The Concepts of Tolerance and Dialogue within the Context of Gülen’s Thought

Darian C. De Bolt
Fethullah Gülen sums up some of his central ideas when he writes, “Throughout the four corners of the world, people of truth and love…are carrying messages of love, tolerance and dialogue with everyone”(2004, 174). These three concepts, love, tolerance, and dialogue, show up again and again throughout Gülen’s writings, speeches, sermons, and interviews. What I would like to do is to examine particularly the concepts of tolerance and dialogue within the context of Gülen’s thought. I will concentrate particularly on the concepts of tolerance and dialogue because it is these ideas that personally attracted me to his thought. Although it is obvious I will relate these concepts to the Western tradition, you must understand that Gülen grounds these notions firmly within his own deep commitment to and knowledge of his faith tradition of Islam. However, let me begin in reverse order starting with dialogue.

Gülen writes, “Dialogue means two or more people coming together to talk and meet on certain subjects and, by means of this, to draw closer together to one another” (2004, 171). He amplifies this by stating, “The ways to explain things to people without making them hostile and frightened should be sought. For this reason, at whatever cost, the road to dialogue with people must be kept open” (Gülen, 2004, 140). Gülen also recognizes that dialogue and tolerance are interrelated concepts. Dialogue is only possible if one is willing to be tolerant about what may be said. This does not mean that the parties to the dialogue need agree. Gülen states, “Tolerance does not mean being influenced by others and joining them; it means accepting others as they are and knowing how to get along with them” (2004, 157). He reemphasizes this point when he writes, “Being tolerant does not mean foregoing our traditions coming from our religion, our nation or our history, because tolerance is something that has existed since olden times” (Gülen, 2004, 158). The alternative to dialogue and tolerance is unpleasant. Each person, community, and nation is faced with a genuine moral dilemma between dialogue and tolerance and their alternatives. Gülen states this dilemma clearly when he writes, “People with different ideas and thoughts are either going to seek ways of getting along by means of reconciliation or they will constantly fight with one another” (Gülen, 2004, 157).

The responsibility for being tolerant and engaging in dialogue is not just the personal responsibility of the individual. Gülen notes, “At a time when the world has become like a big village and at a point when our society is on the verge of great change and transformation, if we are talking about dialogue with other nations…[then] tolerance is a matter that needs to be rewarded and for this reason it must permeate all society” (2004, 157). Thus, “universities should breathe it, politicians should frequently talk about it, people in the music world should write lyrics about it and the media should give support to positive developments on this subject” (Gülen, 2004, 157). Gülen also observes, “In countries programmed for corruption, intolerance, and mercilessness, such things as freedom of thought, polite criticism and exchange of ideas according to norms of equity and fair-minded debate, it would be meaningless to speak of products of logic and inspiration” (2004, 37). It is obvious here that Gülen is upholding the values of tolerance and dialogue. Furthermore, he maintains that dialogue itself is a logical process because it is only meaningful to speak of the products of logic out of this process.

As I noted before, Gülen bases his notions on Scripture. He writes, “The Qur’an is the source of leniency and tolerance, and because these concepts have flowed to us like an exuberant stream from the Conveyor of the Qur’an, upon him be peace and blessings, we cannot think any differently on this matter” (Gülen 2004, 155). He continues, “From this perspective, because tolerance derives from the Qur’an and the Sunnah, it is a Muslim’s natural virtue and, because of the sources it derives from, it is permanent” (Gülen 2004, 155). Now as I reflect on the religious foundation of Gülen’s ideas and the fact they solidified in his mind in reaction to the stresses that he observed in his own society, I cannot help but be reminded of the fact that John Locke’s first Letter Concerning Toleration arose in not too dissimilar a situation. Locke was all too familiar with the terrible conflicts that had beset the Christian West after the Reformation. He also found that toleration was an alternative to those conflicts. He too grounds his notion in his own religion. Locke states, “…I esteem that toleration to be the chief characteristic mark of the true church” (Locke 1955, 13). The fact that two men so far apart in space, time, and religion could arrive at roughly similar conclusions gives me great hope for the future of their ideas.

Gülen writes, “The Qur’an urges peace, order, and accord. It aims at universal peace and order, and opposes conflicts and dissensions. It is interesting that the Qur’an calls actions acceptable to God ‘sound actions to bring peace and order’” (2004, 214). This raises the question about the relation between peace and the key notions of tolerance and dialogue. Well, all too often in human history, dialogue has only begun after people have exhausted themselves in war and conflict. Gülen calls for us to begin with tolerance and dialogue because in such an atmosphere peace follows of its own accord. In fact, Gülen envisions a world and a new civilization growing towards global tolerance. He writes that, “Instead of a world kneaded with malice and hatred, a surprising world shaped in a climate of love, tolerance and forbearance will appear before us” (Gülen 2004, 194).

