Personal Life and Morality

• Morality is being compatible with the harmony of existence and nature. Adhering strictly to human rights, not harming animals, other living creatures, and the fabric of nature, not destroying natural living areas and forms unless necessary, and protecting them are fundamental requirements of moral behavior.

• Tolerating personal differences as long as they do not harm the rights of others (as long as they are legitimate), meeting on common grounds, and not being exclusionary can be accepted as the minimum level of morality.

• Just as knowingly not harming others is a moral obligation, not harming oneself is likewise a moral obligation.

• Religion is a moral teaching, a universal call to guidance.

• Human welfare (maslahat-ı beşer) is one of the sources of the legitimacy of morality.

• Do not preach; be an example.

• Models of moral behavior must be internalized by children from the very first times their personality and character structures begin to take shape, through parents and teachers personally living and setting an example. A behavior adopted by being an example will be more effective and permanent than verbal preaching, and will be adopted more easily.

• The principle, “Desire for each other what you desire for yourself,” serves as a guide when establishing a relationship with the other.

• The true freedom is the freedom of the other. The freedom of every human, profession, and path with their own originality and differences will be the guarantee of our freedom as well.

• Instead of sacrificing freedom under the pretext of security and security under the pretext of freedom, an ideal balance of these two concepts—which are among human’s basic needs—should be observed.

• Likewise, society’s rights cannot be sacrificed for the rights of the individual, nor the individual’s rights for society’s rights. A distinction between small and large rights cannot be made.

• Complete justice and equality before the law is one of the most fundamental features of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi’s understanding of morality and is based especially on the understanding of unconditionally protecting and defending the rights of the individual. Restricting freedoms gives birth to moral problems.

• Moral obligation and moral behavior emerge as a result of a voluntary choice and preference; if it emerges as a result of coercion, with the removal of pressure, morality will also disappear. Making a choice and using initiative are functions of the subject. Forcing a person to behave morally turns them into an object. This also prevents the individual, and especially the child, from internalizing and assimilating moral rules.

• Another important dimension of moral attitude is the ability to empathize. Being able to empathize will reduce conflicts and make behaving justly easier.

• In fact, the way to know oneself correctly is through knowledge gained by looking from the perspective of the other. If a culture is unaware of its representations in other cultures, its self-knowledge is incomplete and flawed. Knowing oneself by looking at the other finds its concise expression in the saying attributed to Ali: “I learned morality from the immoral.”

• A society, community, or fellowship not destroying the differences within itself enriches it. Multiplying commonalities while preserving differences accelerates individual potentials and social development, making the acquisition of personality and spiritual development possible. Therefore, instead of individual identity being a part of collective identity, it may be more appropriate for collective identity to be a part of individual identity. We can say that collective identity in the first case will become stagnant and stereotyped, while in the second case it will be vibrant and possess self-nourishing internal dynamics.

• Obedience to moral rules in children begins first with prohibitions, incentives, punishments, and rewards. In the socialization process, the child first obeys rules by fleeing from punishment and keeping rewards in view. In the stages following this imitation stage, the child needs to comprehend and internalize at a principled level why they should or should not behave that way. An adult person’s obedience to moral rules must no longer be on the axis of punishment-reward, but principled. Otherwise, the presence of a mechanism constantly controlling oneself is required, and since the person cannot sustain this with their own internal dynamics when this mechanism is absent, problematic individual and social relationships emerge.

• Said Nursi’s sentence, “There is neither the desire for paradise nor the fear of hell in my eyes…” expresses that his relationship with religion and the Creator is internalized not on the axis of punishment-reward, but at a principled level representing a higher tier.

• The expression, “The regard for truth is supreme and is sacrificed to no other consideration,” expresses the same thing for his moral attitude…