According to Roy (2004, xi), “[g]lobalised Islam refers to the way in which the relationship of Muslims to Islam is reshaped by globalization, westernization, and the impact of living as a minority.” Roy (2004) defines global Muslims as those who have either settled in the West permanently or are trying to distance themselves from a local version of Islam by identifying with the worldwide Muslim community (the Ummah).

In studying Muslims in the West, one must take into account “the instances and places of reciprocal [historical] influence between the cultural constructs of the European and Muslim worlds” and the transcultural space created by this mutual influence in “the context of globalization, characterized by the mobility of cultures and religion” (Cesari 2004, 5). According to Cesari (2004), the Americanization or Europeanization of Islam cannot be separated from the space and time dimensions of global Islam, as well as its political crises. Cesari (2004) also posits that Islam should be examined as a process of the local, national, and international levels; it is the conglomerate production of cultural meaning and symbols. Hence, it is important to avoid the trap of essentializing Islam and Muslims based on assumptions on a single level, especially without considering Islam at all three levels.

All immigrants face challenges in their new countries. For Muslim immigrants or their offspring in the West, these challenges are heightened. How can Muslims successfully integrate without losing their rich, unique religious heritage?

“European Islam is connected with the stakes and political and cultural difficulties of the Muslim world, as demonstrated by September 11,” and key issues that are being debated about Muslims in the West such as pluralism, citizenship, and religious education cannot be limited to the national contexts of the West due to cultural globalization (Cesari 2007, 22). Although there is an interconnectedness of the Ummah, Western Muslims are not an exact reflection of issues elsewhere, since they are at the heart of religious and cultural developments connected to the Western context. Accordingly, cultural globalization has had an accelerating effect on the formation of a hybrid European or American Islam. This “hybrid” Islam is based on tolerance and respect for the other, which has been a product of Muslims living in the West (Cesari 2007, 23).

European Islam is a nascent phenomenon in that “the emergence of such an Islam does not imply the rediscovery of an Islam sui generis, but the invention of a new religious model, through the intensification of contacts among European Muslim communities, the confrontation of their uncertainties and the hybridisation of their practices” (Bougarel 2007, 20). This hybridi[z]ation is likely to grow stronger in the large cosmopolitan European cities as Muslims try to find solutions to their common problems, such as ethnic and religious discrimination, and requires a shared intellectual space where diverse communities can exchange ideas (Bougarel 2007). In its current form, European Islam “often encompasses phenomena that are quite distinct, or even largely opposed to one another” (Bougarel 2007, 1).

Pauly (2004) argues that a clash of identities takes place as a result of the establishment of minority communities in the West. Such clashes can be traced back to religious as well as broader cultural differences between the migrants and the majority populations, and integration can be a vehicle for bridging such identity gaps (Pauly 2004). Angenendt, Barret, Laurence, Peach, Smith, and Winter (2007) outline the integration strategies used by European states in recent years. These strategies have either generated mixed results or been criticized.

Dialogue with Muslim councils is one strategy that has been applied in Britain, Germany, and France – to mixed results, as the councils need to build youth participation, deliver tangible results effectively, and increase diverse participation.

Another strategy, primarily in Italy and Finland, has been a multicultural policy that promotes religious symbols. This approach encourages cultural differences and supports migrants in preserving their religious identities. Multiculturalism has its critics who claim that it promotes isolation rather than integration, all while creating economic disparities. In Britain, however, multicultural policy has fostered migrant social mobility in adults (no data on youth was available at the time of my research) (Angenendt et al. 2007).

In contrast to multiculturalism, France has attempted to transform migrants into French citizens first and Muslims second by diminishing their religious identities, specifically through a ban on religious symbols in schools. Similarly, in Germany headscarves were banned for teachers in certain states. Forced integration contracts and citizenship tests in countries such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark require migrants to learn the native language and social norms. In general, such programs have been received negatively by Muslims, who view them as unwelcoming (Angenendt et al. 2007).

France is an interesting case of mixed approaches. Despite a tradition of harsh secularism, France also has proposals ensuring employers hire minorities – and a university actually started recruiting students using what the U.S. calls “affirmative action.”

In a similar vein, Britain and the Netherlands passed stricter anti-discrimination laws in an effort to extend equal opportunities to migrants. Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands have also attempted to teach Islam at schools.

