Etyen Mahçupyan
The arrests of Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık have brought a new perspective to the Ergenekon case. Both of these people are award-winning journalists who helped expose a portion of the Ergenekon network and a coup plan.
This is why many people believe that claims about them being members of Ergenekon are absurd and feel there is something else behind their detention. Some people think the two journalists have been arrested because of the book they wrote that contains harsh allegations against the Gülen movement and that they are still interested in probing the activities of the movement. Many felt freedom of the press was being violated and that the Gülencommunity was using its influence in the judiciary and police to prevent the release of publications that insulted the movement.
But even the intellectuals of the secular segment of society, which is used to pursuing arguments like this, did not occupy themselves with this overly simple assessment for more than a few days. That is because none of the many others who authored books against theGülen movement have been investigated or arrested and there is nothing that has not already been written about the movement. Furthermore, it is not very convincing that the Gülen movementwould take a step that would obscure the Ergenekon investigation because this movement has been working from the very beginning to expose the Ergenekon organization, which describes the Gülen movement as one of its biggest targets.
Underlying the recent arrests is the realization that the Ergenekon case has reached the point of no return and a change in the organization’s priorities. It seems the project to bring down the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was postponed after defeat in the referendum. In return, it won’t be surprising if the AK Party, which will win a large portion of votes in the elections, uses its political weight to put pressure on the Ergenekon case. This in return might cause some suspects and witnesses to speak out, and everyone knows that once people start talking, the entire Ergenekon project will quickly become exposed. That means the people who are currently in detention will be in jail for many years to come.
In the face of this threat, the organization has changed its priorities. It now seems to be aiming to undermine the case, to spread the conviction that the judiciary is biased and to have those who are being tried get off with minor punishments. Apparently, the organization is implementing a project known as “National Media 2010” to serve this purpose. Odatv.com, where police carried out searches and questioned employees, is being accused of coordinating this new project and having links with Ergenekon via Yalçın Küçük’s connection with Mehmet Haberal.
For now it is impossible for us to know how accurate that claim is, but we must accept that there is evidence that convinced the court. On the other hand, it is impossible for Odatv.com to be able to perform the function the organization wants fulfilled by itself because it is not a TV station, it is a website. Hence one of their methods is having certain people write books that will confuse people and damage the legitimacy of the Ergenekon case. It seems that prosecutors feel some published books were written in connection with Ergenekon, and while they revealed some facts, they were intended to be part of a conscious manipulation. The arrests of Şener and Şık make sense within this context. What we can deduce from this investigation is that the Ergenekon organization is planning on having another former member of the police force, Sabri Uzun, release a book prior to the elections just as Hanefi Avcı released a book prior to the referendum. But these two police officers’ abilities to write a book were limited. They needed help, and it seems prosecutors have reason to believe Şener and Şık provided them with the help they needed.
In a nutshell, the issue is not about freedom of the press; the issue is about journalists being accused of supporting, knowingly or unknowingly, a project that aims to exonerate a criminal organization. Lately “investigative journalism” in Turkey has come to mean writing books based on documents that have been leaked from within the state. This makes them more susceptible to becoming a tool of controversy within the bureaucracy and to being manipulated. On the other hand, some have adopted this type of journalism as an “identity” and have become dependent on these types of documents.
The media in Turkey have also become statist and subversive. Today we are moving away from that point, but some people continue to do journalism by using opportunities that are given to them.
Published on Today's Zaman, 11 March 2011, Friday
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Are secularists and Islamists struggling in Turkey?
Ahmet T. Kuru*
In the last decade Turkey has experienced a rapid process of transformation in terms of its political and socio-economic systems.
Some pundits in the Western media, and even some academics, have defined recent political debates in Turkey as the mere reflection of a struggle between two forces: the declining secularists, including the military, and the rising Islamists, especially the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement. One example of this point of view is a recent report from the American think tank Stratfor titled “Islam, Secularism and the Battle for Turkey’s Future.” There are three main problems with depicting contemporary Turkish politics as a clash between the secularist military and the Islamist AK Party and Gülen movement.
