Prof. Dr. Toktamış Ateş* Everybody draws out their own meaning from democracy. Some people claim that democracy is carrying their ideas to power by persuading others; some claim democracy means being able to express their ideas freely. When it is time to speak, everybody defends democracy. But the number of people who are sincere enough […]
Veli Keskin More than a decade after Fethullah Gulen moved to the US, three articles appeared in the western media in 2010 providing a closer look to the life of Gulen, and the movement he inspired. One was written by Suzy Hensen and published in The New Republic on November 10, 2010. The other appeared […]
Gurkan Celik & Yusuf Alan* Gülen was born in 1941in Erzurum, eastern Turkey, just twenty-odd years after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. The war for Independence, transition from one regime to another, the Second World War and global phenomena of modernity versus religion had all taken […]
Dr. Greg Barton* Gülen is generally seen to draw directly on the intellectual heritage of the influential and greatly loved Sufi scholar and writer Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. And indeed, an examination of Gülen’s writing reveals it to be substantially built upon the foundation laid by Nursi, who in turn drew upon the great Anatolian Sufi […]
Dr. Richard Penaskovic Unlike Huntington Mr. Gülen is not an academic. Rather, he writes as a preacher, a journalist, a visionary, and as an activist. His thoughts are simple yet profound, poetic rather than pedestrian. He finds his inspiration in the Qur’an, the hadith, the Sufi mystics, particularly Rumi the poet, and in the ideas […]
Recently, especially in the western media, Fethullah Gulen has been called an ‘imam’. Is Fethullah Gulen an ‘imam’ or is this a misleading title? The 60 minutes TV show described Gulen as an ‘imam’. However, 60 minutes is not the first media to use this label for Gulen. Time Magazine on April 26, 2010 called […]
Fethullah Gülen is an opinion leader, an inspirer who encourages people to do service; he advises on plans and projects and provides guidance either through media or a press release when he deems appropriate and necessary. Since his early days, as an individual like all other fellow citizens, his involvement in the movement stems from his […]
Legally there is nothing preventing you from returning to Turkey. Why do you prefer to stay here? I am seized with anxiety. Regardless of when, or if, I return to Turkey, those who have created controversy, made allegations, signed the execution of my death sentence [so to speak], will do so again the very same day […]
If you were to write a letter or send a message to the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, what would you tell him? Instead of what I would say, let me use a saying of our Prophet: “If God has blessed a state president, a sovereign, a ruler with mercy, He provides him with qualified viziers […]
Fethullah Gulen was born in 1941 into a traditional family of five boys and two girls in the Pasinler district of Erzurum. His father, Ramiz Efendi, was a government-employed imam who performed his duties in various regions. Erzurum lies in the northeast of Turkey, and it is socio-culturally very conservative. It is a town that has, […]
From Hizmet News