“We belong to God and to God we are ever returning.”
Eternal rest grant unto him, O God
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy God,
rest in peace…
…and may his memory be a blessing to us all.
Amen.

My beloved sisters and brothers of Hizmet:

Al-salāmu `alaykum wa raḥmat Allāh wa barakātuhū.

May peace, and the mercy and blessings of God, be with you.

I write to you today with a heavy heart.

In solidarity with you and your families, I grieve the passing into eternity of a fellow traveler whose sojourn in time has had such a transformative effect on millions of lives around the world—our beloved Hocaefendi, M. Fethullah Gülen, may God be pleased with him and grant him mercy.

In Sūrat al-Nūr, the Holy Qur’ān beckons us to ponder the mystery of God’s unfailing and ubiquitous presence in our lives. The famous “light verse” (āyat al-nūr) offers a sublime metaphor by which it invites us to imagine God as God really is: as “the light of the heavens and the earth.”

The verse suggests that, rather than conceive of the one, true God as existing within and bound by the limits of material being, we should think of our experience of God as akin to that of the sun which—no matter the condition of our own lives and hearts—unfailingly bathes the earth from the morning prayer to the evening prayer.

We are taught that, just as the sun unceasingly illumines the physical world, God graces all existence—both the seen and unseen—with a supernal light that dispels all obscurity and gloom, enabling us to witness the stunning beauty and magnificence of God’s handiwork and to discern, however indistinctly, our own place in it.

The verse goes on to lend greater texture and depth to the metaphor by striking a breathtaking simile, telling us that God’s light is mediated and diffused in the world in a way analogous to how light is diffused in the rooms of our own earthly dwellings: from a special corner or niche (mishkāt) in which hangs a multifaceted crystalline lamp (miṣbāḥ).

When I reflect on the deep sorrow and bewilderment many of us are experiencing at the loss of Hocaefendi, I cannot help but liken it to the extinction of a treasured lamp shining in the rooms of each of our lives.

I cannot help likening our collective experience of the passing of our beloved Hocaefendi to what the Gospel tradition tells us the disciples of Jesus, peace be upon him, felt when they thought death had ripped the Christ away from them forever, or to what the Sira portrays as the grief, anxiety, and even panic of the early Umma when it seemed as if that Lamp of lamps, may God bless him and grant him peace, had finally gone on a journey from which he would never return—a panic so profound that, as tradition reports, some of his closest Companions temporarily refused to believe the news of the Prophet’s passing.

And just as that grief and sense of panic threatens to overtake me, now that Hocaefendi has embarked on that same journey back to his Creator, I am reminded of the lesson of hope and resilience each of us is called to draw from the passing of all the Prophets and Messengers of God, peace be upon them, and indeed from the passing of all the friends of God, women and men such as Hocaefendi, whose example helps illumine the paths of our own life journeys.

The lesson is that, although the lamp may no longer be there for us to see, its light remains.

This light with which we have been blessed through Hocaefendi cannot help but remain. It remains because it is essentially the eternal light of the One to whom each of us belongs and to whom each of us is returning from the day we are conceived in our mother’s womb until we take our last breath.

Even though the lamp of our beloved teacher and brother is gone, the light that shone through him endures.

It endures in the hearts of each of us who received it while he was alive.

So let us take comfort in this and at the same time let us also tremble under the yoke of responsibility that has now been placed upon us.

If our desire is to honor the memory and precious legacy of Hocaefendi, let us do what I know he would want us to do.

Let us recognize and affirm that, although the lamp of his earthly life is no longer, the light of God endures.

And let us, at the same time, quake in humble and hopeful anticipation now that the responsibility lies with each of us to be lamps in the rooms of our fellow human beings.

Let us accept the blessed taklīf (obligation) to be these lamps of service to God Almighty by tirelessly serving humanity in ways that all people, especially the poor and oppressed, may experience God’s healing, life-giving, and liberating light in the obscurity and gloom of the endless rials and tribulations of this dunyā (world).

May God be pleased with you all – Allah razī olsun.

In faith, hope, and love.

This brief essay has three basic aims. The first is to offer a general definition of the Hizmet movement. The second is to highlight some of the major characteristics of the movement that relate to its emphasis on education. The third is to convey the extent to which the teachings of Fethullah Gulen embody an understanding of, and commitment to, education as a liberative force, a commitment which resonates deeply with the role of education in the ongoing struggle for civil rights in the United States.

1. Definition

I define Hizmet (Turkish for “service”) as a global spiritual renewal and social reform movement, rooted in traditional Islamic spirituality, observance, and teachings, but appealing to people of diverse faiths and backgrounds who share its universal values. These values center around the importance of family, education, and personal responsibility for the welfare of others–all within a context of a life lived in loving submission (islam) to God. Such values are oriented towards dialogue and cooperation–both within and across societies and cultures–for the purpose of pursuing greater justice and thus greater peace and solidarity in the human family.