First of all, as I explained in my book “Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey” (Cambridge University Press, 2009), the main debate in Turkish politics is not about secularism and Islamism, but between two types of secularism. Islamists, who seek to make Islamic law the basis of the legal system, are marginal in Turkey. According to surveys, 92 percent of people in Turkey support the secular state (see the 2006 survey by Çarkoglu and Toprak). Yet there has been a polarization between the Kemalist military and judiciary, on the one hand, and the majority of the Turkish people and right-wing parties that have won elections since the 1950s (Menderes’ Democrat Party [DP], Demirel’s Justice Party [AP], Özal’s Motherland Party [ANAP] and now Erdoğan’s AK Party), on the other. The Kemalist bureaucrats have aimed to protect a French-style “assertive secularism,” which requires that the state play an assertive role to exclude Islam, in particular, and religion in general from the public sphere and confine them to the private domain. However, supported by the majority of the people, conservative groups such as the Gülen movement and right-wing parties, including the AK Party, have tried to introduce an American-style “passive secularism,” which would tolerate the public visibility of religions. The assertive secularists have imposed policies such as the headscarf ban in all educational institutions and discrimination against public Islamic (imam-hatip) school graduates in the nationwide university entrance examination. Again, according to surveys, about 80 percent of Turkish society opposed these policies, but Parliament and governments have not been able to lift them so far because of the assertive secularist dominance of the military and the judiciary.
Second, those who regard the recent political developments in Turkey as a power struggle between the assertive secularist military and the Islamist AK Party and Gülen movement miss the real wrangling between two coalitions in Turkish politics. The first coalition includes actors such as the military that benefit from and, therefore, defend, assertive secularism and the old way of politics. The “old generation” in the bureaucracy is the main component of this coalition. On the other hand, there is a coalition of passive secularists, which include a broad range of actors, from conservatives (AK Party and Gülen movement) to liberal intellectuals in the media. The “young generation” in the bureaucracy, even within the military and judiciary, seems to be supporting this coalition. This coalition has pursued a demilitarization and democratization agenda and it has been the main force behind the recent judicial activism against military personnel who are suspected of planning coups against the AK Party government. The Taraf daily, which includes agnostics, ex-socialists, liberals and conservatives among its editorial board and columnists, is a prime example and a very active member of this coalition.
Finally, to depict the political debates in Turkey as a struggle between the secularist military and the Islamist AK Party and Gülen movementwould be a misleading analysis in terms of agent-structure relations. Such an analysis would neglect important structural factors, such as globalization, the European Union membership process and urbanization, which have shaken the old semi-authoritarian political system and its powerful actors in Turkey, while bringing new socio-political actors to the forefront of the changing Turkish political system. Moreover, to attach too much importance to the AK Party and the Gülen movement as monolithic actors while explaining the transformation of Turkish politics would be inaccurate. These two actors have differences from each other, in addition to internal disagreements within their own ranks. Moreover, the AK Party and the Gülen movement, in many cases, seem to be results of societal demands, rather than the cause of socio-political behaviors. Even if there had been no such personalities as Erdoğan and Gülen, there would have been parties and movements to challenge assertive secularism in Turkey, because the majority of people have been discontent with assertive secularist policies.
* Ahmet T. Kuru is an assistant professor in the department of political science at San Diego State University.
Published on Today's Zaman, 30 August 2010, Monday
In the last decade Turkey has experienced a rapid process of transformation in terms of its political and socio-economic systems.
Some pundits in the Western media, and even some academics, have defined recent political debates in Turkey as the mere reflection of a struggle between two forces: the declining secularists, including the military, and the rising Islamists, especially the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement. One example of this point of view is a recent report from the American think tank Stratfor titled “Islam, Secularism and the Battle for Turkey’s Future.” There are three main problems with depicting contemporary Turkish politics as a clash between the secularist military and the Islamist AK Party and Gülen movement.
First of all, as I explained in my book “Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey” (Cambridge University Press, 2009), the main debate in Turkish politics is not about secularism and Islamism, but between two types of secularism. Islamists, who seek to make Islamic law the basis of the legal system, are marginal in Turkey. According to surveys, 92 percent of people in Turkey support the secular state (see the 2006 survey by Çarkoglu and Toprak). Yet there has been a polarization between the Kemalist military and judiciary, on the one hand, and the majority of the Turkish people and right-wing parties that have won elections since the 1950s (Menderes’ Democrat Party [DP], Demirel’s Justice Party [AP], Özal’s Motherland Party [ANAP] and now Erdoğan’s AK Party), on the other. The Kemalist bureaucrats have aimed to protect a French-style “assertive secularism,” which requires that the state play an assertive role to exclude Islam, in particular, and religion in general from the public sphere and confine them to the private domain. However, supported by the majority of the people, conservative groups such as the Gülen movement and right-wing parties, including the AK Party, have tried to introduce an American-style “passive secularism,” which would tolerate the public visibility of religions. The assertive secularists have imposed policies such as the headscarf ban in all educational institutions and discrimination against public Islamic (imam-hatip) school graduates in the nationwide university entrance examination. Again, according to surveys, about 80 percent of Turkish society opposed these policies, but Parliament and governments have not been able to lift them so far because of the assertive secularist dominance of the military and the judiciary.
