Sudanlı Doçent Doktor Tarık Muhammed Nur ile, İstanbul’da bulunan Özel Sema Hastanesinde buluştuk.
Kendisi Sudan’ın başkenti Hartum’da bulunan Hartum Üniversitesi İslami Araştırmalar Bölümünde Doçent doktor. Aynı zamanda da Üniversitenin Rektör Yardımcılığı görevini yürütmekte. Oğlunun Sudan’da geçirmiş olduğu trafik kazası sonrasında tedavi amaçlı olarak Türkiye’ye eşiyle birlikte gelmişler.
Ropörtaj esnasında yanımızda İstanbul Silivri’de devlet kademesinde tıp doktoru olan Dr. Ali Seyhan da vardı ve oğlunun sağlık durumu ile ilgili Tarık Beyle fikir alışverişinde bulundular. Yapmış olduğumuz ropörtajla karşılıklı birbirimizi tanıma fırsatı yakaladık :
– İlk olarak 1990lı yılların sonunda İhsan Kasım’ın arapçaya tercüme ettiği Risale-i Nur’ları Sudan’da elde ettim ve okumaya başladım. İstanbul İlim ve Kültür Vakfından Profesör Doktor Faris Kaya ile bir Bediüzzaman Kongresinde tanıştım ve kendisinden bu eserlerle alakalı çokça istifade ettim. Ardından akademik çalışmalarım nedeniyle İstanbul’da birkaç sene bulundum ve bu süre içersinde Türkçeyi öğrenme imkanım oldu. Risale-i Nurları Türkçe okuma imkanına kavuştum.
– Risale-i Nur eserleri ve Bediüzzaman Said Nursi Sudan’da tanınıyor mu?
– Hem de çok! 1968 yılında ülke genelini temsil eden Devlet Konseyi yayınladığı bildiride Risale-i Nuru Referans olarak belirtti. Bunun manası, bu eserlerin ülkemizde resmi olarak devlet kurum ve kuruluşlarında bilhassa da Sudan Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığında kaynak eser olarak tanındığıdır. Günümüzde Sudanlı İslam Profesörlerinden, yazdıkları eserlerde Risale-i Nura atıf yapıp, içindeki izahları kullananların sayısı son derece yüksektir.
Kelam ilminde diğer bir ifadeyle imani bahislerde Risale-i Nur’un yeri son derece mümtazdır. Sudan halkı arasında da bu eserler ve müellifi tanınmakta ve eserleri yoğun bir alakayla karşılanmaktadır. Gerek Hartum’da gerekse de diğer şehirlerde bulunan Risale-i Nur dershaneleri vasıtasıyla halkımızın da bu eserlerden istifadesi gerçekleşmektedir.
– Sudan ile Türkiye ilişkileri şu an ne durumda ve bu ilişkilerin arttırılmasında sizce neler yapılabilir?
– İstenen seviyede olmasa da son 10 yılda bu ilişkiler hatırı sayılır ölçüde arttı aslında. Sudan’dan Türkiye’ye ve Türkiye’den Sudan’a üniversite okuma amacıyla gelip giden öğrenciler bunda en büyük pay sahibi. Türkiye’de faaliyet gösteren İstanbul İlim Kültür Vakfı, Ruba Vakfı, Hayrat Vakfı gibi sivil toplum kuruluşlarının da büyük katkıları var tabii.
Öte yandan Sudan Devletinin de bu hususta hassasiyetleri sözkonusu. Örnek olarak, son dönemde yapılan bir kültürel konferansa Sudan Cumhurbaşkanı Yardımcısı ve Teknoloji Bakanının somut katkıları oldu.
Hocamıza teşekkür ettik ve hayır dualarla vedalaştık.
We met Sudanese Assistant Professor Mr. Tarık Muhammed Nour at private Sema Hospital in Istanbul. He is an Assistant Professor of the Hartoum Islamic Researches Faculty. Meanwhile, Mr. Tarık Muhammed Nour is the assistant rector of Hartoum University. They have come to Turkey in order to take medical care because of his son’s traffic accident. Medical Doctor Mr. Ali Seyhan attended our conversation, too.
– Dear Assistant Professor, how did you first meet Risale-i Nur ?
– Right, at the end of 1990’s. I found Ihsan Kasim’s Arabic Risale Nur translations in Sudan and started to read. Then, I met to Professor Faris Kaya from Istanbul Science & Culture Foundation at an International Bediuzzaman Congress. I learned many things from him about Risale-i Nur and Bediuzzaman. In the coming years, I went to Istanbul for academic searches. I learned Turkish. I read Risale-i Nur in Turkish language.
– Are the Risale Nur and Bediuzzaman known in Sudan?
