Origin Of The Gulen Movement

The Gulen Movement, also known as Hizmet (which means ‘service’) in Turkish, is a faith-based, non-political, cultural and educational movement which is inspired by the universal principles of Islam and the ideas and activism of Fethullah Gulen. The Gulen Movement represents a modern, middle path of Turkish Islam, which is moderate, tolerant towards other religions, and affirms science. This essay gives an outline of the origin, purpose and history of the Gulen Movement. The life and philosophy of the founder of the movement, Fethullah Gulen and the impact of his movement on the sociopolitical scenario of Turkey is analyzed. The major progressive and tolerant ideas of Gulen, inspired from his interpretation of Islam are discussed. Furthermore, …show more content…
The Gulen movement started in the late 1960’s in Izmir (Turkey), it became a national movement by 1970 and started to globalize in the 1990’s (gulenmovement.us). In the 1960’s there was a lack of quality schools in Turkey and Gulen decided to play his role in fulfilling this gap. The first project of the Gulen movement was the setting up of dormitories throughout the Aegean region to accommodate out-of-town students in whose hometown there was a lack of schools. These dormitories served two purposes. Firstly, it provided a good study environment to its residents and sheltered them against bad habits such as drug usage. Secondly, it safeguarded them against involvement in the extremist politics of the time. The funding for these dormitories came from local businessmen who were inspired from Gulen’s ideas. In the early 1970’s, Gulen founded institutions which prepared students for the entrance examination of universities. This allowed the middle class citizens to get admission into such universities where only the elites could get admission in the past. In 1982, the movement opened its first two schools, one in Istanbul and the other in Izmir. In the next two