Human Suffering

HUMAN SUFFERING AND DIVINE JUSTICE:
AN ISLAMIC THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
WITH REFERENCE TO SAID NURSI’S THOUGHT

By Fauzan Saleh


Some years ago, when the “death of God” theology was a fad, I remember seeing a bumper sticker that read “My God is not dead; sorry about yours.” I guess my bumper sticker reads “My God is not cruel; sorry about yours.”

God does not cause our misfortunes. Some are caused by bad luck, some are caused by bad people, and some are simply an inevitable consequences of our being human and being mortal, living in a world of inflexible natural laws.

Harold S. Kushner, 1983.

Abstract

God ordains humankind to be good and compassionate to others, and forbids them to do injustice. He also promises that those who sincerely obey His commands will live prosperously in this world and after, and He will punish the impious people who disobey His commands with sorrow in Hellfire. Nevertheless, it is very common to see that good and righteous people are not always fortunate, and many are even suffering painfully. By contrast, a lot of wicked people have exhibited their joyful life and prosperity very impressively that frequently incite other people’s resentment. The world seems to be unfair to good people, and many claimed to have been troubled by unjust distribution of suffering in the world. The misfortunes of good people are not only a problem to the people who suffer but also to everyone who wants to believe in the persistence of a fair world order. It is understandable, therefore, that they might inquire about God’s justice and goodness. Such questions may further lead to a more crucial one as whether or not God really has the will (and power) to undo all wickedness that occurs in this world. When sufficiently heartwarming solution is not found, unbelief in God’s justice and goodness would likely become a common discernment. They may also arrive at an unjustifiable conclusion that the world with all of these unfairness and sufferings is not created by a benevolent God. Said Nursi, as reflected in his biography, has experienced great sufferings almost throughout of his life. Yet, he might not have perceived it as an injustice willed by God to happen to him. It is more or less unthinkable that God has no reason for making suffering happen, although we are in no position to judge. Nursi, however, must have been deeply concerned with such an issue. This paper will examine how Nursi discussed the problem of human sufferings on the light of divine justice, to be compared with some more contemporary surveys on the meaning of rational justice.

