Dr. Colin Turner’s new translation, prepared with the editorial team at IFMT, brings the Risale-i Nur into clear, modern English.
Nursi’s original Turkish uses long, complex sentences that are hard to follow when translated word for word. This translation keeps the full meaning but makes it easy to read, without simplifying the ideas.
The work has been guided and rigorously edited by a group of editors with deep expertise in the Risale-i Nur tradition and its linguistic, theological and philosophical context.
The Risale-i Nur is a Qur’anic commentary by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, written between 1926 and 1949. It unfolds the meaning of the Qur’an by focusing on the truths of faith, explaining them with clear, reasoned argument that speaks to both the mind and the heart.
Who am I? Where am I going? Why believe and why pray, in a world that treats faith as optional? The Risale answers these questions through the Qur’an, reading the universe as a book of signs pointing to its Creator.
Nursi was one of the most learned scholars of the late Ottoman era. After the founding of the Turkish Republic he was exiled and imprisoned, yet he wrote the Risale through it all, and his students spread it by hand. Today it is read by millions in study circles worldwide, where everyone engages with the text at their own level.
Written for an age of spreading materialism, the Risale is less about how to practise Islam than why. It builds firm, verified faith, and from that faith, meaningful worship and good character.
| The Words | The foundations of belief: God, prophethood, resurrection and the wisdom of worship. |
| The Letters | Nursi’s answers to his students, including the proofs of the Prophet’s ﷺ prophethood. |
| The Flashes | Guidance for the heart on sincerity, patience in hardship and what draws a person away from God. |
| The Rays | His most comprehensive arguments, including The Supreme Sign on God’s existence and unity. |
Samples from the New Translation
On Divine Determining
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
وَاِنْ مِنْ شَىْءٍ اِلاَّ عِنْدَنَا خَزَۤائِنُهُ وَمَا نُنَزِّلُهُۤ اِلاَّ بِقَدَرٍ مَعْلُومٍ
وَكُلَّ شَىْءٍ اَحْصَيْنَاهُ فِۤى اِمَامٍ مُبِينٍ
Divine Determining (qadar) and the power of human freedom of choice are two extremely important issues. We shall attempt here to uncover a few of their mysteries in four ‘Topics’.
First Topic
Divine Determining and human freewill, or freedom of choice, are matters which are apprehended not by the clinical calculation of reason, but by the conscience, the heart and the inner vision. They are neither theoretical matters nor objects of knowledge that can be acquired. They stand at the outer edge of the tenets of faith and of Islam, and in a sense can be described as the very pinnacle of belief and submission. In understanding Divine Determining, the believer attributes everything to Almighty God, including his own actions and his own self. In understanding human freewill, the only thing that is really his is his power of choice, which confronts him in order to ensure that he does not evade his obligations and responsibilities.
Free will – freedom of choice – tells him that he is obligated and responsible, while Divine Determining, to prevent him from becoming proud of his good deeds and accomplishments, tells him that he is to know his limits, for the one who brings about those good deeds and accomplishments is not he.
Yes, Divine Determining and human free will stand at the pinnacle of belief and submission: the former has been included among the principles of belief in order to save the human soul from pride, while the latter has been included in order to ensure that the human soul acknowledges its responsibility. There are some evil-commanding souls, of course, who in their obstinacy invoke Divine Determining in order to exonerate themselves of the evil they have committed. And there are some who take great pride in the virtues that have been bestowed on them, or in things which have occurred as a result of using their ability to choose freely. Both of these attitudes are totally at odds with the spirit of Divine Determining and the wisdom behind human free will.
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
First Note
This First Note is addressed to myself. O heedless Said! It is beneath you to attach your heart to something that will not accompany you into the grave and beyond; something which will leave you when the world is destroyed and the universe comes to an end. It is unreasonable to fasten your heart to transient things that will turn their backs on you when your time is over, refusing to befriend you on your journey through the grave and into the Intermediate Realm. It makes no sense to allow your heart to depend upon something which, after a year or two, will separate from you forever, abandoning you just when you think you have it in your possession, leaving nothing behind for you but sin.
If you have any sense at all, you will give up those things that will shatter and crumble under the hammer of worldly turmoil and tumult, the events of the Intermediate Realm and the awesome upheavals of the hereafter. Accord them no importance for they are unable to accompany you on the journey to eternity. Give them up now and do not grieve at their passing.
Consider how you have been created. Among the many subtle faculties you possess, there is one that will be content with nothing except everlastingness and the Eternal One. That faculty focuses on nothing or no-one else but Him. It will not belittle itself for anyone or anything else. Even if you were to give it the whole world, its innate need would not be satisfied. It rules your senses and your faculties, and therefore you should obey it, for it itself obeys the command of the All-Wise Creator. Obey it and find salvation!
بِاسْمِهِ سُبْحَانَهُ
وَاِنْ مِنْ شَيْءٍ اِلاَّ يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ
اَلسَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَ رَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَ بَرَكَاتُهُ اَبَدًا بِعَدَدِ عَاشِرَاتِ دَقَا ئِقِ عُمْرِكَ وَذَرَّاتِ وُجُودِكَ
To my dear, bold, wise, serious, hard-working, truth-loving brothers!
For brothers like us, who are ‘hereafter-brothers’ and brothers in truth, differences in time and place present no obstacles that would prevent us from talking to each other and being close to one another. One brother may be in the east, another in the west, or one may be in the past and another in the future; one may be in this world and another may be in the next. These things do not matter, because wherever and whenever they are, one may still think of them as being together and talking with one another. This applies particularly to those who have been tasked with the same responsibility to reach the same goal, for they are like just one body.
Every morning I imagine that you are here with me and I gift you a third of my spiritual gains. I pray to God that He will accept them. You are in my prayers, along with Abdülmecid and Abdurrahman. You will always receive your share of my prayers, God willing.
The fact that you have gone through hardships with respect to your day-to-day lives has saddened me somewhat. But since this world does not last forever, and with the knowledge that good may come out of calamities, my heart was inspired to say, on your behalf, “This, too, will pass.”
I then thought of the Prophet Tradition, لاَ عَيْشَ اِلاَّ عَيْشُ اْلاۤخِرَةِ “The true life is the life of the hereafter.” And I recited the Quranic verse, اِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الصَّابِرِينَ
I said, اِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَاِنَّا اِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
And I found comfort, also on your behalf.
If Almighty God loves one of His servants, He shows him the ugliness in the world and makes him disgusted with it. God willing, you are one of His beloved servants, and I pray that this narration applies to you. You should not be worried or distressed that the increase in your problems and hardship is preventing the distribution of the Words. God willing, when those that you have already distributed begin to manifest God’s mercy, those light-bearing seeds will open up and produce a riot of flowers!
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