– Sure. Sudan State Council declared Risale Nur as a reference book in 1968. This means that Sudan State, especially Religious Affairs Chairmanship officially uses Risale Nur as a reference guide. In these days, many Sudanese Professors use Risale Nur as a reference guide in their books. Risale Nur is well-known especially in beliefe topics. Ordinary people in Sudan know these books by attending the risale nur lessons in nur medrassahs( medrassah means house where people study risale nur lessons).
– What about current Sudan-Turkey relationships?
– Although it is not as We desire, it has become better during the last decade. Students who travel for university education achieved it . On the other hand, Ruba Foundation, Istanbul Science & Culture Foundation, Hayrat Foundation and many other NGOs spent much efforts about bilateral relations.Besides this, Sudan Government is very sensitive about Turkey and Risale Nur. Assistant President and Technology Minister of Sudan have recently sponsored an international Risale Nur congress held in Sudan.
In the month of Ramadan, Muslims try to improve their spiritual faculties through fasting. But how can depriving yourself of food and drink help one’s spiritual progress? Surely deliberate starvation is a sign of craziness, not spiritual development! Hopefully, this pamphlet will help answer some of the questions which those who are outside of Islam must be asking with regard to issues such as the annual Ramadan fast.
Discipline of Life
Another of the many instances of wisdom in fasting is this: the month of Ramadan is a kind of physical and spiritual therapy of the most important kind. When people eat and drink with no restriction, it is harmful from a medical point of view; and when they hurls themselves on everything they encounter without considering whether it is detrimental or not, it is harmful from the spiritual perspective.
It is difficult for such souls to obey the spirit and the conscience. They think that they are in control, but in fact their instinctual souls have taken the reins and are riding them wherever they please.
The Ramadan fast provides human with a kind of physical and spiritual diet – one directed at disciplining the instinctual soul and training it to listen rather than to dictate.
When we fast, we are not attracting illness to our poor, weak stomachs by cramming them with food before the previous consignment has been digested. And by abandoning even daily actions like eating, as it is commanded, we acquire the ability to listen to the commands of the reason and the Divine Law, thereby avoiding wrong actions which may harm us spiritually.
Furthermore, millions of people frequently suffer from hunger. Enforced hunger, therefore, and the discipline which goes with it, are needed in order to develop our patience and endurance. Fasting in Ramadan is the patient endurance of a period of hunger and thirst that continues for an average of sixteen hours – more if the pre-dawn meal is not eaten – and it is a discipline and form or training. That is to say, fasting is also a cure for impatience and lack of endurance, which tend to double people’s afflictions.
Moreover, the stomach is like a factory that has many workers. And many of the human organs are connected to it. If we do not allow ourselves a rest from activity during the day for a month, we makes the factory’s workers and those organs forget their particular duties. We make them busy with our needs so that they remain under our tyranny. Also, we confuse the rest of the organs in the human body with the rumbling and steam of the factory’s machinery. We continuously attract their attention to our needs, making them temporarily forget their own exalted duties.
It is because of this that for centuries those closest to God have accustomed themselves to discipline and to eating and drinking little in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment and perfection.
To give the workers in the factory of the stomach a much-needed rest during this month is to allow them to carry out their own duties of worship. The stomach, together with our other organs, has not been created solely for our own benefit and gratification, and the Ramadan fast not only allows our organs to carry out their natural God-given duties but it also helps us to understand that our bodies do not answer to us alone, and that they too are engaged in the worship of God.
Gratitude to the true source
One of the many instances of wisdom in the Ramadan fast is the opportunity for human to give gratitude to the One who really deserves it.
Although human has been given innumerable bounties, he often forgets their true source. Now if you were to dine at a restaurant, it is obvious that you are going to thank the waiter for bringing your food to the table and the chef for cooking it. But to tip the waiter and to congratulate the chef, while ignoring the One Who actually made your food possible in the first place, is to act with ingratitude, to say the least.
God has spread countless kinds of bounties over the face of the earth for humankind, in return for which He wishes human to express gratitude, which is really a very small price to pay. But while most of us are grateful for what we receive, for the most part we attribute those bounties to causes other than God. As a result, we tend to feel indebted to them in a way that they do not deserve, for they are only means whereby God’s bounties are delivered to us. Material or ‘natural’ causes have a part to play, but the One Who truly deserves our gratitude is the true Source of those bounties, namely God Almighty. It is to Him that our gratitude should be directed, and Ramadan helps us to focus on this more intently than we do at other times.
However, the gratitude we are supposed to show to Him is given not because He needs it, but because we do. To thank God is to recognise that bounties come directly from Him; it is to appreciate their worth and to perceive our own need – a need that God alone can satisfy. To show gratitude to God is to recognise that while material causes play a part, they are ultimately not the giver of Bounties. To thank God, then, is to help us sever our connection to material causes and strengthen our connection to God, the Causer of all causes.