As can be seen from Gülen’s characterization of dialogue, his conception of dialogue differs in only one important respect from those of Plato’s and Habermas’. While both Plato and Habermas hold that consensus is the ideal product of dialogue, Gülen explicitly denies this. The only consensus Gülen implicitly calls for is mutual tolerance, that is, that we agree to be tolerant of each other’s views and values. In that tolerance, we need neither agree to the views of others nor accept the values of others. What he does call for is for each of us to understand the other as he or she is as a result of dialogue.

A Problem and a Solution

Fethullah Gülen is one of the few thinkers to link explicitly toleration and dialogue. Toleration has long been a topic of exploration for Western religious, philosophical, and political thinkers. We need but think of Richard Hooker, Benedict Spinoza, John Locke, François-Marie Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, and many others who have addressed the issue of toleration. But none of them tie the two notions of tolerance and dialogue together as closely as does Gülen. As we have seen, even Plato only implies that something like toleration should be a condition of dialogue; he never makes it explicit. Toleration calls for people with fundamentally different beliefs and values to coexist peacefully with each other. The main philosophical issue attached to the idea of toleration is how that principle can be reconciled with genuine moral and religious convictions that are significantly different. Of course, history teaches us that those different convictions need not be very significant, at least, from a longer perspective. But even if one is tolerant why should that person engage in dialogue with those of whom she is tolerant. In other words, what is the link between toleration and dialogue?

This problem is compounded once we realize a further dimension to the issue. The nouns ‘toleration’ and ‘dialogue’ have corresponding verb forms, ‘to tolerate’ and ‘to dialogue’. Furthermore, both verbs have illocutionary force. If we classify them according to Austin’s system, we get the following results. ‘To tolerate’ has commissive force. Austin writes, “The whole point of a commissive is to commit the speaker to a certain course of action” (1975, 157). To tolerate others is, quite bluntly, to commit oneself to put up with others who differ from us in such matters as beliefs and values. ‘To dialogue’ has expositive force. Austin asserts, “Expositives are used in acts of exposition involving the expounding of views, the conducting of arguments, and the clarifying of usages and of references” (1975, 161). These are all illocutuionary acts among a group of such acts that may occur during a dialogue. The two verbs thus reflect different illocutionary acts that are not necessarily linked to one another.

However, Gülen does provide us a link between the two notions. Out of his own experience of tolerance and dialogue, Gülen observes,

…I have had the opportunity to speak with and get to know many people from different segments of society. The most important observation I have personally made from these dialogues is how closed we are to our own society. Many times when I encountered someone who did not think as I did, I thought unpleasant things would ensue. But it is interesting that in hardly any group did I see a sour face. We were able to draw close to one another quite comfortably, and everyone who thought they were very different from each other actually warmed easily to one another. In fact, when embracing one another, everyone’s eyes were full of tears. There was no feigned flattery here (2004, 81).

This passage indicates that Gülen finds the link between tolerance and dialogue in our shared humanity. He writes, “Remaining respectful to others’ thoughts and feelings because ‘they are human’, we must accept all people in their own special circumstances and with their thoughts” (Gülen 2004, 83). Furthermore, Gülen grounds this shared humanity in Islam. He notes, “God created humanity as noble, and everyone shares in this nobility to a certain degree. His messenger once stood up out of respect for humanity as the funeral procession of a Jew passed by. When reminded that the deceased was a Jew, the Prophet replied: ‘But he’s a human being’, thereby showing the value Islam gives to human beings” (Gülen 2004, 65).

Gülen’s message of tolerance and dialogue originally started as a response to certain specific tensions in Turkish society. The notions that he developed of both tolerance and dialogue fit well within the traditions of ancient Greek thought as well as more recent developments in the application of speech act theory and the conception of communicative rationality. By linking these notions as he does, Gülen supplies a unity of the two notions that has application on a global level.

References (for the excerpted section only)

• Austin, J. L. 1975. How to do things with words. Urmson, J. and Sbisà, M. (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Gülen, F. 2004. Love and the Essence of Being Human (2nd ed.). Tuncer, F. (Ed.). Ünal, M. and Korkmaz, N. (Trans.) Istanbul: Journalists and Writers Foundation Publications.
• Locke, J. 1955. A letter concerning toleration (2nd ed.). Popple, W. (Tran.). Romanell, P. (Ed.). The Library of Liberal Arts. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.  

Excerpted from the paper (Dialogue: Greek foundations and the thought of Fethullah Gülen and Jürgen Habermas) presented at the conference, “Fethullah Gulen Conference - The Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice”, Houston, TX, November 12-13, 2005

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Toward A Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance - Book of the Week Fethullah Gulen

This book has a double purpose. On the one hand, it is a call to Muslims to a greater awareness that Islam teaches the need for dialogue and that Muslims are called to be agents and witnesses to God's universal mercy. On the other hand,the book is an invitation to non-Muslims to move beyond prejudice, suspicion, and half-truths in order to arrive at an understanding what Islam is really about.