Second, those who regard the recent political developments in Turkey as a power struggle between the assertive secularist military and the Islamist AK Party and Gülen movement miss the real wrangling between two coalitions in Turkish politics. The first coalition includes actors such as the military that benefit from and, therefore, defend, assertive secularism and the old way of politics. The “old generation” in the bureaucracy is the main component of this coalition. On the other hand, there is a coalition of passive secularists, which include a broad range of actors, from conservatives (AK Party and Gülen movement) to liberal intellectuals in the media. The “young generation” in the bureaucracy, even within the military and judiciary, seems to be supporting this coalition. This coalition has pursued a demilitarization and democratization agenda and it has been the main force behind the recent judicial activism against military personnel who are suspected of planning coups against the AK Party government. The Taraf daily, which includes agnostics, ex-socialists, liberals and conservatives among its editorial board and columnists, is a prime example and a very active member of this coalition.
Finally, to depict the political debates in Turkey as a struggle between the secularist military and the Islamist AK Party and Gülen movementwould be a misleading analysis in terms of agent-structure relations. Such an analysis would neglect important structural factors, such as globalization, the European Union membership process and urbanization, which have shaken the old semi-authoritarian political system and its powerful actors in Turkey, while bringing new socio-political actors to the forefront of the changing Turkish political system. Moreover, to attach too much importance to the AK Party and the Gülen movement as monolithic actors while explaining the transformation of Turkish politics would be inaccurate. These two actors have differences from each other, in addition to internal disagreements within their own ranks. Moreover, the AK Party and the Gülen movement, in many cases, seem to be results of societal demands, rather than the cause of socio-political behaviors. Even if there had been no such personalities as Erdoğan and Gülen, there would have been parties and movements to challenge assertive secularism in Turkey, because the majority of people have been discontent with assertive secularist policies.
* Ahmet T. Kuru is an assistant professor in the department of political science at San Diego State University.
Published on Today's Zaman, 30 August 2010, Monday
Monday, March 14, 2011
Hypocrisy in languages: criticizing Fethullah Gülen, English or Turkish?
Abdulhamid Türker*
Fethullah Gülen has been the subject of several books and hundreds of articles, in many languages. Some of these books and articles are very critical of Gülen and the Gülen movement.
If someone wants to understand who Gülen is, the first thing this person would do is to look at the existing literature about him. However, if this person is able to read both English and Turkish, he/she would see two totally different pictures. There is a huge contradiction between the English and Turkish versions of articles critical of Gülen.
If someone looks at these articles [critical of Gulen] in Turkish, he would see someone who is a CIA agent, a US puppet, a hidden cardinal of the Pope or someone working for Zionists. Though there are articles that show Gülen as trying to establish an Islamic state in Turkey, the main argument in Turkish articles is that he is a Western Trojan horse in the Muslim world and trying to either Christianize Muslims or making it easy for Western powers to exploit the Muslim world through his moderate Islamic teachings.
On the other hand, in the English versions of articles criticizing Gülen, he is portrayed as a second Khomeini who is trying to establish an Islamic state in Turkey, or even more grand, trying to resurrect the Ottoman Empire. In these English versions, he is anti-Semitic, anti-Western and trying to Islamize Christians.
This may seem absurd for people who are not able to read both Turkish and English. However, the interesting point is that both versions of the articles mainly use the same sources or are even written by the same people. For instance, Hikmet Cetinkaya, a leading figure in this campaign, wrote a book called “Fethullah Gülen’in Kırk Yıllık Serüveni” (which could be translated as Fethullah Gülen’s 40 year journey). On the cover of the book, a picture of Gülen and the White House stand side-by-side. In another book by Cetinkaya called “Fethullah Gülen, ABD ve AKP” (Fethullah Gülen, US and AKP), the cover features caricatures of Gülen and President George W. Bush, and Gülen whispers to President Bush, “Buddy, I am taking care of it.” Cetinkaya is a journalist who writes for the Cumhuriyet newspaper, and he is known for his critical (to the level of enmity) articles about Gülen. In one of his news pieces, Cetinkaya quotes İlhan Selçuk, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet: “Fethullah Gülen, who is living in America, is the vein of Christian imperialism in the Muslim world; while he is playing an oppressed religious role, in reality, he is playing for politics [and] business because he leans his back on neocon evangelists and is controlled by them, money, finance. …”
In the same article, Çetinkaya claims that Gülen is supported by the CIA. To make his point, he gives the example of a school in Arbil, in northern Iraq. According to Çetinkaya, 25 out of 40 teachers working at that school had American passports in 1994. And yet, the same Çetinkaya appears on documentaries in the Netherlands and warns Christian Dutch citizens against Gülen, whom he portrays as a radical Islamist using dialogue to Islamize Christians.
