“Home.” It’s a word that is thrown so lightly around in our daily conversations yet always carries weight regardless of the circumstance. It’ll be the end of my text message to my mother letting her know that we have dinner ready. It’ll be at the beginning of my groans on the days when work has kept my eyes heavy in the morning. It’ll swish around in my father’s mouth when he talks about a home I’ve only known through blazed childhood memories and the home he can never seem to forget. To me, home could be the library I lived across the street from growing up in Ellicott City, where I spent hours in the cubby with the window looking over the budding garden and reading Junie B. Jones. I had only realized this visiting for the first time a decade later and tracing everything with my fingers all over again, seeing little kids with piles of books similar to mine a decade ago. It’s complicated when the first home means something different for everyone in an immediate family. It’s a small edge of the feats we decided to take on immigrating to America from Turkey before I had gained consciousness of myself or anything around me, and when both my parents only kept small flip phones.

We started making our new home, in a place with rent that costed a mere 250 dollars and groceries from food stamps. As far as my memory goes back, my parents have constantly been learning and teaching. I can remember students reading red books stamped with gold shiny letters intently lined up on our couches, later myself learning the great works of Said Nursi. I remember endless debates that were heftier than the accumulating heap of laughing sunflower seed shells on the coffee table. Our unfortunately pale-colored couches framed exquisite masterpieces from the artistry of spilling cold tea. The soggy tea leaves became weathered with contemplation and companionship. Sohbets [1] that charted unimaginable webs of thought with dew drops of loving jokes laced in between. I could’ve sworn my mother’s brilliance was fueled half by black tea that perhaps ran slightly over brewed, and the other half by the love she felt for her sister on the other end of the table.

After long nights of banter, my mother taught Pre-Algebra to a classroom of kids with most of them dawning ankle monitors under their sweatpants. They called home the part of Baltimore that was blockaded from the rest of the world, their struggles were hard to even discuss amongst my parents. She hugged those bright students so dearly when the world had shunned them in the corners of redlined [2] Cherry Hill. In spite of these burdens, I witnessed people immensely close to their souls and their faith. One of her student’s mother tightly grasped her hand in prayer. I dawdled in conversation and laughs in the laps of students who lost family members to gang violence yet had pure reciprocation for a stranger. Unconditional reciprocation can be difficult to find and demands truly compassionate and amiable character, especially in the hyper-individualized atmosphere we find ourselves in today. We have much to learn from each other in tactical knowledge and what we can foster in our souls. 

Gradually, I began learning as well. I mapped out my lines in Geometry the way I imagine my mother has done in the classroom, how I danced between the lines! My learning was almost constant from Geometry class to reading endless books after school to Saturday school. I spent the mornings of my Saturday’s learning about religion, how Abu Bakr (may God be pleased with him) protected the Prophet (peace be upon him) from snakes in the Cave of Thawr. I was in the car ride home from Saturday school when our conception of home had changed permanently and suddenly. The way in which under later realization was ultimately inevitable but at the time felt world bending.

In the backseat of our car, I was under the fog of the summer heat when I heard “BREAKING: Soldiers block off Istanbul bridges. Turkish military attempting coup.” which somehow bubbled through my post-schooling fatigue. What followed only felt like a blur and slowly boiled up to our new understanding of our “home country,” always in my introduction to strangers when they ask where I am from. Turkey is only lived through two summers growing up yet is stitched between my whole American experience. Only a myth that I have longed for and remember in hazy fragments of my young eyes. It is not a place I know by any means no matter how much I stacked books of Turkish history from the library on my bedroom floor or trace my village on Google maps. Somehow this home mapped out every facet of my experience. I spent college years on and off Twitter watching the fate of my country twist and turn. Street interviews of people calling us terrorists and myself using google translate to fully understand their sentiments. Between studies of Sociology and the American Civil Rights movement, I meticulously translated court documents. I became an interpreter in conferences with lawyers for young people who never imagined becoming a refugee. My lifelong friends are people who may never see their parents again but taught me all the new lingo and fixed my pronunciation. They memorialized their home in snapshots showing me the lives that they left behind. I found myself surrounded by people who knew my home country better than I ever could have, and others who were classmates that didn’t even know what language my home country housed, and yet still felt desire to mock my identity. I’ve spent my youth proving I’m not a terrorist to them and my third grade English teacher and half of my own people.

The corruption festering in my home country by my own people is what deeply wounded many of us the most. Nevertheless, we built our own havens, homes to countless brothers and sisters. We held our sisters who broke down over relatives rotting in jail cells in the same buildings we learned how to place our tongue in the right ways for reading Qur’an. Our ribs became tight with laughter in late hours after tarawih in the same place we held bake sales to send help back to our country. The buildings change, we are told to not ever go back to grandma’s village over the phone, and we go to new places to continue our toil. I felt frustration when classmates talked so dearly of their grandmother’s house realizing they are not clouded with a mystical dream when trying to reminisce of the same.

Yet I began to let go of this subtly hummed yearning that has plagued me and accept love where it finds itself in different stemmed and split paths. This is only through realizing people as close as your neighbors are piecing together these branches of pathways over years of displacement from family and attempting to map out belonging. We hold each other in the pain of this journey, eventually realizing we have found it within each other. Belief houses many pillars of love and perhaps we need to be reminded that the souls we connect ourselves with transcend anything tangible such as land, or even time. Surely, land is critical. The dilemma of which land is mine has burdened me for years. Those students in Baltimore have their lives altered immensely due to their redlined land. Generations are loved for centuries over land. Blood is tragically spilled over land. Standing for your land can mean seeking justice for your people which is absolutely necessary. In circumstances of injustice, know that you are never alone. You might be forced to carry your home in your blood and your heart. Love may not be able to reach us in our “home country” and home may not be hammered shut there.

For those of us who never lived in the same place for longer than two years. For those us of who will never know our home country more than the legends and history we read in books. For those of us who have been called slurs by people in the melting pot you were born in: Home is in you and me. Home is tucked under the heaps of sunflower seed shells as they are smiling because they were breathed into conversations of love. Home is in the undevoted passion of learning and teaching and repeating under unimaginable circumstances. Home is my sister fixing my hijab before prayer. Home is my mother gardening in the way her mother taught her. Home is in the salam from the person you haven’t seen in years but know you are always welcome in their embrace. Home is the teacher that made you feel seen when classmates mocked who you were. Home is in the houses of people who have their whole family trapped in Turkey but remind you their door is always open. No matter how much they tried to strip us from our home, or no matter how much they have deformed our homes into a succumbing cavity, our glaring feat is that we have found it within each other. So, they will curse us and the buildings and those we cherish, and we will love beyond it all.

Notes

• Sohbet in Turkish (originally sohbah in Arabic) means companionship, informal conversations mainly on matters of belief and religion.
• Redlining is known as the structural restriction of resources and services from a community in a discriminatory manner, and has historically heavily impacted predominantly lower income and African-American communities in the United States.

2023 marks a full decade since the beginning of the unprecedented persecution of the Hizmet movement started in Turkey, the movement’s home country. Its institutions were confiscated, its volunteers purged, and tens of thousands of associates were arrested—many of whom are still under arrest. Despite this persecution at home, Hizmet continues to promote education and dialogue elsewhere. This resilience did not go unnoticed: California State University hosted a two-day conference on February 16-17, 2023, to explore Hizmet’s activities and the challenges they face as immigrants in different countries. Over 270 participants from 22 countries attended the conference to listen to presentations dissecting Hizmet’s interactions with modern society and the movement’s contribution to its improvement.

