Thomas Michel
1. Oğuz and Erol, typical members of the Gülen cemaat
Oğuz comes from a casually practicing Muslim family in Malatya, Central Anatolia.1 He first came to know the Gulen movement as a high school student in Ankara and shortly thereafter moved into a yurt, or residence, run by the community. He spent his last two years of high school there as he prepared for the dreaded Öğrenci Seçme Sınavı (ÖSS), the Student Selection Examination. The ÖSS is the college entrance and placement exam taken annually by over 1.5 million students in Turkey, which determines both the universities and programs that a student can enter. Oğuz placed within the top 1% of his examination year and was thus able to enter the Middle East Technical Institute in Ankara, one of the best universities in the country. There he took a bachelor’s and master’s degree in physics and had a scholarship offer from a prestigious university in the United States. However, instead of pursuing this enviable career opportunity, Oğuz took up a job teaching physics in a high school in Kirghizstan. There he married a Kirghiz colleague and after eight years they are still living and teaching in that country.
Erol is a businessman, with his own plumbing supplies company in the southeast Turkish city of Gaziantep. He came to know the Gülen movement by way of his fellow business associates. For the past ten years, Erol has donated one million Turkish lire (about $600,000) annually to the activities of the community. He has “adopted” one of the movement’s schools in Cambodia, a project he has never seen but to which he feels personally connected and for which he provides funding. He has only met Hoca Effendi as Fethullah Gulen is affectionately called by those in the community, once. That meeting took place on a recent visit with other Turkish business leaders to Fethullah Gulen’s current residence in Pennsylvania. His knowledge of Gülen’s vision and teaching comes mainly from CDs, radio broadcasts, and magazine articles that reproduce Gülen’s sermons and discussions, often in question-answer form.
What are the values that have inspired Oğuz, Erol, and thousands of other Turks to sacrifice time, talents, funds, and career to a communitarian project they call the Hizmet, or “Service”?
Obviously, the Hizmet is not the only movement in today’s world that promotes and enables altruism and philanthropy. Other associations, both religious and secular, could be named. However, there are many reasons for generous and self-sacrificial behavior, and it would be simplistic to assume that each of these movements is motivated by the same set of values. It is the purpose of this paper to try to point out the core values of the Gulen movement, the ideals that make them tick and operate, and which distinguish them from other groups and organizations that are also doing good things in today’s world.
2. A movement inspired by Islamic ideals
First of all, the Gülen community is properly speaking an Islamic movement, not merely a movement composed mainly of Muslims, but a movement shaped and guided by Islamic ideals and principles, sustained by Islamic practice and devotion, and committed to a vision of the role that Islam can and should play in today’s world. For this reason, it is inevitable that the core values of the movement will derive from the Islamic tradition itself. In this paper, I will take a set of these central values and try to show how they influence and help to form the distinctive character of the Hizmet, or as it is popularly known, the Gülen community.
The Gülen community is inspired by the preaching and writing of the Turkish scholar Fethullah Gulen. It is Gülen’s particular understanding of the teaching of the Qur’an and hadith and his appropriation of the way this message has been understood, lived, and commented upon by Muslims down through the centuries that provide the intellectual content of the movement and the ideals pursued by the community.
Elsewhere, I have written of the concept of ikhlas (sincerity, purity of intention) as a key value that motivates the work of the community.2 In this paper, I would like to focus on another central notion that motivates and characterizes the activities of the Gülen cemaat. This is the important concept of ‘ibada (‘ibadat, ‘ibadah),3 which is broadly translated as worship, and the related concepts of ‘ubudiyya (servanthood) and ‘ubuda (devotion).
3. Worship, servanthood, devotion
The terms translated in English as “worship,” “servanthood,” and “devotion” are taken from Arabic and possess a long history in the Islamic tradition. In particular, they have been commented upon by Sufi teachers and theoreticians down through the ages. Fethullah Gulen has appropriated this traditional language and applied it to the practice of Islam in modern situations. A study of these concepts provides a key to understanding both the movement’s spiritual motivation as well as the success of its undertakings.
The term ‘ibada is derived from the Arabic root meaning slave or servant and carries the idea of enslaving oneself to God or of acting as God’s servant, with the consequent connotations of obedience, submission, devotion, faithfulness, service etc. The concept is not an innovation within the Abrahamic tradition, and is well known in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament. Moses was referred to as God’s servant and the idea of Israel as God’s faithful Servant was later developed by the prophets, especially Isaiah. Christian authors of the New Testament identified Jesus with the Suffering Servant of God spoken of by Isaiah. In the Qur’anic account of the Night Journey (Qr 17:1), Muhammad is referred to simply as “His servant” (“Glory to God Who did take His servant for a journey by night…”
In many treatments of Islamic belief and practice, and in the minds of many Muslim believers, ‘ibada is simply equated with ritual acts, specifically the ritual practices such as the daily salat prayers, the Ramadan fast, the pilgrimage to Mecca etc., that are obligatory for all Muslims. Particularly in works of fiqh (jurisprudence), ‘ibada as ritual activity is treated as a separate chapter distinct from mu'amalat (business affairs and contracts), munakahat (marriage regulations), jinaya (expiation), hudud (punishment), faraid (inheritance) etc.
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