Beginning in July of 2019, the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has been up in flames, burning up the lush foliage and engulfing much of the wildlife, along with many Indigenous groups, in its fiery wake. Yet, it’s receiving little to no media coverage due to the global community’s seemingly unconcerned liability to take action. Greenpeace, the international environmental organization, is holding Brazil’s current government under President Jair Bolsonaro responsible as the primary cause of the fires due to negligence. They claim that mass deforestation has been taking place at an increasingly alarming rate, especially following Bolsonaro’s election, and farming and ranching that have also been taking place in surrounding areas have been contributing to the rise in destruction as well (Greenpeace 2019) [1]. These problems have not been addressed in a timely manner.

Various ideologies, such as Dualism, have been heavily promoted within the past few centuries have also shifted humanity’s conscious to one that is less ecologically friendly and more materially greedy. Without help from the international community and the government of Brazil, the Amazon will continue to be subjected to destruction [1].

The Amazon is a massive area, covering roughly 2,300,000 square miles of South American land. It is one of the most important and critical components of the Earth’s delicate ecological balance and to date 2,240,000 acres have been burned due to the 2019 wildfires (in addition to the great amount of damage that has already been done). It is responsible for atmospheric oxygen composition and cleanliness, maintaining the atmosphere’s water cycle, and for the preservation of many rare animal and plant species. Much of the vegetation in the Amazon also includes important medicinal plant species that can be used to cure a multitude of illnesses and diseases [7].

Deforestation, which has plagued the Brazilian Amazon for decades now, is utilized for the establishment of farms and ranches, which has tripled the number of cattle present in this area and surrounding regions (Dwyer 2019) [2]. Farming and ranching have caused more pollution and the poisoning of, not only the lands in these areas, but the entire well-being of our Earth and atmosphere as a whole. Production of methane from cattle and other pollutants are consequential of farming and ranching, and contribute greatly to fire susceptibility of the Amazon. The fires have spiked in these areas where deforestation and pollution are at their peaks (Dwyer 2019) [2]. When it comes down to it, the Brazilian government, in general, expresses lesser concern, even though they make it apparent that they “may look into measures to combat these fires” (Greenpeace 2019) [1], it seems politics is snaking its way into crisis affairs and impeding them once again instead of acting upon them with optimism. [2]

In the past, Brazil was much more involved in helping to prevent deforestation in both public and private lands of the forests. In 2006, the government passed the Public Forest Management law. This law established concessions and funding for forest conservation and regulations involving deforestation in public areas of the forest. Other organizations and institutions that were established following this law being passed included CONAFLOR (a civil society forestry board), IMAZON (an NGO that monitors deforestation), FUNBIO (an environmental fund that budgets financing towards protected lands and biodiversity), INPE (a Brazilian space observation company that also monitors deforestation), and lastly IPAM, a governmental research institution that focuses on deforestation, climate change, and natural resources in respect to the Brazilian environment (Yale 2019) [10]. Indigenous individuals and tribes within the Amazon, along with private property owners, have also gone to great lengths to prevent deforestation and have made the most difference and impact in doing so (Yale 2019) [10]. It was ultimately a grassroots movement of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and not a specific government agency, that was able to make the most progress to preserve much of the Amazon’s beauty and help stave off deforestation [5].

Despite the efforts that have been exerted into the establishment of laws, policies, and government organizations in order to protect the Amazon, protection of the Amazon has been much neglected for now and for future generations. Other countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, also believe that Brazil is not doing enough. But, President Bolsonaro seems to have many political reasons to continue to resist international help to halt the fires and stop deforestation. His outspokenness of his pro-deforestation views has ignited a wave of eager ranchers and farmers to continue, and even escalate, their destruction of the Amazon (Specht, 2019) [9].

Religion and environment

As for religious and spiritual views of the environment, some people have manipulated various religious teachings to promote negative ideologies and views of the environment rather than positive ones. These ideologies argue that all animal and natural life was created to serve mankind, and that humanity has no responsibility to take care of our planet or maintain a balance of life in the natural world. The Indigenous people of the Amazon, such as the Xingu tribe, view these perspectives as “predatory” and are in fear that everything they know and love will be taken away from them due to the utter destruction, negligence and lack of aide provided by the government. Many leaders of these tribes call these events the “destruction of Mother Earth” and the fires that have been set ablaze are Mother Nature’s calls for help (Johnson 2019) [5]. To provide more of a visual, there are roughly 817,000 individuals in Brazil who self-report themselves as indigenous, and there are 67 known tribes within Brazil that do not have contact with the outside world as of now. The Amazon serves as these tribes’ livelihood. Many individuals who are a part of these tribes were born in the rainforest, grew up in the rainforest, hunt in these forests, and make their living in these forests; Amazon is all they know and love [5].

In an article titled “Dualisms – Environmental Humanities”, Dualism is outlined as one entity being viewed as “genuine and superior” while all other life is categorized as “other”. This concept has had major impacts on the way we as humans view the products of our environment. Dualism fuels the idea that the environment, and all non-human living beings within it, are put on this Earth specifically to serve us as humans and us alone. This ideology allows people to infer that there is a distinct separation between humans and every other living being on the planet, and that these distinctions make it possible for humans to justify destructive actions towards the environment. In addition to these ideas, the concept of “ecological consciousness” is found to play an important role in the relationship between religion and in being mindful of our consumption of our environmental resources, as we continue to consume them faster than they can regenerate themselves (Andrew 2019) [3].

Christianity and Islam are two religions that promote ecological consciousness and believe that the Earth’s resources should be treasured and treated with respect. This places a strong emphasis on environmental protection and environmental rights, which thus encourages followers and believers of the religion to do the same. Religion provides us with morals and values that can be adopted when it comes to our views of all other living things whom also share this Earth with us; not only our views of these beings, but how we treat these beings as well. Finally, Christianity and Islam argue that “being a servant of God” also encompasses the idea that Man must protect what God has entrusted him with, the environment included (Pahl 2018). Specifically in regards to Islamic views, Tawhid, meaning the “oneness of God”, is a critical component that Islam bases itself upon. The religion of Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is a monotheistic religion, meaning that these religions base their values and morals on the belief that there is only one God. All existence, including the human beings, are His creation, and in that sense they are part of the one same whole and exist interdependently [4][9].

Despite the disregard of public outcries, there are ways that everyday individuals, such as ourselves, may combat this issue head on and on our own without aide from government agencies. Our first mission should be to make this issue as public as possible. Share as much reliable news coverage as you possibly can and spread the word as far as it will go. If you are able, donate to wildlife conservation and forestation projects held locally or online. Spread knowledge and education. Call attention to higher powers. Other ways in which the everyday community can make a difference include supporting Indigenous groups and tribes residing in the Amazon; begin developing an allyship by using less paper and wood products, by consuming more ethically sourced foods, by voting, and by challenging large corporations who are impeding on the health improvement of the Amazon [8].

Let’s take action! The Amazon, its people, and its wildlife need the world’s cooperation, or they do not stand a chance against the ravenous gluttony that is deforestation. We can save the lungs of our Earth together.

References

1. Amazon Rainforest. (n.d.). Retrieved August 22, 2019, from https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/forests/amazon-rainforest/
2. Dwyer, C. (2019, August 21). Tens of Thousands of Fires Ravage Brazilian Amazon, Where Deforestation Has Spiked. Retrieved August 22, 2019, from https://www.npr.org/2019/08/21/753140642/tens-of-thousands-of-fires-ravage-brazilian-amazon-where-deforestation-has-spikeA.
3. UNSW Australia 2016. “Dualisms – Environmental Humanities.” FutureLearn, www.futurelearn.com/courses/remaking-nature/0/steps/57394.
4. Pahl, Justin. 2019. “Nature and Environment in Contemporary Religious Contexts.” The Fountain. Retrieved August 29, 2019 (https://fountainmagazine.com/2018/issue-126-november-december-2018/nature-and-environment-in-contemporary-religious-contexts).
5. Johnson, Jake. 2019. “Indigenous Tribes on Front Line of Amazon Rainforest Fires Vow To Resist Bolsonaro’s ‘Destruction of Mother Nature.’” Common Dreams. Retrieved (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/27/indigenous-tribes-front-line-amazon-rainforest-fires-vow-resist-bolsonaros).
6. Saving the Rainforests. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2019, from http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/www/preserve.html.
7. Kessler, Robert. 2019. “The Amazon Is Burning.” EcoHealth Alliance. Retrieved October 18, 2019 (https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2019/08/the-amazon-is-burning?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI59uAtoKm5QIVCNRkCh0_eAvsEAAYASAAEgI_q_D_BwE).
8. Specht, Doug. n.d. “Amazon Fires: 8 Ways You Can Help Stop the Rainforest Burning.” Public Radio International. Retrieved October 18, 2019 (https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-29/amazon-fires-8-ways-you-can-help-stop-rainforest-burning)
9. “Quick Links.” IslamiCity. Retrieved October 18, 2019 (https://www.islamicity.org/topics/tawhid-oneness-of-god/).
10. Yale University. (n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2019, from https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/forest-governance/brazil.

Respect for life is more than a religious value; it is a constituent dimension of faith found in every major religion of the world. One cannot have faith in a creator God (or an all-embracing transcendent reality) and cavalierly exclude any part of creation—the whole natural and cosmic world are worthy of respect. To affirm the inviolability of the person is to affirm the sacredness, the mystery of the cosmos. Creation is inseparable from the dignity of the cause of its being. While the story of Creation in the Hebrew Scripture has been interpreted in many Christian circles as permission for humans to exploit creation, Genesis’ first chapter express a relationship of respect and responsibility for all that God has brought about. And Muslims affirm: “Indeed, God is the cleaver of grain and date seeds. He brings the living out of the dead and brings the dead out of the living” (Qur’an 6:95).

Respect for life, especially among certain radical Christian groups, is viewed by a broader public as an almost exclusive preoccupation with abortion and medically assisted death. The Christian maxim, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5: 44), is often ignored by both the advocates of capital punishment in North America and the perfunctory trials and death sentences currently being meted out in Iraq. It is not difficult to understand how the obscene presence of evil in the world alienates religious people from the demands of “true goodness, true responsibility, true justice, a true sense of things—all [of which] grow from roots that go much deeper than the world of our transitory earthly schemes. This is the message that speaks to the very heart of human religiosity” (Vaclav Havel).

Human religiosity must have its concrete embodiment in the everyday lives of people. Religious truths ring hollow and defy belief, when they remain concepts outside the day to day hopes and fears, joys and anxieties of experience. The true believer is not one who assents to a series of propositions, no more than one can be labelled an infidel, because a religious teaching seems irrational. In fact, the divine—Yahweh, Allah, or the Father—is imminently beyond comprehension and the communication of the divine reality is always conditioned by the lives of those who embrace one or the other religious traditions.

The United States, Israel, Islamic nations, and lately even Russia are laying claim to their religious roots. But their vision of religion and faith seems more polytheist and politicized. They all acknowledge “one” God, yet fail to recognize that God in the putative enemies. What does a message of peace—Shalom, Islam, and the beatitudes—sound like when so much violence and disrespect for life are evident in daily confrontations? Rationalizations relying on national interest or national security appeal to general bias and reduce rich religious realities to icons of more primitive human insecurity and mistrust. The will to violence, in fact, reveals the religious bankruptcy of many of these powers.

As a practicing Christian I am conscious of the disconnect between the clarity of the Gospel teachings and the political and cultural agendas of many of my co-believers who often take their religious “truths” out of context, then use these truths as ideologies, without exploring the impact of their choices on the core message of Jesus. Often what it means to be Christian is reduced to the vehement insistence on single issues as the touchstones of orthodoxy. Abortion, the fate of the city of Jerusalem, or support for our troops (whoever we are, whatever their mission) have become in many quarters stand-alone issues, without regard for the context and consequences. Legitimate concern for the safety of their family members too often confuses faith with patriotism and blinds Christians to the destruction war brings to the lives of the “enemy” and the millions of civilians whose lives are daily being taken by death or by hopelessness.

Westerners can “reclaim” their Christian heritage and Jews demonstrate moral integrity by figuring out what Yahweh meant when he reminded them: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20). Muslims, Jews, and Christians can share a stronger hope for achieving peace and affirming human dignity, through reviewing their own religious commitments from the perspective of God the Creator, of Allah, the beneficent and merciful.