The more we learn, the more we are the same

Amanda McGill *
Turkey. A cradle of civilization and religion. On a recent trip with the Niagara Foundation’s Nebraska Chapter, I walked the streets of St. John, Trojan warriors and sultans. History was everywhere I looked.

But Turkey is not just about the past. Some 60 percent of the Turkish population is under the age of 35, making it a young nation with minds ready to learn and lead in the 21st century.

This boom in youth coincides with Turkey’s economic boom. Its private sector has grown dramatically over the last eight years, as has per capita income. Many business leaders now have vast profits, which they are choosing to invest in the education of their nation and in religious acceptance.

This charitable mindset is part of a growing movement started by Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen. He believes education and interfaith/intercultural dialogue can bring about a more peaceful world. While Gülen and most of Turkey are Muslims, the movement incorporates all faiths as well as atheists and agnostics.

During my stay in Turkey, I met with many business leaders and academics that provide funding for schools and universities based on this philosophy. As one businessman told me, “Educated people can understand each other.” They believe ignorance is what is holding back the Middle East and that education can bring an end to Islamic extremism. Gülen was the first Muslim leader to speak out against the 9-11 terrorist attacks 10 years ago with this statement: “Islam abhors such acts of terror. A religion that professes ‘He who unjustly kills one man kills the whole of humanity’ cannot condone senseless killing of thousands.”

Turkey has a strong separation of church and state due to fears of religion being used by a political faction to manipulate power (like the Taliban). Gülen followers stand behind the separation. However, they believe that all faiths can work together to develop society. It is because of the Islamic faith of these businessmen that they are trying to spread their peaceful movement within Turkey and to other countries in the region. Their faith teaches them that they are responsible not only for themselves but for all people. “Life is short and we must do as much as possible,” chimed in another business leader.

As I listened to them talk about charity and bettering our world, it felt just like the values I learned in Catholic school not so long ago. Their interest isn’t to convert people to Islam, but to use the common foundation and values of Christianity, Islam and Judaism to educate and work together towards peace.

I’ll admit that as I learned more and more about this movement and life-view, I was embarrassed by my own ignorance in terms of the Islamic faith, an ignorance shared by most Americans. All I had known before my trip was that the Quran shares some stories with the Bible, Muhammad is the chief prophet, Muslim women dress conservatively and prayer is done facing Mecca. That was it.

On my visit to Turkey, I was enlightened by the values of Islam and the history and traditions surrounding it. I visited mosques and the tomb of Rumi. I learned that there is a chapter in the Quran dedicated to the Virgin Mary and as our host said, “she is the most important woman” in the religion. I had no idea Muslims shared many of the same beliefs towards her that I was taught as a Catholic. In the moment I learned that, the world became a lot smaller to me. Through education, I realized we had more in common than I could have imagined.

While I still have a lot to learn about the faith, I have a better understanding of the Muslim world and therefore am better equipped to help the movement towards a more peaceful world.

I left Turkey encouraged by the values I found in this ancient, yet transformative, country and felt more connected to the people than I anticipated.

We all laugh at the same things.

We all love our children the same way.

And we all pray to the same, one God.
*Amanda McGill is a state senator from Nebraska.

Published on Today's Zaman, 31 July 2011, Sunday

Book of the month: A Dialogue of Civilizations by Jill Carroll

Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish intellectual, scholar, and activist whose influence over a new Islamic intellectual, social, and spiritual revival is revealed in this insightful book. Readers will gain a fuller understanding of where Gülen stands on issues of inherent human value and dignity, freedom of thought, education and taking responsibility for creating society and the world. In addition, readers will also see how different perspectives across time, geography, and worldview can still find points on which to engage in dialogue and find a deep resonance.

Era of dialogue will never be over

Kerim Balcı
It was in 1994 that I read Fethullah Gülen's declaration of all the ages until the resurrection to be an “era of dialogue.” At that time, I was surprised to hear such decisiveness in the voice of a Muslim scholar, in labeling the ages to come as an especially peace-seeking era.
Mr. Gülen is the kind of scholar who believes in the “soul of history and time.” We are all children of our times and Gülen was declaring our time, as well as the times of our children, great-grandchildren and so on, to be a time of peace-making, peace-seeking and peaceful coexistence. This observation was not borne out, in my understanding then, by our historical experience with the West. If any single word were to be chosen to characterize the thousand-year-old relationship of the Muslim and Western worlds, it would be “war.” Look back into our common history, and you will see hatred, conflict, denigration, defamation and demonization. But Gülen was asking us not to look back into history, but to look to the future.

