1 Muslim Insecurity, the ‘Heroic’ Tradition, and Alternative Hermeneutics

Perhaps ironically, given the confidence of faith to which the Abrahamic religions call those who affirm them, among contemporary Muslims there is, in reality, a lot of insecurity. This is partly historically and sociologically rooted and is to that extent understandable in the light of the impact of colonialism and imperialism and their aftermaths upon the majority ‘Muslim world.’ As Öztürk explained this with reference to Gülen’s understanding of ‘Western’ civilization: “In 1991, when I was his student, Hojaefendi said ‘I’m really concerned that the Muslim civilization will reject this because of their religious fervour.’”

That such historical and sociological insecurity can be manifested in a strident and combative form of Islam was clearly identified by Gülen (in Ünal and Williams, Eds. 2000) in his following articulation of the problem:

When those who have adopted Islam as a political ideology, rather than a religion in its true sense and function, review their self-proclaimed Islamic activities and attitudes, especially their political ones, they will discover that the driving force is usually personal or national anger, hostility or similar motives. If this is the case, we must accept Islam and adopt an Islamic attitude as the fundamental starting-point for action, rather than the existing oppressive situation. (p. 248)

However, such social and politicalinsecurity seems often also to have seeped through into what might be called a ‘theological insecurity’ to the extent that when Muslim crowds (usually of men) shout “God is great!” it might be that what they are, in fact, thereby doing is giving expression to the underlying feeling that “We are poor and weak!” and projecting onto the divine an inverse version of their theological insecurity of a kind that is far removed from the kind of theological confidence in the ultimacy of the divine to which Islam calls humanity. In commenting on this perspective, interviewee CA1 said, “Yeah, yeah. You put it so nicely” and went on himself to describe this in the following quite graphic terms:

This is just like what fans do in football stadiums to satisfy themselves. You’re not doing it to please God, you’re just doing it to let out whatever you’re keeping inside. So, this is why I didn’t like them and I am so glad I met with Hizmet people and so I really thought there is some divine element in the way we live, and in the way we are, and a human being’s mission is to explore that truth and to look and search for perfection and bearing witness to that reality in whatever form it may be. But I learned that, I had that motivation. I cannot claim I have achieved anything. I am just an ordinary fellow human being who calls himself a Muslim. But I always have this link to Hizmet which made life meaningful to me. Hizmet is what makes life meaningful to me.

In contrast to this kind of combative historical, sociological, and theological insecurity, this chapter explores the alternative hermeneutics offered by Fethullah Gülen that leads to a proper Islamic confidence of the kind that, at its best, Anwar Alam (2019) argues is exhibited within a Hizmet that facilitates those involved within it to confidently, but also humbly, engage with the wider world of modernity, including those who are of different religions and beliefs. But in the first instance, the chapter will trace something of how the historical, sociological, and theological insecurity that was flagged above is, in many ways, rooted in what could be called a ‘heroic’ heritage in Islam.

This heritage, at least in its Sunni form (recognising that in the Shi’a tradition of Islam there is more of a tradition of the suffering and apparent ‘defeat’ of key figures) is linked with a tendency to expect that what is right should always ultimately win in this world. Keleş sees this as intimately being linked with the much bigger theological challenge that he believes observant Muslims in general can have with loss and defeat, the self-awareness of which he believes has been “crystallised in the face of common challenges and in conversation with other Hizmet participants, demonstrating that this is a widely shared sentiment.” And out of this, he says:

It is not that there is no sense of ‘loss’ or ‘defeat’ in early Islamic history or theology but that it has been whitewashed or interpreted in a way that the event in question is no longer perceived as a loss in any sense of the word, which in turn has robs us of the ability to learn from it. The Battle of Uhud, the burial of the Prophet in the dead of night without a communal funeral prayer, the civil wars that followed wherein tens of thousands of Muslims (the Prophet’s Companions) killed one another, the beheading of Hussain, and possibly the murder of his brother Hasan, at the hands of Muslims… there is a lot there that pertains to loss but it has been whitewashed.

By contrast with this more ‘hidden’ history of loss, as articulated and explained by Haylamaz in relation to many Muslims: “We are imagining this heroic Prophet with his sword at the battlefield at the front line and engaging with the enemy. But the reality is he never killed anyone.” In relation to the tendency towards what might be called a ‘universalising interpretation’ (by non-Muslims as well as by Muslims) of such violent incidents that are described in the Qu’ran, Haylamaz points out that, in fact “The duration of battles or fights the Prophet had to engage were much less than what has been envisioned and preached to us. It only lasted a couple of hours perhaps, and the number of casualties are all catalogued and identified already. So, the numbers are pretty small. But this has been shown as if this was how he lived.” However, Haylamaz also notes that the “The first twenty books written on Islamic history were books of military expeditions (maghazi). So, the first literature that developed on Islamic history actually developed around those battle stories” but this was “a very wrong place to start.” As a consequence of this, “The heroism that was shown in the battlefield was praised more than any other thing. Virtues like compassion, mercy and gentleness exist in the literature, too, but compared to war heroism, they are minimal.” By contrast, in relation to Muhammad himself as Haylamaz explained it, “One can see that, although he was undergoing violence and persecution, he continued to teach no retaliation, with no way of responding in the same kind. But you can see a life of achievement in that manner with no violence” and that in:

That fifteen years in Mecca under severe pressure and torture and violence and persecution, you see a very successful form of preaching with non-violence, with mercy and compassion, but which are being undermined at the expense of losing those values perhaps, but praising the other values like heroism which actually were a part of the Age of Ignorance.

And Ergene has underlined how influential these ‘heroic’ stories have become as a prism through which to understand both the Prophet and Islam, noting that “Many people grew hearing these heroic stories found in this literature. This was a kind of romanticism, heroism, which actually exist in all nations. As Haylamaz commented, “They used to say, ‘are we going to leave our wealth to the ones who cannot ride a horse, who cannot use a sword?’,” while as Ergene noted, that was “Simply because they could not be heroic. All the people, the children and women, who were useless in the battlefield, had no right/entitlement to inheritance.” In relation to a realistic assessment of human experience and history, Ergene says that, on the one hand:

War and conflict exist in human nature; we cannot get rid of this completely. We cannot get rid of the sword, too. It exists even on flags, and it gives a symbolic message. But what can be done is how to keep that in its sheath. This is what Islam brings, to teach people how to keep their sword in its sheath, so they learn how to engage with others in different ways.

But also, while recognising the reality of this, Ergene says that what Islam brought was also “to draw ethical boundaries to war” and went on to note that:

Especially after the third century Islamic era, there have been many discussions in Islamic law on what constituted the basis of human relations: war or peace. Scholars referred to the main sources of information to find answers to this question. The Qur’an clearly says “Peace is good,” and this normally defines the basis. However, what determined international relations for a long time was the opposite: war is essential.

Indeed, to some extent it was the case that, through engaging in war was how the nations developed their international relations and, because of this “Jurists in the past formulated their rulings accordingly. And even today many scholars, even in the schools of Theology even today in the Muslim world, including Turkey, still read the legal systems based on the systems that were developed in the Middle Ages which was based on or centred around war.” Such perspectives have also informed much of Turkish popular culture through the many television ‘soap operas’ of the heroicOttoman times and in nearly every street and neighbourhood in Turkey one can also see this heroic sentiment still at work, and which is something on which Islamist groups, including the AKP, feed on in their narratives. Thus, as Ergene explains, “They are generating this macho culture that challenges the world” and that “there is this new narrative developing around how Erdoğan is the new Caliph, how he is the Mahdi, the Saviour that is being awaited. Indeed, Ergene highlights of Edoğan that:

He sees himself even more than Suleiman. He considers himself as the protector of all Muslims and their Caliph. Type in Erdoğan, Caliph, Mahdi on your computer and you would see tons of videos. They are in a state of paranoia. He believes in this. In the past, others were trying to make him believe in this; now it is him who tries to indoctrinate others. He is always trying to keep this agenda of Caliphate and Mahdi in trend.

On a global level, Yeşilova says that “This conflictual perspective is, for me, very problematic and doesn’t take us anywhere, and goes against the spirit of the time.” In contrast, Yeşilova gives expression to a very different and proper form of Islamic confidence that he has found in and through the teaching of Gülen that informs Hizmet:

I have to confess, as Muslims, we have lagged behind centuries from the rest of the developed world. And there is this inferiority complex in many Muslim nations and that’s a part of it. But with Hizmet, with this willingness to engage with the world, and do it with confidence, I think that’s a very empowering reality that came with Hizmet philosophy, that it comes with the confidence of me in my faith, it comes from the way Hizmet understands religion and identity.

