About seven years before that, in May 2009, I received an award at the International Turkish Olympiad. The festival was essentially a cultural event consisting of Turkish songs, dances, and poetry recitals performed by students from Turkish schools around the world. It took place in a modern convention hall in Ankara with thousands of spectators in attendance. The event was sponsored and organized by members of the Hizmet movement, a Muslim community inspired by the preaching and writings of Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen. When I, together with a handful of other recipients, mounted the stage to accept our awards, there to shake our hands was the smiling Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The incident underlines how less than a decade earlier relations between Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (known by its acronym, the AKP) and the Hizmet movement guided by Gülen’s teaching were characterized by cooperation and respect. Foreign observers in Ankara even referred to Hizmet as “the religious wing of the AKP.” Although inaccurate even in those days, such a characterization reflected a commonly held view among Turks and others that there was some kind of ideological link between the AKP and the followers of Gülen.

There is no doubt that the Gülen supporters had great influence in Turkey. They ran the best high schools and college prep institutions, and students from those schools, year after year, obtained the top scores in the standardized college entrance exams. Hizmet members published Zaman, the most widely circulated and highly regarded newspaper in Turkey, referred to by Erdoğan himself as “the guardian of democracy in Turkey.” Hizmet members published scores of professional journals and popular magazines. They established associations of medical professionals, teachers, and business leaders. They set up hospitals and clinics, and in Turkey’s highly polarized society they conducted national “dialogues” that brought together Turkish thinkers and leaders: Right and Left, Sunni and Alevi, Turk and Kurd, and Muslim, Jewish, and Christian.

However, storm clouds were gathering. Perceptive observers could see trouble ahead. In a prophetic column in the left-center Hurriyet newspaper on October 5, 2010, the late political commentator Mehmet Ali Birand noted:

“I don’t know whether they are aware of it, but a danger that needs to be taken very seriously awaits the Gülen movement. In the eyes of Turkish society, which believes conspiracy theories, the Gülen movement is mythicized beyond its real dimensions. The power and influence of the Gülen movement is being so exaggerated that if no precautions are taken, this imagined power will one day destroy it… If the current trend does not change, future politicians will go after this movement with a view to annihilating it.”

Birand, who claimed to be neither a member of Hizmet nor opposed to it, believed that, “The power attributed to the Gülen movement is enormously exaggerated. It does not reflect the truth but the winds of exaggeration…”

The first overt sign of tension between Gülen, who lives in retirement in the United States, and Erdoğan can be dated to the pro-democracy Gezi Park protests of June, 2013, when Gülen criticized the Turkish government’s heavy-handed suppression of the protests. The real break came later that year when investigators reportedly associated with Hizmet pursued charges of corruption leveled against the sons of various ministers of the Turkish government, implicating Erdoğan’s own son. Since then, Erdoğan (President of the Republic since 2014) has sought to destroy Hizmet and break its influence on Turkish society. After last summer’s failed coup, Erdoğan has accused Gülen of masterminding the coup and his followers of carrying it out. The government has undertaken a “McCarthyite” witch-hunt, resulting in the dismissal and arrest of university presidents, police chiefs, military officers, and newspaper editors, and the imprisonment of an estimated 60,000 Turkish citizens.

Erdoğan’s anti-Hizmet campaign has even affected U.S.-Turkish relations. The Turkish government has demanded Gülen’s extradition to Turkey, while Secretary of State under President Obama, John Kerry, noted that the United States does not extradite residents on the basis of unsubstantiated requests, even those made by Heads of State. He noted that the process of extradition must begin with the presentation of hard evidence of wrongdoing and that no evidence of the involvement of Gülen or Hizmet associates in the failed coup attempt has been forthcoming.

Unsatisfied with the Obama administration’s refusal to bow under pressure, the Turkish government looked to the future: they discussed, with retired US Army General Michael Flynn, ways that judicial processes might be bypassed in order that Mr. Gülen might be “removed” from the United States and sent to Turkey. The fact that such actions could violate U.S. laws does not seem to have been a deterrent either to Flynn or to the Turkish authorities concerned. Flynn was at the time an advisor to presidential candidate Donald Trump, and he later briefly served as National Security Advisor to President Trump before being fired for lying about his relations with Russian officials. It is evident that the Turkish government was willing to engage in underhanded and apparently illegal activities to get Gülen extradited from the United States.

