July 4, 2013

Minister Çelik supports Gülen’s call for Alevi-Sunni brotherhood

Labor and Social Security Minister Faruk Çelik has supported the call “Let the mosque and the cemevi be side by side,” by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Sufi influences in Gülen’s early life

Mustafa Gökçek

Fethullah Gülen is primarily a scholar, who, while far from establishing a Sufi order, aims to revive and combine the activism of Prophet Muhammad and his companions, the asceticism of the first generation Sufis, and the Sufi terminological knowledge and consciousness of the later Sufi scholars. At a time when the gap between Sufis and their major critique salafis increase, Gülen’s main goal is to reestablish Sufism on the basis of Quran and Sunna. Gülen’s most significant contribution to the Sufi literature is his emphasis on religious activism. In Gülen’s Sufi approach the passivism, asceticism and exclusive focus on inner world under the guidance of the sheikh in many of the early Sufi works are replaced with purification of the self through continuous struggle and action within the community under the direct guidance of Quran and Sunna. This approach offers a new equilibrium within the Muslim world and promotes a peaceful and tolerant understanding of Islam coexisting peacefully with the non-Islamic communities.