In this respect, Hizmet stands in contrast to other contemporary so-called “Islamist” movements which are primarily political in nature, seeking to pursue a reformist agenda by overtly “Islamizing” the governmental and legal structures of existing Muslim majority nation-states.

2. M. Fethullah Gulen’s teaching of Hosgoru as the dominant ethos of Hizmet

As many of the readers of this publication are well aware, the human spiritual inspiration behind the Hizmet movement is an elderly Turkish gentleman, who mows the lawn and washes the dishes, by the name of M. Fethullah Gulen. He is also known respectfully and affectionately to the millions who deeply admire and love him as a true man of God and eminently wise teacher, myself included, as “Hocaefendi” or “beloved teacher.”

There are many things one could say about this extraordinary man. Indeed multiple volumes could be written about his incredible life story of selfless service to God in the humble service he has always striven to render to others. Countless pages could be written exploring the insightful and profound ideas he shares in his scores of books translated into scores of languages. But Mr. Gulen himself would be displeased if he thought any writer was expending energy focusing on him rather than the mission to which he has dedicated his life and to which he has tirelessly invited countless others. So in deference to Mr. Gulen’s sensibilities, allow me to encapsulate a key principle of his teachings which is arguably the dominant ethos of the movement he has inspired. This key principle is known, in Gulen’s native Turkish, as hosgoru.

The standard translation of hosgoru into English is “tolerance.” Hence the following translation of a very famous set of verses from the poetry of Hocaefendi:

“Be so tolerant that your bosom becomes wide as the ocean. Be inspired with faith and love of human beings. Let there be no troubled souls to whom you do not offer a hand and about whom you remain unconcerned.”

Even as translated, the moral and spiritual pathos of these verses is powerful. Yet, as powerful as it stands, the translation is inadequate. Its inadequacy has primarily to do with the vagaries of translation and, in this particular instance, a significant semantic gap between the relatively maximalist root meaning of the Turkish word hosgoru and the rather minimalist contemporary connotation of the English word, “tolerance.” Whereas “tolerance” connotes a sense of enduring—usually with some difficulty—an adverse circumstance or set of circumstances, hosgoru connotes a radically different sensibility.

The term is derived from two roots: the first—hos—meaning “good”; and the second—gormek—meaning “to see.” Thus hosgoru literally means “seeing [especially the other] in a goodly manner” and/or “seeing the goodness in the other. Gulen writes:

“Under the lens of hosgoru, the merits of believers attain a new depth and extend to infinity; mistakes and faults shrink so much that they can be squeezed into a thimble. Actually the treatment of He Who is beyond time and space always passes through the prism of hosgoru, and we wait for it to embrace us and all of creation.”– “The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue: A Muslim Perspective” (2001)

Attend, if you will, to what Mr. Gulen is saying here. He is not only implying that human dignity is elevated through an ethic of hosgoru. He is saying that God, Godself, looks upon God’s creation—and especially all human beings—through the “lens of hosgoru.” In other words, Gulen identifies hosgoru as a divinely ordained dynamic in the divine-human relationship. He is implying that if the One God, who is perfect and flawless, looks upon creation—and especially us human beings with all our sins and shortcomings—in a manner which emphasizes our goodness (cf. Hadith 37 of the Arba`in of al-Nawawi), how much more so are we, as flawed and sinful beings, beholden to look upon others in the same way?

3. Commitment to education and a pedagogical methodology of example (temsil)

Before I actually met Fethullah Gulen Hocaefendi, I felt that I had already met him in the many friends I had acquired from Hizmet. They concretize, in their lives, the essence of so much of what he teaches: humility, service and a deep concern for others (especially those who are suffering), dedication to family, commitment to self-improvement, and a willingness to learn from those who are different from themselves. These are all wonderful words, but in my many friends from Hizmet—working in so many different places around the world—they strive to put them into action. The world is hungry for examples not just rhetoric and Hizmet, in it’s own special way, is attempting to help satisfy this hunger. This notion of teaching by example—in Turkish, temsil—is a key component of the educational philosophy of, and pedagogical methodologies advocated by, Fethullah Gulen.

As Ruth Woodall (“Fethullah Gulen’s Philosophy of Education in Practice”) reminds us:

Gulen calls performance of the superficial, technical aspects of instruction “teaching”, reserving the term “education” for a deeper, more meaningful and holistic activity (unal and Williams 2000:312). Notwithstanding the importance that the schools attach to training in practical classroom technique, the teacher is more than a mere purveyor of information or skills. The relationship between teacher and student is crucial: “The best way to educate people is to show a real concern for every individual, not forgetting that each individual is a different ‘world'” (Unal and Williams 2000:313).

