The Gulen Hizmet Movement And Its Transnational Activities

This volume of essays on the Gulen, or Hizmet (service) movement, a Turkish, Sufi Muslim, and humanitarian civil society group, looks at the recent activities of its followers to practice their form of Islam and carry out collective interfaith projects at the international level. It adds to the newly burgeoning discourse by focusing on the ways in which participants challenge ideological and sectarian boundaries. Included are essays which discuss how the movement is organized, structured, and institutionalized in many parts of the world, explore Turkey's global influence, evaluate criticisms of the movement, and suggest directions for further research. While most previous scholarly attention has focused on the theological and philosophical ideas of Fethullah Gulen, the movement's inspirational figure, less attention has been paid to the ways in which participants have interpreted and carried out Gulen's messages in the contemporary world.

This volume covers the origins, historical development, and ideas of one of the largest and most influential Islamic movements in the world, the Gülen Hizmet Movement (GHM). Founded during the Cold War under the inspiration of M. Fethullah Gülen, the GHM expanded to over 130 countries by the first decade of the twenty first century. The movement’s circumspect activism sheltered it from illiberal secular practices in Turkey and has guided it through the anxious post-Cold War process of globalization. This edited volume covers various characteristics of the movement from Gülen’s unconventional oratory to his educational philosophy. In addition, the book covers Gülen’s ideas on Islam and democracy and the GHM’s indirect political engagement compared to the direct engagement of the Muslim Brotherhood. Other chapters in the book cover the role of women in the movement, the GHM’s creation of an alternative public sphere for pious Muslims, and the tension this creation instills in light of Secularism Theory, which is analyzed comparatively with American religious pluralism. The last two chapters question the effectiveness of interfaith dialogue activities promoted by the movement’s adherents. A concluding section seeks to synthesize this interdisciplinary scholarship in order to assess the GHM’s overall gestalt as a social movement.

“Hizmet”—or the Gülen Movement referring to name of the renowned Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen—originated in 1970s’ Turkey as a faith-inspired initiative to improve educational opportunities for a local community; since then, it has grown into a transnational educational, inter-cultural and interfaith movement. This book is intended to summarize and represent the conclusions of much of the academic work on Hizmet in a manner more easily accessible to the lay person or non-specialist.

Hizmet in Africa: The Activities and Significance of the Gulen Movement is the only book-length work that analyzes the multifaceted activities in Africa of the followers of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in exile in rural Pennsylvania since 1999. In 2008, Foreign Policy magazine named Gulen as the world s top public intellectual. Gulen and the followers of his philosophy refer to the Movement as Hizmet or volunteers service while others tend to call it the Gulen Movement. The book includes Hizmet in both North Africa and Sub-Sahara Africa. There are more than 100 Gulen-inspired primary, middle and secondary schools in Africa and the number is growing. Some African cities have a Gulen-affiliated dialogue or interfaith center and organization of businessmen who follow Gulen s principles. There is a global charitable organization Kimse Yok Mu that has extensive operations in Africa. The Gulen-affiliated media empire based in Turkey and New Jersey now reaches out to Africa. Gulen-inspired projects include a university in Nigeria, the largest mosque in the southern hemisphere in South Africa, a hospital in Somalia, and student dormitories in Morocco. This Movement did not exist in Africa twenty years ago. Relatively few Africans and outsiders are aware of its activities in Africa. The schools, for example, are often known as Turkish schools. Few people understand they are linked to Hizmet or the Gulen Movement. The book documents Hizmet activity based on visits in 2012 and 2013 to South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, and Turkey and meetings with a wide range of Hizmet representatives working in other countries in Africa. It also draws on journalistic reports of Hizmet activity and that which has been published in academic books, journals, and papers. The book analyzes the significance of the Movement for both Turkey and Africa and explores the link between the Movement and Turkish business persons, who provide most of the funding."

In this first critical biography of Fethullah Gulen in English, historian Jon Pahl takes us on a journey where we discover wisdom and controversy, from 1940's Turkey to the U.S. in the twenty-first century. Pahl tells the story of a pious Muslim boy from a tiny and remote Turkish village who on the one hand has inspired a global movement of millions of individuals dedicated to literacy, social enterprise, and interreligious dialogue, but who on the other hand has been monitored by Turkish police, seen as a threat by autocrats, and recently declared number one enemy by the current Turkish dictator. With lively prose and extensive research, Pahl traces Fethullah Gulen's life and thought in its contexts, states clearly his own positions, and then lets readers draw their own conclusions from the evidence about this undeniably significant historical figure.

This scholarly book presents a case study of some of the London-based work of a social movement known as Hizmet, or the Gulen Movement. This transnational faith-inspired movement represents a rising trend of philanthropic social activism around the world and increasingly now in the Muslim world. This book grew out of the author's deep interest in Muslims' interaction with modern society, their social activism, and their response and contributions to global transformation. The author provides a unique insight into the Hizmet Movement, how it draws on Islamic resources, how it should be classified, and how it differs from other social movements.

Hizmet Means Service examines Hizmet, a Turkey-based but global movement dedicated to human service. Inspired by Fethullah Gülen, a Sufi Muslim mystic, scholar, and preacher, it is an international endeavor focused on education, business, interfaith dialogue, science, and efforts to promote tolerance and understanding. One of Hizmet’s main tenets is that religious believers can hold profound beliefs and commit spiritually inspired acts of service without discriminating against or alienating people of other faiths. Even as a ruling party in Turkey has set out to undercut the movement, its international influence continues to grow and attract followers who are devoted to service. The scholars whose work appears in this book represent a variety of disciplines, faiths, and nations and offer a wide range of narratives, analyses, and critiques. This title moves beyond mere introduction, analyzing Hizmet and the manifestations of this interfaith movement.

What is the Gulen Movement and why is Turkey's President Erdogan so convinced that the organisation and its charismatic leader were behind the failed military coup of 15th July 2016? The Gulen, or Hizmet, movement in Turkey was until recently the country's most powerful and affluent religious organisation. At its head is the exiled Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who leads from a gated compound in the Pocono Mountains of the USA.The movement's central tenet is that Muslims should engage positively with modernity, especially through mastering the sciences. At hundreds of Gulen-run schools and universities, not only in Turkey but also worldwide and particularly in the United States, instructors have cultivated the next generation of Muslim bankers, biologists, software engineers and entrepreneurs. In this groundbreaking study, Caroline Tee, an expert on the Gulen Movement, analyses the complex attitudes of Gulen and his followers towards secular modernity. Considered against the backdrop of Turkish politics, Gulenist engagement with modern science is revealed as a key source of the influence the movement has exerted.

Intends to develop an appropriate discourse for studying the Gulen Movement and phenomena like it. This title argues that the Gulen Movement is non-contentious, it is not a marginalised actor working on the System from the outside.