July 5, 2010

Gülen movement raises a new renaissance generation

Kerim Balcı / Zeynep Yılmaz

In Gülen, you do not just find a dialogue between Gülen and Plato or Gülen and Confucius. Gülen is an intellectual that has been able to attribute this dialogue to the Muslim context.

A book on Fethullah Gulen
There is a different dimension to Gülen that arouses excitement. Gülen’s words are turned into action in the practical world by a community of action,” says Dr. B. Jill Carroll. On a book-signing visit to Turkey for her new book about the Gülen movement titled, “A Dialogue of Civilizations: Gülen’s Islamic Ideals and Humanistic Discourse,” Carroll is pleased with the interest that her short 120-page book has aroused. She regards her book as a continuation of the dialogue initiated by Gülen himself. While explaining that she establishes a dialogue between an atheist like Sartre and a believer like Gülen on the basis of a sense of responsibility, Carroll states that this is just a text-based effort aiming to establish a dialogue which needs to take place in this world.

Carroll continues: “We today have atheists and believers, and we’re destined to share this planet together. How will atheists and believers live together? So, I didn’t want to finish that book without a textual dialogue between Gülen and an atheist.”