Gülen movement

The Gülen movement is a transnational religious and social movement led by Turkish Islamic scholar and preacher Fethullah Gülen. The movement has no official name but it is usually referred to as Hizmet ("the Service") by its followers and as Cemaat ("the Community/Assembly") by the broader public in Turkey.

The movement has attracted supporters and critics in Turkey, Central Asia, and in other parts of the world. The movement is active in education with private schools and universities in over 180 countries as well as many American charter schools operated by followers. It has initiated forums for interfaith dialogue. It has substantial investments in media, finance, and for–profit health clinics. Some have praised the movement as a pacifist, modern-oriented version of Islam, and as an alternative to more extreme schools of Islam such as Salafism.

The group is currently accused of attempting to overthrow Turkish government by the government officials following bribery investigations to several ministers and the prime minister in December 2013. The movement is often referred to as the Gulenist Terror Organisation (FETO) by Turkish officials, and was determined a national security threat for Turkey. The group is accused of engaging in illegal wiretapping, blackmail and issuing threats. Investigations into the group are continuing.

Gulen

 Gulen  is a municipality in the southwestern part of Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sogn. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Eivindvik. Other villages in Gulen include Brekke, Byrknes, Dalsøyra, Dingja, Instefjord, Mjømna, Rutledal, and Ytre Oppedal.

The municipality of Gulen sits to the south of the Sognefjorden and it surrounds the Gulafjorden, which is considered to be the place where Norway's west-coastal Vikings met for the Gulating, a governing body. The area along the Gulafjorden called Flolid (just east of the village of Eivindvik) is now a national historic place, where an open air theater and annual summer play commemorates the Vikings who gathered there 1000 years ago to accept Christianity.

General information

Evindvig was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The municipality of 1838 was created to be identical to the Evindvig parish (prestegjeld) that included the three sub-parishes (sokn) of Eivindvik, Brekke, and Husøy. The sub-parish of Brekke (population: 898) was separated from the municipality in 1850 to form a municipality of its own, leaving a total of 3,944 residents in Evindvig. (Later, Brekke was merged with Lavik as the municipality of Lavik og Brekke. This was short-lived and Brekke later became a separate municipality once again.)

Fethullah Gülen

Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (born 27 April 1941) is a Turkish preacher, former imam, and writer. He is the founder of the Gülen movement (known as Hizmet meaning service in Turkish). He currently lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, residing in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

Gülen teaches an Anatolian (sort of Hanafi) version of Islam, deriving from Sunni Muslim scholar Said Nursî's teachings. Gülen has stated that he believes in science, interfaith dialogue among the People of the Book, and multi-party democracy. He has initiated such dialogue with the Vatican and some Jewish organizations.

Gülen is actively involved in the societal debate concerning the future of the Turkish state, and Islam in the modern world. He has been described in the English-language media as an imam "who promotes a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work and education" and as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures."

Gulen is accused of attempting to overthrow the democratically elected Turkish government through a judicial coup in December 2013. He is currently on Turkey's most-wanted terrorist list. A Turkish criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Fetullah Gulen on the basis that sufficient solid evidence has been discovered. Turkey is demanding the extradition of Fetullah Gulen from the United States, and he is expected to face a life sentence.

Movement

Movement may refer to:

Society and the arts

Music

Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Rafiq Zakaria (/fəˈriːd zəˈkɑːriə/; Marathi: फरीद जकारिया, Urdu: فرید زکریا; born January 20, 1964) is an Indian-born American journalist and author. He is the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor-at-large of Time. He is the author of five books, three of them international bestsellers, and the co-editor of one.

Early life

Zakaria was born in Bombay, Maharashtra, India, to a Konkani Muslim family. His father, Rafiq Zakaria, was a politician associated with the Indian National Congress and an Islamic scholar. His mother, Fatima Zakaria, was for a time the editor of the Sunday Times of India.

Zakaria attended the Cathedral and John Connon School in Bombay. He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University, where he was president of the Yale Political Union, editor-in-chief of the Yale Political Monthly, a member of the Scroll and Key society, and a member of the Party of the Right. He later gained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Government from Harvard University in 1993, where he studied under Samuel P. Huntington and Stanley Hoffmann, as well as international relations theorist Robert Keohane.