Many people are stuck in time. The future, for them, exists only as a projection of the past and any prediction about the future can only be based on the observation of past experiences. Gülen, on the other hand, believes that the future is a potentiality vested in the human will.

Reading Anders Behring Breivik's self-proclaimed “European Declaration of Independence,” I saw, once again, what it means to be “stuck in time.” Breivik looks only to the past and disregards the potential for the human will to create change. He claims, in opposition to Gülen, that the time for dialogue is over. “We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come,” he declares.

Despite his rejection of dialogue, Breivik is also obsessed with dialogue. The word appears more than any other word in his “Declaration,” obviously in a critical way. But he does not reject dialogue on ethical grounds; rather, he claims that Muslims do not deserve dialogue. “No more ‘dialogue',” he says. “The only way to deal with a bully is to punch him in the nose, and make him back down. That's the only appropriate way to deal with Jihadists.”

Breivik quotes a person named Fjordman (probably Breivick and Fjordman are one and the same) who wrote several articles on JihadWatch.com comparing Western and Muslim understandings of dialogue, and claims that Islamic dialogue differs sharply from that of Westerners, the Socratic dialogue. “For them, ‘dialogue' does not mean an attempt to rationally debate a topic in order to arrive at the truth. Truth is already a given: It's called Shariah, and the only ‘dialogue' that is acceptable is one that will lead to the implementation of Shariah, one way or another. When they invite us to a ‘dialogue,' they actually mean that we should negotiate our surrender, or else…,” Fjordman-Breivik says.

This description of Socratic dialogue is rather misleading. In fact, it is precisely in Socratic dialogue that the truth is already a given and the “master” leads the students to that truth through questions. Socrates believed that everything is known beforehand and that learning is a process of remembering what we already knew. Philosophers such as Mikhail Bakhtin have criticized Socratic dialogue for being a monologue through and through.

Of course it would not be wise to expect that a mind like Breivik's, stuck in past experiences and obsessed with a new era, should be well read in philosophy and literary criticism. In fact he abhors literary criticism as an academic manifestation of cultural Marxism. But this readiness to accept a misreading as the single truth is exactly what intercultural, interreligious, interfaith, inter-ontological dialogue is trying to do away with.

Breivik is himself strong proof that the era of dialogue will never be over. There will always be some minds stuck in history and we will always need open-minded, future-oriented people like Gülen to save these minds from the long sleep of “The Matrix.” The era of dialogue has just begun. Breivik, hopefully, was the last nightmare in this lengthy sleep of the Western mind.

Published on Today's Zaman, 27 July 2011, Wednesday

Four Frontrunners in Peace - Thomas Michel

Thomas Michel

People who Have Devoted Their Lives to Peace

Peace has many sides, and peacemakers are not all of one type. What peacemakers have in common is their willingness to put into action the thirst that all good people have for peace: to put their desire for peace into words, and to match their words with deeds. Peacemakers are those who are ready to work for change in society in non-violent ways, who protest injustice without acting unjustly toward those who perpetrate wrongs, who try to reconcile those involved in conflict without themselves becoming part of the conflict.
Peacemakers take risks. They risk losing the life of tranquillity, comfort, and complacency that is often mistaken for peace. They risk losing the esteem of family and friends by taking on unpopular causes and by associating with unwelcome people. They risk their freedom of movement, of speech, of association, especially when their efforts at peace bring them into confrontation with governments and powerful forces in society. They risk their very lives when their message of peace is an obstacle to the plans of the violent.

For religious believers, our faith shapes the way we understand peace. As a Christian, I find the teaching and example of Jesus compelling. “Peace I leave with you,” he said, “My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Even though our inspiration for peacemaking is formed by our respective religious faiths, honesty and human fellowship demands that we recognize that, just as all religions teach peace, so have all faiths produced outstanding examples of peacemakers.

It would be a good exercise for each of us to make a personal list of frontrunners for peace, simply in order to undertake the discipline of asking ourselves, “Who are my heroes of peace, and why?” In drawing up a list of peacemakers, we engage in a process of defining our own values and asking ourselves what peace means to us. In my short presentation, rather than repeating some of the great names like Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Albert Einstein, and Pope John XXIII, I would like to mention four people - two Christians and two Muslims, who exemplify for me the spirit of peacemaking.

1. Rosa Parks: an ordinary person who brought about big changes.

The first person I want to mention is a woman from my native country, one whom I have never met but who has greatly influenced the direction of my life. This is Rosa Parks, an African-American, a Christian, member of the Baptist Church, who is still living and 90 years old this year. In 1955, I was 14 years old. To appreciate the achievement of Rosa Parks, you have to understand the racial situation in the United States at that time. In many places, African-Americans could not use the same restaurants, parks, or toilet facilities as other Americans. They could not send their children to the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, or sit in the same seats in buses or trains.