Guilty or not guilty?

For those who know Mr. Gülen personally or have had contact with the open-hearted and idealistic members of the Hizmet movement, claims of subversive “terrorism,” (in Erdoğan’s words) seem incongruous. I have known Mr. Gülen for over 20 years and find the retired, soft-spoken Qur’an-teacher to be preaching and living a particularly attractive interpretation of Islamic faith. His bedrock concept is that of ikhlas, which means doing everything, no matter how modest or unassuming, wholly for God’s pleasure. This spiritual principle, which is hardly original or unique to Islam, has motivated Gülen’s followers to commit themselves to administering and teaching in schools in places as diverse as Phnom Penh, Brussels, Accra, and inner-city Milwaukee and Cleveland. They are digging wells in Somalia and Mali, running clinics in Kenya, and establishing interreligious dialogue programs in more than 200 locations in the United States.

Many Americans have come to know the Hizmet movement personally through the well-organized cultural trips to Turkey sponsored by these local dialogue associations. For many non-Muslims, the trips are their first direct encounter with an Islamic community devoted to peacebuilding and being a living expression of God’s compassion and mercy.

I greatly admire these Hizmet members, of whom I know hundreds, and many of whom I count among my personal friends. I have been to their annual retreats, where they encourage one another to live up to their lofty Islamic ideals. I have heard the testimony of Catholic leaders in Turkey and Turkish Jews that the Gülen followers are their partners and allies in striving to build a truly inclusive Turkish society. I have talked to Christian students from Mozambique and the Philippines, graduates of Hizmet schools, who are grateful for the excellent educational foundation they received. Could all this good work simply be public posturing, a façade to hide a conspiracy aimed at achieving domination and power? I suppose that it’s possible, but it seems pretty far-fetched and unlikely.

One might say that an outside observer’s positive opinion of the Hizmet movement begs the question of whether members of the movement, with Fethullah Gülen as mastermind, were in fact behind the July 2016 coup. Despite all his bluster, threats, and posturing, Erdoğan has not been able to produce any credible evidence linking the coup attempt to a Hizmet plot. The most he has been able to offer are a few statements by implicated generals, obtained under duress, which could be interpreted as suggesting a tenuous link with Gülen. For his part, Mr. Gülen has categorically denied any involvement in the coup, which he condemned, and called for an international impartial investigation into the coup and its background, a suggestion which Mr. Erdoğan has summarily rejected.   One must ask which of the two would like to see the truth come out, and which is trying to keep the facts from coming to light.        

I originally published a version of this article in Commonweal magazine in November 2016. Since then, Mr. Erdoğan has continued to make unsubstantiated claims about Hizmet involvement in the coup. He is not talking about the possible sympathy of one or another military officer toward Fethullah Gülen, but a centralized, organized effort conceived and directed by Gülen and carried out through the institutions and networking of Hizmet members. This scenario has been investigated with the professional expertise of the intelligence services of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and NATO, who have clearly expressed their views of who they believe to have been behind the coup. None of them has been convinced by Erdoğan’s noisy but empty accusations.

I am not alone in asking Mr. Erdoğan, “Please produce evidence, if you have any, for your claims. Otherwise, why should anyone take your word for what appears to be a slander of this conscientious religious leader and a community that is doing much good in the world? Could your anti-Hizmet campaign be an act of revenge for the whistle-blowing against your family members, or a distraction aimed at preventing a continuing investigation of the corruption charges?”

The following day journalists, writers, columnists, newscasters, academics, members of think-tanks, and politicians announced that this day had been a milestone. The term “milestone” marks the beginning of new things; what was about to begin now? As time passed we understood what they meant. Nothing in America was the same as before. On September 10, 2001 it had been the land of liberty; on September 12 the situation totally changed. Due to the religious identity of the members of Al Qaeda, who were declared to be the perpetrators, the USA, indeed almost the entire world, had become uninhabitable for anyone with the same religious identity. Liberty had been replaced by constraints and accusations. Not only the USA, but indeed the entire world had shrunk for Muslim people.