Merdan Yanardağ is also a leading figure in this matter. He wrote several books paralleling the aforementioned claims. In one of his books, titled “Turkiye Nasıl Kuşatıldı?” (How Turkey is Besieged), he claims that the Gülen movement is under the control of foreign secret services, especially the CIA. He further suggests that America is using Gülen and the Gülen movement for its plans in the Middle East and Eurasia (to implement its Greater Middle East Project) and this moderate Islam approach is part of this plan.
While this was the rhetoric and claims that were used to criticize Gülen and the Gülen movement, the same sources are used to paint a totally different picture in English versions of these criticisms. For instance, Michael Rubin (interestingly, a neocon) warns America and Western powers that Gülen will establish an Islamic state in Turkey just like Khomeini. Again, he uses the arguments of the Cumhuriyet newspaper.
Similar to Rubin, Rachel Sharon-Krespin (another neocon) blames Gülen for turning “Turkey away from Europe and toward Russia and Iran and [reorienting] Turkish policy in the Middle East away from sympathy toward Israel and much more toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria,” claiming that “anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic sentiments have increased.” She, like Rubin, uses the same sources (like Cumhuriyet, Çetinkaya, Yanardağ, etc.) to justify her claims.
One wonders how come these critics can contradict each other this much even though they use the same sources. How come they criticize Gülen for being an American and Zionist puppet (Turkish versions) but at the same time as an Islamic danger who is trying to establish an anti-American, anti-Semitic Islamic state (English versions)?
In fact, it is not that difficult to understand because they are addressing different audiences. It makes more sense to warn Turkish speakers of an American imperialist danger which is supported by Zionists. But, on the other hand, for English speakers, you will find more buyers if you use an Islamic danger argument. However, those who can read both languages will see the hypocrisy therein.
*Abdulhamid Türker is a Turkish socio-political analyst.
Published on Today's Zaman, 10 November 2009, Tuesday
Friday, March 11, 2011
Fethullah Gülen: An Islamic sign of hope for an inclusive Europe
by Paul Weller*
As Europe heads deeper into economic recession, political crises and loss of social equilibrium, an increasingly diverse continent faces potentially serious challenges to cohesion, justice and equity.
The Europe of history, rather than of ideology, has always been a context for religious and cultural diversity, with a longstanding and substantial presence of Jews and Muslims, as well as Christians. But there have also always been ideological attempts to deny and/or destroy that diversity. This began when pre-Christian pagan traditions were replaced with Christianity --often (though not always) by means of force.
It continued when the flowering of Christian, Jewish and Muslim culture in the Iberian Peninsula was rolled back by the advance of a militant Catholicism that could not countenance the peaceful coexistence in a single geographical space of the three “Peoples of the Book.”
Within living memory there was industrialized genocide and the attempted liquidation of the Jews in Europe under the aegis of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, while in the 20th century there were the attempts at “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims in the Balkans.
Finally, among those claiming to act in the name of Islam against the actions (Afghanistan and Iraq) and inactions (Palestine) of “the West,” there have been the bombings in Madrid (2004) and in London (2005).
Living with diversity
Against this background, and bearing in mind that social crises can all too easily follow from economic and political ones, it is critically important for the Europe of the coming decades to find a way to live at ease with its diversity. In particular, this means overcoming the worrying developments of Islamophobic scapegoating that can be observed in some countries and that will end only in suffering for Muslim minorities and a cultural impoverishment for all.
Muslims form the largest religious minority in Europe. A substantial proportion of these are of Turkish ethnic background, and Turkey is a majority Muslim state that is in a “special relationship” with the European Union. Because of these factors, and in the context outlined above, an important sign of hope for the future of an inclusive Europe comes from the teaching of the Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, who is currently resident in the US, as well as from the civil society initiatives found across Europe that have been inspired by his teaching.
