Book Review: Civic Service Without Borders

Anwar Alam *

The Gülen Movement, as it is usually referred to in English, has attracted the attention of “critical public minds and scholarship” throughout the world in recent years for two important reasons. First, Fethullah Gülen’s ideas and praxis demonstrate the potential role of religion in reshaping the present violent, conflict ridden world into an inclusive, humanistic society and world order based on the principles of pluralism, intercultural dialogue, and mutual living. Second and more important, Gülen, through his twin tools of Islamic hermeneutics and public actions, particularly in the field of education, has restored the “humane face of Islam” in the public eye—something that was lost due to centuries of a radical, positivist, secular and Orientalist narrative of Islam and more recently due to acts of violence in the name of Islam—and has demonstrated the complementarity of Islam and modernity. This reconciliation of faith and reason—both in terms of theory and action—solves a conundrum that has plagued the Islamic scholars for long.

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Let jailed journalists refer to the Strasbourg court

Abdülhamit Bilici

No one can say that everything is rosy in terms of democracy and freedom of thought in a country that is being ruled by a constitution drafted by coup generals as in Turkey. There are many steps that need to be taken for the progress of democracy, and the proponents of a universally valid democracy are all aware of them.

Old Turkey used to show allergic reactions to criticisms voiced by foreign countries about its democratic performance. And the country would spend time and energy responding to these criticisms instead of investing its efforts in the measures that would eliminate, say, torture. Most naturally, this course of action would never be able to put an end to torture nor would this good-for-nothing heroism sound convincing to the critics.

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Freedom as the highest value in Islam

Şahin Alpay

I was extremely happy to visit, during most of the past week, Tunisia, the cradle one may say of the recent Arab revolutions against autocratic regimes. The occasion was the invitation to the symposium on “Religion and State in the Arab World” jointly organized by Centre for Arab Unity Studies based in Beirut and Swedish Institute, Alexandria, to present a paper on Turkey’s experience. The symposium took place between October 15 – 17 at the coastal city of Hammamet, and was attended by distinguished academics, journalists and some politicians from all over the Arab world. It provided a great opportunity for me to gain insight into Arab affairs in the post – Arab Awakenings era.

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"Women and Islam" lecture

Jessica Kimmet

Tonight I had the privilege of attending a lecture at the Rosegarden Turkish American Cultural Center here in Portland. I signed up for their mailing list a while ago to follow any Turkish language classes and read about this lecture in one of the emails they sent out. It was given by Dr. Sophia Pandya from California State University, Long Beach, and I really enjoyed it.

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Murder of Christian missionaries and the deep state

Markar Esayan

Remembering the victims of Malatya

In my article on Friday I underlined the crucial importance of the investigations into coups and the deep state for Turkey's democratization and the establishment of a new state apparatus. Today I want to discuss the landmark trial launched in connection with the murder of Christian missionaries at the Zirve Publishing House in Malatya on April 18, 2007.

Turkey has so many issues that have accumulated over time and such a busy agenda that we can hardly allocate sufficient time or interest to the very important developments. Yet it is of vital importance to maintain the general public's interest in such trials and processes. This is because when they are relegated to oblivion, these critical trials may be sabotaged by the deep state networks that still survive in our time.

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The quest for Muslim liberalism: An Egyptian’s journey from ultraconservatism to liberalism

Ahmed M. Abou Hussein *

An Egyptian man waves the national flag 

next to a graffiti on a newly whitewashed wall

 in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Friday, Sept. 21. 

(PHOTO ap, Nasser Nasser)

I come from a typical Egyptian family that did not emphasize religious teachings as much as it did morals in general. Stealing, lying and cheating are bad traits because they are immoral, not because they are forbidden.

My relationship with Islam was very opaque until the age of 15, when a friend of ours started attending religious seminars and listening to Islamic recordings by state-banned sheikhs. I started to indulge myself in conservative Islamic teachings so fast that, as I remember, in the first few months of being a practicing Muslim, I read dozens of Islamic books and booklets (printed in the Gulf), listened to multiple recordings and attended dozens of Islamic seminars. The excitement of getting to know my religion and doing something against the state was quite gratifying, yet not fulfilling. Soon and at the age of 16, I stopped talking to girls or shaking their hands, listening to music, watching television or going to the movies. My family had some objections, but the more they objected, the more stubborn I became.

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Elif Shafak reflects on Ankara, Turkey

Elif Shafak *

“The best thing about Ankara is returning to Istanbul.” Harsh as it may sound, that expression, attributed in one form or another to prominent Turkish poet Yahya Kemal, resonates with many Turkish artists and writers. It also suggests the discrepancy, if not the conflict, between the country’s two major urban settlements. Turkey’s contemporary history, including its transition from the multiethnic Ottoman Empire to a modern, secularist nation-state, is, in its core, a tale of two cities.

