Published by Gulen Chair at Leuven University in Belgium, this new book is a selection of some of Fethullah Gülen’s essays on violence, just war, terrorism and Muslims’ responsibility.

As tragic and violent events have occurred in different parts of the world, questions about jihad and Muslim terrorists have arisen and persist at the heart of the public debate on Muslims and Islam. In everyday and academic discourse it is now almost impossible to ignore the preoccupation with different religious facets of conflict in various parts of the globe. Yet it is also clear that there is confusion on the substance of jihad, radicalization, extremism, and terrorism, about their scope, their relations and their implications. In this environment there is a need to rethink the meaning of jihad and violence. This work therefore aims to clarify the terminological confusion on violence, terror, and jihad through critical examination. This is an attempt to extract a heuristic analysis from Fethullah Gülen’s writings and speech. It is significant to examine his works because of his consistent stance against the use of violence with religious justification and his experience of living peacefully through a period of history in Turkey in which the use of violence for political ends was all too common.

The extracts in this booklet have been selected according to the current volume’s theme from among Gülen’s books already published in Turkish. Some of them have been translated into English before but most of the extracts have been translated into English and arranged into different chapters in the present volume. Some of the texts are revised and altered by Fethullah Gülen himself. 

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The Other, East & West and Fethullah Gülen as Border Transgressor

Gülen stresses that wherever a Muslim is, even outside a Muslim polity; he or she has to obey the law of the land, to respect others’ rights and…

Changes in Gülen’s thinking regarding his worldview

In my speeches and assessments, it is unavoidable to have changes depending on time, place, and human factors. For instance, in my early preaching, when I considered the…

Gulen vs Erdogan – Contesting Religious Expressions

While on a shallow level they share a common religion, in his role as politician, Erdoǧan’s Islam is nationalistic, chauvinistic, militant, exclusivist, and is a source for his…