Not all tensions in European Muslim communities are between immigrants and native citizens. According to Pauly (2004), Muslims in Europe suffer from a lack of political representation and cooperation between different communities. There are many divisions across heterogeneous ethnic, philosophical, and national boundaries. There are also clashes that emanate from countries of origin, such as the one between Turks and Kurds (Pauly 2004).

To create a Euro-Islamic identity at peace with the larger societies of their respective countries, instead of isolating themselves Muslims need to become active and get involved in all aspects of social life. There is no inherent conflict between such involvement and their faith or religious requirements (Ramadan 2004). Economic and political involvement is the way to a successful hybrid European Muslim identity that strikes a balance between the two extremes of total isolation from the larger society and abandonment of Islamic identity (Pauly 2004). Accordingly, Muslims should not be afraid to integrate into their European home lands. They should be able to blend their British, French, German, or American culture with their faith, shaping hybrid identities while enriching the cultures of their home countries.

In this respect, Gülen Movement (Hizmet) volunteers exemplify such an effort and could serve as an example for Muslims living in the West. In Germany, for instance, the Gülen Movement has worked on transforming the image of Muslims, focusing on reintegration of immigrant youth into the German education system. Furthermore, Hizmet has realized social engagement and dialogue with the German non-Muslim community by establishing cultural and dialogue centers to build bridges between cultures, all while offering a cosmopolitan and tolerant form of Islam. According to Hunt and Aslandogan (2007, 19-20), “[o]riginating in Turkey but becoming increasingly transnational, the [Hizmet] movement represents novel approaches to the relationship between faith and reason, peaceful co-existence in liberal democracies with religious diversity education, and spirituality.” As Yavuz (2013, 247) contends, the Gülen Movement “has the potential to be the beginning of religious Enlightenment in its Turkish and wider modern Islamic context where we are witnessing a new era of Muslim religious revival deeply embedded in modern processes of neoliberal market reforms and middle classes, open public spheres, democratic governance, modern education and technology-driven globalization.”

Moreover, Turkey’s membership in the European Union could have helped integrate Muslim communities living in Europe to their countries by buttressing the European Union’s credibility among Muslims. Given the current circumstances, this does not seem to be possible in the near future. Such an accession would mean redefining European identity as a more inclusive one. EU membership for Turkey would also help shape the evolving relationship between Islam and Christianity around the globe (Pauly 2004).

In sum, Muslims in the West face both challenges and opportunities in the countries in which they live. The challenges may emanate from cultural differences and identity clashes as well as the failed integration policies of the host countries. Nevertheless, Muslims living in the West can shape a brighter future both for themselves and the global Muslim community by becoming active contributors to their societies – and without any fear of losing their religious identities. There are many opportunities for Muslims living in the West to build bridges between the West and their homelands, as well as among the followers of different faiths. Embracing their host countries, while working as active contributors to society, is the key to building a peaceful future for all.

References

• Cesari, Jocelyne. 2004. When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Cesari, Jocelyne. 2007. “The Hybrid and Globalized Islam of Western Europe.” Portability and Exportability. 21.
• Hunt, Robert, and Yuksel Aslandogan. 2007. Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World. Kindle Edition.
• Roy, Olivier. 2004. Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. Columbia University Press.
• Bougarel, Xavier. 2007. “Bosnian Islam as ‘European Islam’: Limits and Shifts of a Concept.” Islam in Europe. Diversity, Identity and Influence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Pauly Robert J. Jr. 2004. Islam in Europe: Integration or Marginalization? Aldershot. UK : Ashgate Publishing Limited.
• Ramadan, Tariq. 2004. Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. New York: Oxford UP.

What a life as a refugee
We gave up all we had, to flee
All left behind
But I don’t mind
At least I’ve saved my family

What a life as a refugee.
My Son, my daughter, wife and me.
Safe at last
The worst is past
Soon we will in Europe be

What a life as a refugee
We try to cross the Turkish sea
We say goodbye
And sink and die
Just when we thought we were safe and free*

Tony Wagner’s powerful stanzas once more reminded me that literature best depicts the existential pains of our very human nature. Literature demonstrates an acute insight into political struggles and the uneasy coexistence between ethics and politics.

Imagine a land that where corpses wash up on a distant shore. A land where hundreds of crowded train shelters are full of thousands of children. How many of them would survive? Even if they survive, will they still have any hope if their beloved family members are already dead?

These questions have always troubled humanity. Facing today’s crisis, we have a responsibility: to raise awareness about every single refugee. We must not forget that we could easily become refugees ourselves. Without empathy and awareness of the pains of others, can we truly have a deeper understanding of what it means to be a refugee and raise both a singular and collective voice for them?