Knowledge in a contemporary context
While “traditional,” Gülen is himself not “traditionalist.” For example, in his native Turkey he recommended the building of more schools before the building of any more mosques. In doing so he was taking the traditional Islamic theme of the importance of knowledge, or ilm, and translating it into the contemporary context, resulting in over a thousand schools being founded throughout the world by those inspired by his teaching.
As well as being properly traditional, Gülen’s teaching is also informed by a Sufi Muslim heritage that, while rooted in the distinctiveness of Islam, is ready to identify goodness wherever it is found. This is the approach of the 13th century Muslim mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi, reflected in his famous saying that “one of my feet is in the center and the other is in 72 realms [i.e. in the realm of all nations] like a compass.” Of this, in his important book “Towards a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance” (The Light, 2004), Gülensaid of Rumi that “he drew a broad circle that encompassed all believers.”
Thus many of the organizations inspired by Gülen’s teaching are committed to the promotion of dialogue with Christians, Jews and people of other religious faiths. As an example of this, it should be noted that the Gülen-inspired popular magazine called The Fountainhas opened its pages to Christian authors to, among other things, provide an exposition of key texts in the Christian scriptures.
This openness towards providing a platform for voices from other religions within a magazine that is primarily read by faithful Muslims is indicative also of an even wider spirit of inclusivity that stretches to embrace not only those of other religious faiths, but also those of no faith. For example, the Dialogue Society in London, which is inspired by Gülen’s teaching, has more atheist and agnostic members of its Advisory Board than it has Muslims.
Importantly, Gülen’s Islamic teaching and practice was developed in the forge of Turkey’s 20th century project to create a secular state, as initiated by the Turkish nationalist revolution of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. That project became an ideologically “secularist” one, locked in symbiotic conflict with an “Islamist” reaction.
So, arising from that context, Gülen has criticized a politics rooted in a philosophically reductionist materialism. But he has also argued that Islam and democracy are compatible and he encourages greater democracy within Turkey. He also argues that a secular approach that is not anti-religious and allows for freedom of religion and belief is compatible with Islam.
While especially within Turkey there are those who argue that themovement inspired by Gülen’s teaching harbors secretive aims to take over the state and to impose Islamic rule, Gülen himself has criticized the instrumentalization of Islam for political ends. In this, he insists Islam does not need an Islamic state to flourish and that the politicization of Islam will only damage the state, society and also Islam itself.
Gülen has been robust and unequivocal in his condemnation of terror attacks conducted in the name of Islam. But his commitment todialogue is not reactive to these. Rather, it is based upon the deep wells of authentic Islamic tradition rooted in the Quran and teaching and example of the Prophet Muhammad. Precisely because of this,Gülen’s teaching and the initiatives inspired by it offer a robust challenge to the terrorist appropriation of Islam. In the words of the title of a publication by the Dialogue Society in London, they offer the possibility of “Deradicalisation by Default: The ‘Dialogue’ Approach to Rooting out Violent Extremism” (Dialogue Society, London, 2009).
Striving for peace and the common good
In his teaching and his writing, Gülen emphasizes the importance of a shared humanity in striving for peace and the common good. He argues that we are human beings first of all, and only then Muslims, Christians, secularists or others. While to some this may seem unexceptional, it is important to understand that Gülen articulates this from an Islamic perspective.
Of course, the process of translating ideals into the kind of choices that need to be made in the context of ambiguities of history is a challenging one, fraught with dangers and difficulties, and is one in which outcomes cannot at the moment be known. But how these initiatives continue to develop is likely to be of considerable importance for the future of Islam, the future of Europe and the potential geopolitical role of Turkey as a bridge between historic civilizational zones. Among the practical examples that could be cited are the Journalist and Writers’ Foundation, the Intercultural Dialogue Platform and the Dialogue Eurasia Platform -- each of which have brought people of religious and secular perspectives into dialogue together around matters of common concern.
Thus Gülen and the initiatives inspired by his teaching challenge the tendency found among some Muslims groups to separatist withdrawal from the wider non-Muslim society. By contrast, they offer a basis for Muslim engagement with the wider society based upon a confident and richly textured Islamic vision. That vision also draws upon the historical wealth of a multicultural civilizational history to argue that neither Turkey nor the European Union have anything to fear, but have much to gain, from a future of full Turkish membership in the EU.
