Fethullah Gulen, the exiled Turkish preacher sought by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is in many ways a reflection of a modern Turkey — caught between secular rule and religious democracy.
Just like Mr. Erdogan, who hails from the non-elite parts of Turkish society, Mr. Gulen comes from the less-privileged parts of the country.
Born in Erzurum in eastern Turkey, Mr. Gulen has more in common with the rural and non-cosmopolitan sections. As Turkey prospered in the last few decades, there was an Islamist backlash led by the likes of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The empowerment of the middle class helped Mr. Gulen establish an enormous international empire that comprised TV channels, annual festivals and all-faith dialogues. However, the real core of his work lies in his message of sustaining an inclusive variant of Islamic identity which became a natural political challenge to Mr. Erdogan’s variety of orthodox Islam.
Born in post-Ottoman secular Turkey, Mr. Gulen became a success story by first becoming a preacher in a “secular fundamentalist” country where public display of religion was frowned upon during the Kemalist and the immediate post-Kemalist era. He first became a preacher in the 1950s and then established his reach after a brief tenure in the military.
Hizmet philosophyOvercoming the reluctance of a nation to look at its Islamic identity, Mr. Gulen created his ‘Hizmet’ philosophy, an amalgamation of several other mystical and Sufi traditions of West Asian Islam. In his unorthodox methods, he crafted a version of Islam which was true to Turkish traditions and yet retained the Islamic core values. This was seen in the magnificent festivals organised annually by his Alliance for Shared Values.
The movement has its focus on music and literature which is a mainstay of the school of dervishes which originated in medieval Turkey. In spreading out as a practical religion the Gulen movement shows an Islam that is compatible with the professional lives of modern-day individuals dealing with multiple daily challenges. The movement’s appeal lies in the fact that it does not demand strict orthodoxy but focuses on exchanges with the philosophical schools of Europe, India and the rest of the world.
Mr. Gulen, a lifelong bachelor, has been a student of German philosophy and imbibed elements from world classics. Despite his similarities with Ayatollah Khomeini, Mr. Gulen is in fact not an angry revolutionary figure and is known for his emotive and passionate televised discourses.
His Islamist political activities finally forced him to leave Turkey in 1999 following a military coup in 1997.