So, in Gulen’s thought, the role of the teacher as an exemplar of hosgoru is key to her or his effectiveness, not only in the classroom as a pedagogue, but as an educator in the broader and more holistic sense. We should not miss the degree to which Gulen models this in his own role as the paradigmatic teacher/educator or hoca par excellence of the Hizmet movement. The practical effects of Gulen’s own modeling of hosgoru are palpably evident in the teachers who work in the over 1500 Hizmet schools worldwide. To return to Woodhall:

This importance given to the development of the individual in the movement leads to teachers and administrators dedicating extra hours to free after-school and weekend lessons for individuals or small groups. Graduates of the schools, who have started university courses, also return voluntarily to help the students in the following years with their studies and to mentor them (Aslandogan and Cetin 2007:54). …Teachers’ altruism is not confined to sacrificing their time for students. They also make considerable financial sacrifices. Many teachers also sponsor students for part or all of their tuition. (www.fethullahgulenforum.org)

4. Mutually critical assessment of tradition and modernity

A characteristic of the teachings of Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet movement, which has roots in the work of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (d. 1960), is the importance of placing tradition and modernity into a mutually critical conversation with one another, triangulating on questions of socio-cultural development and reform. Put simply, Gulen encourages those he inspires to take up the project of using modern ideas to critique and better understand traditional values and practices, and using traditional teachings better to assess and critically evaluate particular features of modernity. The reason for doing this is to arrive at the optimal synthesis of the traditional and the modern for the welfare of human societies.

As someone who spent his formative years in late twentieth century Turkey, Gulen experienced firsthand the many negative effects of a brand of coercive and oppressive laicite as part of a much larger project of nationalist social engineering. In particular, Gulen perceived the way in which “democracy” and its reputation as a “modern” value could be little more than a Western rhetorical trope. Indeed he witnessed the way in which this trope, when transplanted into his own Turkish republican context, was used to mask a very modern and unforgiving form of Kemalist authoritarianism which could well be assessed as far less “democratic” and certainly far less “pluralist” than the Ottoman imperial structures it supplanted. So, for Gulen, modern ideas, such as those distilled in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, could be a very helpful lens through which Muslims could begin to glimpse with more clarity some of the foundational universalist and humanist principles proclaimed in the Qur’an and embedded within Islamic jurisprudence. By the same token, Gulen saw these very principles—especially in their particularly Islamic modality—as having much to offer, not just contemporary Muslim societies, but all societies.

In this regard, Gulen writes of democracy that it

“…has developed over time. Just as it has gone through many different stages in the past , it will continue to evolve and improve in the future. Along the way, it will be shaped into a more humane and just system, one based on righteousness and reality. If human beings are considered whole, without disregarding the spiritual dimension of their existence and their spiritual needs, and without forgetting that human life is not limited to this mortal life and that all people have a great craving for eternity, democracy could reach the peak of perfection and bring even more happiness to humanity. Islamic principles of equality, tolerance, and justice can help it do just this.” Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance (NJ: Tughra, 2011 p. 224)

5. Akil ve Kalb: The integration of “mind and heart,” of intelligence and compassion

A hallmark of Hizmet epistemology is the integration of akil ve kalb—of “mind and heart” or intelligence and compassion. In the broadest sense, this is an expression of Gulen’s—and therefore the movement’s—holistic approach to spirituality. In particular, Hizmet participants frequently exhibit an appreciation for the importance of the integration of mind and heart for improving human communities. People in the movement widely affirm the fact that arriving at good solutions to social problems necessitates hard critical analyses. At the same time, however, Hizmet participants would emphasize that every rational solution to a problem must be judged according to how it affects the lives of people—especially the most vulnerable–the ones the Qur’an refers to as the mustad’afun and the New Testament refers to as those “who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

6. Dialogue and consultation

Closely related to the integration of “mind and heart”—especially with respect to meaningful and salutary social reform—is Gulen’s and the Hizmet movement’s emphasis on dialogue and consultation or, to use the Turkish term, istisare. Istisare is a strong ethic of mutual inquiry on strategies for achieving social goals. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there is a natural elective affinity between the largely intra-movement dynamic of istisare, on the one hand, and the movement’s deep commitment to intercultural and interreligious dialogue. I would also argue that, to a very significant degree, the Hizmet ethic and practices of dialogue and consultation comprise the foundation of its emerging identity as a movement of “civic Islam” (cf. Etga Ugur, “Civic Islam in the Public Sphere: the Gulen Movement, Civil Society and Social Capital in Turkey” http://www.islamconference.org/2006/ICI-06%20PAPERS/ABSTRACTS/Etga%20Ugur.pdf).

Conclusion: An illustrative personal story

I would like to close with a personal story which I hope will give you a sense of the global scope of the movement, as well as help illustrate the definition of Hizmet with which I began and the five major characteristics I’ve attempted to identify and briefly explicate.

