1. No category

Hizmet
Studies
Review
An international scholarly journal on
Fethullah Gülen and Hizmet Movement
THEMATIC ISSUE:
DIALOGUE and HİZMET
Mark Webb
Fethullah Gülen’s Use of
Philosophical and Scriptural
Resources for Tolerance
Radhi H. Al-Mabuk
Gülen’s Perspectives on
Forgiveness
Heon C. Kim
Sufism and Dialogue in the
Hizmet Movement
Pim Valkenberg
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution
to Muslim-Christian Dialogue
Non Thematic Articles
Yafes Uyarıcı
Hizmet et Business :
Développement
Socio-historique de la Pensée
Entrepreneuriale
Book Reviews
VOLUME: 2
NUMBER: 2
SPRING 2015
Hizmet Studies Review
Editors
Prof. Dr. Johan Leman, Emeritus, KU Leuven
Dr. Erkan Toğuşlu, KU Leuven
Merve Reyhan Kayıkçı, KU Leuven
Editorial Board
Khaled Abou El Fadl, UCLA School of Law; Philip Clayton, Claremont School of Theology;
Trudy Conway, Mount Saint Mary’s University; John L. Esposito, Georgetown
University; Sabine Dreher, York University; Eddie Halpin, Leeds Metropolitan
University; Özgür Koca, Claremont Lincoln University; Thomas Michel, Georgetown
University; Ides Nicaise, KU Leuven; Simon Robinson, Leeds Metropolitan University;
Niyazi Öktem, Fatih University; Ori Soltes, Georgetown University; Pim Walkenberg,
The Catholic University of America; Paul Weller, Derby University, John Whyte, University
of Regina, İhsan Yılmaz, Fatih University.
Hizmet Studies Review is a scholarly peer-reviewed international journal on the Hizmet
Movement. It provides interdisciplinary forum for critical research and reflection upon
the development of Fethullah Gülen’s ideas and Gülen Movement (Hizmet movement). Its
aim is to publish research and analysis that discuss Fethullah Gülen’s ideas, views and intellectual legacy and Hizmet Movement’s wider social, cultural and educational activities.
Hizmet Studies Review is subject to peer review process. The journal is published two
times a year, in Autumn and Spring. Submissions are invited in English or in French.
Submissions in all two languages will be considered. For further information about style
guide please visit www.hizmetreview.com.
Subscription
Annual subscription: Institutions 50 € + p & p; individuals 25 € + p & p.
Editorial correspondance should be addressed to Dr. Erkan Toğuşlu, Hizmet Studies
Review, Parkstraat 45, box 3615 3000 Leuven-Belgium. HSR is edited at the KU Leuven
in Belgium at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies.
Disclaimer
KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in its publications. However, Gülen
Chair and its agents and licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as
to the accuracy, completeness or suitability for any purpose of the Content and disclaim
all such representations and warranties whether express or implied to the maximum
extent permitted by law. Any views expressed in this publication are the views of the
authors and are not the views of Gülen Chair.
ISSN: 2295-7197 © 2015 Gülen Chair
Hizmet Stu d ies R e v i e w
Volume 2, Number 2
Spring 2015
First published in Belgium, 2015
KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of KU
Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies.
The Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies in KU Leuven
University is a research chair specialising in academic
research, teaching and publication in the field of interculturalism, Muslims in Europe, cohabitation of ethnicreligious differences in plural societies.
Contents
Editor’s Note
6
Articles
Thematic Articles
Fethullah Gülen’s Use of Philosophical and Scriptural Resources for
Tolerance
Mark Webb
9
Gülen’s Perspectives on Forgiveness
21
Radhi H. Al-Mabuk
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement 33
Heon C. Kim Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian Dialogue in the Context of Abrahamic Cooperation Pim Valkenberg
51
Non Thematic Articles
Hizmet et business : développement socio-historique de la pensée entrepreneuriale
Yafes Uyarcı
69
Book Reviews
89
Book Notes
93
Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
6
Editor’s Note
This second issue of Hizmet Studies Review covers the particular topic of dialogue and includes one interesting off-topic article. Fethullah Gülen is one of the
important Muslim scholars who advocates intercultural and inter-religious dialogue
in contemporary societies. For him, social cohesion and peace necessitate a close cooperation between religious people, scholars and institutions. Following these ideas,
the Hizmet participants have been emphasizing dialogue and inter-religious activities since the mid-1990s.
The current thematic issue presents a diverse selection of stimulating articles
from a number of international scholars who examine Gülen’s motivations for dialogue and his theological understanding of dialogue.
Mark Webb examines the theological and philosophical sources of Gülen’s ideas
on dialogue. He argues that education about the realities of our different ways of
living leads to tolerance. Following this proposition, he looks at scriptural and philosophical resources for tolerance and mutual understanding in order to show that
tolerant behaviour is both scripturally and rationally required.
Radhi H. Al-Mabuk discusses how the religious roots of forgiveness in Gülen’s
teachings are linked with tolerance. The focus of his paper is Gülen’s understanding
of scriptural injunctions about forgiveness and how he uses it in the different contexts of justice, reconciliation and strength of faith. Al-Mabuk analyses different key
notions on forgiveness such as patient endurance.
Heon Kim’s article focuses on the relationship between Sufism and dialogue in
the Hizmet movement which he proposes to call ‘dialogic Sufism’. By dialogic Sufism, this article pays attention to the links between Sufism-dialogue and religion.
Pim Valkenberg highlights the most important aspects of Gülen’s contribution
to inter-religious dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims. The author looks
at points of common interest between the three Abrahamic religions as indicated by
Gülen, but also notes a few important differences.
In this issue, we also have another interesting non-thematic article. Yafes Uyarcı’s
article on Hizmet and business offers an analysis of the new bourgeoisie and how
entrepreneurial thinking in the movement gives an impetus to its activities.
7
For your information, hard copies of the journal are now available free-of-charge.
Alternatively, you can access our homepage at www.hizmetreview.com
Finally, on behalf of the HSR team, we hope that you enjoy your read.
Johan Leman, Erkan Toğuşlu, M. Reyhan Kayıkçı
Editors.
8
Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
9
Hizmet Studies Review
Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 2015, 9-18
Fethullah Gülen’s Use of Philosophical and
Scriptural Resources for Tolerance
MARK O. WEBB, [email protected]
Texas Tech University
ABSTRACT One of the most successful aspects of the Gulen movement has been its
effort to promote tolerance among adherents of different religions by promoting events that
help us understand one another. Behind this sort of effort is a presupposition that education
about the realities of our different ways of living always or usually leads to understanding,
which always or usually leads to tolerance. I will provide a philosophical argument for that
presupposition based on the basicness of our common humanity, interrwoven with insights
from the Qur’an, and the Sunna, in order to show that tolerant behavior is both scripturally
and rationally required of us.
Keywords: Philosophy, Qur’an, Sunna, Tolerance
One of the most successful aspects of the Gülen movement has been its efforts
to promote tolerance among the adherents of different religions by promoting
events that help us to understand one another. Behind these efforts is a presupposition that education about the realities of our different ways of living always
or usually leads to understanding, which always or usually leads to tolerance. In
this paper, I shall provide a philosophical argument, elaborated from Gülen’s own
thoughts, for that presupposition based on the fundamentality of our common
humanity. Interwoven with this argument will be insights from those parts of
the Qur’an and the Sunna which have been cited by Gülen to show that tolerant behavior is both spiritually and rationally required of us. I believe that I can
thereby provide compelling reasons to think that the understanding which I shall
offer is a reasonable one, one that is open to intelligent and honest people of good
will. Since a view that recommends a way to live in peace is in itself attractive, I
take it that to show that it is also reasonable is enough to recommend it to us as
a guiding principle.
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I. The Philosophical Argument
I shall start with the philosophical argument, not because it is more important
or more authoritative than the Qur’an or the Sunna, but because it is the human
place to begin. There are those who read their scriptures, come to a conclusion
about what is required of them, and conclude that their understanding is the
word of God. Such people have forgotten something important about what it is
to be human. To be human is to be fallible. It is certainly true that the word of
God cannot be false. It follows from the very nature of God as omniscient and
perfectly good that whatever He says is true. But it certainly does not follow that
what I understand Him to have said must be true. I am eminently capable of making mistakes, of misunderstanding what I am told. I cannot simply say “God has
said this” as if I were a perfectly transparent and flawless conduit of God’s words.
To insist that my understanding of the word of God is the word of God is to
come dangerously close to shrk.
In other words, we must approach scripture humbly, aware of our shortcomings, and be prepared to revise our understanding in the face of good reasons. We
must start from where we are, human beings with the minds and hearts that God
has given us – and which, incidentally, he has given to all humans equally. When
there are prophets, the prophets themselves must speak to human beings as they
are. They must find a way to make their message fit into the hearts and minds of
people as God has made them. So, what do we know about what it is to be human? This must be our starting point.
One way to look at what it is to be human is to look at it from the phenomenology of being human – what it is like from the inside, as it were. If we can
see what we value, what we want for ourselves in our most rational moments, we
can then see what consistency demands that we give to others. In other words, in
some ways the golden rule is a rule of logic. If I dislike a kind of treatment, then
consistency demands that I do not give that same treatment to those who are
relevantly like me. Insofar as I have reason to believe that all human beings share,
by their very nature, some likes and dislikes, and that at least some of those likes
and dislikes are reasonable, rational values, I also have reason to act with regard to
others out of respect for those shared values. “Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you” is a maxim grounded in consistency and our common human
nature. Gülen expressed this sentiment in an article in Fountain magazine (Gülen
2006 : 4). In the opening paragraph of that article, he wrote:
Loving and respecting humanity merely because they are human is an expression of respect for the Almighty Creator. The other side of the coin,
loving and showing respect to only those who think the same as one thinks,
is nothing but egotism and self-worship.
Fethullah Gülen’s Use of Philosophical and Scriptural Resources for Tolerance
Some might object to the idea that there is a common human nature, or that
there are universal, rational values. I think that that is a mistake. As I look at what
makes me who I am, I find two broad categories of things: beliefs and desires. I
have a picture of the world, its history, and my place in it that comes from my
own experiences and education. A great deal of that, perhaps most of it, is shared
knowledge, but it is nevertheless my own, as well. Because I can see the value
that that picture has for me, and because I think that I can trust my own senses,
memory, reasoning and the like, I should extend to others the courtesy of allowing them to form their own views as well. This is part of tolerance. If I believe that
I should be allowed to form my own picture of the world, then I should allow
others the same liberty, insofar as I can see that they are equipped with the same
kind of mind as I am. This also allows us to share knowledge. I trust my own
faculties; I see that you are equipped with the same faculties; so, I can reasonably
trust your faculties, too. That is why it is reasonable to expect to be able to learn
about the world from other people, and not just from our own experience. And a
good thing, too! If I had to reconstruct modern science, or write a history of the
world, or draw a map of the world, I would not get very far if I did not take other
people’s word for things.
Just as we all have basically the same cognitive equipment and experience of
the world, and so have reason to trust each other’s word, we also have the same
basic nature that leads us to value the same things. Although there are wide differences among human beings in the details of how they think about the world
and what they want from it, there is a level of generality at which the differences
disappear. We all dislike pain, and seek to avoid it. We all want to be fed, clothed,
sheltered and loved by other human beings. We all want to be allowed some liberty to order our lives as we see fit. Recognition of our common human nature
therefore gives us reason to avoid causing suffering to others and to relieve their
suffering when we can; to feed, clothe and shelter others when they need it; to
extend love to those we can; and to allow others liberty to make their own way
in the world, when doing so does not interfere with the liberty of others. This is
the ultimate grounding of the Golden Rule. The reason why I should treat others as I would like to be treated is that the other is like me in all relevant respects
(Webb 1997).
One aspect of not interfering with the liberty of others is to allow them to
decide for themselves what to believe about their relationship with God. I should
not interfere with another human being’s religious decisions because I recognize
it as part of my basic human nature to want to make those decisions for myself.
Whatever makes it right for me to make those decisions for myself also requires
that I allow others a similar freedom. Of course, we do not tolerate – and should
not tolerate – any and all behavior from our neighbors, and it is not always easy
to draw the line as to what is intolerable and what is not. Nevertheless, there
are clear cases. We should not tolerate people killing others, enslaving them, or
otherwise harming them without reason. Respect for human freedom of the will
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requires that we protect our fellow human beings from that kind of depredation,
rather than requiring that we protect the predator. Likewise, it is clear to most
of us that choices that have no effect on others at all must be tolerated even if
we ourselves do not understand or condone the choice. The question, then, is
whether choice of religious belief falls into the category of the tolerable or the
intolerable. I am not at all sure that there is a way to make the positive case that
differences of religious view should be tolerated, so in order to make a case for
religious belief being a matter for toleration, I shall examine some reasons that
people give for being coercive in matters of religion, and show the mistakes on
which their arguments rest.
Perhaps the most popular argument for coercion in religion is based on the
idea that people who make mistakes in their religious beliefs are bringing harm
upon themselves and others around them. Since we think that it is frequently
right to interfere with a person’s liberty to save his life, then surely it is right to
interfere with his liberty to save his soul. I think we can dispose of this argument
easily; coerced belief is not real belief, and so it does not actually help the person
coerced. Whereas I might effectively save a man’s life by forcing him not to cross
the street in front of a bus, I cannot really save a man’s soul by forcing him not to
believe heresy. I cannot, in fact, force him not to believe heresy; and I certainly
cannot force him to believe what I myself take to be the truth. When the Qur’an
says “There is no compulsion in religion” (Baqara 2:256)1, it means that compulsion in religion is impossible, not that it is undesirable. It says that there is no
compulsion, not that there should be no compulsion. Gülen made that point in
his Questions and Answer about Faith (Gülen 2000 : 20). Discussing that very
verse, he wrote:
The Islamic way of life cannot be imposed or sustained by force, for faith
is essential to it. And, as we know, faith is a matter of the heart and conscience, both of which are beyond force. In the absolute sense, therefore,
compulsion is impossible, for one can believe only with and from the heart.
But even if it were possible to coerce religious belief, it would be a mistake.
Lurking in the background of arguments for intolerance, there is usually a certain
kind of logical mistake. People tend to reason this way: The word of God is infallible, therefore what I believe it to say is truth, therefore anyone who disagrees
with me is wrong, therefore I should, when necessary, use force to bring them in
line with the truth. Each step in that reasoning is reasonable, but in at least two
places the reasoning is mistaken. Many, in the name of tolerance, would like to
deny the inference from ‘I am right’ to ‘Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong’.
For example, consider the following passage from Stephen Asma’s book, The Gods
Drink Whiskey (2005 : 109). Talking about strategies for handling religious disagreement, he wrote
Fethullah Gülen’s Use of Philosophical and Scriptural Resources for Tolerance
The most problematic strategy is the aggressive elimination of competing
options … . This strategy is usually wedded to the fundamentalist concept
of truth – absolute, universal, and scripturally literal.
He identified the problem as a “fundamentalist concept of truth”. According
to this line of thought, to believe that something is simply true is to be motivated
to violence against those who disagree. Likewise, Lester Kurtz, in a recent special
issue of The Muslim World, called the combination of commitment and tolerance
a “paradox”, as if being committed to a truth automatically makes it the case that
you cannot tolerate those who disagree (Kurtz 2005). Kurtz believes that Gülen
has solved the paradox, but that he has done so by accepting that “[s]piritual
practice and morality are … more important than ritual and dogmatism” (Kurtz
2005: 377). In other words, we can have tolerance at the price of softening our
commitment to ritual and doctrine; we do not lose commitment completely, but
we soften commitment to truth in particular.
This way of promoting tolerance is a mistake, and a potentially dangerous
one. It is a mistake because, as a matter of simple logic, the denial of a truth is a
falsehood. If we are to believe in an objective world, a real truth about how things
are (and I think Muslims, Jews and Christians, and probably most other religious
folk, are committed to an objective world), then we must accept that only one
view of how it is can be correct. That is why this strategy for tolerance is a mistake: it makes my beliefs about God and the world private matters of personal
taste, not serious and momentous commitments about the universe.
The failure in that plausible line of inference does not come in the middle
step, but rather in the first and last steps. The error in the first step, from ‘The
word of God must be true’ to ‘I cannot be wrong about what the word of God
requires’ need not detain us for very long, either. In order for people to understand the difference between God’s revelation and man’s understanding of that
revelation, it should be enough (for reasonable people) to point out the distinction. As the Apostle Paul said to the Romans, “Let God be true and every man
a liar” (Romans 3:4). To insist on identifying my understanding of the word of
God with the word of God itself is, as I noted earlier, to skirt dangerously close
to shrk; only God can be omniscient and infallible. But are not some things in
scripture very clear, and beyond dispute, so that we may rightly be certain about
them? I suppose so, but what follows from that? First, there is broad and reasonable disagreement among men and women of good will as to what those certainties of scripture are. And, more importantly, it is not clear that even permissible
certainty underwrites intolerance of others. If I may be certain that some element
of my interpretation of scripture is true, then I may be certain that people who
believe differently are wrong, but it does not follow that I may use force against
those whom I know to be wrong. This is the second flaw in the ‘reasonable line of
inference’, the inference from ‘Those who disagree with me are wrong’ to ‘I may
use force to bring people in line with the truth’. Stated thus baldly, there seems
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to be little to recommend the inference; there seems to be no reason to think that
just being wrong about something makes it permissible for people to force me
into (their) orthodoxy. But remember the true insight that grounds this reasoning: false belief about religious matters causes great harm, to the believer in falsehood and to all those whom he or she influences. Since the harm is great, force is
justified. I have argued that we have general philosophical grounds for rejecting
that line of thought, in that a) coercion in these matters is itself a violation of our
duties to humanity, and b) it does not work anyway. But such an argument is –
and should be – of no effect for Muslims if its conclusion is inconsistent with the
teaching of the Qur’an and the Sunna. So now I turn to them.
II. Resources from the Qur’an and the Sunna
Of the many passages from the Qur’an that Gülen has cited as proof that tolerance is a religious duty, I have selected a few illustrative examples. First:
Tell them: ‘O people of the Book, let us come to an agreement on that
which is common between us, that we worship no one but God, and make
none his compeer, and that none of us take any others for lord apart from
God’. If they turn away, you tell them: ‘Bear witness that we submit to
Him’. ( Al-‘Imran 3:64. )
Gülen calls this passage “history’s greatest ecumenical call” (Gülen 2002: 37).
It clearly indicates that Muslims are required to treat the people of the Book
(Christians and Jews) with respect and tolerance, and the history of Islam in the
Middle Ages bears witness that the Qur’an has been understood this way. It is a
commonplace that Christians and Jews in Muslim lands certainly fared better
than Jews did in Christian lands at the same time.
Here is another Qur’anic verse cited by Gülen:
Tell the believers to forgive those who do not fear the visitations of God, so
that He may requite the people for their deeds. (Al-Jathiya 45:14)
This echoes the requirement that Jesus laid on his followers to leave judgment
in God’s hands, when he said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1).
Gülen understands this verse to impose a religious duty on Muslims, saying
… [T]hose who have declared their faith and thereby become Muslims
and perform the mandated religious duties must behave with tolerance
and forbearance and expect nothing from the other party (Ünal and Williams 2000 : 257-58).
Fethullah Gülen’s Use of Philosophical and Scriptural Resources for Tolerance
In Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance, he discussed that verse
along with two others:
Yet if you forbear, overlook, and forgive, God is indeed forgiving and kind (AlTaghabun 64:14).
God does not forbid you from being kind and acting justly towards those who did
not fight over faith with you, nor expelled you from your homes. God indeed loves
those who are just (Al-Mumtahana 60:8).
He cited all three of these passages to show that
… [R]eal Muslims never injure anyone … . It cannot be any other way; in
the Qur’an, the Sunna, and in the pure and learned interpretations of the
Great Scholars there is no trace of a decree or an attitude that is contrary to
love, tolerance or dialogue … . We cannot conceive of a religion that wills
the good of all, and who calls all – with no exceptions – to be otherwise
(Gülen 2004: 51-52).
In the same work, he wrote that “… [t]he Qur’an always accepts forgiveness
and tolerance as basic principles” (Gülen 2004: 69), citing this verse as evidence:
Devotees of Ar-Rahman (the Merciful) are those who walk with humility
on the earth, and when they are addressed by the ignorant, say: ‘Peace’
(Al-Furqan 25:63).
Again, the point is that true Islam requires us to be humble and tolerant, as
any other attitude is inconsistent with the nature of the very God a Muslim aims
to serve. He is Mercy itself, so we must be merciful. Of course, it is well known
that Islam does not require pacifism; in fact, Muslims are expected to fight in
self-defense. But there are strict limits on when and how force is to be used. The
presumption should always be in favor of peace. In particular, a Muslim must be
at peace with the peaceful, no matter who they are. In that connection, Gülen
cited this verse:
But if they are inclined to peace, make peace with them, and have trust in
God, for He hears all and knows every thing (Al-Anfal 8:61).
To fail to live in peace is a failure of faith in the omniscient God. As Gülen explained,
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Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
Even in an atmosphere in which two armies have fought against each other
and blood has been spilled, if the enemy forgoes fighting and wants to make
a treaty, then the Muslims are commanded not to react emotionally, but to
make a treaty, putting their trust in God. Thus, a universal principle regarding
this subject has been established (Gülen 2004 : 176).
The reference to a ‘universal principle’ reveals something important about how
Gülen interprets the Qur’an. Before I turn to the general question of interpretation,
though, let me address one hadith that Gülen cited for the same conclusion. He
wrote
As I have mentioned at other times in different contexts, the Pride of Humanity, the reason for creation and the Prince of Prophets one day stood up as a
Jewish funeral was passing by. One of the Companions at his side said, “O
Messenger of God, that’s a Jew”. Without any change in attitude or alteration
of the lines on his face, the Prince of Prophets gave this answer: ‘But he is a
human being!’ (Gülen 2004 : 44).2
The implication is clear (in fact Gülen wrote, “There is nothing I can add to these
words”); that someone is a human being is sufficient reason for that person to be
treated with respect. Jews and Christians speak of human beings as being created in
the ‘image of God’, not meaning that human beings look like God, since God has
no physical form, but rather that they are endowed with mind and heart, intellect
and moral conscience, as nothing else in creation is. It is this heart and mind that
we all share that gives us our obligation to treat one another with respect, tolerance
and love.
It might be objected that although this is one way to interpret the Qur’an and
the Sunna, and one that sits nicely with our Western, modernist, conciliatory frame
of mind, there is no reason to take it to be the best way to understand the Qur’an
and the Sunna. After all, there are a great many other schools of thought on this
matter, many of them understanding Islam as requiring all-out war with Europe and
America, and endorsing horrendous acts of violence as necessary for the defense of
Islam. Is there some principled reason – not just a preference for the results – to take
Gülen’s way of understanding the requirements of Islam as better? I offer this principle of interpretation as one more consideration in favor of Gülen’s interpretation.
Scriptural interpretation is always a matter of harmonizing many different utterances, delivered at different times on different kinds of occasion, sometimes to
different people. The trick is to distinguish what is intended only for the particular
occasion of utterance from what is intended as a ‘universal principle’. Particular commands are always given in the light of basic principles, and the principles are more
important than the commands.3 Interpreters of the Qur’an have been making these
Fethullah Gülen’s Use of Philosophical and Scriptural Resources for Tolerance
distinctions for a long time. Interpreters of the Bible, both Torah and Gospel,
are faced with a similar problem, and have similarly had no difficulty making
the distinction. No one takes God’s commandment to the Israelites to kill all the
Amalekites to be an eternal principle, but rather an expedient that was necessary at that given time, under those conditions, peculiar to the exigencies of the
conquest of Canaan. And while some have thought differently, most interpreters
of the Gospels do not take it to be a universal rule that we should sell all we have
and give to the poor. This is the significance of Gülen’s identification of the rule
of tolerance as a ‘basic principle’ or a ‘universal principle’.
