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dialogues with people of different faiths and cultures. Today, around the world, through local partnerships, Hizmet volunteers are regularly co-organizing small and large-scale events and meetings in which people of various backgrounds interact with one another.
To this end, the dialogue and mutual understanding initiative is one of the cornerstones of evolution for the Gülen movement. The expansion of the Gülen movement from local to national, then to global one correlated with the developments both in Turkey and worldwide. In Central Asia with the collapse of the Soviet Union, state monopoly on economic and cultural life ended.
This decade also experienced yet another project of humanitarian aid, by establishing organizations such as “Helping Hands” and “Kimse Yok Mu”, volunteers answered this call, and started fundraising activities and relief fund efforts around the world. These organizations were able to provide millions of dollars to the areas of hunger, poverty, or areas hit by earthquakes and tsunamis. People around the world voluntarily participate in activities through such organizations. In some areas, volunteers work to build hospitals, provide food to the hungry, yet volunteer doctor’s help in health care, hundreds of Hizmet inspired volunteers work to meet the urgent needs.
Today, the movement operates within a complex and multifaceted structure.
Yavuz describes that the movement possesses three layers: “the businessmen, journalists, and teachers and students”. The movement has its hierarchical structure, and aside from the Gülen leadership, only a small group of decision makers of the Gülen community have played an important role in its development after Gülen himself moved to the U.S.
in 1997. After leaving Turkey, however, Gülen has still supervised its activities up to present day. Gülen regards himself in the movement as spiritual leader guiding his followers through his Islamic teachings.
V. Islamic Foundations of the Hizmet Movement
What Islamic teachings and values are observed by the Hizmet members is core discourse of this section. Therefore this part will discuss about Gülen’s Islamic thinking, and how it reach the young generation including intellectuals, school teachers, the businessmen, and the householders who make up the community shaped by his vision. It
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is Gülen’s theological perspective that makes him as spiritual master whose teachings stimulate the formation of a coherent and workable community life.
Like other religions, Islam provides a wealth of teachings and spiritual experiences to guide Muslim community life, thus any individual believer is able to integrate into community with guidance of Islam. In the course of history, it shows that even the greatest scholars or Sufis (mystic) are able to do that. The sources of Islamic teachings and spiritual guidance are the Qur’an and Sunnah. To Gülen, the most important inspiration of his teachings is from the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad’s traditions. Gülen’s thought is not as natural philosophy, it is his interpretation and commentary of the Qur’an and Hadith. Gülen’s prophetology holds that although it is possible to arrive at a certain limited knowledge of Allah by reason, particularly by means of reflection on nature, much of human existence can only be known through prophetic revelation (Wahy).
On this basis, Gülen lives under the shadow of the Qur’an and the mode of Prophet Muhammad’s life. The references of his teachings are much taken from doctrines of the Qur’an, and his everyday life practices from Sunnah of the Prophet. Gülen regards that Sunnah is Allah’s gift to Muslims so that they would know how to live according to Allah’s will in a way to please the Creator.51 Moreover, Sunnah is the source for human qualities that Gülen as a spiritual guide would like to instill. Character traits such as tolerance, piety, forgiveness, peacemaking etc. are rooted in Allah’s teachings proclaimed by and exemplified in the life of the prophets, particularly Muhammad. For example, in speaking of tolerance, Gülen notes that the quality is not of human origin, but is derived from prophetic teaching: “Tolerance is not something that was invented by us. Tolerance was first introduced on this earth by the prophets whose teacher was Allah.”52
The emphasis that Gülen places on the Qur’an and Sunnah underlines the
“orthodox” nature of Gülen’s teachings and the community’s practice. Some observers doubt whether Gülen’s theology is within the mainstream of Islamic doctrine. Conversely as many scholars agree that there is no single mainstream in Islamic theology and
51 “The Sunnah, the unique example set by the prophet Muhammad for all Muslims to follow, shows us how to bring our lives into agreement with Allah’s commands and obtain His good pleasure.” Fethullah Gülen, 2010, Muhammad the Messenger of Allah. Clifton, NJ: Tughra Books, p. 327.
