word: The worth of Bismillah,
---The Second Word: The way to contentment,
---The Third Word: Choosing the right way,
---The Fourth Word: The value of the Prescribed Prayers,
---The Fifth Word: The right training for believers,
---The Sixth Word: The supreme transaction,
---The Seventh Word: The door to human happiness,
---The Eighth Word: The necessity of religion,
---The Twelfth Word: A brief comparison between the Qur’an’s wisdom and human philosophy and scientism,
---The Thirteenth Word: Conversations with young people and prisoners ;
------A warning and lesson to a group of unhappy, young people,

------A conversation with prisoners,
------An effective solace for prisoners,
------Advice to prisoners,
------The necessity of brotherhood between prisoners,
------An important matter,
---The Fourteenth Word: A warning lesson for my heedless soul,
---The Seventeenth Word: The meaning of the worldly life, and remedies for worldly misfortune,

------The first station,

------The second station: A supplication,
------“I love not those that set”
------Descriptions of the worlds of the rightly-guided and the heedless,

---The Twenty-third Word: Virtues of belief and remarks on our misery and happiness,

------The first chapter:

------The second chapter: Five remarks on human misery and happiness,

---The Twenty-fourth Word: Love, worship and thanksgiving,

---The Twenty-fifth Word: The miraculousness or inimitability of the Qur’an,

------The second radiance of the third ray: The ever-freshness of the Qur’an,

------The Eleventh Ray: Some of belief’s fruits,

------An addendum to the tenth matter: Belief changes all gloom and loneliness into joy,

---The Twenty-sixth Word: Belief in Divine Destiny and silencing the obstinate, arrogant soul,

---The Thirtieth Word: An exposition of ego or human selfhood,

---The Thirty-second Word: The way of destruction and the way of happiness,

---The First Gleam: Taking refuge in God with the supplication of the Prophet Jonah,

---The Seventeenth Gleam: The second Europe and the Qur’an’s students,

---The Twenty-fourth Gleam: Dress code for women,

---The First Letter: Figurative love and true love,

---The Ninth Letter: Orientation of human feelings or inclinations, and iman (belief–conviction) and Islam (being a Muslim),

---The Twenty-ninth Letter: God is the Light of the heavens and the earth,

---The Eleventh Ray: Some of belief’s fruits;

------A summary of the second matter,

------The third matter,

------The fourth matter,

------A summary of the eighth matter,
---The Fifteenth Ray: Asking the Creator about the Creator Himself,

---The Twenty-ninth Gleam: Why belief is the greatest blessing for humankind,

------First Point,

------Second Point,

---Gleams of Truth,

------In an assembly in the world of representations or ideal forms,

------Comparisons between Islam and modern civilisation, and between scientific genius and the guidance of Islam,

------All true pain is in misguidance, and all true pleasure in belief: a mighty truth dressed in imagination.

---Index.

More Islamic Philosophy,

*Dimensions : 23.3 x 15.9cm.