III. Conclusion
Gülen has argued that both religion and reason tell us that we ought to tolerate differences, even differences of opinion about matters of great moment. Not
only do the Qur’an and the Sunna show us that tolerance, kindness and humility
are virtues that we should strive to develop and nurture, but also rational reflection on what makes a human being valuable shows us that consistency requires
us to be tolerant, kind and humble. I have tried to elaborate on Gülen’s lines of
thought, to show that tolerance is indeed a fundamental moral value, and that the
Qur’an (and any other scripture) should be interpreted in that light.
NOTES
This and all subsequent quotations from the Qur’an come from the translation by
Ahmed Ali, published by Princeton University Press in 1993.
2
The hadith cited can be found in Bukhari, Janaiz, 50, as well as Muslim, Janaiz, 81
and Nasai, Janaiz, 46.
3
This rule of interpretation is recommended by several prominent scholars today. See
Daniel Brown, A New Introduction to Islam (Malden, MA :Blackwell Publishing, 2004),
pp.231-232.
1
REFERENCES
Ali, A. (1993). Al-Qur’an: A Contemporary Translation, Princeton University
Press.
Asma, S. (2005). The Gods Drink Whiskey, San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Brown D. (2004). A New Introduction to Islam, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Kurtz, L. R. (2005). ‘Gülen’s Paradox: Combining Commitment and Tolerance’,
Muslim World 95, 373-384.
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Gülen, F. (2006). ‘Respect for Humankind’, Fountain 53, January/March, p.4.
Gülen, F. (2004) Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance, Somerset,
NJ: The Light.
Gülen, F. (2002). ‘The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue’, in M. Fethullah Gülen:
Essays, Perspective, Opinions, Rutherford, NJ: The Light.
Gülen, F. (2000). Questions and Answers about Faith, volume 1, Fairfax, VA: The
Fountain.
Ünal, A. and Williams, A. (eds) (2000). Advocate of Dialogue, Fairfax, VA: The
Fountain.
Webb, M. (1997). ‘Trust, Tolerance, and the Concept of a Person’, Public Affairs
Quarterly 11, 415-429.
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Hizmet Studies Review
Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 2015, 21-31
Fethullah Gülen’s Perspectives on Forgiveness
Radhi H. Al-Mabuk, [email protected]
University of Northern Iowa
ABSTRACT The topic of forgiveness used to be almost the exclusive domain of philosophers and theologians. In the last three decades, however, considerable attention has been
paid to forgiveness by a host of professionals including educators, psychologists, therapists and
health practitioners. Given the increasing interest in forgiveness, students of forgiveness have
studied its religious roots. Most of the Islamic theological writings that exist about forgiveness
seem to center on imploring adherents to forgive but often do not provide an integrated and
comprehensive process of how to put this into practice. In his numerous writings, speeches and
sermons, however, Fethullah Gülen has advanced a coherent perspective on forgiveness situated in the larger context of mercy. The focus of this paper is on forgiveness, which is one of the
major aspects of spirituality in Gülen’s teachings. There will be two parts to the presentation:
(1) Gülen’s understanding of holy scriptural injunctions about forgiveness; and (2) examples of
forgiveness-in-action from Gülen’s personal experience will be provided. Within the two parts,
the following questions will be examined: Does Gülen advocate conditional or unconditional
forgiveness? Does Gülen equate forgiveness with reconciliation? Does Gülen acknowledge that
forgiveness and justice can exist side by side? Does Gülen conceive of forgiveness as an act of
courage and strength of faith? Does Gülen believe that there are certain people that a human
being cannot forgive? Does Gülen provide specific attributes or characteristics for those who are
forgiving and those who are un-forgiving? The paper concludes by discussing the implications
of Gülen’s ideas about forgiveness for our daily practice of forgiveness which can ultimately
produce a more peaceful world.
Introduction
The word ‘forgiveness’ appears 61 times in one of Fethullah Gülen’s books,
and a whole section is devoted to the topic of forgiveness (Gülen 2006). As I read
the different parts of the book that relate to forgiveness, I quickly got the sense
that Gülen is offering a new renaissance – that of the heart. His efforts toward this
renaissance placed him at the top of the list of ‘the World’s Top 20 Public Intellectuals’ by the magazine Foreign Policy & Prospect in 2008 (Yenilmez 2010).
The concepts of love, peace and tolerance, which are prerequisites to forgiveness,
stand out as prominent qualities that define both Gülen and his movement. In
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the Foreword written by Michel to Gülen’s book Toward a Global Civilization of
Love and Tolerance (2006 : 10), Dr Michel used the phrase “agent and witness to
God’s universal mercy”. Gülen’s pronouncements and teachings about forgiveness are matched by actions which place him at the top of a list of the ‘World’s
Top’ agents and witnesses to God’s universal mercy.
So, what is Gülen’s perspective on forgiveness? This paper attempts to answer
this question, and is divided into two major sections. The first section provides
a background or context within which Gülen’s view of forgiveness will be discussed, and will include a definition of forgiveness, what it is and is not, some
philosophical objections to forgiveness, and the benefits of forgiveness. In the
second section, Gülen’s view of forgiveness will be presented with an analysis of
how his view fits into the existing forgiveness literature.
The concept of forgiveness is not new; it is an ancient, complex phenomenon
that has been given significant attention by the world’s three major religions:
Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and other spiritual traditions such as Hinduism
and Buddhism. It has also been a fascinating topic of study for philosophers owing to its humanizing, healthful and restorative functions. Because of its inherent
theological character, the concept of forgiveness was largely ignored by social scientists, especially psychologists, until the mid-1980s. The empirical investigation
of forgiveness began at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was led by Professor Robert Enright. The forgiveness process model and developmental theory
that Enright and his Human Development Study Group (1991) developed and
tested laid the foundation for the modern scientific exploration of forgiveness.
The forgiveness literature base went from a few articles and books to hundreds
of articles and books and many doctoral dissertations. Also, several conferences
focusing solely on forgiveness research and applications have been convened in
and outside the United States.
Definition of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a complex process which usually occurs following an injury. It is
primarily concerned with psychological healing through which the injured party
releases the injurer from any felt resentment and possible behavioral retaliation
(Augusburger 1970; Droll 1984; Fitzgibbons 1985; Smedes 1984). The injurer
is also released from inner anger and resentment, and thus has no psychological
hold over the injured person (Enright 2001). Smedes (1984) described the hurt
that constitutes a crisis of forgiveness as having three aspects: it is always personal,
unfair and deep. Forgiveness is personal in that it can only be directed to persons,
not to nature (such as a tornado) or a system (such as an institution). It is also
unfair in the sense that the injured person does not deserve the pain or that the
Fethullah Gülen’s Perspectives on Forgiveness
pain was not necessary. The third aspect, depth, means that forgiveness follows
a deep, long-lasting injury from the other person. The unfair, personal and deep
injury may be psychological, emotional, physical or moral (Smedes 1984). Since
a precise definition of forgiveness is key to understanding Gülen’s perspective on
it, it is useful to consider what forgiveness is not.
What Forgiveness Is Not
According to Enright et al. (1987), there are a number of aspects that are
often conflated with forgiveness but are in fact not characteristics of it. To begin
with, forgiveness is not forgetting. A deep injury leaves an indelible mark on the
fabric of one’s being which is hard to dislodge. Forgiveness is not reconciliation
or coming together again. Forgiveness is an inner release while reconciliation is a
behavioral coming together. Someone can forgive and yet not reconcile as it may
sometimes be either unsafe or impossible to reconcile. It may be unsafe because
the injurer remains unchanged, or impossible to reconcile with him/her because
the person is either nowhere to be found or is deceased. Forgiveness, however, includes a willingness or a waiting in the hope that the other changes. Forgiveness,
of course, paves the path toward the possibility of reconciliation.
Forgiveness is not condoning the other’s action by saying, “Oh, well, he/she
didn’t mean it, so I’ll excuse it.” The true forgiver recognizes the injury or injustice
as serious. Forgiveness is not pardoning or letting the other person off the hook.
Forgiveness is an inner release whereas pardon is usually thought of as public
behavioral release, such as when a prisoner is let out of jail. Moreover, forgiveness is not indifference by thinking that the injurer’s action after all just is not
important. It is important to realize deep injury as such. Forgiveness is not simply
a diminishing of anger over time; it is an active process to release the other while
one is still feeling angry. Furthermore, forgiveness is not manipulative, and it does
not lead to one person always being ‘inferior’ to another. Instead, it allows both
parties to stand on equal ground. In true forgiveness, the forgiver acknowledges
the enormous pain and does not dodge or repress the problem.
Gülen’s view on this issue is relevant. In talking about evil doers, he said, “I
don’t believe there is any possibility that anyone could see an act that is disrespectful to forgiveness as being acceptable (of the evil done with impunity)”. So in
his view, forgiveness is neither indifference, nor condoning, nor pardon (Gülen
2006: 73).
Despite all the defining features of forgiveness, the literature contains writings
of people who have raised philosophical objections to it. Nietszche (1887), for
example, dismissed forgiveness as a practice only for the weak. His position can
be challenged in two ways. First, when someone truly forgives, he or she does
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not condone the act by saying, “Let it go, it’s OK”. Second, a true forgiver does
acknowledge the hurt. The weak person, on the other hand, does not acknowledge the hurt; the weak person does not struggle to see the other in a new light.
Moreover, true forgiveness is not despair; it is release which is courageous.
Others have claimed that forgiveness can put the forgiver in a one-up position.
Real forgiveness is not a power play; it allows both the forgiver and the forgiven to
stand on equal ground. It is a wiping-clean of the slate, as North (1987) described
it. Still others (for example, Lewis, 1980) believe that a forgiving attitude leads
to letting criminals off lightly. In other words, forgiveness thwarts justice. Here,
forgiveness is confused with legal pardon. A person can forgive a criminal who is
still behind bars.
Another philosophical objection is that forgiveness may be dangerous. For
example, a spouse forgives her abusive husband and then he abuses her again.
Forgiveness is again confused with reconciliation here. Murphy (1982) stated
that a too-ready tendency to forgive may show a lack of self respect. This assertion would be correct if one ignores the anger of the injured party, which is not
the case in true forgiveness where a person acknowledges his/her own anger. A
somewhat similar assertion to Murphy’s was given by Hunter (1978), who viewed
forgiveness as a reaction formation whereby a forgiver hides his or her deep anger
and resentment. This view is not consistent with true forgiveness in which a forgiver tries to cast off the anger, not hide it.
Two additional objections include Droll’s (1984) assertion that the forgiver
will make the injurer feel inferior even when he/she did not intend this message
of inferiority. This view conflates forgiveness with reconciliation where a forgiver
simply tries to wipe the slate clean and has the right to forgive even if the other
misinterprets his or her motive. The final objection is that forgiveness is considered alienating from one’s true nature (survival of the fittest). Findings (Brandsma
1982; Hunter 1978; Fitzgibbons 1986; Al-Mabuk 1990; 1996; 1998) about the
impact of forgiveness on the forgiven show that deep anger, not forgiveness, can
alienate from the self.
Gülen’s perspective is deeply rooted in his Islamic faith and views forgiveness
as a supererogatory or merciful act. He always refers to the two primary sources
of the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet to teach about or support his
forgiving and peaceful stances. In one of his sermons, he cited this hadith, “Without doubt, My mercy precedes My wrath”, and the Qur’anic verses, “My mercy
extends to all things (Al-Araf 7:156), and “They swallow their anger and forgive
people. God loves those who do good” (Al-Imran 3:134).
Fethullah Gülen’s Perspectives on Forgiveness
Gülen points out that the divine attribute of mercy is foundational to the concept of forgiveness. God, without showing any exception, “nurtures and protects
all human beings, and He continues to give sustenance even to those who deny
Him” (Gülen 2004: 39).
A key to understanding Gülen’s perspective on forgiveness is the concept of
‘patient endurance’ which he derived from the following Qur’anic verse: “And if
you have to respond to any wrong, respond to the extent of the wrong done to
you; but if you endure patiently, this is indeed better for he who endures” (AnNahl 16:126). The notion of ‘patient endurance’ by which a person buries the
pain in his/her chest is synonymous with the Christian notion of absorption of
pain which paradoxically frees one from pain. This pious act of the burying of
pain is not to be confused with the psychological concept of repression, which is
a natural response to pain. But if left unaddressed, it can grow and fester.
Another key term which Gülen uses, and sometimes interchangeably with
forgiveness, is tolerance. In one of his speeches, Gülen (2006) referred to the
Prophet Mohammed’s example of tolerance and forgiveness especially with the
people of Mecca who were violently hostile to him. They fought him, conspired
to kill him, expelled him from his homeland and did everything they could to annihilate him and his followers. When the conquest of Mecca occurred, the hostile
Meccans were anxious to see what the Prophet would do to them. “As a sign of his
vast compassion and mercy, the Prophet said to them, I speak as Joseph spoke to
his brothers: There is no reproach for you today (because of your previous acts).
God will forgive you also. He is the Most Merciful of the merciful. Go; you are
free.”
A second example of kindness, forebearance and tolerance that Gülen uses
as an example to promote tolerance is that when someone called Abdullah ibn
Ubayy, who had been a lifelong enemy, died, the Prophet demonstrated his tolerance and compassion by giving his shirt as a burial shroud, and said, “As long
as there is no revelation forbidding me, I will attend his funeral” (Gülen, 2006,
p.88). For Gülen, since tolerance is rooted in the holy Qur’an and manifested
in the actions of the Prophet, a Muslim’s thoughts, feelings and actions must be
congruent with these sources.
In the same speech given in 2004, Gülen proposed that “platforms for tolerance should be developed in our society. Tolerance should be rewarded; it should
be given precedence at every opportunity” and “tolerance must permeate all of
society so much so that universities should breathe tolerance, politicians should
talk about tolerance, people in the music world should write lyrics about tolerance, and the media should give support to positive developments concerning
tolerance” (p.3).
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In addition to the concepts of patient endurance and tolerance, Gülen also
included the dynamic of compassion which provides both the willingness and
the will to forgive others. As an example for compassion, Gülen turned to the
Prophet Mohammed’s life for inspiration. More specifically, Gülen referred to
an incident in which the Prophet was severely wounded in the Battle of Uhud,
and manifested his love and compassion by raising his hands and offering the
prayer “O God, forgive my people, for they do not know” (p.121). In this example, Gülen saw the compassion, love, courage and optimism that the Prophet
displayed in the face of hatred, hostility and ignorance. In this way, he embraces
and practices unconditional love. Gülerce (2010) quoted Gülen’s comment when
speaking about unconditional love that “When you show love to people, you
should not expect a favor in return. There would be no end to it. You must love
people unconditionally” (p.2).
Forgiveness Heals Wounds
As to why forgiveness is so central to Gülen’s thinking, feeling and acting, he
addressed this issue himself by saying, “we believe that forgiveness and tolerance
will heal most of our wounds, if only this celestial instrument will be in the hands
of those who understand its language” (Gülen, 2006, p.73). Gülen understands
the healing power of forgiveness and discerns its potent transformative effect on
the individual and on society. The precondition to reaping positive results of
forgiveness depends on the accurate understanding of the language of forgiveness and the proper implementation of its process. Although not included in the
quotation given above, Gülen alluded to the language of forgiveness in a recent
article that appeared in Today’s Zaman (14 October 2010): Hüseyin Gülerce
quoted Gülen’s remarks regarding accusations leveled at him and his movement
by saying that “He would still never ask God to punish those who make such
groundless claims against his movement and its members … and that the claims
will not stand forever”.
In the same article, Gülerce noted that following the harsh criticism by reform
opponents after the majority voted in favor of the constitutional amendment
package, Gülen “called on everyone to adopt a more peaceful and tolerant language when speaking about others” He went on. “Everyone should revise their
discourse. They should quit shouting at others and giving into to frantic behavior.
Instead, they should adopt a softer and more loving discourse. We should never
forget that screaming and a frantic attitude only trigger hatred, not love”.
Gülen displays a solid grasp of the idea that forgiveness is a process that a
person goes through following a personal, unfair and deep offense. According to
an interview with Gülen by Nevval Sevindi which appeared in the Yeni Yüzyıl
Daily in 1997, he was asked the question “You have suffered a lot in your life.
Fethullah Gülen’s Perspectives on Forgiveness
How did you overcome events that could have smothered your enthusiasm and
smashed you?”
Gülen’s response was, “Once I was followed for six years as if I were a traitor.
It bothered me, but I forgot it. I don’t feel hostility toward anyone. Even then I
approached the matter logically, not emotionally. I’ve forgiven the people who
did this. If one day I see the faith of the people secured and a peaceful atmosphere
surrounding the world, then everything will have been worthwhile”.
Key words and phrases from Gülen’s answer such as “it bothered me”, “I forgot it”, “I don’t feel hostility” and “I have forgiven the people who did this” all
relate to the forgiveness steps which Enright et al. (1987) elaborated and which
other researchers have modeled subsequently. The first phrase ‘it bothered me’
relates to the first phase in the forgiveness journey and is called ‘Dealing with the
Pain, or the Uncovering’. This phase immediately follows the injury, and depending on the intensity of pain, most people employ psychological defenses to shield
themselves from the pain. The longer they deny or repress their emotions, the
more likely is the pain to take its toll on the individual physically and mentally
and to spill over into his or her relationships.
The second phrase, ‘I forgot it’, refers to the mitigation of pain through the
passage of time, and that the enormous initial negative emotional response has
diminished. If forgetting is not characterized by the cessation of hostility, resentment and anger, then it simply shows that forgetting is being used as a psychological defense mechanism. In Gülen’s case, he stated that he ‘did not feel hostility
toward anyone’, which shows that he dealt with the pain which led to replacing
hostile impulses with positive ones. The other critical phase of forgiveness that
Gülen went through is captured by the phrase ‘then I approached the matter
logically, not emotionally’. It can be concluded that Gülen conducted a cost/
benefit analysis of forgiving or not forgiving and that his reason prevailed over his
emotions. He managed his negative emotion very wisely as he knows about the
destructive power of anger. Gülen has described anger as “a temporary madness
and it results in regret”, and has advised people to not allow grudges to infect
their reason. In a speech, Gülen said, “Let’s not allow our grudges to affect our
style. Let’s be fair. Let’s be impartial and objective.”
The other important phase demonstrated by Gülen is his choosing to forgive
those who treated him as a traitor for six years. This phase is known in the forgiveness literature as the Decision phase. One can decide to pursue a justice or
a mercy route. If the person elects the justice route, he/she can either take the
injurer to court and have the legal system resolve the issue, or choose to mete out
the punishment him/herself. Meting out the punishment by the individual often
leads to a vicious cycle of revenge. The legal route may resolve reparation issues
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but the injured person must still live with the emotional wounds caused by the
injurer.
Gülen’s selection among strategies to deal with the people who hurt him must
have considered the others’ motives, needs and reasons for acting the way they
did. This cognitive appraisal must have then engendered positive attitudes and
feelings of goodwill toward those who had committed the injury.
Given that Gülen’s perspective on forgiveness is rooted in and motivated by
his deep and genuine faith, he chose the route of mercy in the belief of being
forgiven by God, which made him and continues to make him forgive others.
This kind of forgiveness, which Trainer (1981) labeled as ‘intrinsic forgiveness’, is
characterized by benevolent behavior and an inner change in attitudes and feelings about the offender, and, over time, it becomes an internalized and automatic
response that predisposes the individual to choose it over other options in a crisis
situation.
Belief in the Individual
Gülen has a profound belief in the power of the individual to transform society for the better. Sevindi (2008) stated that Gülen believes in the individual’s
central role in society, and quoted Gülen’s words that “every thing of beauty, and
every value present in individuals is multiplied and reflected in society. In contrast, everything that is inappropriate, every insufficiency, is a scandal, and as a
scandal blocks society’s path and inflicts deep wounds upon it” (p.4). The use of
forgiveness language brings about harmony of heart and mind to the individual
and to society.
The final thought on Gülen’s perspective on forgiveness is that it becomes a
consistent factor in one’s life. Forgiveness has been a common thread in Gülen’s
life. Gülerce has shared notes that he took on his week-long visit to Gülen related
to the significance of consistency and matching one’s words with actions. The
following is a relevant quotation: “No one can stop us humans when it comes to
theories and words. We all become a Ferdawsi, Persian poet, when we speak. We
must do our best to represent our values. Everything should be supported by representation. You should live a consistent life. If you behave this way, then people
who are in quest (for truth) will find you. Then for the sake of God we will go to
them” (Gülerce 2010).
In summary, this paper has attempted to describe Fethullah Gülen’s perspective on forgiveness. First, a context about what forgiveness is and what it is not
was provided and philosophical objections to it were discussed and refuted. The
remainder of the paper focused on different aspects of Gülen’s view of forgiveness,
Fethullah Gülen’s Perspectives on Forgiveness
including the prerequisites of faith, understanding, love and compassion, and
tolerance. It is evident from both the advice and the real-life examples of Gülen
that forgiveness holds the promise to transform hostility, resentment and hatred
into peace, love and harmony among individuals and societies.
For this paper, the author has relied on stories, interviews, speeches and books
written or made by or about Gülen to develop his perspective on forgiveness. It
would be very useful to conduct an extensive interview with Gülen focusing exclusively on the subject of forgiveness. The interviewer could ask him about more
personal accounts of forgiveness acts, the process which he goes through to forgive, and the benefits he has experienced by forgiving. The data acquired would
inform forgiveness researchers and practitioners and would undoubtedly inspire
more people to be agents and witnesses of God’s universal mercy.
REFERENCES
Al-Mabuk, R.H. (1990). The commitment to forgive in parentally love-deprived college students. Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Al-Mabuk, R.H. & Downs, W.R. (1996). Forgiveness therapy with parents of
adolescent suicide victims. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 7(2), 21-39.
Al-Mabuk, R.H., Dedrick, C.V.L, & Vanderah, K.M. (1998). Attribution retraining in forgiveness therapy. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 9(1), 11-30.
Augsburger, D. (1970). The freedom to forgive. Chicago: Moody Press.
Brandsma, J.M. (1982). ‘Forgiveness: A dynamic, theological and theoretical
analysis’. Pastoral Psychology, 3(1), 40-50.
Çetin, M. (2010, October 14). Infiltrating or contributing? Today’s Zaman. Retrieved from http://www.todayszaman.com
Droll. D.M. (1984). Forgiveness: Theory and research. Doctoral dissertation, University of Nevada-Reno. Dissertation Abstracts International – B, 45(08), 1985,
p.2732.
Ebaugh, H.R.(2010). The Gülen movement: A sociological analysis of a civic movement rooted in moderate Islam. NY: Springer.
Enright, R.D. (2001). Forgiveness is a choice: A step-by-step process for resolving
anger and restoring hope. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Enright, R.D. et al. (1987). To err is human…to forgive is not my thing: I dissent. Paper presented at the Dissenter’s Forum, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
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Enright, R.D. & Human Development Study Group. (1991). The moral development of forgiveness. In W. Kurtines & Gewirtz (Eds.), Moral behavior and
development: Advances in Theory, Research, and Application. (Vol.1). Hillsdale, NJ:
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Fitzgibbons, R.P. (1986). The cognitive and emotive use of forgiveness in the
treatment of anger. Psychotherapy, 23, 629-633.
Görçüm, A. (2010, October 11). ‘Prophet Muhammad example of coexistence’.
Today’s Zaman. Retrieved from http://www.todayszaman.com
Gülen, F. (2006). Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance. NJ: The
Light, Inc.
