Editorial

Islam is a religion that contains all religious and moral principles
that humanity will need till the end of the world. It is an all covering
way of life that defines all issues related to individual, family and society
and represented by Muslims. The fact that there is no one form
of Islam that covers all Muslim world and there are different forms
of understanding and practicing Islam in different Muslim countries
call for the question “What is True Islam?” The present picture of the
Muslim World facing great problems like terror, poverty, backwardness,
conflict, oppression, and civil strife requires analyses that emphasize the
same question. In order to discuss this question, in the previous issue
of our periodicle we published some of the texts presented in the 11th
Congress of Risale-I Nur carrying the title “True Islam in the East and
the West” and organized by the Institute of Risale-I Nur in Cologne,
Germany a few months ago. In this issue too we go on publishing some
of the papers presented under the Table Titles, “Great Humanity and
True Islam, Prophethood and True Islam, Madhabs and True Islam.”
“Great Humanity” in the framework of Risale-I Nur corresponds to
the understanding of Islam covering the values that present happiness
to humanity. It also represents a joint humanity that contains high mo-
ral values as well as aesthetic and civil values that express an ideal point
to be reached by humanity.
The religion of Islam which was sent by Allah to perfect the material
and spiritual development of man aims at a man with a perfect nature
in all aspects. A man equipped with perfect qualities represents Islam.
However man also has a potential nature that may fluctuate between
the lowest and the highest levels. When man improves and uses appropriately
his qualities and abilities, he deserves to be considered as an
individual representing “the Great Humanity” and reaches the highest
degree. Even though the essential purpose of Islam concerning man is
making him reach the degree of “the Great Humanity”, the conditions
and terms to achieve that purpose of realizing the Great Humanity
must be described and defined.
Another matter of discussion is related to the mission of the prophets
at our time when the divine messages are made hard to understand
and divine values are worn out by secular perceptions and impositions.
Only through understanding the concept of prophethood we can
understand and perceive coherently a set of issues such as building a
true relationship between man and his Creator, the nature of man, the
purpose of creation, man’s relationship with other creatures, etc. This
understanding becomes significant in relation to questions like the conveyance
of the essential messages of prophets to humanity and the purification
of some religions and returning to their originals.
Nowadays some extremist ideas reject the prophethood phenomena;
consider their being human as a source of understating the prophethood
and their significance for human beings. The rise of such extremist
ideas prevent people from understanding the prophet Mohammad
(pbuh) as role model and postpone their finding the key to their eternal
happiness. Therefore topics such as the importance of prophethood, the
areas where prophethood and materialist philosophy encountered throughout
human history and the meaning of the mission carried out by
prophets will be discussed in this issue.
Another controversial question is the madhabs’ being artificially
considered as an area where Muslim world is thrown into separation.
Bloody conflicts in the Muslim world stemming from factions have
caused madhabs to become a question of discussion and the idea of
an Islam without factions became the starting point of new searches.
Considering membership to different İslamic factions as the source of
bloody conflicts in the Muslim world is in fact a sign of big dangers and
leads to the question that “what should be the approach to madhabs as a
reality of Islam?” Therefore topics like the rise and necessity of madhabs
in Islam, the role of madhabs in the history of religion, the psychological
and sociological bases of madhabs, the possibility of uniting the
madhabs, the causes of the different viewpoints by the madhabs, the
points that differentiate between the righteous and invalid madhabs will
be studied in this issue of our periodical.
While we invite our readers to enjoy our articles, we hope to meet
them in the next issue with the subject of “Presidency and Decentralization”.