The Unanimous Report of the Ankara Experts' Committee
The total of five full boxes of books were opened by ourselves and read. Studied by ourselves were the following: the parts of the Risale‑i Nur, both printed and otherwise; letters on religious and scholarly subjects written by Said Nursi and his students; commonplace letters written by his students to each other and to himself which included newspaper cuttings. These were considered to be within the scope of our powers. They may be divided into two sorts:
The Risale‑i Nur: Ninety-nine per cent of all its parts consist of expositions of verses of the Qur'an or of Hadiths; scholarly matters written in the form of parabolic comparisons in order to illustrate clearly tenets of belief concerning religion, belief, Allah, the Prophet, the Qur'an, and the hereafter; moral guidance addressing the elderly and the youth; exemplary occurrences from the author's own life; and beneficial stories about shopkeepers and tradesmen. In all these parts the author is both sincere in what he writes and altruistic, and does not depart from scholarly and religious principles. There is no evidence of exploitation of religion, or forming a religious association, or of any movement intending to disturb public order. The mundane correspondence between Said Nursi and his students is also of this kind.
1 ― Said Nursi says that the fame and acclaim he was accorded in Istanbul resembled a deep sleep, a temporary oppressive dream, a sort of stupefaction. And he depicts this as the death of the world because he unthinkingly became involved in politics for a year or two. He says that due to this he had two identities: the Old Said and the New Said, and that these were distinct. At the end of the first of nine collections of the Risale‑i Nur, which contains around twenty treatises, he writes in a letter to the Nur students in Isparta that it is an error to condescend to dabble in politics.
2 ― In a supplication in the work called The Decisive Proof (Hüccetü'l‑Bâliğa), one of Said Nursi's most important books, he writes: "This world is transitory; the most pressing matter is to gain the everlasting world. A person loses the case or lawsuit if his belief is not firm. This is the true case; it is harmful to become involved in cases other than this. Anyone who becomes preoccupied with politics neglects more important duties. Moreover, people who get carried away by political struggles lose their purity of heart.
3 ― In the Twenty‑Sixth Flash he writes: “My true duty in this aging world is spreading the mysteries of the Qur'an…” “What I am concerned with in this country is Islamic zeal, for I have neither home nor children.”
4 ― In the Twenty‑First Flash, the first principle I told my brothers when offering them advice was this: “In your actions divine pleasure should be your aim, not material benefits.” While in these writings, it is said: “I'm not a Sufi … our way is not the Sufi way.” “Desire for rank and position and attracting attention towards oneself is a psychological illness; it is known as 'hidden shirk (association of partners with God)'.” “If our way had been that of a shaykh, there would have been only one rank and many people would have been after it But our's is the way of brotherhood and brothers can neither be fathers to each other nor assume the position of spiritual guide.”