Fethullah Gulen and Jusup Balasagyn on Education: A comparative analysis

World known Fethullah Gulen and his ideals are now getting a chance to spread all over the world. Particularly, his ideas of joyful nation and perfect example of a human became driving forces behind the widespread of Gulen inspired schools and social institutions. His notions of “Human Values” described through his books and lectures can be met in every spiritual leader where those schools and institutions exist.

The best example for the statement is a book written by Director of the Religious Tolerance Research and Development Institute of Rice University, USA, Jill Carroll’s famous work “A Dialogue of Civilizations: Gulen’s Islamic Ideas and Humanistic Discourse”. In hundred and seventy pages of scientific work, Dr. Jill Carroll examined ideas of Fethullah Gulen on the context of ideas from the larger history of Western thought in the humanist tradition. In her works Dr. Carroll compares ideas of Gulen and ideas of great minds such as Plato, Socrates, and Confucius.

So given the above mentioned premise, I also would like to draw some parallels of Gulen’s ideals with Jusup Balasagyn’s, one of the great influencers in the history of my home country Kyrgyzstan The great thinker, philosopher and poet Jusup Balalsagyn came to the world in the 10th century in Balasagyn town neighboring to today’s Tokmok city. He is one of the remarkable representatives of the Sunrise Renaissance, the time when art and science was prospering in Middle Ages. Jusup Balasagyn’s name is connected with his famous book “Kuttuu Bilim” or “Prosperous Knowledge”. In those centuries, literary and scientific works were mainly published in Arabic and Persian languages, and Jusup Balasagyn was one the first scholars to write his book in Turkish. According to historical and cultural data, Balasagyn was the flourishing cultural city of different ethnicities with different faith and denominations. Deeply researching idea of the book “Kuttuu Bilim”, we realize about the crucial factor of the unity and friendship of nations to create stability in a society. Also, in his book, Jusup Balasagyn states about the humanistic morals of honesty, faithfulness, commitment, virtuousness, love and friendship as cornerstones to establish the ideal society. This philosophical literary masterpiece broadly describes responsibilities of each member of society starting from kings ranging to servants. In fact, Jusup Balasagyn’s and Fethullah Gulen’s ideas coherently blend in thoughts they deliver. Most interestingly, Gulen’s exemplary words can be found in every two lines of Jusup Balasagyn’s poems. For example:

Hope and worry, feathers are to fly,
Takes off the person soar on the sky.

In his book, “Cag ve Nesil” in Russian, “Door jana Urpak” in Kyrgyz, “Era and Generation” in English, Gulen says:

“Those who lose hopes, are lost in lives”
Selfish and lonely life is out of use,
Speak to people, get advice and accomplish.

About the role of discussion, in his book “Olcu veya Yoldaki Isiklar”, “Olchom je joldogu jaryktar” in Kyrgyz, “Criteria or Lights of the Way” in English, on page 177, Fethullah Gulen says: “Advice and communication is the main priority for making decisions. Decisions without thoughtful discussions, without others’ advice and criticisms most of the times fail… The most intelligent person is that who respects others’ opinions, advice and makes use of it…”

Study can make you genius and smart,
Through study you achieve endless wealth and fame.

Gulen’s one of the popular articles on education “Goal expected from Science” was published in his book “Criteria or Lights of the Way”. In his article on page 24, Gulen says: “True life for a human is living with science. If one forgets the way of learning from science is almost forgetting meaning of life and being equal to lifeless. Because, the most important goal of the human nature is – seeing and learning, after that teaching others what is learnt…”

Kyrgyzstan’s culture minister Sultan Raev shared his ideas on today’s contemporary topics of tolerance, also its urgency and importance in a society. He thinks that major conflicts can be resolved through tolerance and ideas of tolerance were significantly advanced from valuable thoughts of Jusup Balasagyn and Fethullah Gulen. (”Rukhaniyat” honoring Spiritual Leader. Kabar National Information Agency, 04.03.2009.)

To wrap this up, achievements of Gulen inspired schools can be attributed to the common platform of the Gulen’s notions of service to a mankind and ideas of great philosophers of those places where schools opened their doors.

Published on fethullah-gulen.org, 18 November 2013, Monday