It is possible to understand the anger of Americans who lost their loved ones in this tragic incident, one in which almost 3,000 people died. It is also possible to understand people insulting Muslim women wearing headscarves and Muslim men in their beards and turbans. Attacks on mosques during this time could even be considered tolerable. However, what is difficult to understand is the long-lasting discrimination against Muslims and the perception of each and every Muslim as a potential terrorist. For the USA, a country with multicultural politics it cannot be reasonable to formalize changing attitudes with legislation. Something was happening to this country, one which had been advocating peace not war, one that had been known as the land of freedom and diversity. However, all this has happened because America was undergoing a period in which wisdom had been abandoned, something noted by many people.

I want to tell you about two of my memories. One of them occurred in 1999. I and several friends were going to the southern region of New Jersey. When we landed at JFK, we had another 2 hours to drive to our destination, if the traffic was light. Because it was time to pray and we would not be able to get to our destination before the time to pray, we decided to pray on the way. We performed ablution in a rest area. We laid our prayer rugs on the ground and we prayed in public, on the grass. We did not notice anyone glaring at us. We did not encounter any quizzical expressions nor were we treated in any disparaging manner. People in the USA would ask Muslims to mention them in their prayers when they came into contact with God. They also used to show us places to pray. But today? Although some claim that attitudes have not changed, Muslims cannot pray without worrying about somebody calling 911. This is not just an empty claim or remote possibility. There have been many examples of this kind of situation.

Another memory is from the USA of 2002. I was at an airport, getting ready to fly to another state. Although I passed through a number of security checkpoints along with other passengers, the security officer pulled me over. This had happened many times after 9/11, but this time I could not resist asking, “Why?” I had become exasperated with such acts of discrimination. I was fed up with being treated like a terrorist and a man to pity under scornful eyes. Angrily I asked “Why me?” I suppose he had undergone training in psychology. He held my arm, smiling, which made me feel comfortable. He showed me my boarding pass and the 3 S on it. He explained that it means extra security check. He said that the computers put these letters there because I have a Muslim name. He also told me that I should not take it personally because the computer program adds this to all names entered into the system. I realized that my name, which I have always been proud of, was now a reason for discrimination. I am sure that this was only because of 9/11 and Al Qaeda.

Are such precautions appropriate? Many authorities, in particular, politicians at that time agreed they were necessary. There were some people who did not agree, but their number was less and they could not speak up. 10 years after this horrific incident many people now say that all such actions were inappropriate.

The past stays in the past. It is ridiculous to try to carry yesterday’s issues to today. However should we not learn from the past? I Religion, language, ethnicity, creed, and profession are our secondary identities, coming after being human. These were differences that gave us a sense of belonging. In the same way that capital has no religion, terrorism cannot have any religion. If there is a list of words that cannot go together, “religion and terrorism” takes first place. We can neither relate to religion nor explain by religion what the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh or the Norwegian terrorist Behring Breivik did. In the same way that we cannot relate what they did to their religious identity as Christian terrorism, we cannot do the same with the events on 9/11 as Islamic terrorism. However, sadly this has not been the case.

All rational Muslims have exclaimed that it is in no way justified to identify Islam and Muslims with terrorism. Many authorities, scholars, politicians, academics, and opinion leaders have also said that this was a grave mistake. Even though a terrorist may have a Muslim identity, you cannot generalize and scrutinize such behavior from an Islamic perspective. On that day the newspapers published full-page condolence messages. Muslim scholars and academics also penned letters that condemned terrorism. This period, as it was one in which wisdom did not exist, prevented people from seeing all this, perhaps because it was Islam being accused and they didn’t really care about it, or because they did not want to change their foreign policy which they based on these attacks, or because they were prejudiced, or because they wanted to ease public opinion. What did happen was that common sense was ignored and people behaved as they wanted to.