Dramatic changes have taken place since then, and the catalyst for these changes was an ordinary 42-year-old woman who did not have the benefits of higher education or a position of power in society. Rosa Parks received her high school diploma by taking classes at night after working as a seamstress by day, sewing clothes at a large shop in Montgomery, Alabama. On 1 December 1955, when Rosa was returning home from work, seated in the first row of the “colored” section in the back of the bus, a white man got on. There were no more seats, so the bus driver asked Rosa and other African-Americans to move farther back so the man could sit down. The others moved, but Rosa stayed seated. The bus driver said, “I’ll have to arrest you,” she answered simply, “You may go on and do so, ” and Rosa Parks was arrested for her non-violent protest.

The young pastor of a Baptist parish in Montgomery heard about her arrest and organized a boycott of the bus company, and in this unassuming way the American civil rights movement started. The movement grew and came to include not only African-American but various sections of society. There were marches, demonstra­tions, letter-writing campaigns to politicians, sit-ins at bus stations, police headquarters, airports, and universities. Some of the civil rights activists were brutally killed, and usually the killers were not brought to justice.

In 1963, I was in the seminary studying theology. We weren’t much affected by the civil rights movement. My state had repealed its discriminatory laws, so the issue seemed distant from our daily lives. The movement was going on and we knew about it, but we weren’t really part of it.

Then in March, 1963, Martin Luther King, the young preacher who organized the bus boycott, called for a nationwide meeting to protest racial discrimination. Over 250,000 people gathered in Washington to hear him speak, and on that day Martin Luther King gave his famous, “I have a dream” speech. He said, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the children of former slaves and the children of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” The civil rights movement, and Dr. King’s speech in particular, changed my life by offering me a new set of priorities and a sharpened commitment to social change.

I’ve learned several things from Rosa Parks. I learned that a peacemaker does not have to work from a position of political or economic power in society. A peacemaker need not belong to the dominant social, racial or ethnic majority. A peacemaker does not have to be equipped with the tools of formal higher education. A peacemaker who is convinced of the rightness of her or his cause and has the courage of his or her convictions can, by seizing the right moment and responding to it firmly and creatively, accomplish much. For me, Rosa Parks is evidence against the cynical commonplace that “The problem is too vast. There’s nothing we can do.”

2. Said Nursi: a Muslim thinker who advocated dialogue.

The next peacemaker I want to mention is Said Nursi. I do not think that I need to go into the details of his life, since many of you know much more about his life and thought than I do. Although I hope to focus mainly on Said Nursi’s ideas and actions as a peacemaker, it might be helpful to review a few basic facts of his life in order to situate his thought in its historical context.

Said Nursi was born in 1877 in the village of Nurs in the province of Bitlis in eastern Turkey. He studied the religious sciences in various medreses in Eastern Turkey, where he claims to have been influenced especially by the Islamic reformers such as Namik Kemal, Jamal al-Din Afghani and Muhammad Abduh. He became interested in politics and favored the views of Afghani concerning the unity or ittihad of the international Islamic community.

During the middle years of his life, Nursi’s thought underwent a radical change and he decided to devote his life to a study of the Qur’an in the light of modern sciences. His voluminous writings together form a comprehensive Qur’anic commentary called the Risale-i Nur (the Message of Light). Nursi’s basic intuition was the clash of world views represented by materialism, on the one hand, and by religious faith, on the other. He believed that the natural sciences, if divorced from a moral vision that could hold them together and give them direction, led inevitably to egoism, violence, and destructive behavior. It was the role of revealed truth to form people with a moral vision in which, as he states: “Conscience is illuminated by the religious sciences, and the mind is illuminated by the sciences of civilization. Wisdom occurs through the combination of these two.”

Nursi’s criticism of materialist tendencies in society and politics, and his opposition to Turkey’s engagement in wars and unholy alliances, caused him to be repeatedly put in prison or confined to house arrest. Although he lived in a period when Turkey was being torn apart by civil strife, revolution, war and a clash of world views, Nursi’s message was always of peace. The “Old Said” knew the ravages of war first hand, having taken part as a young man in the First World War, commanding militia forces in the Caucasus in defending his homeland against the Russian invasion. Even then, his religious commitment was foremost, and he dictated Qur’anic commentary to a scribe in the midst of battle. He was taken prisoner and transported to Russia as a prisoner-of-war, where he lived through the Russian revolution.

By the time of the Second World War, the “New Said” had undergone a spiritual pilgrimage, and the worldly events erupting around him hardly penetrated his awareness. He devoted his days and months in prison to the study of the Qur’an and, as he states, “In these last four years, I have known neither the stages of the war, nor its results, nor whether or not peace has been declared, and I have not asked, I have not knocked on the door of this sacred sura to learn how many allusions it contains to this century and its wars.” There is no doubt that Nursi’s transformation from activist to contemplative student of the Qur’an was influenced by the horrors of war that he had seen and experienced as a young man.

