“Turkey, with the great assistance of Fethullah Gülen‎ has been a model”


Date posted: January 31, 2015

Dr. Patrick Drinan is the Professor of Political Science at the University of San Diego. He completed his doctorate at the University of Virginia. Dr. Drinan served as the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Diego from 1989–2007. He has also served as a consultant on academic integrity at the university level.

“I think Gülen‎ has certainly done the kind of outreach in terms of cultural dialog—and the outreach is not only to academics like myself, it’s been to local political leaders, people from the religious communities, and the like—and that kind of outreach, in terms of building understanding, I think is one of his greatest accomplishments.”

“I think, Muslims having dialog with non-Muslims is very, very important, although I know it’s very difficult to do. Religious commitments can be very, very strong, and listening to the voices of other religions is not something that comes easy to any religious movement.”

“I think it’ll take two or three generations of openness and sustained kind of listening and cultural interaction for that connection between Muslims and non-Muslims to really flourish.

But, what I think is that the Gulen Movement, has established a fine base, and the fact that there is perhaps some conflict and debate about the wisdom of doing it, or some of the techniques that are used, I think is very, very healthy.”

*Produced by Spectra Media exclusively for Irmak TV, Atlas of Thoughts (Fikir Atlasi) connects the scholars, politicians, jurists, religious figures, journalists, and academics reflecting on Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet Movement with the audience. Each episode features a person from a different segment of the society with diverse experiences regarding the Hizmet activities and its volunteers. If you are interested to hear about the Hizmet and Mr. Gulen from these people’s perspectives, do not miss this show!

Source: Spectra Media , April 15, 2014

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