Introduction

It sounds mostly plausible to say that one of the greatest mysteries of life is the problem of human suffering. Simply stated, suffering is anything that hurts or irritates. Some theologians claim that suffering is something designed by God to make us think and is a tool God uses to incite our attention so as to accomplish His purposes in a way that would never occur without the trial or irritation. Yet, there is more pain and suffering today than ever before. Not only is there more physical pain. But there is also more emotional and mental pain as a product of the growing complexities of modern life. Suffering comes to the human race in various forms: physical sickness and pain, mental pressure, rejection, loneliness, war, famine, disease, persecution, natural disasters, poverty, and still many others. No nation or class of people is exempt. Black and white, rich and poor, educated and ignorant, all suffer even though their problems might vary considerably. Suffering, as is frequently argued, forces humans to turn from trust in their own resources to living by faith in God’s resources. However, suffering is not in itself virtuous, nor is it a sign of holiness. Neither is it a means of gaining points with God. Therefore, when possible, suffering is to be avoided.
Nevertheless, not every person is deeply concerned with how suffering happens and why it should happen. On the one hand, suffering is felt to be a threat external to us, something of which we might become the victims. On the other hand, humans themselves can cause suffering to other people or indeed they might become the source of suffering. Thus, suffering is a problem that poses many questions, mainly for philosophers and theologians. It has aroused much speculative thinking on their part concerning the nature of God, for if, as is generally believed, God is perfectly good and ultimately powerful, then He must be able to put an end to all suffering. In a monotheistic framework, the presence of suffering is considered to be a grave difficulty, or even the greatest obstacle to belief in God’s justice, and, by and large, in His very existence too. The presence of suffering, like all other kinds of evil, has puzzled monotheists, because God is perceived to be the most just and, not only the source of goodness, but also the creator of all finite beings, while being Himself unlimited in power.
Islam, as a monotheist religion, also considers the problem of suffering as an issue that needs to be resolved. Since the earliest formative period of Islamic theology, the problem of suffering has been one of the issues most frequently discussed by almost every Muslim theologian, especially when reconsidering it in the face of divine justice. More specifically, a group of Muslim theologians, better known as the Mu’tazilites, claimed themselves to be the defenders of the idea of divine justice together with God’s unity. For them, these two elements of divine nature constitute the foundations for their theological standpoint, which distinguished them from the other schools of thought in Islam. In general, the Mu’tazilites upheld five fundamental principles of theological doctrines. In addition to both principles of God’s unity and divine justice, they maintained the other three principles of promise and threat (al-wa’d wa’l-wa’id), a position “in between” (manzilah bayn al-manzilatayn), and ordaining good and forbidding evil (al-amr bi’l-ma’ruf wa’l-nahy ‘an al-munkar).
The principle of justice (al-‘adl), as one of the five Mu’tazilite principles, covers other matters but comes to stand primarily for the doctrine of free will or qadar. The Mu’tazilites believe that God would be unjust if He punished humans for acts for which they were not responsible. It is based on this principle, as has been alluded previously, that they claimed themselves as the upholders of the belief in divine justice, the ahl al-‘adl, in addition to the upholders of the belief in God’s unity, ahl al-tawhid. Accordingly, they were also frequently called al-‘adliyah—a particular identification for this group based on their theological point of view. The Mu’tazilte’s discussion on the matter of divine justice also covers somewhat wider aspects of theological issues, including the problem of predestination, human actions, and the problem of evil, as can be further scrutinized in their theological treatises.
Although the discussion of divine justice has been established since the earlier period of the development of Islamic theology, it is by no means true that there is no further need for Muslims to develop their understanding of such an issue, especially in the request of responding to current challenges. There have been some prominent Muslim theologians in contemporary times who have developed their theological thought around the problem of divine justice in the face of human suffering. Though not always comprehensive, their ideas on the issue are, above all, important to help our understanding of this very crucial matter. Worthy of our consideration among these ideas are those held by Imam Mohammad Jawad Chirri of The Islamic Center of America, Detroit, Michigan, and the other by Sayyid Mujtaba Musawi Lari, one of the most venerated scholars among the Shi’ites of Iran. Their ideas may shed new light on our understanding of Badiuzzaman Said Nursi’s exposition of divine justice, in addition to those explicated by Western scholars of the more recent period.

