How Should We Understand the Institution of Prophethood

Özet

This research study draws an image of prophethood in the pre-Islamic era. It quotes history of Prophets to confirm its conclusions in various contexts. Moreover, the research focuses on evidences that confirm its outcomes. It also enriches the results with ”evidence“, ”facts“ and ”idea“. Thus, the research affirms that the essence of life revolves around believing in the prophets, because they are the guides towards the Almighty (the Eternal, the Ever-lasting), and His qualities of perfection. The message of Islam and the book of Qur'an in particular repeat the stories of prophets in various chapters focusing on the fact that prophets are always winners in their struggle to uplift humanity and human-being (as he is the center of the universe) to the highest degree in order to be part of the blessed convoy of prophets and their followers. Having approached that state, man becomes capable of fulfilling the task of being vicegerent on earth. Nursi, in order to illustrate these facts, focused on the stories of prophets. He explained and reflected on them as the story of Abraham, Joseph, Job, Moses, Jonah, and Jesus. In this context, Nursi refutes allegations which claim that the success of West is the result of its denial of religion, and that if we ever want to be successful, we have to refrain from religion as the West had done. He also refutes sayings which state that being religious is the reason for our backwardness. He explains how far from Islam and its teachings are these beliefs. Islam contains basics of development and civilization and it meets with real Christianity. Thus, we accept and believe in what we had been told by Prophet Mohammed that Jesus will descent and belong to the community of Islam ummah and follow Islam's teachings.