Stanley Ridge shares his views on a new book about the Gulen Movement and its contributions to interfaith dialogue around the world. Ridge articulates the way this book is laid out and what the writers and editors have intended to convey with it.
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.
The importance of civil society is emphasized by Mehmet Kalyoncu. He looks at the ways in which Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Assyrian Christians have been mobilized by the Gülen Movement in Mardin "to cooperate in tackling their common problems" (275). The Gülenian school there is also a community focus, and helps build civil society organizations. The focus shifts to initiatives in Kenya and the Philippines, again based on schools which bring together the children of parties in conflict, and provide a platform for addressing local need.
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