Date posted: June 10, 2013

Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has called for living together in peace, echoing similar remarks issued by President Abdullah Gül last week against the background of two-week-long anti-government protests in Turkey.

“For the love of God, let’s live for a while in a [spirit] of brotherhood,” Gülen said, borrowing a theme from a popular song sung by children participating in the Turkish Olympiad.

“As they said in the Turkish Olympiad, ‘A new world, a new world, together a new world,'” Gülen stated and rejected totalitarian, oppressive, dictatorial and authoritarian systems.

While meeting with a group of Turkish Olympiad participants at the Çankaya presidential palace, President Gül praised the event as contributing to peace, brotherhood and friendship.

The president also said: “For peace to exist in the world, different languages, religions, beliefs and cultures need to respect each other, recognize one another and live in serenity and peace with each other. If that does not happen, then efforts to oppress one another become the source of much suffering and conflict.”

In earlier remarks, Gülen criticized the police handling of recent protests, saying that the initial protesters who gathered in Taksim’s Gezi Park for a sit-in to prevent construction workers from destroying trees could be seen as rightfully demanding the preservation of the ecosystem and green spaces. He called their initial demands “logical” but condemned the subsequent violence of extremist groups.

Gülen also noted that indifference and the inability to comprehend events could cause another problem on the other side and urged the government not to underestimate the protests.

In remarks posted on the herkul.org website, Gülen also warned on Sunday of a sinister campaign by hypocrites targeting Muslims, saying that hypocrites are more dangerous than unbelievers.

“It is difficult to deal with a hypocrite,” he said, stressing that a hypocrite pretends to be a believer when in fact s/he is in disbelief. He said taqiyye (hiding one’s true intentions) is commonly used by hypocrites to shield their dangerous campaigns to destroy Islam.

He said taqiyye has no place in Islam, despite the fact that some have tried to make it one of the essentials of the Muslim religion. The Shiite ideology propagated by Iranian clerics sees taqiyye as a lawful practice but the Sunni jurisprudence dismisses it as baseless.

Recalling Prophet Muhammad‘s reported words, “Whoever cheats us is not one of us,” Gülen underlined that Islam does not condone any deceit or cheating. He asked that Muslims should be vigilant for people who use deceit to hide their evil intentions.

Source: Today’s Zaman, 10 June, 2013

Tags: Fethullah Gulen |