Said Naursi and Suffering: a Glimpse of His Life
The biography of Said Nursi has been extensively discussed by many scholars and writers in numerous occasions. It seems superfluous to repeat all details of his life account in this paper. Yet, it is still indispensable to highlight some important aspects of his life story, especially the ones dealing with his experience during his exile and imprisonment, which he dealt with for much of his bitter life. The concern of this paper is mainly to bring to light some aspects of his ideas on the problem of human suffering, how he perceived it, and, more particularly, how he put all of the sufferings he had experienced in the framework of divine justice. It seems more likely touching if we try to understand the problem of human suffering through the reflections of one who had directly and profoundly experienced it, especially in the last twenty-five years of Nursi’s life. On the other hand, Said Nursi could also be regarded as a theologian himself in a wider sense. Thus, his ideas on human suffering, in the face of divine justice, can be considered as more or less theological reflections of the true reality that he had experienced, and not just as an outsider’s judgment that anyone could have produced.
Al-Ustadh Badiuzzaman Said Nursi was born in the village of Nurs, a township of Isparit in Bitlis Province, eastern Turkey, in 1877. He died in 1960 in Urfa, also in eastern Turkey. His life spanned the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, its collapse after the First World War and the setting up of the Republic, followed by the twenty-five years of Republican Party rule. During this last period, there were harsh measures taken by the authorities against Islam in defense of secular ideology. He belonged to a “clerical” family. His father was an impoverished village molla with seven children and a small holding of land. Being a clerical family, there was some drive for status that appears from the title of mirza taken by his father, which could be an attribute of noble descent. Nursi remained in his father’s house until the age of nine, when he started to have his early education in the school of Molla Mehmed Emin Efendi in the village of Tag. It is in this early school education that Nursi realized his personal aptitude to make impressive intellectual progress making him very confident. Nursi emerged from his education with a striking personality that continued to mark his attitudes throughout life.
Most of his learning was pursued through his personal efforts, since he was proved to be unable to settle in any traditional school, medrese. Once Nursi told his master about his uneasiness, saying: “The treasures [of learning] you control are in a strongbox. You have its key. What I need is a clue to its contents. I will choose whichever I find appropriate.” With such a statement, Nursi reveals that it was hard for him to follow the entire curriculum in the regular way that was determined by institutionalized education. All of these indicators suggest that, while still an adolescent, Nursi could have covered an education that usually lasted twenty years within only three months. To put it in other words, Nursi, for his early age, displayed an extraordinary intelligence and ability to learn. He became famous for both his excellent memory and his unbeaten record in debating with other scholars.
He obtained his diploma at the age of fourteen, which is a truly remarkable achievement. Since there were many Sufi diplomas available at that time, it is not clear what fields of studies that his expertise might cover, but, it is certain that Nursi was extremely knowledgeable in all religious matters and, especially, in the science of Hadith. Furthermore, contrary to the common practice of religious scholars of the time, Nursi studied and mastered almost all the physical and mathematical sciences in addition to philosophy. His aptitude in all of these secular sciences convinced him that it was his duty to enlighten his students by demonstrating the truths of religion in the most appropriate manner required, and in accordance with the spirit of the time. With regard to philosophy, Nursi maintained that this subject was a very necessary means, and the only way, to renew Muslims’ understanding of Islamic theology (kalam), so as to be effectively useful for responding to the challenges of those who attacked the truth and the holiness of the Qur’an and Islam.
Said Nursi was very much involved in public as well as political life during the years up to the end of the First World War. He was also involved in the war against the invading Russian troops, in which he commanded the militia forces on the Caucasian Front. In recognition of his services to the defense of his country, he was rewarded a War Medal and invited to Ankara by Mustafa Kemal. However, on his arrival there, Nursi found that at the very time of the victory of the Turks and Islam, atheistic ideology was being widely propagated among the deputies and officials, causing serious laxity among many of them in performing their religious obligations. Remaining eight months in Ankara, Nursi realized the fallacious ways of the new Turkish rulers, which he regarded as too far from the ideal values of Islam. He found it hardly plausible to work along with them. However, Nursi also maintained that it was impossible to stand against their political power. When offered various posts and benefits by Mustafa Kemal, he therefore refused them and left Ankara for Van, where he withdrew into a life of worship and contemplation.
Within a short time in this new region, Nursi felt a growing threat directed by the regime in its attempts to establish secularism as the state ideology against the power of Islam, even trying to eradicate it from Turkish life. In early 1925 there was a rebellion in the east province, in which Nursi did not take any part. Nevertheless, he was accused of involvement, and was consequently sent into exile in western Anatolia together with many hundreds of other people. This was the beginning of the twenty-five years of miserable injustice inflicted upon Nursi and many of his followers, in the forms of exile, imprisonment, and unlawful oppression. He was then sent to Barla, a small village in the mountainous region of Isparta province. However, the attempt to entirely isolate and silence him had the reverse effect. For Nursi, all of the hardship and isolation he had encountered during his exile turned into a good opportunity to prepare himself to face new challenges by compiling his ideas in a treatise later known as Risale-i Nur. Through this work, Nursi silently spread his original ideas and teachings for combating all attempts, undertaken by those who would replace Islam with materialism and secularism, to uproot Islam from the hearts of Turkish people.
Nursi seems to be steadfastly sanguine in encountering all sorts of hardship inflicted and contrived by the secular authorities upon him. He even perceived it as a necessary means to reaffirm his knowledge about God’s bounty, and thus his exile and imprisonment were seen as a time of learning in a madrasa. He states:
All this oppression and tyranny of theirs is like pieces of wood for the fire of ardour and endeavour which illuminates the lights of the Qur’an; it makes them flare up and shine. And those lights of the Qur’an, which have suffered this persecution of theirs and have spread with the heat of endeavour, have made this province, indeed, most of the country, like a madrasa in place of Barla. They supposed me to a prisoner in a village. On the contrary, in spite of the atheists, Barla has become the teaching desk, and many places, like Isparta, have become like the madrasa.