As a Catholic I find hope in the attitude and actions of Pope Francis. In a most public fashion the Pope has welcomed asylum seekers and reminded Europe of its obligation to receive them. He has promoted an environmental morality that ties the fate of human life and wellness with the fate of our natural environment. He continually stresses that there is no such thing as less worthy and more worthy human beings. But this willingness to hear the cry of desperation in the voices of asylum seekers and to seek social and ecological justice is not limited to religious groups—an indication of the universality of humankind that religious particularism too easily ignores.

At the same time, there are growing movements in Europe that refuse to welcome these quasi-stateless persons, who have lost their homeland. Often they express fear that the predominantly Muslim refugees threaten Europe’s Christian culture, without realizing that integral to that culture are the works of mercy, the care for the marginalized, the victims of decisions of the powerful and mighty of this world. Nations and businesses continue to disrupt the ecology. They are unable to resist the allure of the wealth, which they believe regulation will prevent them from achieving. Morality and faith are two sides of the same coin. Faith brings one into the dynamic movement of divine compassion and creativity. Morality is allowing God’s being to become compassion and creativity in our own lives. We do not hold God to a “higher standard,” as if there are situations in which humans have the right to unleash the violence and blood-shed of war, to irreparably violate the environment, or to destroy the soul of another. “Do not forget your share of the world. And do good as God has done for you. And desire not corruption in the land” (Qur’an 28:77). The Golden Rule may seem on the surface to be a formula for self-protection (if you don’t want to get hurt, avoid hurting others). Yet, in fact, it captures the interconnectivity of all creation. The gift of life underscores responsibility for life, for all life is interconnected. “…whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind” (Qur’an 5:32).

Religion in public life can, at its worst, lead to oppressive theocracy, social hypocrisy, and disregard for the dignity of persons and groups of people. It easily obscures the loving compassion of the God, whose will it claims to honor. Yet, religion—humbly lived and with a consciousness of its own failures—has a right and a duty to speak openly about the values that make human life together a pursuit of the common good, rather than the survival of the fittest. But if religion is to play a constructive role in the public sphere, it will be necessary to find areas where the adherents of different religions share common goals, values, and beliefs. Polarization within and between religions readily cedes its rightful place in the public sphere to divisive ideology and needlessly blocks working together for the common good. In fact, it becomes false religion by fostering a self-referential morality that narrows the universalism of the original creation and selectively ignore some of the most challenging, yet ennobling, teaching of the most sacred scriptures available to humankind. Religion is not about a vague “more than life,” as if life were something less than what humanity and nature really yearn for. Religion is about life itself and the duty of every believer is to protect and nurture life. That is true worship, for all life is the presence of God in our midst.

Airborne drones are becoming commonplace, especially in the civilian world. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are aircrafts controlled by a pilot from a remote location on the ground. Drones are increasingly being used, and not just for military purposes. They’re used for agriculture, disaster response, energy production, environmental monitoring, construction, and sports activities. Their use has expanded exponentially in recent years, spurred by technological advancements and easy access to affordable high-tech parts. Drones can fly from several minutes to several days, depending on the technology and the mission, and the cost of having a drone ranges from a few hundred dollars for hobbyists to millions of dollars for military purposes. But as happens with most major technological changes in a society, the increased role of drones is raising privacy and public safety concerns.

Although drones are unmanned vehicles and depend mostly on human intelligence, adaptive control systems and artificial intelligence technologies can allow drones to fly without human intervention. Drones are increasingly becoming autonomous, following a pre-programmed mission, and can even make their own decisions while gathering and sending data back to a ground unit.

Drones are becoming popular for military purposes. They are cheaper than a military aircraft, and flying them remotely means there is no danger for the flight crew. Small drones can get into places where humans cannot, and large drones can fly into war zones to gather surveillance or to take part in military strikes. On the plus side, this will reduce the number of active military personnel in war zones, and reduce casualties. Even the possibility of replacing human drone operators with computer algorithms is in discussion, leaving a machine to make the final decision about whether to end a civilian life or to destroy vital infrastructure (this decision is also called the ‘signature strike’). [1]. Such a possibility raises serious questions about the ethics of war, privacy, and public safety.

Law enforcement officers are already using drones to detect people illegally crossing their nation’s borders. It is already in use by cities in the US for monitoring criminals, for crime fighting, car chases, executing search-and-rescue missions, firefighting and basic surveillance. People are interested in using camera-equipped drones to patrol their homes during police raids, to collect their own evidence.

Another proposed use is in the protection and inspection of infrastructures, and monitoring power lines, dams, levees, and gas pipelines to reduce the cost and manpower for these dangerous, dull, and costly jobs. If they are intelligently deployed in civilian life, drones can be useful in keeping people out of harm’s way.

Drones can assist in search and rescue missions after tornadoes, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, especially in places not reachable by, or dangerous to, humans. They can locate survivors and report their location to the ground base [2]. Drones can fly through the dark, pick up heat signatures of bodies using infrared cameras, see through smoke using thermal cameras, record footage using night-vision, and pick up hard-to-hear sounds in dangerous locations. Since they are small, they can easily be transported and deployed in disaster areas, and be up in the air in minutes compared to the longer time requirements required for planes and other rescue vehicles.

An example of this is drones that are already in use monitoring abused wildlife in Kenya and rescuing injured skiers in France [3]. Drones are also extremely useful in monitoring wildfires with minimal cost and little risk of loss of life. NASA is already using drones for monitoring hurricanes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is monitoring wildlife in the Arctic, and the US Geological Survey (USGS) is mapping remote terrain and performing environmental research.

Drones are becoming an important part of agricultural production. They can help farmers to check if their fields need watering or fertilizing. In Japan, drones are used for precision agriculture, where drones fly over a field and use multispectral cameras to take pictures of the crop and analyze if it is over-watered or under-watered. This allows farmers to precisely determine the right amount water and pesticide to use, and this helps them decrease costs and increase the crop’s yield.

An interesting application of drones is in clean energy production. Some companies are already exploring the use of drones as autonomous wind turbines that would be flown like mechanical kites [4]. The goal is using drones equipped with wind turbines to fly to higher altitudes, where more consistent and powerful wind is available to be harnessed. These drones are lighter and cheaper than wind turbines, and can adjust themselves to the wind streams to maximize their energy harvesting.

Drones are also used by the construction industry. They provide a cost effective way to check the progress of a construction project, help managers inspect hard to reach locations, take architectural photographs, create 3D scans of a building using infrared cameras, survey more precisely, undertake comprehensive safety inspections, and even replace some of a project’s manual labor. Drones recently demonstrated their ability to assemble, brick by brick, a 1:100 scale model of a skyscraper. Researchers are investigating more potential applications of drone technology in construction sector [5].

The most common use of drones will likely be by hobbyists, who have access to cheap, light, camera-equipped machines that can be controlled by smartphones and tablets. Athletes and extreme sports hobbyists are using drones to capture their activities and tricks during snowboarding or skating outings. Climbers have drones follow them for safety and to record and report their progress to base camps. Drones are increasingly being used by amateur or professional photographers to capture footage. While hobbyists can buy drones ready to fly out of the box, many are going the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) route to create customized, specialized aircrafts. Drone hobbyist websites have more than millions of members, and are growing every day. People exchange their experiences, pictures, and schematics, thus enabling their fellow hobbyists to improve their own drones.

Autonomous drone technology is not limited to the skies. Seaborne drones are already deployed in the ocean to monitor coastlines and passageways for pirates [6]. They communicate with an airborne drone for intelligence and can be picked up by a ship or submarine after the mission is completed. They need to be equipped with capabilities to survive for a long time in cold and corrosive seawater, and to tackle the challenges of underwater communication.

The drone industry is growing fast, and is estimated to have created 70,000 jobs and made an economic impact of $13.6 billion in its first three years. With all the benefits this new technology is contributing to our lives, the domestic use of drones has grown; but so have concerns about their privacy, safety, and regulation. Many people are concerned about their potential for abuse. One of the suggestions for government use of drones is limiting their use to a few purposes determined by the law, and specifically for emergency and public safety. Hobbyists and recreational users do not need any special license to fly a drone, but they are encouraged to follow guidelines outlined for public safety. The guidelines mainly suggest operating drones at a sufficient distance from populated areas, and not over or near private properties or lower than 120 meters in altitude. One of the main concerns about the public use of drones is the ease of weaponizing them; they could conceivably be used to attack private targets.

In science fiction movies, intelligent systems and drones can become self-aware and cause serious problems. It is unlikely that drones will become self-aware anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any safety issues about drones. As seen with most secure computer systems, drone can be hacked by a malicious person or group. These groups can take control of the vehicle, access its video feeds, alter data and information sent to ground control units, and spoof GPS systems to manipulate the drone to land or attack a different target.

When technological breakthroughs are achieved in critical areas, as in drones, a series of solid scientific research needs to be conducted before populating the civilian market with the technological products. Governments and civil societies have an important role in regulating the usage of drone. Some of these steps include requiring a warrant for deployment, limiting the data retention time for images and video feeds, establishing an accountability mechanism, and prohibiting the weaponization of domestic drones.

Acknowledgment: This article was produced by Mergeous [7], an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realms of science and spiritual thought.

Halil I. Demir is an internet entrepreneur and freelance writer.

References

[1] T. Zakaria and M. Hosenball. “U.S. Drone Guidelines Could Reduce -Signature Strikes,” The Huffington Post, May 23, 2013.

[2] H. Kelly. “Drones: The future of disaster response,” CNN, May 23, 2013.

[3] A. Levy and M. Milian. “Future of Drones: Aerial Assassins or Helpful Hovercrafts?” Bloomberg, May 15, 2013.

[4] K. D. Atherton, “Google Bets $10.7 Million On Drone Intelligence,” Popular Science Magazine, May 16, 2013.

[5] R. Von Ins, “Rise of the Drones,” Georgia Institute of Technology, January 23, 2013.

[6] J. Emspak, “Schools of Sleeper Drones Could Swim Future Seas,” Discovery News, January 25, 2013.

[7] Mergeous, Online article and project development service, mergeous.com

“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.

It is also important to comprehend benefits brought by perpetuation of this institution, since the waqf system could successfully survive for centuries. Some preventive measures to ensure longevity were finding new sources of income, establishing new auxiliary endowments, deploying tax exemptions, protection of property from natural deterioration, and establishing a skillful management.3 Even when the governments suffered from crisis, these critical installments have served to lighten fiscal burden on the government and operated without an interruption in their service to community, as a result of being funded by endowments. For example, since the beginning of Islam, the madrasahs functioned depending on the income of the estates assigned, and hence the central government hardly spared any budget for education.5 More outstandingly, as an independent source of finance, waqf provided a class of religious notables and scholars with an economic base independent of political authorities, enabling them to take positions unreservedly.3

Agricultural revenues were channeled into urban services through awqaf which also played a role in activating economic growth, expansion, diversification, and development. For instance, housing units, service facilities and/or shops bequeathed onto a school, a hospital or a comprehensive mosque around which they were established; the core project progressively became a nucleus for a commercial center, even gradually growing into a town center. Added to all these kinds of direct participation, there are other indirect kinds of contributions of awqaf in the economic growth6 as they have helped reduce government expenditure and consequently paving the way for growth.7

“As an institutionalization of Islamic values, waqf system presents good lessons in dealing with poverty and income inequality.”8 Having taken the Prophetic saying “One who sleeps while his/her neighbor is hungry is not one of us” and many other hadith in the similar context as a reference point, Ottoman society presented exemplary behavior in interpersonal relationships.9 In addition to the strong family bonds, this compassionate approach is among one of the main factors that prevented homelessness, a major contemporary social problem in the West, to appear in Ottoman society. Without any personal interest, people founded thousands of institutions allocating some or all of their private properties such as farms, houses, enterprises, and savings as revenue sources to these institutions to ensure their continuity in the service of public.10

According to Islam, everything besides God is transitory and perishable.11 Stemming from the belief that any charitable action does not expire, awqaf have functioned as nongovernmental institutions throughout the Islamic world in various fields. In the 11th century, every Islamic city had at least several hospitals funded by awqaf for various expenses, including the wages of doctors, ophthalmologists, surgeons, chemists, pharmacists, domestics and all other staff; the purchase of foods and medicines; hospital equipment such as beds, mattresses, bowls and perfumes; and repairs to buildings. Awqaf funded medical schools and their libraries as well, and their revenues covered various expenses such as maintenance, wages of teachers, and stipends of students.12 In the Bayezid complex in Edirne, for instance, there were 21 doctors and other officers to look after only 50 patients who were cured through performances of 10 musicians, carried out three days a week.13

