In today’s Turkey Gülen movement represents an Islam, which is liberal and tolerant, which is in favor of the country’s EU bid and democratizing reforms. And this means that it is a “modern” movement. Yet this modernity has not been achieved by the authoritarian secularist policies of the state. It has been achieved thanks to Turkey’s heritage of Ottoman modernization, engagement with the Western world, and its social progress.…
Bruce Eldridge The world is changing at an unprecedented rate. Established religions are struggling to come to terms with societies that are increasingly secular and skeptical about the certainties of the past. They are struggling to come to terms with…
During his preaching years in mosques throughout Turkey, Gülen stressed education as the center of modernization and social progress. He emphasized continuously that peace, social justice and respect for diverse cultures and religions can be achieved by educated people who are grounded in modern science, strong morality and practical altruism. …
By the 1990s, there is no doubt that the millions of citizens gathered around the ideas of Fethullah Gülen, along with the hundreds of service projects that they support, constituted a social movement. What is surprising, however, is the fact that the movement, rooted in a Turkish Islamic identity, was then and continues to be, as active in as many non-Muslim as well as Muslim countries.…