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Definitions in Turkey

Elle Loftis *

Turkey is located at the crossroads (Image: Google Maps)

While packing for our upcoming move, I came across an old box of papers and books from when I first came to Turkey in the late 1990s.

This is part of what makes moving pleasantly tedious: stumbling across old things that necessitate taking time to look back and reflect. I was a university student then, majoring in Middle Eastern studies. I was mainly interested in Turkey, and read everything I could get my hands on regarding Turkish studies. Before my initial visit, I considered myself an “expert.” My sophomoric attitude was evident in the following research papers I submitted after my visit. It continued after I moved to İstanbul a few years later.

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Will Erdoğan and Gül really clash?

Etyen Mahçupyan

The back-to-back speeches given by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the recent Justice and Development Party (AK Party) congress and then by President Abdullah Gül in Parliament have triggered some vocal comparisons.

These types of analyses have been very popular for a while now in the secular media. Some of the same voices who just five years ago lent support to the political intervention carried out by the General Staff headquarters over the Internet, without even a vague attempt to recall the past, are now voicing support for Gül. Actually though, the five years that have passed since that Internet intervention have changed neither Erdoğan nor Gül at all. The prime minister is a character who draws strength from his own charisma, who puts no distance between his stance as a politician and as a human and who does not shy away from reactive behavior. As for the president, he is careful, with a personality that is somewhat distanced and likes to listen and hear things. There are actually no great differences between them when it comes to their shared desire to integrate the sensitivities of Islamic factions with the global world system. Both men have voter blocs that they appeal to and to whom they listen, and actually, their dual stances seem to come together in one united bloc.

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A Classic Hatchet Job

Scott C. Alexander

In response to the Stephen Schwartz's recent article that appeared on Gatestone Institute's website:

I am puzzled by the fact that a man as seemingly intelligent and articulate as Mr. Schwartz appears to have deliberately misread the Op-Ed piece by Mr. Gülen. I say this because, in the very beginning of Mr. Schwartz's critique, he clearly demonstrates that he has no intention of striving for even the least degree of objectivity and fairness in his analysis of Gülen's remarks. In fact, I am saddened to say that what Mr. Schwartz attempts to offer as a trenchant critique of Gülen and the global Gönüllüler Hareketi ("Volunteers' Movement") amounts to little more than a hatchet job on a religious leader who has inspired thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women to a reawakening of their faith and a faith-based commitment to service.

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How to teach... World Food Day

Emily Drabble

A little girl receives free food from a

distribution point on World Food Day

 in 2010 in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Photograph: Anjum Naveed/AP

Nearly one is six people around the world do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life – most of them living in developing countries.

It is World Food Day on 16 October as well as harvest festival assembly time, so the Guardian Teacher Network has a bounty of resources to share that introduce and delve deeper into the challenges and injustices that people face over food.

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Islam without Extremes: A Muslim case for liberty

Şahin Alpay

“Is Islam a religion of coercion and repression? Or is it compatible with the idea of liberty -- that individuals have full control over their lives and are free to be religious, irreligious or whatever they wish to be?

There are many good reasons to ask these questions. Islamic societies in the contemporary world are really not beacons of freedom… Not a single Muslim-majority country today can be defined as ‘fully free’…”

The above questions and assessments are the starting point of a new book by Mustafa Akyol, a young Turkish journalist who has recently distinguished himself for dealing with questions that are truly worth asking. It can be said that Akyol’s book, “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case For Liberty” (Norton, 2011), primarily addresses the widespread prejudices in Western societies about Islam -- though neither prejudices about Islam nor those who need to learn more about it are confined to the Western world.

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Democracy May be Rejected by Religions, but Not by Believers

Reza Aslan *

The question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy is nonsensical at its core, first because it ignores basic empirical evidence (the five most populous Muslim countries in the world are all democracies) and second because it presumes that Islam is somehow different, unique or special -- that unlike every other religion in the history of the world, Islam alone is unaffected by history, culture or context.

Anyone who would answer “no, Islam is not compatible with democracy” does not even deserve a response; this is merely recycling the same old tired and disproven stereotypes about Islam that are frankly starting to get boring.

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Istanbul to celebrate Jewish Culture Day

The European Day of Jewish Culture
will be celebrated with a series of events.
DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL

Istanbul’s Jewish community invites the city’s residents and visitors to learn about Jewish culture on Oct. 7, with the Turkish Jewish Society organizing a series of events in honor of the European Day of Jewish Culture.

The event will be celebrated simultaneously in 30 countries around the world. Each year an international committee selects one overarching theme for the event, and this year’s theme is Jewish humor. To honor this theme, the Istanbul events will include two cartoon exhibitions, one at the Schneidertempel Art Center featuring works by Izel Rozental, the cartoonist of the Jewish daily Shalom, and the second with work by Irvin Mendel, displayed in the entrance hall of Neve Shalom Synagogue.

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