Although one can find some echoes of the ‘heroic’ in some of Gülen’s early sermons, by far the main focus in his preaching was focused on Muhammad himself and on his Companions. As Ergene pointed out in a way that, for its significance in the way that Gülen used a re-reading of the life of the Prophet to challenge this ‘heroic’ heritage, is worth quoting at some length:

In this context it is important to remember a series of sermons that Hojaefendi gave at the beginning of the 1990s. I believe they started in 1989. For more than a year, like 60 weeks, he delivered these sermons in the biggest mosques and, actually, what he did was to read the life of the Prophet again. And he spent a lot of time on how he engaged war too. You could see him trying to re-read his life in a way to make an emphasis on the other aspects of his life and how he was so compassionate even in the battlefield towards the enemies. He even portrayed those scenes as he wept, which for me was an effort to show the humane side of the situation. But, unfortunately, we rarely see a scholar at such a level to follow a similar path in the Islamic world; perhaps a few, but none came out especially from community leaders. Many of them have been unfortunately very silent, and some even provoked their congregations and endorsed violence. But Gülen spent a lot of time on trying to understand the Prophet and his mission and message, not from the perspective of the battles, but from perhaps the 99% of his entire message and lifetime, the amount of time he spent on the battlefield and in conflict and in violence were much more minor than the rest of his life.

Many other Muslim scholars said. ‘Look this guy Gülen is obsessed with the friends of the Prophet.’ Probably they were obsessed with the heroic aspects of Islamic history. But Hojaefendi was trying to portray a true reflection of the message which was lived in the best way possible in the lifetime of the Prophet.

Other Muslims was critical of Gülen for his emphasis on the examples of the Prophet’s friends, rather than focusing on the current problems of the Muslim world today. He did not only give the examples of the friends of the Prophet, but he also gave the apostles of Jesus as a good example, the way they were so pious, the way they behaved so leniently with others, he gave their example on many occasions too.

The distinctiveness of Gülen’s approach derives from the fact that, in engaging with the Qu’ranic narratives that deal with conflict, Gülen has a very different starting-point and therefore also a very different overall approach that flows from that. Not only does Gülen transform the narrative of the ‘heroic’ in relation to a re-reading of the life of Muhammad and his first Companions, which he then foregrounds and elevates above the triumphalist readings of early Muslim history, as Haylamaz pointed out:

What we see in Gülen’s example is that he tries to look at things as a whole, rather than partially. Partial approach would miss many things from our sight. Verses in the Qur’an that relate to fight and war have two purposes: 1. To provide rulings about the battlefield – when we carry the rulings reserved for the battlefield to outside, then the problems emerge. 2. To give guidance in the battlefield that it is an arena where your enemies have come to kill you; so you have to do what you have to do right there; your leniency and mercy are not welcome by your enemies. If killing others was a divine order to the Prophet, he would not have left this world without killing even one person. Also, there are at least seven rules to be observed even during warfare. But some people pick the ones they want to move forward with and ignore the rest. God reprimands Muslims in so many verses of the Qur’an, but some Muslims choose to act upon those where others are reprimanded.

Basically, what Gülen is doing is reading the Qur’an and Muslim tradition with a different and alternative kind of hermeneutical key and that is to emphasise the ultimate aim and goals and ends, which are concerned with the doing of peace and the whole trajectory of Islamic and of human development, rather than taking the conflicts that have occurred as the hermeneutical key to understanding the Qu’ran and Islam. As Haylamaz explains it:

There is also this selective reading from scripture. Some choose these verses that related to the battlefield to be used elsewhere. They select those verses which refer to the battlefield and they come to an understanding of a global Islam, playing on those in a way similar to what they do to the engagement with the People of the Book, for instance. There are, yes, some verses which are critical of them, which are critical of the People of the Book, and this is actually why many Muslims are accusing us to be as if complicit with what the People of the Book are doing to Muslims. But they never see how critical God is on Muslims themselves. It is as if God is only critical of non-Muslims and they deserve all the wrath and curse, and it as if God is saying nothing to the Muslims. So, they are using God as a stick.

Therefore, in contrast to such a combative form of religion rooted in theological insecurity, Gülen’s teaching arguably promotes the kind of practice in which authentic Islam can itself become a resource for Muslims to engage with the issues and challenges of the world as it is, while also being capable of communicating in a serious way with people of other religious traditions, as well as those of secular perspectives because it is arguably only through common engagement in that task that it might be possible to find a way through it. It is thus Fethullah Gülen’s consistency of focus on key and central things that leads to an emphasis on Islam that, in contrast to what might be called an ‘Islamist Islam’ which is a form of Islam that is constructed and lived out in a way that is rooted in reactivity to a sense of external threat. Rather, it is an Islam that engenders a proper sense of self-confidence which is fully contextualised and engaged in a way of individual integrity and collective proactive action.

Recognising the dangers of reactivity, Gülen warns that the transformations which have occurred in our social, historical, institutional, and theological realities may provoke in those who are theologically insecure, a temptation to retreat into or to seek to create, idealised patterns of life which are, in fact, illusory. Thus, for example, for Gülen the notion that plurality can be abolished is not only illusory it is also dangerous and, against such dangerous illusions, Gülen (2004) warns that:

…different beliefs, races, customs and traditions will continue to cohabit in this village. Each individual is like a unique realm unto themselves; therefore the desire for all humanity to be similar to one another is nothing more than wishing for the impossible. For this reason, the peace of this (global) village lies in respecting all these differences, considering these differences to be part of our nature and in ensuring that people appreciate these differences. Otherwise, it is unavoidable that the world will devour itself in a web of conflicts, disputes, fights, and the bloodiest of wars, thus preparing the way for its own end. (pp. 249–250)

Gülen’s teaching and the Hizmet associated with it can positively contribute to the development of a ‘style’ of Islam in the modern world within which Muslims can be open to being informed by the strengths that exist in countries and regions beyond the so-called ‘Muslim World’ while also themselves being confident enough to continue to make a distinctively Islamic contribution that is characterised by both robustness and civility. And this is highly significant because it is the difference between a confident and empowered identity and one that defines itself in defensive, fearful, and reactionary terms. Reflecting on his own life, Yeşilova says:

You know if I were to again remain in my neighbourhood and interact with those other mosque oriented community leaders, or just locals, I probably would again define myself in opposition to the west; in opposition to the Crusader philosophy; in opposition to this animosity that is always there, that will always be there. And it’s as if there a struggle needs to be won; it’s as if we need to be stronger so that we can become victorious.

As AS1 explained it: “So, finding an answer to questions was a big motivation for me and everything started like this. I think the youngest people, they look for an aim in their lives, can I say. When they find a goal it is of course motivating them.” But that can lead into various directions: “Because I remember very well that some other youngsters they got themselves with MHP – it is the Nationalist Party of Turkey, and that party was also rising.” So. it is often the combination of thinking and of a concrete movement that is important, “And I found my way in this movement, because people I saw was very sincere, and that attracted me because people in Turkey don’t trust too much in other people. But these people came over to me at that time as very sincere.” In relation to all of this, interviewee Alper Alasag (see Acknowledgements), from the Netherlands, said:

Why Gülen? Gülen is for me that, because we are kind of traumatised, full of fear etc and not being able to trust other people, and kind of in a survival mode in Turkey (and this is more than thirty years ago) he opened us up and made us believe in dialogue helping people, etc.

And I know for myself I grew up in Turkey from leftist parents who have lost friends who got executed after the coup in 1971. So, I was also kind of filled with hatred towards the society, towards Government. And now thanks to Gulen and this Hizmet I have been engaged in dialogue and trying to help people also in dialogue to come together. In Turkey in the 1970s the society was so polarized that people were even killing each other.

All this experience, everything I learned I tried to put into practice. Thanks to Hizmet I am changed, from being a kind of traumatised and fearful person who didn’t trust, to being someone who tries to bring those people into dialogue with each other, and learn to trust each other, learn to lose their fear and gain trust. So, in that I see he has fulfilled his promise, whatever I hoped to gain from him, or to learn from him.

In summary, Haylamaz arrives at an overall evaluation of Gülen’s teaching relative to the ‘heroic’ heritage in Islam that is, in contemporary reality, so often an expression of weakness and insecurity that:

So, if there is success, or we are going to speak of distinction of Hojaefendi’s message, it is that has been very skilful and able really to reach out to access the essential message of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s example and to separate out the other later added bits of values like heroism.