In his writings about peace, Nursi focuses on three aspects. Firstly, peace is the ultimate goal and reward of those who study and practice the Qur’anic teaching found in the Risale-i Nur. Secondly, peace is the serenity granted by God to faithful believers that enables them to bear hardship, injustice, and opposition with equanimity and forgiveness instead of seeking revenge. Thirdly, peace is a mission, a solemn duty, entrusted by God to the Islamic community. Muslims are to be peacemakers and builders of peace in this world. Nursi sees the task of Islamic civilization as one of striving for truth instead of force, establishing justice and harmony, attracting others by the power of love rather than by selfish ambition, strengthening the bonds of unity across religious, national and class lines rather than falling into divisive racist or nationalist attitudes (cf. The Damascus Sermon, p. 106.)

Said Nursi notes (The Flashes, Sixteenth Flash, p. 144) that he was often criticized because of his commitment to peace. At the time of the British and Italian invasions of Turkey, Nursi proposed prayers for peace and negotiated settlement and was consequently accused of indirectly supporting the aims of the aggressors. Nursi replied that he too wanted release, but not by using the same methods employed by the assailants. He stated that Islam teaches people to seek truth and uprightness, not to try to achieve their aims by use of force. He was asked whether freely relinquishing one’s rights for the sake of peace should not be considered a kind of compromise with wrongdoing. In response, he drew upon his experience in prison, stating: “A person who is in the right, is fair. He will sacrifice his dirhem’s worth of right for the general peace, which is worth a hundred.”

In his analysis of society in his day, Nursi considered that the dominant challenge to faith to be the secularist ideology promoted by the West. He felt that modern secularism had two faces. On the one hand, communism explicitly denied God’s existence and consciously fought against the place of religion in society. On the other, the modern capitalist systems, in their brand of secularism, did not deny God’s existence, but simply ignored the question of God and promoted a consumerist, materialist way of life, as if there were no God, or as though God had no moral will for humankind. In both types of secular society, some individuals might make a personal, private choice to follow a religious path, but religion should have nothing to say about politics, economics or the organization of society.

In response, Said Nursi held that in the situation of this modern world, religious believers face a similar struggle, that is, the challenge to lead a life of faith in which the purpose of human life is to worship God and to love others in obedience to God’s will, and to lead this life of faith in a world whose political, economic and social spheres are often dominated either by a militant atheism, such as that of communism, or by a practical atheism, where God is simply ignored, forgotten, or considered irrelevant.

Said Nursi does not advocate violence to oppose militant secularism. He says that the most important need today is for the greatest struggle, the jihad al-akbar of which the Qur’an speaks. This is the interior effort to bring every aspect of one’s life into submission to God’s will. This involves acknowledging and striving to overcome one’s own weaknesses and those of one’s nation. Too often, he says, believers are tempted to blame their problems on others when the real fault lies in themselves - the dishonesty, corruption, hypocrisy and favoritism that characterize many so-called “religious” societies.

He further advocates the struggle of speech, kalam, what might be called a critical dialogue aimed at convincing others of the need to submit one’s life to God’s will. Where Said Nursi is far ahead of his time is that he foresees that, in the struggle to carry on a critical dialogue with modern society, Muslims should not act alone but must work together with those he calls “true Christians,” in other words, Christians not in name only, but those who have interiorized the message which Christ brought, who practice their faith, and who are open and willing to cooperate with Muslims.

In contrast to the popular way in which many Muslims of his day looked at things, Said Nursi holds Muslims must not say that Christians are the enemy. Rather, Muslims and Christians have three common enemies that they have to face together: ignorance, poverty, dissension. In short, he sees the need for dialogue as arising from the challenges posed by secular society to Muslims and Christians and that dialogue should lead to a common stand favoring education, including ethical and spiritual formation to oppose the evil of ignorance, cooperation in development and welfare projects to oppose the evil of poverty, and efforts to unity and solidarity to oppose the enemy of dissension, factionalism, and polarization.

Said Nursi still hopes that before the end of time true Christianity will eventually be transformed into a form of Islam, but the differences that exist today between Islam and Christianity must not be considered obstacles to Muslim-Christian cooperation in facing the challenges of modern life. In fact, near the end of his life, in 1953, Said Nursi paid a visit in Istanbul to the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church to encourage Muslim-Christian dialogue. A few years earlier, in 1951, he sent a collection of his writings to Pope Pius XII, who acknowledged the gift with a handwritten note.

