Fethullah Gulen

by Pahl, Jon

• ISBN13: 9781682060209
• ISBN10: 1682060209
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2019-04-22
• Publisher: Blue Dome Press

Summary

In this first critical biography of Fethullah Gulen in English, historian Jon Pahl takes us on a journey where we discover wisdom and controversy, from 1940's Turkey to the U.S. in the twenty-first century. Pahl tells the story of a pious Muslim boy from a tiny and remote Turkish village who on the one hand has inspired a global movement of millions of individuals dedicated to literacy, social enterprise, and interreligious dialogue, but who on the other hand has been monitored by Turkish police, seen as a threat by autocrats, and recently declared number one enemy by the current Turkish dictator. With lively prose and extensive research, Pahl traces Fethullah Gulen's life and thought in its contexts, states clearly his own positions, and then lets readers draw their own conclusions from the evidence about this undeniably significant historical figure.

Author Biography

Dr. Pahl, a strong believer of religions as catalysts for peace, crafts through the story of Gülen and the Hizmet Movement an introduction to Islam for non-Muslim readers, for the questions he brings to Gülen's life story are also the questions others bring to Islam more broadly.

Table of Contents

Preface 11

Introduction 17

Learning 45

Erzurum and Edirne, 1938-1966

The Practices of Nonviolence— “We Were Young” 101

Izmir, 1966-71

Empathy— Hodjaefendi's Tears 153

The Aegean, 1971-1980

Hoshgörü—Melancholy, Dialogue, and “the Community” 215

Istanbul, 1980-1999

Himmet for Hizmet—Toward a Global Peace through Social Enterprise 321

America , 1999-

Bibliography 451