2 Spirituality, the True Human, Love, and Service

Thijl Sunier and Nico Landman (2015) argue that “Gülen’s message is primarily spiritual. It is not a political-ideological program, nor a philosophy that deals with Islamic law” (p. 90). It is also not a form of escapist mysticism but what, they argue, can be called an “activist pietism” (p. 91). The depth and richness of this is something that more traditionally sociological studies of Hizmet can fail properly to understand and communicate, which is to say the fundamentally religiousimpulse that is at work at the heart of Hizmet. As Fidan expressed it:

But what we saw in the example of Hojaefendi the first thing I was exposed to in Hojaefendi’s career was the way he was teaching about God. I mean he reminded us the fact that we are Muslims because we believe in God and that there is this reality of God we have to be aware of. He brought into our attention that, first and foremost, we have to be in this consciousness of the divine. And how has this happened? Yes, through his teaching, but also through his personal devotion to his worship, and his encounter with the divine reality.

In addition, the anonymous interviewee publicly associated with Hizmet in Europe, HE1, observed that:

One of the biggest motivations in Hizmet comes from spirituality. So, we do this voluntarily, in altruism, because we are believing in God, and by doing things voluntarily and doing good things in life, we are seeking the love of God. This is a very strong motivation, and it was actually the first motivation that Hizmet had.

At the same time, along with this rooting in spirituality, it is because of Gülen’s insistence that a living Islam equipped to engage with scientific and political challenges is an Islam that should be reflexively engaged with its times, that the primacy of the idea and practice of education became so foundational in the teaching and example of Gülen and the practice of Hizmet. As Özcan put it, because of this “Doing this education is the solution and it should be done through proper education along with, you know, all these contemporary issues, positive sciences, but Islam also should be studied in a modern way along with all these modern developments.” In taking this approach, Gülen and those who were early inspired by his teaching, could be said to have been trying to meet the challenge expressed in the vivid phrase found in Daniel Lerner’s (1958) influential study of the transformation of Turkish peasant life, The Passing of Traditional Society, and to demonstrate that Lerner’s dichotomous identification of “Mecca or mechanization” (p. 405) is a false dichotomy. But it was against this kind of broad background in which a relatively unexamined Islam was under challenge from, on the one hand, epistemologically scientific and technological advances and, on the other hand, politically, from Communism that, as Özcan contextually explained it:

When Hojaefendi came to Izmir in 1965, I attended his school there, and I was then at the age of 15. Since then I have been with him and I tried to benefit from all his teachings and I hope, you know, benefited fully. But from that day on he always directed us to the true authentic Islamic resources and the text. If you consider the time we were with Hojaefendi as young students it was the time of 1968: this was what, you know, was called the ‘68 generation. During that time the atheistic Communism or disbelief was rampant and the believers in the Muslim lands, or the intellectual people were in shock in two senses: one the defeat against, or in the face of, western technology and development and being unable to do anything to develop their countries; and the second is the atheistic communism’s influence. So they were, in a sense, shocked, paralysed and unable to do anything and they were unable to produce anything intelligently and appealingly to the younger generations.

Within this context, Gülen did not respond by developing and teaching what might be called a ‘modernist Islam.’ Rather, he taught, preached, wrote about, and, in many ways also modelled, key aspects of traditional Islamic piety, rooted in a Sufi inheritance that is deeply concerned with the interiority of Islam but that also gives expression to this in service. As Özcan expressed it in relation to the relationship between ritual practice and service:

Hocaefendi at that time came forward to believe to understand to practise Islam in such a way that it shouldn’t be concerning itself with traditions, customs or only the, you know, visibility. He said that Islam should be learned and studied and practised according to the true text and the resources and it should be not only theoretical but practical.

Ergene says that in discerning what is important for understanding Gülen and his teaching, it is centrally important to realise that “He’s a man of belief, concerns of ethics, morality,” although he also went on to add that, “If we really have to pick one out of all of these equally diverse expertise of Hojaefendi, I would picktasawwuf (Sufism) as the number one scholarship that we should relate him to.” And Gülen himself, when asked about the central place that he gives to love in religion, and asked about which individuals had most demonstrated and exemplified that love which he identified as being at the heart of Islam and of God’s call to humanity, Gülen himself responded by citing especially the Sufis and, in particular, Yunus Emre:

Among the people of religion, people of faith, scholars, alims, there can be many, but especially the Sufi lodges in a sense specialised on this aspect of Islam, the love centre. And you can see this very clearly in the verses of Yunus Emre when he says when someone attempts to slap you, or someone actually slaps you, you remain, you act as if you don’t have hands, and when somebody slurs you, you act as if you don’t have a tongue, which is so similar to Jesus saying you should turn the other cheek to the person who slaps you.

As Ergene explains:

It was a very powerful curiosity he had, deep ingrained down there in his heart and his mind. So, I mean he was deeply pious from early youth. So, for a very pious Muslim the most ideal people are the Prophet and his Companions. So, he has shaped his ideal personal qualities with the examples he understood from the stories of the Prophet and his friends. So, he also studied in a very classical madrassahschool in the east. Also, a place where many Sufi groups are very influential, and it’s a part of the social life. He certainly had relations with those Sufi circles, he perhaps visited and had some influence perhaps, but he was more involved with the madrassah, otherwise we don’t know him as somehow connected to any certain Sufi group.

In Chap. 3, Sect. 3.2 of this book, it has already been noted that Yeşilova drew attention to the place of Sufism in Gülen’s teachings—in particular, within collections of Gülen’s works on this. Specifically, Yeşilova drew attention to two articles in the second volume. These, on the one hand, highlight ghurba—separation, but also ightirab—double separation, and which Yeşilova says “beautifully connects his internal separation from the divine, from the rest of us, from the rest of the world, while still keeping his faith alive.” As Gezen explains it, there is also:

A concept in tassawuf, in Sufism, which is riza, and this chapter in Gülen’s book about tassawuf is the longest chapter in the book. riza – getting God’s appreciation is the longest chapter, whereas the others are three to four pages, this one is fifteen pages. I think everyone is seeking that riza, and that riza has been defined by so many scholars. And Gülen has explained one way, but there are many ways in history.

It is in this overall Sufi perspective that, as Kurucan puts it:

The ontological domain of the drop is the ocean. We come from that presence and we aspire to go back. So that perfection is this magnetism which draws you and us and all of us to this. Yunus Emre, the Sufi Turkish poet, he said, ‘we have been dressed with flesh and bones, and we have appeared as Yunus.’ By this he tries to say this is not who we are, you know. We are coming from a much bigger, much loftier, nature.

But also, importantly, Kurucan sees this emphasis on the permeative presence of divine love as not being free-floating, so to speak, but as closely linked with and rooted in Gülen’s emphasis on, and expertise in the “chain of narration that is an important discipline on the hadith studies” in relation to which he explained that:

Hadith scholarship is divided into the text and the chain of narrations which is considered an important element of how we could rely on the text based on the trust on those people who narrated the Hadith or the text. So that discipline – today – is almost like dead. But we could consider Hojaefendi as certainly, perhaps, one of those few persons in the world who are an expert on this chain of narrations.

However, Gülen’s piety and teaching is also distinctive in comparison with the more ‘inwardly oriented’ traditions of some of the traditional Turkish Sufi orders. Therefore, the Jesuit Christian theologian Thomas Michel (2010) has emphasised Gülen’s role as “the role spiritual director and teacher of an internalised Islamic virtue” (p. 57) but also the connection between spirituality and service in which Michel notes that Gülen says that “God rewards the small act done with purity of intention more highly than many ostentatious deeds done without the sincere desire to serve God alone.” (p. 68). Thus, as Michel also puts it, for Gülen “spirituality must always be oriented towards the service of God and others” (p. 64).

Therefore, Gülen’s teaching has always engaged and inspired pious businesspeople and ordinary Muslim believers in the development of civil society organisations, including those concerned with the education, dialogue, and the relief of poverty. Because of this balance in Gülen’s teaching and life, Ergene says:

I liken him more to Imam Ghazzali than any other person…Imam Ghazzali had these two wings, if that’s the right way to put it, he had these embers of fire, you know, burning that spiritual search deep down in his heart. But he first took the path of scholarly research and studied and completed all possible religious and philosophical disciplines in that era… But he, then, after fulfilling, completing that entire studies in those disciplines he then turned back to that spiritual search which is that Irfan tradition, the search for the divine knowledge. So, he probably was not fully satisfied with those disciplines. He took the other path as well after he’s done. When a person chooses one path over the others, his or her aspirations may die away in time…You know, Gülen’s soft, velvety Islamic view that is all-welcoming, all-embracing, open to plurality that focuses on the human being, ethics, and spirituality, I believe, comes from that similarity with the Ghazzali’s case where the spiritual dynamics in his heart have not died away. This has the greatest influence on him when he tries to understand Islam in the twenty-first century, where he is trying to welcome anyone to his circle. This is why he gives much more emphasis to the human being rather than to things like state, government, Caliphate, Sultanate etc. He rarely points to these issues – his main emphasis is on the human himself.