The conference took place only ten days after massive earthquakes left at least forty thousand dead across southeast Turkey, leaving many cities almost entirely uninhabitable. In her welcome speech as the host of the conference, Professor Sophia Pandya, the department chair at California State University at Long Beach, in the Department of Religious Studies, called for a moment of silence to honor those who lost their lives. She further pointed to the trauma this disaster has added to the Hizmet community, some of whom have lost family and perhaps suffer from “survivor’s guilt” while being unable to assist former countrymen and women. Suffering is accompanied with anger because of the rampant corruption and greed that led to needless deaths under buildings which were not built to code. University psychologist Corrie O’Toole participated in the conference to present a tool called EFT tapping to help with stress, trauma, and anxiety. Quoting Rumi, Dr. Pandya noted that “through love, all pain will turn to medicine.” She also suggested that “Hizmet” should be used to identify the movement—instead of “Gülen Movement,” which some academics prefer for easier association. But “Hizmet” is more accurate, she emphasized, because its participants prefer to use it and communities and individuals should be allowed to self-identify.

Dr. Elise LoBue from the University of Illinois Springfield presented some of the findings from her research on Turkish refugees in Canada. Many Hizmet volunteers who had to leave Turkey have been seeking refuge in Western countries, including Canada. Among the reasons they chose Canada was their perception of the country as more immigrant-friendly, where many Muslim women could participate in the workforce with fewer concerns—at least relatively—about practicing their faith and dress. Trump’s election in the United States was also another major factor pushing many Muslim refugees further north. Despite the recent rise of Islamophobia in the country, Canada is still a good option for many immigrants. Dr. LoBue also emphasized the fact that Hizmet is more prone to integration than many other immigrant groups because of the “Hizmet philosophy.”

Dr. Ori Z Soltes, professor of theology and philosophy at Georgetown University and the author of a recently published book titled Between Thought and Action: An Intellectual Biography of Fethullah Gülen, drew similarities between the persecution of Hizmet under the current Turkish regime and the one Jews and communists endured under Hitler. Thankfully, the result is not as tragic as during the Holocaust, but it is noteworthy to see how authoritarian regimes use similar tactics to cling to power by stigmatizing and scapegoating certain groups.

Vonya Womack spoke about her research regarding the unjustly incarcerated women affiliated with Hizmet. Many women were arrested for working for a Hizmet school or having a bank account with a certain lawfully operating bank. Womack portrayed inhuman treatments in prisons, which included many heartbreaking stories of new mothers giving birth while handcuffed to a hospital bed.

Ayhan Cetin from South Africa presented a report of his interviews with Hizmet volunteers who had moved to his country, focusing especially on how their approach to other human rights violations in Turkey and around the world has changed in recent years.

In the second panel chaired by Professor Jon Pahl, the author of Fethullah Gülen: A Life of Hizmet, Dr. Fevzi Sarac from Louisiana State University pointed to how the Hizmet Movement is more engaged in “bridging” work with the “other” compared to more politically motivated groups who prefer in-group “bonding.” Dr. Zeki Saritoprak from John Carroll University (Cleveland) explained that although he does not agree with the dichotomy of “political Islam” vs. “civil Islam,” he lacks words to show the differences between groups like Hizmet, which is engaged in civil activities, and apparently religious figures, as in Turkey, who abuse Islam for their political interests. Dr. Reginald Nalugala from Tangaza University College (Kenya) pointed to the importance of the works done by Hizmet to counter radical fundamentalism around the world. Dr. John Turres from Lagrange University in Georgia presented his research on the connection of authoritarian regimes with sports, focusing on examples from the World Cup and including stories of top Turkish athletes like Enes Kanter and Hakan Sukur, who are being threatened by the government.

Rabbi Yakov Nagen, the Director of the Blickle Institute for Interfaith Dialogue, explained in the third panel his initiatives for better understanding between Muslims and Jews, and how he conducted some of that work with the Hizmet community. Answering a question from the floor about how similar he found the resilience of Hizmet to that of Jews historically, Rabbi Nagen praised how the Hizmet community is building bridges at a time when they do not have a land of their own. Professor Pim Valkenberg and Kate Middleton from the Catholic University of America talked about the spiritual stations of hawf and raja (fear and hope) emphasized by Fethullah Gülen in his works and how these concepts interplay with the resilience of the Hizmet community through the difficult times they are going through.

Sister Martha Ann Kirk explained in her presentation that her religious community used to run many schools in the US and Mexico, but about a hundred years ago, they were confiscated in a similar way to what happened to the Hizmet schools in Turkey. She said that after so many years, her community is still surviving and continuing their services. Dr. Aydin Inal, from South Africa, contextualized Hizmet activities in the context of the Ubuntu philosophy, in which humankind is perceived in a harmonious relationship with the world. Dr. Rajendran T. Govender, former Director in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Arts and Culture in South Africa, explained Hizmet’s dialogue activities in that country. Dr. Macharia Munene, lecturer at the United States International University Africa in Nairobi, spoke about how Hizmet schools were first established in Kenya by very young and dedicated young educators in the ‘90s, when Kenya experienced a number of terrorist attacks. Dr. Munene explained how these schools still hold the top academic position in the country despite many pressures to close them from the Turkish government.

One of the conference’s key moments was the evening reception, when Dr. Scott Alexander from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago delivered the keynote speech. Drawing on from The Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation by Vijay Govindarajan, Dr. Alexander explained how Hizmet has been using this management strategy, knowingly or unknowingly, to manage their current affairs while building their future. He emphasized the importance of youth empowerment and gave examples of how Jesus, Joseph, and Muhammad (peace be upon them) were recognized with their wisdom at a young age according to Islamic tradition. Mike Honda, a former representative of California in the Congress, said in his brief address at the reception that “Hizmet values are American values.”

The second day of the conference started with a panel chaired by Professor Paul Weller from the UK, who has authored multiple works on Hizmet, the last two released simultaneously in 2022. Professor Anwar Alam, the author of For the Sake of Allah: The Origin, Development, and Discourse of the Gülen Movement, said that as opposed to many analyses, Hizmet should not be considered within the paradigms of modernity. According to Alam, Hizmet has a postmodern philosophy which celebrates diversity, transcends political boundaries, and is unapologetically pacific/non-violent in responding to tyranny.

Dr. Naveed Sheikh from the University of Keele in the UK noted that Hizmet is “sui generis” and encourages its followers to integrate spirituality into their social lives. In a rather modern form of chivalry (futuwwa), the movement raises the importance of practicing ethics (tarbiyah). In the post-2016 era, we clearly see that the movement’s values don’t coincide with the power that manipulates social practices and norms, similar to the rejection, powerlessness, and sorrow Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, experienced from the powerful elite of his time. Yet, grief can have a transformative power, as was the case with the Prophet in Taif, where he was stoned and attacked, but he still prayed for God’s mercy.

