May 25, 2012

A study tour of Turkey

Dr. Tariq Rahman

Gulen Movement by Muhammed Cetin
Gulen Movement by Muhammed Cetin
The hospitality of Turkey, more precisely the Gulen Movement, started in Pakistan in the form of a call by Harun Koken who looks after the Turkish schools in Pakistan, the Rumi circle and a number of other educational activities in Pakistan. He gave me a book entitled The Gulen Movement: Civic Society Without Borders (2010) by Muhammad Cetin and later the air ticket to Istanbul. So one day when the morn had not yet dawned, I found myself with my old colleague and friend Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais on my way to Turkey.

A Visit with Turkey's Controversial Religious Movement

Piotr Zalewski

Photo: Fatih College, run by followers of Fethullah Gulen
Children attend a class at Fatih College in
Istanbul April 16, 2008. The 640-pupil school
is run by followers of Fethullah Gulen,
a Turkish Muslim preacher who advocates
moderate Islam rooted in modern life.
(Photo: Osman Orsal - Reuters)
It is Monday evening in Diyarbakir, a city in Turkey's southeast, and a weekly meeting of several local members of the so-called Gulen movement has begun with a book reading. One of the eight men present — this is an all-boys affair — picks up a paperback by Fethullah Gulen, the charismatic Islamic preacher after whom the movement is named, and reads out a few paragraphs. The subject is one of the central tenets of Gulen's philosophy: hizmet, service to others. Once the reading ends, a few of the other members — smiling beneath cropped mustaches — begin to extemporize on the difficulties and rewards of teaching and the challenges of shaping young minds.