According to Gülen, when they move away from what he calls “the centre of Islam, the heart of Islam” and when people “develop a distance with God and the Prophet and his philosophy on life, then you see them actually losing the love-based relationships themselves as well and then going into conflicts, and sometimes violent conflicts.” Gülen underlined this by reference to the classical Muslim theologian Al-Ghazzali, of whom he says that:

Imam Ghazzali reminded us that, within human nature we have certain tendencies that are not necessarily angelic or human, but which are a kind of lower levels forms of life, some animal tendencies. So sometimes these other tendencies dominate our behaviour, that’s when we see human beings straying away from the centre of love.

It is because of this kind of balance that Selma Ablak from the Netherlands (see Acknowledgements) explains that, through Hizmet and her learning from the teaching of Gülen “I have learned to love God. Before it was a frightening person. Now I have completely other view of Islam and religion. And then also that we can co-exist with all human beings – that’s the most important thing that I have learned in Hizmet” and, when asked about what is at the centre of Gülen’s teaching she answered “Doing good for others. And that’s for me, personally, in the centre. For myself, being a good Muslim, and in society being a good person, and looking each day, each hour, how can I better my life by helping others? So that’s in the centre.”

In explaining this and making the linkage again with the centrality in Gülen’s teaching of the theme of divine love and love of the divine, when asked about what he saw as being at the heart of Gülen’s teaching, Ergene said that:

If you need to express it in one word, it’s the human. It’s a matter of religion, I know, but if you really need to boil it down to something, it’s the human. Certainly, it transcends that, it goes beyond the matter because God is a transcendent being, but religion is for the human being. I would consider the human being is the centre of his thought. So, I would consider the human being as the centre of his thought.

Both Ergene and Öztürk also argued that this human-centric focus of Gülen’s teaching is closely related to a key concept in Sufism which, as Ergene explained it, is “this concept of insan-ı kâmil, ‘the perfect’ human being or the ‘perfected’ human being is in the very centre of Islamic thought. Because the ‘perfect human being’ is the very centre, it’s the very reason why the universe has been created in the first place.” As Kurucan explains it:

Well, again from Islamic mystical thought the human being, yes is the steward, is the viceregent of God on earth, but is also the most perfect mirror of that divine, regardless of him being a believer or not. The human being as the human being per se, regardless of his other affiliations with regard to race, identity, however you may name it…. If that human being is that brightest mirror of the divine, if he is that honourable being of being the brightest mirror of God, then regardless again, isolated from his other identities or affiliations, he or she deserves that respect. So that respect holds the very centre.

Of course, the focus on the human can be found elsewhere than in the teaching of Gülen or Islam alone:

Many humanistic philosophies also have this understanding also of respect to the human being, but in the case of Hojaefendi, where we see this man who is a believer of God and who sees the human being as that brightest mirror of God who, again from our divine scriptures we learn that we are also coming from Him – from that divine element, where he says he ‘blew from his spirit into us’. We carry a knowledge, an essence that are from Him, that belong to Him. So, again, in Gülen’s understanding, the human being is that piece that has come out of that divine element that eventually deserves again respect and honour.

Thus, as Öztürk expanded on this from his perspective, such a person is one who can, while remaining within the overall constraints of the physical world, become “a person who not only changes himself, but also transforms his environment. Insan-ı kâmilhas that empowering, or perhaps civilising power, to change, make changes, make reforms around him in the nature, in his interactions with other individuals, and the rest of the society.”

For Fidan, the particular genius of Hizmet is that through Gülen’s teaching and challenges, he was able to move beyond the temptation for such an understanding to become a kind of pietistic cul-de-sac. Rather, his challenge to businessmen like Fidan, was that they should integrate their Islam and their business.

So, we did our best as a businessman, as a business owner I was in Ankara. But in the footsteps of Hojaefendi. And Hojaefendi was advising us to make trips to other cities and to meet with new people, with new businessmen and to share Hizmet with them. So, I was one of the co-ordinators of those trips, and meeting with new people, introducing to the idea of Hizmet. Hojaefendi was there, we were being nourished by him, but we were in the field perhaps spending more time than on our own businesses and trying to meet with new people and teaching them about this philosophy (if it’s a philosophy) of Hizmet, making things possible for people to have better access to a virtuous life, because simply the Qur’anic message is not only for us, it’s a universal message and belongs to everyone. Hocaefendi challenged us to move forward on claiming, reclaiming our Muslimness by giving even more, by meeting with people, by speaking with them, by hosting them, by being generous.

Therefore, the practical engagement of Gülen’s vision has deep roots in spirituality and, although a ‘secular’ understanding of issues of social capital, social cohesion also contribute to a holistic understanding of Fethullah Gülen and Hizmet, without understanding something of this profoundly religious dimension of Hizmet, one will not understand what lies at the heart of those who are inspired by Gülen’s teaching. In this, one sees illustrated what Thomas Michel (2010) means when he says that, “Gülen has not written a systematic theology textbook,” but “Upon the twin pillars of sincerity and worship, Gülen has built a practical theology orientated towards the life of worship and service” (p. 81). As articulated by Yeşilova:

It’s in the philosophy of Nursi there’s this understanding that being in the world with your hands but not with your heart. When you are fully connected with your heart the world will fail you. Certainly, either you or the world will leave you behind. Eventually, you will certainly be separated. So always keep your heart reserved for the divine love, for that eternal love. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love the world or reform it, again that’s something else; it is another duty and responsibility, but being there with your hands is something different to devoting your entire soul and spirit and heart to the world.

As Gülen sought further to explain this in terms of what he himself sees as being at the heart of religion:

The essence of religion – Islam or any other religion – the essence of religion is connection, and this connection should be so strong that it finds a way to express itself, and it colours the actions and life of the individual. So, if it is not colouring the life of the individual that means there is no substance there. So, at this time in the majority Muslim world we are living through this concept known as Kaht or scarcity, which is the absence of true – literally translated it means – the absence of people, the lack of true individuals. You might have seen this expressed by the Greek philosopher Diogenes, I believe, you know he looks around the streets saying that, ‘I’m looking for a person, individual.’ There are many people. But who are the true devout. Their connection is expressed through their life, through their actions. If that is not happening, then of course that picture does not attract anybody, it does not look appealing to anybody, it does not lead anybody to ask questions. People say, doesn’t interest me. There’s nothing of value there.

3 For Human Freedom

In the twenty-first century, the importance of human freedom in general and, within that, of religion and belief diversity in our globalising and pluralising world is critical for the internal peace and stability of states and societies; for international relations; and for the future of the religions themselves. As the Christian theologian Hans Küng and Kuschel (1993) put it in his famous dictum: “There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.”

Within this, the issue of freedom, and within it that of freedom of religion or belief, is one that poses challenges both to people of all religions and to many traditional religious approaches and practices, as well as to aspects of modern ‘secular’ ideologies and constitutions. In order properly to be able to understand the place of religious freedom within Gülen’s articulation of Islam it is important to appreciate that, what are today articulated as ‘human rights’ in relation to matters of freedom of religion and belief are, within a religious vision such as that of Gülen’s, understood to have roots that are also profoundly theological. Thus, if the reality of religious freedom is to be both deepened and extended, it is important that this is done not only ‘externally’ to the religious traditions of the world deploying ‘secular’ reasoning and the instruments of international law, but also that the importance and significance of such freedom is developed in articulation with the ‘logic’ and the ‘grammar’ of the religions concerned.

In highlighting the centrality of love in his religious and theological vision, and the damage done to humans and humanity as a whole from the loss of love, Gülen underlines how closely love is allied to the importance of freedom in response (or otherwise) to the call of divinelove, and to mutual respect and dialogue in diverse human relations. Thus, Gülen says that:

When Islam was described by early adopters they were describing it is as a collection of systems or disciplines that guide a person to worldly and eternal happiness through his own will. The emphasis on his own will is important which means that any kind of pressure, any kind of force has no place in the heart of Islam. If Islam is understood in its original nature, I think in conjunction, in combination with other systems, it has a potential to make a great contribution to humanity.