In the meantime, Fethullah Gülen’s teaching and the initiatives inspired by it offer an important Islamic sign of hope for an inclusive Europe.
* Paul Weller is professor of inter-religious relations at the University of Derby in the UK, and, along with İhsan Yılmaz, the editor of the forthcoming (January, 2012) book “European Muslims, Civility and Public Life: Perspectives on and From the Gülen Movement.” http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=157777&SearchType=Basic
Published on Sunday's Zaman, 20 February 2011, Sunday
As Europe heads deeper into economic recession, political crises and loss of social equilibrium, an increasingly diverse continent faces potentially serious challenges to cohesion, justice and equity.
The Europe of history, rather than of ideology, has always been a context for religious and cultural diversity, with a longstanding and substantial presence of Jews and Muslims, as well as Christians. But there have also always been ideological attempts to deny and/or destroy that diversity. This began when pre-Christian pagan traditions were replaced with Christianity --often (though not always) by means of force.
It continued when the flowering of Christian, Jewish and Muslim culture in the Iberian Peninsula was rolled back by the advance of a militant Catholicism that could not countenance the peaceful coexistence in a single geographical space of the three “Peoples of the Book.”
Within living memory there was industrialized genocide and the attempted liquidation of the Jews in Europe under the aegis of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, while in the 20th century there were the attempts at “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims in the Balkans.
Finally, among those claiming to act in the name of Islam against the actions (Afghanistan and Iraq) and inactions (Palestine) of “the West,” there have been the bombings in Madrid (2004) and in London (2005).
Living with diversity
Against this background, and bearing in mind that social crises can all too easily follow from economic and political ones, it is critically important for the Europe of the coming decades to find a way to live at ease with its diversity. In particular, this means overcoming the worrying developments of Islamophobic scapegoating that can be observed in some countries and that will end only in suffering for Muslim minorities and a cultural impoverishment for all.
Muslims form the largest religious minority in Europe. A substantial proportion of these are of Turkish ethnic background, and Turkey is a majority Muslim state that is in a “special relationship” with the European Union. Because of these factors, and in the context outlined above, an important sign of hope for the future of an inclusive Europe comes from the teaching of the Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, who is currently resident in the US, as well as from the civil society initiatives found across Europe that have been inspired by his teaching.Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., and former Pakistani high commissioner in the UK, identified Gülen as a key “role model” for contemporary Muslims. In Ahmed’s book “Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization” (Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2007), which was written on the basis of anthropological fieldwork and questionnaire results, Gülen is identified as one of the most influential Turkish Islamic figures of his generation.
Gülen’s influence among Muslims comes first and foremost from the fact that his teaching is thoroughly Islamic, being rooted in a deep and profound engagement with classical Islamic scholarship. He is therefore not a “reformist” in any sense that might make traditionalist Muslims suspicious that he is selling out the distinctiveness of Islam.
Knowledge in a contemporary context
While “traditional,” Gülen is himself not “traditionalist.” For example, in his native Turkey he recommended the building of more schools before the building of any more mosques. In doing so he was taking the traditional Islamic theme of the importance of knowledge, or ilm, and translating it into the contemporary context, resulting in over a thousand schools being founded throughout the world by those inspired by his teaching.
As well as being properly traditional, Gülen’s teaching is also informed by a Sufi Muslim heritage that, while rooted in the distinctiveness of Islam, is ready to identify goodness wherever it is found. This is the approach of the 13th century Muslim mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi, reflected in his famous saying that “one of my feet is in the center and the other is in 72 realms [i.e. in the realm of all nations] like a compass.” Of this, in his important book “Towards a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance” (The Light, 2004), Gülensaid of Rumi that “he drew a broad circle that encompassed all believers.”
Thus many of the organizations inspired by Gülen’s teaching are committed to the promotion of dialogue with Christians, Jews and people of other religious faiths. As an example of this, it should be noted that the Gülen-inspired popular magazine called The Fountainhas opened its pages to Christian authors to, among other things, provide an exposition of key texts in the Christian scriptures.
This openness towards providing a platform for voices from other religions within a magazine that is primarily read by faithful Muslims is indicative also of an even wider spirit of inclusivity that stretches to embrace not only those of other religious faiths, but also those of no faith. For example, the Dialogue Society in London, which is inspired by Gülen’s teaching, has more atheist and agnostic members of its Advisory Board than it has Muslims.
