February 18, 2015

Civil Islam and Democratic Modernity in Gülen’s thought

Uğur Kömeçoğlu

Throughout Gülen’s teaching, one can see an abiding concern with fostering a communitarian ethos that aims to improve modern society through the revitalization of Islamic spiritualism, individual religious piety and service to others. Of course, in some secularist contexts—such as in the post-Soviet countries of the larger Turkic world—this could be seen as a challenge to the normative framework and to purely areligious forms of sociability. This may be one reason why critics have mistakenly suspected the Hizmet members as crypto-Islamists who harbor a hidden agenda. But the movement’s approach to transforming intra-personal relations through Civil Islam and achieving peaceful socio-cultural change is very different from the Islamist approach, both in terms of its relation to the public sphere and also because it is not at odds with modern secularism and civil democracy.

ISPO becomes Turkish schools’ success story in Indonesia

The seventh Indonesian Science Project Olympiad (ISPO), organized in Indonesia under the direction of Turkish schools, chose its first four successful participants on Wednesday.

Context, fact and law: demystifying the Bank Asya takeover

Taptuk Emre Erkoç*

What happened at Bank Asya?

Bank Asya is Turkey's largest Islamic lender bank, with 201 branches in Turkey, and trades on the İstanbul stock exchange.

Despite readily using term, AK Party rejects proposal to investigate ‘parallel structure’

A parliamentary group proposal made by the opposition to investigate claims of the existence of a so-called parallel structure was rejected by the government on Tuesday, prompting criticism of Justice and Development Party (AK Party) members and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who readily use the term to ostracize and persecute their opponents.

Pro-government press to face legal challenge over slander and lies

Lawyers of Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen released a statement in response to the defamatory pro-government media accusations that Gülen held sex tapes of Republican People’s Party (CHP) delegates, decrying them as mere lies and slander.