In this it is interesting and significant that Gülen uses the phrase “in combination with other systems” rather than seeing Islam in isolation. As an example of this, Kurucan suggested: “For instance, Hojaefendi, when he came to the West, when he saw Muslims freely practising their faith in a non-Muslim environment that was a huge influence on his worldview too. That has made a lot of change on that.” According to Kurucan, one of the major ways in which Gülen has changed his theological perspectives over the years is in relation to that of the understandings of apostasy, which has substantial significance in relation to matters of freedom of religion or belief. Apostasy was the topic on which Kurucan did his doctorate and on which he says that:

The classical approach to it was if someone steps out of Islam when he was Muslim he is executed. That was the classical approach. But Hojaefendi said, actually in one of his books, which had made headlines in one of the most secular newspapers in Turkey back then, Hojaefendi said this is not a religious issue, it is a political issue. It is in the penal code of the country. As someone is free to enter Islam he is as free to leave Islam because faith, for that matter, is all about freedom of conscience, one has to be able to make that choice without any oppression, without any caution – that’s when faith really manifests itself.

The argument here, which was a revolutionary one when Gülen first made it, was that while acknowledging that there were rules and agreements during the times of the Prophet and after him, and that those were interpretations for certain times and conditions, the times and environments have changed in the light of which there also has to be change in the rules. Significantly, Kurucan cites Gülen’s approach to freedom in a wider sense as an example of Gülen’s theological creativity, noting in relation to classical ideas of the purposes of Islam:

As it has been again I think formulated from the time of Imam Ghazzali and Imam Shatibi, I believe, the five purposes of Islam which are related to the protection of one’s faith, life, family, property, mind, (some add “honour” as the sixth). But Hojaefendi considers very significant to add a sixth one which is freedom.

What Kurucan hints at here is something that might be called an ‘expansive development’ of the core purposes of Islam. This is because, as Kurucan says:

Whereas freedom in the classical scholarship was understood as in opposition to slavery. It was praised, for that matter, as a rewarding act to free someone. So, it is something that was praised, but it has not been included in that paradigm of five essentials that need to be protected and are purposes to be achieved as Islam envisions it in human social life.

Giving this as an example of how contextual emphases can develop according to the needs of the times, Kurucan went on to say that “But maybe later on, a decade later, when freedoms will already be ensured or be a part of that protection of family, religious thought, freedom of conscience will be a part of those other five essentials, then we may no longer be needing to consider freedom as a sixth principle.” While this might then well be an example of what this author is calling an ‘expansive development,’ in Kurucan’s understanding what Gülen is doing is still in line with the Qu’ran on the basis that:

A Qur’anic verse says whoever will so believe, will believe, but whoever does not will to believe does not believe. So, God is allowing us, giving us the freedom to deny His existence. So how much wider can we really formulate the concept of freedom? This is as wide as it could be. But human beings are actually narrowing down that huge expansive liberty that God is giving us by birth.

Kurucan goes on to underline the importance of this because, although Islamic history is sometimes cited as an example of relativereligious tolerance it is clear that, today, the ‘Islamic world’ has a number of problems with the freedom of religion when considering, among others, the position of the Bahá’ís in Iran; the Ahmahdis in Pakistan; the Coptic Christians in Egypt; and the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Turkey. Therefore, as Kurucan comments:

In Islam those purposes of religion as they were formulated a millennium ago, it was considered as – like, you know, the Vatican’s teaching and it’s absolute, that’s the teaching – that was so firmly established that no one has ever thought that they could add a sixth to the purposes of faith. So, this is what Hojaefendi is actually doing, which is going beyond those parameters of considering those teachings as already done, and introducing a new one. This doesn’t mean that he puts freedom as sixth or the first – he’s not ranking those issues. Each of them are as equally required as the other.

In relation to the kind of challenge that Muslims might put to this in terms of inappropriate innovation, Kurucan explains that:

I mean there is the classical Islamic discourse, where there are these other formulations still: there are these five things where you have to testify…So why not six, why not seven? Why are we not including the unlawfulness of theft or robbery or being bribed? They are also all being used in the same imperative language as the Qur’an is using the prescriptions on prayer. Those are equally imperative in the Qur’anic teachings. These are only formulations and the numbers do not really matter there, but the Shariah, or the purposes of the religion or the law were formulated a thousand years ago and that has been the way it was based on a certain hadith perhaps. This doesn’t mean we need to ignore the rest of the Prophet’s teaching and the Qur’anic message which is emphasising good character, virtues etc.

Understanding that the basics still remain, when asked why freedom is being particularly emphasised in this context, in this time, Kurucan opined:

Well I mean the way he put it, I believe when he emphasises freedom I think that has a lot to do with the sixth period in his life since 2013 when this persecution (in Turkey) started. And then, you know, new mothers are being imprisoned. People are being put behind bars for no reason. And they are still there having seen no judge at all for the last fifteen months. And you see you are putting people behind the bars for no reason. And the right of freedom to be able to move, to be able to travel, to be able to be outside of the bars, I think that is what he really is referring to in that specific case.

In other words, this is in many ways a stronger development of Gülen’s related, although different, notion of ‘tolerance’ in relation to which Gülen he says: “First of all, I would like to indicate that tolerance is not something that was invented by us” (Gülen 2004, p. 37) and that “Tolerance was first introduced on this Earth by the prophets whose teacher was God.” Thus, Gülen sees tolerance as something that has roots that are much deeper and more constant than a product of historical development alone. Indeed, it is arguable that, in many ways, the word “tolerance” which appears in English translations of Gülen’s Turkish originals, does not do proper justice to the strength of the translated Turkish word hoşgörü, of which Pahl (2019) says:

My understanding of hoşgörü is something like ‘principled pluralism.’ A person committed to hoşgörü lives with integrity in one’s own tradition (hence “principled”) but also lets others live out their deepest commitments that might differ dramatically from one’s own (hence “pluralism”). But principled pluralism or hoşgörü as preached by Gülen and lived out in Hizmet was not mere relativism, where every opinion was equally likely to be as true as any other. Instead, principled pluralism or hoşgörü in Hizmet wagered that Islam provided a foundation from which differences could be engaged and turned to productive co-operation through dialogue. (p. 190).

Within such a vision, it is possible even for committed believers in one religion to benefit not only from the cognate ideas of others, but even from opposing ideas. As Gülen (2004) expresses it, “We should have so much tolerance that we can benefit from opposing ideas in that they force us to keep our heart, spirit, and conscience active and aware, even if these ideas do not directly or indirectly teach us anything.” (p. 33). As expressed by Gülen (2004) himself, what he means by tolerance is set out clearly, as follows:

Tolerance does not mean being influenced by others or joining them; it means accepting others as they are and knowing how to get along with them. No one has the right to say anything about this kind of tolerance; everyone in this country has his or her own point of view. People with different ideas and thoughts are either going to seek ways of getting along by means of reconciliation or they will constantly fight with one another. There have always been people who thought differently to one another and there always will be. (p. 42).

Therefore, in contrast with those whose lives are at the mercy of shifting intellectual or other fashions, the perspectives found in what Gülen’s vision of Islam seeks to promote are rooted in a conviction about received revelatory truth which is believed to reflect the nature of reality as it is, and to which those who respond to it are called to bear witness. On the basis of the implementation of an authentic Islamic vision, Gülen’s (2004) hope is that a “new man and woman” can be developed in which, as he says:

These new people will be individuals of integrity who, free from external influences, can manage independently of others. No worldly force will be able to bind them, and no fashionable -ism will cause them to deviate from their path. Truly independent of any worldly power, they will think and act freely, for their freedom will be in proportion to their servanthood to God. Rather than imitating others, they will rely on their original dynamics rooted in the depths of history and try to equip their faculties of judgment with authentic values that are their own. (p. 81)

Of this “Golden Generation,” Gülen (2004) has argued that: “The generation that will become responsible for bringing justice and happiness to the world should be able to think freely and respect freedom of thought. Freedom is a significant dimension of human free will and a key to the mysteries of human identity” (p. 99).

Thus, neither Gulen’s own Islamic vision of the affirmation of religious freedom, nor the promotion of the practice of social and politicaltolerance that is associated with this, is to be understood in terms of a ‘liberal’ or ‘modern’ adaptation to a plural world consequent upon the loss of the power or influence of religion. Rather, they are rooted in a view of religious truth that, ultimately, has confidence in the inherent power of the reality to which truth claims point. In terms of lifestyle, this leads to an approach to religious plurality in which dialogue and tolerance are key.