Estimates show existence of some 26 thousand awqaf in the Ottoman State.14 In 1527, 12% of the whole Ottoman state revenues were controlled by waqf administrations, while at the end of the eighteenth century the combined income of the Ottoman awqaf reached to one-third of the state’s total revenue, including the yield from tax farms in the Balkans, Turkey, and the Arab world. Although these estimates rest on arguable assumptions, there is no disagreement over the orders of magnitude. As a measure of their rights and status in the society, nearly 40% of awqaf were established by women by means of their own wealth.10 Founded in 1552 by the wife of Suleyman the Magnificent, Jerusalem’s Haseki Hurrem Sultan charitable complex possessed 26 entire villages, several shops, a covered bazaar, 2 soap plants, 11 flour mills, and 2 bathhouses, all in Palestine and Lebanon. For centuries, the revenues produced by these assets were used to operate a huge soup kitchen, along with a mosque and two hostels for pilgrims and wayfarers.15

There is abundant evidence to show the massive economic significance of the waqf system that even a single waqf could carry great economic value. Another waqf established in Halep (Aleppo) in the eighteenth century included 10 houses, 67 shops, 4 inns, 2 storerooms, several dyeing plants and baths, 3 bakeries, 8 orchards, and 3 gardens, among various other assets, including agricultural land. By the end of the eighteenth century, in Istanbul, whose estimated population of 700,000 made it the largest city in Europe, up to 30,000 people a day were being fed by charitable complexes established under the waqf system. At the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, three-quarters of the country’s arable land belonged to awqaf.10

A closer look at the Ottoman practice

Throughout the Ottoman realms, the waqf was without any doubt, the primary philanthropic institution which had long served as a major instrument for delivering public goods. For six centuries, the Ottomans largely succeeded to eradicate poverty through awqaf via a voluntary transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor and the latter were fed and taken care of in a decentralized manner. More importantly, health and educational services, essential conditions for the development of human capital, were provided via this institution.16 Waqf was instrumental to the spread of the Ottomans whose policy of settlement relied heavily on the establishment of awqaf in support of Sufi centers that were planted along the frontiers of the expanding state, on its strategic trade routes and traffic arteries, amidst its political rivals and enemies, or in other strategic locations, thus contributing to the spread of Islam as well.3

Alternatively, waqf was extensively used for the development of public and commercial institutions leading to the economic revitalization of major cities, and also as perhaps the major tool to bring about cultural integration for conveying Ottoman culture and services to the regions being settled. The participation of centrally appointed officials and local notables in awqaf helped bridge gaps between these two groups and produced a homogeneous urban elite throughout the vast empire.3

The Ottoman state contributed to awqaf in two ways. First, either by directly establishing waqf17 or by granting land to those who wanted to found a waqf. In this way, the vacant lands had been brought into cultivation, creating extra revenues for the state. Second, the state contributed by supervising, controlling, and recording the revenues and expenditures in order to secure their well-functioning. The control and the supervision of the waqf system can be attributed to the importance of the land in Ottoman politics.8

Granting these privileges, the state sacrificed from large amounts of tax revenue, yet also kept an eye on the activities of awqaf to ensure quality of service.18 The revenues and expenditures of the awqaf had been recorded very carefully. In terms of production of statistical records, systematization in record-keeping, there are not too many states in history to rival the Ottomans.19 Many of these records have been carefully archived,20 and are still available as primary sources to researchers. 21

Awqaf in daily life

The Ottoman state was mainly responsible for security, justice, and border protection. Almost all other social tasks were being performed individuals. The belief that “Charity pleases God and brings God’s blessings” determined Muslim behavior in many fundamental acts of economic importance and the Ottomans were particularly zealous in that regard.22 People set up and administered awqaf for benevolent purposes, which followed the principle, “there always is a necessity to service wherever living things exist.”23

The beneficiaries were not limited to the poor and needy. Awqaf have served the public for a variety of purposes that outline an endless list: protecting the unfortunate, meeting the need of wayfarers and pilgrims, raising orphans, providing scholarships to students, employing the unemployed, educating apprentice artisans toward mastery, helping the bankrupt or those with excessive debt, covering marriage expenses for needy couples, sheltering animals, taking care of widows, hungry and the destitute, sick and the disabled, running health care, sports and educational programs, producing candles for mosques, taking care of the environment, paving roads, enlightening streets, paying a neighborhood’s taxes, supporting retired sailors, organizing picnics for a designated guild, subsidizing the cultivation of rare roses, operating commuter ships, lending to small businesses, helping prisoners, and providing toys to children of poor families. These were among hundreds of other purposes of varying social significance. Also, there have been many applications to launch, construct, manage, and preserve public institutions and infrastructure like military establishments, pavements, lighthouses, malls, cemeteries, hospitals, public baths, drinking fountains, mosques, schools, dormitories, inns, caravanserais, dervish hospices, bridges, roads, aqueducts, libraries and so on.

Some basic ethics of charity in Islam are anonymity, avoiding pretension, preserving purity of intention, and protecting assisted people from any possible psychological effects.24 A thoughtful application of these principles came into life in the “Charity Stones.” In this Ottoman practice, charitable people would leave some money (generally in the dark of the night) to these two-meter-high marble columns with a hole on top, which were commonly located at the unobserved corners of mosques, madrasahs, cemeteries, mausoleums, and neighborhoods. Needy people, later on, would take money from there, astonishingly, no more than they needed. The rest would be left back with decency for someone else, which shows the achieved level of the brotherhood and solidarity in the society.25 These stones were used to prevent a form of mendicancy in the society and at the same time, not to offend needy people.

The Turkish waqf spirit which cares for all living beings has extended its reach to birds as well, when from the fifteenth century on, kiosks for birds were started to be built. Some of these “bird houses,” also called “bird palaces,” resembled mosques with their minarets, high-hopped towers and signs in the form of a crescent, and displayed an extraordinary workmanship. Having observed such bird houses with great interest, the Austrian ambassador Busbecq wrote in 1550s that “in Turkey everything has become humanized and every rigid thing has been softened; even the animals.”10 Many examples of awqaf have served for protection and enhancement of the environment as well.26 In “Ottoman land,” Comte de Bonneval stated, “it is possible to see Turks passionate enough to dedicate money for men to water unfruitful trees, in order to protect them from drought due to hot weather.”27 According to D’Ohsson, this caring motivation is rooted in Islam: “Qur’an has transformed Turks into the best philanthropists of the world.”28

There were awqaf established for each aspect of life. One can talk about the excess supply of public goods rather than their scarcity thanks to extensive waqf services, so much so that Ottoman cities did not need to implement actual municipality organizations to deliver urban services in a centralized and coordinated manner before 1856.29 “Thanks to the awqaf flourished during the Ottoman Empire, a person would have borne into a waqf house, slept in a waqf cradle, ate and drunk from waqf properties, read waqf books, taught in a waqf school, received his salary from a waqf administration, and when he died, put into a waqf coffin and buried in a waqf cemetery.”30 Had the awqaf gained corporate powers, “they would have acquired the ability to transform themselves into organizations akin to municipalities.”31

By means of the awqaf founded in different spheres of social life, privately accumulated capital was voluntarily endowed to finance all sorts of social, cultural, religious, and economical services alongside with health and transportation, all of which were free of charge and open to everyone, without discrimination. As a result, the awqaf played a very eminent role in setting up a sound integration, cooperation, and mutual confidence between the society and the state. Aqwaf, in other words, became the medium for financing Islam as a society,32 and have served as the primary mechanism for a better distribution of income.

Awqaf’s services were provided through decentralized decision-making, i.e., not by a central authority but by philanthropists determined to address social and economic issues in their neighborhood.17 The multiplicity of waqf founders, together with the generally uncoordinated character of their choices, furnished abundant opportunities for learning from failures and successes. Such associations that individuals create, operate, and transform essentially on their own, without direct guidance from the state, also contributed to a strong civil society.31

The notion that wasting or misusing properties of awqaf, the state, or orphans is a severe violation of the rights of others, thus will be punished in the Hereafter, provided an extreme sense of self-discipline in individuals and immunity to those properties. Traditionally, waqf deeds even contained imprecations to discourage any possible abuse and orisons to encourage compliance with the deed.33

The centralization policy, promoted partly by the Western powers and partly by the Ottoman reformers in the late nineteenth century, undermined the role of awqaf and transformed these traditional institutions to European-inspired municipalities for providing public services with a central manner.34 Most countries now directly or indirectly administer waqf lands in separate Ministries, leading to the demise of its nongovernmental identity. Moreover, as a usual practice in the Europe, North America, and Australia, Muslim communities establish nonprofit organizations which in turn own the waqf property. Despite the reduction in its influence in the social spheres, and despite the considerable cutback in the size of its properties and revenues due to the colonial experience and the emergence of modern nation states, waqf remains as an institution of substantial wealth and potential, and it still holds some of the historical flexibility that qualifies it to play a major role in contemporary societies.35

Senkaya has a Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Leadership. He can be contacted at senkayao@seattleu.edu.

Notes

1The word waqf, and its plural form awqaf, were derived from the Arabic root verb waqafa, which means “to cause a thing to stop and stand still.” Heffening defines waqf as: a pious endowment established when an owner of a property surrenders her/his disposal rights, without transferring them to some other party (Heffening, W. “Waqf.” Vol. 4. In Encyclopedia of Islam, 1096-1103. 1934).

2 Toraman, Cengiz. “Cash Awqaf in the Ottomans as Philanthropic Foundations and Their Accounting Practices” Paper presented at the fifth Accounting History International Conference. Canada: Edward School of Business, University of Saskatchewan, August 9-12, 2007. http://www.commerce.usask.ca/special/5ahic/papers/5AHIC-37%20FINAL%20Paper.pdf

3 Dallal, Ahmad. “The Islamic Institution of Waqf: A Historical Overview.” In Islam and Social Policy, Stephen P. Heyneman, 13-43. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004.

4 Othman, Muhammad Z. “Institution of Waqf.” Islamic Culture 58, no. 1 (1984): 55-62.

5 Canan, ?brahim. Kütüb-i Sitte Tercüme ve ?erhi. Vol. 16, 275-281. Ankara: Akça? Yay?nlar?, 2004.

6 Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. “Islamic Waqf Endowment.” http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/WAQF/Chap6.php

7 Çizakça, Murat. A History of Philanthropic Foundations: The Islamic World from the Seventh Century to the Present. Istanbul: Bogazici University Press, 2000.

8 Ba?kan, Birol. Paper presented at 17th Middle East History And Theory Conference, May 10-11. Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago. 2002, “Waqf System as a Redistribution Mechanism in Ottoman Empire.” http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/mehat/past_conferences/Baskan.pdf

9 Ar?, Saim. “Osmanl? Mahallesinde Sosyal Dayan??ma Örne?i: Avar?z Vak?flar?.” Sizinti 24, no. 287 (2002) http://www.sizinti.com.tr/konular.php?KONUID=210

10 Yediy?ld?z, Bahaeddin. Place of the Waqf in Turkish Cultural System. Translated by R Acun and M Oz. Istanbul: Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), 1996. http://www.history.hacettepe.edu.tr/archive/waqfkultur.html

11 Qur’an, 55:26-27.

12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waqf

13 Maksudo?lu, Mehmet E. “Osmanl? Vak?f Uygulamas?ndan Baz? Örnekler” Diyanet Ilmi Dergi, 2003 http://www.diyanet.gov.tr/turkish/DIYANET/ilmi_dergi/ilmi_39_3/main.asp?makno=6

14 According to the findings of Ekrem Hakk? Ayverdi (in The Ottoman Architectural Artifacts in Europe), there were 3339 Turkish waqf buildings in Bulgaria in 1982. Of these 2356 were small and large mosques, 142 universities, 273 bridges, 16 caravanseraies and the rest consisting of baths (hamam), tombs, fortresses, public fountains, libraries etc. (Yediy?ld?z).

15 Peri, Oded. “Waqf and Ottoman Welfare Policy. The Poor Kitchen of Hasseki Sultan in Eighteenth-Century Jerusalem.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35, no. 2 (1992): 167-186.