Gülen, M.F. (14 June 2006). ‘Tolerance in the life of the individual and society’.
Retrieved from http://en.fgulen.com/love-and-tolerance/269-forgiveness-tolerance-and-dialog/1800
Gülen, M.F. (14 June 2006). ‘Islam as a religion of universal mercy’. Retrieved
from http http://en.fgulen.com/love-and-tolerance/269-forgiveness-toleranceand-dialogue/1809-islam-as-a-religion-of-universal-mercy.html
Gülen, M.F. (14 June 2006). ‘Forgiveness’. Retrieved from http http://en.fgulen.
com/love-and-tolerance/269-forgiveness-tolerance-and-dialogue/1797-forgiveness.html
Gülerce, H. (2010, October 14). ‘I am just Fethullah the son of Ramiz’. Today’s
Zaman. Retrieved from http://www.todayszaman.com
Hunter, R.C.A. (1978). ‘Forgiveness, retaliation, and paranoid reactions’. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, 23(3), 167-173.
Keneş, B. (2010, October 13). ‘On polarization and conciliation’. Today’s Zaman.
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Lewis, M. (1980). ‘On forgiveness’. Philosophical Quarterly, 30, 236-245.
Murphy, J.G. (1982). ‘Forgiveness and resentment’. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 7, 503-516.
Nietzsche, F.W. (1887). The Genealogy of Morals. Trans. P. Watson. London:
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North, J. (1987). ‘Wrongdoing and Forgiveness’. Philosophy, 62, 499-508.
Sevindi, N. (1997, August). ‘The New York Conversation’. Yeni Yüzyıl Daily.
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Sevindi, N. (14 June 2006). ‘Biography: Why does he cry?’ Retrieved from http://
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Sevindi, N. (2008). Contemporary Islamic Conversations: M. Fethullah Gülen on
Turkey, Islam, and the West, I.M. Abu-Rabi’, (Ed.). NY: State University of New
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Smedes, L.B. (1984). Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. NY:
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Trainer, M.F. (1981). Forgiveness: Intrinsic, role-expected, expedient, in the context of divorce. Doctoral dissertation, Boston University. Dissertation Abstracts
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Hizmet Studies Review
Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 2015, 33-49
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
HEON C. KIM, [email protected]
East Stroudsburg University
ABSTRACT
This article1 examines the relationship between Sufism and dialogue
in the Hizmet movement. The Hizmet movement is one of the most significant global Islamic
movements in the world today. Among its many aspects, its worldwide activities of dialogue
have gained much attention in academia. Yet what drives its dialogue activities remains little
examined except for some sketchy implications and suggestions. By analysing Fethullah Gülen’s
thinking and the Hizmet movement’s activities, this article draws out an inseparable and
intrinsic relationship between Sufism and dialogue, which is proposed to be called ‘dialogic
Sufism’. By dialogic Sufism, this article hopes to contribute toward a deeper understanding
of the Hizmet movement in general and its dialogue activities in particular, while adding to
academic discussion a little-examined but considerable piece of Sufism and religion.
Introduction
A survey of The 500 Most Influential Muslims has signified the Hizmet movement as “one of the best connected and therefore most powerful of the networks
that are competing to influence Muslims around the globe, making it likely to
have an enduring impact on the modernization of Islam and its engagement with
Western ideas” (Esposito & Kalın 2009: 44). In fact, the movement has shown
a successful expansion to global proportions within twenty years and has grown
to have millions of supporters today. This success has led a good number of studies, which can be called ‘hizmet studies’, to consider the movement as a major
case for defining the contemporary global Islamic experience.2 Many aspects of
the movement have been examined and, in particular, its worldwide activities of
dialogue, which try to create bridges between people of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, have been underlined as a primary factor of the movement’s
success. But little research has been done to uncover what drives the movement
to focus on dialogue activities.
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In this context, this paper examines the relationship between Sufism and dialogue in the Hizmet movement. A close look at the existing hizmet studies makes
salient Sufism and dialogue the two most frequently discussed topics. In fact,
a glimpse of Gülen’s writings enables the reader to readily note the two topics
as the most dominant elements in his thought and intellectual framework. It
is therefore no wonder that Gülen is considered in the scholarship to be a Sufi
generally and a contemporary Rumi more specifically,3 while simultaneously being regarded as a promoter of inter-religious dialogue.4 It is, however, interesting to note that the relationship between Sufism and dialogue – specifically as
reciprocal-complementary concepts – in Gülen’s thought and the activities of the
Hizmet movement have received little attention. In comparison with the considerable attention which has been given to Sufism and dialogue as a distributive
concept, the relationship between the two remains almost unexamined except
for some sketchy implications and suggestions. This may be primarily because
the discourse within the secularist Turkish context has presented Sufism (more
properly tariqah, a Sufi order, as a divisionary sectarian movement) and dialogue
to be incompatible concepts with each other. As a result, this trend has prevented
access to an intrinsic dimension of the Hizmet movement’s dialogue activities.
In examining the relationship between Sufism and dialogue, I shall demonstrate that at the heart of Gülen’s teaching of dialogue lies his conviction that
Sufism is a constructional and constructive factor of dialogue. I propose to call
these two compatible concepts of dialogue and Sufism in combination ‘dialogic
Sufism’. In detail, I shall present dialogic Sufism in three ways: a) as an inherited
and accumulated tradition of Turkish Sufism; b) as an embedded spirituality in
hizmet (service for humanity); and c) as a practicizing Sufism in the dialogue
activities of the Hizmet movement.
Along with a textual analysis of Gülen’s works and hizmet studies, I am taking Sufism itself as a methodological lens. I hold that Sufism-related phenomena
can be best understood from the perspective of Sufism itself, without necessarily
reducing them to any other discipline. This stance is particularly significant for
a proper placement of Gülen’s thought and the Hizmet movement in their own
contexts, not in the politically-confined discourse that many of the early studies of the Hizmet movement in Turkey in the 1980-90s employed to present
the movement as a divisional sect of the Sufi order and as a threat to the secular
regime of the Turkish Republic. Success in this attempt would provide a deeper
understanding of the Hizmet movement, exposing the inner dynamics involved
in the dialogue activities of the movement.
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
I. Dialogic Sufism: a theological framework
Gülen regards dialogue as an activity of forming a bond between two or more
parties. By ‘parties’ he does not mean any specific subjects, but instead includes
all objects involved in humanity. To form a bond between parties means to Gülen
to see human beings as the objects of dialogue. Thus, his concept of dialogue,
rather than being a generic term, specifies the humanitarian approach to dialogue, which manifests itself with tolerance and various tolerance-based concepts
such as love, compassion, forgiveness and humility. In this sense, tolerance and
dialogue in his writings appear as a paired concept for humanity, as he considers
them to be want he called the two roses of the emerald hills of humanity (Gülen
2004a: 50-53). This consideration is notably presented in his article on Sufism
entitled ‘The Two Roses of the Emerald Hills: Tolerance and Dialogue’, which
indicates Gülen’s approach to dialogue within the purview of Sufism.
In Gülen’s thinking, tolerance is indispensable to Sufism. Above all, he has
signified the tolerant nature of Sufism by the three principles of Sufism, as “overflowing with Divine Love and getting along with all other beings in the realization (originating from Divine Love) that the universe is a cradle of brotherhood”,
“giving preference or precedence to the well-being and happiness of others” and
“being open to love, spiritual yearning, delight and ecstasy” (Gülen 1998a: xvxvi). Further, Gülen directly related this quality of tolerance to love in describing
the Sufi knowledge of God (marifa):
Knowledge of God does not consist of abstract knowledge; in its true
form, it is transformed into love. We cannot remain indifferent to someone in whom we believed and then grew to know well. After belief and
knowledge comes love. Love is the crown of belief in God and knowledge
of Him. Love is open to everyone according to his or her level. Love, which
seeks to deepen itself, always travels on the horizon of ‘increase’, asking:
“Isn’t there more?” On the one hand, sacred knowledge increases, giving
rise to increasing in love, which causes knowledge to increase still further.
(Gülen, The Culture of the Heart in en.fgulen.com)
Tolerance, love and knowledge of God are inseparable in Gülen’s Sufism. In
particular, Gülen is convinced that only by love can humanism be realized, and
humanity is a sublimation of love. To him, humanity is the most valuable being
in the universe as the greatest mirror of the Names, Attributes, and Deeds of God
(Gülen 2006). Every human being is equally endowed with the capacity to mirror
divine nature to be developed to be “greater than the universe” (Gülen 2004b:
292), thereby securing the equality of all humans, regardless of religion, race,
wealth and social status. Foremost of the human reflections as a divine mirror is
love. Gülen explained this as follows:
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[L]ove is the rose in our belief, a realm of the heart that never withers.
Above all else, just as God wove the universe like lace on the loom of love,
the most magical and charming music in the bosom of existence is always
love. The strongest relationship among individuals that forms family, society, and nation is love. Universal love shows itself throughout the cosmos
in the fact that each particle helps and supports every other particle. This
is true to such an extent that the most dominant factor in the spirit of
existence is love. As an individual of the universal chorus, almost every
creature acts and behaves in its own style, according to the magical tune it
has received from God, in a melody of love. (Gülen 2004a: 50-51)
To Gülen, therefore, “love is the most essential element in every being” (Gülen
1998b: 59). As the most essential element, love is innate in the human heart and
springs therefrom. The heart is “the polished mirror in which Divine knowledge
is reflected” to an extent that it is “more valuable and honored than the Ka’ba”
(Gülen 1998a: 24). In spite of this significance, Gülen warned, the heart can be
“a means by which satanic and carnal temptations and vices can enter … [and]
If it is commanded by the carnal (inherently evil) self, it can become a target
for Satan’s poisonous arrows” (Gülen 1998a: 24). Therefore, the heart “must be
protected and kept safe from infection” (Gülen 1998a: 24) by being continually
polished and cleansed. In this regard, Gülen put an emphasis on the need for
spiritual training and considered Sufism as a proven way to polish and cleanse the
heart for its proper function of reflecting love.
This understanding of love in the purview of Sufism shaped Gülen’s tolerancebased humanism, and leads to his advocacy of dialogue as a pragmatic extension
of humanism. In Gülen’s thought, dialogue is a ‘must’ for today’s world,5 and
Sufism is a way to secure such a ‘must.’ I note this intrinsic relationship by proposing to call it ‘dialogic Sufism’.
Dialogic Sufism opposes a dialectical approach to humanity which assumes an
opposing and conflicting relationship between self and others. As I have analysed
elsewhere,6 a dialectical approach has been dominant in the modern world especially in Friedrich Hegel’s dialectic philosophy of “ideologically inferior others”,
Karl Marx’s materialistic worldview of “materially alienated others” and Samuel
Huntington’s theory of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ which assumes “religiously incompatible others”. Unlike this dialectical approach to humanity, dialogic Sufism
as shown in Gülen’s thinking underlines an interdependent unit of ‘self and others’ and assumes self and others as the subject/object of dialogue. To this extent,
dialogic Sufism does not follow the divisional history of many Sufi orders, which
has shown divisions in society. Dialogic Sufism is also far from being political. It
is unlike the so-called ‘political Islam’ which, as represented by the case of “Jihad
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
by a sword” (Jihad bis-saif) of Sayyid Qutb,7 tends to react to problems. Instead, it
interacts with any challenging condition and context to build a dialogical bridge
between the past and the present, the East and the West, rationalism/materialism and spiritualism, and between different civilizations, religions and cultures,
obliterating difference and distinction between ‘self and others’.
As a foundation of dialogic Sufism, Gülen put forward the Turkish Sufi tradition. He considers the Turkish Sufi tradition as an inherited consciousness proceeded by “the collective act of saints” which, as a cultural reality, has long been
accumulated and embedded through an internalizing and vitalizing process of a
spirit of tolerance and love. Gülen affirmed that “Sufism has spread among the
Turks in both Central Asia and Turkey. This is why Turkish Islam always has been
broader, deeper, more tolerant and inclusive, and based on love” (Turgut 1997).
He further asserted that:
The teaching of tasawwuf remains to certain extent in every corner of our
society. Everyone took a benefit from it. The influence of tasawwuf on
Turkish society is stronger and deeper than [in] any other Islamic country.
A custom such as to see oneself as lower than others; to see others higher
than oneself and to give priority to others over oneself was impregnated
to this nation from its very beginning by Sufi authorities such as Ahmad
Yasawi, Yunus Emre, Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi and Haci Bektash Veli
... . That soft and inclusive worldview and attitude gain important place
and value toward Allah, and become a unifying element of social life … .
This understanding exists in almost all individuals in the Turkish nation.
(Pope 1998)
Gülen’s appreciation of the soft, humble and inclusive Sufism initiated by
Yasawi, Rumi, Emre and Bektash affirms its continuing existence as a cultural
heritage of Turks.
Hizmet (Service for humanity)
Gülen does not simply adopt and repeat Turkish Sufi tradition, but further
reactivates the tradition in the contemporary world. As Ergene has explained,
Gülen rebuilds that inherited humanism and understanding of Turko-Islamic
Sufism to serve contemporary society and meet its needs (Ergene, in en.fgulen.
com). Herein lies the distinctiveness of Gülen’s dialogic Sufism which directs
toward hizmet the core value of Gülen’s thought.
Hizmet is a Turkish word which is the same as khidma in Arabic, which means
‘service’. Technically in Gülen’s thinking, it denotes ‘service for humanity’, which
is what defines the Hizmet movement. Gülen empathetically calls the movement
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to give ‘service for humanity’ and has further asserted that “for this movement,
religious dimension is important. This religiosity directs not inwardly, [but] more
than that, outwardly. [Thus] the concept of hizmet is significant” (Gülen 2003).
This indicates that hizmet, service for humanity, appears as an outward reflection of inner personal religiosity, and as such, is in concert with Sufism. Notably,
Gülen described the Suffering (Chila) of Sufis thus:
Suffering in this sense becomes, beyond our own spiritual progress, the
dedication of our lives to the happiness of others in both worlds and living for others. In other words, we should seek our spiritual progress in
the happiness of others. This is the most advisable and the best approved
kind of suffering: that is, we die and are revived a few times a day for the
guidance and happiness of others, we feel any fire raging in another heart
also in our own heart, and we feel the suffering of all people in our spirits.
(Gülen 2004b: 235)
In Gülen’s schema, the real path of Sufis is to seek their spiritual progress in
the happiness of others by living for others. This exemplifies what hizmet is.
Gülen’s account of Sufism for hizmet characterizes dialogic Sufism as social,
sober and activist Sufism. In detail, he holds Sufism to be an “Islamic spiritual
aspect, which constitutes the essence of religion, fosters its belief and leads one
to being a perfect human being” (Pope 1998). Thus, Sufism can by no means be
confined to the domain of Sufi orders, which “are almost beyond number” (Gülen 1995: 154), and whose focus on the master/disciple relationship, intoxication
(sukr) and theopathic locutions (shathiyyat) have led many Sufis either to deviate
from the true path or to be left stranded halfway.8 To Gülen, Sufism must not
remain a way of personal inner purification, but should be reflected in society.9
Individuals who have followed a spiritual journey “toward, in and with God”,
come back “from God” to perpetuate the experience through constant ‘Godconsciousness’ in society (Gülen 2004b: 244-262). A society is a sphere in which
the spiritual travelers firmly set up their newly-acquired spiritual experiences,
and deepen their God-consciousness through daily life and by doing service for
others (hizmet). In this way, a Sufi rationalizes his/her spiritual and emotional
experience and directs his/her life to be self-disciplined in and for this world. In
this context, Gülen appreciates ‘genuine Sufis’ as those who are not aloof from
society, but actively participate in this-worldly matters by organizing their lives
with self-supervision (muraqaba) and self-criticism (muhasaba).10 Accordingly,
Gülen’s Sufism is ‘activist Sufism.’ In other words, it is, as Elisabeth Özdalga put
it in terms of Weberian theory, “pietistic activism” in which the ‘man of action’
(aksiyon insanı) “is inclined to work his or her best until this world is turned into
a paradise” (Özdalga 2000: 88-89). In fact, Gülen identified the ideal Sufi ascetic
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
as a “man of action and thought” (aksiyon ve düşünce insanı).11 In his conviction,
any spiritual journey is vitalized by action, and action is in turn vitalized by constant God-consciousness.12
This social, sober and activist Sufism characterizes Gülen’s Sufism, converging into dialogic Sufism for hizmet. When it is understood in this way, dialogic
Sufism for hizmet is perceived as a tool to solve human individual and collective
problems in the world. Gülen is convinced and convincing on this issue:
If we can spread globally the Islamic understanding of such heroes of love
as Niyazi Misri, Yunus Emre and Mawlana Rumi, and if we can extend
their messages of love, dialogue and tolerance to people who are thirsty
for this message, everyone will run toward the embrace of love, peace and
tolerance that we represent. (Gülen 2004a: 60-61)
In Gülen’s diagnosis, most of the problems that contemporary human beings face result from the loss of true humanism, which causes and appears with
widespread hatred and enmity. Hatred and enmity generate “beasts who have lost
their humanity” and these beasts in turn accelerate the loss of humanism (Gülen
2000). As a cause of the loss of true humanism, Gülen has pointed out the rise of
excessive materialism. To him, “there are any material shortages in the world” but
inequitable distribution, which originates from the self-egoism of the materialcentric mind (Gülen 2004b: v). Following this diagnosis, Gülen is convinced
that the only way to disentangle the real and critical danger to human beings is to
revitalize humanism by means of love and tolerance. He finds in the Sufi tradition
such humanism and necessitates its reactivation. In this sense lies the significance
of dialogic Sufism as a way of recovering humanism and spirituality in a materialcentric context. In Gülen’s schema, dialogic Sufism is not a way of rejecting this
world, but a way of protecting and empowering a person’s spirituality against
his/her egoistic carnal-self (nafs), which gives rise to a greedy mind and constant
conflict with others. In this way, dialogic Sufism leads one to recognize others as
equal beings not as anti-beings, and to acknowledge mutual existence and the
need for tolerance and dialogue.
II. Practising Sufism toward dialogue
The Hizmet movement’s dialogue activities
The Hizmet movement has focused on dialogue activities in the framework
of hizmet, which aims to facilitate personal spiritual growth and communal wellbeing. This is what Gülen’s dialogic Sufism implies. Just as the concept of hizmet
is built upon Sufism, the activities are directed toward, in Ergene’s expression,
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“the individual’s personal virtue and maturation, and the maturation of social
relations” with “the Sufi, moral and spiritual depths that requires each believer
to be modest and patient in his/her familial and social relationships” (Ergene
en.fgulen.com).
Following Gülen’s teaching and his exemplary practice of dialogue with different religious leaders,13 the movement has expanded its dialogue activities from
Turkey to the rest of the world. It has established a number of institutions as
advance bases for dialogue activities such as dialogue institutes and cultural exchange centers. These institutions, albeit with different titles, all focus on interfaith and intercultural dialogue activities. Significantly, almost all of these institutional activities are hosted by the local hizmet communities from planning,
providing financial support and organizing to eventual opening. In fact, dialogue
activity serves not only to bridge between different religious/cultural people but
also to reflect the inner religiosity of individual members and a local community.
In other words, it is an activity that involves local members whose voluntary labor, time and donations are essential to actualize plans as the outward reflection
of inner religiosity. To draw out the common characteristics of dialogue activities,
it may suffice to note two examples which well represent dialogue activities both
in Turkey and in the United States, and both from the Hizmet movement’s perspective and the outsider’s viewpoint.
The Turkey Interfaith Trip is one of the common dialogue activities among
many organizations of the Hizmet movement. With its sponsorship, a local
hizmet organization can invite local people of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds to Turkey, and with the voluntary help of local members of the Hizmet
movement in Turkey, the participants visit several cities, including Istanbul,
Konya, Antalya, Izmir, Gaziantep and Urfa, all of which maintain traditions of
Turkey’s cultural diversity.
The Institute of Interfaith Dialog for World Peace records in its official website (www.interfaithdialog.org) several descriptions written by participants in the
Turkey Interfaith Trip. Notably, a professor of religious studies in the United
States remembered the hospitality of a local community of the movement. He
wrote that “[B]eneath all of the passion for life embedded in this country, there
runs a river of authentic hospitality that cannot be ignored. A people who are so
kind and generous gifted us with their lifestyle reveals gracious hospitality and
devoted service to humanity. I was changed by this experience because I believe
for the first time in my life I saw in action what I have always been taught: devotion to God, service to humanity” (cited from www.interfaithdialog.org). This
hospitality also impressed a reverend so profoundly that he wrote:
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
As I recall that trip, my heart overflows with gratitude to Allah for having
led me to encounter the members of a movement which is having such an
impact on Turkey and other countries. Never have I been so flooded with
love and hospitality as I was on this trip … . The sponsors of the trip and of
the schools we visited, together with the students we met, radiate the intellectual acumen and the light and love that are and will be the only means
of healing this troubled, broken and violent world. And even though the
schools we visited are held to the secularist educational standards of the
state, the community of believers who sponsor them and constitute their
faculties bring an overwhelming witness to the truth that the One God
is great, all compassionate and merciful. The intellectual pursuit is at the
service of God. (cited from www.interfaithdialog.org)
That writer considered the hospitality of the local supporters of the movement
as the fruits of love and light, which echoes Jesus Christ’s teaching of “by their
fruits you will know them”. He further remarked that “the visit to these places
captured for me the essential dispositions of heart necessary for us to have true
interreligious dialogue” (cited from www.interfaithdialog.org).
These descriptions exemplify the dialogue activities of the Hizmet movement,
demonstrate the embedded and embodied vision of Gülen’s dialogue and hizmet,
and to that extent, illustrate the practice of dialogic Sufism.
Another notable dialogue activity as a manifestation of dialogic Sufism is Rumi-related activity. Many institutions of the Hizmet movement in the world organize conferences on Rumi and sema performances. A representative institution
is the Rumi Forum. Founded in Washington DC in 1999 with Gülen as its honorary president, it seeks “to foster interfaith and intercultural dialogue, stimulate
thinking and exchange of opinions on supporting and fostering democracy and
peace all over the world and to provide a common platform for education and
information exchange” (cited from www.rumiforum.org). To depict this mission
and as its official title, the forum has taken the name of Rumi. Presenting Rumi
as a symbol of love, tolerance and dialogue, and following the spirit that Rumi
showed in his famous message “Come, whoever you are, come”, the forum endeavors to invite “everyone who has a desire to explore ‘the other’ in the spirit of
mutual respect and tolerance” (cited from www.rumiforum.org). In a similar way,
many other institutions such as the Turkish Cultural Center in New York have
organized sema performance to introduce Rumi’s humanitarian worldview to local people. It is also worth noting that Turkey Interfaith Trips in nearly all cases
include a visit to Konya, the final resting place of Rumi. A contribution of such
Rumi-related activities was well described in Ihsan Yilmaz’s report in the Zaman
daily newspaper about an international conference entitled ‘Mevlana and Civilizations Dialogue’. The conference, in which people from more than 30 countries
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participated, underlined that against the current recurrence of threats of the absolute annihilation of humankind and the collapse of civilizations and violence
that marked the age of Rumi, Rumi’s inspiration of tolerance and compassion is
“once more needed in our turbulent global village, which is full of students of the
‘clash of civilizations’ and neo-assassin terrorists” (Yilmaz 2007).
Dialogic Sufism in the lives of individual supporters of the Hizmet movement
Dialogue has therefore become a major activity which not only creates bridges
between different religious people but also binds together the supporters of a local
Hizmet community. That is, dialogue is a communal activity that involves local
supporters whose voluntary labor, time and donations are essential for turning
plans into actions. The above descriptions by participants in the Turkish Interfaith Trip testify to this, and the findings of several field studies confirm the noticeable engaging in dialogic Sufism in the supporters’ lives, which secures their
continual contributions to and activities for hizmet.
