Hizmet: the modern face of the Sufi Ottoman tradition

Allegra Stratton discusses the role and impact of the first Islamic TV Evangelist Amr Khaled in “Muhajababes”, which strikes me as quite complex in historical depth and political significance and power. During our class discussion, we went further in situating Khaled’s rhetoric in a trendy personal piety paradigm of Islam lite and connecting his preaching with Adnan Okthar in Turkey.  In further text, I want to expand on the phenomenon of figures like Khaled and Okhtar by connecting the political power of their Islam lite frames of thought with the Gulen movement or, as some call it, the international Alliance for Shared Values.

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A couple of months ago, I had visited my uncle in Denmark. He fled the Bosnian war as a refugee with his wife and two children, both of whom managed to secure successful lives for themselves in the Danish society. Freshly retired and widowed, my uncle joined the Association of the Bosnian Diaspora in Copenhagen in an attempt to give back to the Bosnian community through community-impact and fund-raising programs and events. Weeks before I visited him on my way to Belgium for a research project, he told me he was contacted by the Fethullah organization. The wanted to generously fund community programs of the Association of the Bosnian Diaspora with a special focus on educational and vocational workshops for younger generations. It’s all about education, my uncle quoted their proposal. At the time, I knew little of this Fethullah organization whose good intentions and purity of proposal my uncle had been quite wary about.

The Fethullah organization – or the Gulen movement/Hizmet/Alliance for Shared values – is a global Islamic movement led by a Turkish Imam Fethullah Gulen who, after divorcing the current ruling regime, has been one of the most wanted terrorists in Turkey. His story of exile strikes me as quite similar to the story of imam Khaled in Egypt. Gulen currently resides in the States and preaches Islam lite, promoting tolerance and emphasizing altruism and education. The Economist described his movement as “a Turkish-based movement, which sounds more reasonable than most of its rivals” and as “the world’s leading Muslim network” (The Economist). Some even go so far as to call the movement the modern face of the Sufi Ottoman tradition, putting highly politically volatile layers of historical contested contexts on the movement. CNN quotes that “supporters describe Gulen as a moderate Muslim cleric who champions interfaith dialogue promotional videos show him meeting with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican in the 1990s, also meeting frequently with rabbis and Christian priests in Turkey” (CNN).

The Gulen movement has become widely popular for its support for education, its technology-friendly rhetoric, pacifist understandings of the world, and interfaith dialogue. It had the support of the West from the very beginning, as it preached a version of Islam that did not deviate to extreme lengths of the paroles of the West and their anti-extremist rhetoric. To me, this very much sounds like a deja-vu of the historic Sufi movements in South Asia and the preachings of Imam Khaled, both having an incredible amount of support, be it in money or political backing, from the West. In other words, the relationship these movements have established with the West signals a dangerously flirtatious quid pro quo that had put them in an unenviable position with their ruling regimes. There were times when they were praised by the ruling regimes and there were times when they were accused of treason. In particular, Gulen had been deemed a terrorist and his organization accused of organizing a 2016 coup d’etat in Turkey after the organization’s relationship with the AKP and Erdogan deteriorated and the ruling regime shifted from pro-West to pro-Russia outlooks on its foreign policy and political aspirations.

In short, every new detail I had learned about the movement has pointed to more similarities with the preachings of imam Khaled. His hizmet, or service, to Islam and the people has touched many lives, just as much as Khaled’s touching videos with sombre music and a deep-looking philosophy do. Gulen, however, also operates on an institutional level. He opens schools and funds projects across the world, and thereby angering the Turkish government more and more with each new opened school and each new educational program undertaken. Turkey requested his extradition from the States, however it was denied as Turkey provided no evidence in support of their claim that Gulen is a terrorist who has planned the 2016 coup d’etat. The impact of his moderate and pacifist Islamic preachings reached new hights the moment he was deemed dangerous and unusable by the ruling regime in Turkey. To that extent, his evangelic rhetoric gains on political momentum when the state juxtaposes it to itself. The playground for this clash is an international audience of believers who are then forced to choose between obeying the state or following lite interpretations of Islam that are actively being backed by the West.

At the end, my uncle strategically avoided being sucked into a political/religious conundrum that outgrew the optimal aim of the Alliance of the Bosnian Diaspora in Copenhagen. He responded by saying that their budget had been supported by governmental initiatives for cultural diversity (although it is difficult to put Denmark and cultural diversity in one sentence). But between the two evils, siding with the state seems to be a much wiser choice than being dragged into a cross-national debate between politics and religion that has no end on its horizon.

I, therefore, remain wary of characters such as Khaled or Gulen who, whether they like it or not, end up mixing politics into their religious preachings. These stains, no matter how many washes our clothes goes through, cannot be washed easily.

References:

The Economist: “Have Far They Have Traveled” (article)

Stratton, Allegra; “Muhajababes: meet the new Middle East – cool, sexy and devout” (excerpts)

CNN: “Who is Fethullah Gulen, the main blaimed for coup attempt in Turkey?” (article)