Thank God, this lack of wisdom did not last long. As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the mood has changed. Not all Muslims are considered to be potential terrorists anymore. People who have Muslim names do not get extra security checks at airports. The terrible slaughter in Norway has made the authorities start to reconsider their policies. Religious and cultural diversity projects and models for living together with peace are being reviewed. Projects that cover all areas of life, such as world brotherhood, coexistence while preserving differences, making the world a place for togetherness, preventing the otherization of other people have all started to take place despite the existence of some people who still see “others” as the enemy. We sincerely hope that those who are for peaceful coexistence will dominate over the second and the world will never experience a new 9/11, Oklahoma, Madrid, London, or Oslo attacks again.

The Need for Balance

Human beings are social creatures with a complicated network of relations. No one can be completely independent of this network, for each person’s survival depends upon it. Given this, a constant search for balance between these relations is necessary to avoid conflict. Classical Greek philosophers considered humanity a zo-on politikon-a political mammal, thus emphasizing the fact that every person is, in some way, a political actor.

For believers and Muslims, belief is an essential component of human existence. Even some agnostic humanists accept the possibility of a spiritual life and recognize its ethical merits. Given this, political and spiritual activities cannot be separated from human life or from each other. In other words, they have a holistic link. This concept also is found in a more specific Christian perspective and in the Islamic tradition. Among its European exponents have been Dag Hammarskjold, Thomas Masaryk, and Vaclav Havel.¹ Ms. Salima Ghezali and Prof. Abu Zaid are fine examples of active Muslim as meta-politicians.²

Before delving into this subject further, it is necessary to make the following points clear. First, a distinction must be made between policy and politics, between power plays and party strategy on the one hand and policy as a long-time approach to social problems on the other. As policy conforms better with the classical Greek concept of politeia (the government of the city/society or polis), I shall concentrate upon it.

Second, I use Islam not in the political context of Arabism, political rituals, or self-proclaimed Islamic states, but in its literal meaning of monotheism and belief in Divine Unicity and a coherent creation as explained in the Qur’an. In this spiritual context, every man and woman who reaches a certain age and is mentally competent is entirely and directly responsible for each of his or her acts.

Islam, in the context of this reality, means accepting this responsibility and using one’s God-given intellect and dignity to keep on the “just path” (the Shari‘a). There is no room for any human-made religious hierarchy (e.g., imam, ayatolla, caliph, amir³), or for fatalism or passivity, for personal responsibility means that one has to choose instead of be led by others.

Spirituality and Society

The well-known phrase al-Islam din wa dunya (Islam is spirituality and society) can serve as a starting point in the search for harmony between Muslim identity and political action. Din refers to Islam as a whole. Its most important points are Islam’s pillars, belief, duties, external principles (the Shari‘a), inner experience (Sufism), and striving against the ego (jihad). All of this, taken together, forms Islam-in-society. In this authentic Islam, no religious or secular hierarchy serves as an intermediary between believers and God. This fact, unfortunately, is often overlooked or ignored. Various people and groups have linked it to state structure, national community, political nationalism, tribal society, and even political party. All such attempts are abuses of Islam.

Dunya refers to human society as a whole. It is not a mono-religious community, but rather a society in which several religious and philosophical communities use their status as citizens to contribute to the well-being of all. An example of such a concept is found in European humanist organizations, whose members can be atheists, agnostics, or spiritual-without-specification.

There is no reason for Muslims to be prejudiced against such groups, for their adherents are neither anti-Islamic nor partisans of ignorance. Not being religious does not mean being against religion. These groups work for human dignity and responsibility just as Muslims do, although they approach it from a different perspective. Dunya is holistic, and its aspects (e.g., psychology, politics, art, science, sexuality, and history) interact intensively. Abuses have been just as numerous as corrections throughout the Muslim world’s 1,400-plus years of existence. Authentic Islam has not always been triumphant in the past, but it still carries the promise of a splendid future. It is in the hands of inspired, contemporary Muslims to decide.

Church and State

Europe remains suspicious about any attempt to unify religion and politics. This is quite understandable when one considers the traumatic history that such attempts caused in Europe. The first one involved the Muslim world directly: the Crusades.⁴ The “liberation of the Holy Land,” according to Roman Catholic scholars, was a nightmare for the Greek and Eastern Christian communities. Given the facts that the independent Crusader kingdoms fought each other and that Muslims lived in Jerusalem for 4 centuries before the Crusades, the official history of the Crusades turns out to be false. All of the involved communities were traumatized and left with feelings of mutual suspicion and hostility. Whatever good relations remained between Muslims and Christians were confined to mercantile elites, for the general populations remained hostile to each other.

