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| Fethullah Gulen |
Fethullah Gulen has been addressing the question by referring the situation as an epidemic. And he has been prescribing sincerity as the remedy for this appalling disease. Fethullah Gulen sees the cure for this sickness of the spirit, within the principle that “God’s pleasure is won by sincerity alone,” and not by a large number of [followers] or great success.
In Fethullah Gulen’s teaching, quantity should not receive too much attention, sometimes to guide one man to the truth may be as pleasing to God as guiding a thousand. Moreover sincerity and adherence to the truth require that one should desire the Muslims to benefit from anyone and at any place they can. To think “Let them take lessons from me so that I gain the reward” is a trick of the soul and the ego. In Fethullah Gulen’s teaching, man of truth should overlook each other’s faults, shortcomings and concentrate his own failures, mistakes and lost opportunities to please God.
Fethullah Gulen have been preaching that, man of truth should act positively, that is, out of love for one’s own outlook, avoiding enmity for other outlooks, not criticizing them, interfering in their beliefs and sciences, or in any way concerning oneself with them. He empathizes that the union with the people of truth is a cause of Divine succor and the high dignity of religion.
He has been asking the men of truth to unite within the fold of Islam, irrespective of particular outlook, remembering those numerous ties of unity that evoke love, brotherhood and concord. Asking people of religion and the scholars not the claim that “ My approach, may way is the true, or the best,” instead to say “My approach is one of the good ones, For me, it is much better than others”. And, he is recommending to the people of religion and the scholars to seek sincerity in order to preserve truth from the assaults of falsehood and the gain the unity.
Published on fethullah-gulen.net, 28 October 2011, Friday