In addition, for Nursi, his imprisonment was also deemed to have facilitated his achievement of true spiritual nourishment, like the one experienced by the Prophet Yusuf (Joseph) as reported at length in the Qur’an. Yusuf’s spiritual gifts are reported to have been developed enormously in the prison house under the rule of Egyptian authority. Similarly for Nursi, in spite of being in exile and imprisoned, he felt that Allah was always with him and that all trials and tribulations gave him a type of courage and power that the disbeliever, the ignorant and those with hearts of stone, would never achieve. Though Nursi was bodily imprisoned throughout most of his life, it seems he won the struggle for his mind and soul.

Suffering, a Theological Depiction
Generally speaking, there are always two contrasting perspectives in understanding the reality of suffering in human life. On the one hand, people understand it as a reality irreconcilable with the belief in the existence of God, or even as a great obstacle to the belief in God. On the other hand, the reality of suffering is believed to be aimed as a means for trial leading to the true and genuine acceptance of God, and thus essentially reconcilable with the belief in His existence and justice. The former is commonly upheld by the skeptic-agnostic or pessimists, the non-believers; while the latter is usually adopted by the optimist-religious believers. It is interesting, therefore, to re-evaluate both contrasting views, so that we may justify the idea of divine justice with a considerably fair judgment.
For those who belong to the optimistic point of view, it is usually claimed that human suffering can bring about the acceptance of God. William Craig, for example, suggests that with the suffering God aims for the maximal number of people to know God and His salvation. He maintains that nations with the greatest amount of suffering have the greatest increase in evangelical Christianity. He bases his argument on the fact that there has been an increase from 2.3 % to 20 % in evangelical Christianity within 36 years in El Salvador, a country that has endured great suffering. Accordingly, Craig, as reported by Michael Martin, tends to maintain that the most intense suffering brings about the most acceptance of God, providing a justification for human suffering. Of course the claim needs more critical examination and not everybody will be ready to accept it. If God’s aim is to have the maximal number of people believe in God, He has not in reality been entirely successful. Billions of people have not come to believe in the theistic God, and even today, God’s message has not reached millions of people. Inflicting suffering is not always an effective means to increase the number of believers in the existence of God.
Moreover, Craig’s sample is too small to cover the whole reality. We have to examine many historical cases of intense suffering that have taken place in different periods of time and cultures to make sure that the postulate holds the correlations correctly. For example, this examination would have to include suffering during the Plague in the Middle Ages, the suffering inflicted upon American Indians by white settlers and the US government, and the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust. In all of these cases it is difficult to justify how Craig’s hypothesis could be confirmed. As has been widely known, the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust resulted in the death of millions of them. Would Craig’s hypothesis entail that, before they were killed, there was a higher percentage of nonreligious Jews who rejected God than religious Jews who accepted Him? Or would Craig’s hypothesis entail that the relatives of the Holocaust victims would tend to be more religious than the relatives of those European Jews who were not victims? Evidence for all of these facts would be hard to come by.
The evidence for Craig’s hypothesis, according to Michael Martin, is equally dubious with respect to the suffering of American Indian. It is reasonable to question whether or not there is any validity in supposing that in those Indian tribes which suffered the most, the acceptance of the Christianity was the highest. There seems to be no strong historical evidence to support the hypothesis. Even if one could confirm some of these correlations, it would not necessarily show that intense suffering is a cause of conversion to Christianity. There are still more possibilities to be reconsidered in determining the real cause of their acceptance of Christianity. For example, Indian tribes who suffered the most may have been in a well-organized contact with a number of Christian missionaries more extensively rather than those who suffered less. In other words, acceptance could be more likely the result of the missionary work rather than of suffering alone. Moreover, there is also an ethical issue to reevaluate. Suppose intense suffering really brought about the belief in God, why then would an all good, all powerful God choose to bring about acceptance in this way? God, with all of greatness in His nature, could surely bring about belief in Him in many ways that do not cause suffering.
