Current Reflections On Hizmet (Gulen) Movement

My Current Reflections on What Happened to Hizmet (Gulen) Movement in Turkiye…

Peace!

This is my sixth and final article, originally published on January 27, 2023, on the website https://www.munferit.net/2023/01/hizmetin-basna-gelenlere-dair-guncel.html?m=1 under the title "My Current Thoughts on What Happened to the Hizmet (Gulen) Movement”

I am now re-publishing it on this blog of mine under the tag munferit.net .

I hope it will be beneficial and enlightening for those who read it now and in the future. 

Cordially,

Abdullah Erdemli

Lucerne - Switzerland

***********************

My Current Thoughts on What Happened to the Hizmet (Gulen) Movement in Turkiye…

TAKING OVER THE STATE APPARATUS in TURKIYE

What on earth we have been compelled to never cease our ambition to seize control of the state apparatus in Turkiye for forty years? 

What would we have gained even if each and every single position in the Turkish state apparatus were filled with our Hizmetkâr (Hizmet-affiliated) brothers and sisters?

Here! We see, you see, these despicable political Islamist bigots took over the state apparatus.  So what happened?

Did their heads reach the sky (did they purr with pleasure)?

In this regard, what difference was there between us and the political Islamists, and what difference remains after all?

As the academician Özgür Koca puts it on 26.11.2018, "WE ARE ALL ISLAMISTS!"(https://kitalararasi.com/2018/11/hepimiz-islamciyiz-ozgur-koca/)

I am herewith writing, emphasizing and underlying that ;

• what tore us to shreds,
• what humiliated us so deeply that we can no longer walk amongst people in our very own country,
• what made our country too small to survive in for us, 
• what caused us all to be branded  as "FETÖ - Fethullahist Terrorist Organization",
• ARE NOTHING BUT ;
• covert activities, 
• covert deeds, 
• covert imams, 
• covert aGabeys (big brothers),
• covert communications, 
• covert this, cover that
• and covert whatsoever…
• They are all of the wrong things we have committed all throughout decades for the sake of SEEZING THE STATE APPARATUS of our country Turkiye…

Why on earth did some WICKEDLY COVERT ONES of our own Hizmet people compel our hizmetkâr brothers and sisters to download and use that bloody app BYLOCK on our mobile phones? 

What was the aim of this for God’s sake, huh…?!?

What I will write below now are not because I find them right, or because I believe them to be right, or because I agree with the political islamist bastards who inflicted these injustices upon us in Turkiye…

Just on the contrary, what I will write below are solely and only because I believe them to be the NAKED TRUTHS…

All states in the world, including the state of the Turkish Republic, are cruel, merciless, and heartless. 

Just as they go to war ; 

• for the sake of their supreme interests,
• when they deem it necessary,
• when they believe their survival is threatened, 
• when they see themselves, 
• their regimes, 
• the indivisible unity of their countries and nations in danger, THEN ;
• they make no distinction amongst those on the other side,
• whether they are being their citizens or not, 
• young or old, 
• married or single, 
• guilty or innocent... 
• healthy or sick,
• they make no distinction, 
• THEY SHOW NO MERCY, 
• they wipe the slate clean.

In this sense, states are serial killers.

• If anyone attempts to seize the state apparatus, 
• forget about and set aside the religious brotherhood/sisterhood;
• even if you are their father's very own sons and daughters (that is, even if you are their blood brothers and sisters),
• even if you are the grandsons of Prophet Muhammad,
• they will not shed a tear for you;
• they will destroy you, 
• they will level you to the ground. 

Just as the cursed Muawiyahs, Yazids, Marwans, that is the CURSED UMAYYADS and others of the then showed no mercy to the AHL-I BAYT (Prophet Muhammad’s descendants), today's CURSED POLITICAL ISLAMIST Yazids, Sufyans, and the like showed no mercy to you or to us.

Those who cannot read the world correctly cannot understand religion correctly either. For religion is not only for the Hereafter.

Moreover, we are in a position to earn our Hereafter in this world.

• Q : How shall we embody our religion in and syncronize it with our worldly life?
• A : By reading the world, life, events, societies, and people correctly and realistically, by understanding them correctly and realistically, by knowing and recognizing them correctly and realistically…
• The fact that not comprehending how the state mind works, not understanding it, means simply misreading the world and everything on it.

The sole reason for the hatred, resentment, and anger felt towards us in our country is that, for years and years, we stubbornly and persistently pursued this dangerous ambition of seizing the state apparatus. 