It is not possible to give a comprehensive summary of all the presentations. But here are a few notes to give an idea about what was covered in the conference: Ghada Ghazal compared Fethullah Gülen’s approach to exegetical studies of the Qur’an to some modern commentators. Asuman Celik talked about FKM, a program of young Hizmet volunteers in which they visited Fethullah Gülen and how that interaction had a positive influence on their dedication to perform more Hizmet. Nurdin Kaparov explained some symbolic concepts like “altruism” and “living for others” and how they shape Hizmet volunteers’ mindset. His study implied that a new generation of Hizmet around leadership, spiritual resources, communication, and modern ideals needs to be examined while also exercising freedom of thought. Iysha Arun reported how certain topics like gender, identity, sexuality, and LGBTQ issues are being explored within circles of the Hizmet community in their consultative meetings (istishara) and with utmost care to prevent conflict (fitna). Dr. Kristina Mashimi shared her research in Tanzania about the ethics education received by girls in Hizmet schools. Nancy Falcon, an Argentinian representative, reported on the contributions of Hizmet to interfaith dialogue despite pressure from the Turkish government. She strongly believes that Hizmet has the potential to contribute to human rights issues in Argentina. Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi explained the dynamics that allowed Hizmet to move forward despite the persecution. Sotirios S. Livas reported on the situation of Hizmet volunteers who fled Turkey under difficult circumstances. Dr. Nah Jeong Won, who translated a number of books about Hizmet into Korean, spoke about Hizmet activities in Korea. Dr. Jamal R. Cayamodin and Dr. Abdulhamit Durakoglu from the Philippines presented a brief history of Hizmet schools and their charity work in the country.

There were also parallel sessions which featured scholars who joined via video presentations. Ferah Armutcu, a medical doctor who was dismissed from his position by a government decree, explained the forced academic migration from Turkey. Lisa Dumovich, a postdoctoral fellow at KU Leuven, spoke about the concept of migration (hijrah) and how Hizmet volunteers has found in Brazil a home in exile. Dr. Mahmut Akpinar and Dr. Huseyin Sert from the UK detailed intergenerational gap within the Movement. Dr. Katende Abdu from Makerere University detailed the humanitarian activities of Hizmet in Uganda. Emine Turkoglu, a PhD candidate at Helsinki University, told about Hizmet in Finland with a focus on women involvement.

Overall, this conference felt like an introduction into the broad concepts of Hizmet. What is clear is that Hizmet is highly respected among a circle of sophisticated intellectuals who conduct research on its philosophy and activities around the world, but more work needs to be done for better understanding and to clear away the fog caused by disinformation. People should be informed that even though the movement operates from a religious and spiritual framework, it doesn’t necessarily impose its own frame of reference. Hizmet rather opens room for a discussion and calls for an exchange of ideas from diverse communities in order to help everyone live in harmony and peace.

In her closing remarks, Dr. Pandya quoted Rumi one more time: “A heart filled with love is like a Phoenix that no cage can imprison.” She said she hopes to see Hizmet rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Coincidentally, she made this speech on the second day of the conference (February 17), which was the day of Miraj, the night in which Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is believed to have ascended to the heavens. This miraculous journey took place in what would be called the Year of Sorrow, when he lost two dear members of his family, and his entire clan was removed from their homes and boycotted.

Following a soft negotiation of price with the rickshaw driver, I finally had initiated my way back home from the Time to Help foundation. Next to a quick introduction of our names, the driver asked me where I was from. I smiled at him. It was an easy-to-answer question for the majority of people, but not for me.

I was born in Russia, but my family left the country when I was only two; so I don’t remember much to feel part of it.

Perhaps I could say India, as I had lived my childhood within its peculiar, sweet but dirty, and adaptable environment. I saw clean walls filled with images of deities adjacent to walls filled with human excrement. I made friends who were Hindu, Christian, Muslim, or Jain. My friends taught me the language that is spoken by nearly 1/3 of the world. I also sang the national anthem with pride in every assembly. “Where there is love there is life,” says Mahatma Gandhi. The colors that covered everywhere in the “Holi” celebration were the clear message of love and joy lived by the people of India. I simply had been part of the “Bollywood” of the world. The Bollywood where I lived my childhood, gained my patience from its traffic, and celebrated diversity from its people and culture.

Yet, I could not ignore what was written in my passport and I could not ignore my parents, who raised me with the language and values of Turkey. The majority of the books I read when I was a child were in Turkish. I learned about Turkey by listening to Turkish songs, reading Turkish literature, and on top of all I spent a full month every year in Turkey, which gave me a chance to observe the country with first-hand experience. I have therefore socialized within a modified and extended family. Turkey was not a place where I felt at home to the fullest, however the importance of all these past experiences were revealed following the coup attempt of 2016 since which we no longer could visit what my father used to call our “place of rehabilitation.” Thus, my visits to Turkey temporarily ended.

For a moment, I looked at the driver as he was in the middle of a phone call. The loud African music playing behind me reminded me of the fact that I have been living here in Tanzania for 6 years now. As Turkey was waning from my annual calendar, I thought to myself, “Hakuna Matata.” Tanzania had been where I had built a character and made hundreds of friends in schools, orphanages, on streets, and with rickshaw drivers such as Emmanuel sitting in front of me. The smile on the faces of little orphans when I speak to them and play soccer with them has been part of my favorite experiences in life. The day I tried to dance like those children had placed me into the rhythm of their tradition and culture. I learned the true meaning of benevolence and gratitude as I observed the joyful moments of villagers approaching their water well when it was filled with a pure water supply, or orphans who untie their gift boxes in extreme excitement. I learned that true satisfaction was found through serving others. I learned that life could be sincerely enjoyed only when one would explore himself or herself. Life was, indeed, different in the eyes of each individual. I saw many of those vulnerable people becoming only “happier” than they used to be, while many people in wealth have lots to complain about. This relation had always enhanced my curiosity over psychology. I always felt that I had to understand myself, my existence, and my own sense of being before trying to benefit others. In Tanzania, I developed an ambition; an ambition of living, so that others may live.

I suddenly regained my consciousness as the driver threw a glance at me, still waiting for a response. I looked at him and answered “Natoka Tanzania siku hizi” (I am from Tanzania these days), and watched him, as he was laughing, in satisfaction of making someone happy at least for some part of his day.

Humans take up residence in all kinds of environments ranging from sprawling metropolises to some of the most remote corners of the globe that are largely devoid of our modern luxuries. Oftentimes though, we emigrate to other societies for a variety of reasons; curiosity, financial profit, for the sake of adventure, service, to spread one’s beliefs, or to learn about others. Richard Nelson, a white man that taught in one of Los Angeles’ toughest African American schools, is one of those people that left his home behind to learn more about himself and overcome his subconscious prejudices. His article “My White Experience in the Black Community” is an emotional and gripping memoir that can help all of us open our hearts to others.

In worst case scenarios, people flee from their homes to avoid persecution, enmity, exclusion, or even ethnic cleansing. Many Turks have had to flee their home country of Turkey, often via illegal and unsafe practices, with the hope of escaping a brutal dictatorship that no one wanted them to call Turkey their home. Zain Hussain recounts his emotional and life changing encounter with Turkish refugees on his volunteer trip to Greece.

Some of Earth’s most beautiful islands and oceans are home for other creatures, such as Pacific Golden Plovers and Loggerhead Sea Turtles. Despite lacking free will or methodology, they utilize a variety of complex systems to consistently find their way home even if it means travelling hundreds of miles across giant swaths of lands or water. These natural phenomena are astounding and still perplex scientists to this day.

Even the most microscopic creatures find homes for themselves, whether in our bodies or in the bodies of other animals. One such creature, though we would definitely consider it not welcome in our systems, is the trypanosome, a lethal parasite that is a scourge across much of Africa. Such parasites travel through a variety of hosts including worms, eggs, snails, birds, and flies to eventually end up within our bloodstreams.