Applying this more particularly to freedom of religion, while other Islamic teachers can be found who refer to the Qur’an’s negatively expressed injunction that there is “no compulsion in religion” Gülen expresses an authentically Muslim commitment to a positive position on religious freedom with an unusual clarity and consistency of emphasis. And extending this to the relationships between religion, state, and society, based on the evidence of history about attempts, on the one hand, to enforce religious conformity of various kinds and, on the other, to enforce atheistic and/or anti-religious stances, Gülen (2004) has pointed out that, “Efforts to suppress ideas via pressure or brute force have never been truly successful. History shows that no idea was removed by suppressing it. Many great empires and states were destroyed, but an idea or thought whose essence is sound continues to survive” (pp. 151–152). What has always been true of history in this regard is also argued by Gülen to be even more the case in our modern globalised world and of relevance to this discussion of contemporary forms of governance, as Ergene (in Gülen 2004) notes:

Gülen has stated that in the modern world the only way to get others to accept your ideas is by persuasion. He describes those who resort to force as being intellectually bankrupt; people will always demand freedom of choice in the way they run their affairs and in their expression of their spiritual and religious values. (p. 12)

What is particularly significant about the clarity and consistency with which the Gülen’s vision of Islam supports and upholds religious freedom is that this is not the voice of only an individual teacher. Rather, it resonates within Hizmet as a global movement and has influence beyond it. Furthermore, this theological commitment has been given expression in the activities of the civil society initiatives that are inspired by his teaching, such as the work of the Journalists and Writers Foundation in Turkey, and that of dialogue societies and initiatives inspired by Gülen’s teaching. So, in this context, Gülen offers religiously authentic, creative, and corrective resources that can help contemporary Muslims to live in faithful, committed, and peaceful ways in a religiously diverse world.

Islam is a global religion with billions of adherents worldwide and has an enormous influence that stretches far beyond its committed faithful followers into the cultures, societies, and states that have been shaped by its values. Thus, in face of the challenges of living together posed by our globalising and pluralising world, how Muslims understand and put into practice issues related to religious freedom is of critical importance. In interviewing Gülen himself, when drawing his attention to the fact that another interviewee had put a big emphasis on his understanding of freedom as something given by God to human beings, Gülen responded as follows, which is worth quoting extensively:

In Islam according to many scholars there are five principal values that are meant to be protected. These are, of course, the life of a person, private property, progeny, religion, and mental health or intellect. And some scholars, with whom I agree, add a sixth element, which is the freedom of the person. So, I see this as the sixth essential element that needs to be protected by any system of governance or by any social system. Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, in expressing the same view, he says I can live without water, without food, but I cannot live without my freedom.

It can be argued that without freedom can a person be called a true human being? A human being without true freedom is, in a sense, a slave. Sometimes in the past, in history, it was openly a slavery system. But today we don’t have open slavery in most of the world but we are seeing people in different parts of the world who surrender their freedoms in exchange for a possession, in exchange for money, or out of fear and therefore they come under dominance by some force, some entity or group and therefore they cease to have this essential element of humanity.

Unfortunately, in the so-called ‘Islamic world’ we are seeing this phenomenon very often. Many rulers, ruling classes or groups or individuals bring masses under their domination by threatening them, or offering money or positions and other things, so people are surrendering their freedom into the hands of these authoritarian rulers. And so in a sense they are becoming modern slaves. Can they be called truly human? There is a question mark there.

In the Islamic world, this was about freedom in general. In Islamic tradition, the freedom of choice is an essential value, is an essential principle. We see, if we look at it, in an unbiased way, we can see the examples of this value, this principle, expressed in so many instances and cases. For example, when we consider the example of the Christians of Najaran from the southern Arabian peninsula, they visited Medina. And the Prophet’s mosque, which is considered haram – forbidden for others – the Prophet not only welcomed them, they actually were permitted to practice their religion inside the mosque for days.

So just like you were observing the prayers today, they were also observing the prayers, and they were observing the behaviour and lives of Muslims. Of course they were not completely free because they were under pressure from the Romans or Byzantines as they were called at the time. So at that point they had some dialogue with the Prophet and other Muslims. At some point they also argued a little bit, but ultimately they said, ‘let’s sign an armistice and then we go back to our land and then we don’t attack each other’. So they did that. But later on, others, they wilfully embraced Islam, but that was completely out of their free choice. So this free choice is very essential.

So, in the time periods where Muslims were true to the spirit of their religion you see them valuing and ensuring the expression, the living of this freedom. Then you go a little bit further and consider the Muslims taking over the area of the Masjid al-Aqsa, Jerusalem. When they were governing that area, you can see Christians, Muslims and Jews practising their religion freely in the Masjid Al-Aqsa area. You can see the same practice during the time of Salahuddin. Salahuddin also valued religious freedom, so he did not enforce any kind of pressure or oppression on the members of other religions and let them practice their religions freely.

When Hazrat Umar, the second Caliph, when he arrived at the Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, he was sharing his camel with his servant, so sometimes he was riding it and sometimes his servant was riding it, and although he was second Caliph his dress had some patches on it. The observing Christians and Jews at the time when they saw this humble state of the Caliph, they said this is the person we have been waiting for, this is the person predicted in our books and therefore they brought the key to the city to him. When he needed to pray, they invited him to pray in what was a church at the time. But he said that if I do my prayer here Muslims will turn this into a sacred Muslim place and then all the members of the other religions will lose their rights to pray, so I’m not going to pray here. So he chose to pray in an undeveloped place.

None of this, of course, should be misunderstood in terms of this being a ‘modernist’ approach in which, in Islam or in other religions, there is a tendency, perhaps for pragmatic reasons, to downplay the truth-claims made by what are both, at their root, universalistic religious traditions which have an understanding of what they have received as being something not only for themselves as a particular cultural, ethnic, or religious group, but rather as something that is held in trust by them for the whole human community.

Within Islam, the teaching of Gülen and the practice of the movement that looks for inspiration to his teaching has emerged out of a clash within Turkish history between a radical and often anti-religious form of ‘secularism’ and obscurantist and/or oppositionalist forms of being Muslim. It draws on the best elements of the OttomanTurkishinheritance with regard to toleration. But it has also issued into a global vision of Islamic integrity in its commitment to religious freedom that is deeply rooted in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, while being fully and dialogically engaged with the plurality of the contemporary world. Superficially considered, it may seem that a commitment to uphold religious freedom might be fundamentally incompatible with a desire to present the particular claims of a religion and to invite others to consider their validity for themselves. However, what enables this to remain a ‘creative tension’ rather than an ‘impossible contradiction’ in the “Gülenian” approach to trying to live faithfully as committed believers, is the prior and theologically informed affirmation of religious freedom. It is this that facilitates the possibility of an ethical practice in which truth claims can be advocated, but where the freedom of the other to accept these claims or not is seen as being rooted in the nature of humanity.

In Gülen’s vision of Islam, the revelation received in the Qur’an is one to which people of all cultures are invited to respond. But not only people of all cultures: also people of all religions, since revelation is not be confused with the ‘property’ of any group of human beings. Within this, testimony to what has been received within each religion is believed to take place before God, and in dialogue with others whose integrity is affirmed and respected, rather than being an activity that is directed at others in a threatening or manipulative way. Reflecting on the global network of schools founded by Hizmet, Özcan says that “There is no missionary understanding” and were it not so, then “these people, the people non-Turkish people in these one hundred and seventy countries would never ever accept any idea with compulsion, with a missionary mentality. So, you should appeal to the free will and sense and intellect and when you show that you are sincere they will pick it up.”

Coming back again to the image of Rumi cited by Gülen and which promotes a dialogical way of being in the world like that of a compass that has one of its feet firmly planted (in his case, in Islam), while its other foot ‘en-compasses’ the world’s diversity. Gülen argues that it is therefore important both to live out of an inner freedom, but also that freedom of conscience, conviction, and religion is both an Islamic and a human necessity.

4 Against Theocracy and for Democracy

As traced in both great detail and also panorama by the English historian, Arnold Toynbee in his epic 12-volume series of books, A Study of History (Toynbee and Somervelle, Abridgements 1947, 1958), questions arising from the relationship between religion(s), state(s), and societ(ies) have, in many ways, shaped much of the history of the world. On the other side of the philosophical challenge of the Enlightenment and the political challenge of Marxism-Leninism concerning various forms of ‘secularisation,’ these questions have once again emerged with the ‘return of religion.’ At the same time, in the predominantly Muslim world, the fractured history of societies shaped by Islam that came about through the interruptive traumas caused by imperialism and colonialism, have led to reactive attempts to reassert a different vision, including more theocratic models, whether of the Sunni ‘mullahs’ of the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Shi’a revolutionary guards and Ayatollahs in Iran.

