New Book – No Return from Democracy: A Survey of Interviews with Fethullah Gulen
Date posted: August 8, 2017
It was rare, if not impossible, to find in ’80s and ’90s a Muslim cleric who spoke in favor of democracy, integration with the Western world, and universal human values. Fethullah Gülen was one of those. Many of his avant-garde ideas did not only earn him one of the largest and most influential faith-inspired social movements of recent history, but also many foes, especially from the Turkish ruling elite, placing him in the center of many social and political developments in Turkey. Despite the enormous defamation from some political groups in Turkey, Gülen is recognized in the world as a devout Muslim cleric, whose thoughts and life style are deeply rooted in the Islamic faith, but who also believes Islam is not in conflict with the progressive values of the modern world. This book collates Gülen’s ahead-of-his-time comments on some of the debated issues as he phrased in interviews in the past few decades.
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As I have written before, if there are bureaucrats who misuse their authority to serve the interest of the Gülen Movement, or any other entity, the government certainly has the right to fire them and bring them to justice. However, what Dilipak describes is a much larger scale witch-hunt, which can only violate many civil liberties and raise the tension in society to new heights.
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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 […]
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