A Brief Look at The Risale-i Nur

A Brief Look at The Book of Light Corpus

As this is the first major translation of the series of The Book of Light Corpus, it would be befitting to present the corpus shortly so that our readers would know what to expect in general.

First of all, The Book of Light is a corpus composed of 130 pieces all of which collectively make the first four major books of the Corpus - The Words, The Letters, The Flashes and The Rays. The Words has 33 epistles, The Letters has 33, The Flashes has 33, and The Rays 15 epistles. The Twenty-eighth Letter has 8 epistles, and The Twenty-ninth Letter has 9 epistles included. Together they make 130 epistles, some of which are small in size, maybe just two or three pages long whereas others are as long as 80 or 90 pages.

Another major piece of the Corpus, The Signs of Miraculous Inimitability of the Qur’ān (Ishārātu’l-I‘jāz) is the tafsīr of the opening chapter of the Qur’ān, Sūrat al-Fātiḥa and the first 31 verses of the second chapter, Sūrat al-Baqarah. The next piece, Mesnevî-i Nûriye or The Mesnevi of The Book of Light (Al-Mathnawī al-Nūriyyah), is written in Arabic in the period called Old Sa‘īd. Al-Mathanawī, known as the seedbed of the Corpus, is also a book similar to an index of almost all the topics covered in the entire corpus and translated later into Turkish and included in the Corpus.

The last major pieces added to the Corpus are The Addenda (Lâhikalar) or the Appendices, or as we call them, the Letters of Barla, the Letters of Kastamonu, and the Letters of Emirdagh which are separate books comprised of correspondences between the author and his disciples regarding the answers to many questions on faith and religion as well as the running of the Service of the Qur’ān in various cities, towns and villages across Turkey. These were the letters that served as a means of consulting, guiding, directing and managing the students from afar. The totality of all letters are named The Twenty-seventh Letter.

Other than these major books of the Corpus, there are other major pieces such as The Staff of Moses (‘Asâ-yı Mûsâ), Dhu’l-fiqār, The Lamp of the Light (Sirāju’n-Nūr), The Confirming Stamp from the Unseen (Sikke-i Tasdik-i Ğaybī), The Mysteries (Tılsımlar) as well as minor books like A Guide for Youth (Gençlik Rehberi), A Guide for Women (Hanımlar Rehberi), Compassion and Mercy Remedies (Şefkat ve Rahmet İlaçları). The contents of those books are chosen from amongst the very epistles of previously mentioned major books.

One might wonder why the totality of the teachings of Nursi is called “The Book of Light Corpus”. Imam al-Nursi explains this in The Rays (Şu‘â‘lar):

“The wisdom behind the fact that the thirty three words and thirty three letters are all together named Risāle-i Nūr is that the name of “Nūr (Light)” has always came on my way [related with me in many perspectives].

1. The name of my village is Nurs.

2. The name of my late mother is Nūriya.

3. My Naqshi ustād (master) is Sayyid Nūr Muḥammad.

4. One of my Qādiri ustāds is Nūr ad-Dīn

5. One of my Qur’ān ustāds is Nūri.

6. Of my disciples are those with the name Nūr who are interested in my service.

7. The very example which enlightens my books rather than others is the example of Nūr.

8. The first and foremost appealing verse in the Qur’ān to my mind (‘aql), the one which illuminates my heart (qalb) and occupies my intellect (fikr) is “Allāh is the Nūr (Light) of the heavens and earth” (Qur’ān: an-Nūr, 24:35)

9. It is the divine name Nūr which solves most of my difficulties (issues in the Divine truths).

10. For my intense desire for the Qur’ān and focus on my service, my special imām is Zinnūrayn.”

“[Thus], I named the collection of all epistles together as “The Risāle-i Nūr”.

Inspired by this explanation by the author, in this translation, we have worked to find the best name in English to do justice to the original. Such a high calibre book as this must definitely have a similar effect in English, thus the title needed as great attention as it did for its rigorous translation process. We were caught between multiple choices - very strong, valid and possible names for the Corpus.

One alternative was to transfer the phrase as is - which we still prefer to keep in the title, yet as a universal book name pronounced in a Turkish way, the name “Risāle-ī Nūr” is not so easy to read for those who are not accustomed to the Turkish language. Another alternative was to go with the Arabic name. If we were to take the Arabic form of the name, that is “Rasāil an-Nūr”, it would possibly be translated as The Epistles of Light which was quite a good choice which we could have preferred to use as well. However this is the translation of “Nûr Risâleleri” in Turkish and this is not the most frequently used name of the book. In Nursian terms, the entire corpus is called as the Epistle of Light (Nûr Risâlesi, that is the Risāle-ī Nūr). The last alternative was to take this frequent Turkish name in Farisi tarkīb or noun phrase style which may roughly mean The Epistle of Light or The Book of Light. Henceforth, we have chosen The Book of Light.

Those who are already familiar with the book would recall the word “Külliyat” appearing together with the Risāle-ī Nūr. A great word choice for külliyat is “Corpus”, “the collection of written texts, esp. the entire works of a particular author or a body of writing on a particular subject.” Thus, it is the equivalence of “külliyat” in Turkish. In an attempt to be utterly faithful to the original and to keep an easy wording for all, we have come to the conclusion that we name this book as “The Book of Light Corpus.” We think this could make it easier for speakers of English. The Book of Light Corpus and The Risāle-i Nūr Corpus have been used interchangeably.