Importantly, Gülen’s Islamic teaching and practice was developed in the forge of Turkey’s 20th century project to create a secular state, as initiated by the Turkish nationalist revolution of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. That project became an ideologically “secularist” one, locked in symbiotic conflict with an “Islamist” reaction.
So, arising from that context, Gülen has criticized a politics rooted in a philosophically reductionist materialism. But he has also argued that Islam and democracy are compatible and he encourages greater democracy within Turkey. He also argues that a secular approach that is not anti-religious and allows for freedom of religion and belief is compatible with Islam.
While especially within Turkey there are those who argue that themovement inspired by Gülen’s teaching harbors secretive aims to take over the state and to impose Islamic rule, Gülen himself has criticized the instrumentalization of Islam for political ends. In this, he insists Islam does not need an Islamic state to flourish and that the politicization of Islam will only damage the state, society and also Islam itself.
Gülen has been robust and unequivocal in his condemnation of terror attacks conducted in the name of Islam. But his commitment todialogue is not reactive to these. Rather, it is based upon the deep wells of authentic Islamic tradition rooted in the Quran and teaching and example of the Prophet Muhammad. Precisely because of this,Gülen’s teaching and the initiatives inspired by it offer a robust challenge to the terrorist appropriation of Islam. In the words of the title of a publication by the Dialogue Society in London, they offer the possibility of “Deradicalisation by Default: The ‘Dialogue’ Approach to Rooting out Violent Extremism” (Dialogue Society, London, 2009).
Striving for peace and the common good
In his teaching and his writing, Gülen emphasizes the importance of a shared humanity in striving for peace and the common good. He argues that we are human beings first of all, and only then Muslims, Christians, secularists or others. While to some this may seem unexceptional, it is important to understand that Gülen articulates this from an Islamic perspective.
Of course, the process of translating ideals into the kind of choices that need to be made in the context of ambiguities of history is a challenging one, fraught with dangers and difficulties, and is one in which outcomes cannot at the moment be known. But how these initiatives continue to develop is likely to be of considerable importance for the future of Islam, the future of Europe and the potential geopolitical role of Turkey as a bridge between historic civilizational zones. Among the practical examples that could be cited are the Journalist and Writers’ Foundation, the Intercultural Dialogue Platform and the Dialogue Eurasia Platform -- each of which have brought people of religious and secular perspectives into dialogue together around matters of common concern.
Thus Gülen and the initiatives inspired by his teaching challenge the tendency found among some Muslims groups to separatist withdrawal from the wider non-Muslim society. By contrast, they offer a basis for Muslim engagement with the wider society based upon a confident and richly textured Islamic vision. That vision also draws upon the historical wealth of a multicultural civilizational history to argue that neither Turkey nor the European Union have anything to fear, but have much to gain, from a future of full Turkish membership in the EU.
In the meantime, Fethullah Gülen’s teaching and the initiatives inspired by it offer an important Islamic sign of hope for an inclusive Europe.
* Paul Weller is professor of inter-religious relations at the University of Derby in the UK, and, along with İhsan Yılmaz, the editor of the forthcoming (January, 2012) book “European Muslims, Civility and Public Life: Perspectives on and From the Gülen Movement.” http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=157777&SearchType=Basic
Published on Sunday's Zaman, 20 February 2011, Sunday
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Place of the Gülen Movement in the Intellectual History of Islam
Bruce Eldridge
In the twenty-first century, Islam is living in a world that no longer accepts the great truths of the past. Faith communities that rely for their identity on their history and on their relationship to a God who is no longer fashionable, are being challenged to come to terms with this new, globalized, postmodern world. As part of the world wide faith community of Islam, the movement which has developed aroundFethullah Gülen and his ideology is making a serious attempt to come to terms with that world.
The Gulen Movement is not new in the sense that its ideology is new.Gülen had grounded his teaching in the precedents of historical Islam.Gülen recognizes that throughout its history, individual Muslims and the movements that have developed around them, have sought to extend the boundaries of Islam’s intellectual influence and contemporary relevance. From the Mu’tazilites who argued for the introduction of reason into Qur’anic interpretation, to Ibn Rushd who borrowed from Aristotle, to Said Nursi, who believed that contact with Christianity may be profitable, Muslims have been prepared to move outside the square. Mediaeval Islamic mathematicians borrowed from India, and in al-Andalusia, scientists, theologians and philosophers freely exchanged ideas with their Jewish and Christian colleagues.
