Turkey: Inspiring or insidious


Date posted: May 2, 2011

Delphine Strauss, April 28 2011. Financial Times

In one corner of the courtyard, green-painted railings enclose the tomb of a saint. In another, a pair of 12-year-old boys in spotless white shirts and neatly pressed trousers politely answer visitors’ questions. In Diyarbakir, a city in Turkey’s Kurdish south-east where many children work on the streets or land in jail for throwing stones at security forces, these two have come to prepare for high school entrance exams. Asked what they want to do later, one says “doctor” and the other, grinning, declares “police”.

They are attending a study house run by supporters of Fethullah Gulen – a preacher who has inspired the creation of a vast network of schools and student dormitories that blend academic rigour, especially in the sciences, with a moral education based on Islamic principles.

“It’s not just explaining English or maths – it’s explaining what it means to be a good or bad person,” says the director of Diyarbakir’s 20 study houses. “In this system teachers come to school earlier, become friends with students and care about the relationship….In none of our schools do we teach religion. We tell them what’s right and wrong. We show them good and bad practice, and they decide.”

But in Turkey, opinion is sharply divided between those who see Mr Gulen as a force for social mobility and tolerance, and those who suspect he is insidiously undermining the country’s secular foundations. His followers have been described as “Islamic Jesuits” – and as Turkey’s equivalent of Opus Dei. Yet there is little doubt that the movement he inspires is now an important force shaping Turkish society, part of a broader evolution in which leaders emerging from a religious, business-minded middle class are gradually eclipsing older, fiercely secular, elites.
Mr Gulen – known to his admirers as hocaefendi, or respected teacher – now lives in leafy seclusion in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, nursing ill health and communicating largely though his published writings and speeches. Yet he has a following of millions, easily the most influential of Turkey’s religious communities. This Hizmet (“service”), as its friends call it, has a global reach: businessmen sympathetic to the cause have established schools – from Kazakhstan to Cambodia, the US to Iraq – and are rapidly opening them across Africa.

The professed aim of the schools is to create a “golden generation”, a new elite equipped to succeed in the global economy, while exemplifying faith, virtue and an ethos of serving others. When students graduate, many remain committed to the movement as they take up positions in teaching, business, media and public life.

This commitment and absorption in the life of the community is typical. Almost all supporters also make financial donations – 20 per cent of income is not unusual.

To outsiders, such zeal can inspire both admiration and unease. Secularists worry that Gulen missionaries, once persecuted by the state but now working freely under the rule of the mildly Islamist AK party, will transform Turkish society, increasing pressure to conform to conservative values. But the bigger fear , beyond ideology, is that Gulen followers may be infiltrating state institutions, using their influence to undeclared ends.

With his mild, contemplative expression and neat white moustache, Mr Gulen is not an obvious figure to inspire fear. Born in 1941 in the eastern province of Erzurum, he was largely self-taught after primary school but read voraciously – drawing inspiration from Said Nursi, a thinker who advocated reason, tolerance and distance from politics.

Mr Gulen began his career as an imam in Turkey’s state service, at a time when there appeared to be little choice between extreme conservatism and an extreme secularism that rejected Turkey’s history and religious traditions. Instead, he advanced an interpretation of Islam that stresses tolerance, condemns violence and embraces modernity. He has advocated action to alleviate poverty, promote education and advance dialogue between different religions.

Bill Park at King’s College, London, has described it as a “heady and promising combination of faith, identity, material progress, democratisation and dialogue”.

These messages make Mr Gulen a welcome antidote in the west to more radical ideologues. He has lived in the US since 1999, when he left Turkey under threat of prosecution during a clampdown on Islamists. In contrast to Turkey’s Islamist Milli Gorus movement, whose parties contest elections, Mr Gulen insists he has no political ambitions and preaches respect for authority – advising supporters to waive obligations, such as wearing the Islamic headscarf, if necessary to gain an education in the secular system. When sympathisers enter politics they are told to cut ties, says Mr Balci, the pro-Gulen columnist.

“The Nursi-Gulen tradition doesn’t envision an ‘Islamic state’. It rather seeks a liberal-democratic state that will be tolerant to its missionary work,” Mustafa Akyol, a commentator on religious affairs, wrote last year.

Read the full article at FT.COM as we are not able to publish all of it because of its copyright request.


Related News

U.S.-based Turkish cleric says used as scapegoat in graft scandal

REUTERS U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen has denied giving orders to police and prosecutors in a corruption inquiry rocking the government, saying his worldwide movement of followers was being used as a scapegoat to divert attention. In his first TV interview in 16 years, the influential preacher told the BBC that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan […]

Erdoğan has to respect civil society

ŞAHİN ALPAY Colleagues and friends ask me, “What is the reason for the feud between the government and the Gülen movement and between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Fethullah Gülen?” This is, briefly, my response. In Turkey the demand for education is very high. Universities are unable to meet the demand and there are […]

Understanding Fethullah Gülen (2)

Ekrem Dumanli One of the reasons for the difficulty in understanding Fethullah Gülen is the term “community” itself. Unfortunately, the meaning attached to this word connotes a group of people closed to and isolated from the outside world. It is also used to refer to illegal organizations. Both approaches are tendentious. As Ali Bulaç says […]

A Muslim voice to be heeded

The majority of Muslims openly and loudly reject violent extremism regardless of the religious or ethnic identity of the perpetrator, but that is not what the Western media focuses on. If we closely look into a broad poll, we will see hundreds of Muslim leaders denouncing terrorism, and one of these Muslim voices that we don’t listen to is Fethullah Gülen.

After Fethullah Gülen’s demise what will happen to the Hizmet Movement

To figure out what course of action must be taken for the Hizmet Movement after Fethullah Gülen’s demise, we must look at the movement in its current form. Today, the Hizmet Movement, which is also popularly known as the Gülen Movement, is not administered by a central structure.

Gülen fine after being briefly hospitalized for arrhythmia

According to the statement made by herkul.org — a website that usually publishes Gülen’s speeches –, Fethullah Gülen was taken to hospital after suffering from heart rhythm abnormality, caused by sudden high blood pressure. After being taken home following medical observation, Gülen received a telephone call from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who expressed to him his best wishes.

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

Caretaker AK Party gov’t criticized for police operation against youth association

Hizmet’s political stance: Speak the truth to power, no matter what the cost is

NATO Secretary Rasmussen praises the Turkish schools in Afghanistan

Head of Azerbaijan’s Çağ Education Company denies authenticity of letter to Gülen

Pak-Turk schools won’t close, says Education Minister

Overshadowing the graft probe

Islamophobia Network Targets Top Performing American Schools

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News