Fasting in Ramadan, then, is the key to true gratitude. For at other times of the year, most of us who are not in difficult circumstances do not realize the value of many bounties since they we not experience real hunger. Those of us whose stomachs are full do not understand the degree of bounty there is in a piece of dry bread. But when it is time to break the fast during Ramadan, the sense of taste testifies that even dry bread is a most valuable Divine bounty in the eyes of a believer. During Ramadan, everyone, however poor or wealthy, expresses a sort of gratitude through simply understanding the value of those bounties.
Furthermore, since eating is prohibited during the day, those fasting will say: “These bounties do not belong to me. I am not free to eat them, for they belong to another and they are His gift to give. I will wait for His command before I touch them.” In this way, those fasting will recognize the bounty as bounty and so will be giving thanks. Thus, fasting in this way is in many respects like a key to gratitude, and gratitude is one of human’s fundamental duties.
Hunger and compassion
Another of the many instances of wisdom in fasting from the point of view of humankind’s social life is as follows.
Human beings have been created differently with regard to their livelihoods. As a consequence of this difference, God Almighty invites the rich to assist the poor, so that through the hunger experienced in fasting, the rich can truly understand the pains and hunger which the poor suffer. If there were no fasting, there would be many self-indulgent rich people unable to perceive just how hard it is to be poor and hungry, and just how in need of compassion the poor and the hungry really are.
Compassion for one’s fellow man is an essential of true thankfulness. Whoever you are, there will always be someone poorer than you in some respect. As human beings, we are enjoined to be compassionate towards those less fortunate than ourselves. If we never know how hunger feels, how are we able to have true compassion for those who are always hungry? By allowing us to feel real hunger, Ramadan also gives us the opportunity to understand the plight of those worse off than ourselves, and in so doing, develop our sense of empathy and compassion.
True Duty
Another instance of wisdom in the Ramadan fast concerns the opportunity it provides for man to curb his baser tendencies.
Human’s instinctual soul – the part of his being which looks to selfgratification rather than spiritual enlightenment – wants to be free and independent, and considers itself to be autonomous. According to the dictates of its nature, it even imagines it has the power to act as it pleases. It does not want to admit that it is being sustained and trained through innumerable bounties. Especially if it possesses wealth and power in this world, and if ignorance also encourages it, it will devour God’s bounties like a thieving animal.
Thus during Ramadan, the instinctual soul of everyone who fasts, from the richest to the poorest, may understand that it does not own itself, but that is totally owned; it may understand that it is not free, but that it is in servitude. During the fast, it will come to understand that unless it is commanded, it is unable to do the simplest of things, for until it is given permission, it cannot even stretch out its handtowards water. Its imaginary power is therefore shattered and instead of worshipping itself, it begins to worship its True Source and begins to express gratitude, which is its true duty.
Awakening from Negligence
Another of the many instances of wisdom in the Ramadan fast concerns the training of the instinctual soul and the abandonment of harmful and rebellious habits.
The human soul tends to forgets its true nature most easily. Prone to negligence, it either will not or cannot see the utter powerlessness, want and deficiency within itself; indeed, it would prefer never to see them. It refuses to consider just how weak it is, and how subject to transience and to disasters; it wishes to forget that it consists merely of flesh and bones, which quickly decline and eventually go to nothing.
Instead, it takes on the world as though it possessed a body made of steel, imagining itself to be undying and eternal. It hurls itself onto the world with intense greed and rapaciousness, captivated by anything that gives its pleasure or that benefits it. Furthermore, it forgets the Creator Who sustains it with perfect compassion, and it does not think of the results of its life and its life in the hereafter. Indeed, it wallows in misconduct and dissipation.
However, fasting in the month of Ramadan awakens even the most mindless and ignorant to their weakness, impotence and need. Hunger makes them think of their stomachs, thus helping them to realise how needy they are. They realize how unsound their weak bodies really are, and how much they stand in need of kindness and compassion. The soul, which is like a small Pharaoh in its tyranny, gradually comes to realise that it is has no real power of its own at all. Gradually, through realising their utter impotence, the arrogant become less so, and perceive a desire to take refuge in God Almighty. And so, if ignorance has not already destroyed their hearts, they knock at the door of mercy with the hands of thankfulness.
Who are we?
So who are we? We are a Turkish foundation called RUBA, which aims to introduce what we believe is the true heart of Islam. We are just starting up in London, trying to portray Islam in a new light.
RUBA is here to change the popular view of Islam and clear up some of the misunderstandings associated with the religion. This is especially important in a multi-cultural, multi-faith country such as Britain, with a growing Muslim population; to raise awareness on some of the misconceptions related with Islam can only be to everyone’s advantage.
