Dialogic Humanism: Gulen’s Alternative to the Dialectic Humanity

About the paper:

This presentation surveys humanism in Fethullah Gulen’s teachings and the Gulen movement’s activities, directly addressing the contemporary problems of conflict, clash and violence. Fethullah Gulen is a leading Islamic theologian and active advocate of dialogue in the contemporary world. Throughout his prolific writings, numerous sermons and interviews, he calls for dialogue among people of different races, cultures, religions and civilizations. Fethullah Gulen sees dialogue as the sole means to rediscover our true humanity in today’s world. In this aspect, he is an inspiring humanistic thinker, whose dialogic vision of humanism provides an alternative course of the contemporary globalized humanity.

In presenting Gulen’s humanism, I accentuate the intrinsic relationship of humanism to dialogue. In and for this relationship, I find and propose ‘dialogic humanism.’ Dialogic humanism that was inspired by and represents Gulen’s perception of humanity is an elaborated term against the Hegel-Marx-Huntington line of dialectic antithetical view of humanity. Dialogic humanism, which bases itself upon love, compassion and dialogue, is antithetical to the dialectic opposition of self and others - the idea that continues to have burgeoned from Friedrich Hegel’s ‘ideologically inferior others’ and Karl Marx’s ‘political-economically alienated others’ to contemporary Samuel Huntington’s ‘religiously incompatible others.’

Having clarified this theoretical consideration, I proceed demonstrating that:

1. dialogic humanism locates at the heart of Gulen’s thought and gives the reason for the existence of the Gulen movement;
2. as an opposite to the dialectic worldview that presupposes opposing others and thereby causes a phenomenological gap, tension and clash among civilizations, nations, social classes and humanity itself, dialogic humanism in Gulen’s teachings puts forth the equality and compatibility of ‘self and others,’ encourages mutual respect and dialogue, and shortens the tensional gap among people;
3. as the foremost working concept of dialogic humanism, Gulen’s vision of hizmet (service for humanity) puts his humanism into work as the alternative solution to human individual and collective problems;
4. dialogic humanism appears as an embodied and embedded spirituality of the Gulen movement – its members’ lives of voluntarily dedicated sacrifice for hizmet and its dialogue-education focused activities, all of which has led to its success across the globe with substantial contributions to a dialogical peace building among different entities of the contemporary humanity.

About the author:

Heon C. Kim: Received his doctoral degree from Department of Religion, Temple University in 2008. His dissertation entitled, “The Nature and Role of Sufism in Contemporary Islam: A Case Study of the Life, Thought and Teachings of Fethullah Gulen,” was awarded distinction by his dissertation committee’s unanimous vote and is under revision for publication. It critically explores the possibilities and limitations of Sufism as an alternative to Islamic fundamentalist movements and as a dialogical bridge between Islam and other religions. He received his B.A. in Arabic Language from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea. He subsequently studied Arabic and Islamic theology for several years at Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. His academic career continued at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, where he obtained an M.A. degree in Islamic Philosophy. He is the author of Din Değiştirmenin Entellectual Arka Planı (Intellectual Background of Religious Conversion), which was published in Turkish and is in translation into English. His publications include journal articles such as, “Conversion Motif: A Study of Present-day South Korean Converts to Islam” in Journal of Academic Studies (2003) and “A Phenomenological Approach to the Modern Trends of Islamic Studies” in Journal of the Institute of the Middle East Studies (2004). He has also translations of several Arabic, Turkish and English books into Korean. His research interests range from “Sufism and Islamic Spirituality,” “Islamic Conversion Experience,” to “Comparative Religions: Islam and East Asian Religious Traditions,” “Muslim Minority and Gender Issues,” and “Dialogic Humanism” as a humanistic bridge between the East and the West, rationalism/materialism and spiritualism, and among different civilizations, religions and cultures.