They destroyed us because of our goal of infiltrating the state apparatus in Turkiye. 

Otherwise, why would they have been and still are so hostile toward us?

Nobody did object/does object to the young graduates of our Hizmet-owned-operated schools, or, as we affectionately call them, the poor children of Anatolia, entering wherever they want. 

Those youngsters who want to apply to wherever they want would sit for their exams and take their interviews. If they are rightfully, sufficiently and justifiably successful, they would go and work there, and so serve their country and nation. 

If they don't become successful in their such efforts, they don't go! 

It's that simple! 

No one did oppose/does oppose this.

But, we organized this for decades under utmost covertness/secrecy. 

• That was wrong. 
• That was a mistake. 
• That was an unforgivable, intolerable and unacceptable mistake.

Please show a little empathy, for goodness' sake! 

If you were in their shoes, you would have done the same thing.

The issue here is not that the poor Anatolian youth want to enter the state institutions of their own country, which are as pure, as halal and as rightful as their mother's breast milk.

The issue here is that we have done this by developing and organizing clandestine methods and procedures, cloaking it in utmost secrecy, and moreover, doing it with utmost greed and avarice, to the extend that "not allowing any young people other than our own youngsters to enter those state cadres and with the boorishness of "Rabbenâ hep banâ" (Oh Lord! Give no one else but me!) attitude.  

The other youngsters who enter those institutions are also the children of Anatolia. They did not come from outer space, they are not extraterrestrials!

• If we had let our youth behave as they wished, 
• if we hadn't attempted to create covert organizations, 
• if we had allowed the graduates of our schools to enter those state institutions through their own personal efforts and endeavors, 
• if they voluntarily so desired, rather than in a covertly organized manner, 
• we would not have drawn all these hatred, resentment and jealousy like lightning bolts and arrows upon us.

Criticizing these secretive and covert affairs is not the same as telling our young graduates, "Go back to your villages and towns and just become shepherds." 

Why are we unwilling to understand this?

They even considered our dwarfism too much for us in our own country. 

They branded us "FETÖ - Fethullahist Terrorist Organization"

Was it worth it? 

Was it really worth it?

• By God, it was not worth it; 
• In the name of God, it was not worth it; 
• I swear, it was not worth a thing!

We are now in a position to make a serious and shocking self-assessment, a self-critisizm, and in the most serious way…

• Even if it is too difficult to do it for our souls, 
• even if it is too heavy to make it,
• we have to make this reckoning in its most severe form.

Expressing these things openly has nothing to do with undermining morale and spirituality.

Each one of us, each one of our Hizmet-affiliated brothers and sisters must make this reckoning, with its vitally painful details, seriously questioning everything about ourselves.

There should be no aspect or angle of this defeat and ill-treatment and the causes, motives, actions,

decisions, and, of course, those responsible for it that are not questioned.

Lessons must be learned. And by all Hizmet-affiliated people!

This need, this necessity, and this obligation for accountability and questioning must absolutely not be overlooked.

• Q : Why are we talking about this so openly? 
• A : Why shouldn't we?           
• What harm can come from openly discussing and deliberating everything?          
• The tendency toward secrecy and covertness is ingrained in our genes, our tissues, our chemistry!

We are finished in our own beloved country Turkiye, we have been finished off there. 

If we do not want to suffer the same fate/destiny in the short, medium, and long terms in other countries in the world, we need to sit up straight and speak the truth.

In the countries where we are nowadays, we must be like transparent glass, not frosted glass.

Those who look at us should be able to see our insides and outsides clearly, as if looking at transparent glass.

We must abandon the secret and covert habits and secret and covert affairs and tactics we had in our homeland that have led to our total and absolute ruin.

Every one of our fellow Hizmet-affiliates ;

• must hear this, 
• must learn this and 
• must internalize this. 

We must never attempt to overthrow the government-s in the countries where we are now, as we did in our homeland (or rather, as the decision-makers of the Hizmet (Gulen) Movement did there...).

That's why I openly and clearly share all my thoughts and opinions with everyone I do know and recognize.

I don't feel bad about this openness at all. 

Why should I? 

They say “ITSFWI (if the shoe fits, wear it)!

They're INDEED and absolutely right in saying this.

Besides, what I have written so far is no secret at all. 