Hizmet Movement (aka Gülen Movement) has always been given different names, which rely on and point to divergent underlying ontologies and understandings. Cemaat (Community), Hizmet (Service), Gonulluler Hareketi, (A movement of volunteers), and Gülenciler (Gülenists) are just a selection of terms often used to refer to the movement. Nowadays, people have come to view the movement in diametrically opposing ways, due to the recent political history of Turkey. On one hand, some praise it for its virtues, claiming that it is a movement promoting and prioritizing democratic values and standards and standing against a corrupt government, at a very high cost. On the other hand, those who criticize it accuse the movement of interfering in politics and even plotting coups against democratically elected governments, and they try to label it as a cult – especially when they cannot prove their accusations. Therefore, a great discrepancy is very likely to emerge between how a sympathizer of the movement sees and defines it and how an outsider sees and defines it, as current developments in Turkey have pushed the public to the edges and have led to increased polarization. Thus, in order to see whether the Hizmet Movement is a cult or not, one has to remove himself or herself from political polemics and try to be critical and strike a balance between how the movement perceives itself and how it is perceived by the outside world. In order to do so, let us first consider how “cult” is defined in the literature and then see whether these definitions match with the Hizmet Movement.

Even though the meaning of cult has changed, the term acquiring differing meanings over time, it is generally and publicly used in a derogatory way to refer to movements that are regarded as socially deviant due to their unorthodox beliefs and practices. During the 1930s, anti-cult movements usually viewed cults as a disparate form of heresy. Similarly, Christian scholar Walter Martin defined a cult as a movement that applies, and relies solely on, personal interpretations of the Bible, in denial of mainstream beliefs such as the Trinity, the Second Coming of Christ, the ministry and personality of Jesus, and the like. Accordingly, new religious movements that were not a part of, or splintered from, pre-existing sects—these include movements such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists—have been considered cults. From a sociological point of view, Max Weber ascribed the emergence of a cult to the routinization of the charisma of a self-proclaimed religious leader. A great variety of cults exist today—doomsday cults, political cults, destructive cults, racist cults, polygamist cults, and terrorist cults. Cults have also long been accused of applying unorthodox measures, such as mind control and abusive sex, to govern their members and of having secretive organizational structures to accomplish their objectives.

Any attempt to draw a distinction between a cult and a mainstream religious movement is an utterly value-laden endeavor, as it requires one to assume a position of authority and judge what is an orthodox or unorthodox practice or interpretation of a religion. Also, it is analytically impossible to determine how much deviation or what sorts of differences render a movement deviant and get it labeled as a cult, because even sects of the very same religion sometimes are predicated upon utterly distinct theological positions. For example, consider the God conceptualizations of two Christian traditions, Unitarians and Catholics. Whereas the former believe in the physical and spiritual unity of God and reject the idea of the incarnation of God in human form, the latter hold to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which states that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are divine manifestations of God. Or, in a similar vein, consider the example of the Alawites and Sunni Muslims; some groups of the former consider Ali, the cousin of Muhammad, to be the incarnation of God, while the latter view him only as the third rightly guided Caliph and as totally human in nature.

Despite this opaque and slippery conceptual ground, we can still systematically consider whether the Hizmet Movement is a cult and possesses any of the general characteristics and features attributed to cults. Let me rise above the dichotomies by considering the criteria for a cult, embodied in the definitions given below, in relation to the Hizmet Movement—namely, deviancy (unorthodox religious rituals), unorthodox means of control (mind control, abusive sex), and the presence of a charismatic leader—to determine whether it is a cult or not.

We’ll begin with deviancy. Even though the movement has often laid great emphasis on the spiritual resurrection of Muslims and humanity, it has not attempted to reject or change the pillars of Islamic faith and the essentials of the religion. It has not proposed theologically novel conceptions of divinity or prophecy. Quite the opposite—the movement intellectually and theologically associates itself with the earlier mainstream of Muslim scholars, thinkers, and movements and derives its legitimacy from its embeddedness in classical Islam. The criticisms leveled at the movement have mostly involved matters relating to the interpretation of religious texts. Accordingly, the movement has been criticized for its strong promotion of intimate relations with the members of other Abrahamic religions, for its willingness to engage in open dialogue, and for its support of democratization, which is often labeled as pro-Westernism by other religious movements in Turkey. Hence, the movement’s existing practices and theological dispositions do not suffice to qualify it as a cult, as they do not exhibit patterns of divergence and differentiation from mainstream Islamic rituals and practices.

Second, with respect to the employment of unorthodox means to achieve desired political objectives—even though the movement has been accused of interfering in politics and having a secret agenda, no proof has been presented thus far indicating the use of unorthodox means to control its members or accomplish its secret agenda. Even the recent purge in Turkey, which resulted in the removal of hundreds of thousands of people from their positions and the imprisonment of a large percentage of them, has not led to the disclosure of evidence verifying the use of unorthodox methods by the movement.

Finally, in regard to charismatic leadership, it is an actuality that Gülen’s charismatic and strong leadership has been very appealing to the masses. However, his leadership has not been grounded in any divine status claims, such as those of a prophetic or messianic character. His charisma has rather been derived from his expertise and erudition in respect to the religious sciences and his intuitive leadership skills. His leadership and charisma cannot be said to be premised upon any sort of divine claim, as has been the case with most cults. Ahmadiyya and Bahaism can be seen as cult-like Islamic movements; their leaders have made actual divine claims. For example, the leader of the former openly claimed messiahship and introduced unorthodox beliefs and organizational structures in the nineteenth century, and the leader of the latter identified himself as the last Prophet, which openly contradicted the mainstream belief of Muslims that the Prophet Muhammad was the last Prophet and Messenger of God. Gülen is neither seen as a supernatural human being by his followers nor does he claim prophecy or messiahship. His charisma is derived more from his spiritual personality deriving from the fact that he has acquired an immense amount of knowledge in the religious sciences and has combined that knowledge with successful practice.

By offering insight in relation to three aspects of cults, this article offers a framework within which the Hizmet Movement cannot be treated as a cult or cult-like organization. Unless there is concrete evidence and universal acceptance of deviant behavior, unorthodox means of control, and leader’s use of charisma to assert any supernatural or divine powers, no social movement can be categorized as a cult movement.

Being an academic is not an easy thing. In many countries, it seems you are always between a rock and a hard place when you are in academia. Politics permeate the academic halls, where positions might be assigned or created for political allies. Besides this, as a faculty member your superiors have unrealistic expectations of you, such as excruciating teaching loads and a tough oral exam with professors in your field in order to gain some tenure. In recent years, Turkey has unfortunately been one of the worst cases where all these challenges have become unbearable. Arguably the biggest problem of Turkish academics has been the lack of freedom to become critical intellectual voices in public spheres. Academics’ speeches, actions, and political views have traditionally been monitored and tracked by the Higher Education Council or government appointed University Presidents. After the July 15, 2016 coup however, some academicians’ problems became more of a struggle to stay alive. Why were thousands of academics and tens of thousands of teachers fired and arrested for “taking a part in” a military coup attempt on July 15 in Turkey? I can’t find any rational answers.