Fethullah Gülen stands firmly within this tradition. While remaining a theologically conservative Muslim, he believes deeply in the value of reason, science and technology. He has engaged intellectually with Western thinkers and he has personally shared his desire for inter-religious harmony with leaders of other faiths. It is true that these things have been done before. What makes Gülen unusual is the range of activities in which his followers have become involved, the breadth of his vision, and the opportunities he has created to enable his ideology to be disseminated. Gülen envisions a world where people are deeply grounded in a moral and ethical tradition, where humility and service are highly valued and where reason, science and technology are fully utilized for the benefit of all. His use of interpretation to demonstrate the relevance of the Quran in the world today is significant to the attainment of that goal. So too is his readiness to dialogue with non-Muslim philosophies and faiths. The schools established by his followers have developed curricula which will develop adults capable of bringing his vision to fruition. The media outlets owned by his followers allow for the wider dissemination of his ideas.
At present, Gülen’s influence is strongest in those Asian countries with cultural ties to Turkey, although this is changing as hismovement’s schools extend into other parts of Asia and the rest of the world. Gülen is not as well known in the West as he is in Asia, nevertheless, his international profile is increasing. The decision to create the Fethullah Gülen Chair in the Study of Islam and Muslim-Catholic Relations at the Australian Catholic University is not only an indication of his increasing profile, but a recognition of the role Gülenand his movement are playing on the world stage.
The Gulen Movement stands firmly within the intellectual history of Islam. It presents a vision, both for the future of Islam and for the world, a vision that is mindful of the vagaries and relativities of postmodernism while remaining true to its Islamic heritage.
Excerpted from the article presented at the conference "Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gulen Movement" on October 25-27, 2007 in London, U.K.
In the twenty-first century, Islam is living in a world that no longer accepts the great truths of the past. Faith communities that rely for their identity on their history and on their relationship to a God who is no longer fashionable, are being challenged to come to terms with this new, globalized, postmodern world. As part of the world wide faith community of Islam, the movement which has developed aroundFethullah Gülen and his ideology is making a serious attempt to come to terms with that world.
The Gulen Movement is not new in the sense that its ideology is new.Gülen had grounded his teaching in the precedents of historical Islam.Gülen recognizes that throughout its history, individual Muslims and the movements that have developed around them, have sought to extend the boundaries of Islam’s intellectual influence and contemporary relevance. From the Mu’tazilites who argued for the introduction of reason into Qur’anic interpretation, to Ibn Rushd who borrowed from Aristotle, to Said Nursi, who believed that contact with Christianity may be profitable, Muslims have been prepared to move outside the square. Mediaeval Islamic mathematicians borrowed from India, and in al-Andalusia, scientists, theologians and philosophers freely exchanged ideas with their Jewish and Christian colleagues.
Fethullah Gülen stands firmly within this tradition. While remaining a theologically conservative Muslim, he believes deeply in the value of reason, science and technology. He has engaged intellectually with Western thinkers and he has personally shared his desire for inter-religious harmony with leaders of other faiths. It is true that these things have been done before. What makes Gülen unusual is the range of activities in which his followers have become involved, the breadth of his vision, and the opportunities he has created to enable his ideology to be disseminated. Gülen envisions a world where people are deeply grounded in a moral and ethical tradition, where humility and service are highly valued and where reason, science and technology are fully utilized for the benefit of all. His use of interpretation to demonstrate the relevance of the Quran in the world today is significant to the attainment of that goal. So too is his readiness to dialogue with non-Muslim philosophies and faiths. The schools established by his followers have developed curricula which will develop adults capable of bringing his vision to fruition. The media outlets owned by his followers allow for the wider dissemination of his ideas.
At present, Gülen’s influence is strongest in those Asian countries with cultural ties to Turkey, although this is changing as hismovement’s schools extend into other parts of Asia and the rest of the world. Gülen is not as well known in the West as he is in Asia, nevertheless, his international profile is increasing. The decision to create the Fethullah Gülen Chair in the Study of Islam and Muslim-Catholic Relations at the Australian Catholic University is not only an indication of his increasing profile, but a recognition of the role Gülenand his movement are playing on the world stage.
The Gulen Movement stands firmly within the intellectual history of Islam. It presents a vision, both for the future of Islam and for the world, a vision that is mindful of the vagaries and relativities of postmodernism while remaining true to its Islamic heritage.
Excerpted from the article presented at the conference "Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gulen Movement" on October 25-27, 2007 in London, U.K.
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