Elizabeth Özdalga’s empirical study depicts how deeply Gülen’s thinking is
involved in the lives of individuals in the movement. For instance, she quoted an
interviewee’s statement that “when they [her friends] go to places like Russia, for
example, the circumstances may be such that it is not even appropriate for them
to carry out their own prayers. They even have to sacrifice this part of their own
lives when they go to such places. This is also the desire of hocaefendi [a Turkish honorific title of Gülen], that we should spread the message of love to other
people” (Özdalga 2003: 94). Based upon this and other testimonies, Özdalga
concluded that “regarding love, pietism, humility, self-criticism, professional (not
political) activism, they [the interviewees] all have studied their Gülen catechism
very thoroughly. But at the same time, this urge to follow in Gülen’s footsteps answers a voice within themselves that genuinely is their own and that has not been
forced on them through communal pressure” (Özdalga 2003: 114). Enes Ergene
agreed with Özdalga’s conclusion, considering the core virtues of Gülen’s ideas
as the primary subjects of the supporters’ intellectual reflection. He particularly
enumerated such virtues as “modesty, self-sacrifice, altruism, a spirit of devotion,
being with the Lord although among people, living for the good of others, being
of service without expectations, and depth of the spirit and heart with no anticipation for reward for any intention or deed” (Ergene, en.fgulen.com). Ergene underlined that all of these virtues are in Sufi culture and are the main constituents
of the intellectual and active dynamics of the Hizmet movement.
Both Özdalga’s empirical study and Ergene’s analysis delineate an embodied
and practising dialogic Sufism in the lives of individual supporters in the movement. In fact, a closer look at hizmet studies reveals how deeply dialogic Sufism
plays a role in constructing the identity of an individual in the movement, bridg-
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
ing and binding him/her to Gülen’s thought and the movement while living in
society.
Özdalga took special note of an interviewee’s expression of “becoming a part”
(Özdalga 2003: 95). For that interviewee, ‘becoming a part’ did not mean becoming a mechanical part of the movement, but instead being an organic participant in hizmet. Özdalga interpreted this to mean that “becoming part of the
Gülen community, therefore, does not mean that individuals are turned into
passive tools in the hands of an authoritarian leadership. The Gülen ideology is
strongly conservative, it is true, but that is not the same as saying that the principles of its organization are authoritarian or by any means totalitarian” (Özdalga
2003: 114). Becoming a part reflects Gülen’s teaching of being non-selfish, which
is attained by constant and conscious training of the carnal ego (nafs) through
such Sufi-oriented practices as zuhd, muraqaba and muhasaba. For instance, one
participant underlined that “first of all, you become a slave [kul], that is, you
start to criticize yourself … of course: reserve, humility, getting away from being
egocentric” (Özdalga 2003: 95). This comment directly refers to self-reflection,
muhasaba and muraqaba in Gülen’s Sufism, as the participant went on to clarify
that “this [selfishness through self-criticism] is at the very foundation of religion,
and Hocaefendi represents a very good example for us in this respect” (Özdalga
2003: 95).
In the process of ‘becoming a part’, participants in the movement learn, begin
to use and become familiar with the common terminology of the movement. An
interviewee in Özdalga’s study was observed to have frequently used the concept
of ‘love’, and Özdalga described this as “following in the footsteps of Fethullah
Gülen” (Özdalga 2003). As readily notable in various interview materials, ‘love’
and ‘tolerance’ in the participants’ testimonies refer directly to the two core concepts of Gülen’s thinking, rather than in the common or broad sense. This shared
vocabulary echoes Pierre Bourdieu’s “symbolic power” (Bourdieu 1991). Similar
to the way that Bourdieu saw language as an evoking factor of habitus, the core
concepts of the Hizmet movement work to evoke habitus. From this similarity,
Selcuk Uygur utilized Hennis’s theory of habitus as “the non-discursive aspects
of culture that bind individuals to larger groups” (Uygur 2014), and Etga Ugur
noted Smidt’s contention that “religion also provides a symbolic language enmeshed in the grammar of the society by speaking the language of the masses and
utilizing the ‘cultural capital’” (Ugur 2007).
Practising dialogue among the supporters in the Hizmet movement with
shared vocabularies provides them with a shared communal space of belonging,
ensuring collective solidarity at given social margins – both in Turkey where the
activities of the Hizmet movement have continually been scrutinized by secularists as well as Islamists, and in Muslim minority countries where Muslims face
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diverse challenges in almost all aspects of their lives. Substantially, in providing
supporters with spaces for belonging, the dialogue activities of hizmet guide them
to find and/or ensure a self identity. Muhammad Çetin observed such an identity:
The Gülen Movement endows individuals progressively with a capacity
for action. Identity is constructed by each individual in her or his capacity as a social actor. Altruistic services always relate to human sociability
and to social relationships. Relationship is formed at the level of the single
individual, awakening the enthusiasm and capacity of the individual for
action. Through such sociability people rediscover the self and the meaning of life. Herein lies all the distinction of the Gülen Movement. (Çetin
2007)
This identity is continually rediscovered and regained through a supporter’s
altruistic service for hizmet. Further, being a part of the communal – especially
dialogue – activities of the Hizmet movement secures and ensures a social identity, which eventually helps one from an identity crisis continuously oscillating
between one’s ethnic enclaves and a melting pot of a multitude of ethnicities,
attitudes, political agendas and religions.
This social identity is intrinsically linked to a cultural identity. As discussed
earlier, dialogic Sufism refers to an accumulated Turkish Sufi tradition that serves
as a pillar of hizmet. Following this accumulated tradition means to the supporters of the Hizmet movement keeping a cultural identity. The foremost figure to
provide such a cultural identity was Rumi. Rumi is one of the most well-known
Muslim mystics in the West, yet by the supporters of the Hizmet movement is
regarded as a cultural symbol of dialogue, Turkishness and Turkish spirituality.
Participating in Rumi-related activities awakens and reminds the supporters of
the cultural identity that Rumi represents.
In Gülen’s thinking, such a cultural identity is of prime significance not only
to keep an identity but also to engage in a true dialogue. He empathetically stated
that “a community that has broken with its essential cultural values inevitably
loses its identity” (Gülen 2005), and wrote that:
We should know how to be ourselves and then remain ourselves. That
does not mean isolation from others. It means preservation of our essential identity among others, following our way among other ways. While
self-identity is necessary, we should also find the ways to a universal integration. Isolation from the world will eventually result in annihilation.
(Gülen 1996a: 86)
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
This self-identity refers by no means to conflict with other cultures or to annihilation in them. Rather it means to have an autonomous identity which makes
cooperation and coexistence possible and further realized. To Gülen, an identity
appears as a manifestation of cultural roots while integrating into society. Accordingly, it becomes a subject of cooperation in a universal integration. In this sense,
and not in terms of ‘national-centricity’, Gülen put forward his idea of “Turkish Muslimness” (Türkiye Müslümanlığı).14 To him, Turkish Islam is an identity
of Turkishness, which, with its religious/cultural/spiritual root of Sufi tradition,
cooperates with other people/religions/cultures. On this basis, Gülen teaches
the supporters of the Hizmet movement to integrate into Western societies fully
by obeying the local laws and by supporting the liberal democratic and market
economies without sacrificing their religious/cultural roots. This integration in
society while maintaining self-identity means a dynamic relationship with others,
acknowledging others and exchanging each other’s cultural productions. For this
dynamic relationship, dialogue is indispensable; and dialogic Sufism provides the
Hizmet movement with the most effective tool to make dialogue happen and to
engage in it.
Conclusion
This article explores a salient an inseparable relationship between dialogue and
Sufism in the Hizmet movement. The relationship is underlined by the proposed
concept of dialogic Sufism. In the examination of this issue, Gülen’s advocacy of
dialogue emerges as an externalized and pragmatized manifestation of dialogic
Sufism, reactivating the inherited and accumulated Turkish Sufi tradition and
thereby establishing a spirit of hizmet, service for humanity, to serve people in the
contemporary world. Dialogic Sufism is deeply embedded and embodied in the
Hizmet movement and its various dialogue activities over the world. It also grants
individual supporters of the movement a spiritual, cultural and social identity by
which they acknowledge, cooperate and engage in dialogue with people of different cultures, religions and worldviews.
This concept of dialogic Sufism provides a number of implications directly
for the studies of the Hizmet movement, and broadly for academic discourse on
Sufism and religion in today’s world.
For studies of the Hizmet movement, dialogic Sufism reveals an inner dynamic of the Hizmet movement and suggests a clue for the reasons behind the movement’s remarkable success as a global civic Islamic movement in the world today.
For studies of Sufism, dialogic Sufism in the Hizmet movement shows a clear
and vivid example of the continuity of Sufism in today’s Muslim lives as opposed
to the modern scholarly prediction of ‘Sufism moribund’ in the process of mod-
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46
ernization and secularization.15 Dialogic Sufism not only proves the vitality of Sufism, which enables Sufism to cope with a rapidly changing world, but also represents a global manifestation of Sufism, appealing to the contemporary context
where excessive materialism makes people more and more thirsty for spirituality.
More broadly but essentially, dialogic Sufism shows another vision of religion
than one which is represented by religious fundamentalists and theoretically legitimated by some scholars such as Samuel Huntington as a primary source of conflict and clash between civilizations. Dialogic Sufism as evident in the dialogue
activities of the Hizmet movement across the world evinces a vision of religion as
a means of creating a dialogical bridge between people of different religions and
cultures in the contemporary globalized and pluralistic world.
NOTES
1 This article is a revision of a paper presented by the author at the Rumi Forum’s confe-
rence entitled ‘Islam in the Age of Global Challenges: Alternative Perspectives of the Gülen
Movement’ at Georgetown University, Washington DC on 14-15 November 2008.
2 As a representative study, see Yavuz & Esposito (2003).
3 Whilst Sarıtoprak initiated a contention that “Gülen can be called a Sufi, albeit a
Sufi in his own way” (Sarıtoprak 2005: 169), Ergene went further to consider Gülen
as a contemporary Rumi, opening a scholarly discourse on Gülen with respect to the
Turkish Sufi tradition (Ergene 2005).
4 For instance, Ünal and Williams asserted that “Gülen is an adamant supporter and
promoter of inter-faith dialogue” (Ünal & Williams 2000: 193-304). See also Jill Carol’s
A Dialogue of Civilisation: Gülen’s Humanistic Ideals and Humanistic Discourse (2007).
5 The Turkish Daily News on 14 September 2001 reported Gülen’s views of the new
millennium, which included his conviction that “Interfaith Dialogue is a must”; see
‘Gülen: Interfaith Dialogue is a Must’ at http://fgulen.com/en/press/news/24638-guleninterfaith-dialogue-is-a-must
6 See Kim (2013).
7 See Qutb (1990).
8 See, as representative passages, Gülen, 2004b: 125 for his preference for sobriety over
intoxication; ibid., 146-147, in which he recognized the state of ‘theopathic locutions’
that such famous Sufis as Bayazid al-Bistami, al-Husayn b. Mansur al-Hallaj al-Mansur
and Muhy al-Din ibn al-Arabi followed, whereas he warned against it to be followed as
it opens a deviation from the true path; ibid., 257 for his criticism against the master/
disciple relationship over the guidance of the Qur’an and Sunnah.
9 Among numerous passages, Gülen’s evaluation of ‘Privacy and Seclusion’ (Halwat and
Uzlat) is the most relevant discussion for this aspect (Gülen 1998a: 16-19).
10 For instance, in explaining the term ‘Self-Criticism’, Gülen asserted that “everyone
who has planned his or her life to reach the horizon of a perfect, universal human
being is conscious of this life and spends every moment of it struggling with himself or
herself ”(Gülen 1998a: 9).
Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement
11 For Gülen’s extensive conceptualization of ‘action and thought’, see Gülen 1996b.
12 In a similar sense, Gulay stated that “Gülen directs the Sufi concentration on inner
spirituality toward the worldly realm. The taming of the corporeal body by means of
spiritual transcendence, a fundamental notion in Sufi practice, is exploited to achieve
mastery of the world through social activity. After achieving transcendence and constant
‘God-consciousness’, disciples are enjoined to perpetuate this knowledge of God in daily
life, performing acts of service that reflect their intense subjective spiritual experience”
(Gulay 2007: 55).
13 For a brief account of Gülen’s meeting with diverse religious leaders and its implications, see Sarıtoprak & Griffith (2005).
14 This idea was detailed in Sabah news paper, a Turkish daily, on 23 January 1997; see
http://tr.fgulen.com/content/view/7885/15/ 1997
15 For this prediction, see Arberry (1956), Geertz (1960), Gellner (1992) and Gilsenan
(1973).
REFERENCES
Arberry, A. (1956). Sufism: an Account of the Mystics of Islam (London: Allen &
Unwin).
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
UP).
Çetin, M. (2007). ‘The Gülen Movement: Its Nature and Identity’. Paper presented at the conference, Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen
Movement. University of London. Available online at en.fgulen.com.
Ergene, E. (2005). Geleneğin Modern Çağa Tanıklığı [Tradition Bears Witness to
the Modern Age] (Istanbul: Yeni Akademi Yay).
---. “M. Fethullah Gülen and His Movement: A Common-Sense Approach to
Religion and Modernity,” in en.fgulen.com.
Esposito, J. & İbrahim K (2009). The 500 Most Influential Muslims. Georgetown
University.
Geertz, C. (1960). The Religion of Java (Glencoe, IL: Free Press).
Gellner, E. (1992). Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (London and New York:
Routledge).
Gilsenan, M. (1973). Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt: an Essay in the Sociology of
Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Gulay, E. (2007). ‘The Gülen Phenomenon: A Neo-Sufi Challenge to Turkey’s
Rival Elite?’ Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 16/1, 37-61.
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Gülen, F. (1995). Fasildan Fasila [From Time to Time]. Vol. 1-2 (Izmir: Nil
Yayinevi).
---. (1996a). Towards the Lost Paradise (London, UK: Truestar).
---. (1996b). ‘Action and Thought’, The Fountain, 13.
---. (1998a). The Emerald Hills of the Heart: Key Concepts in the Practice of Sufism
1 (Izmir: Kaynak).
---. (1998b). Hosgoru ve Diyalog Iklimi (Izmir: Merkur Yayinlari),
---. (2000). ‘Forgiveness’, The Fountain, Issue 30.
---. (2003). Interview with Nuriye Akman, Zaman, 9 June 2003
---. (2004a). Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance (New Jersey:
Light).
---. (2004b). Emerald Hills of the Heart: Key Concepts in the Practice of Sufism 2
(New Jersey: Light).
---. (2005). Pearls of Wisdom (New Jersey: Light).
---. (2006). ‘Respect for Humankind’, The Fountain, Issue 53.
---. ‘The Culture of the Heart’, in en.fgulen.com.
Kim, H (2013). ‘Dialogic Humanism: Gülen’s Alternative to Dialectical Approach to Humanity’. In O.Z. Soltes & M.A. Johnson (eds), Preventing Violence
and Achieving World Peace, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 23-40.
Qutb. S. (1990). Milestones (Indianapolis: American Trust Publications).
Özdalga, E. (2000). ‘Worldly Asceticism in Islamic Casting: Fethullah Gülen’s
Inspired Piety and Activism’, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 17, 83-104.
---. (2003). ‘Following in the Footsteps of Fethullah Gülen’, in H. Yavuz & J. Esposito (eds), Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement (Syracuse,
N.Y.: Syracuse University Press), 85-114.
Pope, N. (1998). ‘Interview with Gülen’. Fransız Le Monde Gazetesi, 28 April
1998.
Sarıtoprak, Z. (2003). ‘Fethullah Gülen: A Sufi in His Own Way’, in H. Yavuz &
J. Esposito (eds), Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press), 156-169.
Sarıtoprak, Z. & Griffith, S. (2005). ‘Fethullah Gülen and the ‘People of the
Book’: A Voice from Turkey for Interfaith Dialogue’, The Muslim World 95/3,
329-338.
Turgut. H. (1997). ‘Nurculuk’. Sabah, 23-31 January 1997.
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Türkiye Müslümanlığı. Sabah Daily News Paper. 23 January 1997.
Ugur, E. (2007). ‘Religion as a Source of Social Capital? The Gülen Movement in
the Public Sphere’. Paper presented at the conference, Muslim World in Transition:
Contributions of the Gülen Movement. University of London. Available online at
en.fgulen.com.
Uygur, S. (2014). ‘‘Islamic Puritanism’ as a Source of Economic Development: Contributions of the Gülen Movement’, Hizmet Studies Review, pp. 57-72.
Ünal, A. & Williams, A. (2000). Advocate of Dialogue. Fairfax, VA: The Fountain.
Yavuz, H. & Esposito, J. (2003). Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement (New York: Syracuse University Press).
Yilmaz. I. (2007). ‘Anglo-Turkish Cooperation With a Mevlevi Spirit’. Zaman, 9
September 2007.
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Hizmet Studies Review
Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 2015, 51-66
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian
Dialogue in the Context of Abrahamic Cooperation
PIM VALKENBERG, [email protected]
The Catholic University of America
ABSTRACT
This article highlights the most important aspects of Fethullah Gülen’s
contribution to inter-religious dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims from the point
of view of Catholic theology. Taking Gülen’s seminal article on the “necessity of interfaith dialogue” as a point of departure, the author looks at points of common interest between the three
Abrahamic religions as indicated by Gülen, but also notes a few important differences.
In the last couple of decades, the Hizmet movement inspired by Fethullah
Gülen has developed as one of the most promising partners for Christians engaged in dialogue with Islam. Whilst much attention has been paid in the recent
past to the Hizmet movement and its institutional presence, less attention has
been devoted to Gülen and the inspiration that he gives in his theological works
to intercultural and inter-religious dialogue as one of the elements of the faithbased service movement (Yavuz 2013; Hendrick 2013; Tittensor 2014). This article highlights some of the basic ideas in Gülen’s contribution to inter-religious dialogue as represented by his reflections on ‘The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue’.1
Since most Christians are more likely to come across Muslims inspired by Gülen
than directly encounter his thoughts in his writings, I shall start my reflections
by telling about my encounters with Turkish people in the Netherlands where I
worked at a Catholic university. For me, this encounter with Muslims was the
beginning of an extended study of Gülen’s thinking that involved me in some of
the conferences organized by members of the Hizmet movement.2 At the same
time, these encounters with supporters of the Hizmet movement is a suitable way
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to start my reflections because of the nature of Gülen’s thoughts about dialogue.
As Thomas Michel – one of the first Christian theologians to recognize Gülen’s
importance – has noted, he is more famous as an activist in the areas of education
and public communication than as a thinker or a writer (Michel 2002). One may
be expected, therefore, to encounter Gulen’s followers in the practice of interreligious dialogue before reading his ideas on dialogue. This was what happened
in my case as well.
Since my work as a Christian theologian in the Netherlands at that time involved engagement in dialogue with Muslims, I was happy to be invited – together with my wife who worked as a pastoral worker – to an iftār dinner by
the local branch of the Islam and Dialogue Foundation in the Netherlands. In
those days, a few months after 11 September 2001, I was particularly interested
in the hotly debated issues of the relation between religion and violence. When
preparing a symposium on God and violence in the three Abrahamic religions,3 my
attention was drawn to what I considered to be an interesting contradiction in
the self-representation of Islam by the Islam and Dialogue Foundation. On its
web site, the Foundation presented its mission statement in rather irenic terms,
stressing that violence and terror are out of place in Islam. In its printed public
relations brochure, however, the Foundation included the following English quotation: “Loving affection and detesting hate are the most distinguishing qualities
of a heart exuberant with faith”. In my opinion, this quotation expresses the true
nature of faith in God and its ambiguous nature better than the somewhat idealistic mission statement. Although it is understandable that Muslims resorted to
apologetics in the atmosphere of Islamophobia after September 11, the statement
that religion has nothing to do with violence simply does not do justice to the
complicated relation between religion and violence. If I understand the quotation
well, it says that religious persons will love everything that is good, but abhor everything that is bad. So there is a positive and a negative power in religion, and it
is the task for human beings to transform this negative power into a constructive
social force. I shall not go into the details of the theological consequences of such
a view, but rather concentrate here on the source of the quotation.
After some research, I found some similar quotations in the works of Gülen:
one of these was “The most distinctive feature of a soul overflowing with faith
is to love all types of love that are expressed in deeds, and to feel enmity for all
deeds in which enmity is expressed” (Ünal and Williams 2000: 198). According
to Gülen, the positive and the negative power cannot be put on a par. In an interesting exegesis of the verse “Do not take Jews and Christians as allies” (Qur’an
5: 51), Gülen argued that this verse has to be explained according to the context.
In some specific conditions, it may be necessary that Muslims do not cooperate
with Jews and Christians; but in general, it is better to cooperate, as the Qur’ān
says: “Peace is good” (Q. 4: 128) (Gülen 2004: 167). This is a hermeneutical rule
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian Dialogue
that helps Gülen to avoid the extremes of an unrealistic irenism on the one hand,
and a belligerent polemic on the other (Valkenberg 2013). Peace between human
beings and between religions should be promoted in all circumstances, unless
justice is violated by some persons to such an extent that there is no alternative
but to treat enemies as enemies. Whilst tolerance is an extremely important virtue that should always be promoted, it is necessary to be realistic as well. Whilst
tolerance and forgiveness may be good at the individual level, the law may require
mutuality and justice (Gülen 2004 : 94). Sometimes, it may be good to turn the
other cheek – a clear reference to Jesus’s saying according to Matthew 5: 39 – but
at other times, it is necessary to take care to establish balance in tolerance. To
quote Gülen once more: “Being merciful to a cobra means being unjust to the
people the cobra has bitten” (Gülen 2004: 207; Ünal and Williams 2000: 260).
In this contribution to Hizmet Studies Review, I propose to read one of Gülen’s
most important writings on the dialogue between religions with this hermeneutical rule in mind. Since my reading is a Christian reading of Gülen’s texts, I shall
concentrate on his remarks on Muslim-Christian dialogue. In the end, however,
I hope to make clear why and how Jews will have to be included in this dialogue
as well.
The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue
In his recent book about Gülen, M. Hakan Yavuz has shown that three formative factors shaped the life and works of Gülen: his family, Sufism, and in particular the writings of Said Nursi (Yavuz 2013:26). In fact, the hermeneutical rule
just mentioned was derived from Said Nursi.5 It can be found in Nursi’s Damascus
sermon and in some parts of his Risale-i Nur as well, where Nursi showed that
negative approaches to people of other religions in the Qur’ān usually apply to
specific situations only, whilst the more positive evaluations of others have a more
universal value. Something similar can be said about the quotation about loving
good deeds and detesting bad deeds, since in the same Damascus sermon from
1911, Said Nursi stated that “the thing most worthy of love is love, and that most
deserving of enmity is enmity.” (Nursi 1996:49) Gülen’s writings can be characterized as deeply steeped in Islamic theology and spirituality, and in that sense he
is a very traditional scholar (Albayrak 2011). Yet at the same time his works also
contain a fair number of references to Western philosophers and theologians, and
in that sense he is certainly a renewer.
Gülen has written about dialogue many times, so much so that one of the
volumes in which his writings have been collected is entitled Advocate of Dialogue
(Ünal and Williams 2000). Most of his writings about dialogue originated in the
period in which Gülen developed a number of initiatives in the 1990s, first in
Turkey and later abroad, to overcome disunity as one of the basic evils that di-
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vides humankind. Yet the roots of his engagement in dialogue go back to his work
as an imam in Izmir in the 1960s. Some of his older friends and students tell that
he used to visit the coffee houses and talked with all kinds of students, even atheists (Valkenberg 2015:84). Among these writings, Gülen’s essay on ‘The Necessity
of Interfaith Dialogue’ is of paramount importance, since it was presented at the
Parliament of the World’s Religions in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999 and has
subsequently been published in English versions several times.6 The essay consists
of five short parts, an introduction and a conclusion.