After all, as the argument goes further, not only does suffering as a means to achieve acceptance conflict with God’s moral character, it also contradicts His own rationality. A plausible rational constraint on getting people to believe something is that the acquired belief be based on epistemic reasons. General presumption will reveal that a rational God would like His creatures to believe in Him for good and cogent reasons. It is fairly questionable as to what kind of epistemic basis exists for belief in an all good, all powerful God in light of the evidence of intense suffering. In fact, as commonly observed, the amount of suffering in the world has often posed an obstacle to rational belief. To put it in other words, whether or not suffering is a cause of acceptance is one thing. Yet, the crucial question remains whether suffering is truly a good reason for acceptance of God’s benevolence. It is still difficult to show that it is so. One would suppose that a rational God would want His creatures to accept Him for good reasons.
Nevertheless, there are still some more wide-ranging angles to understand the reality of suffering. For centuries people have been asking: Why does God allow suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why doesn’t God stop this? Why isn’t God intervening? And still more equivalent questions. Theologians of any belief system have been deeply concerned with this very crucial issue. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism alike have their respective considerations on this matter. According to Buddhism, all of human life is suffering, and suffering is caused by human attachments to worldly matters. This attachment, appearing in the forms of greed, hatred and ignorance in this present and past lives, can return as more suffering, called karma, unless mitigated. However, suffering, as they believe, is not in essence punishment from a divine being, but rather something that must be transcended by not clinging to material objects. Bad things may happen to good people because there are myriad karmic causes conspiring to bring about any particular event, and this event then becomes cause for other effects to take place.
For the Christianity, the question of the unjustified suffering of the innocent is at the heart of its belief system, which holds that a sinless person (Jesus) suffered and died for the sins of humanity. Some Christians see suffering as God’s punishment of sinful people or the world as a whole. Others see such suffering as a way a loving God tests the faith and fortitude of survivors. According to St. Paul, as reported by Ellen Leventry, Christians should rejoice in suffering because it produces endurance, hope and character. Still other Christians hold that the suffering of the innocent is evidence of the inscrutable will of God who works in mysterious ways toward an ultimate but unknowable good. On the other hand, for Hindus, suffering is seen as punishment for misdeeds committed in this lifetime or past lives. Even a seemingly innocent person who has not eradicated bad karma from past lives through charitable deeds is susceptible to such payback. Individuals’ suffering should be placed in the broader context of a cosmic cycle of birth, life, destruction and rebirth. Hindus believe that victims will be reincarnated and may be happier in their next life.
For Muslims, since the very word of Islam means “submission,” they understand that to suffer—enduring pain or loss—is a way of submitting to the will of Allah. Some suffering, however, is Satan’s doing or is the work of his cohorts in the spirit world and is allowed by Allah as a test of humility and faith. Many Muslims believe suffering and hardship strengthen one’s faith, as pain often leads to repentance and prayer and good deeds. In Judaism, on the other hand, it is believed that suffering is caused by a weakness in one’s devotion to God. Generally speaking, it is believed that God gave humans free will to feel pleasure and pain, and His purpose in allowing for the deep suffering of the innocent must be good even if mysterious. Many believe that God’s sense of justice and the reasons for human suffering are unknowable. To some Jews, knowing why God allows suffering is not as important as knowing that God will punish the perpetrators. All Jews, as it is claimed, place high importance on working to help those in need in order to mitigate human suffering.