3. Oscar Romero: a peaceful defender of the poor.

My third example is a Christian, the former Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador in Central America. To those acquainted with the patterns of Catholic ecclesiastical careers, there was nothing exceptional in the early years of Oscar Romero: born in 1917, worked as a carpenter’s apprentice, entered the seminary, was ordained a priest, studied in Rome, appointed rector of the national seminary, secretary of the bishops conference, assistant bishop and then, in 1977, named archbishop of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

In 1977, the population of El Salvador was highly polarized. The peasants had organized themselves and were striving to overthrow the oligarchic rule that had governed El Salvador for more than a century. The wealthy, powerful families that controlled the politics and economy of the nation had employed the army and paramilitary “death squads” to terrorize the population in order to put an end to the camposinos’ uprising. Geopolitical interests exacerbated the tensions, with the American government involved in training and supporting the Salvadoran military to counter the Marxist ideology proposed by some of the popular leaders.

At first, Romero’s consecration as archbishop of the capital city was welcomed by the ruling elites, as he had been seen as theologically and socially conservative. However, a short time after he became bishop, the murders of two priests brought about a change, or as Romero put it, an evolution in his thinking. He demanded an inquiry into the murders and set up a permanent commission for the defense of human rights. People began flocking to his Masses on Sundays and his sermons were printed and distributed throughout the country. He became the voice of the oppressed people crying for their rights and dignity. His championing the cause of the people also engendered criticism against him on the part of the ruling elite and even some of his fellow bishops. He was accused of “inciting class struggle and revolution” and of being infected with Marxist ideas.

The social situation continued to deteriorate, with mutilated corpses left hanging from trees, bombs detonated in newspaper offices, churches, and government buildings, and massacres of peasants occurring on a weekly basis. In this context, to those who were trying to put down the rebellion with terror tactics, Romero spoke of the qualities of true peace. He said, “Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.”

Some accused Romero of meddling in politics and demanded that he confine his preaching to “spiritual” matters. Romero responded: “A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth - beware! - is not the true church of Jesus Christ. A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the Gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good, so that they feel secure in their sinful state, betrays the Gospel’s call.”

Romero began to receive death threats and, as time went on, it became more and more clear that his life was in danger. However, he was not deterred by the threats and, in fact, his own preaching became sharper and more difficult for those in power to ignore. On 23 March 1980, Archbishop Romero made the following appeal to the men of the armed forces:

“Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression.”

The following day, Romero was shot dead while leading the congregation in worship of God.

From Oscar Romero, I learned, first of all that making peace does not mean a passive acquiescence to injustice or oppression. It does not demand that one remains silent when some are suffering at the hands of others. It does not mean that one should become a “doormat” for others to walk over or put up with wrongs and violence in order to “keep peace at any cost.”

Our religious faith does not teach passivity, but teaches us not to respond to violence in kind. Romero resolved this seeming paradox by his insistence on the truth. For him, to preach a comfortable message that did not call upon wrongdoers to confront the true nature of their violent deeds would be to preach a perversion of the Gospel. Violent situations require peacemakers speak the truth and call sin by its name. We all know how difficult this is to do, especially when the violent are people of power, prestige, and influence. We can find in Oscar Romero a martyr to the truth, one who dared to speak his faith even when he knew it would mean his death.

4. M. Fethullah Gülen: an activist who teaches peace and practices dialogue.

The final peacemaker I will speak about here is Fethullah Gulen, a contemporary Turkish thinker, spiritual leader, and creative educator. Living in the next generation after Said Nursi, Gülen took up Nursi’s call for an effective dialogue between believing Muslims and believing Christians. What form should such a dialogue take? What are the priorities? How can Said Nursi’s directives to struggle together against the common enemies of ignorance, poverty and disunity be put into practice in a world which has continued to evolve in ways that are sometimes encouraging, but in other ways, quite disturbing? This is the challenge taken up by Fethullah Gulen, affectionately called “Hoca Effendi” by his associates and students. Gülen never met Said Nursi and, while he speaks highly of him and claims to have been greatly influenced by his writings, he denies being a follower of Said Nursi in any sectarian sense.

Some scholars consider the movement associated with Gülen to be one of the transformations that have occurred as Said Nursi’s thought continues to be reinterpreted and applied anew in evolving historical and geographical situations. One scholar to study the movement, Professor Hakan Yavuz, notes that “Some Turkish Nurcus, such as Yeni Asya of Mehmet Kutlular and the Fethullah Gulen community, re-imagined the movement as a ‘Turkish Islam’.” Another scholar, Dr. Ihsan Yilmaz concurs: “Nursi’s discourse ‘has already weathered major economic, political, and educational transformations’... Today, the Gulen movement is a manifestation of this phenomenon.”

Where Gülen most clearly answers the call of Said Nursi is by taking up the challenge to combat ignorance. There are now over 300 schools around the world inspired by the convictions of Mr. Gülen, set up, administered, and staffed by his circle of students and associates. The schools try to bring together educational objectives that are too often dispersed among various school systems. They seek to give a strong scientific grounding, together with character formation in non-material values, which includes cultural, ethical, religious and spiritual training. In addition to the formal education carried out in schools, Fethullah Gulen’s movement has pursued non-formal education through television and radio channels, newspapers and magazines, cultural and professional foundations.

