Global peace as a dream to follow

Begüm Burak*

Every dream can come true if we have enough courage to follow it.

Peace has always been a dream to catch; however, it has always been almost impossible to provide peace and order. Let alone world peace, no single community can fully have peace. From the very beginning of history, the war between good and bad has existed. Famous English thinker Thomas Hobbes puts forward this argument by underlining that human nature is evil and, as a result, conflicts are not abnormal.

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Fethullah Gulen Named in TIME Magazine’s “World's 100 Most Influential People” for 2013

“Gulen preaches a message of tolerance that has won him admirers around the world.”

Pacifica Institute  today celebrates Mr. Fethullah Gulen, an inspiration for many of our volunteers and donors, being named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2013. TIME recognized Gulen for “preaching a message of tolerance that has won him admirers around the world.”

The 2013 “TIME 100” includes other noted world leaders such as President Obama and Pope Francis. In the past, TIME has honored global leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Pope Benedict XVI and Aung San Suu Kyi in TIME 100 lists. Last year, TIME’s honorees in education were Salman Khan and Cami Anderson.

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A Muslim's Perspective on the Inauguration, MLK and the Universal Story of Hope and Fear

Alp Aslandoğan *

Billions of people around the world of all races, religions, nationalities and political persuasions were inspired by the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. It was not only President Obama's message but the message of hope that underscores everything that America can represent for the world, including peaceful affirmations of power, progress and opportunity.

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JWF Coexistence Awards Largely Honors Turkey's Minorities

GYV's 4th Coexistence Awards

The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) has largely honored Turkey's minority groups and oppressed voices with its landmark 4th Coexistence Awards in the hope to give a stimulus to those promoting, despite scarce resources yet in a sustained effort, peaceful coexistence.

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Armenian-Turkish youth orchestra brings harmony to divided cultures

The lights dimmed and excited chatter subsided as the audience took their seats in the modern, wood-paneled, 400-person Garanti Kültür Merkezi concert hall at Boğaziçi University in trendy Bebek on Wednesday night.

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Strategic Defamation of Fethullah Gülen: English vs. Turkish

Strategic Defamation of Fethullah Gülen, by Dogan Koc consists of close to 500 defamation articles, books, and other forms of writings which are analyzed according to their languages. Koç concludes that these defamations are not random and that they appear according to their respective audiences. Fethullah Gülen is a moderate Turkish Muslim scholar who is known mostly for his education and dialogue activities. The Hizmet Movement, inspired by Gülen, has established hundreds of education and dialogue institutions throughout the world. Several books and hundreds of articles and news reports have been written about Gülen himself and the movement. In recent years, a defamation campaign has been launched against Gülen and the Hizmet Movement. Although these defamation articles may seem random, this book shows that the articles are written strategically in a campaign manner.

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’60 Minutes’ segment on Gulen Movement highly speculative

Ahmed Rehab

By most objective standards, Fethullah Gulen is a hero of the modern age. While religious polarization has emerged as one of the most nagging problems our time, stumping educators and causing politicians to loose sleep, the Turkish Muslim scholar has inspired millions around the world to rise above petty ideological differences that only work to divide people and instead to embrace all human beings as God’s creation regardless of their faith, national identity, or ideological affiliation.

For Gulen, Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, secular nationalists and others have shed too much blood and exhausted too many centuries declaring each other enemies; Instead, he sees ignorance as the common enemy of all people.

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Book Review: Islam and Peacebuilding

Stanley Ridge*

Fethullah Gülen's work and thinking starts and ends in faith. In a world that commonly extends conflict by speaking of religion either in stereotyped or in ideologized terms, this is a refreshingly engaged perspective.

Faced with the challenge of mounting hostility between the Islamic world and the West, and with belligerent and increasingly fundamentalist groups on both sides supposedly speaking in the name of religion, the need for peacebuilding with integrity is pressing. The writers of different traditions whose essays resonate here explore the faith-based ideas of one of this century's seminal thinkers and tease out their implications and potential for peacebuilding.

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Freedom award recipient Bartholomew praises Gülen's peace efforts

On May 13th, 2012 Sunday's Zaman reported, "Freedom award recipient Bartholomew praises Gülen's peace efforts"

Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew poses to cameras with Dutch Queen Beatrix after receiving one of a Roosevelt Institute's Four Freedoms Award on May 12, 2012. (Photo: Cihan)

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How the Hizmet Movement and partners are facilitating dialog

In an article in The Sunday India, Sauranh Kumar Shahi talks about the successes and challenges of bringing the Abrahamic faiths together in post 9/11 USA.

Leo D. Lefebure, a Catholic priest by training and Professor at Matteo Ricci Chair, Department of Theology at Georgetown University, who has been instrumental in the initiative of Abrahamic dialog, were in New Delhi to share their experience about their interaction with followers of Fethullah Gulen and his Hizmet movement in the US.

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