Four centuries later, starting with Luther’s declaration in 1517 against the Catholic Church, Europe became a battlefield for Catholic and Protestant armies.⁵ The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, which raged during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and was a period of incredible cruelty and massacre, lasted until the end of the Thirty Years War (1648). Millions of people were killed by warfare, famine, and disease-and yet nobody “won.” Out of this violence came the emergency measure to separate church and state. Gradually modified, this concept would become known as laicity during the French Revolution (1789-99).

Before laicity took hold, however, the concept of individual freedom of religion was negated by allocating different Christian denominations to different states. At that moment, the Ottoman State applied a more advanced form of multi-religious coexistence in a single state. The church hierarchy weakened throughout the nineteenth century, while the European states become more democratic. There was another chance to harmonize the link between religion and policy, this time in a democratic way.

The twentieth century witnessed the worst crimes against humanity in recorded history. These were carried out by systems and states that rejected all previously influential religious concepts. And so the perception of religion changed again, this time in a positive way. In this new trauma, people complained about the absence of religion as a moderating and peacemaking force. (O God, why were You absent in Auschwitz?) After WWII, laic states could keep their structure and renew their content. Nearly all European nations have adopted some form of laicity. But this does not mean that they are anti-religious or anti-Islam. If laicity and democracy are not yet perfect, they only need to be improved. There is no reason to criticize laicity as such. These governments are the expressions of their own imperfect democracy.

This process is determined by economic as well as cultural factors. Religious communities can contribute to the perfection of democracy if their own intra-religious dynamic is not usurped by any clerical power group. Only such a status will allow them to have democratic ties with other religious and philosophical groups and with society as a whole.

Muslim Communities in Europe

European Muslims live as dispersed minority communities in many European countries, be they constitutional monarchies, republics, or otherwise. Ballot systems differ, as does the size of the Parliament, terms of elections, and so on. Essentially, there is consultancy between the state and the population, as well as between the citizens themselves.

This concept of mutual consultancy (shura) is found in the Qur’an: The believers conduct their affairs in mutual consent (42:39). The Qur’an recommends a method for policy, not a political organization. The Prophet was not told to establish a state or name a successor. From the Traditions, we learn that he knew that his function was only to guide and protect his community. The title of caliph, based upon Qur’an 33:72, applies to all people as spiritual representatives and followers of God. It has no political function in authentic Islam, and this and all other titles are no more than human inventions.

Within the context of European society, shura can-and should-take the form of democratic commitment. European citizens and the Muslim community can reinforce each other during these years of broad general disgust with local and even national political institutions. As such people consider democracy corrupt, inefficient, or obsolete, Muslims can oppose this defection from democracy by pointing out that such a development might acutally make the situation even worse.

According to the Qur’an, Prophethood contains identical elements regardless of the Prophet. So, what was significant for Prophet Muhammad was significant for all other Prophets. Consider the case of Moses who, according to both the Bible and the Qur’an, was sent to guide and inspire his enslaved people. He went to Pharaoh and, accepting the risk of royal anger, called for moderation and justice. Indeed, Pharaoh rejected his demand and became even more cruel. After Divine intervention, Moses led his people on their long and dangerous journey toward the land where, according to God’s Promise, they would find freedom and justice.

The Jewish identity was formed during this journey. Moses did not offer a well-defined territory or become the head of a state. In fact, his authority was even challenged at times. The dynamism of Prophetic action was the main element in this journey, as it was in Prophet Muhammad’s emigration to Madina to establish the Muslim community in a welcoming atmosphere.

From a moral point of view, Vaclav Havel might be one of Europe’s most significant contemporary politicians.6 He represents a religious view in a discrete way, without stating membership in a particular religious community and certainly not claiming leadership. He is democratic in his methods, and considers religion only as a motivation to act. However, it really counts. He resembles his predecessor Masaryk, who was a philosopher and a litterateur before assuming political responsibilities. Although underestimated as a politician when compared with Churchill or de Gaulle, his life has been just as adventurous as theirs despite the much smaller size of his country.