Fethullah Gulen and his movement have also been active in the area of interreligious dialogue and peacemaking. Four years ago, Mr. Gülen traveled to Rome where he was met by Pope John Paul II. He has met the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church numerous times. His interreligious activities have gone beyond Muslim-Christian relations to include meetings with Jewish leaders at the national and international level. In connection with the Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in Cape Town, South Africa, Mr. Gülen delivered a major address on the theme: “The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue: a Muslim Approach.”

Mr. Gülen’s was one of the first Muslim voices heard in condemnation of the terrorist acts committed on 11 September 2001. Within 24 hours of the tragedy, Mr. Gülen wrote an open letter in which he stated: “What lies behind certain Muslim people or institutions that misunderstand Islam getting involved in terrorist attacks that occur throughout the world should be sought not in Islam, but within those people themselves, in their misinterpretations, and in other factors. Just as Islam is not a religion of terrorism, any Muslim who correctly understands Islam cannot be thought of as a terrorist.”

Conclusion

As a Christian involved in working with Muslims and other religious believers for peace through interreligious dialogue, I am grateful for the insights of Said Nursi and for the leadership in this field provided by Fethullah Gülen. What Said Nursi and Fethullah Gülen have in common with Rosa Parks and Oscar Romero is a strong religious faith which has shaped their thinking and their commitments to stand for peace in a violent world. All four have met rejection, not because they had committed or advocated criminal activity, but because they upheld religious values and taught a non-violent activism. Together with many other peacemakers too numerous to mention, they have shown, in the words of the recent World Social Forum, that “another world is possible.”

Bibliography

Rosa Parks

• Rosa Parks, Quiet Strength, Zondervan, 1994.
• Grace Lee Boggs, Rosa Parks, Penguin Books, 1990.
• Rita Dove, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, Norton, 1999.
• Beatrice Seagel, The Year They Walked: Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Simon & Schuster, 1992.
• Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins. Rosa Parks: My Story, Dial, 1992.
• Kai Friese, Rosa Parks: The Movement Organizes, Burdett, 1990.

Said Nursi

• Said Nursi, Risale-i Nur. Most of this immense Qur’an commentary has been translated into English by _ükran Vahide and published as separate volumes (“The Words,” “The Letters,” “The Flashes,” “The Rays,” “The Damascus Sermon”). Perhaps the most approachable version is that on CD-ROM, “The Risale-i Nur collection.
• Şükran Vahide, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Izmir: Sözler Publications, 1992.
• Sherif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: the Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, New York: SUNY Press, 1989.
• Camilla Trud Nereid, In the Light of Said Nursi: Turkish Nationalism and the Religious Alternative, Bergen: 1997.
• Hamid Algar, “Said Nursi and the Risale-i Nur”, Islamic Perspectives Studies in Honour of Sayyid Abu’l-A'la Mawdudi, Khurshid Ahmad and Zafar Ishaq Ansari eds., Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1979, pp. 313-333.

Oscar Romero

• Carmen Chacon, Salvador Carranza, Juan Macho, Inocencio Alas, Carmen Elena Hernandez, Maria Isabel Figueroa, Jorge Lara‑Braud, “The Reluctant Conversion of Oscar Romero
• Memories of the Archbishop on the 20th Anniversary of his Assassination,” Sojourners, March‑April 2000.
• Anna L. Peterson. Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion: Progressive Catholicism in El Salvador’s Civil War, SUNY Press, 1997.
• Oscar A. Romero. The Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements, Introductions, commentaries and selection of texts by R. Cardenal, I. Martín-Baró and J. Sobrino. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1985.
• James R. Brockman. Romero: A Life., Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989.
• Oscar Arnulfo Romero. The Church is All of You: Thoughts of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Compiled and trans. by James R. Brockman, S.J., Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1984.

Fethullah Gülen

• M. Fethullah Gülen, Essays, Perspectives, Opinions, Rutherford N.J.: The Light, 2002.
• M. Fethullah Gülen, Key Concepts in the Practice of Sufism, Fairfax, Va.: Fountain, 1999.
• Lynne Emily Webb, Fethulah Gülen: Is There More to Him Than Meets the Eye? Patterson, N.J., Zinnur, n.d.
• M. Hakan Yavuz and John L. Esposito, eds., Turkish Islam and the Secular State: the Gülen Movement, Syracuse: Syracuse U.P., 2003.
• Ali Ünal and Alphonse Williams, Fethullah Gülen, Advocate of Dialogue, Fairfax: Fountain, 2000.

Published on Thomas Michel's Website,