In contemporary Turkey, large social groups are faced with the task of reconciling their traditional religious identity with the challenges posed by new living environments. Teachers and students within the educational network, their sponsors and civil servants discover in Gülen’s teachings a strategy which allows them to expand their professional and social milieus and yet remain Muslims at the same time.
It would therefore be regrettable if the particular Turkish historical roots of the Gülen movement caused other Muslims to believe the movement was irrelevant to their needs. The Gülen vision of the Turkish experience represents a belief in the compatibility of the state, faith, and modernity. This reality differs from the experience of many other Muslim states.
The development of the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, in Kurdish-populated cities goes back to the late 1980s. The first Hizmet institutions were university exam prep centers (dershane) in Diyarbakir and Urfa in 1988. Hizmet’s educational initiatives were financed by local businessmen, who developed friendship ties through weekly tea conversations (sohbet). Hizmet’s charity activism is aimed at removing prejudices in both Turkish and Kurdish constituencies, and accordingly, building social trust in the long run.
The basic Islamic ideals that motivate members of the Gülen movement to contribute time, energy and financial contributions to Gülen-inspired projects function, simultaneously, to build strong commitment on the part of individuals to the movement. A major strength of the local circles is the constant discussions of these concepts based on the Qur’an, the prophetic tradition and the works of Mr. Gülen. The circles, therefore, provide the spiritual motivation for giving and remain far more than simply money raising venues. Whether consciously or not, the structure that has evolved within the Gülen movement is rooted in sound organizational principles and is reflected in the growth of the movement worldwide.
What we essentially have with the hizmet movement is a globalization project centered on small- and medium-sized business and their families promoting through their dialogue and education initiatives an alternative Islamic globalization project centered on the idea of service in order to fight the three main enemies of humankind: poverty, disunity, and ignorance. In their own way, they thus counterbalance the more totalitarian visions of political Islam.
When asked why they give $1 million or more dollars each year to movement projects, the group of businessmen in Istanbul gave the following reasons: to make better human beings as Mr. Gülen encourages; to educate our youth; to please God; to earn a reward in the next life; to be part of a bigger movement to better the world; to provide hope to our people in Turkey and around the world.
Graham E. Fuller One of the Gülen movement’s greatest accomplishments—and a demonstration of its search for greater universalism—has come through a remarkable process of intellectual outreach, a series of annual roundtables called the Abant Forum. These roundtables have brought together Turks of diverse intellectual backgrounds—Muslims, secularists, traditionalists, modernists, atheists, Christians, leftists, and conservatives—to hammer out some common […]
Fabio Vicini Over recent decades Islamic traditions have emerged in new forms in different parts of the Muslim world, interacting differently with secular and neo-liberal patterns of thought and action. In Turkey Fethullah Gülen’s community has been a powerful player in the national debate about the place of Islam in individual and collective life. Through […]
From Hizmet News