February 18, 2011

A Turkish citizen spreads a message of love and coexistence from the U.S.

Brian Knowlton

Fethullah Gulen
Fethullah Gulen
Fethullah Gülen is a name that was discovered by the world media only recently. He and the vast education network operating throughout the world that sympathizes with his thoughts received the attention of Western intellectuals primarily because he was seen as the antithesis of radical Islam. Gülen, though, does not have a dialectic view of history and does not want to be labeled 'anti' anything.

Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish educator and spiritual leader, has lived in a bucolic retreat outside the small town of Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, since 1998. That was the location of a wide-ranging interview granted earlier this year to Brian Knowlton from the International Herald Tribune. The following text is based both on the interview and on questions submitted earlier to Mr. Gülen; the answers were translated from the Turkish by his assistants. Together they formed the basis of an article by Mr. Knowlton that appeared both in the International Herald Tribune and on the website of The New York Times.