In the introduction, Gülen argued that dialogue between Christians and
Muslims is indispensable in view of the now prevailing materialist worldview.
He pointed to a Muslim hadith that says that Jesus will return during the last
days, which means that the central values of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
as prophetic traditions will in the end prevail. It is interesting to note that this
hadith was quoted by Said Nursi in his Damascus sermon as well: “... it is Islam
that will be the true, and spiritual, ruler over the future, and only Islam that will
lead mankind to happiness in this world and the next; and that true Christianity,
stripping off superstition and corrupted belief, will be transformed into Islam;
following the Qur’an, it will unite with Islam”. (Nursi 1996: 35-36). Whilst it is
clear that Islam will be the most important eschatological power in the writings
of Said Nursi, and that Christianity will only be able to cooperate with Islam if it
cleanses itself from superstition, Islam and Christianity seem to be equal powers
in Gülen’s reception of the hadith. Moreover, Jews are explicitly included as well.
Gülen referred to the Jewish philosopher Michael Wyschogrod who argued – in
a session of the Islamic Studies Group at the annual conference of the American
Academy of Religion, New York 1979 – that Jews and Muslims have as many
points in common as Jews and Christians (Wyschogrod 1982:16). Moreover,
Gülen added, Muslims have generally treated Jews quite fairly in history.7
Muslim Difficulties in Dialogue
After these introductory remarks, Gülen gave four reasons why Muslims often
have problems with dialogue. First, many Muslims have been killed by Christians, especially in the last century. Therefore, many Muslims tend to think that
the West continues this systematic aggression with more subtle means, such as
dialogue. As a Christian, I have heard this suspicion more often – not only from
the side of Muslims and Jews, but also from the side of Hindus and Buddhists.
In most cases, adherents of other religions are suspicious because they notice that
dialogue is, for many Christians, still connected with missionary activities and
the proclamation of the Gospel.8 They are right that this is somewhat peculiar, yet
on the other hand it is a consequence of the missionary character that Christianity has in common with Islam. It is my contention that Christian mission and
Islamic da‘wa are not so different at all, since both religions hope that the whole
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian Dialogue
of humankind will accept what they see as the best guidance. In itself, there is
nothing wrong with such forms of persuasion as long as one accepts the condition of mutuality in such persuasion. However, the mutuality is often jeopardized by power imbalances. I think that this is an issue on which challenges to
dialogue between Christians and Muslims still exist. Therefore, Gülen pointed to
the lasting influence of colonialism on the one hand, and the desire to become
independent from the West on the other. So, in my opinion, Muslim suspicions
about Christian invitations to dialogue are primarily political in nature, not theological. When I travel to a Muslim country, for instance the Middle East, I notice
that many people call me to account for Western politics, and the politics of the
United States in particular.
Whilst the first three reasons for Muslim suspicions about dialogue are of a
political nature, the fourth reason is theological: the distorted image of Islam
as a degeneration of religion, and of the Prophet as an imposter. At this point,
I must confess that Christianity has been guilty of such distortions in most of
its historical encounters with Islam. There is a fateful continuity between the
Christian image of Islam, as described by Norman Daniel in his Islam and the
West, and the cultural tradition of Orientalism described by Edward Said (Norman 1993; Said 1995). The Christian theologian Yanah ibn Sarjun ibn Mansur,
better known as St John of Damascus, was an early and very influential exponent
of this tradition. In the final chapter of his book on heresies, he introduced this
new religion as a deceptive superstition and a forerunner of the Antichrist, and
described Muhammad as a false prophet (Damascène 1992; Valkenberg 2005).
Since he had been educated at the Umayyad court in Damascus around 680 AD,
John knew quite well what he was talking about. However, he could only measure
this new religious phenomenon by the central norm of his Christian tradition,
and it is precisely because the Qur’ān contains traditions about Jesus Christ that
John could deem them inadequate and therefore heretical. At that time, the new
religion handed down by Muhammad was not yet known as Islam, and therefore
John of Damascus used three names that connect this religion with the stories
about Abraham or Ibrahīm: Ishmaelites (children of Ishmael, the first son of
Abraham), Hagarenes (children of Hagar, Ishmael’s mother, but the Arabic may
also mean ‘those who have performed the hijra’), and finally Saracenes. This final
name became the standard name for Muslims in the Middle Ages; John of Damascus associated it with ‘those who were left destitute by Sarah’, but again the
Arabic probably has a different meaning: people coming from the East (Davids
and Valkenberg 2005: 79-80). The references to Abraham’s children indicate that
Christianity and Islam are two genetically related religions, together with Judaism. In such a relationship, the younger religion is able to give itself an identity by
relating itself to older traditions. In theory – not always in fact – Islam recognizes
the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians who are characterized therefore as ahl
al-kitāb, ‘people of the Book’. At the same time, Islam claims to possess the true
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56
and unadulterated interpretation of these Scriptures. For the same reason but the
other way round, the older religion finds it much more difficult to relate itself to
its younger sister that pretends to have fulfilled its mission. If Christians think
that Christ is God’s final and unsurpassable revelation – in the same manner as
Muslims think that the Qur’ān is God’s final and unsurpassable revelation – they
have great difficulty in recognizing Muhammad as God’s prophet and messenger
because that would jeopardize their confession of Christ as God’s final Word.
This genetic relationship makes it understandable – though not excusable – that
Christians have given such a distorted picture of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in history,
Dialogue is a Must
After having identified these difficulties, Gülen came to the core point of his
message: “Interfaith dialogue in a must today, and the first step in establishing
it is forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments, and giving precedence
to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones” (Ünal and Williams
2000: 244-5). On this point, Gülen did not explain his rather categorical statement that dialogue is necessary today. One may be inclined to think that he simply contrasts the polemical mentality of the past with the dialogical mentality of
the present. This would, however, be a lopsided interpretation. A few pages later,
Gülen went on to argue that the Qur’ān urges Muslims to respect the followers
of other religions and to accept former Prophets and their Books. So he insisted
that an attitude of dialogue is not only required by modernity but also by the very
source of Islam.
Gülen proceeded to indicate the method of dialogue: forgetting the arguments of the past, and concentrating on common points. Again, as a Christian
theologian, I want to make a few remarks with respect to this method. First, I
notice a convergence between the attitude of Gülen and the attitude prescribed
by the second Vatican Council which said, in its declaration Nostra Aetate on the
relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, with reference to Muslims in
particular, the following: “Over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have
arisen between Christians and Muslims. The sacred council now pleads with all to
forget the past, and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding; for the benefit of all, let them together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values” (Vatican Council II 1996).9 Although Gülen
and the second Vatican Council seem to suggest that we need to forget the past,
I would argue that recent developments in the study of inter-religious dialogue
have demonstrated that there is more continuity between the apologetic tradition
of the past and the dialogical endeavors of the present. The main result of this
insight is that differences and particularities are part and parcel of every dialogue
and that it might be dangerous to try to forget or ignore them (Cheetham and
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian Dialogue
all 2013; Cornille 2013).10 An appeal to ignore the differences runs the risk of
narrowing inter-religious dialogue down to a form of polite conversation which
is not very helpful when religious violence determines the larger context of this
dialogue. Focusing on common points may be an important strategy when mutual suspicions are still prevalent, but if dialogue is to change the mentality of the
partners involved, a ‘reconciliation of memories’ has to take place. This phrase
was coined in Christian ecumenical dialogue to indicate the need to consider historical dissensions in a new light, in order to be able to understand each other. In
this sense, I would say that differences are important as well as common points to
come to a mutual understanding between Christians and Muslims. Meanwhile,
the second Vatican Council seems to have had a more specific common effort in
mind: Christians and Muslims can easily agree on promoting common values
such as peace and justice. I shall come back to this method of stressing common
points later on with reference to the possible Jewish contribution to dialogue
between the Abrahamic religions.
In the next sentence of his text on the necessity of dialogue, Gülen referred to
Abraham as well by quoting Louis Massignon, a French Islamicist and Christian
scholar who referred to Islam as “The faith of Abraham revived with Muhammad” (Griffith 1997: 201). In this sense, by re-awakening the faith of Abraham,
Islam can have a positive prophetic mission in the post-Christian world. Sidney
Griffith, Gülen’s intermediary to Massignon, argued that Massignon’s ideas about
the religious significance of Islam would radically alter the Christian views of
Muslims if most Christians would accept them (Griffith 1997: 198). On this
point, Gülen mentioned several other Christian voices supporting the call for dialogue with Muslims. He also mentioned some stimulating texts from the second
Vatican Council and from Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. He did not, however,
mention the fact that the second Vatican Council seems to endorse Massignon’s
plea to acknowledge Abraham as a common father for Jews, Christians and Muslims in two very important texts.
The first text is from Lumen Gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the
Church which states, in a paragraph on the relationship between the Church and
those who have not accepted the Gospel, that “the plan of salvation also includes
those who acknowledge the Creator, first among whom are the Moslems: they
profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one,
merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day.” (Vatican Council II 2122). This is a text of enormous importance for Christian-Muslim dialogue since
it clearly states that the faithful of both religions adore the same One God and
Creator who will judge us all. It also seems to recognize the Muslim claim to be
in continuity with the faith of Abraham. Whilst Jews and Muslims converge in
their claim to be the physical heirs of Abraham through Isaac and Ishmael respectively, Christians and Jews converge in their claim to be spiritual heirs of Abra-
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ham. The same recognition can be heard in the declaration Nostra Aetate quoted
above: “The church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God,
who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven
and earth, who has also spoken to humanity. They endeavor to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted
himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own”. (Vatican
Council II : 571). In this text, the Vatican Council recognized the name muslim
for people who submit themselves to God with reference to the faith of Abraham
as someone who was “upright and devoted to God”, according to Abdel Haleem’s translation of the words hanīf and muslim in Qur’ān 3: 67 (Abdel Haleem
2004:39). The tendency of Christians and Muslims to take Abraham/Ibrāhīm as
the epitome of faith might facilitate inter-religious dialogue between them; yet
at the human level, taking Abraham as an example is not without some serious
problems as a careful reading of the stories concerning Abraham in the Hebrew
scriptures shows. Apart from various forms of sexual violence and abuse of power
in these stories, Abraham’s faith seems to imply the willingness to sacrifice a human being – a threat of terror that has been hovering around absolute submission
to the will of God ever since (Trible 1984; Sherwood 2004).
Towards the end of his argument that Christians agree to give Islam a special
prophetic mission in this time of secularization, Gülen mentioned an interesting
statement by Pope John Paul II who gave Muslim prayer as an example for Christians, because Muslims often worship in the best and most careful manner.12 It
is true that Pope John Paul II expressed this opinion many times, not only with
reference to prayer but also with reference to the fasting of Ramadān (Sherwin
and Kasmow 1999: 58-69). Gülen stated that Christianity and Islam can learn
from each other: the West has its technological and scientific supremacy, whilst
Islam is supreme in its religious fervor. It is certainly true that Islam, precisely as
a religion of submissiveness to God, may be an incitement for Western people to
remember their religious roots. In Dutch public debates, Islam already has this
function, albeit in a negative vein. But in such a view, the West is identified with
the secular world over against Islam as a religious power. I think that it may be
possible to do more justice to the power of Christianity as a religious presence
in the Western world on the basis of the very same idea of mutual exemplarity
or – as I would prefer to call it – spiritual emulation. This idea may be particularly fruitful between Abrahamic religions, or – as the Qur’ān names them – the
‘people of the Book’. The Qur’ān addresses them – Christians and Muslims – and
says: “If God had so willed, He would have made you one community, but He
wanted to test you through that which He has given you, so race to do good”(Q.
5:48). A Christian reading of this text might connect it with St Paul’s writings in
the New Testament about the ‘holy envy’ between Jews and Gentiles to become
acquainted with God’s mercy in Christ.13 Such a reading may show the relevance
of differences between religions as a means to mutual incitement. Again, the life
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian Dialogue
of Louis Massignon and his discovery of the meaning of Ibrāhīm in the world of
Islam may serve as an illustration (Basetti-Sani 1974; Gaudeul 1984). By ‘passing
over’ to the world of Islam, Massignon discovered the value of his own Christian
background so that it is legitimate to say that the encounter with Islam caused his
‘conversion’ to Christianity (Gude 1996: 55). Although he did not use the words
‘spiritual emulation’, I am convinced that Gülen would endorse this idea of using differences between religions as a motivation for dialogue. In his life and his
writings, he constantly shows how Muslim sources can motivate us to engage in
dialogue with other religions. For this to succeed, however, it is necessary that the
other religion be acknowledged as a religion and not as a political system only. It
is at this point that people from the West often go wrong in their approach to Islam, as Gülen remarked toward the end of this section. They see Islam as a political force, an ideology or a terrorist threat. In this context, an explicitly Christian
approach to Islam may be of help.
Islam’s Universal Call for Dialogue
In the third section of his article on the necessity of interfaith dialogue, Gülen
referred to the Qur’ān and its call to the people of the Book to come to common
terms concerning the One God (Q. 3: 64). In the interpretation by Abdul Haleem: “Let us arrive at a statement that is common to us all: we worship God alone
and ascribe no partner to Him”. This is the basic Muslim call to dialogue. If the
others do not accept it, they may go their own way, while Muslims remain faithful to their path. Such differences, however, should not lead to disagreements, but
rather to different ways of confessing the same God. In this respect, Gülen quoted
from a statement by Said Nursi who, while praying the words “You alone do we
worship and You alone we ask for help” (Qur’ān 1:5) in the Bayezid Mosque in
Istanbul, imagined three circles of congregations that together worshipped God.14
The first congregation consisted of Muslims who were brought together with others who affirmed divine Unity. Yet God is also praised by other creatures, human
and non-human. Explaining this vision of Nursi, Gülen concluded that Islam
offers a broad path of salvation to the whole of humankind.
In the fourth section, ‘How to Interact with Followers of Other Religions’, he
stressed the common points between Islam and the people of the Book once
again: the Qur’ān accepts former Prophets and their Books, therefore Muslims
should not enjoy defeating others in discussing matters of faith. Gülen explained
the important reminder to “argue only in the best way with the People of the
Book” (Q. 29:46) as: discuss not except with means better (than mere disputation) (Abdel Haleem 2004:255). I agree with Gülen – who once again borrowed
his interpretation from Said Nursi – that the words for debate and disputation,
jidāl and munāzara, are often used negatively as signs of human ignorance in the
Qur’ān (McAuliffe 2001: 511-14). Yet at the same time, I am convinced that the
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rules for debate formulated in the Qur’ān and in subsequent Muslim tradition
may still be meaningful for determining the agenda of modern inter-religious
dialogues. It is possible to think, for instance, about the rules for organizing court
disputations or majālis between scholars with different religious backgrounds at
the court in the Abbasid period (Yafeh and all 1999). Again, I would underscore
the role of differences in inter-religious dialogues between the Abrahamic religions somewhat more than Gülen has done. Therefore, I would say that debate
and disputation may be meaningful contributions to inter-religious dialogue provided that they be implemented “in the best possible way”, as the Qur’ān says.
If we are prepared to learn from one another as a means of intensifying our faith
instead of showing off against each other, we may come close to “mutual enrichment” or even “mutual transformation” as the goal of inter-religious dialogue.15
Promoting Positive Values
In the final section of his contribution, ‘the necessity of interfaith dialogue’,
Gülen named four fundamental universal values that are sustained by religion
and are therefore to be promoted in inter-religious dialogue. It is a matter of fact
that these four words, love, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness, may be very
important subject-matters in dialogue between Christians and Muslims, because
both traditions may offer some profound spiritual teachings with regard to these
values.16 Moreover, it would be a good thing if Muslims and Christians together
could promote these values as a basic ethic for the whole of humankind. Yet
again I would like to complement this agenda for Christian-Muslim dialogue
with some reflections on the role of the differences between religions and the
question of how to deal with these differences without violence. I would like to
argue in favor of a contextual analysis in which the specific place and function of
dialogue between two religions might be assessed properly.
My considerations on the importance of differences as an instrument for improving inter-religious dialogue have been derived from my Jewish dialogue partners. Apart from the pervading influence of Emmanuel Lévinas and his insistence
on the importance of the otherness of the religious other, pioneers in inter-religious dialogue such as Jonathan Sacks and Jonathan Magonet have opened my
eyes to the importance of differences in dialogue (Sacks 2002; Magonet 2003).
More particularly, Alon Goshen-Gottstein has argued that Jews are quite often
only implicated bystanders in Muslim-Christian dialogues on Abraham (GoshenGottstein 2002). I have indicated some of the reasons for this earlier: apart from
the fact that the contemporary use of the term ‘Abrahamic religions’ originated
with Louis Massignon in the context of dialogue between Christians and Muslims, Jews cannot identify with the stress on the faith of Abraham/Ibrāhīm in
the same way as Muslims and Christians can.17 But if we want to remain true to
this Abrahamic heritage, we cannot exclude Jewish voices from our Christian-
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian Dialogue
Muslim dialogue, but should let them interrupt it, even if their voices are quite
often disturbing. As Farid Esack has argued convincingly, Christian-Muslim dialogue may become a dialogue of the powers that be if it is not opened up to the
broader vision that Said Nursi saw in the Bayezid Mosque (Esack 1977: 258).
Nevertheless, the dialogue between Christians and Jews may be in many contexts
and places a dialogue of the powers that be as well. A contextual analysis shows
that, whilst Muslims may be inclined to stress common points both because their
religion is so often connected with violence and other vices and because of their
genetic place as youngest of the Abrahamic religions, Jews may be inclined to
stress differences because of their minority position and because they belong to
the oldest Abrahamic sister-religion. The situation of Christians is most peculiar,
because they behave differently towards their Jewish ‘elder sisters’, with whom
they would like to discuss common points, whereas Jews tend to find the differences more interesting. On the other hand, Christians always have felt the need
to underscore the differences with Islam as their ‘younger sister’, whilst many
Muslims rather like to discuss the similarities. Moreover, Christians are often
seen as not-so-religious citizens of the Western world where the real powers that
be hide. Because of this global context in which the Christian partner in dialogue
as a rule is the most powerful partner, it would be important to let the agenda
of dialogue be determined by those who are not in power. For Christians in the
West, this could mean that they stress common points in dialogue with Muslims
and stress differences in dialogue with Jews. In this sense, Gülen’s insistence on
love, altruism, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance as the pillars of dialogue
may be an excellent starting point for dialogue between Muslims and Christians
in the broader context of Abrahamic religions.
NOTES
1 This article was presented to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Cape Town in
1999 and published in several forms shortly thereafter.
2 The main part of the following text was originally presented at a conference on Islam
in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice,
at Rice University, Houston, November 2005. Some part of it has also been published
in Valkenberg (2006) and (2015).
3 The contributions to that symposium were published in Dutch as Pim Valkenberg
(2002).
4 The website www.islamendialoog.nl was accessed several times between 2001 and
2008 but is no longer active; the quotation is from a pamphlet printed and distributed
in 2001.
5 For Nursi’s view on collaboration between Muslims and Christians, see his Damascus Sermon (1996), and the fifteenth letter from his Risale-i Nur (1997: 78-79). Also,
Michel (2003: 20-32).
6 Original versions in Turkish Daily News of 11-12 January 2000, and in The Foun-
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tain of July to September, 2000. Somewhat different English translations have been
published in Advocate of Dialogue, 241-56 and in Gülen, Essays – Perspectives – Opinions. Compiled by The Fountain (Rutherford N.J.: The Light, 2002), 32-43. The essay
was published separately as The Necessity of Interfaith Dialog: a muslim perpective.
7 Gülen’s argument was corroborated in broad outline by Cohen (1994).
8 See the document Dialogue and Proclamation. Reflection and Orientations on
Interreligious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This joint
declaration by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and the Congregation
for the Evangelization of People has been published in Bulletin Pro Dialogo 26 (1991),
210-50.
9 Second Vatican Council, Declaration Nostra Aetate on the relation of the Church
to non-Christian religions, no. 3. Translation in: Vatican Council II. The Basic Sixteen
Documents. A Completely Revised Translation in Inclusive Language, Austin Flannery
o.p. (ed.), (Northport N.Y.: Costello Publishing – Dublin: Dominican Publications,
1996), 571-72. For a comparison between Gülen’s ideas on dialogue and Nostra Aetate,
see the recent article by Salih Yucel (2013).
10 Two good surveys of recent developments in dialogue studies are: Cheetham and all
(eds), (2013); Cornille (ed.) (2013).
11 This recognition is not without some restrictions, as the Council documents merely
state that Muslims claim to be in continuity with the faith of Abraham. For a fuller
account, see D’Costa (2013: 208-222).
12 Gülen referred to a book with interviews by Messori (1994).
13 The idea of ‘holy envy’ has been made famous in Christian ecumenical circles by
Krister Stendahl. For an interpretation of Qur’ān 5:48 and Romans 9-11 along these
lines, see Valkenberg (2006: 150-62).
14 The reference is to Said Nursi’s 29th letter, first section, sixth point. English translation in Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Letters 1928-1932 (Istanbul: Sözler Neşriyat, new edn,
2001), 461-63.
15 See Cobb (1982). It should be noted that the document ‘The Attitude of the Church
toward Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and
Mission’, published in 1984 by the Vatican’s Secretariat for non-Christians, uses the
terminology of ‘mutual enrichment’ as well (text in F. Gioia (ed.) (2006: 1116-29).
16 For the role of these notions in Gülen’s reflections on inter-religious dialogue, see
Yavuz (2013: 181-91); for a reflection on the sources and the history of Islam with
respect to inter-religious dialogue inspired by Gülen’s thoughts, see Kurucan and Erol
(2011).
17 Two very different but equally skeptical contributions from Jewish scholars: Aaron
Hughes (2014) and, more convincingly, Jon D. Levenson (2012).
Fethullah Gülen’s Contribution to Muslim-Christian Dialogue
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NON-THEMATIC ARTICLES
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Hizmet Studies Review
Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 2015, 69-87
Hizmet et Business : Développement Socio-historique de la
Pensée Entrepreneuriale et Sa Philosophie Actuelle
YAFES UYARCI, [email protected]
Directeur du Centre d’études et de réflexion sur le Hizmet
Résumé Cet article analyse l’évolution socio-historique de l’esprit entrepreneurial à partir
d’une approche novatrice. Tout d’abord, il y est question de son inscription dans le contexte de
la socialisation, qui se caractérise par une dynamisation entrepreneuriale autour des principes
religieux dictés par le mouvement Hizmet. Ensuite, nous précisons l’utilisation de la notion
de « spiritualité » pour tenter de comprendre le renouveau et l’accès à une forme de piété dynamique. Sur ce point, nous proposons une perspective wébérienne autour de la notion d’ «
éthique religieuse par l’action ». Au terme de l’article, nous interrogerons la cohabitation entre
le spirituel et la modernité, puis la transposition d’une éthique et d’une piété dynamique de
l’entrepreneur au sein de l’entreprise, qui réapparaissent au sein de la structure sous forme de
dynamique d’entreprise.
Mots clés : Religiosité, Socialisation, Interaction, Dynamique, PME, Ethique.