16 Çizakça, Murat (interviewed by Dr. Shariq Nasir). “Combining Islamic History with Islamic Institutional Economics.” Islamic Business and Finance, March 2006 http://www.cpifinancial.net/v2/Magazine.aspx?v=1&aid=392&cat=IBF&in=5

17 Named as state waqf, this type of awqaf are legally different from private charitable awqaf. Because the Sultan established the waqf from the treasury of the State, these awqaf were called, waqfi gayri sahih (Ba?kan).

18 Emino?lu, Kamil. “Osmanl?lar’da Vak?f Anlay???.” Sizinti 8, no. 90 (1996) http://www.sizinti.com.tr/konular.php?KONUID=2411

19 Crecelius, Daniel. “Introduction.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38, no. 3 (1995): 249.

20 http://www.vgm.gov.tr/01_VakifKayitlariArsivi/001_VakfiyeArsivi/vakfiye.cfm.

21 For more information regarding superintendence mechanisms readers may consult to Akgunduz. Akgündüz, Ahmet. “?slâm Hukukunda ve Osmanl? Tatbikat?nda Vak?f Müesseseleri”, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Bas?mevi, 1988.

22 ?nalc?k, Halil. “The Economic Mind.” In An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

23 A?manvermez, Ahmet. “Bir Vak?f Medeniyeti Olarak Osmanl?.” http://www.kalemguzeli.net/bir-vakif-medeniyeti-olarak-osmanli.html

24 Qur’an, 2:261-274.

25 Ünver, Süheyl. “Sadaka Ta?lar?.” Hayat Tarih 11, 1967.

26 Seker, Mehmet. “Osmanl? Vakfiyelerinde Çevre Bilinci.” Ekoloji 1, no.4 (1992): 26-30.

27 Hilal, Ziyaeddin. “Yabancilarin Gözüyle Osmanli’da Vakif Hizmetleri.” Sizinti 29, no. 338 (2007) http://www.sizinti.com.tr/konular.php?KONUID=3139

28 D’Ohsson, Moradjea. Tableau General del Empire Otoman.

29 Bayyigit, Mehmet. “Sosyal Yard?mla?ma ve Dayan??ma Kurumu Olarak Vak?flar.” 59-66. 1999.

30 Arsebük, Esat. Medeni Hukuk, Ba?lang?ç ve ?ah?s Hukuku. Vol. 1, 298. 1938.

31 Kuran, Timur. “The provision of public goods under Islamic law: Origins, impact, and limitations of the waqf…” Law & Society Review 35, no. 4 (2001): 841-897.

32 Hoexter, Miriam. “The Waqf and the Public Sphere.” In The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies, Miriam Hoexter Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, and Nehemia Levtzion, 119-138. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2002.

33 Gözübenli, Be?ir. “?slam Toplumunda Vak?f Kültürünün Do?u?u.” Yeni Ümit 15, no.60 (2003) http://www.yeniumit.com.tr/konular.php?sayi_id=60&konu_id=54&yumit=bolum2

34 Kilicalp, Sevinc S. “Centralization of the Ottoman State and Modernization of the Waqf System.” 4th ed. In Master in International Studies in Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship, 1-28. Bologna: University of Bologna, February 2008. http://www.misp.it/2008/images/stories/documenti/KilicalpPaper.pdf

35 (Habitat II)

Two perspectives emerge in this context to address change in society. The first perspective is an instrumental one and relies on a rationalist, goals-oriented viewpoint. The second, cultural perspective relies more on stability and depth. The two values in this perspective, stability and depth, ensure constancy in the face of changing times but could also spell society’s death knell if it turns too far inward (Christensen et al, 2007).

 “From the vantage point of instrumental logic, the institution is intrinsically inefficient because it cannot quickly adapt to changing conditions for action or new problems. Yet from a cultural perspective one could argue that it is perfectly possible for an institution to live with such historical inefficiency over time” (Christensen et al, 2007, p. 46).

Historically speaking, these two vantage points have been in conflict: Conservatives who wish to maintain the institution, on one side, and liberals who wish to change those institutions, on the other. An extremely conservative approach creates “institutional lockdown” where the organization is deprived of any opportunity to change. On the far end of the spectrum would be an excessively liberal approach endorsing revolution. These diametrically opposed concepts create a significant dichotomy.

Edmund Burke, English statesman and philosopher, was extremely critical of the revolution in France. He defended the ancien regime as he felt that the institutions of France and Europe were the result of an evolutionary process that had reached its next highest point under the noblemen/monarchs of Europe. For him, European civilization was founded upon the institutional principles of chivalry and clerical learning embodied in the spirit of the gentleman and the spirit of religion. Those who wanted to overturn the French system were to him savages who opposed all of the etiquette that had built Europe (Kontler, 1997).

Before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a group of revolutionaries calling themselves the “Young Turks” attempted to change the institutional characteristics of the country. One of the Young Turks named Ahmed Hilmi was more conservatively institutional in his approach to reform. The Young Turks became more anti-religious, and Hilmi wanted Islam to remain the cornerstone of the country. He was starkly against those instrumental values embodied in positivism and materialism. He felt, much like Burke, that the country evolved to that point and that it had as its foundation a spiritual orientation which should not change despite whatever transformations might be needed (Bein, 2007).

Burke and Hilmi embodied the cultural perspective and were averse to revolutionary thinking. Nevertheless, both thinkers recognized that change was needed, but their approach was more incremental and less absolute. It was for this reason that Burke vehemently opposed the French revolution and Hilmi the Turkish revolution.

Positivism/materialism that was prevalent amongst the Young Turks has been criticized by scholars such as Dwight Waldo, who noted how it took on the same characteristics of absolute thought that is often associated with religion (Waldo, 1984). Hugh Miller makes this claim as well in his discussion on Postmodernism and Neo-liberalism, where he notes how the rational quickly becomes irrational particularly with performance measurement (Miller, 2007).

Dwight Waldo states, “In both disciplines (scientific management, i.e., positivism and public administration), these anomalies (inconsistencies between environment and paradigm) and difficulties have been revealed, frequently and characteristically in discussion of the problem whether management is a ‘science’ or an ‘art’ and the relationship of the science and the art” (Waldo, 1984, p. 55).

Jonathan Swift, in his classic novel Gulliver’s Travels, includes in his story the Island of Laputa. On this island, there are scientists whose science has no benefit for human civilization and in which all previous knowledge is rejected. The result is a detached group of people who do not benefit society and are themselves actually detrimental to it. The king of this island shows little interest in culture and only cares about mathematics and music. This island in Swift’s story represents Swift’s account of those who are positivistic in thought and how their endeavors are actually not benefiting society, but rather dismantling it (Swift, 1998).

Given this perspective, the instrumental perspective is called into question and its true ability to react to change correctly. The cultural perspective is more incremental in this respect, but as Christensen, et al (2007) point out, there is a risk of historical inefficiency. Would it be safer to say that society can live with this risk? If the goal is to operate efficiently/effectively in continual adjustment with the environment, then how can any semblance of community develop given that communities often need stability to grow? If the goal is community development that depends on integration and facilitation, then how can any semblance of necessary change develop? This represents the crux of an unsolvable problem in society.

Burke and Hilmi lived in revolutionary times and applied cultural thinking to solve societal problems. The questions raised in their times apply just as fervently today in terms of needed change. Many of those who had beaten the drums to the revolutions that gave rise to modern day societies have in turn given way to conservative descendants of those movements that resist all change. Much of what was lost in those revolutions has not been forgotten by the populace, and the only way forward is to adopt a “middle way” between the instrumental and cultural perspective. Maintaining this balance is often easier said than done.

Daniel Hummel is a Research/Teaching Assistant with a focus on Public Budgeting at Florida Atlantic University.

References

• Christensen, T. et al. 2007. Organization Theory and the Public Sector: Instrument, Culture and Myth. New York: Routledge.
• Bein, A. 2007. “A ‘Young Turk’ Islamic intellectual: Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi and the diverse intellectual legacies of the late Ottoman Empire.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 39, pp. 607–625.
• Institution. 2010. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved March 30, 2010, from www.m-w.com/dictionary/institution.
• Kontler, L. 1997. “The ancien regime in memory and theory. Edmund Burke and his German followers.” European Review of History, 4 (1), pp. 1–15.
• Miller, H.T. 2007. Postmodern Public Administration (rev. ed.). Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.
• Swift, J. 1998. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Waldo, D. 1984. The Administrative State (2^nd ed.). New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers.

Existence is in two kinds: self/independent and dependent. “The One that essentially exists” exists by and of oneself and this attribute is exclusive only to God Almighty, the unconditionally rich One Who is in need of nothing, the absolutely Independent, the One free from all shortcomings, Who is neither a matter, a substance, nor a quality, nor is He bound with space, the one and only Lord of eternity and the Possessor of all perfect attributes. The Truth in this sense is one of the beautiful names of the Divine, and all other truths and rights are nothing but Its manifestations and disclosures in their respective ways. The agreement between oneself and the outer world and their uniform nature are not as such by themselves or by their own rights; they exist by His right, because He deems them necessary, thus granting them the right to exist and be. It is false to bind their being to themselves, for self-existence is not possible for them—things are real only in relation to the Truth. They maintain temporarily in this world bound with the calendar of Divine destiny, and indefinitely in the world to come.

In this respect, truth is One in its independent existence. It is the absolute and immutable existence of the Divine Truth; everything else is a ray thereof. All things other than Him exist dependently, thus are defective due to their permanent need for a point of support. Yet, because they exist through the rays of the Truth, they are considered to be existent and constant. All that we consider constant in its existence is a ray of the light of the Truth’s existence. Each emergence, development, work, activity, duty, and responsibility that occurs in “the realms of acts and works” carries a value as long as it is related to the Truth. Any activity that cannot be connected or related to the Truth, anything that is not operated, started with, analyzed or synthesized according to this relationship, is false and a means of devastation. All kinds of operations, initiations, and activities, and whatever outcome they may yield, even faith and virtuous deeds (if virtuous is still the right word) that are not related to the Truth are nothing more than delusions, propositions, and—in the words of the lawgiver Prophet—“fatigue in vain.”

True believers relate all their deeds to the Divine name of The Truth; it is indispensable, and with this conviction they take action. They consider being faithful to The Truth as a compulsory levy, and as a sign of Divine grace (jabri-lutfi). Respect for The Truth adorns their lives, and they are always occupied with it. They value transient, perishable, and seemingly deceptive things—things that are in one sense the opposite of truth because of their dependent, relative worth, which is the measure of their engagement with them. Believers seek for what is eternal and permanent—for that which promises direction and a good ending, for that which reminds of Him, for that which speaks of Him in plain words, for that which falls within the Truth in the true sense of it, for that which prompts considerations of the Truth in the spirit. They always thrive to walk along the axis of truth determined by the True One. Their path is as wide as a highway along which they believe in truth, act in truth, relate in truth, speak in truth, stand with truth, and behave in truth. They call upon the Truth to overcome all obstacles as they head for the True One’s pleasure. They carry out their works faithful to the truth, are always occupied in truthful activities, and tirelessly work to elevate truth. When they are supposed to take, they take only what is due to them. For the rights they are expected to grant, they do so without failure. They are always cautious about those things that do not have any relationship to the truth, for they lead to falsehood.

Truth—and rights in relation to it—has a wide domain of connotations: the opposite of falsehood, the heavier side of the scale balancing power, everyone’s lot, and the fulfillment of individual rights pertaining to interests, privileges, needs, and obligations as recognized by a legitimate regime.

The real proprietor of all these rights is God, the Truth, to whom all parts and wholes, substances and qualities, causes and effects belong to. Nevertheless, through some authorized posts, He conferred these rights to some in the form of interests and authorizations, and to others with the capacity to benefit from these interests and to assume authorities. Those who take on these capacities have to maintain a balance by caring for public rights as much as individual rights.

On the face of what we can see in this world, these rights are assumed by individuals or corporate bodies. Still, as touched upon above and to emphasize once more, all rights belong to God, the True One, and they have been entrusted to human beings as gifts. What we call “the rights of God,” “the rights of human beings,” or “civil rights” arise from legal judgments developed from these rights and pertain to the jurists’ terminology. Now, let us open a small window into the jurisprudential classification that deals with rights under three headings:

1. The rights that are due only to God, as God Almighty is the true Owner of everything. Public law that “relatively” belongs to the society is considered within these rights.

2. Rights of individuals by virtue of natural provision that allows people with the capacity to possess, appropriate, increase, and benefit from them.

3. Rights bound with provisions under common law that relates to both individuals and the society with respect to interests, benefits, and capacity to appropriate.