The current difficult lives of academics are connected to the societal and historical understanding of authority in Turkey. After the coup d’état in 1980, Turkish society witnessed an era where the state and the government were taken as sacred concepts. A lingering tradition since the ancient Turkish states has been that people would rather avoid advocating for truth and morals when they feared doing so would come back and bite them through the cold force of an authoritarian state. Psychological and even physical lynches could and have happened since the power owners and patriarchs are always positioned to be the identifiers of “transgressors” and dictators of the “consequences.” Few people advocated for human rights. For instance, when a group of academics signed an ‘academics for peace’ declaration in January 2016, over 60 Turkish academicians were fired or punished for “spreading Kurdish terrorist propaganda and undermining the country’s national security.” There was no big public uproar, since anyone objecting to it would be demonized as “terrorist supporters.”

Speaking your mind, expressing your opposition, and writing freely have never been easy for thinkers and academics in autocratic regimes. Unfortunately, Turkey has become one such regime in which critical academics are among those facing collective hatred and punishment for their beliefs and views.

These same arguments were recently used as a social lynch for another group: followers of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish cleric who lives in Pennsylvania. For the last five years since one the biggest corruption scandals involving cabinet members and President Erdogan’s son broke, each investigation has been shut down by Erdoğan with the accusation towards Gülen followers, aka the Hizmet movement, that they were plotting a coup attempt against the government. What followed was the complete overhauling of the police force and police education institutions with the suspicion that many Gülen followers had “infiltrated” their ranks. After the coup attempt on July 15, 2016, which Erdoğan described as “a gift from God,” he also shut down the military and purged half of all high ranking officers, along with thousands of lower ranking members of military, many of whom are still in jail now. 15 major universities were shut down, along with more than 3,000 other schools and hospitals. In the government sector, from health to judiciary, from education to academia, more than 150,000 lost their jobs and 80,000 were arrested upon accusations of being a member of a so called “terrorist organization” with such “evidence” as using free apps like WhatsApp or Bylock, or having Gülen’s books at home or having an account at a once successful bank: Bank Asya. Many reports of abuse and torture in jails emerged since then, and about 40,000 previously convicted inmates were set free to open up space for Gülen’s followers.[1]

Erdoğan’s regime easily demonizes others who are in the opposition by putting them into the “Gülenist” melting pot. For example, atheist religious history professor Candan Badem was first detained, then released, then fired from his job for belonging to the “FETO” organization, a dysphemism produced by the government for Gülen’s followers. The people in Turkey are silent about the genocidal actions of the government because the government has the power to silence even the journalists. Hysteria is in its peak as my own family tells me I cannot send them money from U.S., call them from U.S., or invite them to U.S., which are all received with suspicion by the government that you may be affiliated with the Gülen movement (Gülen has been a US resident for almost two decades). While there are serious claims that Erdoğan himself might have had a part in the coup to consolidate his power, no one including judges, prosecutors, (who are themselves jailed), or the media (Erdoğan shut down all opposition media and arrested over a hundred journalists) can investigate these claims fully. The judiciary system is also on complete lockdown: it made the news when a judge was arrested during his very own court hearing. On another account, as a judge couple were being arrested, their two children, one of them a toddler, were locked in the house from outside and left home alone until their grandparents arrived from a faraway city late at night and found them hungry and desperate. Of the other kids whose parents were arrested some were taken into state custody in unknown locations and not released to their relatives even though they requested them. A female journalist, Ayşenur Parıldak, reported being sexually harassed and tortured while in custody and being confined to a cell. A left-wing journalist, Aslı Erdoğan, was withheld from taking any medicine or being provided a cardigan despite her multiple serious health issues and cold prison cells. She and other left-wing prisoners got the same accusation. After her release, she is now in exile in Germany, awaiting the outcome of her court case in absentia.[2]

Universities were already struggling with favoritism and unfair practices in Turkey. After the so called coup attempt, all university presidents were called into a national meeting organized by the Director of Higher Education Council (HEC) in Turkey, who threatened them that he would take necessary actions against those who “act slowly” in purging Gülen related academics.[3] This was the start of the public statement and demonstration contest among universities where University Faculty Senates hastily wrote statements shunning the group and calling them FETO (abbreviated for “Fethullah Terrorist Organization”) as directed by pro-Erdoğan media, and walked in groups in the streets protesting FETO, while there was no real evidence, official prosecution, or trial. This public hysteria resulted in thousands of fellow academics being fired without any evidence or due process based simply on the lists of profiling done by Erdoğan’s regime officials. Worse, many unions were asking when these positions would be reposted so “other” citizens could apply. Obviously, again, no one was questioning the ethics of this situation, but rather trying to think of ways to benefit from it, whether by trying to replace them with their own kin, or reporting on others to get them fired. Their attitude was, “If you are not going to bite me, long live the rattlesnake, and bite others as you wish!” As an academic who proudly thinks academics can carry an identity to become the bearers of hard truths, this is especially scary to me; not only did academics in Turkey remain silent about social injustices, but some unscrupulous people helped perpetuate this silence by demonizing a group of colleagues. Of course those people proved their worthiness of being strong allies to the current hierarchical system of university presidents, who follow orders from the Director of HEC, who in turn is reporting to the government. It is obvious that this system cannot produce the next generation of critical thinkers and intellectuals.

Why do I care about this personally? Along with some of my friends, my brother, who is an academic, is currently in jail for an unknown accusation after the coup attempt. His wife, who was an entry level secretary within a small municipality, was the first one to be detained. Police stormed into their house 2 days after he and his wife learned they were fired from their jobs. Since the government increased the detainment period to 30 days we were under a big trauma after they took her, not knowing her whereabouts since no one was allowed to make any contact with her, including any attorneys. Was she being raped or tortured? Was she being beaten severely to get some kind of confession out? What is currently happening is similar to what happened in World War II or the Bosnian War where an entire system to protect basic human rights collapsed along with the judiciary system and sense of justice. Can you imagine the feelings of a helpless husband, mother, or father? Worse, can you imagine them having a 2-year old toddler screaming non-stop after witnessing the shock of his mother violently being taken from her family? Three days had passed when she was in front of the judge and the prosecutor for “being a member of a terrorist organization.” Seeing how fragile her health was, the prosecutor asked for her release. She was united with her son at last. However, those judges and prosecutors were shortly fired for not being ruthless enough to hunt all Gülen followers. We don’t know where she and her son is, since she left her town to avoid the trauma of being separated from her toddler, fearing they may call for her arrest again.

A few days after they released her, my brother was taken into custody. He was a shining star in his work, attending each and every conference in his area of expertise, publishing both Turkish and English articles. Philosophy was his passion. They released him after a few days of detainment and courts. Later, when the prosecutors were changed, they sent out another warrant for his arrest. He immediately turned himself in knowing he had nothing to hide. They seized his computer, all of his digital files, and his phone, and they were never returned. All of his academic work was gone. In the first five days of his arrest, his wife snuggled with his coat, refused to eat anything, and just lay in bed. Their toddler still is under a huge shock, and asks for his dad and does not understand why they had to leave his toys, clothes, and everything else he knew to be home.

Besides being permanently fired from their jobs with no social security, health benefits, and retirement without any due process, these academics are no longer able to be hired by any other company or institution due to official and unofficial orders from the government dehumanizing them. Their children who have terminal diseases got their Medicaid cancelled and denied any services at hospitals. They were left to become homeless, helpless, and hungry. “They will beg us to kill them,” Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekçi said,[4] while a municipal director of AKP, the ruling party, said: “Let them eat tree roots.”[5]

The collective hatred towards and punishment of all opposition for their beliefs is reminiscent of Jewish genocide under Hitler’s regime. This incredible violation of human rights destroyed Turkish academia, freedom of speech, writing, and research, and caused social fractions and hatred among universities. To all governments and to the international community of academics: We must support the rights of these scholars and not let another genocide happen in Europe in the 21^st century.