Regarding our philosophy, although we make use of many sources, our understanding of Islam is based on the renowned work known as the Risale-i Nur by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. Thus most of the points we make are derived from his work. So let us share our thoughts on the Ramadan fast with you; hopefully it will help us all understand better why we do what we do in this particular month of the year.
Ramazan ayı bütün Dünya’da okunan Kur’an-ı Kerimler, kılınan Teravih Namazları, paylaşılan ekmekler verilen iftar ve sahurlarla devam ediyor.
Peki, Londra’da Ramazan nasıl geçiyor?
Dost Tv İyi Haberler’e telefonla bağlanan İsmail Hakkı İnan Londra’daki Ramazan faaliyetlerini anlattı. Ruba Vakfı bünyesinde bastırılmış olan Ramazan’a özel broşürlerden bahsetti –ki yakında broşürün orijinalini de sitemize ekleyeceğiz.-
Ruba vakfından telefon geldiğinde çalışıyordum. Telefon eden kardeş bana; sekiz Amerikalı’nın İstanbul’a ziyaret amaçlı olarak geldiklerini, şu an Eyüp Sultan’da bulunan İlim Yayma Cemiyeti’nde olduklarını ve onlarla ilgilenip ilgilenemeyeceğimi sorduğunda hiç düşünmeden evet dedim. O esnada uzakta olduğumdan dolayı uzun ve yorucu bir yolculuktan sonra yanlarına ulaştım.
Gruba rehberlik eden kişi Dean isminde, Türkiye’de İngilizce öğretmenliği yapan bir Amerkan vatandaşıydı. Kendisi aynı zamanda Üsküdar’da İngilizce Risale-i Nur derslerine iştirak ettiğini söyledi. Grup sekiz kişiydi. Amerikanın farklı eyaletlerinden; Teksas, New Jersey gibi yerlerden gelmişlerdi. İlk olarak tanıştık. Çoğunluğu genç olan, son derece saygılı ve araştırıcı bir karakterde olduklarını sorularıyla belli eden insanlardı. Ne kadar tuhaf bir şey; dünyanın ta öteki ucundan, Amerika’dan gelen insanlar dini hususlarla ilgili o kadar araştırmacı nitelikte sorular soruyorlardı ki insan hayret etmekten kendini alamıyor doğrusu!
Sordukları ve elimden geldiği kadar cevaplamaya çalıştığım sorular şunlardı:
Hz.İbrahim(a.s.) ve Hz.İsmail(a.s.)’dan Kur’an’da nasıl bahsedilmektedir?
Hz.İsa(a.s.) ve Hz.Meryem hakkında Kur’an- Kerim’in ifadeleri nelerdir?
Hz. Muhammed(s.a.v.) hayatında hiç yalan söylemiş midir?
Günümüzde şiddet ve terör ile ilgili olarak sık sık müslümanların adları geçmektedir. Siz müslümanlar bu olaylara karışanlar hakkında neler düşünüyorsunuz?
İncil’i hiç okudunuz mu?
Kur’an-ı Kerim ilk yazıldığı haliyle muhafaza edilmiş midir?
Risale-i Nur’a islam aleminde nasıl bakılmaktadır?
Yukarda sayılan bu sorular, onların hakikati arayan bir yapıda olduklarının en güçlü kanıtlarıydı. Yapılan sohbetin ardından Eyüp Sultan Hazretlerinin türbesini ve Eyüp Sultan Camiini birlikte gezdik. Camiin atmosferi onları da derinden etkilemiş olmalı ki; içerde hayret dolu bakışlarla etrafı süzerek bir köşeye oturdular ve uzun süre etrafı seyrettiler. Ardından, Camiin etrafındaki çarşıyı gezdik. Tesbih ve Zemzem suyu ilgilerini çekmiş olmalı ki bunlarla alakalı sorular da sordular. Ardından samimi ve içten dileklerle vedalaştık.
Birkaç gün sonra, grubun rehberliğini yapan Dean ile bir telefon görüşmemiz oldu. Gerçekleştirdiğimiz sohbetten Amerikalı grubun son derece memnun olduğunu ve düşüncelerinde olumlu değişikliklere neden olduğunu belirtti. Kendisinin halen Hristiyan olmasına rağmen, Risale-i Nur derslerine devam ettiğini ve İslamla ilgili araştırmalarına devam ettiğini söyleyerek bu hususlarla ilgili sohbet etmek istediğini belirtti.
İstanbul’a gelen birçok yabancı insan hakikatı arama peşinde ve bu hususta onlara yardımcı olabilmek bizlerin vazifesi. Umarım bunu elimizden geldiğince gerçekleştirebiliriz.