Introduction
Le contexte de la pensée entrepreneuriale en Turquie est marqué par une série
de faits historiques actuels, favorisant l’émergence de la religiosité de l’entrepreneur
au sein de son entreprise. Parmi ces faits, on note l’implication des mouvements
religieux dans l’espace économique : ils semblent apporter un nouveau mode
d’agir dans le sens où l’acte de piété devient un acte d’engagement actif dans la réalisation des tâches professionnelles (Josseran, 2010 : 70). Aussi, dans cet article,
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nous essayons de comprendre comment le mouvement Hizmet transpose ses valeurs
religieuses dans l’espace économique à travers l’engagement des entrepreneurs et de
leurs activités socio-économiques. Pour cela, nous utilisons la pensée de M.Weber
comme grille de lecture.
Dans un premier temps, nous avons effectué une analyse succincte du développement socio-historique de la pensée entrepreneuriale. S’ensuit une étude de cas du
mouvement Hizmet et de la pensée de Fethullah Gülen (en faisant également référence à Saïd Nursi) afin de comprendre comment, au fil du temps, s’est instauré chez
les entrepreneurs une dynamique religieuse et une nouvelle pensée de l’entreprise.
Sont étudiés le passage d’une tendance informelle à une dynamique formelle au sein
de l’espace économique et sa normalisation à travers la création d’Associations locales, de Fédérations régionales et d’une Confédération. Enfin une description de
l’éthique et de la responsabilité sociale proposées par le Mouvement clôture notre
étude. Nous nous basons sur une bibliographie sélective ainsi que sur des sources primaires telles que des documents internes à l’association BUGIAD (Association des
entrepreneurs de Bursa, membre de la confédération TUSKON), ainsi que sur des
entretiens réalisés lors de nos voyages à Bursa et notre immersion pendant plusieurs
semaines au sein de cette Association.
Aujourd’hui, il est certain qu’une nouvelle classe a fait son apparition dans toutes
les strates de la société turque, à commencer par l’économie. De nouveaux acteurs,
souvent issus de familles anatoliennes attachées à la tradition ottomane, réussissent à
s’affirmer face à une élite centrale représentée jusqu’à peu par TÜSIAD1. Cependant,
le processus d’émancipation de ces PME anatoliennes ne nous semble pas être aussi
facile qu’il n’y paraît. Tantôt liées à l’organisation Ahi2 depuis le 13ième siècle, tantôt
liées au Tarîqat, et plus récemment aux Cemaat, les PME et leurs patrons ont toujours été le symbole de l’Anatolie et du conservatisme en Turquie, le symbole de la
contre-élite face aux grands groupes stambouliotes, l’outil de lutte et de survie d’une
majorité de la population.
En effet, la Turquie a hérité de l’Empire. Il faut savoir que le pouvoir est centralisé
et toute initiative « entrepreneuriale » isolée, en dehors du contrôle de l’État, est très
vite éliminée. L’empire a tout simplement peur de voir apparaître un contre-pouvoir
qu’il ne peut contrôler (Insel, 1984). Ceci, bien sûr, influence négativement la formation d’un esprit entrepreneurial, notamment chez les Musulmans turcs, qui sont
pour la plupart voués à une carrière de fonctionnaire ou de militaire. Des métiers
qui ne sont réservés qu’aux turcs. La majorité des artisans sont, quant à eux, issus des
minorités tels que les arméniens, les grecs ou encore les citoyens juifs (Küçük, 2007).
Selon Doğru, c’est la philosophie du « contentement », très répandue sur le territoire ottoman, qui pousse les pseudo-entrepreneurs à l’oisiveté. L’entrepreneur type
Hizmet et Business
71
de l’époque est connu pour sa sobriété, sa croyance au jugement et au destin et son
désintérêt pour le matérialisme. Cette philosophie pousse l’entrepreneur à croire que
le bénéfice ne dépend pas de lui, mais uniquement de ce que Dieu lui attribuera
(Doğru, 2008 : 75).
Dès le 15ème siècle, travailler et penser à son avenir sont perçus comme un manquement au devoir du Musulman, un gaspillage du « temps » que l’individu peut et
doit attribuer à ses prières (Doğru, 2008 : 78). La notion de Beruf est complètement
absente de l’esprit entrepreneurial, si l’on peut qualifier ce style de vie « d’entreprise
». Il semble que cet esprit néglige la notion de travail et d’activité, en s’adonnant à
une mauvaise interprétation des concepts de « destin » et de « jugement », tout en
délaissant le libre-arbitre de l’homme et sa capacité, pourtant attribués par Dieu luimême (Doğru, 2008 : 78). Cette méconnaissance de la notion de « destin » fait ainsi
perdre toute valeur à l’action d’entreprendre (Nışancı, 2002). Eşrefoğlu Rumî, poète
et mystique du 15ème siècle, partage l’idée qu’il n’est que perte de temps de rêver et
de se projeter cinquante ans plus loin, alors que l’individu n’est même pas sûr de voir
le jour suivant : ce genre de rêve trompe l’Homme, cela l’empêchera de faire de bonnes
actions pour Dieu… (Nışancı, 2002 : 78-79)
La préoccupation majeure de l’entrepreneur ottoman est de s’assurer que son
argent est propre (respectant les prescriptions du Coran, donc licite) et qu’il est
dépensé au nom de Dieu, sinon ce gain n’est pas « bénéfique » dans le sens spirituel
et éthique. Tout un système de redistribution des richesses existe, basé sur la zakât
(quarantième du revenu annuel que l’Islam prescrit pour chaque musulman et qui
doit être distribué au plus démuni) et la sadaka (l’aumône). Encore aujourd’hui, les
nombreuses mosquées, fontaines et autres œuvres caritatives héritées de l’Empire
(par exemple les Sebil) par la Turquie, témoignent de l’engouement des riches Ottomans pour ce type d’initiatives et les Vakıf sont la forme institutionnelle de cette
solidarité (Doğru, 2008 : 80). Nous pouvons donc affirmer que la pensée économique est influencée par le mysticisme dont certaines locutions sont encore utilisées
aujourd’hui (cebelioğlu) :
« Bir hırka, bir lokma » (une bouchée, un habit)
« Dünya Fâni, Allah Bâki » (le monde est temporel, Dieu est permanent)
La pensée tasavvuf, philosophie du mysticisme, mouvance religieuse très importante au sein de l’Empire, semble y contribuer en inculquant à ses membres la perte
de la notion de temps, les poussant à ne produire que pour répondre aux besoins
journaliers.
Cette philosophie religieuse continuera d’exister jusqu’à la fin de l’Empire. Mais
pour Yılmaz, ce sont bien – entre autres - les confréries religieuses et leurs actions à
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partir des années 1920 qui vont déclencher le processus de réussite des Tigres Anatoliens environ soixante-dix années plus tard (Yılmaz, 2006 : 11-12). Ainsi, la volonté
écrasante des Kémalistes d’effacer le religieux de l’espace public a occasionné une
réaction des croyants musulmans regroupés autour de nouvelles formes appelées Cemaat, forme moderne des Tarîqat, avec plus ou moins de variantes selon les courants
de pensée. Une dualité débutante, mais qui fait encore parler d’elle aujourd’hui en
Turquie (Bazin & de Tapia, 2012 : 289).
Même si leur forme contemporaine prend naissance à partir des flux démographiques survenus à partir des années 1950, les Cemaat sont apparues après
l’interdiction des Tarîqat et des Madrasas dans les années 1920. Elles se différencient
par l’absence de cérémonies ou de cultes spécifiques, lorsqu’un nouveau membre les
intègre, contrairement au Tarîqat (Ebaugh, 2011 : 50). Les confréries forment l’une
des composantes les plus originales de l’Islam turc, étant à la fois à la base même de
l’organisation sociale (entre-aide, solidarité) et faisant aussi partie des éléments de
pression indispensable. Elles sont en quête d’équilibre entre tradition/modernité,
politique/religion, sacré/profane. Donc, les considérer comme des structures spécifiquement religieuses serait erroné (Akgönül, 2005 : 45-46).
Cette recherche d’équilibre est une caractéristique qui émane de la notion du
sirât al-mustaqîm (la voie du juste milieu) enseignée par le Coran. Il faut remonter
au 20ème siècle et analyser les écrits de Saïd Nursi, fondateur du mouvement Nûr
pour apercevoir un changement radical dans la perception de ce concept3. Ce savant et érudit musulman se démarque de ceux de son époque. Il est convaincu que
l’Islam ne doit pas combattre l’Europe, mais plutôt faire le cihad contre trois grands
fléaux touchant la communauté musulmane: l’ignorance, la pauvreté et la division
idéologique, qualifiés d’ « ennemis » par Nursi : nos ennemis sont l’ignorance, la nécessité (pauvreté), la division. Face à ces trois ennemis, nous allons combattre avec les
armes de l’art, de l’ingéniosité et de l’alliance (Nursi, 1995 : 64)4.
Dans son analyse, il préconise comme central pour apporter des solutions, le
rôle de l’industrie et du commerce. Il considère à l’origine des principaux soucis de
l’Islam, les retards accumulés dans les domaines de la science, de l’économie et de
l’unité. Donc, c’est en répandant la science que l’ignorance peut disparaître, d’où
l’importance qu’il apporte à l’éducation de la société. Il propose le développement industriel, technologique et commercial contre la pauvreté, ainsi que l’effacement des
divisions par le rappel de la notion de fraternité religieuse et de citoyenneté. Nursi
est une personnalité qui marque la jeunesse de Fethullah Gülen, à travers ses disciples
puis ses œuvres. Gülen semble trouver sa voie dans celle de Nursi. C’est la raison
pour laquelle les Risale-i-Nûr constituent une des bases du mouvement Hizmet. Saïd
Nursi et plus tard Fethullah Gülen vont focaliser leurs actions dans la transposition
du traditionnel au moderne par le biais d’une croyance active et non plus oisive.
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La notion de Hizmet et la pensée entrepreneuriale de Fethullah Gülen
Dans les années 70, c’est Gülen qui prend indirectement le relais. Il se situe dans
la continuité de la philosophie de Nursi qui associe la science et la religion pour
créer une nouvelle dynamique. Au début des années 80, le débat politique tourne
autour de la question de savoir si l’Islam et la démocratie peuvent cohabiter, opposant les laïcs farouches pour qui toutes les structures religieuses sont « ennemies
de la démocratie » et les islamiques essayant de prouver que leurs efforts ont un sens
démocratique et civique (Balcı, 2003 : 241).
Dans ce contexte, Gülen développe, selon Balcı, un nouveau courant de pensée alliant Islam et modernité (Balcı, 2003 : 241). Par exemple, à partir des années
1980-1990, il incite les gens à construire des écoles plutôt que des mosquées, ce qui
montre un décalage entre sa vision de l’Islam et celle des autres5 (Ergene, 2006 : 17).
Le mouvement semble, selon Ergene, être la version moderne des groupes religieux,
où l’harmonisation du « sentiment religieux » et de « l’action sociale » est parfaite.
Weber appelle cela la « rationalisation des relations religieuses et sociales » même
si ces termes ne peuvent appréhender de façon entière la dynamique rationnelle et
sociale du mouvement Gülen (Ergene, 2006 : 23).
À présent, il nous faut cerner certains termes et notions tels que hizmet (service), himmet (investissement dans l’effort), sohbet (conversation) et istisare (consultation) qui sont au centre de la dynamique du Mouvement. Le himmet représente
l’engagement, le dévouement et le sacrifice de la vie pour le service (hizmet) avec
ikhlâs (sincérité, pureté) dans la recherche constante de la satisfaction de Dieu à travers de bonnes actions. Dans ce cadre, Gülen mise sur le développement conjoint de
la spiritualité et de l’intelligence de l’individu (rendu égoïste par la modernité), tout
en encourageant sa transformation par la notion du service (hizmet) et de dévotion
(Ergene, 2006 : 8-9).
La notion de Hizmet (service) implique de consacrer sa vie à l’islam, d’agir au
bénéfice des autres. En retour, le dévot touchera les fruits de son altruisme à
l’heure de sa mort. Le travail est présenté […] comme un acte purificateur qui
délivre le croyant de la tentation de l’oisiveté et du vice (Josseran, 2010 :125).
La dévotion, l’altruisme, la notion de service et de partage sont les codes du Mouvement, véhiculés au sein des gens. Tous ces codes sont regroupés autour de la notion
centrale de hizmet, rendant la foi dynamique et moderne, poussant les individus à
s’engager dans le Mouvement pour œuvrer à la contribution d’un monde meilleur
(Gündem, 2008). Or il semble que ce soit dans cette notion que l’entrepreneur puise
sa nouvelle force entrepreneuriale pour rendre sa PME dynamique.
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Pour décrire cette dynamique autour des PME, Haenni évoque une religiosité
proactive […] marquée par une orientation économique et un penchant avéré pour
l’extraversion culturelle […] ouverte au modèle américain de management (Haenni,
2005 : 65). L’éthique et la moralité tracées par Gülen s’inspirent des principes religieux où « l’éthique se saisit de la religion. » Gülen intervient justement dans la transformation de ces dynamiques en action dans la vie sociale et économique (Ebaugh,
2011 : 55). De ce fait, pour Gülen, travailler dans cette perspective procure pour le
croyant un sentiment de pitié constant à travers tous ses actes.
Par ailleurs, il souligne l’importance du rapprochement entre les différentes
couches sociales, notamment par le biais de la zakât (l’aumône dont chaque musulman doit s’acquitter selon ses conditions économiques), acte de compassion du riche
envers le pauvre, qui établit un respect et une reconnaissance réciproques. Ainsi, gagner de l’argent tout en restant dans les principes de l’Islam se vit comme une action
de grâce (Gülen, 2009a : 308-316).
Par ses prêches et ses discours, se référant au Prophète (BS), Gülen sculpte une
identité nouvelle pour le croyant, basée sur le service envers autrui et l’action collective. La recherche de la grâce de Dieu se transpose dans l’espace économique et éducatif. Ceci engendre l’apparition d’un ethos chez l’entrepreneur, qui se traduit par une
dynamisation économique et entrepreneuriale. C’est bien une « éthique religieuse de
l’action », telle que la décrit Weber, qui fait son apparition (Weber, 2002). L’Islam
devient bien sujet d’interprétation discursive et performative et ce, tant au niveau personnel que collectif (Göle, 2005 : 25). D’ailleurs, pour illustrer la continuité du message
de Gülen, nous n’allons citer que deux passages de son dernier ouvrage, montrant
qu’il diffuse un message clair dont le but est la transposition de l’action économique de l’entrepreneur et de son entreprise dans le champ de la religiosité. Dans
le passage intitulé « L’envie de s’enrichir », Gülen expose clairement son avis sur
l’enrichissement :
À la condition d’utiliser le gain sur la voie de Dieu et de ne pas le vénérer,
s’enrichir signifie être sur la voie de Dieu. Les ablutions sont une étape importante pour aller à la prière. S’enrichir pour servir (hizmet) est une étape importante sur la voie de Dieu. Un individu qui s’enrichit dans cette perspective
gagne de bonnes actions lorsqu’il négocie, comme s’il faisait des invocations
(dua), comme s’il « priait» pour Dieu. Le plus important, c’est l’intention du
croyant […] Ce qu’il faut faire, c’est permettre aux citoyens de gagner plus,
pour qu’ils puissent contribuer à la construction de structures éducatives […],
qu’ils servent (hizmet) les humains et notre génération. Gagner de l’argent
« sur » cette voie n’est pas mauvais, au contraire, c’est un acte d’adoration
(Gülen, 2013 : 83-84).
Dans un autre passage dont le titre est assez révélateur (la richesse chez le croyant), il pose les limites de cet éthos.
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Le croyant doit travailler et gagner, il doit participer à la vie commerciale
et économique, mais sans violence, sans être ivre pour cette passion. Il doit
gagner, comme le Prophète (BS), et dépenser pour son peuple, sa nation et
pour l’avenir de la vie religieuse. […] Le croyant doit être riche, mais il doit
dépenser pour son peuple, sa nation, sa religion…et grâce à cela – avec l’aide
de Dieu – il sera déchargé de sa responsabilité auprès de Dieu. […] Ne nous
enrichissons pas pour nous-mêmes, mais dépensons pour la génération future et pour toute l’Humanité, pour la construction d’un monde meilleur.
Pour que l’on puisse être plus tranquille dans le monde que l’on va construire
(Gülen, 2013 : 85-88).
Dans ses prêches, Gülen défend la contenance éthique de l’Islam, favorable pour
les patrons de PME : le sujet islamique bourgeois, discipliné par les codes économiques et
libéraux, doit se réconcilier avec les vertus éthiques religieuses en suivant l’idéalisation de
la vie du Prophète (BS) (Toğuşlu : 88). Ceci pousse Gülen à se référer aux hadîths en
rapport direct avec le monde économique : le commerçant sincère et honnête sera (dans
l’Autre Monde) avec les prophètes, les véridiques et les martyrs. / Le commerçant honnête
sera couvert par l’ombre du trône, le jour où il n’y aura pas d’autres ombres. / Neufdixième des provisions proviennent des commerces. Cette convergence des forces pousse
le Mouvement à devenir un mouvement « transnational » avec l’aide et l’appui d’une
classe entrepreneuriale de plus en plus riche, dévouée et convaincue par les idées de
Gülen (Ebaugh, 2011 : 75).
Pour illustrer cette doctrine, Gülen utilise souvent l’exemple des compagnons
du Prophète (BS) (Gülen, 2009a : 282). Les exemples donnés constituent alors un
principe de base pour les hommes d’affaires proches du Mouvement. Les entrepreneurs trouvent ainsi, dans le concept exposé par Gülen, un idéal alliant religion, modernité, affaires et business. Le musulman peut dorénavant aspirer à être riche pour
dépenser dans le sentier de Dieu à travers les projets socio-éducatifs du Mouvement,
pour qu’en finalité, il puisse espérer la grâce divine.
Les petits industriels et patrons de PME ont toujours été invités à investir dans
les projets. Pour cela, Gülen choisit consciencieusement les sujets de conversations,
comme par exemple, la « conscience du devoir », la « responsabilité éthique », «
l’altruisme », etc.
Fethullah Gülen croyait sincèrement en la libre initiative et y avait fait croire
les gens qui l’entouraient. Lors de ses sermons, il incitait les hommes ayant la
foi à devenir riches et à accroître leurs activités, tout en prenant particulièrement en compte l’orientation économique mondiale […] Fethullah Gülen,
depuis très longtemps, défendait l’idée de l’instauration d’une économie de
libre marché solide, afin de créer des richesses et il était convaincu que c’est
uniquement par ce moyen que l’on peut soutenir un modèle éducatif moderne
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pour rendre les Musulmans et la Turquie plus forts (Ebaugh, 2011 : 64).
Le patron de PME, influencé par le discours de Gülen, construit une éthique et
une piété qu’il transpose dans sa PME et qui communique un souffle dynamique et
nouveau à son entreprise. L’exemple de la compréhension et de l’action de Mehmet,
un entrepreneur que nous avons rencontré, est frappant : «plus je m’engage financièrement dans le Mouvement en soutenant les projets socio-éducatifs et plus je gagne en
retour.»
Cette nouvelle classe est animée par un esprit entrepreneurial assez surprenant
mais qui, a priori, a toujours existé chez les Turcs. Les écoles privées et les institutions éducatives financées par ces entrepreneurs jouent le rôle d’intermédiaire et de
support pour ces acteurs. Ils agissent alors comme des agents de reproduction d’un
ethos qui leur est propre, ce qui consolide les liens entre les différents membres au
sein du Mouvement. Dans ce cadre, le Mouvement est un lieu où la foi devient une
force motrice pour la construction d’une confiance mutuelle et d’un « capital social»
(Çetin, 2013 : 3).
L’entrepreneur estime que le hizmet est un devoir « sacré ». Cette notion a une
apparence toute dynamique, incitant l’individu à l’action. Par exemple, à Bursa, lors
de nos entretiens, nous avons perçu ce sentiment chez plusieurs patrons de PME. Un
participant, homme d’affaires, pense que la grâce de Dieu peut être atteinte par le
biais du service à la société : Hakka hizmet için halka hizmet (Ebaugh, 2011 : 72-99).
Dans cette perspective, il considère que le travail est une adoration de Dieu. Gülen
offre donc une nouvelle forme de piété, poussant les patrons de PME à être plus
productifs dans un but d’enrichissement économique avec une finalité spirituelle.
Dès le début de son action, Gülen a porté une attention particulière aux entrepreneurs. Il incite les patrons et artisans à ouvrir des foyers pour accueillir les étudiants,
afin de les protéger contre le conflit politique droite/gauche des années 70 et 80 en
Turquie. L’écoute des sermons de Gülen permet alors à ces acteurs économiques de
préserver leur foi tout étant en adéquation avec le monde actuel. Gülen compte un
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large spectre de sympathisants où l’on retrouve de nombreux hommes d’affaires,
souvent patrons de PME anatoliennes, avec qui il entretiendra une relation particulière, les incitant à investir et à s’unir autour d’Associations qui soutiennent les
projets socio-éducatifs. Persuadés de l’efficacité de ce projet social, on voit ces acteurs économiques se sacrifier matériellement et spirituellement aux côtés de Gülen
(Ebaugh, 2011 : 55).
L’institutionnalisation des entrepreneurs
Au niveau purement économique, le Mouvement est présent dans l’espace public
avec un ensemble d’associations d’hommes d’affaires, répandues à travers tout le territoire et ce, depuis 1993, avec l’association ISHAD comme précurseur. À chaque ville
et région, les entrepreneurs et sympathisants sensibles aux projets socio-éducatifs, se
réunissent et décident à leur tour de créer une structure associative pour fédérer les
acteurs locaux, regroupant les commerçants et les entrepreneurs locaux qui ont des
investissements dans différents secteurs. Ensuite, à partir des nombreux échanges
entre associations et étant donné le besoin naissant, celles-ci décident de s’unir et de
former des Confédérations régionales pour un meilleur échange d’informations et
d’expériences. C’est en quelque sorte la formalisation des rencontres informelles qui
se déroulaient déjà dans chaque ville autour des « sohbet », discussions religieuses où
les commerçants se retrouvaient pour échanger sur la religion et partager leurs avis
sur les projets du Mouvement. Enfin en 2005, TUSKON est fondée par le groupement de 7 fédérations.
C’est donc la naissance d’un nouveau représentant dans le monde des affaires.
L’ensemble de ces associations qui compose TUSKON, représente aujourd’hui plus
de 50 000 entreprises, de moyenne et petite taille6.
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La création de la Confédération est un processus fonctionnant du bas vers le
haut pour que les PME trouvent un relais afin de s’ouvrir sur le monde. En 2013,
cela représentait 205 associations et plus de 50 000 membres. Bien sûr, les conseils de Gülen pour cette structuration ne sont pas négligeables. La particularité de
TUSKON réside aussi dans l’origine de la diversité de ses membres. Ishak Alaton,
de confession juive et patron d’Alarko Holding, en est un exemple concret. Il suit
désormais la voie empruntée par TUSKON, estimant qu’elle représente la nouvelle
bourgeoisie turque, contrairement à TÜSIAD (Türkmen, 2012).
Meral estime que l’entrepreneur anatolien est passé d’un mode sédentaire à un
mode itinérant et traduit cette mutation par la formule « le tigre qui se promène,
ne restera pas affamé », s’appuyant sur les 200 000 rencontres professionnelles et les
14 milliards $ de volumes d’affaires générés par les ponts du commerce et les divers
voyages d’affaires (Özcan, 2010).
Afin d’illustrer cette rationalisation au niveau local, nous nous basons sur nos
travaux d’enquêtes, réalisés auprès des responsables et des membres de BUGIAD,
association basée à Bursa et membre fondatrice de la MARIFED. Au sein de la structure, plusieurs commissions ont été mises en place. Nous avons donc discuté avec les
présidents de commissions et certains de ses membres.