Remember the post-Hurricane Katrina media coverage? There were images of abandoned and impoverished crowds of people – most of them people of color. Were these photos that different from what is now happening in Syria or Afghanistan? Don’t these images tell us that one day, unexpectedly, even in the US, our houses could collapse, dead people could fill our streets, and our cities could become refugee camps? The story of New Orleans reminds us that this is possible.   

“(Refugees) are of special humanitarian concern because they were compelled to abandon the only protections and solaces that can render the harsh vicissitudes of life endurable: the assistance (however minimal) of their own governments and the social supports of their customary communities,” Peter H. Schuck argues. They are the poorest and neediest among us.

Imagine your passport has been canceled unexpectedly and unlawfully by your own government while you are traveling or staying in another country on a temporary visa. What else can you do, but just to be a refugee, if your own government does not allow you to renew your passport?

Nazif Apak, a Turkish columnist, claimed that this is exactly what is happening to the people who the current Turkish government believes linked to the Gülen Movement, known as one of the most peaceful movements in the world, but being scapegoated for over two years to conceal the recent corruption scandals.

“A businessman whose family has been dealing with trade for three generations was faced with a bizarre incident a few months ago. This businessman went to the airport with his children to fly to Turkey, but the officials there told him that his passport had been registered as “lost.” He was shocked. “How could that be possible? I came to your country with this passport, and I want to go to that country,” he replied. “I see, but there is nothing I can do. You have filed a petition, indicating that your passport has been lost,” the official retorted politely.” he writes.

Is that possible?

Yes it is and it is currently happening.

Dislocation is not a new phenomenon. The world has witnessed drastic forced displacements and large-scale dislocations and deportations in the last century. The Armenians and the Jews were forced to leave their homelands during the turbulent times of the two World Wars.

The formalization of the term “refugee” on a global scale, however, emerged in 1950, right after World War II, when the victorious states needed to discuss and define the statues of the refugees left in the war’s disastrous wake. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a refugee is a person who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or, owing to such fear is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”

In his remarkable memoir, Heading South, Looking North, Ariel Dorfman told his extraordinary life story as a refugee in the US after the 1973 coup in Chile, when Allende’s government came to power. Dorfman reveals significant and existential insights about the definition of “refugee.”

“Yes, that definition of refugee might fit me perfectly; but I did not fit snugly into its image, the self it suggested I was to become. It is true that my existence had been swept up in a historic catastrophe which differed only in degree from those that had uprooted and would continue to dislocate millions of others in this miserable century of ours; yes, but I had the means, no matter how slight, to rescue a certain control – or was it the illusion of control? – over my existence, over my self-image.”

The Syrian civil war is now in its fifth year. Almost 300,000 people are dead, half of which were civilians. The entire Syrian populace – 15 million people – has been directly affected by the war. Millions of people have crossed the country’s borders on foot, in the backs of trucks, or in the crowded shelters of trains. They have left everything behind in the pursuit of hope and a new beginning.

Some have even tried crossing the Aegean Sea in small boats, hoping to reach the safety of Greece. Many of them have not survived this journey. How can we forget, for example, the picture of the body of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach?

Europe has decided they do not want to deal with anymore refugees. As The New York Times correctly reported, “more than one million people have passed through Turkey en route to Europe since the beginning of last year. Most were coming from war-torn countries, and about half were Syrians. Under a new agreement, Europe is sending refugees back to Turkey if they enter Greece illegally. In exchange, the European Union offered Turkey 6 billion euros (about $6.8 billion) to help with the crisis.”

Professor David Phillips of Columbia University suggests that the deal is ethically, politically, and practically flawed. Moreover, it violates international law.

He writes, “’Refoulement’ (forcible return) is forbidden by international law. Persons who cross an international border have the right to protection. They cannot be returned against their will. Victims cannot be returned to a country from which they fled.”

Unfortunately, political leaders in both the West and the Islamic world have abandoned their ethical and philosophical values in favor of political expediency. Instead of viewing these refugees as human beings, they view them as a political problem. These humans are labeled refugees, mercenaries, guest workers, outcasts, and deportees. But we must not forget: above all else, they are fellow human beings. There is only one thing they desperately ask for: to be allowed to start a new life in a new land.

Refugees, fleeing the war in Syria, are not a political problem to be solved. They are human beings who need help.