Human Suffering and Divine Justice
It must be admitted that there has been disagreement among Muslim theologians as whether or not justice is one of the divine attributes. With reference to the Ash’arite school of theology, for instance, justice is not explicitly mentioned as one of God’s attributes among the thirteen or twenty attributes describing His divinity and perfection. Some followers of this school maintain that God’s justice is not a matter of faith, and they deny that justice can be accomplished by the divine acts. This is because “the Lord of the Worlds is not under a sharia,” and therefore justice and injustice cannot be predicated of His acts in any sense comprehensible to human intellect. However, they also believe that whatever punishment or reward God gives them, irrespective of what they might appear to deserve, will represent justice and absolute good, even though it might appear unjust when measured by human standard. God’s standard of justice, they argue, is beyond the human authority to measure and is not limited by the necessity of conforming to any standards of human invention. Thus, if He rewards the virtuous and punishes the sinful, this is justice, but so would be the reverse; it would remain in the broad sphere of His justice.
On the other hand, Imam Mohammad Jawad Chirri, the Chaplain of the Islamic Center of America at Detroit, Michigan, being requested to explain his idea about this issue, confidently argues:
No logical religion can afford to deny or doubt the justice of God and His fairness. To deny His justice is to undermine the religious concept entirely. No religious belief, not even the belief in the existence of the Supreme Being, would avail us without the belief in His justice…..
Denial of the justice of God would also lead to denial of the Hereafter, because the Hereafter is the world of carrying out justice by rewarding the good doers and punishing the wrongdoers….. Therefore, the concept of justice of God ought to be considered part of the foundation of religion without which no religion can logically be established.

It seems clear that although Muslim theologians do not unanimously agree on the nature of justice as a definite attribute of God, they would never remove justice from His very being. God must be absolutely just, and no one doubts the justice of God. The concept of divine justice is equally important as the concept of His existence and His oneness, and it must be understood as part of the foundation of religion. In many passages of the Qur’an God is described as the Most Just, or as One who does not want to do injustice to His creatures. His justice is clearly manifested in various expressions, such as His assertion that He will never waste the deed of any person, or that He will not cause anybody to lose his or her atom’s weight of good deeds. God will not impose on a soul a duty or responsibility beyond one’s ability. Likewise, God does not hold any individual responsible except for his or her own deeds, which are fully under one’s control. Nobody is charged with responsibility for the deeds of other persons. Every human being is born pure and free of any sin and continues to be pure until he or she commits a sin as an adult person. He also repeatedly ordains all people to do justice and forbids injustices.
For Nursi, divine justice constitutes a fundamental subject in his teachings. This issue has occupied numerous parts of his discussions in Risale-i Nur, scattered in many different headings. Unlike the above quoted perspective upheld by the Ash’arite school, Nursi admits that justice belongs to the divine name. In Flashes, Nursi explicitly discusses at length about the divine name of All-Just. Amazingly, he establishes his argument on the Qur’anic passage 15:21 “And there is not a thing but its (sources and) treasures (inexhaustible) are with Us; but We only send down thereof in due and ascertainable measures.” Based on the authorization of this verse, Nursi suggests that God’s justice has been actually manifested in the notion that God upholds all the inexhaustible treasures of the universe. However, the universe, as plausibly realized, is always agitated by war and emigration, as well as unceasingly revolving amid death and life. Nevertheless, according to Nursi, it persistently holds astonishing balance and equilibrium, which self-evidently proves that the transformations, incomings and outgoings apparent in these innumerable beings are measured.