Rights that are due to God only are superior to all other rights. These rights are immune from all interventions, the way they operate cannot be changed, and they have priority—no other right can surpass them. Pardons cannot be operated, conciliations cannot be sought, nor can they be forfeited, not even can it be attempted. Violation of any of these rights, in whatever form and nature, relates to the public and renders all of society the plaintiff; however, the protection of these rights has been conferred to the state on behalf of the public to investigate violations. Every member of society has the right to complain about such violations and testify when necessary.

Rights of God in Islam include worship (salah), fasting (sawm), purifying alms (zakah), pilgrimage (hajj) as well as taxations like ushr (tithe), sadaqa al-fitr (compulsory charity paid after the month of Ramadan), haraj (land tax), legal punishments and expiations. Rights in kind, receivables, and provisions on individual freedoms under private law are also considered within this category according to their respective degree of significance. In Islam, individuals are granted the full discretion of things they are eligible to use, as long as they do not waste and use extravagantly. They may choose not to benefit from some of their due rights, and redistribute them to others, or spend in learning and education, establish foundations and thus convert their charity into a lasting one. Individuals may give up from some of their rights and forgo some of their claims from other individuals or the public.

Benefits and interests in common law belong to both individuals and the public, thus decisions over these rights are made according to the balance whether a certain right weighs heavier on the scale of the individuals or the public. Such matters are usually taken care of by jurists.

Human rights are what we speak of more than ever in our age. According to Islam, every human being is born free. Every one is equal to one another in their rights and worth. Freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience are indispensable rights of every individual. Islam recognizes the same rights and opportunities for everyone regardless of race, sex, language, and religion. As a whole these rights cover the spiritual and physical aspects of human beings, in addition to the rights defined today and those that will be defined in the future.

Throughout human history, human rights have evolved through lengthy processes until we have attained the current level of understanding; yet, it is questionable whether this level is sufficient. There have been great struggles in this direction many times: definitions were stretched to extremes, and many false actions were taken—while correcting one falsehood, another was produced. When a certain framework was finally drawn, efforts to perfect it with revisions, editing, and fine-tunings have never come to an end, and are not likely to very soon. Corrections, expansions, and elaborations have brought along new sets of mistakes. Frequently, good will and endless efforts have brought about nothing but disappointment, which either resulted in a loss of hope or back to square one. Problems have never ended, neither have alternative searches. Many thoughts have been rendered worthless due to oppositions and disputes, while many fantasies have been chased after in delirium for no greater purpose than to fill in the gaps; this delirium does not appear to be coming to an end soon.

Human rights were comprehensively defined with the advent of Islam. These rights, which were expressed in earlier religions only in general terms, or left latent as allusions that needed explanation with independent reasoning, were established once more by the very clear style of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s practice, without leaving room for deviation.

The Holy Qur’an has outlined human rights in detail in an utterly unique language. One can see a great emphasis on the protection of these rights in the Qur’an, which declared certain sanctions according to the conditions in question. The lawgiver Prophet clearly delineated these rights with the transactions he carried out himself. He warned insistently that these rights also pertain to the rights of God, and being in full compliance with them is necessary.

In Islamic terminology, all rights originate from God’s will, and each are a blessing entrusted as a sign of His grace even if out of our will (jabri-lutfi) to humanity. Rights, therefore, are granted to every human by creation and they cannot be purchased or traded, reduced, increased, or exchanged; they cannot be passed on to the discretion of the sovereign nor can they ever be used as a commodity. The greatest assurance of rights is when members of a society and the respected and honest authorities embrace this definition of rights wholeheartedly, and make it a part of their nature, honor it like their own souls, and strive for its protection.

This perception of rights is only be possible in a society that recognizes these rights as gracefully bestowed by God Almighty, a society that is appreciative to all the blessings of the Divine, a society that proceeds straightforward with an extraordinary refinement, believing in the fact that they will be held accountable tomorrow for what they do today, a society that upholds the truth and respects all rights. It is not possible to talk about human values and human rights in the truest sense of the word among masses who have no faith in God and the Day of Judgment, masses who do not follow scriptures or acknowledge messengers—they do not value rights nor do they show respect to truth. They have no appreciation for essential matters of belief; they give the impression of having some kind of faith, but a faith of their own, which revolves around sensuality. For them, it is not faith if it does not give way to their carnal desires; it is not science if it does not comply with their wishes. Those who are not from among them cannot be a scholar, and—when completely lost in delirium—they consider everyone other than themselves ignorant and every believer reactionary. They defame those who do not think the same as outdated, and in classifying individuals they divide society into camps. Indeed, their thoughts do not stem from common sense, and their behavior is bigoted. The satanic intellectual legacy they have inherited is an overused, worn-out conflictual dialectics that is deceptive. The crude power they employ against truth is a desperate, diabolical product of impotent reason; when they fail intellectually, it is customary for them to resort to demagogy or conflictual dialectics, a method implemented for the first time by Satan at the mysterious order of God to prostrate to the Prophet Adam. Thus, Satan can be considered as the inventor of conflictual dialectics; its later subcontractors have been the abusers of power who failed against the truth.

Muslims always strived at the highest of their capacity to observe human rights in the most scrupulous manner, not least during the Age of Light—the time of the Prophet. Their firm faith in God and the Hereafter, their well-settled spiritual conviction for the superiority of the rule of law, and their determination to continue on the straight path required them to act in harmony with the nature of their being. A genuine aspect of their condition was to be in sincere servanthood to God Almighty. They painstakingly fulfilled what was expected of them, and remained upright by their inner inclinations, which were shaped by the consciousness of “perfect goodness,” or ihsan—consciousness that God is All-Aware and All-Seeing. They did what they did because they were ordered to do so, aware of the fine line between obedience and disobedience. They welcomed all the orders and advice of the Prophet, the Master of the Law, wholeheartedly; during his time, opposition was limited to a small circle of hypocrites. None of the Prophet’s words were left floating; whatever he said reached its target and went far beyond mere semantics.

When the Prophet honored Medina, he meticulously observed the stipulations of the Charter he signed with a diverse community of different faiths, worldviews, and ethnicities. Regardless of religion, race, and social rank, the law was equally implemented for everyone, and the city of Medina became a safe haven for each community. It was a golden age and the town of the Prophet was like a garden of Paradise. Those who remained close to this age have been close to God and to fellow human beings, while others who failed to strive against their carnal desires and ambitions and darkened their centuries have turned to dust.

Neither the Medina Charter, nor a few examples confined within this framework, were all Islam had to say about human rights. The Sultan of Messengers taught us about human rights throughout his lifetime. He warned us to pay the utmost attention to all rights, and never to ignore even seemingly minor ones. For him, anything that is underestimated is no longer minor. He reminded us how far the respect and fear of God Almighty could reach, so that he could prevent the violations of major rights. He was determined, and always implemented what he said. He was known for his sensitivity and virtue, and these qualities made every believer set a throne for him in their hearts.

Just before he passed away to his Lord, he gave his farewell to an angelic community of tens of thousands during the hajj—his one and only major pilgrimage—and addressed not only them, but all his followers to come until the end times. One last time, he recounted all the principles he had been teaching for years, and each of his statements during the sermon were a human rights declaration. Masters of speech could indeed discern that every word of his final sermon resonated with his lifetime message. His audience, not unfamiliar with these sayings, perhaps was honored to hear those pearls from him again, though they were stated rather differently this time. The Prophet declared his message one last time to his community, a community of loyal followers who drank in his words and practiced them, to pass them on to the next generation.

The Sultan of Speech touched on many diverse issues that day, from the rights of God to family law, and laid down in one sense the core of his mission. The majority of all rights belongs to God, and thus he started his sermon, naming other rights according to their significance, though it may be to the extent of a passing note or an implication. “Fear God and refrain from disobeying Him” was his first word. As a matter of fact, belief in God and obeying Him with due respect would be an assurance and sanction of respect for all human rights. Lack of it would render respect for human rights very difficult, perhaps impossible.

Then he pointed to the duties and responsibilities of spouses to one another, repeatedly emphasizing that women are blessings preciously entrusted, and must be treated accordingly. He warned about the harmony within the family as an essential principle that makes a society what it is and urged us to fear God in this respect. He trod on all the deeply rooted customs from the time of ignorance.

Protection of one’s property, life, mind, religion, and progeny was one of the key issues he stressed over and over with refreshed breath, as if he was speaking from beyond, standing on the rim of the other world. “Your Lord is one, and your father is one: all of you are of Adam, and Adam was of soil,” and he raised his voice, offering a golden key to solve a major problem that afflicts our age like a plague.

In the sermons he delivered during the farewell hajj, he always referred to a grand court where each of us will be questioned on the minutiae of our lives, and enjoined us to carefully observe rights of all kinds. Certain issues of human rights have not yet been resolved even in modern times. Islam, however, established very firmly the principle of lawfulness centuries ago. Unless definitely judged, no one is a criminal, and even the convicted has certain rights that can never be taken away. No one should be interrogated based on probabilities; no one should be tortured. Each right is precious and should never be undermined. The power should be dependent on the right, and no right can be sacrificed against power.

Power has always been like the arch-enemy of truth, be it in social, economic, administrative, and political life. Those who have crude power used this power according to their own self-interest. They interpreted life as an arena of conflict and struggle, thus denied rights to others as much as their power and prevailing circumstances allowed them to; “I have the power!” they cried, as they deliriously raised their sword to the sky.

But for those who take the truth and what is right as their point of support, they have preferred the good pleasure of the True One, placing virtue over their personal interests as well as they could. They considered all rights as manifestations of the beautiful Divine name of the Truth, and observed them accordingly, as they have embraced all human beings as brothers and sisters, and rushed to their help when needed. Such truthful believers strived to restrain their carnal desires, and tried to live as mystics, spending their lives turned toward Heaven, thus turning this world into a heavenly garden.

These people of light used lasting solutions for the protection of minorities, laborers, children, the sick, the homeless, and the unemployed, through various funds and foundations. It was not basic human rights only that were under care in the world of Islam: others also had rights over the possessions of Muslims—it was a tax on the wealthy for those who were in need. And as they shared their belongings, believers were very careful not to make others feel indebted for this favor.

For as long as we represented our values, this is how we have believed, lived, and behaved. When significant junctions like belief, religion, and goodness have cracked apart, then falsehood has replaced the truth, the powerful have oppressed the weak, and rights have been violated. Then God has taken away from us consciousness of fraternity, feelings of security and compassion, respect for rights, and all the blessings He had graciously entrusted. Would He give them back? I do not know. But He always granted them to those who were truthful in their liabilities, faith, submission, and patience. He never deserted those who were loyal to their word and turned to Him in devotion to truth.

God has an infinite number of names, starting with the Truth
How great it is for a servant to uphold it,
Think, why did the blessed Companions read sura Asr,
Before they adjourned.
For well-versed in this chapter is the secret of salvation
True faith comes first, followed by prayer
By truth and perseverance: this is humanness,
When all four are combined, there are no more worries for you.
M. Akif

“[The Gulen Movement] educates and socializes individuals without individualizing and politicizing the social.” (p. 152)

The Gulen Movement (hereafter GM), as it is usually referred to in English, has attracted the attention of “critical public minds and scholarship” throughout the world in recent years for two important reasons. First, Fethullah Gulen’s ideas and praxis demonstrate the potential role of religion in reshaping the present violent, conflict ridden world into an inclusive, humanistic society and world order based on the principles of pluralism, intercultural dialogue, and mutual living. Second and more important, Gulen, through his twin tools of Islamic hermeneutics and public actions, particularly in the field of education, has restored the “humane face of Islam” in the public eye—something that was lost due to centuries of a radical, positivist, secular and Orientalist narrative of Islam and more recently due to acts of violence in the name of Islam—and has demonstrated the complementarity of Islam and modernity. This reconciliation of faith and reason—both in terms of theory and action—solves a conundrum that has plagued the Islamic scholars for long.

Çetin’s Gulen Movement: Civic Service Without Borders is an important contribution to a chain of literature that has surfaced on the GM in recent years. The title itself is an indication that the author sees the movement in transnational perspective and attempts to uplift the movement from “its narrow Turkish national location,” which is otherwise a dominant trend in the scholarly writings on the GM. Though the author did locate the emergence of GM in the national-political context of modern Turkey, the “Islamic civil ethic” or “service ethic”—what is called hizmet in Gulen’s Islamic philosophy—has inherent potential to outgrow the originating national-political context.