52 Fethullah Gülen, 1996, Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance, New Jersey: The Light, p.82.
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practice, then in which current does Gülen’s fit? This question can perhaps best be answered by looking at those Muslim scholars and pious forbearers with whom Gülen himself identifies.
Gülen’s writings are replete with references to the words of earlier Muslim thinkers and mystics. He frequently cites those whom he calls “the lovers to Allah”,53 that is, predecessors as Jalal al-Din Rumi, Yunus Emre, Ahmad Yasavi, and Said Nursi. All of these figures are more or less associated with the Sufi traditions. Rumi54 and Yasavi were poets and founders of order (tariqah), while Yunus Emre was a Sufi poet but not associated with any tariqah. The Ulama to whom Gülen refers such as Ghazali, al-Junayd, and Shah Waliullah are theologians who had close connections to the broader Sufi traditions. Even among those modern figures whom Gülen holds up as “heroes of thought and action” like Ahmet Hilmi, Ferid Kam, and Necip Fazıl Kısakürek who are Sufis and mystic writers.55
Gülen’s theology can be located best in this broad “humanistic current” of Muslims who stress the interior dispositions to be fostered in the believer in response to the revealed Qur’anic message and in imitation of the prophetic example found in the Sunnah. In this interpretation of Islam, faith is “virtue-oriented”; these Muslims stress internal qualities such as sincerity, patience, peace, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, respect for others, acceptance of differences; they all encourage humble life characterized by deeds of goodness, love, and service.
While closely related to the Sufi traditions, this current antedates Sufism as such and finds its origins in the pious, ascetic community of early Madinan Muslims in the Prophet time, which came to be called the Ahl al-Suffah. These early Muslims eschewed commercial and military pursuits, and devoted their times their lives to studying and teaching the religious sources. Rıfat Atay sees Gülen as reviving the Ahl al-Suffah tradition in two ways, firstly by embodying in his own life four of the typical
53 My analysis of Gülen’s appropriation of these figures in 2007. Fethullah Gülen: Following in the Footsteps of Rumi.
Peaceful Coexistence: Fethullah Gülen’s Initiatives in the Contemporary World. London: Leeds Metropolitan University Press, pp.183-191.
54 Rumi seems to epitomize for Gülen the characteristics he seeks to form in modern Muslims. “They call everyone to their embrace and to the truth, like Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, and they tolerate every improper behavior toward themselves.” Fethullah Gülen, 2009, Key Concepts in the Practice of Sufism: Emerald Hills of the Hear,.New Jersey:
The Light, p. 270.
55 Fethullah Gülen, 2009, The Statue of Our Souls: Revival in Islamic Thought and Activism. New Jersey: The Light, pp.
68-72.
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characteristic of the early phenomenon (single, simple, humble, and pious); secondly, by carrying on a consistent pattern of spiritual and theological formation for a select number of dedicated students.56
On the other hand, Gülen shares many concerns with the Sufi masters and praises Said Nursi for “pouring down on us all the wealth of our schools and Sufi lodges (takka, zaviya, madrasah).”57 Like Said Nursi and the Sufis before him, in Islam he places the primacy on love that he regards not only as a gift of the Creator Allah, but also as the bond that unites humanity and can overcome disunity. “Allah Almighty has not created a stronger relation than love, this chain that binds humans one to another.”58
What Gülen’s theological vision departs from that of the Sufis is that he emphasizes on communitarian dimension of selfless service. While he affirms the importance of halwat and itikaf (solitude and retreat) to purify one’s soul,
Gülen’s theological vision focuses on many of the same themes found in the writings of the Sufis.
In the demands of Islamic communities today, he elaborates typical Sufi concepts such as ikhlas (sincerity), ma‘rifat (knowledge), sabr (patience), and taqwa (piety).
