Every socio-cultural, revival and peace movements have always had their opponents no matter where in the world they originate. Both within Turkey and beyond, there are people who oppose this movement’s services, projects, and activities. The majority of these opponents are marginalized people who have closed themselves to universal values and beliefs, who are dogmatic and against dialogue as they don’t want to lose their status quo in society. People who don’t fit this description may stand against the movement’s activities as they don’t know much or haven’t had the chance to know the movement personally and are influenced by their predecessor’s aspersions.

One of the false subjective remarks made against the schools opened and operated by volunteers is that they are missionary schools propagating Islam. The reason for this accusation is that in the 19th and 20th centuries, generally speaking, missionary activities were started with the establishment of schools. If this allegation were to be true, meaning the Gülen movement’s schools are missionary by nature, the mere fact is that some of the schools, if not the majority, are operating in countries where there’s less tolerance towards religion and that the local authorities are even scrupulously auditing and monitoring the schools every activity is decisive and sufficient proof that weakens this claim.

How does Gülen Movement achieve cohesion despite its decentralized and non-authoritarian structure?

Muhammed Cetin Participation in services takes relatively stable, enduring forms. Individuals come and go and replace one another but the projects remain and continue. Individual needs and collective…

New Islamic movements and amodern networks: The case of the Gülen movement

Recent studies, Turkish ones especially, have concluded that Islamic movements are successful without any state agenda. Accordingly, new Islamic movements base their ‘mobilization strategy on transforming everyday practices’…

Understanding Structure and Hierarchy in the Gülen Movement – 2

Martin Taylor In my previous blog, in an effort to understand and explain how the Gülen Movement (also called Hizmet) operates without a top-down organizational structure, I looked at…