No scholarly work on Islamic movements in modern Turkey is possible without a reference to the background of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi and his work. Nursi was a remarkable scholar of twentieth-century Turkey who, through his Risale-i Nur collection of epistles on Qur’anic thought, preserved the religious spirit in the secularizing society. However the near absence of reference of Nursi’s work in this book is surprising. This may be partly due to author’s approach and methodology that treats GM as social phenomenon rather than a religious phenomenon. This approach helps the reader to understand Gulen and the Hizmet movement that has flourished around his ideas and inspirations as a transnational social service movement. Çetin thus circumvents misperceptions that are very likely to arise from exclusively religious labels and associations. The Islamic dimension of the GM comes through the inspirational and motivational dimension of Islamic history and Islam-inspired values that Gulen utilizes in constructing a non-violent, peaceful, multicultural world. All this is done without having an exclusively “Islamic project,” which is otherwise the hallmark of political or cultural-social Islamic movements throughout the world.

The strength of Çetin’s book lies in his comprehensive treatment of the GM. This is one of the first scholarly works that provide a detailed description of diverse features within the GM. Most of the previous works on this subject matter has dealt with one or another aspect of the GM. This integrated approach helps in enriching the understanding of the full breadth of the movement. Using the framework of multi-causality, or what author called “syncretic perspective,” Çetin first examined the dominant social movement theories (particularly, Resource Mobilization theory, Political Opportunity theory and Frame theory) and found them inadequate in explaining a faith-based movement such as the GM in non-Western societies. These theories, according to the author, suffer from the limitation of a political economy perspective that does not take into consideration the role of a “subjective idea” or at best treats it as a “dependent variable” in the emergence of a particular social phenomenon or movement. But this restrictive theoretical framework is incapable of comprehending the non-conflictual, voluntary, philanthropist, altruist, faith-based GM as political economy theories primarily operate on the “principle of selective cooperation and opposition” to state actions. The author strongly contends that the GM has registered a strong social presence (in people’s consciousness) through chains of study centers, publishing houses, periodicals, training and scholarship, institutions for preparatory courses for university entrance exams, healthcare facilities, dormitories for the students, aid to poor and vulnerable sections of society, press and media organs and other socio-educational public institutions. This social position was established before the GM became highly visible in the public sphere in Turkey and Çetin rejects the perspective that links the emergence of the GM with the recognition and tacit support of state institutions, particularly in the 1980s, a period marked by “Islamic-Turkish synthesis nationalism.” Rather, the author exposes the politics of the elite, or what he called the “protectionist group,” in the name of “secularism” and “nationalism” in order to perpetuate its hold over the resources of the country and to this end long throttled the emergence of the democratic potential of Turkish society. It was Gulen’s Islamic mediated ideas, viewpoints, ethical and moral messages and the GM’s plethora of associated educational and social activities, which were/are conducted with sensitivity to “due process of law” and legal diligence, that gradually brought a shift in normative-cultural meaning of life that focuses on the cooperative instincts of human beings, the value of living together, dialogue and respect for multiple identities, which in turn also affected people’s perceptions and norms of “politics” and “development” and in the process refashioned the public space and revitalized and consolidated the process of democratization.

Çetin tries to envision—though more elaboration is needed—Gulen’s humanitarian ideas as an alternative theory for constructing a human society based on principles of cooperative instincts, the ethics of self sacrifice, and the compassionate behavior of human beings—a theory over against the modernist assumption that treats human beings as primarily selfish, egoistic, conflictual, hedonistic, and violent, naturally needing to be controlled and disciplined through coercion and indoctrination in order to create the kind of order found in the mechanized, contractual human society. This partly also explains why Gulen’s philosophy, like that of Mahatma Gandhi, does not evoke the perception of the “other.” Unlike many contemporary Islamic movements, Gulen does not see the West as the “threatening other” but a source of many positive values that Muslims need to reflect upon.

Combining the framework of a “material-ideational matrix” with an outsider-insider perspective and drawing largely from an empirical investigation based on interviews and questionnaires, the author seeks to explain both the emergence of the GM primarily as a “cultural actor” and also its multifaceted dimensions: democratic, participatory, peaceful, non-violent, insistent on working within the legal framework of the political system, voluntary and autonomous participation, lacking any organizational power, non-political, non-ideological, absence of any central text, non-requirement of formal membership, no ritual, no insignia, etc. In summary, the movement aims at the moral and ethical transformation of the individual self in the light of Islamic values and norms in order to sensitize the individual self about the “goodness” of collective civil action without politicizing the same or stimulating an expectation of material gain. The quotation by Çetin as highlighted in the beginning of this review best captures the mood, orientation, and thrust of the GM.

A cursory reading of this book gives an impression that Nursi’s search for “unity of heart and mind” has found a place in the GM. However, since this book studies the GM from a social movement theory, it does not deal with the key concepts or doctrine of Fethullah Gulen or even his philosophy of education—the most important dimension of the GM upon which rests the creation of Gulen’s “golden generation” that will shape the future world. The notion of hizmet, or ethic of service, is an Islamic value as old as Islam itself, exemplified in the institution of waqf. What, therefore, explains the re-emergence of an ethic of service as a central category in Gulen’s Islamic thought and the wider dissemination and acceptance of this value as an “everyday Islamic working value?” In this regard, the book does not address the question of “how and why?”—the agency, processes and reasons for the emergence of the GM—but describes and narrates only the “what?” about the movement.

No single book is sufficient to cover all aspects of a social phenomenon as global as the GM; thus, having read this book, the reader is still left with some difficult, unanswered questions: Why will the moral and ethical values which are deeply embedded in Gulen’s notion of hizmet, philanthropy, altruism, and voluntarism resonate with large masses in today’s context? Is the GM a postmodern phenomenon? Is it an Islamic movement, a social movement, or something in between? Is it a class-based or multiclass phenomenon? What is the dominant social base of this movement? Has the GM adopted the postmodern conceptions of life process that reject nation-centered discourse and focus on people-centered discourse, which, in turn, might partly explain its success and appeal?

Despite such questions unaddressed, the book is a must-read for all students and scholars who have an interest in discourse about social change.

Anwar Alam
Professor and Director, Centre for West Asia Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Some modern Western scholars would ascribe the long-lasting existence of Ottoman rule to oppression and a strong military presence. According to this view, it was fear and terror that brought authority and control over at least the Balkans, a dominantly Christian territory. Careful and accurate scholarship, however, has revealed that this was certainly not the case. The majority of historical sources and archives have so far disclosed highly advanced administrative skills in the Ottoman state affairs. The most recent scholarly works, both popular and academic, have unanimously praised and applauded the Ottomans’ cultural and social contributions to the regions they administered, as well as their equitable treatment of their subjects over long periods of time. The Ottoman experience of social and cultural life provides valuable lessons for those nations that live in these regions today: The value of putting aside ethnic, religious and cultural differences, of living together and cooperating for a better future, and the sacredness of human life and the respect for the right of others to live, as well as freedom of expression and religion all existed in this state.

Historically speaking, Western Europe has always been in contact with the Ottomans through commerce or other forms of international relations. Diplomacy in the Middle Ages and afterwards was made possible by ambassadors. These ambassadors would conduct negotiations regarding disputes and sign new agreements. The observations of these special envoys about their visits formed first-hand reliable information about the unknown “others.” For example, in the year 800 AD, on one of these occasions long before the Ottomans, Charlemagne sent an envoy to Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid Caliph, with gifts. On his part, the Caliph also sent many gifts to Charlemagne, one famous one being a clock. In a similar vein, many ambassadors had the chance to see and study Ottoman life closely during their visits. These visits considerably increased in number with the agreement of concessions granted by the Ottomans. The ambassadors would often record their experiences as notes or letters, which have proven to be of indispensable value for us today in studying an era and civilization about which not much is known.

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1520–1592) was one such ambassador for the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand. He came to Turkey and wrote about the life in Ottoman lands and their public administration practices. Busbecq grew up at Busbecq Castle as the son of the reputable Busbecq family. He studied in famous schools and like his father and grandfather he followed a career as a servant of the crown. He was first sent to England in 1554, and then appointed as ambassador to the Ottomans under the rule of Süleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul from 1555 to 1562.

For the duration of his service in the Ottoman lands, Busbecq constantly wrote letters to a friend in the Netherlands. These were later on published many times, most recently by Forster and Daniel in 1881 as the Turkish Letters. Widely accepted as one of the world’s first travel literatures, Busbecq describes public life and his adventures in the Ottoman land in the letters in some detail. One of the letters is of particular interest as it sheds light on certain historical aspects related to the Janissaries, the well-trained Ottoman guards.

The word “Janissary” had negative connotations in the West during the Middle Ages. The Ottoman Muslim conquests in Eastern Europe certainly contributed to this. However, Busbecq, after a prolonged visit to the Ottoman sultan, had the chance to evaluate the Janissaries and he developed some sympathy with them. In his letter he describes these guards as being of good character and spiritually elevated. In fact, Busbecq starts this letter with a description of these highly-educated Janissaries, how they function and their duties in the Ottoman lands, as well as their equitable and unbiased treatment of the public, poor or rich, Muslim or non-Muslim:

“At Buda I made my first acquaintance with the Janissaries; this is the name by which the Turks call the infantry of the royal guard… Janissaries are scattered through every part of the state, either to garrison the forts against the enemy or to protect the Christians and Jews from the violence of the mob. There is no district with any considerable amount of population, no borough or city, which has not a detachment of Janissaries to protect the Christians, Jews, and other helpless people from outrage and wrong.”

Busbecq goes on to comment about the gentle and polite disposition of Janissaries. In fact, he seems to be quite impressed by the simplicity and modesty of these guards, praising them highly, as can be seen in his next letter:

“These Janissaries generally came to me in pairs. When they were admitted to my dining room they first bowed, and then came quickly up to me, all but running, and touched my dress or hand, as if they intended to kiss it… After reaching the door, they would stand respectfully with their arms crossed, and their eyes bowed to the ground, looking more like monks than warriors… To tell you the truth, if I had not been told beforehand that they were Janissaries, I should, without hesitation, have taken them for members of some order of Turkish monks, or brethren of some Moslem college. Yet these are the famous Janissaries, whose approach inspires terror everywhere.”

According to Busbecq, these soldiers were ready to act even under extremely harsh conditions, accepting with resignation all that happened due to their faith. The Janissaries were certainly trained to obey their commander under the most severe of circumstances. In addition, Busbecq admired the Janissaries, who would never complain about difficulties:

“On such occasions (war or campaign) they take out a few spoonfuls of flour and put them into water, adding some butter, and seasoning the mess with salt and spices; these ingredients are boiled, and a large bowl of gruel is thus obtained. Of this they eat once or twice a day, according to the quantity they have, without any bread, unless they have brought some biscuit with them…”

Busbecq then goes on to compare the attitudes of these soldiers with their Western counterparts and admits the supremacy of the former with stunning self-assessment and criticism:

“From this you will see that it is the patience, self-denial and thrift of the Turkish soldier that enable him to face the most trying circumstances and come safely out of the dangers that surround him. What a contrast to our men! … On their side is the vast wealth of their empire, unimpaired resources, experience and practice in arms, a veteran soldiery, an uninterrupted series of victories, readiness to endure hardships, union, order, discipline, thrift and watchfulness. On ours are found an empty exchequer, luxurious habits, exhausted resources, broken spirits, a raw and insubordinate soldiery, and greedy quarrels; there is no regard for discipline, license runs riot, the men indulge in drunkenness and debauchery, and worst of all, the enemy are accustomed to victory, we to defeat. Can we doubt what the result must be?”

