The Gülen Movement in Turkey: The Politics of Islam and Modernity

ISBN-13: 9781784535889 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 240 str.

Caroline Tee

Opis

The Gulen, or Hizmet, movement in Turkey is the country s most powerful and affluent religious organisation. Its central tenet, advanced by its founder, the charismatic Sunni preacher Fethullah Gulen (b. 1941), is that Muslims should engage positively with modernity. A prime means of advancing this philosophy has been education: at hundreds of Gulen-run schools and universities, not only in Turkey but also worldwide, instructors aim to cultivate the next generation of Muslim bankers, biologists, software engineers and entrepreneurs. But how does the Gulen movement resolve the sometimes conflicting positions of Sunni Islam and contemporary science for example, on evolutionary theory? Drawing on sustained ethnographic research conducted among Gulen communities in Turkey, Caroline Tee analyses their complex attitudes towards secular modernity. She focuses on education, science research and industry to explore how pious Muslim practitioners engage in science at high levels, arguing that the Gulen movement s success in this critical area of modernity has facilitated its rise to prominence in recent decades. Considered against the backdrop of Turkish politics, and particularly the acrimonious power-struggle between the Gulen movement and its erstwhile ally, Turkey s ruling AK Party, Gulenist engagement with modern science is revealed as a key source of its influence and success."

Spis treści

IntroductionPART ONE: BackgroundChapter One - Gülen: Leader and CommunityChapter Two - A Nursian Spiritual Framework for ModernityPART TWO: Science and EducationChapter Three - The Gülen Movement's Science-focused SchoolsChapter Four - Islamic Creationism in Gülenist ThoughtChapter Five - Higher Education, Networking and Careers in SciencePART THREE: The Wider ContextChapter Six - Intercultural DialogueChapter Seven - Globalization of the Movement and Gülen in AmericaChapter Eight - Political Influence and the AKPAfterword

O autorze

Caroline Tee is Research Associate at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, St.Edmund's College, University of Cambridge. She was previously a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, and Research and Policy Adviser at the Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS), London. She has been the recipient of a major John Templeton Foundation Grant (2013-2015) and has published numerous articles on Islam and society in modern Turkey.