Gülen not only my hero, also a model for other religions


Date posted: November 23, 2010

Hatice Avcı, Brussels

A leading American minister has said all religions need an adherent like Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish-Islamic scholar whose teachings focusing on interfaith dialogue have been widely lauded around the world.

“He is not only my hero for what he has done for the Muslim societies but also [offers] a model for all other religions,” said Dirk Ficca, executive director of the Chicago-based Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, an international NGO aiming to cultivate better understanding between the world’s religious and spiritual communities by highlighting the similarities while also acknowledging the differences between them.

In an interview with Today’s Zaman in Brussels this past week, Ficca commended the activities of the faith-based movement named after Gülen, who has authored more than 50 books, most of which have been translated into English, French, Russian and Arabic. Gülen is also known for the hundreds of sermons he delivered so far in which he stresses the significance of strengthened communication between people of different religions and cultures. “I have a deep admiration for him. I have read a couple of his works and also have observed the movement he has inspired. This sociable and kind man has become an inspiration for Turkish Muslims and others around the world for shaping Islam’s highest values and blessings,” Ficca noted, adding that Gülen “encouraged Muslims to treat everyone as their Muslim neighbors or brothers,” something, Ficca also said, “all religions should do.”

Businessmen, schoolteachers and academics inspired by Gülen’s teachings — mostly known as Education Volunteers in Turkey — have opened hundreds of educational institutions of all sizes, from kindergartens to universities, in over 100 countries so far. Each year, select students from those institutions come together in Turkey for a traditional Turkish Olympics. Last year, participants from 120 countries around the world took part in the annual cultural and linguistic contest. “Wherever I go, I see a Gülen movement organization,” Ficca said, expressing his appreciation of the initiative’s coverage.

Also lauding the movement’s decentralized and completely non-hierarchic structure, which is completely based on volunteerism, Ficca said the Gülen movement is different in that it is a movement completely between people, whereas institutions serve functional and practical purposes rather than holding a managerial power and authority. “I think that the people should feel that they are in the service of a much bigger thing [than institutions],” the minister explained. For Ficca, the Gülen movement with its said traits is also a model for the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.

During the interview, Ficca commented on how interfaith dialogue should be understood. He said their council promotes the individuality and uniqueness of all religions and their coming together around a table to communicate with each other under the council’s roof. He further explained that an agreement or consensus in approach to a certain matter is not a requirement to conclude a meeting. Stressing that they would like to receive all participants as they are, with all their differences, Ficca said sometimes the organization’s aim is presented as the uniting of all religions but that “nothing could be farther from reality.” “Dialogue is about mutual understanding whether we agree or disagree,” he added.

Every five years, the council organizes an international gathering of the “parliament” at a different city. Since the early ‘90s, the event has been held in Chicago, Cape Town, Barcelona and most recently in Melbourne last year with a wide participation of representatives from religious and spiritual traditions around the world. The next meeting will be held in 2014, and the candidate cities to host the gathering are Guadalajara and Dallas as well as Brussels.

 

Source: Today's Zaman , 22 November 2010


Related News

The intra-Turkish debate on the Mavi Marmara

But this does not mean that all Turks think the same way about the Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara, and the particular course of action some of them took. In fact, an interesting debate has just begun – and within a very interesting place: the Islamic camp.

Turkish school leaves tight quarters for spacious former Wayne corporate building

MINJAE PARK, STAFF WRITER Colorful desks and chairs fill the rooms, and lockers line the walls, but the campus of the ambitious Turkish school that moved to Wayne this year still looks a lot like the corporate offices it once was. The middle- and high-school students at the Pioneer Academy‘s remodeled 165,000-square-foot, $11 million building lug […]

US high school students visit Turkey, give glowing reviews

A group of American students who came to İstanbul in a cultural exchange program have told Today’s Zaman that their warm reception in Turkey has caused them to view the country extremely positively.

Turkey’s post-revolutionary civil war

What does this corruption investigation has anything to do with the AKP-Gülen Movement tension? Well, the prosecutor who apparently led this investigation in big secrecy, Zekeriya Öz, is believed to be a member of the movement. Corruption is a serious matter and the real best defense would be to help bring those who are charged to justice. Meanwhile, the Gülen Movement, normally a civil society group, should help save itself from the image of secrecy and infiltration that it has been drawn into in the past decade.

Fethullah Gulen on attempts to associate Hizmet with terrorism and ISIS

Fethullah Gulen: As I have stated earlier, I have long called ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Murabitun, and many other organizations terrorist, maybe fifty times. And I have said a Muslim cannot be a terrorist; a Muslim can never engage in terrorism.

Turkish PM heads to Brussels for tough talks with EU

Although the prime minister argues that an ongoing corruption and graft probe engulfing his own ministers is simply a plot hatched by an “illegal gang” that he describes as “parallel state” operated by Fethullah Gülen, a cleric in self-exile in the U.S., EU officials have made clear that such rhetoric has not been bought in Brussels.

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

Former CHP Chairman Baykal supports joint mosque-cemevi project

Ekrem Dumanli: Turkey’s witch hunt against the media

Gülen issues message of condolences for slain prosecutor Kiraz

Response to aspersion on Hizmet

Opposition CHP to take Gül-approved dershane law to Constitutional Court

To escape punishment, punish them all

Open Letter to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News