Thus, Busbecq sets out several universal virtues and ethical and moral principles as belonging to the Janissaries. Selflessness, humility, simplicity, integrity, and honor are among the virtues that Busbecq attributes to the Janissaries. He believes the way that individuals are ranked and merited for a job or promotion in the Ottomans is certainly of importance and may help us at least to partially explain the lofty character of the Janissaries. According to Busbecq, the merits for an important position in public service and authority should be based on character and ability, rather than privileges of birth, prosperity or social status:

“No distinction is attached to birth among the Turks; the deference to be paid to a man is measured by the position he holds in the public service. There is no fighting for precedence; a man’s place is marked out by the duties he discharges. In making his appointments the Sultan pays no regard to any pretensions on the score of wealth or rank, nor does he take into consideration recommendations or popularity, he considers each case on its own merits, and examines carefully into the character, ability, and disposition of the man whose promotion is in question. It is by merit that men rise in the service, a system which ensures that posts should only be assigned to the competent…”

These remarks are astounding, even to us today. Being awarded with a position is based on qualifications and past accomplishments rather than social status and rank. This normative statement certainly has political and social implications. Busbecq continues in his claim even further:

“Those who receive the highest offices from the Sultan are for the most part the sons of shepherds or herdsmen, and so far from being ashamed of their parentage, they actually glory in it, and consider it a matter of boasting that they owe nothing to the accident of birth; for they do not believe that high qualities are either natural or hereditary, nor do they think that they can be handed down from father to son, but that they are partly the gift of God, and partly the result of good training, great industry, and unwearied zeal; arguing that high qualities do not descend from a father to his son or heir, any more than a talent for music, mathematics, or the like; and that the mind does not derive its origin from the father, so that the son should necessarily be like the father in character, or emanates from heaven, and is thence infused into the human body. Among the Turks, therefore, honors, high posts, and judgeships are the rewards of great ability and good service. If a man be dishonest, or lazy, or careless, he remains at the bottom of the ladder, an object of contempt; for such qualities there are no honors in Turkey!”

Nobody is held responsible for the misfortunes or sins of their parents. Everybody is accountable for his or her own deeds. The lofty character of a mother and father does not pass to the children at birth. It is how a child is raised and educated that really matters in society. People who are elevated intellectually or spiritually are those who benefit themselves and society. Without a doubt these universal messages that Busbecq proclaims with honesty are ones that we wholeheartedly support.

In addition to being an indispensable source of information about Ottoman life more than four centuries ago, these letters also provide valuable lessons for policymakers. They remind us that the foundations of great civilizations and military power were lofty values and virtues. Power, when in the hands of the righteous, becomes an instrument for stability and balance. On the contrary, when in the hands of a tyrant, power causes chaos and anarchy in the world. Morality, integrity, equity and fairness, as well as merit, are some of the principles that may guide nations towards progress and prosperity. In a sense, a nation will rise when more of its members become selfless and are able to put the interests of “others” before “their own.” Societies that are made up of people who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the better good of others will indeed inherit a better world for their children. They will also be remembered forever. Those who put their own hedonistic ambitions before all else are doomed to be forgotten. Nobody will remember their lavish and inconsiderate lives or existence. The former U.S. president, J. F. Kennedy once said “Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country.” It may be most appropriate for us to conclude as follows: “Ask not how others can help you, but ask how you can help others.”

Osman Nal is an associate professor in finance, Texas Southern University.

Notes

1. Several uprisings by local populations in different parts of the Ottoman State occurred. But their number was very limited. In the case of the Balkans, for at least 200 years, and in the Middle East for at least 400 years, social life was very calm and stable.
2. A useful book on the Ottomans is Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross and Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin.

References

1. C. T. Forster and F. H. B. Daniel, eds. The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Vol. I, London: Kegan Paul, 1881.
2. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1555busbecq.html

Dating back to the sixteenth century,¹ the Grand Champs des Morts was unique among Istanbul’s necropolises, with burial grounds for followers of both Islam and Christianity in close proximity. Beginning at Taksim (roughly on the site where the Ataturk Cultural Center now stands) and extending down the slopes of Gumussuyu and Findikli lay the graves of Muslims, while the area stretching northward toward Harbiye was divided into separate sections for the city’s various Christian communities. The English traveler Julia Pardoe describes the site in 1836:

The first plot of ground, after passing the barrack [the artillery barracks of Selim III at Taksim], is the grave-yard of the Franks; and here you are greeted on all sides with inscriptions in Latin; injunctions to pray for the souls of the departed; flourishes of French sentiment; calembourgs² graven into the everlasting stone, treating of roses and reine Marguerites; concise English records of births, deaths, ages, and diseases; Italian elaborations of regret and despair; and all the common-places of an ordinary burial-ground.³

Immediately in a line with the European cemetery, is the burial-ground of the Armenians. It is a thickly-peopled spot; and as you wander beneath the leafy boughs of the scented acacias, and thread your way among the tombs, you are struck by the peculiarity of their inscriptions. The noble Armenian character is graven deeply into the stone; name and date are duly set forth; but that which renders an Armenian slab. . . peculiar and distinctive, is the chiseling upon the tomb the emblem of the trade or profession of the deceased.

The Turkish cemetery stretches along the slope of the hill behind the barrack, and descends far into the valley. Its thickly-planted cypresses form a dense shade, beneath which the tall head-stones gleam out white and ghastly. The grove is intersected by footpaths, and here and there a green glade lets in the sunshine, to glitter upon many a gilded tomb. Plunge into the thick darkness of the more covered spots, and for a moment you will almost think that you stand amid the ruins of some devastated city. You are surrounded by what appears for an instant to be the myriad fragments of some mighty whole; but the gloom has deceived you-you are in the midst of a Necropolis-a City of the Dead.⁴

The vastness and natural beauty of the Grand Champs des Morts captured the attention of foreign residents and visitors to Istanbul alike, and few travel accounts and diaries from the past fail to mention-even if only in passing reference-the cemetery on the outskirts of Pera. The Grand Champs des Morts presented a sharp contrast to the densely packed inner-city churchyards which served as the principal burial grounds in so many of Europe’s cities up to the nineteenth century. Although some chroniclers considered the size of the Pera cemetery, as well as the great necropolises bordering other districts of Istanbul, a hindrance to urban expansion and development,⁵ the advantage of such a spacious, sylvan tract of land for burial of the dead was also recognized.

Not far from this [Taksim] we entered upon one of those vast burying-grounds which form one of the most conspicuous features of every Turkish city. . . In a few words. . . I may state that the cemetery. . . covers an area of more than 100 acres, and that a thick forest of cypresses (resembling in shape the poplar, but with a dark green foliage) overspreads it with a solemn shade, extremely appropriate to its ordinary uses. . .⁶

Cemetery planners in Western Europe, spurred on by public calls for improvements to the hygiene and appearance of local burial grounds, cited precedents in Istanbul-as well as other areas of the East-in their effort to close inner-city churchyards and replace them with larger, more salubrious cemeteries outside settled areas. This process of reform essentially began in France during the eighteenth century. It was encouraged by authors such as the naturalist Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814), who, in his celebrated atudes de la Nature, praised the Turkish custom of burying the dead in the countryside (a tradition also observed in classical antiquity and contemporary China) and recommended the implementation of similar practices in Paris. He proposed “landscaped lysces as the burial-place of the great and good, and public cemeteries (essentially landscaped gardens where the dead would be buried and, if prosperity allowed, monuments erected). . . Public cemeteries should be created in the vicinity of the city, planted with cypresses, pines, and fruit-trees, and monuments erected in such a setting could only induce profound moral feelings and tender melancholy in those who visited them.”⁷

By the late 1700s, new methods for disposing of the dead were of absolute necessity in most of Europe’s major cities, and not simply for esthetic purposes, but for maintaining public health. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the municipality of Paris took the first steps by closing old burial grounds, such as the ancient Cimetire des Innocents, and establishing new cemeteries, including the famed Pre-Lachaise, Montparnasse, and Montmartre early in the next. A similar course of action occurred somewhat later in London, commencing with the opening of Kensal Green in 1832, the first of seven new private cemeteries founded over the next decade on the outskirts of the city.⁸ Finally, in 1852, all graveyards inside the city limits were closed with the passage into law of the Metropolitan Burial Act. By that time, London’s churchyards, many dating from the Middle Ages, were in a critical state. One contemporary journal, The Builder, asserted in 1843 that 50,000 bodies yearly were piled one on top of the other in these overcrowded graveyards, where-left to putrefy and rot-they gave out exhalations and darkened the air with vapors. Charles Dickens cynically portrayed the grim situation in the Uncommercial Traveller:

Such strange churchyards hide in the City of London; churchyards sometimes so entirely pressed upon by houses, so small, so rank, so silent, so forgotten, except by the few people who ever look down into them from their smokey windows. As I stand peeping in through the iron gates and rails, I can peel the rusty metal off, like bark from an old tree. The illegible tombstones are all lopsided, the gravemounds lost their shape in the rains of a hundred years ago, the Lombardy Poplar or Plane-Tree that was once a drysalter’s daughter and several common-councilmen, has withered like those worthies, and its departed leaves are dust beneath it. Contagion of slow ruin overhangs the place . . .⁹

Considering the dismal, unwholesome state of burial grounds in their own countries, it is no wonder that Europeans often waxed eloquent about the cemeteries of Istanbul, highlighting the aura of life which they engendered. Julia Pardoe offers a particularly vivid description of the burial grounds in the Ottoman capital, where the present generation readily merged with those of the past.

[The Turk] looks upon death calmly and without repugnance; he does not connect it with ideas of gloom and horror, as we are too prone to do in Europe,-he spreads his burial places in the sunniest spots-on the crests of the laughing hills, where they are bathed in the light of the blue sky; beside the crowded thoroughfares of the city, where the dead are, as it were, once more mingled with the living,-in the green nooks that stretch down to the Bosphorus, wherein more selfish spirits would have erected a villa, or have planted a vineyard. He identifies himself with the generation which has passed away-he is ready to yield his place to that which is to succeed his own.¹⁰

For the cemetery reformers of Europe, such descriptions offered an ideal in their quest for more wholesome, esthetically appealing burial grounds. Located in the hilly countryside on the fringes of the city, the Grand Champs des Morts and Istanbul’s other great necropolises served as a model for those who strove to create new cemeteries for the sanitary disposal of the dead, as well as provide an idyllic environment for the expression of one’s most tender feelings and deepest sentiments. Contemporary author Samuel Taylor Coleridge even commented on the emotive aspect of Turkish burial grounds.

Nothing can make amends for the want of the soothing influences of nature, and for the absence of those types of renovation and decay which the fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious and contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man only compare in imagination, the unsightly manner in which our monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and almost grassless churchyard of a large town, with the still seclusion of a Turkish cemetery in some remote place, and yet further sanctified by the grove of cypresses in which it is embosomed.¹¹ /

Specific reference to the Grand Champs des Morts and other Turkish cemeteries as archetypes to imitate in the West also appear in the writings of John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843), one of the most influential cemetery reformers of the nineteenth century. A Scottish landscape gardener, Loudon proposed that burial grounds should be on elevated ground, distant enough from urban centers as not to endanger the health of the populace, yet near enough to lessen the time and expense of funerals and encourage visits by the living to the tombs of the dead. To make the site attractive, he favored a garden-like setting, and suggested the planting of various types of trees and shrubs. Istanbul’s necropolises offered exemplary models of these principles, and Loudon quoted descriptions of them in his works on burial ground planning and design. “The Turkish cemeteries are generally out of the city, on rising ground, planted with cedars, cypresses, and odoriferous shrubs, whose deep verdure and graceful forms bending in every breeze give a melancholy beauty to the place, and excite sentiments very congenial to its destination.”¹²

Besides the location of Istanbul’s cemeteries in the midst of nature and removed from the habitations of the living, the local tradition of single interments also impressed European observers. As Julia Pardoe remarked, the remains of the dead were not disturbed once laid to rest, a practice followed in both the Muslim and Christian burial grounds of the Grand Champs des Morts. “There is no burying and reburying on the same spot, as with us. The remains of the departed are sacred.”¹³ In stark contrast, Europeans-largely due to space restrictions in their heavily populated cities-regularly opened existing graves and filled them with new cadavers, to the point that some churchyards became pestilential pits, seriously endangering public health. By the late eighteenth century these unsanitary conditions had become intolerable. Through the influence of reformers, many of whom took inspiration from the burial practices of the Ottomans, new laws were instituted regulating methods of disposing of the dead. A French decree passed in 1804, for instance, prohibited burial in common graves, where the dead were stacked up one on top of the other.¹⁴ Instead, each cadaver was to be buried in its own space, dug to a specific depth and separated from other graves by a set distance, a method of sepulture eventually adopted in other European countries as well.

