- Participants
- An Observation on the Gülen-Inspired Informal Education among Newly Converted Japanese Muslims
- Rationality and Enlightenment: A Comparison of Educational Reforms Promoted by Gülen Movement and Muhammadiyah
- Gülen’s Perspective on Education: Foundations of His Ideas and Actions
- Glocalization of the Gülen Education Model: An Analysis of the Gülen-Inspired Schools in Indonesia
- Gülen’s Educational Philosophy: Striving for the Golden Generation of Muslims
- Spiritual Role Models in Gülen’s Educational Philosophy
- Fethullah Gülen’s Ideas on the Relationship between Science and Religion
- How Do Gülen’s Educational efforts contribute to Global Peace
- The Role of Education in Raising New Generations: A Case study of Chinese Muslim in Northern Thailand
- The Contribution of Islamic Scholarship to Democracy
- Gülen’s Idea of Education for Peace
- An Alternative Pilgrimage: Teachers Doing Hizmet Abroad
- Purposes of Education in the Light of Fethullah Gülen’s Teachings
- Transformation of Philosophy and New Education for the Global Age
From The Fountain
Those who promise happiness to people must equip them with virtues first. Happiness is out of reach for those whose hearts have not been saturated with virtue. From the past to the present, sound minds have always accepted it as so. Felicity and virtue are twins. Virtue, succinctly, is being distinguished with the most exalted ethical and moral values,...
Read More...
The believer is one who believes and trusts, one with prospects for a secure future who is trustworthy to others. S/he is a monumental figure marked by a special distinction imbued with contrasting colors, one within the other. Throughout their lives, believers bind all their actions to the consideration that God is watching them;
Read More...
The Truth is one of the beautiful of names of the Divine, al-Haqq, which is linguistically both an infinitive and an adjective. Some of the meanings that flash through from the shade of the Truth are an immutable reality whose existence is absolute, compliance with the true nature of a thing, the opposite of falsehood, and to exist as oneself.
Read More...
The Almighty Creator is He whose existence is the origin of all existence, whose might is the source of power for everything, and whose will is the only means by which all things and events occur. The very soul of our essence is nourished by divine knowledge. He is the one and only Sovereign who has created the whole universe, establishing the world...
Read More...Analysis of the Gülen Movement
- Fethullah Gülen
- Basic Dynamics
- Cultural Foundations
- Dialogue and Tolerance
- Religious Order
- Own Values
Gülen was born in 1941 into a traditional family of five boys and two girls in the Pasinler district of Erzurum. His father, Ramiz Efendi, was a government-employed imam who performed his duties in various regions. Erzurum lies in the northeast of Turkey, and it is socio-culturally very conservative. It is a town that has, for long centuries, reflected the basic religious and national values in its social make-up.
Analyzing the internal dynamics of a movement is important for two reasons. First, it allows others to perceive the structure by which the movement is organized. Second, it prevents others from falling into the trap of overlooking the totality of the movement, as they focus on partial analyses. I use dynamics here to mean the key concepts of the movement. Intellectual and social attitudes of a movement are shaped by the movement's dynamics.
Because modern states are built upon urbanized societies, problems pertaining to humanity, society, and democratic values are complex and differentiated. All of our acts—be they political, economic, social, or cultural—work toward getting our share of the cake. Our minds cannot fathom acting without expecting recompense, of giving without taking. We are at the threshold of an age where "service to humanity" is facing extinction.
Tolerance and dialogue are among the most basic and broad dynamics of the Gülen movement. These two concepts, first developed on a small scale, have turned into a search for a culture of reconciliation on a world scale. Today, the idea of different groups peacefully living together is a philosophical issue that modern states are trying to formulate. The international relations of past empires were founded on conflict and war.
Even though the essential dynamics of the Gülen movement look similar to those of the classical Islamic tradition of spiritual orders in certain aspects, its organization is different with regard to producing civil initiatives and its way of acculturation. Max Weber's concept of "worldly asceticism" can help analyze the Gülen movement only to a certain degree. Instead, it is a movement that has been organized by civil dynamics.
The Gülen movement did not rise upon the values of a past movement or period of crisis. The movement has produced its own appearance, structure, social and moral values, and institutions. No school of thought has had a dominant influence on the structural and religious-spiritual dynamics of this movement.
Recent Videos
Select a Language
Columns
-
Ahmet Şık’s book and Ergenekon’s media campaign (3) In a previous article I examined the media campaign against the Ergenekon trials and discussed Ahmet Şık.
-
Reactions to the tragic bombing The reactions to the tragic bombing of the smugglers showed once again how deeply fragmented our society is.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Statistics
No of Articles : 2784
Web Links : 35
Total Hits of Articles : 15554466
News
-
Gülen: PKK employing tactics similar to those of Feb. 28 Well-respected Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is using manipulation tactics similar to those employed during the military...
-
Mastering knowledge in modern times: Fethullah Gülen as an Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, Rumi Forum's Honorary President is well known for encouraging educational and dialogue activities. Unfortunately to date, his expertise in the Islamic sciences...
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5