Opinions
Historic ijma meeting in İstanbul
İHSAN YILMAZ Last weekend, a meeting organized by the Yeni Ümit and Hira magazines and supported by the Hizmet movement aimed to elaborate on the issue of ijma, or consensus of Islamic scholars, and collective consciousness. This two-day meeting was titled “Ijma as a Common Roadmap and Collective Awareness.” I very much wished to attend […]
PKK’s venomous mouthpiece targets US, Gülen
ABDULLAH BOZKURT The terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) leader Murat Karayılan (whose last name literally means Blacksnake) claimed that it was, in fact, the US that killed 34 Kurdish smugglers on Dec. 28, 2011, on their way from Iraq to the Turkish border. In a specially arranged interview with four Turkish dailies on the sidelines […]
“1915” by Prof. Ihsan Yilmaz (2)
İHSAN YILMAZ Retrospectively using the word “genocide” to describe what happened to Armenian Ottoman citizens in 1915 complicates the matter further and does not help Turks in facing their country’s history. A second major hurdle is the insistence in limiting the issue to legal discussions. The issue is much more complicated and, rather than thinking […]
On the internal workings of the Gulen Movement
HAKAN YAVUZ* In general terms, the Gulen movement reflects a new understanding of Islam and modernity from within an Islam that is informed by Anatolian modern history and secular progress: This is a civil Islam that has successfully found fresh ways to inspire social activism through piety. It has modernized the humanistic treasures of Islam […]
“1915” by Prof. Ihsan Yilmaz (1)
One can draw parallels with the Kurdish Question here. Similar to Armenian gangs’ massacres in Muslim villages, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has also been engaged in terrorism against civilians and has been bombing cities, shopping malls, mosques and schools. But we all agree that all of these do not justify a state repression of all Kurds or their forced relocation, etc.
Unproven speculations and legitimate questions
Joost Lagendijk* Last week I was able to witness through first-hand experience how difficult it is to explain the Gulen movement outside of Turkey and how easy it is to manipulate public opinion on this issue. It seems the launch of Zaman Vandaag (Today’s Zaman) in the Netherlands last Tuesday triggered several critics to present […]
A perseverant Kurdish man at the Turkish school in Siberia
This is the story of a Turkish language teacher of Kurdish-descent from Turkey who worked in Yakutia, Russia. He is one of the volunteers in Hizmet (the Gulen Movement). We speak of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue these days. HizmetNews hopes that this story will give you hints of a sustainable solution for the issue. It was originally published on June 25, 2011.
Islam-state-society relationship: the Turkish model
Dr. Husnul Amin* Countries like Tunisia and Egypt and their respective Islamist movements have positively revised their strategies taking inspiration from the Turkish model of society and statecraft in which both modern trends and Islamic values can coexist in the context of a pluralist society. While walking in the streets and bazaars of Istanbul, my […]
Hizmet movement to address Armenian issue
Orhan Miroğlu it seems the Hizmet movement is the only Turkish civilian movement, which would positively contribute to the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations in the US, where the Armenian diaspora is considerably strong. The Armenian and Kurdish issues serve as a test for not only new Turkish politics, which aim to shape Turkey’s future, but […]
Practicing Muslims and social (in)justice
Ihsan Yilmaz Ten years ago, it was maybe futile to talk about the lack of sensitivity of practicing Muslims on social justice issues. But now, with increasing democratization, windows of opportunity and economic growth, it is high time that practicing Muslims devote most of not only their wealth but also their mental energies and time […]
Turkish American ‘balance alignment’
Ali H. Aslan, Washington D.C. If, when I began working in Washington 16 years ago, someone had come up to me and said, “The day will come when nearly 50 senators and representatives from the US Congress will participate in a Turkish gathering,” I would have said he was dreaming. And if someone had also […]
A bridge from the US to the Turkic world
Arzu Kaya Uranli I was at the third convention of the Turkic American Association (TAA) and the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists’ (TUSKON) mutual event: the annual Turkic American Convention (TAC) in Washington, D.C., last week. The event started with a cruise on the Potomac River on Tuesday evening then continued all day long […]
The İmralı peace process and defaming the Hizmet movement
İHSAN YILMAZ After the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan’s comments to the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputies visiting him on İmralı Island were leaked to the press, almost everybody asked who was behind the leak. The main suspicion was that it was leaked by one who did not want the peace negotiations […]
Gulen Movement has been the driving force behind new relationships between Turkey and sub-Saharan African nations
Julia Harte* …In recent years, plenty of madrasas have already been established in Somalia by foreign powers, especially Gulf states. Even the most devastated areas have access to some form of religious education. But that just makes Turkey’s efforts to spread its form of moderate Islam an even more important strategic move, according to Mehmet […]