It is God, the All-Just, who puts measures upon all those innumerable beings. He also weighs them every moment on the determined scales, as He always sees and supervises the whole universe. The universe has been so beautifully put in order, that every single being is “ordered and weighed with so sensitive a balance, so fine a measure, that the human mind can nowhere see any waste or futility, just as human science and philosophy see everywhere and point out the most perfect order and beautiful symmetry.” Again, all of these prove that the universe is “being nurtured and administered through the balance, law, and order of a single All-Just and Wise Creator in Whose hands are the reins of all things, has the key to all things, for Whom nothing is an obstacle to anything else, and directs all things as a single thing.”
God’s justice, therefore, is very clear, since it can be effortlessly observed from the manifestation of universal balance and equilibrium. Humans should learn from their environment how God establishes His justice in all beings. For Nursi, the total justice in the universe proceeds from the greatest manifestation of the Name of All-Just, and thus God enjoins humans to do justice and avoid any kind of unfairness. Nursi refers to the Qur’anic verse 55:7-8, stating: “And the firmament has He raised high, and He has set up the balance (of justice); In order that you may not transgress (due) balance. So establish weight with justice and fall not short in the balance.” By this divine injunction, Nursi suggests that humans should keep their soul clean and thus make all effort to purify it all the time from any sort of wickedness and unfairness, so that they may understand how basic to human life are the principles of justice, frugality, and cleanliness. Like Chirri, Nursi also suggests that those who deny the divine justice equally have no faith in the existence of resurrection. In a rhetorical way, Nursi questioned those who disbelieve in God’s justice by stating “….would a splendid dominicality which displays infinite sensitivity and care in its mercy and compassion and justice…in order to display His perfections and make himself known and loved permit there to be no resurrection?”
As Nursi further examined in his Words, justice can be distinguished by two contrasting varieties: affirmative (or positive) and negative. The positive variety signifies “giving the deserving his right,” which exists throughout the world in the most obvious fashion. In practice, this type of justice allows all the objects of desire requested by everything from its Glorious Creator, to achieve all necessities of life and existence. The other variety, the negative justice, signifies “chastising the unjust; it gives wrongdoers their due by way of requital and punishment.” This negative type of justice, according to Nursi, is not fully manifest or easily conceivable, even though we may observe countless signs that indicate its true nature in this world. Nursi refers to all chastising blows and punishments inflicted upon rebellious people in human history, from the time of ‘Ad and Thamud in the ancient era up to those occurring in the present time. Nursi suggests that all of these observable phenomena show definitely that divine justice dominates the whole universe.
As has been alluded to in his short biography, Nursi experienced a lot of hardships for a very long time inflicted upon him by the secular authorities who made all attempts to eradicate Islam from the hearts of Turkish people. Yet, as far as his biography reveals, he did not seem to have expressed conspicuously his complaints or despairs against such oppressions. Neither did he, amazingly, solicit God to stop that cruelty which threatened his life. He underwent all kinds of hardship with earnest serenity. Nursi might not have perceived it as an injustice willed by God to happen to him. As can be understood from many of his statements, he did not consider all sufferings in his life—though inflicted by the enemies of Islam—as a sign of God’s abhorrence. In the Tenth Word of his Risale-i Nur, he implicitly maintains that those who do not endure hardship of life and showed much grievance for it are those who do not realize that, due to their relatively short life, they cannot experience the true essence of justice in this transient world. In a more elaborate verdict, Nursi suggests:
Man, whose life is so brief, cannot experience the true essence of justice in this transient world, it is for this reason that matters are postponed for a supreme tribunal. For true justice requires that man, this apparently petty creature, should be rewarded and punished, not in accordance with his pettiness, but in accordance with the magnitude of his crime, the importance of his nature and the greatness of his function. Since this passing and transient world is far from manifesting such wisdom and justice for man, who is created for eternity, of necessity there will be an eternal Hell and everlasting Paradise of that Just and Awesome Possessor of Beauty….

