Status Updates From Toward an Islamic Enlighten...

"[A]lthough the movement presupposes the teaching of morality, compassion and mindfulness, it is also preoccupied with the worldly goals of wealth and power."

"[T]he [Hizmet] movement mirrors our modern cultural neuroses about image, prestige and power. Thus, the movement, which declares itself to be a spirituality based one, could not transform everyone who claims to be Gülenist by turning them into improved moral beings, rather it often provides the necessary means and networks to those who become more of what they already are."

"Although the movement is quite successful in instilling moral and emotional values of self-control, asceticism, discipline and self-sacrifice, the movement has fallen short of encouraging critical thinking and being truly open to alternative lifestyles and modes of being."

"One of Gülen's most remarkable achievements has been shifting Muslim energy away from mosque building and political (and potentially militant) Islam towards building educational networks, media establishments, and financial institutions."

"[T]he followers of Gülen believe that they have a mission not necessarily to convert (as do missionary-centered faiths like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), but at least to convey to others what they believe is the true enlightened face of Islam."

"According to Gülen, a Muslim is someone who acts to change the social structure because of love for God, not because of self-interest or fulfillment of pleasure. Sacrificing for community and the well-being of others in the name of God is the critical value and ideal in the ideology of Gülen."

Author's methodology: "I seek neither to praise nor to condemn but to understand a religious and sociopolitical movement with the potential for enormous influence not only in Turkey but also in much of the wider Islamic world. I draw upon a series of interviews, the published works of Gulen himself, and other scholarly works...in order to provide a narrative of the movement, which is neither apologetic nor hostile."

"Thus, the juncture between socioeconomic context, textual interpretation and religious practices in modern Turkey led to the evolution of what might be termed the first quasi-Protestant version of Islam."

Gulen on education: "[A] new style of education [which fuses] religious and scientific knowledge with morality and spirituality will produce genuinely enlightened people with hearts illumined by religious sciences and spirituality, minds illuminated with positive sciences, characterized by all kinds of human merits and moral values, and cognizant of the socioeconomic and political conditions of their time."

Focussing on the man of the movement, Fethullah Gulen and his idea on himmet and hizmet. Interestingly his idea on insanul kamil which intersect the same idea by Prof. SMN Al-Attas.

Homework Turki