[1] www.turkeypurge.com

[2] https://pen.org/advocacy-case/asli-erdogan/

[3] https://tr.sputniknews.com/turkiye/201607191023938783-yok-baskani-universite-feto/

[4] https://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/bakan-zeybekci-gebertin-bizi-diye-yalvaracaklar-122392.html

[5] http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/ak-parti-il-baskanindan-fetoculere-agac-koku-yesinler-40242531

Gasparetto (not his real name)[1] was a young Turkish medical student when he was arrested and imprisoned for eight months by Turkey’s government, merely for his connection to the Hizmet, a social movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen and Sufi thought, which Turkey’s President Erdoğan blamed for the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. While incarcerated, Gasparetto experienced a range of feelings—heightened spirituality and camaraderie with others, but also devastating emotional torture at the hands of prison guards. In prison, they had crammed 57 people into a room meant for 12, and so the inmates took turns sleeping and sharing beds. He was only given permission to leave his cell on four occasions over an eight-month period. He asked his family to bring National Geographic magazines to him so that he could see color photographs of the outside world. The worst part was that his mother, who suffers from bipolar disorder, was unable to manage her own medications at home because of the stress, and rapidly deteriorated during his absence. Sadly, as soon as Gasparetto was released, he knew he would soon likely be rearrested, and so he planned his escape from Turkey via the dangerous Evros River, known as the “refugee cemetery.”[2] Crossing the river on a flimsy inflatable boat, he was terrified he would drown in the rushing currents, as far too many had before him, or be thrown back into prison again by Turkish soldiers, before his boat reached Greece.

I met him in Greece during the summer of 2018, where I had travelled to interview other refugees of Erdoğan’s ongoing purge. According to Mehmet, a Hizmet representative there, approximately 800 Turkish refugee families are temporarily residing in Greece (the number fluctuates), hoping to gain asylum somewhere, anywhere, in Europe. At least 41,500 Turks have already reached Europe to seek refuge after the attempted coup, and many more are still desperately trying to reach safety and gain asylum there.[3]

Firdevs, a former teacher who crossed the river with her three children, told me that after arriving in Greece, she kissed the first tree she saw. She felt her burdens lifting, and that at that moment she could breathe for the first time in two years. “All Turkish refugees are thankful to the people of Greece,” Mehmet explained to me.

Due to its strategic location and (relative) hospitality as of June 2018, Greece houses approximately 60,000 refugees.[4] From January to September 2018 alone, over 23,000 refugees, most of them (72%) from Syria, Iraq (including Syrian and Iraqi Yazidis and Kurds), and Afghanistan, came to Greece by sea.[5] Others risked the treacherous Evros River—from January to May, 2018, 7,200 refugees survived the crossing to Greece.[6] When asylum seekers arrive, often exhausted, hungry, and thirsty, unfortunately many find conditions in the refugee camps less than ideal. Crowded, squalid, and dirty, the camps nonetheless offer refuge for those awaiting their asylum decisions. Residents have complained that living in the camps can be dangerous: there have been reports of physical and sexual assault, threats of violence, and a rise in mental health problems.[7]

One of the worst examples is the Moria Camp, on the island of Lesbos. It is supposed to house 2,000 refugees, but as of August, 2018, it houses four times that many, and sexual harassment and assault are commonplace.[8] It also reeks—there is one toilet for every seventy people. Some have lived there for over two years. Many, including children, are suicidal.[9] The same camp recently witnessed violence against Kurdish refugees by Arabs, in which over seventy Kurds were injured, at least ten left in critical condition, mirroring sectarian violence against Kurds in Syria and Iraq, at the hands of religious extremists.[10]

My 9-day trip was marred by several tragedies. The day before I arrived, fires in the region of East Attica, near Rafina, horrifyingly killed 99 people,[11] with 200 more being injured.[12] In two separate incidents around the duration of my stay seven Turkish refugees, including children, lost their lives drowning in the Evros trying to reach safety in Greece. For days one Turkish father, Murat Akcabay,[13] who had survived the trip while the rest of his family fell into the water after the boat hit a rock, prayed that one of his three sons, five year-old Mesut, who had been wearing a life vest when he fell off the boat, would still be alive. The bodies of his wife and two sons had already been recovered.[14] Sadly, during my trip, Mesut’s body was also found.

Despite the problems faced by the Turkish refugee community in Greece, which include trauma, financial difficulties, displacement, grief, depression, and an uncertain future, those I spoke with were deeply concerned with how to best help the Greek fire survivors and their families, in their new host country.

On a more positive note, six other Turkish refugees, one a 5-months pregnant woman, were rescued and brought to Greece after being stranded for four days without food or water on a tiny island between Turkey and Greece. Their boat sank and they made it to the island, where they slept on the muddy ground and survived by drinking river water. Another success story involved a young Turkish refugee who arrived on a boat, but his boat was pushed back towards Turkey by Greek officials (which happens on occasion). In an act of sheer desperation, he leapt off that boat into Greek waters, and to the cheers of spectators he too was rescued and brought into Greece by representatives of the UN High Committee for Refugees.

Despite the problems faced by the Turkish refugee community in Greece, which include trauma, financial difficulties, displacement, grief, depression, and an uncertain future, those I spoke with were deeply concerned with how to best help the Greek fire survivors and their families, in their new host country. They, along with the world, mourned with Greece. Another refugee, and former government official from Ankara, Çetin, explained: “The pain doesn’t differ. Language, ethnicity, religion, none of these are different. We suffered the same. When we see the pictures of the Greek babies [fire victims], we suffer just as we do when we see Turkish babies who sank in the Evros River.”

Humanitarian groups quickly began to raise funds for the survivors of the devastating fire. Help also came from an unlikely source: the Turkish refugee community. Historically, Greece and Turkey have been at odds. This has been fueled, in part, by Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832, a series of military conflicts including the Greco-Turkish war of 1912-1922, the Cyprus issue, and the current tensions between Turkey and Greece. Turkish jets have invaded Greek airspace on dozens of occasions this year alone, and the Turkish government has implied it might seek jurisdiction over islands in the Aegean occupied by Greeks.[15]

Despite that history, those refugees I interviewed were deeply grateful for the friendly welcome they received in Greece which, combined with Erdoğan’s brutal two-year purge, completely quashed any previously held feelings of Turkish superiority and/or xenophobia. Firdevs, a former teacher who crossed the river with her three children, told me that after arriving in Greece, she kissed the first tree she saw. She felt her burdens lifting, and that at that moment she could breathe for the first time in two years. “All Turkish refugees are thankful to the people of Greece,” Mehmet explained to me.

Zeynep, a divorced mother and former cook, confirmed that her refugee experience created greater empathy for others outside of those groups of people with whom she used to most identify. She said, “Before this [purge in Turkey], when we heard a refugee ship had sunk in the Aegean Sea, of course we were sorry. But we never thought that each person died had a family, children; we never humanized them, one by one. We used to just think about Turkey, what we could do for Turkey, but after this experience, we see what we can do for humanity.”

My 9-day trip was marred by several tragedies. The day before I arrived, fires in the region of East Attica, near Rafina, horrifyingly killed 99 people, with 200 more being injured. Seven Turkish refugees, including children, lost their lives drowning in the Evros trying to reach safety in Greece.