Both in Turkiye and around the world, those who are to ;

• monitor, 
• follow and 
• know secret/covert matters, persons and deeds, 
• that is, 
• the intelligence services, 
• already knew/know these things.

Transparency is essential and non-negotiable in everything we do, in every situation we are and in every aspect of our deeds…

• I clearly know this, 
• I honestly believe this, and
• I truthfully say this...

Failing to see the dangers of covertly infiltrating the state apparatus in Turkiye is mullahism!

Those of the Hizmet Movement in Turkiye ;

• who failed to recognize this danger, 
• who crashed the Hizmet couch into the wall, 
• and not stopping there, 
• who even drove/pushed the Hizmet coach headlong over a cliff and 
• caused it totally perished are
• short-sighted, 
• lacking in foresight, 
• lacking in insight, 
• lacking in vision and
• lacking in perspective...!

SUNNATULLAH (the LAWS OF GOD), as explained in Qur’an, are the laws of nature and creation that Allah has placed in the universe, and these laws do not tolerate mistakes.

These laws do not care whether those who make mistakes are Muslim/non-Muslim/infidel/hypocrite/etc.

• If you play carelessly and recklessly with a knife, you will cut your hand or foot.
• If you play carelessly and recklessly with water, you will be drown.
• If you treat a weapon like a toy, you will be shot; even if you don't die, you will be injured, and you will probably be crippled...
• If you try to fight the state, you will get the state's slap on your face!
• If you try to infiltrate and take over the state apparatus, you will be destroyed, you will be razed to the ground.

Be careful! 

• I don't mean the state is right,
• I am not sanctifying the state. 

States, from the very first state established in human history, to all the states established to this day, including those of Muslims, and especially the states established by Muslims are ;

• SERIAL KILLERS. 
• MERCY, COMPASSION and KINDNESS are NOT WRITTEN IN THEIR BOOK. 
• THEY WILL EVEN KILL THEIR FATHERS' VERY OWN SONS & DAUGHTERS!
• FOR THEIR SUPREME INTERESTS. 

If those in charge of this blessed Hizmet Movement, those occupied positions in the higher echelons of this movement along with Fethullah Gulen Hodjaeffendi had even a little bit of foresight and vision, they would have properly warned Hodjaeffendi about the dangers of ambitions like seizing the state.

As Muslims, we should never ever have had an obsession like seizing the state...

Any talk other than that is just empty talk and bullshit...

My views pertaining to the state are not ;

• because I am a statist or
• because I sanctify the state, or
• because I like the cruel and abusive face of the state. 

On the contrary, it is because of my belief that one cannot cope with state, just like a pebble cannot crush a mountain..!

States are cruel and ruthless. 

Mercy and compassion are not written in the book of states.

The common characters of states of the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Ayyubids, the Ghaznavids, the Fatimids, the Moghuls, the Safavids, the Seljuks, the Ottomans and all the states that have ever existed in the world are like this and are all the same. 

Our mistake, as Sunnis and Shiites, is our perception that "religion and the state are twin siblings” that is, our identification of religion with the state.

I am talking about the understanding that "religion and the state are twin siblings." 

This understanding SANCTIFIES the state like religion in the eyes of us Muslims.

This is where the mistake lies.

By the way, as you know, ANARCHISM does not accept the state authority. It dreams of and pursues a world without a state.

Nevertheless, a social order without a state is unthinkable and unsustainable. 

Thus, the state should not be the Muslims’ ultimate goal at all. 

We can live our religion perfectly well and properly without a state.

Now, each and every one of us are in EU countries, in the US, in Canada,

in Australia or elsewhere. 

Do we have any trouble practicing our religion? 

Which one of us has been able to take refuge in a country governed by so-called Sharia law or where Muslims are in the majority?

We Muslim Turks, because of our Seljuk and Ottoman past, sanctify the state!

We think we cannot do without a state. 

This is where we are wrong.

• In questions of the Hereafter, will our Lord ask us why we did not seize the state power?
• No, He will definitely not!

Hodjaeffendi, like his ideal master Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, is one of the TYPICAL representatives of the classical Sunni scholarly tradition from which he comes. 

However, both Said Nursi and Fethullah Hodjaeffendi had ;

• ambitions, desires, dreams, or, 
• to use modern terminology,
• obsessions, fixations, or, 
• as their opponents would say, hidden agendas that could be described as 
• “seizing the state, 
• taking possession of the state,
• reestablishing and rebuilding the so-called Islamic state."

