January 30, 2013

Islam and Terror: The Perspective of Fethullah Gülen

Ismail Albayrak*

Fethullah Gulen
To associate two radically opposed concepts, Islam and terror, seems nowadays to be considered a 'natural' reaction to comtemporary events; thus we feel that we are an under obligation to bring these two different terms together in our paper. The aim of this paper is to show that there is no direct relation between them. To do this we focus mainly on the question: what is the meaning of terror? We examine what Islam says about terror; the relationship between the notion of jihad and Islam; the status of suicide attacks in Islam; and the false justification of war in the modern world, which can only pave the way for terrorist actions. We address these issues from the perspectives of the distinguished and eminent Turkish scholar and thinker Fethullah Gülen. The paper concludes with a summary of the positive effects of the interfaith/cultural dialogue meetings initiated by Gülen both within and outside Turkey in order to promote national and international tolerance, peace and mutual understanding.