Similarly, Yesma, a former teacher, argued that being a refugee also made her more empathetic towards other refugees. She stated, “In our country we had Syrian refugees and we should have done more for them. We didn’t help them enough.” She also crossed the Evros with her family, and told me that eerily, she was able to feel the spirits of those who had drowned in it, but were never found.

Accompanying Mehmet, Gasparetto, and several other refugees with medical backgrounds, I toured the neighborhoods affected by the fire. They wanted to offer aid through their Hizmet-affiliated organization, Time to Help. In one of over at least 1,000 homes gutted by the fire, a burnt television sat askance on the living room floor, surrounded by charred furniture and debris. A brass teapot sat unscathed on a charred, round antique table. I was told that thankfully, the elderly resident of that home survived, carried out by her son.

Mehmet, who had organized the small group composed of two refugee doctors and one nurse, purchased water and paper goods to donate to Rafina’s city hall. We met with Ms. Vasiliki Beka, the Mayor’s Advisor, and Mehmet began by telling her that they were there simply to help, and that on behalf of Time to Help they could bring more doctors or whatever else was needed. He offered to organize a blood drive, paint homes, bring medicines, or provide victims’ families with financial aid. Ms. Beka graciously responded that they did not need more basic items such as clothes, food, or medicine, but rather volunteers to help clear the area of burnt wood, and of course, funds. Seemingly touched by the offers of assistance, she said that receiving global offers of support restored her faith in humanity. Exhausted, but smiling, she added: “There is more that brings us together than that which separates us.” Afterwards, the group visited a young woman in the hospital, who was badly burned on her arms and legs, and gave her mother funds to help her daughter with her medical bills.

Refugees commonly suffer from feelings of humiliation and societal uselessness because of their dependence on aid organizations, especially when they are unemployed.[16] I noticed that being able to provide help to fire victims raised the spirits of the Turkish refugees I met in Greece; indeed, Mehmet much preferred to think about ways to help the Greek victims rather than about his own refugee status, or the fact that the rest of his family still remained in Turkey. Thankfully, Gasparetto was able to reach Germany, where he hopes to continue his medical studies after learning German. While he still struggles with depression and his traumatic memories, he is one of the more fortunate. While those that fled the brutal purge in Turkey have a long road in front of them, their horrible experiences have not yet caused them to lose their humanity. In fact, being able to perform even small acts of kindness helps them move forward.

The pain doesn’t differ. Language, ethnicity, religion, none of these are different. We suffered the same. When we see the pictures of the Greek babies [fire victims], we suffer just as we do when we see Turkish babies who sank in the Evros River.

Let’s conclude this story with the words of a refugee. Ahsen, a 33-year-old psychological consultant and mother of two, listened to the stories of purge victims in Turkey before becoming a refugee herself. Her hair turned white from the stress of listening to the painful stories of others. Her Kurdish husband, a psychiatrist, cried when I interviewed him, telling me he heard stories that were so terrible he couldn’t tell them to anyone. Before fleeing Turkey via the Evros, Ahsen told her seven-year-old daughter that they were playing a game of “Survivor.” Surprised with her daughter’s adult-like demeanor during the voyage, Ahsen recalled that after reaching Greece the girl calmly asked her who had won the game. Ahsen conveyed what she had learned from the harrowing ordeal: “Passing through the Evros taught us about other people. We had heard about the refugee experiences from Afghans and Syrians, but we hadn’t experienced it [ourselves]. Also, when we came here we found that Greek people are very kind, polite, believe in humanity, and offer us respect and understanding. They also help us, which is very important. [If granted asylum], we will go and carry out more service (Hizmet) in the countries we visit. I’m sorry I left my friends in Turkey, but I learned there is a great need here as well. A new life is beginning for all of us.”

[1] All names of Turkish refugees have been changed, for their safety.

[2] Deniz Zengin, “Turkish Refugees Crossing Evros River,” Politurco, August 2, 2018.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “Greece,” UNHCR, June, 2018.

[5] “Sea Arrivals Dashboard: Greece,” UNHCR, September, 2018.

[6] Leo Dobbs, “Fewer refugees arriving in Greece’s Evros region, but problems remain,” UNHCR, June 12, 2018.

[7] “UNHCR urges action to ease conditions on Greek islands,” UNHCR, September 8, 2017.

[8] Catrin Nye and Leo Sands, “UN urges Greece to act as Moria refugee camp reaches ‘boiling point,’” BBC Victoria Derbyshire Program, August 31, 2018.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Helbast Shekhani, “Ten Syrian Kurds in critical condition after attack at refugee camp in Greece,” Kurdistan 24, May 26, 2018.

[11] “Attica’s Devastating Wildfire Death Toll Rises to 99,” Greek News, September 12, 2018.

[12] Bill Hutchinson, “Death toll from fires in Greece climbs to 91 as investigation points toward arson,” ABC News, July 29, 2018.

[13] His real name.

[14] Tasos Kokkinidis, “Turkish Father Makes Emotional Plea for Family Missing in Greek River,” Greek Reporter, July 20, 2018.

[15] Yannis Babaoulias, “Greece and Turkey Are Inching Toward War,” Foreign Policy, April 18, 2018.

[16] Constanze Quosh, Liyam Eloul, and Rawan Ajlani, “Mental health of refugees and displaced persons in Syria and surrounding countries: a systematic review,” Intervention Volume 11 (3) (November 2013).

Since July 15, 2016, following a deplorable coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has systematically persecuted innocent people — arresting, detaining, firing and otherwise ruining the lives of more than 300,000 Turkish citizens, be they Kurds, Alevis, secularists, leftists, journalists, academics or participants of Hizmet, the peaceful humanitarian movement with which I am associated.

As the coup attempt unfolded, I fiercely denounced it and denied any involvement. Furthermore, I said that anyone who participated in the putsch betrayed my ideals. Nevertheless, and without evidence, Erdogan immediately accused me of orchestrating it from 5,000 miles away.

The next day, the government produced lists of thousands of individuals whom they tied to Hizmet — for opening a bank account, teaching at a school or reporting for a newspaper — and treated such an affiliation as a crime and began destroying their lives. The lists included people who had been dead for months and people who had been serving at NATO’s European headquarters at the time. International watchdogs have reported numerous abductions, in addition to torture and deaths in detention. The government pursued innocent people outside Turkey, pressuring Malaysia, for instance, to deport three Hizmet sympathizers in May 2017, including a school principal who has lived there for more than a decade, to face certain imprisonment and likely torture.

In April, the president won a narrow referendum victory— amid allegations of serious fraud — to form an “executive presidency” without checks and balances, enabling him to control all three branches of the government. To be sure, through purges and corruption, much of this power was already in his hands. I fear for the Turkish people as they enter this new stage of authoritarianism.

It didn’t start this way. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came into power in 2002 by promising democratic reforms in pursuit of European Union membership. But as time went on, Erdogan became increasingly intolerant of dissent. He facilitated the transfer of many media outlets to his cronies through government regulatory agencies. In June of 2013, he crushed the Gezi Park protesters. In December of that year, when his cabinet members were implicated in a massive graft probe, he responded by subjugating the judiciary and the media. The “temporary” state of emergency declared after last July 15 is still in effect. According to Amnesty International, one-third of all imprisoned journalists in the world are in Turkish prisons.