Par exemple, depuis 2010, la « Commission des femmes » organise mensuellement la Rencontre synergique, consistant à développer l’énergie des femmes
d’affaires, donner un avis sur les sujets d’actualité, que la présidente Sibel considère
comme « une responsabilité sociale »1480. La Commission propose diverses activités, des conférences, des rencontres, des voyages. D’ailleurs l’activisme de cette Commission est perceptible à travers les nombreux articles parus dans les revues trimestrielles de l’Association.7 Aussi, depuis 2010, sa présidente a été élue au Conseil
d’Administration de TUSKON8.
En fait, suite à nos entretiens, nous avons constaté que plusieurs patrons semblaient être animés par cette éthique indirectement dictée par l’Association, un
code de conduite poussant l’individu à un altruisme actif, mettant en avant le bien
d’autrui avant le sien et le responsabilisant socialement. C’est ce qui distingue et
justifie l’adhésion à BUGİAD par rapport à d’autres associations selon Yusuf, responsable de la commission « machine » :
C’est de mettre en avant les intérêts de la société avant nos intérêts personnels, de partager ce que l’on gagne. Du moins nous sommes chez BUGİAD
car nous croyons que c’est une organisation qui soutient cette initiative. Nous
croyons à cela ou, du moins, nous essayons d’œuvrer en ce sens ici. Par exemple, le CA ne travaille pas uniquement pour le CA, mais pour tous les membres de l’association ou plus généralement pour toute la société. Vous pouvez
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le voir dans toutes les activités que BUGİAD organise durant l’année. C’est
une organisation qui a le sens de la responsabilité sociale plus développée que
les autres9.
Yusuf n’est pas le seul à répondre ainsi, c’est aussi le cas d’Ahmet, entrepreneur
dans la confection, nous disant que le plus important n’est pas la recherche du gain
purement économique, qu’il ne faut pas penser qu’à soi, mais voir sa tâche d’un point
vu sociétal, servir la société, la soutenir. Personnellement, je ne bénéficie pas forcément
des activités de TUSKON, mais comme je ne suis pas là uniquement pour moi, alors je
continue.10 Osman, un patron dans la construction / bâtiment nous raconte, quant
à lui, qu’il a été frappé par le comportement de la personne qui l’a parrainé. Cela l’a
convaincu d’adhérer à une cause, en dehors de sa simple vie routinière. Il avoue aussi
avoir trouvé de nombreux partenaires au sein de l’Association après son adhésion.
Nous sommes ici, car les membres de cette Association sont des gens que l’on
apprécie. Moi par exemple, la personne qui a été mon intermédiaire est une
personne que je respecte énormément, très droite et juste dans la vie et dans
sa vie professionnelles ; une fois que je suis venu ici, j’ai remarqué ces qualités
chez les autres membres, il y a ici une vraie éthique et une vraie morale du
travail respecté. Vous êtes attirés par cette ambiance et vous essayez de faire le
maximum pour servir ses causes. Concernant mes affaires, je travaille dans la
construction et 50% de mon boulot je le fais avec les membres de l’association
BUGİAD11.
BUGİAD propose de nombreuses activités tournées vers la formation de ses
membres. Par mois, au moins deux séminaires, quatre jours de formation, quatre
soirs par semaine sont proposés aux adhérents. Des cours de langue (anglais) sont
proposés pour ce qui concerne la formation à long terme, mais aussi des soirées plus
divertissantes comme le théâtre, le cinéma. Rassembler les membres est une mission
spécifique et primordiale selon Ramazan12. Aussi, des entrepreneurs sont invités à
partager leur success-story dans le cadre du programme « une marque, une histoire ».
La formation est au cœur de l’activisme de l’association. En évoquant les soucis rencontrés par les PME, Ramazan nous dit qu’ils ont mis en place tout un programme
de formation / information pour les patrons de PME : c’est « la clinique de la PME »,
destinée à encadrer l’entrepreneur dans sa démarche de développement de son entreprise. L’Association permet donc la socialisation des patrons de PME, se traduisant
par une dynamique nouvelle au sein de l’entreprise.
Penchons-nous sur un autre exemple : suite à notre visite de l’espace foire installé
au premier étage des locaux de l’Association, nous avons remarqué un autre locataire,
une Université qui y a installé un bureau13. Nous avons alors demandé à Ramazan si
l’Université était un projet de l’Association :
Notre voisin, c’est le bureau d’une Université qui ouvrira ses portes bientôt.
Mais elle n’a pas de liens avec BUGİAD, c’est seulement notre voisin. Ils nous
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ont soumis leur projet et nous ont demandé qui pouvait être intéressé par le
financement. Alors nous les avons orientés vers certains de nos membres. C’est
pourquoi BUGİAD, indirectement, est financeur de ce projet d’Université.
Donc, c’est une université qui est financée par les membres de notre association, mais reste indépendante de BUGİAD. Vous m’aviez demandé le lien
entre BUGİAD et les écoles à l’étranger : C’est le même rapport qu’il existe
entre eux. En effet, certains de nos membres financent des projets éducatifs à
l’étranger. Donc, en guise de remerciements, dans le pays où se trouve l’école,
les responsables essaient d’aider ces financeurs pour qu’ils puissent investir
dans le pays. C’est un retour, mais sans attentes particulières des financeurs.
Cette Université aura comme particularité d’envoyer les étudiants durant une
année de préparation à l’étranger, par exemple aux USA, les accords sont en
cours de signature14.
De ce fait, en dehors des activités locales au sein de la Turquie, la Confédération
TUSKON organise des rencontres internationales. Nous comprenons aussi comment les entrepreneurs étrangers prennent connaissance de ces « ponts du commerce
» et y participent. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, plus de 10 ponts ont été organisés pour un
volume d’affaires estimé à 14 milliards $, avec une répercussion de 12 milliards sur les
exportations de la Turquie. On note la participation de plus de 10 000 entrepreneurs
étrangers de plus de 135 pays différents, réalisant 483 000 rencontres entre entrepreneurs étrangers et turcs. Ainsi, les membres de TUSKON exportent aujourd’hui
dans 100 pays (Özdemir & Ünal & Bozkurt, 2012 : 245-252).
C’est aussi TUSKON qui est à l’initiative du 1ier Sommet Turquie-Afrique en
2008, avec la participation de 49 pays africains. La rencontre a été marquée par la
présence de 6 présidents, 5 vice-présidents, 6 premiers ministres africains. Assanvo
qualifie l’évènement de « fondateur » de la coopération turco-africaine (Assanvo,
2011 : 10). Nous y notons en effet la présence de 210 entreprises turques.
Nous constatons aussi une forte présence africaine avec 477 entreprises, ce qui
représente plus d’un tiers des participants. L’Asie et le Moyen-Orient sont très bien
représentés avec également 344 entreprises de 27 pays différents, soit près d’un tiers
des participants. L’Europe est troisième en termes de participants, avec 246 entreprises et 19 pays, soit 23,37 % des participants. S’ensuit le continent américain avec
98 entreprises de 10 pays, soit près de 10%. Enfin l’Australie qui représente à elle
seule le Pacifique avec 18 entreprises. Ces chiffres nous exposent l’étendue du marché
que les membres de TUSKON visent, et aussi l’intérêt des entrepreneurs étrangers,
souvent des PME, à vouloir travailler avec TUSKON. Du moins, c’est ce qui ressort
de nos entretiens.
Enfin, soulignons le fait que c’est principalement en Afrique que l’on retrouve
aujourd’hui ces « tigres d’Anatolie ». Meral confirme que les demandes de conseil pour
pénétrer le marché africain n’ont cessé de se multiplier (Vicky, 2011).
Hizmet et Business
81
Nous emmenons nos entrepreneurs en Afrique pour qu’ils investissent. Nous
les incitons, mais pour cette raison là : pour être un grand pays, il faut de
grands entrepreneurs, et les grands entrepreneurs doivent faire de grandes affaires. Et nous expliquons une autre chose à nos membres et de toute façon ils
portent cette qualité : ce que vous gagnez, ne le dépensez pas uniquement pour
vous, mais aussi pour la société. La philosophie du « je m’en moque des autres
tant que je suis rassasié » est contraire à notre philosophie. « N’est pas des nôtres, celui qui se couche alors que son voisin est affamé », c’est là leur première
qualité. Les hommes d’affaires participant à un voyage en Afrique en profitent
pour aider les différentes associations caritatives et les écoles. Donc, ils partagent leurs gains avec la société. Ils permettent aux peuples locaux d’apprendre
un métier. Or, afin d’instaurer la paix dans le monde, il faut que l’entrepreneur
sache partager ses bénéfices avec la société et les autres personnes15.
Après le pont du commerce de 2010, la Confédération a organisé plus de 512
délégations d’affaires dans 104 pays en un an. Des milliers d’entrepreneurs turcs ont
gagné des clients aux quatre coins du globe et ont pu investir (Özcan, 2011). Ainsi,
la responsabilisation sociale de ses membres semble bien être un fondement de la
Confédération.
Que ce soit à l’étranger ou dans le pays même, l’adhérent est amené à s’engager
socialement pour soutenir le développement d’une ville ou d’une région. L’exemple
de la ville de Van et de son association d’hommes d’affaires illustre parfaitement cette
conception de l’entrepreneur social.
L’association VASİAD (Van Aktif Sanayici ve İş Adamları Derneği) est active
depuis 1994. Membre de DASİDEF, VASİAD est l’une des associations les
plus actives au sein de TUSKON. Le président Ali Çiçeksay est membre du
Conseil d’Administration de TUSKON. Ali Çiçeksay décrit les objectifs de
VASİAD : « Nous représentons ceux qui souhaitent développer les affaires et
s’ouvrir sur des marchés extérieurs. Nous transmettons aussi à l’échelle nationale les soucis de notre département et du pays, tout en produisant des solutions
à ses problèmes, et nous contribuons au développement de Van pour qu’elle
puisse être à sa juste place. » Jusqu’à présent, ils ont organisé plus de 40 voyages
d’affaires dans les départements industrialisés et ont accueilli à Van plus de 50
délégations turques et étrangères.
Ali Çiçeksay dit qu’ils ont eu des contacts concrets lors de ces échanges : « Abdurrahman Sütçü, un entrepreneur qui a réalisé des investissements au Turkménistan est venu à Van et a construit une usine de carton ondulé (oluklu
mukavva) qui emploie 50 personnes. Ce résultat est le fruit concret des sommets organisé par TUSKON. »
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Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
Un autre avantage apporté par le fait de la proximité de VASİAD avec les
associations de l’ouest [de la Turquie] : les préjugés s’effacent et il y a un environnement fraternel qui se met en place. Pour Ali Çiçeksay, l’effacement des
préjugés est plus important que les investissements faits à VAN. « En 2008
nous avons organisé « İş »’te Gönül Köprüsü (traduit par « voilà le pont du
cœur » ou « le pont du cœur au travail »). 105 hommes d’affaires y ont participé, venus majoritairement d’Eskişehir, d’Istanbul, d’Ankara et de Düzce.
Ils ont noué de fortes amitiés. Les associations de TUSKON ne contribuent
pas uniquement à l’investissement économique, mais avec ce genre de programme, elles contribuent aussi à la paix intérieure. »
Avec ses 200 membres, VASİAD est la plus grande association d’hommes
d’affaires de Van. L’association propose diverses activités telles que des séminaires, des cours linguistiques, des activités sociales. L’association a contribué
et a milité pour que le championnat national d’haltérophilie et le championnat Off Shore se déroulent à Van, ainsi elle a contribué à la promotion
de la ville de Van. Une des particularités de VASİAD, c’est aussi ses projets
européens. Sur les 17 projets présentés à l’UE, 13 ont été acceptés et réalisés
(Özcan, 2010).
L’Ethique et la Responsabilité Sociale
La complémentarité est saisissante entre l’action de don et d’engagement émanant
de la religiosité et le retour sur investissement de cette dévotion traduit par les opportunités d’affaires crées à l’étranger, que ce soit avec des patrons musulmans ou
pas, car les partenariats commerciaux restent des rapports islamiquement neutres.
Les entrepreneurs cherchent non pas les signes de la piété islamique, mais le respect
de l’éthique du travail chez le partenaire, quelle que soit sa source d’inspiration (Yankaya, 2012 : 6).
Grâce aux organisations locales et aux rassemblements non-formels, les entrepreneurs se retrouvent et débattent des problèmes locaux. C’est à partir de là qu’ils
décident ou non d’engager un projet social pour leurs régions. Dans chaque ville, ces
entrepreneurs prennent financièrement en charge des foyers universitaires où habitent les étudiants. Il faut dire que les cités universitaires publiques ne sont pas, d’une
part, en mesure de répondre à la demande et, d’autre part, l’environnement n’est pas
adéquat au projet du Mouvement, celui de former une génération exemplaire (Balcı,
2003 : 119).
Un entrepreneur du secteur alimentaire, persuadé de l’utilité de cette conception
du Mouvement nous a signifié, lors de nos entretiens, qu’il prenait financièrement
en charge environ 200 étudiants sans contrepartie . Ce genre de patron semble justement trouver là cette conscience composée d’un aspect spirituel (que nous avons
décrite) en phase avec les réalités sociales modernes17.
Hizmet et Business
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L’engagement faussement dualiste de ces patrons anatoliens (à la fois fortement
engagés spirituellement et très activement dans le domaine économique et social
moderne) se traduit par une nouvelle dynamique de leurs PME dans l’espace public.
Une parole du Prophète (BS) peut être un facteur prépondérant de l’engagement
financier de ces patrons de PME : « Quand l’homme meurt, son œuvre s’arrête, sauf
pour trois choses ; un bien qu’il a légué en aumône continue, une œuvre scientifique
dont les gens tirent profit et un enfant vertueux qui prie pour lui ou qui, par ses
bonnes actions, pousse les gens à lui bénir ses parents. » (Annawawî) Il se retrouve
donc face à face, au sein du mouvement Hizmet avec toutes les possibilités intelligentes de bonnes actions pérennes proposées par le Prophète (BS). Il se trouve des
repères à la fois spirituels, libéraux et modernes, ce qui peut expliquer cette dynamique observée au sein des PME.
CONCLUSION
Les communautés religieuses trouvent un prétexte dans les réformes de modernisation d’Atatürk pour faire évoluer leur philosophie et la religiosité des individus en
réinterprétant le message divin, en lui donnant un aspect intra-mondain. En ce qui
concerne les entrepreneurs turcs, depuis l’Empire ottoman, on voit que les Musulmans optent rarement pour l’entreprenariat et privilégient plutôt les carrières militaires ou de fonctionnaires. L’influence aussi d’une certaine philosophie mystique
poussant l’individu à « s’auto-suffire » et à ne penser qu’au jour le jour, sans projection ni plan d’investissement y contribue. De ce fait, la notion d’enrichissement est
quasi-absente pour des « prétextes » religieux.
Or notre analyse a permis de mettre en exergue un certain comportement de
l’entrepreneur qui traduit son identification au mouvement Hizmet par l’application
d’un certain altruisme, d’une dévotion pour le service et d’un ascétisme intra-mondain. Ceci permet l’apparition d’un ethos chez l’entrepreneur, qui se traduit par la
dynamisation économique entrepreneuriale. L’entrepreneur devient alors l’élément
transmetteur d’une éthique dictée par le Mouvement, dans l’espace économique.
Même si, jusqu’à peu, la religion semblait uniquement destinée à des espaces
spécifiques (Ion, Brechon et Duriez 2000: 11-14), les mouvements religieux ne
sont pas étrangers à ce renouveau au sein de la société turque. En s’appuyant sur
l’interprétation de Gülen, les gens du Mouvement ont déclenché un esprit entrepreneurial et une nouvelle dynamique religieuse. L’éducation est devenue l’outil principal de Gülen pour restaurer cette dynamique : cette éducation combinera la connaissance religieuse et scientifique avec la morale et la spiritualité. Elle formera des gens
réellement éclairés, dont le cœur sera illuminé par les sciences religieuses et la spiritualité, et dont la pensée passera par les sciences positives (Çetin, 2013 : 25). Ainsi,
Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
84
l’entrepreneur traduit son identification au mouvement Hizmet par l’application
d’un certain altruisme, une dévotion pour le service et un ascétisme intra-mondain.
NOTES
1 Nous disons jusqu’à peu, car aujourd’hui, forcé de constater que ces acteurs « Anatoliens
» ont pris place dans cette association. Par exemple, le président actuel, Muharrem Yılmaz,
patron de Sütaş, spécialiste du lai et des produits laitiers, est issu d’une famille originaire
de Bursa. Encore plus symbolique, la présence de Memduh Boydak, membre de la famille
Boydak, le géant du mobilier issu de Kayseri, propriétaire des marques telles qu’Istikbal ou
Mondi et symbole important de la nouvelle puissance Anatolienne : les tigres d’Anatolie. cf.
www.tusiad.org, consulté le 12 juillet 2013.
2 Teşkilat signifie organisation bien ordonnée, assidue, rangée et Ahi dont l’étymologie est
Akı, un qualificatif signifiant, généreux, brave. Donc l’Ahi teşkilat est une organisation à
but économique et social composé d’homme socialement dévoués au bien-être des citoyens.
D’autres chercheurs pensent que le mot Ahi provient de l’arabe et signifie « mon frère »,
mais aucune trace n’a pour le moment été localisée dans la langue arabe. Donc on opte plutôt pour son origine turque. Bien sûr, ces organisations fonctionnent autour d’une éthique
bien particulière (morale, politique, économique et philosophique), régulant les comportements des artisans, des artistes et des producteurs. Cf. http://www.ahilik.net , fondation de
recherche de la culture Ahi et éducative (Ahi kültürünü ve eğitim vakfı – AKAEV), consulté
le 01/12/2011.
3 Said Nursi est une composante de ce changement. Il faut aussi prendre en compte l’évolution socio-économique et démographique de l’époque. À partir de 1950, on observe en
Turquie un déplacement de la population vers les régions urbaines (Ankara, Istanbul en particulier). Avec l’apparition des gecekondu (littéralement « installé la nuit » pour définir les
quartiers périphériques à Ankara et Istanbul construits sans aucune autorisation au préalable
auprès des autorités (Bazin & de Tapia, 2012 : 194-197). Ce processus d’interpénétration
commence à prendre forme avec ce qu’appelle Zarcone, la ruralisation des villes (Zarcone,
2005 : 94). En effet, les « Anatoliens » sont arrivés en villes avec leurs traditions et coutumes
et les introduisent dans la société laïque urbaine. Les valeurs religieuses font partie donc de
ces valeurs transférées de la périphérie vers le centre. Le déséquilibre régional, l’absence des
services étatique, des structures éducatives dans la plupart des régions anatoliennes accélèrent aussi ce processus de déplacement en masse.
4 « Bizim düşmanımız cehalet, zaruret, ihtilâftır. Bu üç düşmana karşı sanat, marifet, ittifak
silâhiyle cihad edeceğiz. » Nursi utilise le terme de sanat, faisant référence ici à l’industrie et
au commerce. Il cite cette solution en premier parmi les trois, marquant ainsi l’importance
qu’il donne au domaine économique. Il incite tout simplement les patrons à investir cet
espace pour servir l’islam. Nursi (1995: 64).
5 Césari fait le même constat dans son étude sur les musulmans immigrés en France. Elle
constate que la nouvelle génération s’oriente plus vers le domaine de l’éducation que celui
de la construction de mosquée. Cf. Césari ( : 64).
6 Ces chiffres sont consultables sur les sites internet des fédérations.
7 Revue BUGİAD, BUGİAD’lı hanımlardan sinerjik randevu (Le rendez-vous synergiques
de femmes de BUGİAD), Revue BUGİAD, éd. BUGİAD, Bursa, mars 2010, p. 52.
Hizmet et Business
85
8 www.tuskon.org.tr, consulté le 28/09/2013.
9 Entretien avec Yusuf, la quarantaine, entrepreneur dans le domaine des « machines »,
responsable de la commission « machine », entretien d’avril 2011.
10 Entretien avec Ahmet, la quarantaine, entrepreneur dans la confection, entretien d’avril
2011.
11 Entretien avec Osman, la quarantaine, entrepreneur dans la construction/bâtiment,
entretien d’avril 2011.
12 Entretien avec Ramazan, la trentaine, salarié et responsable des formations, diplômé
d’Université en relations publiques, février-mars 2010.
13 Nous n’avons pas noté le nom de l’Université lors de notre voyage. Mais il semble qu’il
s’agit de l’Université Orhan Gazi fondé en 2011 par une fondation.
14 Entretien avec Ramazan, février-mars 2010.
15 E.Ş., secrétaire général de Bugiad, entretien du 15-16 avril 2011.
16 Ali, la cinquantaine, patron d’une PME dans le secteur alimentaire (Malatya pazarı).
17 Certains chercheurs, comme Ion, Bréchon, etc., estiment que pour chaque individu le
religieux donne sens à l’implication sociale et la justifie […] On peut également supposer
que le degré d’adhésion et/ou de pratique religieuses influe sur le mode d’engagement dans
la scène publique. Cf. Bréchon Pierre, Duriez Bruno, Ion Jacques (2000 : 17).
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Book Review and Notes
BOOK REVIEWS
Cross-cultural Dialogue on the Virtues: the Contribution of Fethullah
Gülen; Trudy D Conway; 2014
Springer, 128 pp.,
ISBN : 978-3319078328
Philosopher Trudy Conway analyses
hospitality in the Hizmet movement and
links it to the virtues. She discusses the
gesture of hospitality in terms of tolerance, dialogue and compassion. The
idea of hospitality is turned into a social
community building in Gülen’s thinking. Conway discusses how people in the
Hizmet movement develop the intellectual and moral virtues that are formed by
teaching and by good conduct and gives
examples from daily life. In this book,
Conway explores the role of virtues in
community building in the Hizmet
movement among the followers in many
areas such as education, dialogue and
charity.
The founding commitment to the
virtue of hospitality continues to define
the dialogical ethos of the movement.
This ethos can be found among the participants in many educational, dialogue
and charity institutions.
Defining Islam as orthopraxy, Muslims tend to correct their belief in daily
life according to the rules of Islam. Conway writes that “staying on the straight
path of Islam is synonymous with living a virtuous life. Living this life is the
source of both personal and communal
peace” (p. 13). In the Hizmet movement, participants believe that having a
virtuous life is a result of this orthopraxy.
Conway points out the role of the virtues
89
in this formation of orthopraxy.
In her encounters with participants
in the movement, the author has found
that the most prominent and frequently mentioned value is hospitality. She
argues that hospitality as a virtue has
played a dominant role in Hizmet and in
the various predominance of hospitality
in Middle Eastern traditions and societies, and in the Gülen movement how it
is implemented is very important for analysing the extent to which the notion of
hospitality is linked with the commonality and appreciation of difference. All
Hizmet initiatives, whether focused on
education, the media or charitable work,
stem from the emphasis on cultivating
both the intellectual and moral virtues.
This central emphasis on the cultivation
of moral and intellectual virtue is fostered in various activities.
Taking this key notion of hospitality to show how we might maintain the
commitments that define social identity and community relations and at the
same time open ourselves respectfully to
those who do not necessarily share those
same commitments (p 27), is the central
idea of the book.
The author cites Western philosophical writings on hospitality and discusses
it from the standpoints of Jacques Derrida, Hans Gadamer and Emmanuel
Lévinas. Derrida’s law and ethos of hospitality, Lévinas’s notion of true hospitality and Martin Buber’s emphasis on thou
as a singular person extends the meaning
of hospitality in the author’s conceptualisation in the movement. Her book
offers an analysis of Gülen’s understanding of the virtues, the influence of Sufism on these virtues and particularly on
hospitality, and how these virtues have
Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
90
emerged and are practised in the movement.
Hospitality presupposes two persons:
host, the foreigner and local. We invite
someone from outside our community,
our family. The hospitable person welcomes the other from outside as a neighbour, as a foreigner. It is assumed that the
foreigner does not know the culture, the
customs of the host. Hospitality makes
possible encounters, sharings through
which people can learn from each other.