Presented with a choice between the privatisation of Islam, and the enthusiasm followed by corruption and eventual disillusion that can accompany the assumption of modern state power by Islamically-informed ideological movements, Gülen’s teaching offers an alternative approach that might provide the possibility of transcending the externally configured dichotomies Islam and political pluralism and Islam and democracy. If so, this can perhaps be accomplished through offering a way of engaging with both ideological ‘secularism’ andpolitical ‘Islamism’ via a critique of the political instrumentalisation of Islam alongside the advancement of an argument for a more active Muslim engagement with the wider (religious and secular) society based on a distinctive Islamic vision characterised by what this author elsewhere calls a combination of “robustness and civility” (Weller 2022).

As already noted in Sects. 3.1 and 3.2, fully to appreciate the significance of Gülen’s vision, one needs also to understand something about the crucible of modern Turkish history and society out of which it has emerged. Yavuz and Esposito (Eds. 2003) point out that in Kemalist ideology “modernity and democracy require secularism” (p. xxiii). Indeed, the version of secularism that has been dominant in Turkey is what these authors call a “radical Jacobin liaicism” in which secularism is treated “as above and outside politics” and in which therefore, “secularism draws the boundaries of public reasoning” (p. 16). But Kemalism was established against the background of a traditional Islam that never disappeared from Turkish society and, in more recent times, it has been opposed by an ‘Islamist’ form of Islam. Thus, the Gülen’s vision of Islam is one that that has had both to distinguish itself from obscurantist and oppositionalist forms of Islam, while also needing to engage with the secular.

Therefore, as also discussed in Sect. 3.4, even before the dismantling of Hizmet in Turkey from 2016 onwards, Gülen’s vision has remained distinct from an ‘Islamist’ vision that seeks to capture the ruling machinery of government through its variants of either electoral or violent means. As argued in the first section of this chapter, to understand both Gülen and Hizmet one must understand them religiously—not in the narrow sense of religion, but in the sense of the spirit of religion which Gülen advocates. It is this vision and understanding that contrasts strongly with that of those Muslims who would wish either to establish an Islamic theocracy in a particular country, such as Iran under the Ayatollahs, or Afghanistan under the Taliban, or seek the re-establishment of a universal Califate either by peaceful democratic means or in the way that ISIS attempted to create this through violent action.

A different way was advocated by many Sufis. However, given the way in which in modern Turkish history, religion was systematically excluded not only from the political sphere, but also from education and other key sectors of civil society, one of the consequences of such alternatives was sometimes that of a withdrawal from society. In relation to such issues, in interview, Gülen noted:

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi at some point in his life, he said, I seek refuge from Satan the outcast and from politics. So, he distanced himself from active politics. But at the same time, he said I am more Republican than any one of you – that means I value the Republican form of governance which is participatory, which does not give a special status to any particular group or individual.

And the vision that Gülen inspired is not dissimilar, in that at least until the mid-point of AKP rule in Turkey, Hizmet was not aligned with a particular political party but was actively engaged with society. It is this vision has that has inspired the engagement of piousbusinessmen and ordinary Muslim believers in the development of civil society organisations and initiatives that give expression to the notion and practice of Hizmet. And this vision and understanding is the reason why Gülen could lay down the challenge that seems so radical to many Muslim individuals and movements and majority societies, as quoted by Yavuz (2003) that “Islam does not need the state to survive, but rather needs educated and financially rich communities to flourish. In a way, not the state but rather community is needed under a full democratic system” (p. 45).

This is, in many ways, an unusual message within the Muslim world. It offers a radical understanding of how to be present as a faithful Muslim, in the world, contributing to it, and transforming it. Gülen critiques theocratic models of government; challenges contemporary ‘Islamist’ visions of Islam; and advocates democracy. Thus, while noting that “Supposedly there are Islamic regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia,” Gülen (2004) goes on to say that these “are state-determined and limited to sectarian approval” (p. 151).

While medieval scholars and contemporary ‘Islamist’ Muslims highlight a tension, if not outright incompatibility, between what is identified as dar al-harb (territory that lays outside the sway of Islam) and what is called dar al-Islam (those lands within which Islam has taken root). Gülen’s teaching informs and facilitates the taking of another path, and the development of another understanding. Thus, Ihsan Yilmaz (2003) sees the community associated with Gülen’s teaching, whether they are in the world as either a majority or a minority as being concerned with what he identifies as dar al-hizmet (country of service). Because of this, despite the charges of the current Turkish authorities, the author of this book would concur with Bulent Aras’ and Omer Caha’s (2000) summarisation of the relevance of Gülen’s teaching to matters of religion, state, and society:

Gülen’s movement seems to have no aspiration to evolve into a political party or seek political power. On the contrary, Gülen continues a long Sufi tradition of seeking to address the spiritual needs of people, to educate the masses, and to provide some stability in times of turmoil. Like many previous Sufi figures (including the towering thirteenth-century figure, Jalal al-Din Rumi), he is wrongly suspected of seeking political power. However, any change from this apolitical stance would very much harm the reputation of his community. (p. 30)

Such an approach offers an alternative to the instrumentalisation of religion in the service of politics or politics in the service of religion, and emphasises instead an understanding of the contribution to public life which service based on religious motivations can make. As the Indian political scientist Achin Vanaik (1992) articulated this in his journal article on “Reflections on Communalism and Nationalism in India”:

To say that politics and religion should be kept separate is understandable, especially at a time like ours. But what it really should mean is that politicians should not use religions for short-term political ends and religious leaders should not use politicians for narrowly communal gains. But surely every religion has a social and public dimension. To say that religions should be a private affair is to misunderstand both religion and politics. (p. 56)

In this regard, Gülen’s vision challenges any form of religion and state relationship in which either religion or state are instrumentalised in the service of the other, or in which temporal structures are held to approximate to a Divine blueprint. As Gülen (in Ünal and Williams 2000) himself expresses it:

Politicizing religion would be more dangerous for religion than for the regime, for such people want to make politics a means for all their ends. Religion would grow dark within them, and they would say: “We are the representatives of religion.” This is a dangerous matter. Religion is the name of the relationship between humanity and God, which everyone can respect. (p. 166)

Overall, one of the strengths especially of the so-called prophetic religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is that at least, in principle, they have self-critique built into them a kind of ‘hard-wired way’ due to their absolute differentiation between the divine and the religious communities that are called to bear witness to it. In the exercise of that critique comes a clarity and realisation that none of the religions as a historical community embodies the absolute. While one or another community may feel that it can point to the absolute better than another and/or that they have the last or most complete revelation, none of them can—if they are historically, sociologically, and theologically honest to their central beliefs and values—truly believe that, in practice, their community fully embodies the absolute.

Against the background of a Turkish system in which militarycoups have several times cut across the democratic process, Ergene (in Gülen 2004) has pointed out that Gülen has come to a position in relation to which he argues that:

Democracy …. in spite of its many shortcomings, is now the only viable political system, and people should strive to modernize and consolidate democratic institutions in order to build a society where individual rights and freedoms are respected and protected, where equal opportunity for all is more than a dream. (p. 12).

As Gülen (2004) says, “Democracy is a system of freedoms. However, because we have to live together with our different positions and views, our freedom is limited where that of another begins” (p. 151). When interviewed, Gülen was reminded of what he had written stating that “Islam does not need the state to survive” and he was asked to explain how he understands the relationship between personal piety, social responsibility, and the state, in response to which, he explained that:

When we consider the way the first righteous Caliphs, the four Righteous Caliphs came to rule, came to become rulers, we see that they came to rule through some form of democratic process. Ibn Arabi expresses opinion and praises this process. And in his book, The Eternal Message of Muhammad, Abd Al-Rahman Azzam, former Secretary General of the Arab League also expresses praise for those processes, for the four Caliphs.

In relation to the various possible forms of democracy, Gülen said that: “In today’s world and in the recent past there have been so many forms of democracy, many governments claim to be democracies, and there are so many variations. I believe that among these variations, some of those variations are perfectly aligned with Islamic values.” At the same time, Gülen does not have an idealistic or unrealistic view of democracy, as can be seen when he pointed out that, “In the past we have been deceived by many promises by politicians” and “people will vote for, or elect, politicians whom they view as respectful of the beliefs and values of their electors.” In summary, Gülen says that:

So, ultimately the real matter from a religious perspective is that the society should have its formation, its ideas, its values at the right place and they will elect their rulers. Yes, there is some portion, the government structure, the governance form, does have some value. But ultimately what is most important is the electorate, if they are enlightened, if they are embracing each other, if they are actually living the democratic values, their governance will reflect those values.