Erdogan’s persecution of his people is not simply a domestic matter. The ongoing pursuit of civil society, journalists, academics and Kurds in Turkey is threatening the long-term stability of the country. The Turkish population already is strongly polarized on the AKP regime. A Turkey under a dictatorial regime, providing haven to violent radicals and pushing its Kurdish citizens into desperation, would be a nightmare for Middle East security.

The people of Turkey need the support of their allies around the world to restore their democracy.

Two measures are critical to reversing the democratic regression in Turkey.

First, a new civilian constitution should be drafted through a democratic process involving the input of all segments of society and that is on par with international legal and humanitarian norms, and drawing lessons from the success of long-term democracies in the West.

Second, a school curriculum that emphasizes democratic and pluralistic values and encourages critical thinking must be developed. Every student must learn the importance of balancing state powers with individual rights, the separation of powers, judicial independence and press freedom, and the dangers of extreme nationalism, politicization of religion and veneration of the state or any leader.

Before either of those things can happen, however, the Turkish government must stop the repression of its people and redress the rights of individuals who have been wronged by Erdogan without due process.

I probably will not live to see Turkey become an exemplary democracy, but I pray that the downward authoritarian drift can be stopped before it is too late.

The Islamic intellectual, the honorable Fethullah Gülen, is one of the distinguished scholars of our century. He is one of Allah’s blessings for us. When we look at his personal life, his social life, and his services to the Islamic world, we only see his good deeds. With his notion of service, which hasn’t only been restricted to the Islamic world but has spread to 160 countries, Mr. Gülen has had an extraordinarily positive impact.

We’ve read Mr. Gülen’s books and have gotten to know him through his friends and his followers. As opposed to what some people keep repeating, we have not seen anything even hinting at terrorism in any part of his life.

This man lives a life – alhamdulillah – in close connection with Allah, which leads to a reconciliation with the hearts of the people surrounding him.

When hearts are reconciled and gathered around the love of Allah, people will be honored with Allah’s gratification and blessing, and they will start doing everything for the sake of Allah.

When we look at the people around him, the scholars, tradesmen, and people from different levels of life, we see them live their lives according to our Prophet’s Sunnah and life. 

As I mentioned earlier, we have never seen or known anything about Mr. Gülen except for the way he has helped people grow closer to Allah. All we have seen is how he reconciles hearts and helps them prepare to appear before Allah.

This is how we know Mr. Gülen. And we’ve never seen any single indication of terrorism in any of his books. Such an allegation cannot be true for him or people around him.

This is my testimony about Mr. Gülen. May Allah help us, may He bestow comprehension and understanding on all who accuse him. I pray Allah that my testimony will be considered among my and Mr. Gülen’s good deeds on the Day of Judgment.

Mr. Gülen sees the whole of humanity – Muslims and non-Muslims – as his children, and he works to reconcile hearts, trying to bring together all humanity as humble servants to Allah.

I have seen him in Turkey. He was preaching as he was crying and saying, “Some people are claiming that I will found a state and I am after a sultanate.” But then he added, “Who am I to do these things? These are untrue claims. My life is evident.”

We know Mr. Gülen’s life itself has ruled out these claims. 

To be clear, he put forward his beliefs with his deeds. May Allah’s help and assistance be with him.

This is a transcript of a video by Spectra Media (December 6, 2015). Published with permission.

Hizmet is a group of people that I have observed carry out the best of
Islamic ideals: kindness, hospitality, love, selfless service. They are
mainstream in their creed, as far as the Sunni Islamic school of thought
goes. They read the Qur’an; they pray five times a day; they fast. They’re
very spiritual people. They don’t push their beliefs, their Islamic
beliefs, on non-Muslims. That’s not what they’re out to do. They’re out to
serve the world, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. So in terms of being an
“un-Islamic cult,” Hizmet is anything but. What they really are, in my
opinion, is a true embodiment of the Islamic ideals of love and service to
the other. And I’ve never seen anything to suggest otherwise.

I’m a civil rights activist, a human rights activist; I don’t take my
marching orders from demagogues whether they are domestic or foreign,
whether they are elected or dictators. What I look at is the process, and
what troubles me in today’s Turkey is the process. Due process is the
arbiter between those who accuse and those who defend. It’s absent in
contemporary Turkey. And there has to be independent judiciary; it has to
be judges and a court that is not in anybody’s corner. What we’re seeing in
Turkey, unfortunately, is a situation where government is essentially run
by one party that acts as both the accuser/the prosecutor, the judge and
the executioner. And those who are accused don’t really have any leeway in
the system to defend themselves.

Those who know Hizmet, who have interacted with Hizmet, know Hizmet is the
farthest thing from violence. They’ve never promoted violence; they’ve
never accepted violence; they’ve been the first to condemn violence,
including a violent overtake of a Republic, a coup. They’ve condemned this
coup, and they’ve never promoted anything close to it. They’ve never been
involved in anything that is violent in nature.

Now that the accusation is there, we have to ask for proof. And, even if
there are individuals who may be associated with the Hizmet who were
involved in one crime or another, including a coup, the question becomes:
at what point do you incriminate an entire movement of millions of people,
volunteers who want to serve humanity through their Islamic ideals? Can we
condemn a teacher, a 24-year-old woman serving in some remote part of
Turkey, Pakistan, or Kazakhstan, or anywhere in the world where they build
schools in areas of underserved, underprivileged communities? How are these
souls devoted to service affiliated or associated with that particular
crime?

What you look at here is a witch hunt; it is “guilt by association.” These
are not in the tradition of liberal justice, liberal values that
democracies espouse.

And it’s exactly what is happening around the world when people in power
want to shut out those who are not in their pockets, those they can’t
control, or those whom they don’t like.

When a government is moving towards autocracy, when you’re becoming a
demagogue, when you become the “state” (l’état, c’est moi) and
when you shut out opposition, shut down media, imprison journalists, and
declare organizations, schools, mosques, or associations or universities or
charities, as terrorist organizations just by a signature, then I have to
say, that is incorrect, and that is problematic, and that is unjust!

And I’ll raise my voice, as a Muslim, as a human being, but also as a civil
rights and human rights activist, because civil rights and human rights are
not piecemeal. They cannot be divided; they cannot be allocated to one
group and then denied to another. I believe that ideals are only good and
are only meaningful if they apply to all human beings. It’s a belief in
blind due process, a blind independent judiciary, and having the procedures
and the processes of justice apply everywhere, equally, to all people.

When I read the news that [Hizmet] schools were being shut down in
Pakistan, it hurt, because Pakistan is in need of good schools, it’s in
need of education. We hear about radicalization, we hear about illiteracy,
we hear about the lack of education in parts of the country – same in the
United States, same in the world. And anyone who is putting themselves into
service to build schools and educate young people is doing good in the
world. As someone who built an organization, I understand how much effort
this takes. I understand every wall that is painted, every nail that is
hammered into that wall, every computer that is bought and connected, every
chair and every table, and then all of the content that comes along with a
good education. It takes so much to build a single classroom, let alone a
whole organization. And here you have a school of many classrooms, and then
you have a movement of many schools. One signature, for political pressure
or for personal gain, shuts it all down.

It’s so hard to build. It’s so easy to destroy. And we, Muslim-Americans
and people of conscience, have to raise our voices and say, “We don’t stand
for that!”

Ahmed Rehab, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), Chicago

This article has first been published in the special issue of the Fountain Magazine © Blue Dome Press