As the Turkish Consulate gets ready to set up office in Hyderabad, Neeraja Murthy finds a Turkey-Hyderabad connect. Indialogue Foundation, the Turkish cultural centre acts as a hub for the 15 Turkish families living in Hyderabad. “We get together here during religious ceremonies like Eid and we organise inter-faith seminars, talks, conferences and cultural programmes. We arrange business meetings between Turkish and Indian businessmen and also organise Turkish celebrations.”
Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama watched and praised a sema, or whirling dervish ceremony, during a Turkish festival which lasted from Friday to Sunday in New Delhi, promoting traditional Turkish arts and culture. The three-day festival was held for the first time last year, and this year it takes place in the popular Select Citywalk mall in New Delhi. The event was organized by the Indian-Turkish Indialogue Foundation.
Swami Agnivesh, 72, a Hindu social activist best known for his work against bonded labor said on a recent visit to Istanbul that he believed in intercultural dialog and Fethullah Gulen’s liberal ideas. Agnives said he was impressed with the Fethullah Gulen Movement’s work to find fellowship between cultures. Agnives came to know Fethullah Gulen through the […]
7 June 2012 / OSMAN ÜNALAN, NEW DELHI Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, an Islamic scholar in India, has praised the Hizmet movement (aka Gulen movement) and its activities for helping Turkey get rid of negative and biased views about Islam and transforming it into a much-admired center for more self-aware Muslims. Speaking at a symposium titled […]
Dr. Marcia Hermansen, the Director of the Islamic World Studies Program and a Professor in the Theology Department at the Jesuit Loyola University Chicago, presented a lecture on Hizmet Movement (here after HM) at Indialogue Foundation, New Delhi on 7 March 2012. Dr. Hermansen teaches courses in Islamic Studies and the academic study of religion. […]
In a recent Conference of Jesuits Among Muslims in Rome (September 2011) presenting his views on Hizmet movement, Prof. Thomas Michel, SJ of Georgetown University, Washington concluded: “‘Are Gülen and the Hizmet community friends or foes?’ I must answer that they are our friends. They are the kind of Muslim interlocutors for an active dialogue […]
In the view of doomsday reports from the US, it does not come as a surprise how ordinary Americans from all faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, have worked meticulously to bridge the gap and sheer absence of dialogue between these three Abrahamic religions especially in the context of post 9/11 world. SAURABH KUMAR SHAHI | […]