Fethullah Gulen's Maxim: Live So That Others May Live by Emre Celik, President, Rumi Forum

The above may in fact actually summarize the life meaning for those who participate in the Hizmet (aka Gulen Movement).

This is one of the most fundamental values Fethullah Gulen, preacher emeritus based in Pennsylvania and the figurehead of the Hizmet movement, who has played a role and helped mould the life direction of millions of Hizmet participants serve others across more than 150 countries.

It is also the main theme of a recent book exploring Gulen's discourse over four decades that has been the inspiration for a global network of philanthropy and positive activism. Its title: So that others may live.

Gulen places a great importance on the interdependence of individuals, communities, nations and systems on one another. Each fundamental unit within any system plays a role and has an inexplicable effect - small or great - on every other unit within such a system (similar to chaos theory in Mathematics).

This leads to a sort of responsibility within those systems. In particular systems that contain conscious beings with intellect have a greater responsibility - vis-a-vis humanity, the most 'intelligent' of beings holds the most honored and responsible position. The human being is obliged, if you will, to act in a moral and ethical way in regards to others. It is this ethos that has driven Gulen to personally partake and to also encourage others to take up their social and spiritual responsibility, that is, to assist their fellow human being. He also notes that each and every one of us plays a role in the lives of others and has a moral responsibility, to the degree that we are able and capable, of helping those in need and those in less fortunate social conditions.

In particular Gulen frames this social interdependence within the concept of 'love' , taken from the chapter 'Love of Humanity' in So that others may live by Fethullah Gulen:

Love is like an elixir that gives us life. We are happy with love, and with love we make those around us happy. For humanity, love is our life, and it is through love that we encounter each other. Love is the strongest bond that God has created among us; it is a chain that links all humanity together...

In order to care for our community, love humankind, and embrace all of creation with compassion, we must first know ourselves... And the more we know of our own inwardness and essence, the more we will appreciate the same inwardness in others... Our appreciation and respect for each other is tied to our recognition of these inner relationships.

A soul that can sense these depths can speak in the language of the heart, saying like Rumi: 
Come, come and join us. We are the people of love devoted to God! Come in through the door of love and sit with us in our home. Through our hearts, let us speak one to another....

Elsewhere in 'The Society of Peace' Gulen states:

We should direct our efforts toward helping people build a society of peace, on both a national and global scale. This society will be purified of all contemptible feelings and directed toward lofty ideals. Its individuals will rest in the serenity of their conscience... Peace begins in the individual, resonates in the family, and from there pervades all parts of society.

The book, So that others may live contains great insight into Gulen's thought and spiritual motivation that took him from the remote eastern province of Erzurum and onto the world stage.

To truly understand Gulen, his intellect, spirituality, motivation and passion, his works and writings need to be analysed and understood - particularly in these current times when those full of rancor and bigotry seem to be trying to persuade us to believe otherwise. I encourage you - those with subtle knowledge of Gulen or the movement or others who are more familiar - to delve into Gulen's thinking and further understand why Gulen preached and wrote so profusely to role model his maxim 'live so that others may live'

Fethullah Gulen concludes with a couplet from a Ottoman poem from his article "The Love of Humanity", I too also think it is apt:

Woman and man, youth and age, the bow and arrow:
each needs the other
Indeed, all parts of the world are in need of each other.

Follow Emre Celik on Twitter: www.twitter.com/emrecelikrumi


SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emre-celik/fethullah-gulens-maxim-li_b_5737378.html

HUFFINGTON POST Op-Ed: Fethullah Gulen: From Izmir to the Global Hizmet Movement by Emre Celik, President, Rumi Forum

Gulen's name has progressively reached a wider Western audience. From the New York Times to 60 Minutes, the average American has had slight and subtle exposure. But over the last two months, Gulen's name has been featured prominently in the global press (such as the BBC who scored a very rare video interview). Now there are thousands of references to his name in the world media. Attention is being paid.

But, let us note that most of news coverage paints Gulen within a political narrative -- forgetting (or ignoring) four decades of civil society advocacy, education and dialogue activities and support for democracy and human rights. There is more to Gulen than this current political paradigm. Some history and perspective will help set the facts straight.

Gulen was raised in a very pious family in Eastern Turkey in traditional Sunni Islam while also being immersed in various sufi teachings. He was trained in the spiritual and religious sciences, both at home and under the tutelage of the region's religious and spiritual masters. He was very influenced by the sufi works of Rumi and Yunus Emre.

He was also introduced to Said Nursi's Risale-i Nur ("Treatise of Light") a collection of some 6000 pages on issues of faith and science and their interdependence. In one section Nursi's speaks of the three social ills in the Muslim world being ignorance, poverty and disunity, and the responsibility of all Muslims to overcome these. Gulen takes this social awareness one very important step further -- these three social issues are not Muslim specific, but affect all humanity, and that it is incumbent on all Muslims to help alleviate them no matter one's race, creed or color. These are the intellectual seeds for Gulen's "Service" Movement (Hizmet in Turkish).

During the late 1960s and 1970s, Gulen preached these ideals from the mosque pulpit to local coffee houses in Izmir, Turkey's third largest city, and garnered a following -- particularly among the local business people and, later, university students. His eloquence and oratory skills, his passion and tears-filled discourses, his love of country, love of God and Prophet Muhammed, love for humanity, his encouragement of service, and his desire to break the rigid mold of building mosque and madrassa initially led to a small fan base of supporters who volunteered and raised funds to support the first small dormitory and education center in the seventies. During his travels as a guest preacher, he became more well-known and popular throughout Anatolia. Similar projects begin outside of Izmir. During this time in 1979, supporters began publishing Sizinti (meaning a spring or fountain), a magazine dedicated to spiritual values and science. Throughtout the '80s, institutions start to increase in size and number. The first private college opens in Istanbul in 1986 -- the private Fatih High School.

During this time Zaman newspaper is purchased with an daily circulation of approximately 5000. Today, it is Turkey's most read newspaper with more than 1.2 million daily circulation. In 2007, an English daily, Today's Zaman started publication. With time various institutions were founded and multiplied, amongst them FEM prep schools, Fatih University, Kaynak Publishing Group, Samanyolu Television Group, Kimse Yokmu a relief and humanitarian aide organization now services more than 100 countries through various social service and community building projects and relief work. Dialogue and bringing together polarized communities was an essential element in Gulen's message and the first organization to bring together disparate sectors of society was the Journalists and Writers Foundation which brought together Turks and Kurds, the political left and right, Alevis and Sunnis, secular liberals and religious conservatives and Muslims and Non-Muslims. Tuskon, a national federation of various regional and provincial business networks, now has the largest membership in Turkey of any business organization with numerous international offices encouraging trade and cooperation.

All these institutions added to the Hizmet's mix of civil society initiatives -- all with those initial three social issues in mind. Numerous and various institutions supporting these shared values appeared throughout Turkey over these past four decades. In the early 1990s with the break up of the Soviet Union, Gulen encouraged business people to take up the challenges of Central Asia. Within a short time with the assistance of philanthropic business people investing in the region schools began to open. Similarly through business people's and university students' engagement with local diaspora groups, Gulen's ideas spread initially through Europe, Australia and North America and later Africa, Asia and South America.

The role model and positive activism of Hizmet participants were crucial in this process. As too was the example of institutions already flourishing and successful in Turkey. Gulen's articles, books, audio and video cassettes also played an important intellectual role.

Follow Emre Celik on Twitter: www.twitter.com/emrecelikrumi

SOURCE: bit.ly/Izmir2Global