5 Islam, Terror, and Deradicalisation by Default

When evaluated historically and/or sociologically, but also when measured against theological standards, the historical and sociological actualisations of religion can be very ambiguous. Indeed religion can, when it is bad religion, be very dangerous. Because it is concerned with ultimate things, ultimate convictions, and ultimate commitments when things connected with it go wrong, they can tend to go very wrong indeed.

The kind of association that exists in the thinking and feelings of many other than Muslim people in the world with regard to the relationship between Islam and terror can be exemplified in the Danish so-called ‘Cartoon Controversy’ (Kublitz 2010) in which the Prophet Muhammad was portrayed with a bomb in his turban. That picture also highlights the challenges faced by contemporary Islam and Muslims if they are to overcome such a view because it underlines the widespread nature of non-Muslim perceptions that transmit and reproduce such a view, in which Islam is associated with fear, in relation to which it is therefore no accident that the term ‘Islamophobia’ has been coined (Runnymede Trust 1997). Gülen recognises the extent of this challenge and warns that “The present distorted image of Islam that has resulted from its misuse, by both Muslims, and non-Muslims for their own goals, scares both Muslims and non-Muslims” (in Ünal and Williams, Eds. 2000, p. 248). Indeed, a large part of the challenge for Muslims is that the issues around this are not limited to perceptions alone. Rather, there is also the reality that there have been those who, in the name of both of Muslims and of Islam have indeed, used terror in order to advance their cause. This included The Satanic Verses controversy; the murder of the artist Theo Van Gogh on 2nd November 2004; Charlie Ebdo killings and a range of other terror attacks since then. Therefore, condemnation and critique, while important, are not sufficient. Looking for an antidote to ‘radicalism’ and for preventing ‘violent extremism’ in the sense that these words and phrases are often used in Western political and security discussions, many state authorities seek to identify and promote what are seen as ‘moderate’ or ‘liberal’ in contrast to ‘Jihadi’ and ‘Islamist’ versions of Islam.

In this connection, some commentators have deployed the terminology of religious ‘liberalism’ in relation to Gülen and the Hizmet movement. However, while this author does want to affirm that Gülen’s teaching has a very important contribution to make in relation to challenging the deployment of terror in the name of Islam, his teaching does not fit the paradigms of the secular powers-that-be in this regard and Gülen cannot appropriately be called an exponent of ‘liberalism.’ Indeed, what is particularly important about Gülen and his teaching, as well as the practice of the movement associated with it, is that the constructive impulses which they offer are based on an authentic Islam that is deeply and recognisably rooted in the Qur’an and in the Sunnah of the Prophet. This is important because, in the face of the terror by Jihadi and similar groups, the cultivation and promotion of a ‘liberal Islam’ or a ‘modernist Islam,’ while understandable, is likely to be self-defeating. Rather, in tackling what has taken hold among some Muslims, it is necessary for those from within Islam who wish to counter this to identify resources which, precisely on Islamic grounds can both authentically connect with the Muslim community in ways that will resonate with them, while also contributing to a transformation of the wider public imaginary.

Gülen is, in many ways, a traditional Muslim without being ‘traditionalist.’ What he offers is an Islamic contextualisation that is ethically authentic without loss of integrity in terms of both its rootedness in Islam and its readiness to engage with the wider world. In this one finds a dynamic and holistic theologising which can only be properly understood in relation to its formation at the nexus of interaction between Gülen’s knowledge of, and proficiency with, Islamic sources, and the contexts, questions, and issues of his geographical, social, political, and religious life and times, including with those engaged in by Hizmet around the world. Because of this it is important to understand that the position that Gülen has clearly articulated in relation to such matters that should not be seen as simply reactive to the enormity of that event and the challenge that it posed to Muslim leaders to differentiate themselves from what was, through it, done in the name of Islam.

Indeed, basing his argument on the sayings of the Prophet and the Qur’an, Gülen goes so far as to say that if one commits such an act it results in such a loss of faith and that if one dies in such a state, one dies outside the fold of Islam. Although it was the case that Gülen came into both wider Muslim and wider public view in the context of his clear statements of condemnation of the 9/11 terror attacks on the USA, he did, in fact, have a longer and more rooted history in condemning terrorism in the name of Islam:

In Islam, killing a human being is an act that is equal in gravity to unbelief. No person can kill a human being. No one can touch an innocent person, even in time of war. No one can give a fatwa (a legal pronouncement in Islam) in this matter. No one can be a suicide bomber. No one can rush into crowds, that is not religiously permissible. Even in the event of war – during which it is difficult to maintain balance – this is not permitted in Islam. (Gülen, in Çapan 2004, p. 1).

In fact, one can find equally clear and forthright condemnations by Gülen of violent terror from periods before Gülen became more globally known. Thus, while explaining the impact of 9/11 upon himself, the asylum-seeker AS2 recounted a story in relation to the person of Gülen and the question of violence and his underlying attitude to the question of violence:

Because my background, from my childhood to now I never learned something rude or, for example, in Hizmet you couldn’t even kill an ant. It is a very big fault, it is not good. How can you kill an ant?! Fethullah Gülen, for example, I respect him because of that. There are a lot of books, and I have read them, but his humanity, his love, his tolerance is very high. For example, years and years ago I read them and I heard about the people that they were making a camp in a forest. And about one hundred came together to make worship, read books, read the Qur’an, and they spiritually get well in the forest. Thirty or forty years ago, they were doing that kind of things. When they were building a camping place they had to dig some places to make a toilet or something. And they were digging some places and there was a very big ant nest, and they had worked for about five or six hours then. They had organised many things. But when Fethullah Gülen saw the ants and he said, OK but these places had a lot of ants and we couldn’t harm them or unrelax them. So we have to move from here. So they got all the things and moved to other places.

That story, in itself, also had a contextual rooting in terms of the role of terror violence in Turkishpolitical and religious history and in which, during the period of near civil war in the Turkish Republic. And, just as historically, a number of Christian movements have identified and used theological resources to challenge the European Wars of Religion, including the religious logics within them so, arguably, Muslims have a responsibility to address those matters related to Muslim interpretations of Islam that religiously undergird and/or justify the use of terror. And what Gülen offers in relation to all this is a way forward for Muslims that both recognises issues that need tackling and also promotes a particular vision of how to do this. Both in Gülen’s own teaching and in what is socially produced by Hizmet out of interaction with it, he is active within the wider community in creating alternative positive and challenging Islamic visions of a proper jihad that can inspire the idealism, especially of young people.

Thus, what Gülen offers in the struggle against terror and also injustice and unfair treatment, is not a wishy-washy modernist version of Islam, evacuated of its content merely to adapt to the prevailing social, political, and economic norms. Such an approach cannot, even on pragmatic grounds, connect with Muslims of traditionalist orientation. Rather, Gülen offers a robust renewal of Islam, based on deep knowledge of authentically Islamic sources. Only a resource of this kind can, at the level of values and worldview, find resonance with the broad sweep of traditional Muslims. In doing so, it can at least in principle be capable of effectively challenging and marginalising the influence of those who have turned Islam into an instrumentalist political ideology and who see themselves as the revolutionary vanguard of a theocratic world order. Indeed, more than one interviewee testified personally that they would likely have followed a very different path had it not been for their encounter with Gülen and/or his teaching and the Hizmet practice inspired by that. But only to cite two examples of this, as Haylamaz put it—referring to Gülen’s foreword in the award-winning book, The Sacred Trust (Aydin 2005):

Without Hojaefendi we all could have become radicals, radical extremists. For, this is what the ‘neighbourhood’ breeds. It was a shocking experience when I read a piece by Hojaefendi where he wrote about the Prophet’s sword that it was “never stained by human blood, a sword which never hurt any person.”

As HE3 expressed it, “I know Gülen and I have met him several times for my projects and for some visits in the US. I write about him.” Out of this knowledge, HE3’s evaluation is that “He is an inspirational person, and I am very happy that I know him and his books and ideas” not least because “Maybe I would be another person from my religious or Turkish origin, maybe a radical or a nationalistic person. I am thankful to him that I know Islam in that moderate/peaceful way, with his ideas.”