European Muslim intellectuals and would-be politicians would be well advised to study the lives and decisions of Masaryk and Havel, for both escaped from the narrow-minded nationalism that has trapped so many Muslim Arab politicians. To them, nationalism meant preserving the local cultural heritage in order to strengthen the popular identity in face of oppression. This is a valuable gift to humanity, rather than a treasure to be guarded jealously. Havel began his political activity by writing a letter to President Gustav Husak to protest the injustice of the Soviet military occupation of Czechoslovakia. Husak, just like Pharaoh, rejected it. And so we ask: Is there a parallel between the actions of Moses and Havel? How significant is the fact that these two men, one a Prophet and the other a politician-philosopher, had no desire for power? Such questions might inspire Christians and Muslims. Also, didn’t Muslims consider the downfall of communism, to which Havel contributed greatly, a symbolic and even religious fact?

Conclusion

As European Muslims face problems that are usually identical to those of the entire population, isolation is a completely inappropriate solution. Maintaining cultural and linguistic heritages should be done by cultural, as opposed to political, associations. The current trend of Muslim involvement in several political tendencies without forming a Muslim political party needs to be reinforced. The emergence of a self-proclaimed Muslim party is not desirable, for its impact would be negative-other such parties would be formed by those who, for whatever reason, would view that party as not “Muslim” enough. This would engender isolation, quarrels, and maybe even violence. A far better solution would be to increase communication between existing parties and between politicians and citizens. Such an approach is Qur’anic in nature.

Whenever democracy is threatened by a politician or political ideology that pays no respect to internal democracy or promotes discrimination or racism, the best antidote is a good civic policy. Such a negative scenario is now developing in Belgium. Our local Muslim politicians should be the first ones to insist that a policy of justice and honesty be carried out by all democratic parties. This is far more efficient than legal action, ballot reforms or thresholds, alarmist attitudes, or pretending that the problem is not so bad. This does not exclude the possibility of lawsuits against politicians who try to win votes by racist appeals. In addition, exit polls on election day should be forbidden so that false information cannot lead to questionable results

Footnotes

1. Dag Hammarskjold (1905-61): Swedish economist, statesman, and secretary-general of the UN (1953-61) He is generally thought to have combined great moral force with subtlety in meeting international challenges; Tomaš Masaryk (1850-1937): Chief founder and first president (1918-35) of Czechoslovakia; Vaclav Havel (1936- ): Prominent Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident, who, after the fall of communism, was president of Czechoslovakia (1989-92) and president of the Czech Republic (1993- ).
2. Ms. Salima Ghezali: Algerian publisher of Al-Watan (The Nation) newspaper, courageous critic of both the Algerian military governnment and the anti-government armed Islamist groups, and recipient of the Sakharov Prize; Prof. Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: Qur’anic scholar from Cairo whose interpretation of the Qur’an caused him to be prosecuted by Egyptian Islamists. Labelling him an apostate, they divorced him from his wife, Ibtihal Younes. The couple now lives in The Netherlands.
3. Imam: One who leads Muslims in prayer. Ayatolla: Sign of God, a religious title given to only the most exemplary Shi‘a theologians and religious scholars. Caliph: Successor (to the Prophet). As the Prophet’s spiritual/religious mantle is unique and therefore cannot be inherited, this title has come to mean a ruler. Amir: Leader, mainly in the political and moral sense.
4. The Crusades: A series of wars undertaken by European Christians between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims.
5. Martin Luther (1483-1546): German priest and scholar whose questioning of certain Catholic practices led to the Protestant Reformation. He is a pivotal figure in both Western civilization and Christianity.

Bibliography

• Tariq Ramadan: To Be a European Muslim. The Islamic Foundation: 1999.
• John Esposito. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 3d. ed. Oxford Univ. Press: 1999.
• Fatima Mernissi. Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry. South Asia Books: 1998.
• Tomaš G. Masaryk: The Ideals of Humanity and How To Work. Ayer: 1970.