An Outline of Said Nursi’s Interpretation of Jihad: Jihad of the Word and Positive Action
The differences in Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s interpretation of jihad between the two main periods of his life reflect differences between the two major periods of Turkish history with which they coincided – the final decades of the Ottoman Empire and first thirty-five years of the republic. Though the differences appear to be greater than the similarities, there are in fact essential continuities. These concern his view that endeavours to uphold the Word of God (i‘lâ-yı kelimetullah), an objective related to jihad, should be directed primarily towards internal problems of Muslim society rather than externally towards the unbelievers. This meant a struggle for progress and civilisation in the earlier period, and a moral and intellectual “jihad of the word” against the “moral and spiritual destruction” of materialistic philosophies in the latter. In both periods, he endorsed the view that armed jihad was permissible only in the face of external aggression.
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