New Book – The House of Service: The Gülen Movement and Islam’s Third Way (New York: Oxford University Press)

Turkish Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen. (Photo: Cihan)
Turkish Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen. (Photo: Cihan)


Date posted: May 12, 2014

by David Tittensor

 

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book with OUP entitled The House of Service: The Gülen Movement and Islam’s Third Way, which may be of some interest. The blurb reads:

David Tittensor offers a groundbreaking new perspective on the Gülen movement, a Turkish Muslim educational activist network that emerged in the 1960s and has grown into a global empire with an estimated worth of $25 billion. Named after its leader Fethullah Gülen, the movement has established more than 1,000 secular educational institutions in over 140 countries, aiming to provide holistic education that incorporates both spirituality and the secular sciences.

Despite the movement’s success, little is known about how its schools are run, or how Islam is operationalized. Drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Tittensor explores the movement’s ideo-theology and how it is practiced in the schools. His interviews with both teachers and graduates from Africa, Indonesia, Central Asia, and Turkey show that the movement is a missionary organization, but of a singular kind: its goal is not simply widespread religious conversion, but a quest to recoup those Muslims who have apparently lost their way and to show non-Muslims that Muslims can embrace modernity and integrate into the wider community. Tittensor also examines the movement’s operational side and shows how the schools represent an example of Mohammad Yunus’s social business model: a business with a social cause at its heart.

The House of Service is an insightful exploration of one of the world’s largest transnational Muslim associations, and will be invaluable for those seeking to understand how Islam will be perceived and practiced in the future.

For more information please visit the OUP website at:

http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-house-of-service-9780199336418;jsessionid=E4169…

Best regards,

David Tittensor

Deakin University

Source: networks , May 11, 2014


Related News

NY Times: 3 Turkish Ministers Resign Amid Corruption Scandal

Three Turkish cabinet ministers resigned Wednesday in an intensifying corruption scandal that has challenged the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and polarized the country.

Gülen: PKK employing tactics similar to those of Feb. 28

For some months, the PKK has misinterpreted the remarks of Gülen regarding the solution to Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem and is using manipulation tactics similar to those employed during the military intervention of 1997 against Gülen movement. 9 January 2012 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL Well-respected Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ […]

Gülen lawyers file complaint against prosecutors over wrongful probe

Lawyers representing Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen have filed a complaint against two İstanbul prosecutors who are conducting an investigation into their client, accusing them of violating procedural rules in the manner the probe is being conducted. The prosecutors have also lied on many occasions in writing, according to Gülen’s lawyers, who say that the prosecutors […]

Is PM looking for someone he can pass the blame to?

Gulen’s words were clearly a conditional curse or a committing of his affair to God in total submission in the face of horrendous lies. “If your accusations are true, may God destroy us. But if your accusations are wrong, then may God destroy you,” he had said. Amen.

Gov’t closes schools instead of resolving education problems

The Ministry of Education and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government have been focusing on closing down private prep schools for university preparation (dershanes) and Turkish schools abroad instead of spending its energy on resolving critical problems in the Turkish education system, experts say.

A Rabbi’s meeting with Hocaefendi Fethullah Gülen

This week I was privileged to spend the night at the Pennsylvania compound of Fethullah Gülen, the Sufi influenced Turkish modernist. I had two sessions to ask him questions in front of his followers and was allowed to sit in on his evening meeting with followers as well as attend his two-hour class for his disciples in the morning.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Who is Fethullah Gulen?

Jailed teacher dies of cancer in Turkish prison

New York Times : Hundreds of Police Officers Reassigned in Turkey

Erdoğan says personally pursuing fight against ‘parallel structure’

Bank Asya weathers withdrawals, says CEO

US under Trump still highly unlikely to extradite Gülen

Reflections on a Hizmet-inspired school in Tanzania

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News