A few years ago I had occasion to travel to South Africa where, among many other things, I had the opportunity to visit a Hizmet math and science academy for boys which largely served young men from the notoriously economically impoverished Apartheid Era township of Soweto. In fact, I had occasion to visit Soweto and meet people with indomitable and dignified spirits living in abject poverty (even long after Apartheid had been officially dismantled). I was taken there by the teachers at the Hizmet school who regularly visit with their students’ parents in adherence to the holistic educational philosophy of Fethullah Gulen. I also had the privilege of talking to these young men back at the school where they asked me lots of questions about what I did and about President Obama, and where I asked them questions about their studies, their school, and their hopes and dreams for the future.

After this unforgettable exchange, I went back to the office with the principle, where we chatted, and I got around to asking him about the background of the boys I had just met. When I asked about religion, the principle said to me, smiling: “Agabey (a Turkish term of respect for an elder), 80% are Roman Catholic like you!” I had to struggle to hold back my tears, even though by that point I well knew that Turkish men, and especially the men of Hizmet, have no problem crying or seeing other men cry. To think that these Turkish Muslims traveled thousands of miles from the many comforts—both material and spiritual—of their homes, at great personal and familial sacrifice, to build and operate a school so that my young Catholic brothers from Soweto could have a better chance at life, was emotionally and spiritually overwhelming. But more than that, it drove home to me the essence of Hizmet and the vision of Fethullah Gulen.

[This is an abbreviated and edited version of a talk originally given by the author on the occasion of the conferral on M. Fethullah Gulen of the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Peace Award by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King International Chapel of Morehouse College on April 09, 2015.]

“Historic” was a word I often heard a number of Ghanaian dignitaries used to describe the international conference on “Love & Tolerance: Peaceful Co-Existence in Diversity” which took place in Accra, Ghana on April 30, 2015. Sponsored by the National Peace Council (Ghana), and the Ghana-Turkey Cooperation and Development Association (TUDEC), along with The Fountain Magazine, the conference was a cooperative venture between Ghanaians and Turks. Over 300 men and women were in attendance as both speakers and participants, many of whom were distinguished religious, governmental, academic, and business leaders from Ghana and other parts of West Africa, as well as from Turkey and the U.S. The conference was intellectually stimulating and deeply moving, on so many levels. But perhaps the most memorable moment for me–as someone involved in building bridges of understanding, mutual respect, and cooperation between Muslims and Catholic Christians–was when the beloved Archbishop of Accra, Palmer Buckle, eagerly approached the revered Chief Imam of Ghana, Shaykh Nuhu Sharbatu, embraced him and said to me: “This is my father! This is my dear spiritual father!”

As the conference title indicates, its general theme was “love and tolerance,” especially among people of different faiths. But one name that came up over and over again was that of M. Fethullah Gulen, the spiritual inspiration behind the global Muslim spiritual renewal and social reform movement known as Hizmet. More than a few of the speakers discussed various aspects of Mr. Gulen’s teachings on dialogue and on education as the key to personal and social development in an increasingly inter-cultural and interdependent world. Particularly memorable, for me, in this regard were the presentations of Shaykh Khalid Abubakar Aliyu of the Jama`a Nasril Islam of Kaduna, Nigeria, and Prof. Jon Pahl of the Lutheran School of Theology in Philadelphia. Shaykh Khalid spoke of the way in which Gülen’s thought and educational philosophy are implicitly calling for a “psychological revolution” whereby human beings unashamedly recognize and celebrate as their strongest qualities their capacity for altruism, service, and openness to personal transformation in their encounters with the other. For his part, Prof. Pahl presented two very thoughtful images: the first being the “iceberg of violence,” and the second being “the garden of peace.” Pahl divided each image into three distinct dimensions moving from the personal to deeply embedded social structures. He explained how the methodologies of the Hizmet movement attempt to create a three-tiered “peace garden” in an attempt to “melt” the three-tiered “iceberg of violence.”

The conference breaks were marked by the artistry of a highly-skilled traditional Turkish music ensemble which served to elevate the atmosphere of fellowship by adding a dimension of aesthetic beauty to the already engaging analyses offered by the speakers. In the final minutes of the gathering, the distinguished chairman, the Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Asante, invited the HON. ABDUL-RASHID HASSAN PELPUO—the Minister of State in the administration of President John Dramani Mahama – to the podium. The minister spoke of how intellectually engaging and personally moving he found “this historic conference” to be. He also made a point of congratulating the conference organizers and emphasizing the degree to which Flagstaff House (the Ghanaian presidential residence) “strongly supports” and endorses this conference and its aims.

Scott C. Alexander
Director, Catholic-Muslim Studies, Catholic Theological Union in Chicago