Said Nursi and Rufus Jones on the Spiritual Life

Abstract

Although they almost certainly never heard of one another, Said Nursi and Rufus Jones were contemporaneous mystics and leaders of spiritual renewal in their respective Muslim and Quaker communities. A comparison of their writings reveals a high correspondence of thought on the spiritual life: a sense of awe, a sacramental view of life in which God is available to all and a democratisation of the mystical life. This in turn inspires a pluralistic appreciation of God’s mystical presence in other religious communities, even as one acknowledges the distinctive truth of one’s own. For each writer, this process opened a path to respond to the challenges of modernity in the early twentieth century.