These encounters facilitate the overcoming of prejudices, prevent stereotypes
and spread compassion. Opening oneself to the other entails a true dialogue, a
true way of achieving a learning process.
Such hospitality encourages an empathy
which allows the acknowledgment of the
other in his or her alterity and complexity.
In contrast to stigmatization, marginalization, silence and invisibility,
hospitality permits an overture, opens
dialogue and recognizes the presence of
the other and draws the other into the
interaction. Dialogic hospitality creates a
shared space, a ‘sphere of between’ and a
fusion of horizons allowing for the widening of the different understandings of
virtues. The critical understanding of
virtue which comes from encountering
others from different traditions helps us
to re-examine, redefine and reflect on
what virtue and wise behaviour mean.
The author argues that hospitality is a
pre-condition of the sphere of between
and a means of deepening discovery of
the good.
ERKAN TOĞUŞLU
KU Leuven (Belgium)
A Fethullah Gülen Reader: So That
Others May Live; Erkan Kurt.
Bluedome Press, 2011; xv + 199
pp.; ISBN: 978-1935295204
In So That Others May Live, Erkan
Kurt brings together forty essays written
by Fethullah Gülen, one of the most important and influential Muslim thinkers
and activists of our time. As the author
indicates, these essays were chosen in
order to present the most characteristic
aspects of Gülen’s worldview. The stated
purpose is not an easy task to achieve because Gülen has a very large corpus with
more than 80 books and thousands of
audio recordings which have not yet been
published in book form. Generally, his
ideas are spread over this large corpus in
a quite un-systematized manner and it is
often necessary to collect bits and pieces
from a variety of sources to explore Gülen’s position on a given issue. His tendency to express himself in symbolic and
poetic language adds further difficulty to
the systematization of his thinking. This
style is understandable from the perspective of Gülen’s primary purpose, which is
to inspire spiritual awakening and social
activism. The global Hizmet movement
which he inspired shows how efficient
his discursive strategy is at inspiring the
participants and supporters of the movement. There does seem, however, to be
an underlying systematic intellectual
content behind the unsystematic stylistic structure. Kurt attempts to penetrate
this stylistic structure and wants to present the reader with the unifying themes
of Gülen’s thought. To achieve this, he
has chosen and grouped the articles in a
way that might allow the reader to con-
Book Review and Notes
ceive that Gülen’s writing aims not only
to inspire people but also to construct, in
a highly systematic and intellectual fashion, the principles that can guide the activities of the global Hizmet Movement
in the midst of the complexities of the
modern world.
The book consists of six chapters.
The first chapter offers some of Gülen’s
most definitive writings on an ideal society and civilization. Here, Gülen sees a
chasm between the current realities and
the textual ideals of Muslim individuals and societies and attempts to draw a
road map to bridge the gap between the
unfortunate reality and the ideal. The
second chapter focuses on how the articles of Islamic faith, if understood correctly, can transform a believing individual and, eventually, society. In the third
chapter, Gülen shares the essentials of his
ambitious moral project which revolves
around such lofty concepts as love, mercy and forgiveness. In the fourth chapter,
Gülen presents a practical and tangible
project to substantiate these abstract
ideas; namely, education. Gülen’s educational project aims to raise individuals
who can reconcile religion and science,
or in other words reason and heart, since
both are indispensable. The fifth chapter
includes articles that discuss the characteristics of what Gülen calls “people of
service”, who are pious, devoted to their
cause, socially active and religious humanists. The final chapter brings together articles which present Gülen as a Muslim scholar dealing with the essentials of
the Islamic tradition. The very last article
in the book is particularly important for
the reader to get a glimpse of Gülen’s
perception of and passionate attachment
to the Prophet.
91
The articles are organized by concept
rather than chronology. The book provides short but useful footnotes which
include year of publication and relevant
historical information. We also learn
that Gülen himself participated in the
process of the production of this book in
that he approved the table of contents,
helped with the translation and even selected the title of the book. Some of the
essays are translated into English from
Turkish for the first time; others were
already available but Kurt has re-translated them in order to clear some of the
linguistic obstacles between the text and
the reader which existed in the previous
translations.
In this book, Gülen appears primarily as a moral thinker who concerns himself not with theoretical speculations on
moral questions but with the practical
applicability of moral principles. Like
a ‘wise teacher’, he motivates his reader
toward the pursuit of transformative
virtue. His moral project is comprehensive and ambitious in that it starts with
the individual, aims to transform society, and hopes to cause a civilizational
awakening. Accordingly, for Gülen piety
is not only about establishing a vertical relationship between the individual
and God but is also about maintaining
a horizontal relationship between the
individual and society. This horizontal
relationship strengthens our vertical relationship with the divine to the extent
that “social action is an indispensable dimension of piety”. Gülen’s moralistic vision is optimistic in that he perceives human beings as essentially good, and evil
appears as an accidental reality. This view
is holistic in that it addresses all aspects
of the human condition from spiritual
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Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
life to social activism for “Islam does not
limit man to any of the particularities of
his existence”. It also bases itself on an
“embracive and all-inclusive Islam” that
accentuates the commonalities rather
than the differences between religious
traditions and human collectivities and
sees no absolute other.
The book offers some of the best
available English translations of Gülen’s
articles. This is a particularly significant
achievement since Gülen’s symbolic language could be barrier for the reader.
Some passages in Gülen’s writings make
sense only in the linguistic milieu of
Turkish and the meaning could easily
get lost in translation as a result of the
inescapable semantic shifts. To transcend
this predicament, Kurt favors a literary
translation to a literal one and offers stylistic alterations in some places in order
to preserve the poetic quality of the original essays with minimum damage to the
nuances. Another difficulty of reading
Gülen is that he usually assumes that his
reader comes to his writings with a prior
knowledge of Islam. This is obviously
not the case because his writings now
reach a global audience with many different backgrounds. With this in mind,
Kurt has added helpful footnotes to facilitate the reader’s understanding.
At times, however, one feels that the
articles are repetitious. This is probably
because Kurt sees Gülen primarily as a
moral teacher and social activist, so he
seems to have leaned towards those articles that accentuate these particular
aspects of Gülen’s thinking. Although
I agree with Kurt that Gülen’s is first
and foremost a moral project, he also
seems to have an intellectual project,
namely that Gülen wants to offer an
intellectually tenable synthesis of reason and heart, tradition and modernity,
and religion and science. This, actually,
runs through the selected articles as an
underlying theme and a lofty ideal but
is never discussed in detail. Inclusion
of some of the articles in which Gülen
deals with not only the promises but also
the challenges of this grand project in a
more detailed manner would strengthen
the book and shed some light on Gülen’s
reconciliatory attempt to ease the tension between these apparently conflicting poles. It would also be helpful for the
reader to have more information about
the historical context in which the articles were written: Kurt’s sometimes very
short footnotes could, I believe, benefit
from the addition of a bit more detail.
Overall this book is a valuable contribution for understanding some of the
most definitive characteristic of Gülen’s
thought and activism. The articles have
been wisely chosen, the translations are
well-done, and the organization of the
articles alludes to Kurt’s holistic view of
Gülen’s corpus. Despite a few shortcomings, the book is a very helpful guide for
further exploration of not only one of the
most influential Muslim scholars of our
times but also the guiding principles and
ambitions of the global Hizmet movement which he continues to inspire.
ÖZGÜR KOCA
Claremont Lincoln University
Book Review and Notes
BOOK NOTES
Muslims in 21st Century Europe
Structural and Cultural Perspectives;
edited by Anna Triandafyllidou; Routledge; 230 pages | © 2010
Muslims in 21st Century Europe explores the interaction between native
majorities and Muslim minorities in various European countries with a view to
highlighting different paths of integration of immigrant and native Muslims.
Starting with a critical overview of the
institutionalisation of Islam in Europe
and a discussion on the nature of Muslimophobia as a social phenomenon, this
book shows how socio-economic, institutional and political parameters set the
frame for Muslim integration in Europe.
Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden are selected as case
studies among the ‘old’ migration hosts.
Italy, Spain and Greece are included to
highlight the issues arising and the policies adopted in southern Europe to accommodate Muslim claims and needs.
The book highlights the internal diversity of both minority and majority populations, and analyses critically the political and institutional responses to the
presence of Muslims.
Inventing the Muslim Cool
Islamic Youth Culture in Western
Europe; Maruta Herding, Transcript,
242 pages | © 2013
In the current environment of a growing
Muslim presence in Europe, young Muslims have started to develop a subculture
of their own. The manifestations reach
from religious rap and street wear with
Islamic slogans to morally »impeccable«
comedy. This form of religiously permis-
93
sible fun and of youth-compatible worship is actively engaged in shaping the
future of Islam in Europe and of Muslim/non-Muslims relations.
Based on a vast collection of youth cultural artefacts, participant observations
and in-depth interviews in France, Britain and Germany, this book provides a
vivid description of Islamic youth culture and explores the reasons why young
people develop such a culture.
Translating the Qur’an in an Age of
Nationalism Print Culture and Modern Islam in Turkey; Brett Wilson; Oxford University Press, 352 pages | ©
2014
Over the course of the past two centuries, the central text of Islam has undergone twin revolutions. Around the
globe, Muslim communities have embraced the printing and translating of
the Qur’an, transforming the scribal text
into a modern book that can be read in
virtually any language. What began with
the sparse and often contentious publication of vernacular commentaries and
translations in South Asia and the Ottoman Empire evolved, by the late twentieth century, into widespread Qur’anic
translation and publishing efforts in all
quarters of the Muslim world, including
Arabic speaking countries such as Egypt
and Saudi Arabia. This is remarkable given that at the dawn of the twentieth century many Muslims considered Qur’an
translations to be impermissible and unviable. Nevertheless, printed and translated versions of the Qur’an have gained
widespread acceptance by Muslim communities, and now play a central, and
in some quarters, a leading role in how
the Qur’an is read and understood in the
modern world. Focusing on the Otto-
94
Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
man Empire and Turkey, and following
the debates to Russia, Egypt, Indonesia, and India, this book tries to answer
the question of how this revolution in
Qur’anic book culture occurred, considering both intellectual history as well the
processes by which the Qur’an became
a modern book that could be mechanically reproduced and widely owned.
Controversies in Contemporary Islam;
Olivier Leman; Routledge ; 230 pages
| © 2014
This book helps to deepen our understanding of the varieties of contemporary Islam and the issues that are of most
concern to Muslims today. Oliver Leaman explores some of the controversies
and debates that exist within Islam and
between Islam and other religions. He
considers how the religion can be defined by looking at the contrast between
competing sets of beliefs, and arguments
amongst Muslims themselves over the
nature of the faith. Areas covered include: Qur’anic interpretation, gender,
finance, education, and nationalism. Examples are taken from a range of contexts
and illustrate the diversity of approaches
to Islam that exists today.
Only Muslim
Embodying Islam in Twentieth-Century France, Naomi Davidson; Cornell
University Press; 320 pages | © 2012
The French state has long had a troubled relationship with its diverse Muslim
populations. In Only Muslim, Naomi
Davidson traces this turbulence to the
1920s and 1930s, when North Africans
first immigrated to French cities in significant numbers. Drawing on police
reports, architectural blueprints, posters,
propaganda films, and documentation
from metropolitan and colonial officials
as well as anticolonial nationalists, she
reveals the ways in which French politicians and social scientists created a distinctly French vision of Islam that would
inform public policy and political attitudes toward Muslims for the rest of the
century—Islam français. French Muslims were cast into a permanent “otherness” that functioned in the same way as
racial difference. This notion that one
was only and forever Muslim was attributed to all immigrants from North Africa, though in time “Muslim” came to
function as a synonym for Algerian, despite the diversity of the North and West
African population. Davidson grounds
her narrative in the history of the Mosquée de Paris, which was inaugurated in
1926 and epitomized the concept of Islam français. Built in official gratitude to
the tens of thousands of Muslim subjects
of France who fought and were killed in
World War I, the site also provided the
state with a means to regulate Muslim
life throughout the metropole beginning during the interwar period. Later
chapters turn to the consequences of the
state’s essentialized view of Muslims in
the Vichy years and during the Algerian
War. Davidson concludes with current
debates over plans to build a Muslim
cultural institute in the middle of a Parisian immigrant neighborhood, showing how Islam remains today a marker of
an unassimilable difference.
Everyday Lived Islam in Europe, Nathal M. Dessing and all (eds); Cornell
University Press; 196 pages | © 2014
This book offers a new direction for the
study of contemporary Islam by focusing
on what being Muslim means in people’s
Book Review and Notes
everyday lives. It complements existing
studies by focusing not on mosque-going, activist Muslims, but on how people
live out their faith in schools, workplaces
and homes, and in dealing with problems of health, wellbeing and relationships. As well as offering fresh empirical
studies of everyday lived Islam, the book
offers a new approach which calls for the
study of ‘official’ religion and everyday
‘tactical’ religion in relation to one another. It discusses what this involves, the
methods it requires, and how it relates to
existing work in Islamic Studies.
Islam in Danemark: The Challenge of
Diversity, Jorgen Nielsen (edt); Lexington Books; 268 pages | © 2011
Little has been published in English
about Islam in Denmark although interest grew after the cartoons crisis of 20056. Danish research on the subject is extensive, and this volume aims to present
some of the most recent to an international audience. While many of the circumstances which apply across western
Europe — the history of immigration
and refugees, settlement, the growth of
Muslim organizations and international
links, challenges of social and cultural
encounter, and more recently Islam as a
security issue — also apply in Denmark,
there are also differences. A small, compact country with no recent imperial
history, Denmark’s unified institutional,
religious and social culture can make it
difficult for newcomers to integrate. The
fourteen chapters in this book cover the
topic in three parts. The first part deals
with the history and statistics of immigration and settlement, and the religious
institutional responses, Christian and
Muslim. Part two looks at specific issues
and the interaction with the develop-
95
ing national debate about identity and
minority. Finally part three presents the
experience of four active participants in
the processes of integration: youth work
and hospital chaplaincy, interreligious
dialogue, and the views of an imam.
Terrified:
How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream, Christopher Bail; Princeton University Press;
248 pages | © 2014
Bail traces how the anti-Muslim narrative of the political fringe has captivated
large segments of the American media,
government, and general public, validating the views of extremists who argue
that the United States is at war with Islam and marginalizing mainstream Muslim-Americans who are uniquely positioned to discredit such claims. Drawing
on cultural sociology, social network
theory, and social psychology, he shows
how anti-Muslim organizations gained
visibility in the public sphere, commandeered a sense of legitimacy, and
redefined the contours of contemporary
debate, shifting it ever outward toward
the fringe. Bail illustrates his pioneering
theoretical argument through a big-data
analysis of more than one hundred organizations struggling to shape public discourse about Islam, tracing their
impact on hundreds of thousands of
newspaper articles, television transcripts,
legislative debates, and social media messages produced since the September 11
attacks. The book also features in-depth
interviews with the leaders of these organizations, providing a rare look at how
anti-Muslim organizations entered the
American mainstream.
96
Hizmet Studies Review v.2 n.2
Call for Contributors
Hizmet Studies Review Issue : 3 (Autumn 2015)
The third issue of the journal (Autumn 2015) will examine the concept of education
and educational activities in the Movement. Articles on the following questions are
particularly welcome:
• What does it mean Hizmet or Gülen inspired school ?
• What are Gulen’s expectations from the Movement’s schools? How are the
schools expected to promote peace, for example?
• How are the schools, ‘dialogue in practice?’
• What are Gulen’s views on pedagogy and education ?
• How Gülen’s ideas are implemented in schools ?
• Are these schools supposed to serve as a bridge between science and faith?
• How are the values passed over? How do the schools promote well being and universal values?
• Why do parents choose to send their children to these schools?
• What criticisms have these schools attracted and why?
• Are these schools about extending Turkishness abroad? If so, why open schools
where there is no Turkish community?
Further Reading
Tittensor, D. (2014). The House of Service: The Gülen Movement and Islam’s Third Way,
Oxford University Press.
Clement, V. (2013). ‘Central Asia’s Hizmet Schools’, in Muslim World and Politics in
Transition, edited by Greg Barton, Paul Weller and İhsan Yılmaz, London, Bloomsbury.
Mohamed, Y. (2013). ‘ A Gülen Inspired School in South Africa’ in Muslim World and
Politics in Transition, edited by Greg Barton, Paul Weller and İhsan Yılmaz, London,
Bloomsbury.
Akyol, H. (2010). ‘ The Role of Turkish Schools in Building Trusting Cross-ethnic Relationships in Northern Iraq’ in Islam and Peacebuilding : Gülen Movement Initiatives (John
L. Esposito and İhsan Yılmaz edts), New York, Blue Dome Press.
Agai, B. (2003). ‘The Gülen Movement’s Islamic Ethic of Education’ in Turkish Islam and
the Secular State: The Gülen Movement, M. H. Yavuz and J. L. Esposito (edt), Syracuse,
Syracuse University Press.
Özdalga, E. (2003). ‘Following in the Footseps of Fethullah Gülen: Three Women Teachers Tell Their Stories’ in Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement, M.
H. Yavuz and J. L. Esposito (edt), Syracuse, Syracuse University Press.
97
Demir, C. E, Ayse Balci and Fusun Akkok, (2000). The Role of Turkish Schools In The
Educational System And Social Transformation of Central Asian Countries: The Case
of Turkmenistan And Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian Survey, Vol.19, no 1, pp 141-155.
Aslandogan, Y. and M. Çetin (2007) Gülen’s Educational Paradigm in Thought and
Practice’ Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World: Contributions of the Gülen Movement,
Robert A. Hunt and Yüksel A. Aslandoğan (edts), The Light, Inc. & IID Press.
The envisioned time frame for submissions is as following:
15.05.2015 – deadline for call for abstracts (about 750 words)
20.05.2015 – decision on abstracts
30.07.2015 – full paper submission
10.09.2015 – review process, feedback to authors
30.09.2015 – resubmission
Turkish Review:
call for papers
T
urkish Review is a peer-reviewed, English-language
bimonthly journal addressing political, economic,
cultural and social issues in Turkey and the surrounding
region. We are issuing a call for papers (articles, analysis and
opinion pieces) for Volume 5 (2015).
The themes are as follows (deadlines for submissions given
in parentheses):
Vol-5/5
Vol-5/6
Turkey and the former Soviet states
Media and social media
(June 1, 2015)
(Aug. 1, 2015)
We are also open to any suggestions for pieces falling outside the
issue’s overall theme. Please note that pieces may address regional rather
than purely Turkey-specific aspects of your chosen subject.
The minimum length for submissions is 1,500 words, the maximum
4,000. A generous honorarium will be paid for all published papers.
Please contact our editorial team with your inquiries, suggestions or
questions. We strongly recommend discussion with our editors regarding
the suitability of your topic prior to commencing work on your paper.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Turkish Review Editorial Team
Kerim Balcı, Editor-in-Chief
e-mail: [email protected]
tel: +90 212 454 8551
Instr uctions for Authors
Technical guidelines
- Manuscripts are accepted in English and in French. Any consistent spelling and punctuation styles may be
used. Long quotations should be indented without quotation marks.
- Articles should be 5000–8000 words in length, unless they are Research Notes, which should be no longer
than 3000 words.
- References should follow the MLA style (MLA Handbook).
- Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; main text; acknowledgements;
references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figure caption(s) (as a list).
No text should appear in the header or footer.
- Abstracts of 100–150 words are required for all manuscripts submitted.
- Articles should be typed on one side of paper, double-spaced with ample margins, and bear the title of the
contribution.
- Articles need to be ready for peer review. Therefore, there should not be any indication in the text or references, which identifies the author(s).
- Tables and figures need to be on separate sheets, not included as part of the main text. Captions should be
gathered together and typed out on a separate sheet. Tables should be numbered by Roman numerals and figures
by Arabic numerals. The approximate position of tables and figures should be indicated in the manuscript. Captions should include keys to symbols. Tables should be provided in an editable format (ideally using Word table
tool). They should not be inserted picture files.
- Name(s) of the author(s) and contact details (postal and e-mail addresses) should appear on a separate
cover sheet. Ensure that the full postal address, name, and e-mail contact of the author who will check proofs
and receive correspondence are on the front cover sheet. Please note that the e-mail address of the corresponding
author will normally be displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal style) and the online article.
- An electronic version of the article should be sent to the Editor as an e-mail attachment.
- All correspondence regarding submissions should be sent to: Dr. Erkan Toğuşlu, Editor, Hizmet Studies
Review, Parkstraat 45, 3000 Leuven, KU Leuven, e.mail: [email protected]
- Section headings should be concise.
- Please supply a short biographical note (max 150 words) for each author.
- Please note that submissions that do not confirm to these guidelines will be returned to the author for correction and will not progress to peer review.
Research Articles; may be anywhere from 5,000 words to 8,000 words in length.
Research Notes; the journal publishes research notes of between 2,000 words to 3,500 words. These are shorter
than major articles and are restricted to straightforward presentation of initial research results. Research notes are
submitted in the same way as research articles, although authors should indicate whether their work is intended
as a research article or note.
Forum-Debate-Commentaries, no more than 1,500 words that further substantive discussion of significant
topics that may be appeared in the journal , may be published at the editor-in-chiefIs discretion.
Presentation and Submission Protocol
- Authors are expected to have checked their own papers for spelling and grammar before submission; authors
whose first language is not English are advised to engage assistance. Authors should remember that they are writing for an international audience and explain local concepts adequately.
- Papers submitted to HSR for publication should not be under review with another journal or editior of a
collection of essays and should not have been published elsewhere.
- Authors must sign a transfer of copyright form before publication.
- Authors will be kept informed regarding the process of their submission.
References should follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) system. They should be indicated in the
typescript by giving the author’s name followed by any relevant page number (Charles 219-42) or if there is more
than one author with the same name, add the first initial (T. Charles 15; B. Charles 43). The references sholud be
listed in full alphabetically at the end of the paper in the following standart form: www.hizmetreview.com
Proofs will be sent to authors if there is sufficient time to do so. They should be corrected and returned to the
editor within 48 hours. Major alterations to the text cannot be accepted.
I
Hizmet Studies Review
Hizmet Studies Review (HSR) is a scholarly peer-reviewed international
journal on the Hizmet Movement. It provides interdisciplinary forum for critical research and reflection upon the development of Fethullah Gülen’s ideas
and Gülen Movement (Hizmet movement). Its aim is to publish research and
analysis that discuss Fethullah Gülen’s ideas, views and intellectual legacy
and Hizmet Movement’s wider social, cultural and educational activities. The
HSR publishes peer-reviewed articles, review essays and the journal aims to
keep readers informed with commentaries, practical notes and reviews of recently published books-articles on Hizmet Movement. We welcome theoretical papers; the case studies and fieldworks; particularly critical thoughts that
are neither hagiographic nor prejudiced but are well researched and aim to study the
subject matter. We welcome contributions from all disciplines.
HSR welcomes work covering a range of topics, and invites articles, reviews, critiques on Hizmet Movement and Gülen. This includes contributions
dealing with but not restricted to:
- Research on and analysis of Fethullah Gülen’s writings
- Gülen’s place in Islamic tradition
- Gülen’s views on a broad topics (education, dialogue, charity, citizenship, politics, science, Sufism)
- Hizmet movement’s nature and characteristics
- Comparisons with other religious-philosophical figures and movements
- Countering violence and terror
- Muslim integration in the West
- The role of women in public life and in the movement
- Charity activities
- The resolution of social, ethnic, and religious conflict
HSR appears biannually in Autumn and Spring.
HSR is edited at the KU Leuven in Belgium, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies.
ISSN: 2295-7197