Editor

The formulae of living together for societies that consist of different
cultures, beliefs, and ethnic structures have become one of the most important
problems of ‘the new world’ due to certain elements like racialism,
utilitarianism, and selfishness, that make living together difficult. Humanity,
which has been shattered by two world wars, and become tired with
the discriminative mental indoctrination of materialist movements, is in
search of the ways for peace and tranquility. Though religious and historical
experiments suggested some guiding signs, it is necessary to put forward
new approaches to transfer these experiments
In this context the principles developed by Said Nursi in a Quranic
perspective in terms of the concepts of peace, respect, love, an Islamic freedom,
truth, justice, brotherhood, and positive action, seem to possess the
qualities that may answer the searches of modern societies. His perspectives
contains the potential of preventing the bloody civil wars that wipe out
the conditions of living together, the exclusivist and marginalizing authoritative
structures that limit the fundamental rights and freedoms, and the
mentalities that alienate humanity from human qualities.
The 9’th Congress of Risale-I Nur organized by Risale-I Nur Institute
in the March of 2014 under the title of “Social Movements and Living
Together According to Said Nursi” aimed at investigating the Quranic interpretations
made by Said Nursi and answering the questions about this
topic. In the previous issue of our periodical we published the papers and
proceedings of the congress. We continue to publish the papers presented
in the Congress in this issue too. We also publish the texts of the panel “The
Principles of Living Together According to Said Nursi” held at the closing
session of the Congress.
One of the remarkable concepts highlighted in this issue is Said Nursi’s
principle of “Positive Action.” We also try to find answer in this issue to
questions such as “What is living together?”, “What are the areas pointed
out by living together in terms of humanistic values?”, “What are the living
samples of coexistence that can demonstrate the religious and historical
experiences?”, “What are the ways of realizing the mentalities that consider
as richness the plurality and multiculturalism pointed out by the religious
and historical experiences?”
It is doubtless that Risale-I Nur’s principle of “Positive Action” is a guiding
movement at a time when we discuss concepts such as authoritarianism,
civil guardianship and social movements that appears like anarchism
and threaten the social peace and tranquility and when we try to decide
how to behave against oppressive practices. It is very important to discover
the basic content of that principle as it behaves like armor against the invading
and threatening negative thoughts and movements and as it signifies
much more than just constructive movements.
Understanding the real meaning and content of the principle of “positive
action” is very important both for individuals and a society in search
of peace and tranquility since it aims at reaching goals that will provide
the safety of man and society such as dissemination of the service of belief
in individual, social and political arena; preventing the dissemination of
disbelief; defeating evil; protecting security; preventing chaos and disorder;
not retaliating against destructive actions; being just; behaving optimistically;
acting patiently and thankfully; shunning from extremism; being able
to read the real meaning of the universe; giving priority to brotherhood;
adopting sincerity and devotion as the basic principles; sticking to concepts
like respect, mercy, and cooperation.
We believe that the present issue will serve to these goals. As we leave
our readers to enjoy the essays in our periodical, we hope to meet you
next issue analyzing Said Nursi’s essay called “A Speech in Dream.”