Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet Movement by Annabel Hertz
Date posted: March 1, 2014
Annabel Hertz has over a decade of leadership and consulting experience in policy development and external relations for issues-based/stakeholder organizations in the areas of international relations and sustainable development.
She is currently pursuing doctoral studies in international relations at American University. Previously, she was an adjunct professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and a Global Governance Fellow at the World Economic Forum.
Ms. Hertz holds an MPA from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, an MA in international relations from San Francisco Sate University, and a BA in politics from the University of California.
In 2012, she published Seeing Green, a humorous novel about a multicultural activist’s jaunt into the world of 1992 international-Washington politics.
I don’t know whether they are aware of it, but a danger that needs to be taken very seriously awaits the Gulen movement. In the eyes of the Turkish society, which is believing of conspiracy theories, the Gulen movement is mythicized beyond its real dimensions. The power and influence of the Gulen movement is being so exaggerated that if no precautions are taken, this imagined power will one day destroy it.
Toward an Islamic enlightenment
Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who has put forward an interpretation of Islam that advocates peace, democracy, secularism (in the sense of freedom of religion and conscience for all), science, education and a market economy, and who has supported interfaith dialogue and mutual understanding and respect for people of different ethnic and religious identities and lifestyles, has been the topic of much curiosity for native as well as foreign observers of Turkey.
Inside the rural Pa. compound where an influential Muslim cleric lives in exile
It was July 15. And what was happening, they soon learned, was a military coup. Gulen, who suffers from diabetes and heart disease, was distraught, Simsek said. Realizing “we couldn’t really do anything,” Simsek said, the group began to pray, loudly and together. Several wept. They didn’t stop praying until early the next morning.
Erdogan’s endless legitimacy crisis
Erdogan, who is avoiding dealing with the corruption charges, cannot preserve his government on the dead-end street he has entered.
Dozens of US Congress members attend major convention of Turkic Americans
Dozens of members of the United States Congress, as well as US administration officials and other leading public figures, attended the fourth annual convention organized by the Turkish American Alliance (TAA), the biggest umbrella organization of Turkic Americans, reiterating the solid ties between the people of the US and Turkey.
Tension at home hits Turkey’s brand overseas
ESİDEF President Mustafa Özkara said: “Top government officials, who during the Turkish Olympiads only six months ago called the Hizmet movement the ‘peace movement of the century,’ now define the same movement as a ‘parallel structure,’ a ‘gang,’ a ‘criminal organization’ and even Hashashins.
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