More than Ottoman burial practices, however, the unique social life which revolved around Istanbul’s cemeteries, especially in the Grand Champs des Morts, aroused the interest of foreigners. Both Muslim and Christian inhabitants of the city followed distinct rituals for remembering their dead, and families of all religious persuasions made regular visits to their respective burial grounds, maintaining their link with the generations which had preceded them. The pleasant surroundings of the cemeteries (places to avoid in Europe’s municipalities) encouraged this communion with the departed. Moreover, the great necropolises were more than resting places for the dead. “The Champs des Morts,” as Julia Pardoe recounts, “is the promenade of the whole population-Turk, Frank, Greek, and Armenian. . .”¹⁵

It was known to the locals as a place of keyif, or an area connected with ease and enjoyment.¹⁶ Spacious, fresh, green, and in close proximity to the residential quarters of Pera, the burial ground served as a kind of parkland-an attractive area of rest and relaxation for the populace of Istanbul. With whatever views they pay these visits, it is certain that the burying-ground is their favorite resort, where they spend many of their spare hours. Whole families, parents and little children, may be seen gathered around a tomb in silence and seriousness, or in animated and joyous converse. All the burying-grounds, Turkish, Jewish, and Christian, are chief places of public resort.¹⁷

The Grand Champs des Morts even had a cafe at the crest of the hill overlooking Dolmabahce, where customers could while away the day smoking water pipes, drinking Turkish coffee, and gazing out at the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus in the distance.¹⁸ Itinerant vendors also wandered through the cemetery, offering refreshments to visitors. Water sellers usually followed in their wake, carrying huge dripping jars and shouting their distinctive cry buz gibi su! (ice-cold water),¹⁹ ready to quench the thirst of those strolling or lounging among the tombs. Yet, perhaps the most fascinating sight for Europeans were the public fairs held in the necropolis. More than just a place for commemoration, quiet contemplation, and repose, the Grand Champs des Morts was also the site of lively festivals and celebrations. On such occasions, the burial grounds—primarily those of the Christians—were transformed into an animated spectacle of gaiety and amusement. Julia Pardoe describes in colorful detail one such fte for the living amongst the monuments of the dead.

I have already spoken elsewhere of the indifference, if not absolute enjoyment with which the inhabitants of the East frequent their burying grounds; but on the occasion of this festival I was more impressed than ever by the extent to which it is carried. The whole of the Christian cemetery had assumed the appearance of a fair. . . Grave-stones steadied the poles which supported the swings—divans, comfortably overlaid with cushions, were but chintz-covered sepulchers—the kibaub merchants had dug hollows to cook their dainties under the shelter of the tombs, and the smoking booths were amply supplied with seats and counters from the same wide waste of death. Every hundred yards that we advanced, the scene became more striking. One long line of diminutive tents formed a temporary street of eating-houses; there were kibaubs, pillauf, fritters, pickled vegetables, soups, rolls stuffed with fine herbs, sausages, fried fish, bread of every quality, and cakes of all dimensions. . . . Here and there a flat tomb, fancifully covered with gold-embroidered handkerchiefs, was overspread with sweetmeats and preserved fruits; while in the midst of these rival establishments, groups of men were seated in a circle, wherever a little shade could be obtained, smoking their long pipes in silence, with their diminutive coffee-cups resting on the ground beside them. The wooden kiosk overhanging the Bosphorus was crowded; and many a party was snugly niched among the acacias, with their backs resting against the tombs, and the sunshine flickering at their feet.²⁰

Undoubtedly, Europeans were amazed by the merging of the realms of the living and the dead that occurred at Istanbul’s Grand Champs des Morts, where, as French embassy member Charles Pertusier remarked, ‘those who weep are not disturbed by the lyric songs of joy, and those who laugh pay no attention to those who weep.’²¹ Visiting—much less taking one’s pleasure in—burial grounds would have been almost inconceivable in the West. However, in the first half of the nineteenth century, this had already begun to change with the closing of inner-city churchyards and the creation of cemeteries on the periphery of urban areas in Europe. Planted with a rich variety of trees and shrubs, the burial grounds founded in Paris and London during this era constituted a distinctly new style. Essentially funerary gardens, they served both as cemeteries and parklands. Burial grounds such as Pere Lachaise, Montmartre, Kensal Green, and Highgate became renowned for their natural beauty, and were frequented—much like today—both by mourners wishing to commemorate the dead as well as visitors seeking a quiet spot for meditation and repose. Ironically, even as Europeans in the nineteenth century were opening new burial grounds influenced by models from Istanbul, sections of the very cemeteries from which they had derived inspiration (including portions of the Grand Champs des Morts) were being lost in the wake of rapid urban development. During the course of this transformation—spurred on by a desire to rebuild the city in contemporary Western fashion—it was inevitable that many of Istanbul’s old burial grounds would lessen in size, or vanish completely from the map. The city was unique in that so many of its immediate environs were taken up by vast necropolises for the dead, a conspicuous feature which left a distinct impression on foreign travelers, such as Stephen Olin, who in 1853 remarked on the loss of the cemeteries in the wake of urban growth.

Indeed, so vast a space has been devoted to the dead around Istanbul, that it is no longer possible to respect the sanctity of their abode without interfering greatly with the convenience of the living, and even the entire sacrifice of public convenience. Immense as the city is, I am quite sure that much more ground is occupied by tombs and graves than by the habitations of the living. The whole country about Constantinople, Scutari, and Pera is occupied in this way, and a vast number of tombs and burying grounds are enclosed within the walls. In forming roads, streets, and in building, it is no longer possible to spare them, and one often treads upon causeways or pavements made of sculptured grave-stones and monuments.²²

Between 1840 and 1910, the area of Istanbul stretching northward from Taksim to li was transformed from open countryside to densely inhabited residential settlement. Early nineteenth-century maps of Istanbul show much of the area in this direction taken up by the non-Muslim burial grounds of the Grand Champs des Morts, with the Frankish section directly in the path of the main route of expansion. Already, by 1842, this burial ground was being whittled down, as a contemporary account by Reverend William Goodell attests. One of the founders of the American Board mission to the Armenians at Istanbul, Goodell had lost his nine-year-old son, Constantine Washington, to gastric typhoid in 1841 and buried him in the Frankish section of the Grand Champs des Morts.

February 18, 1842. On account of the encroachments. . . on the Frank burying ground, I had to remove the body of our beloved boy. The grave . . . had been dug deep, and the coffin was scarcely damp. Every thing was sweet and still. The new grave which we have prepared a few rods distant was also deep and dry; and there we laid the body, to rest in its quiet bed till the resurrection morning. Beloved child, farewell!²³

However, little Constantine’s tranquility lasted far less than expected, disturbed again by a flurry of construction in the early 1860s, including the widening of the main road running from Taksim to Pangalti. In July 1863, the remains of more than a dozen Americans, including those of Constantine Washington Goodell, were exhumed from the old Frankish burial ground in the Grand Champs des Morts. They were transferred, along with their grave markers, to a new Protestant cemetery in Ferikiy—created by order of Sultan Abdulmecit I in the 1850s—for re-interment.24 The land occupied by the former burial ground was turned into a public park (in a modern Western sense), a project finally completed six years later with the opening of Taksim Garden in 1869.²⁵ As the urban environment around Taksim expanded in succeeding decades, the other burial grounds of the Grand Champs des Morts also disappeared. The Armenian cemetery, which lay to the north of the Frankish burial ground, was still delineated on the 1925—26 Pervititch insurance maps of Istanbul, but labeled as ‘ex-Cimetire Armenien,’ apparently indicating that it had ceased to be an active place of interment. Most of the Muslim burial grounds which had covered the slopes of Gumussuyu and Findikli had already vanished by the First World War; an aerial photograph taken from a balloon at that time shows a small portion—evident as a thick patch of cypresses—still straddling the side of the hill between the Taksim barracks an the military hospital in Gumussuyu.²⁶

The scant remains of the once great necropolis would cease to exist by the mid-twentieth century.²⁷ All the while, as the great cemetery shrank—sacrificed for the sake of public convenience—reformers in Europe were transforming the spatial relationship of the living and dead in the West. The nineteenth century witnessed an innovative concept in European burial ground design, with the introduction of expansive, magnificently landscaped cemeteries. Serene and picturesque, they served as additional public parks in many towns and cities. Whereas the small, noxious churchyards of previous ages had been shunned, the new necropolises were considered an ideal place for a relaxing stroll or family outing, not to mention a site of regular pilgrimage to pay respects to the well-loved dead. This shift in custom and attitude was the culmination of several decades of reform, which—to no small extent—was inspired by the traditions of sepulture in other lands, including the Ottoman empire. Remarkably, at a time when the Ottomans were actively borrowing ideas and institutions from Europe in an effort to modernize the empire, their centuries-old customs of burial and commemoration of the dead helped fuel a vital social advance in the very countries they looked to for guidance. At the same time, urban development in the Ottoman capital, influenced by Western models, led to the closure of the Grand Champs des Morts—Istanbul’s ‘City of the Dead,’ a world-renowned necropolis which had provided inspiration, as well as an ideal, for the cemetery reformers of Europe.

Footnotes

1. By some accounts, the earliest interments at the Grand Champs des Morts date to c. 1560, when Istanbul was struck with a severe epidemic of plague, and the open fields around Taksim were used to bury the great numbers of dead; see Istanbul Ansiklopedisi, s.v. ‘Ermeni Mezarliklari.’ The tombstone of a Dutch physician, Willem Quackelbeen, who died of the disease in 1561, offers physical evidence of this conjecture. It is currently located in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Ferikiy, where it was most likely transferred when the Frankish section of the Grand Champs des Morts closed in the mid-1800s, see A.H. de Groot, Old Dutch Graves at Istanbul, Archivum Ottomanicum 5 (1973): 6. Robert Walsh, chaplain to the British Embassy at Istanbul in the 1830s, recounted in his memoirs that the earliest grave-marker in the Frankish burial ground was that of Ludovicus Chizzolo, a Jesuit who succumbed to the plague in 1585, see R. Walsh, A Residence at Constantinople, vol. 2 (London: Richard Bentley, 1838), 441.
2. Calembourg: a pun, or play on words.
3. Julia Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, 4th ed. (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1854), 51.
4. Ibid., 53—54.
5. For instance, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, writing in 1717, commented: ‘The burying fields about it (i.e., Istanbul) are certainly much larger than the whole city. ‘Tis surprising what a vast deal of land is lost this way in Turkey. Sometimes I have seen burying places of several miles, belonging to very inconsiderable villages. . . .’ See Hans-Peter Laqueur, ‘Cemeteries in Orient and Occident: The Historical Development,’ in Cimetires et Traditions Funcraires dans le Monde Islamique (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1996), 2: 3.
6. An American, Sketches of Turkey in 1831 and 1832 (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), 158.
7. James Stevens Curl, The Victorian Celebration of Death (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Ltd.), 17.
8. These included West Norwood (1837); Highgate (1839); Brompton, Nunhead, and Abney Park (1840); and Tower Hamlets (1841).
9. Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller (London: Oxford, 1860) 233.
10. Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, 36.
11. John Claudius Loudon, ‘On the Laying Out, Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries and on the Improvement of Churchyards.’ The Gardener’s Magazine, 1843, p. 100.
12. Ibid., 405.
13. Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, 50.
14. Thomas A. Kselman, Death and the Afterlife in Modern France, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993, 169—70.
15. Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, 50.
16. Charles White, Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1844, vol. 1 (London: Henry Colburn, 1846), 15-16.
17. Stephen Olin, Greece and the Golden Horn (New York: Carlton & Philips, 1854), 249.
18. Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, 51.
19. White, Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1844, 1: 15—16.
20. Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, 134—35.
21. Petusier further states: ‘To form a correct idea of these heterogeneous scenes, we must be on the spot, for no description can do justice to them; and even when we see them, for the first time, it appears such a complete illusion, that we can scarsely conceive its reality.’ See Charles Petusier, Picturesque Promenades in and near Constantinople and on the Waters of the Bosphorus (London: Sir Richard Phillips and Co., 1820), 96.
22. Olin, Greece and the Golden Horn, 219.
23. E.D.G. Prime, Memoirs of Rev. William Goodell, D.D. (Robert Carter and Brothers, 1876), 275.
24. Burial Registry of the Ferikiy Protestant Cemetery, no. 331—343, 1863, Governing Board of the Ferikiy Protestant Cemetery, Istanbul, Turkey.
25. Zeynep Celik, The Remaking of Istanbul, Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1986, 69.
26. For a copy of this image, see Celik Gulersoy, Taksim: Bir Meydanin Hikayesi (Istanbul: Istanbul Kitapligi, 1986), 37.
27. Some tombstones from the Frankish section of the Grand Champs des Morts still survive in the Protestant and Catholic cemeteries in Istanbul’s Ferikay district, where they were transferred after the old burial ground closed in the mid-1800s.