*http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/a_life_as_refugee_758427

“Life is a shared bridge of “passing over” and “coming back.” It is a passing over to other cultures and faiths, not to disown one’s own heritage, but to come back to incorporate new wisdoms and insight into one’s own worldview. The Gülen Movement is one such bridge.”

What the religious scholar John Dunne wrote in the 1970s remains true today:

What seems to be happening in our world today is what we might call ‘passing over,’ passing over from one culture to another, from one way of life to another, from one religion to another. Passing over is a shifting of standpoint, a going over to the standpoint of another culture, another way of life, another religion. It is followed by equal and opposite process of what we might call ‘coming back,’ coming back with new insight into one’s own culture, one’s own way of life, one’s own religion. The holy man of our time [is] . . . a figure like Gandhi, a man who passes over by sympathetic understanding from his own religion to other religions and comes back again with new insight into his own. Passing over and coming back is the spiritual adventure of our time. (1972, ix)

I think that this spiritual adventure of passing over and coming back also occurs in the person of Fethullah Gülen. But more importantly, his passing over and coming back has led to a bridge that makes it possible for the rest of us, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Humanists, to engage in the spiritual adventure of our time. We too can use the “Gülen bridge” to pass over from our standpoint, be it in America as a Christian (as for myself) or from Turkey as a Muslim, as for my new Turkish friends. We can pass over and come back with new appreciation of Islam, a new understanding of the Anatolian culture, and a transformed spirit. Muslims too can be transformed as they pass over into American life and its religious diversity and come back to Islam with a renewed perspective. But I will share how my encounter with this movement and the people involved in the movement affected my outlook and shaped my spirit.

Who is Fethullah Gülen? And what sort of bridge did he build for us? Mr. Gülen himself was nurtured in the religion of Islam, as that religion expressed itself in Turkey during the latter half of the 20th century. Turkey has an unusual history in the 20th century. To make a long and complex story somewhat shorter, the Ottoman Empire that ruled a region that is greater than present day Turkey until the 1920s had a close relation to Islam. Islamic law, Sharia, was the law of the land. But when the empire began to crumble, the reformers successfully pushed for a new secular Turkish republic that outlawed religion in the public square. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the new nation of Turkey, considered religion to be antithetical to modernization, and so pushed religion and its institutions into the private sphere. Ataturk himself schooled in the European philosophy of laicite, or radical secularism, advocated a strict separation of church and state. The free exercise of religion is allowed so long as it stays at home; religion is not accommodated but rather it is actively suppressed from public expression. The new Turkish state sought to create a homogenous society based on science and Turkish nationalism, and therefore tried to root out all other influences, especially religious ones, in the life of the people. So overnight, a Muslim culture was to be wiped away and replaced by scientific secularism in the interest of modernization.

One might imagine that such a project will have no success, but to some degree it has been achieved in Turkey. Still, religion is not easily eradicated; religion has a way of transforming itself and emerging in unforeseen ways. Religion can be privatized, but it will not always stay at home, for religion is an expansive force in human life, it is an urge toward greater good, toward greater freedom, and this urge found a decisive vehicle in the person of Fethullah Gülen. Gülen was raised in a Muslim home, but by all accounts, it was a progressive home life. As Helen Ebaugh says in her study of the movement: “Mr. Gülen was raised in a circle of people who were constantly exploring spirituality and its place in the modernizing world” (2010, 24). As a young man he was introduced to the writings of Said Nursi, the great Sufi scholar of the revolution. Although Ataturk’s secularism won the day after the revolution, Nursi’s progressive Islam continued to influence many Turks, and Gülen’s own developing vision of Islam for our global society is greatly indebted to Nursi’s thinking. To quote Ebaugh again: “Nursi had developed ideas of a modern Islam that insisted on the necessity of a significant role for religious beliefs in public life while embracing scientific and technological developments” (2010, 24).

What is Gülen’s vision of a modern Islam, and how does religion become a public force in a secular state that suppresses its expression? My trip to Turkey helped me to see the answer to such questions. I witnessed two cornerstones of the Gülen movement: education and dialog. Both of these are essential elements of the bridge that Gülen has built between Islam, the U.S., and the rest of the world. The Islam that Gülen advocates stresses that education is not enemy of religious faith but an ally. As part of his own crossing over and coming back, Gülen followed in the footsteps of Nursi and learned everything he could about European culture, especially the scientific mentality, but also the economic, political and social scientific developments. And he then synthesized this with his vision of a progressive Islam. Progressive Islam means an Islam that sees the Qur’an and the traditions as compatible with reason and experience. Education in Gülen’s vision means an education in the sciences, but also an education that stresses moral character and spiritual development. The result is a worldview that is both spiritually rich and intellectually sophisticated. How did I discover this?

