What is the Gulen Movement and why is Turkey's President Erdogan so convinced that the organisation and its charismatic leader were behind the failed military coup of 15th July 2016? The Gulen, or Hizmet, movement in Turkey was until recently the country's most powerful and affluent religious organisation. At its head is the exiled Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who leads from a gated compound in the Pocono Mountains of the USA.The movement's central tenet is that Muslims should engage positively with modernity, especially through mastering the sciences. At hundreds of Gulen-run schools and universities, not only in Turkey but also worldwide and particularly in the United States, instructors have cultivated the next generation of Muslim bankers, biologists, software engineers and entrepreneurs. In this groundbreaking study, Caroline Tee, an expert on the Gulen Movement, analyses the complex attitudes of Gulen and his followers towards secular modernity. Considered against the backdrop of Turkish politics, Gulenist engagement with modern science is revealed as a key source of the influence the movement has exerted.

Weaves together international and comparative law, religion, international relations, comparative politics, and legal history to illuminate and address the theoretical and practical dimensions of a significant human rights problem.

This volume covers the origins, historical development, and ideas of one of the largest and most influential Islamic movements in the world, the Gülen Hizmet Movement (GHM). Founded during the Cold War under the inspiration of M. Fethullah Gülen, the GHM expanded to over 130 countries by the first decade of the twenty first century. The movement’s circumspect activism sheltered it from illiberal secular practices in Turkey and has guided it through the anxious post-Cold War process of globalization. This edited volume covers various characteristics of the movement from Gülen’s unconventional oratory to his educational philosophy. In addition, the book covers Gülen’s ideas on Islam and democracy and the GHM’s indirect political engagement compared to the direct engagement of the Muslim Brotherhood. Other chapters in the book cover the role of women in the movement, the GHM’s creation of an alternative public sphere for pious Muslims, and the tension this creation instills in light of Secularism Theory, which is analyzed comparatively with American religious pluralism. The last two chapters question the effectiveness of interfaith dialogue activities promoted by the movement’s adherents. A concluding section seeks to synthesize this interdisciplinary scholarship in order to assess the GHM’s overall gestalt as a social movement.

In this timely book, the author addresses a number of key questions about Turkey's hard road to democratization. Is it still underway? What are the hindrances or blockages? What are the motivations and roles of civil society groupings in this evolving democracy? What is the current stance of and role of the military, given Turkey's recent history of recurrent military coups d'etat? The articles which follow the historical account, and which provide a commentary on contemporary social and political events, were written over a period of three years for publication in the English-language newspaper Today's Zaman and are grouped this book according to theme.

This book, entitled Conversations on Fethullah Gülen and the Hizment Movement: Dreaming for a Better World, is intended to represent an open perspective on the influence of the Hizmet Movement, including Fethullah Gülen in particular, on the theme of “dreaming for a better world,” based on a variety of Christian and Muslim world views. This theme is approached from three specific perspectives: education and an emphasis on interfaith and intercultural dialogue, a comparison of various spiritualties, and a consideration of the shared dreams of the two religions. The essays in this volume are adapted from talks presented by eleven authors from Canada and the United States at the Gülen Symposium at Carleton University in October 2009. The panel discussion that followed the individual presentations enhanced the overall theme of “dreaming for a better world.” The symposium as a whole represented the positive potential that there is for the organization of forums of sharing that focus on this theme and on the three sub themes.

This is the first book of its kind about the Turkish Muslim scholar, Fethullah Gulen, since the July 2016 events in Turkey, the trauma experienced by Gulen, and the disruption to initiatives inspired by his teaching, known as Hizmet. Drawing on primary interviews with Gulen and Hizmet participants and a literature review, this Open Access book locates the clear origins of Gulens teaching in the Quran and Sunnah in dynamic engagement with their geographical, temporal and existential reception, translation, and onward communication. It argues that as Hizmet cannot be understood apart from Gulen and his teaching, Gulen and his teaching cannot be understood apart from Hizmet, while exploring the heritage of both. A more geographically focused case study is set out in author Paul Wellers Hizmet in Transitions: European Developments of a Turkish Muslim-Inspired Movement, also published by Palgrave Macmillan (2022). Paul Weller is Non-Stipendiary Research Fellow in Religion and Society and UK Associate Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture at Regents Park College, University of Oxford, UK, and an Associate Member of the Universitys Faculty of Theology and Religion.