59
Among the common concerns that Gülen shares with proponents of the Sufi tradition, Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi is the importance of the concepts that describe the
“exteriorization” of religious practice. In particular, he focuses on two of Qur’anic elements, which can be said to form the conceptual basis of Gülen’s theology. These are the notions of ikhlas (sincerity) and ‘ibada (worship), which are related concepts of
‘ubudiyyah (servanthood) and ‘ubudah (devotion). Because of their centrality to the thought of Gülen and the extent to which they shape and characterize the motivation and attitudes of the community inspired by his ideas, ikhlas and ‘ibada are the two cornerstones or pillars of Gülen’s theology.
he rejects any spirituality that smacks of an individualistic mystical flight to union with Allah; that has been claimed in most Sufi theories and practices. He is similarly disinterested in the kind of metaphysical speculation that preoccupies so many of the Sufis.
56Rıfat Atay, 2007, Muslim World in Transition: Contribution of the Gülen Movement. London: Leeds Metropolitan University Press. pp.459-472.
57 Fethullah Gülen, 2009, The Statue of Our Souls: Revival in Islamic Thought and Activism, p. 77.
58 Fethullah Gülen, 2000, Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance, Istanbul: Nil, p. 34.
59 Fethullah Gülen, 2009, Key Concepts in the Practice of Sufism: Emerald Hills of the Heart, III, p. 27.
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VI. Conclusion
Turkish Republic was the inheritor of the Ottoman Empire, and its social structure is highly complex and diverse. Turkey launched modern reforms in political, legal, administrative, educational, and cultural fields during the eighteenth century. The founders of the republic adopted these reforms and accelerated the modernization process in the new society. Although some of the radical reforms and restrictive policies in the early republican period caused cultural rupture, the fabric of the society preserved the resources and cultural references that make up Turkey’s unique identity.
Turkish Republic did not allow pluralism and democracy to operate until 1950.
During these five decades secularist elites ruled the country. Islamic identity and discourse were to a great extent de-legitimized and marginalized by Kemalism. The role of Islam in the public sphere has been radically marginalized and the state attempted to confiscate and monopolize even this marginal role. Although the Republic has followed assertive secularist policies, Islam is still deeply rooted in the minds and hearts of the people. The state, through its secularist policies and programs of westernization, endeavored to eradicate the value system of the Muslim in the country without providing a satisfactory and all-encompassing ideological framework which could have mass appeal to replace Islam. Religious leaders, their successors, and the religious functionaries have regained their influence in public life. They have continued to attract masses into religious atmosphere. Local Islam survived despite all attempts of the state.
Today the development of Turkish society witnesses the failure of Kemalism and side-effect of the over-secularization, nevertheless, Turkey is still an exemplary state that shoes Islam and modern democracy can peacefully coexist. In Turkey Islamic groups and their movements aim to re-establish Islamic social amd political order, and through their efforts. Turkey has moved into a civil society that accommodates democracy and religions. The Turkish society and religious communities such as Hizmet have redefined the state and the role of the state within the neo-liberalization process. This in turn has led to the emergence of “network” or religious communities. In this process, Islam has been transformed into a mechanism for social solidarty, and became a core component of the network groups in the neoliberal era.
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It have been noted that the Gülen movement is a faith-based network with organizational structures and a focus of discourse that has developed as a consequence both of Turkey’s unique political history and global events since the end of the Cold War.
The Gülen movement is an Islamic social movement which bases its philosophy on increasing religious consciousness at the individual level, and makes Islam an important social force in the public sphere. The movement uses education and business networks to cultivate religious morals in the Turkish society. They refrain from direct involvement in politics and political polemics. The movement demonstrates elements of a congregational structure. Although there is a “core” cadre of devotees around Gülen, the bulk of the movement is in the “periphery.” The idea of volunteering and committing one’s time and money plays a key role in the activities of the movement.
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