During my trip to Turkey we visited numerous schools that have been founded by the Gülen movement. We visited with the principals and teachers, the deans and the faculty, and of course the students. I witnessed their commitment, their diligence and their joy in learning. The educational institutions the movement is sustaining for the children of Turkey, (and growingly across the globe), will greatly increase the real-life opportunities for these children to develop into the full personhood that God intended. These schools integrate scientific knowledge with ethical values; they address the whole person. As Gülen himself says, “The main duty and purpose of life is to seek understanding. The effort of doing so, known as education, is a perfecting process through which we earn, in the spiritual, intellectual and physical dimensions of our beings, the rank appointed for us as the perfect pattern of creation” (2006, 202). Nothing could be more important to a country’s development; GDP is important, but real human development is more important. We know this is so in America, but we are not emphasizing it as strongly as many in the Gülen movement are. We could learn something about education here.

Not only did we visit schools, but I was welcomed into the homes of volunteers active in the Gülen movement. While we enjoyed Turkish foods, we discussed serious matters: what was the aim of the movement? What was taught in the schools? Did instruction include ethics and religious matters? What did the “reading circles,” the gatherings of followers of Gülen, read and discuss? How will the movement be affected when Gülen passes away? And the individuals whose homes I visited wanted to hear about my impressions of Turkey; they wanted to learn about America: What was happening to education in America? What was the religious climate like in America? Who are the leaders? We engaged in genuine substantive dialogue about faith and life. How refreshing to visit with adults and discuss topics of real significance!

What was really transformative for me, and what led me to realize that this is a movement of profound depth, were these visits with individuals and families committed to the movement’s aims of education and dialog. The people involved in the Gülen movement are on a spiritual adventure; they are not defending a static vision, but one that affirms dialog across cultures and religions. They are passing over and coming back. I will confess to you that my study of religion and other cultures had been (up to this point) mostly of East Asian traditions, especially Buddhism. I came to appreciate Buddhist perspectives on the human spiritual situation. I have not disowned my Christian heritage, but I have incorporated some of the Buddhist wisdom in my Christian faith. I passed over and came back. But now I have passed over and come back again; I have come back to my faith with a new appreciation of Islam, and I now incorporate the wisdom of the Gülen movement into my Christian worldview.

Finally, I think that the Gülen movement has been so successful in large part because of the soil from which it emerged. This soil was a culture where religion was looking for a way to express itself in public without overstepping what was (to most Turks) an increasingly successful process of modernization. But that is true for many places in our world today. People are hungry for a world view that does not ask them to deny their spiritual heritage, that allows them to express their faith in public ways, but one that also does not ask them to deny their neighbor’s religious standpoint, but learn from their neighbor, nor to deny the science and technology that have lead to great gains for human life today. I predict that the Gülen movement will afford many people an answer to these yearnings; it provides a vision for a post-modern spirituality, one at home in an interdependent pluralistic world.

The Sociologist Peter Berger has written that there are “three options that all contemporary religious communities now face: to resist pluralism, to withdraw from it, or to engage with it. None is without difficulties and risks, but only engagement is compatible with liberal democracy. Engagement means that the tradition is carried into the open discourse of the culture and that those who represent the tradition make unapologetic truth claims” (Berger, 2005). The Gülen movement is a religious vision that is engaging our pluralistic world; the movement is not simply compatible with democracy, it is a force for democracy in our world. Furthermore, the Gülen movement proves that we can engage in diversity, that we can take our spiritual voice into the public square of liberal democracy, and make our truth claims while we yet listen to, acknowledge and evaluate the other parties’ truth claims. Indeed, the movement that bears Fethullah Gülen’s name is a way to spiritually pass over and come back, come back enriched and transformed. The Gülen movement is spiritual bridge for our time.

Dr. Mehl is a Professor of Philosophy & Religion at the University of Central Arkansas. 

References

• Berger, Peter. “Religious Pluralism for a Pluralistic Age” http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/berger1/English (accessed February 21, 2012)
• Dunne, John S. 1972. The Way of All the Earth: Experiments in Truth and Religion, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Ebaugh, Helen Rose. 2010. The Gülen Movement: A Sociological Analysis of a Civic Movement Rooted in Moderate Islam, New York: Springer.
• Gülen, M. Fethullah. 2006. Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance, Somerset, NJ: The Light, Inc.