Nursi apparently did not pay much attention to the possible consequences that the tyrants and the oppressors might have to meet. He just trusted God to decide whatever He willed to happen to them as requital for their transgression of the principles of justice. Nusri confidently believed, based on the above quotation, that despite their power and profligate nature, tyrants would not necessarily exempt from God’s punishment, which would be executed either directly in this worldly life or in the Hereafter. He reminded his audiences that “Godhead, mercy, grace, wisdom, and justice, necessitate the Hereafter with the utmost certainty, and demand an eternal realm and the resurrection of the dead and Last Judgment for the granting of reward and punishment.” Being deluded by their ambitious project of secularization in order to achieve a great cultural progress based on Western values, the authoritarian regime had undermined the truth of Islam, and thus suppressed all people who opposed their agenda, including Said Nursi and his disciples.
Another interesting issue meticulously discussed in the Risale-i Nur deals with the problem of the calamities that can strike anybody, disregarding one’s innocence or wickedness, belief or disbelief. Both parties, without exemption, are equally prone to suffering from catastrophes and misfortunes. Nursi’s elaboration on this issue, as can be further examined in the Addendum to the 14th Word, contributes a very thoughtful consideration, worthy of our attention. The discussion begins with a quotation from the Qur’anic verses of 99:1-5, designating the calamities that will take place prior to the Day of Judgment. Some critical problems then come up, such “What is the reason for this terrible torment?” “Why aren’t these heavenly blows dealt at the unbelievers in their countries?” and “Why are they visited on the unhappy Muslims?” However, such dreadful calamities do not happen only on that particular day mentioned in the Qur’an. There have been too many calamities and natural disasters that have caused great misery upon people in general. Thus they are wondering whether such calamities are truly meant as the punishment to the wicked people only, when they strike innocent people as well. Otherwise, how could it be called a true justice?
It is most likely true that God did not choose only the wicked to be struck by such calamities. When calamities are not specified only for those sinful and wicked people, as Nursi puts forward, it is by no means justifiable that God deliberately undermines the principle of justice. The suffering undergone by pious believers caused by calamities may stand for the requital for some mistakes they committed before. God seems to have intended to make such suffering happen to them soon in this worldly life, so as to lessen their burden in the afterlife. Nursi insists that for the true believers “….the requital for small crimes is made quickly in small centers, as a consequence of an important instance of wisdom.” Meanwhile, when the wicked people appear to have lived so happily and virtually exempt from such dreadful torment, it does not mean that God has overlooked their wickedness, but rather He has postponed that requital to the Last Judgment. Nursi further suggests “….the recompense of the greater part of the unbelievers’ crimes is postponed to the Last Judgment, while the punishment for the believers’ faults is in part given in this world.”
The similar idea can be found in Nursi’s discussion in his Flashes. It begins with a question addressed to Nursi by one of his disciples: “You consider the calamities visited on your special friends to be slaps; punishment for laxity in their service of the Qur’an. Whereas those that are truly inimical to you and to the service of the Qur’an remain safe and sound. Why are friends dealt slaps while enemies are left untroubled?” In response to this question Nursi explains, “the errors of those friends are just like a kind of wrongdoing in the service of the Qur’an, and therefore are swiftly punished.” The slap is then regarded as “a caring punishment” for the person’s negligence, and if he is aware enough, he will realize his error quickly and improve his conduct. But the wicked, who are “inimical to you and to the service of the Qur’an,” are in general misguided. They do not immediately receive any blows and are likely to be excused from punishment. However, the believers should not lose their hope or feel unjustly treated. Essentially, this issue can be compared with the penalties of those committing small crimes that are delivered locally and to those perpetrating serious crimes which are sent to the high courts. Accordingly, the small errors of believers are punished swiftly and, in part, in this world in order to purify them quickly. But, since the crimes of the people of misguidance are so great their punishments cannot be contained in this brief worldly life, as required by justice. They will be referred to the Supreme Tribunal in the next eternal realm. It should not be surprising, therefore, if such people seem to be exempted from any punishment in this world. They may have been allowed to enjoy their worldly pleasure but will miss the true happiness in the next eternal life.
Nursi fortifies his argument by referring to the Hadith of the Prophet stating “this world is the prison of the believers and the Paradise of the unbelievers.” Based on this prophetic edification, Nursi suggests that it is in this sense of partial punishment for his faults that this world becomes a dungeon for the believer. On the other hand, since the unbelievers will not be released from Hell, the punishment for their large sins is not really forgotten but just postponed until the Hereafter. And since God is the most just, they will receive the rewards for their good works in this world. It is in this sense that the world becomes their Paradise in relation to their life in the Hereafter. Pious believers, deducing from Said Nursi’s thought, should not feel discouraged by being in excessive despair or lose their hope when encountering all the sufferings and hardships of life. They should remain confident and strong-willed and maintain their trust in the bounty of God, the most Just and Compassionate. In addition, the believers, as Nursi further suggests, should maintain their faith in the truth of Islam and obediently follow its Shari’ah, so that Islam will prosper and flourish. Islamic society can function only through the Shari’ah, by which the worldly happiness can be achieved. “Otherwise, justice will disappear, public security be overturned, immorality and base qualities prevail, and everything will be run by liars.”