• Whether in remote past centuries, or
• in the last few centuries, or 
• in our own era, 
• the dream of seizing the state and Islamizing it have been an existential ideal of
• all our scholars, sheikhs, elders, guides, masters and etc.

In other words, a perception of Islamic life, built upon and idealized around the conceptual understanding of “the unity of religion and state and their inseparability” is present in all of them, collectively and without any exception.

I believe that this mindset relies on and is based on the hypothetical rule and acceptance that "Religion and State are twin siblings”.

In fact, the saying "Religion and State are twin siblings" is a well-known, famous but INVENTED & FAKE hadith, utilized by the Seljuk Vizier Nizam al-Mulk.

We know that this phrase, "Religion and State are twin siblings," has become famous as a hadith, and that since the Nizamiyye Madrasas established by the Seljuk Vizier Nizam al-Mulk, it has been taught to students of islamic sciences and to the Muslim community.

Actually, this phrase is not an authentical saying of the Prophet. It is an INVENTED & FAKE saying attributed to the Prophet. 

This saying seems to be a saying of a Sasanian king named Ardashir, and that it was taught to the Muslim ummah by Imam al-Ghazali the imposter and his peers as if it was a hadith, authentically attributed to the Prophet...!

I say it is vitally important to remember/keep in mind/recall such concrete and accurate historical information.

In other words, in the mıinds of our classical Sunni and Shiite scholars, there exists a very deep-rooted understanding of unity of religion and state that the state cannot be without religion, nor religion without the state.

It began to take shape with the assasination of the third caliph Uthman, solidified during the time of fourth and last legitimite caliph Ali caused by the objections of that dishonorable and cursed Muawiya, and was embodied in the flesh with the events that befell Ali's martyrdom, and then what happened to/what was brought upon Hassan and Hussain (sons of Ali, that is, grandsons of Prophet Muhammad) took shape and substance. 

The cursed Muawiya declared himself “the first king of Islam" and, not content with that, he also appointed his cursed son Yazid (Yazid the first) as his heir apparent, while he was still alive, thus making it even more blatant.

And the cursed Yazid also reinforced this despicable reign with the oppression he inflicted on the Ahl al-Bayt (Prophet Muhammad’s descendants). 

This cursed reign initiated by the cursed Umayyads has continued uninterrupted from that day to this day.

It is NECESSARY to read and presume the entire history of Islam as ;

• the history of dynasties, 
• the history of internal struggles for the throne within dynasties, and 
• the history of struggles for supremacy between dynasties.

I still remember the following ijtihad (juristic effort) of the ulema (scholars in islamic sciences) which I read in the two-volume abridged book of Ottoman History distributed by Zaman newspaper quite some time ago, which formed the legal basis and justification for the Ottoman state's attack on the Karamanid principality and its subsequent elimination:

"Jihad against the obstacle to jihad is the greater jihad!"

Labeling the opponent as "obstacle to jihad" meaning they are preventing my jihad and my holy war,

with a fatwa (legal opinion) from the Sheikh al-Islam, and then waging jihad against them is "ghaza-i akbar," meaning the greatest jihad (the greatest holy war) and thus annihilating them.

In our classical, traditional Sunni creed, the state is indispensable. We cannot do without the state! 

The eternal state is our ultimate goal...!

The state is the holy grail of our traditional Sunni scholars!

Let us leave the distant past centuries and the recent past centuries of Islam, where they are,

and when they were. 

What happened happened, what was lived was lived, and all have taken their places on the dusty shelves of history.

Our Lord says in the 134th and 141st verses of the Qur'an's Surah Al-Baqarah, twice and with exactly the same words:

بسم... تِلْكَ اُمَّةٌ قَدْ خَلَتْۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَلَكُمْ مَا كَسَبْتُمْۚ وَلَا تُسْـَٔلُونَ عَمَّا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ. 

"These were a nation that has passed away. What they earned is theirs. What you have earned is yours. You will not be questioned about what they did."

Let us come to our era, our present day, and while we are at it, let us also say a few words about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his comrades-in-arms.

When the Ottoman Empire began to suffer defeats on the battlefields against the crusader imperialist West and, consequently, territorial losses began, the Ottoman Palace and the state authorities naturally turned their attention to this issue, sought solutions, and tried to develop measures.

Whatever they did did not work. The defeats and territorial losses could not be stopped.

The state gradually weakened, lost its power, shrank, and eventually disappeared into history.

Our religious scholars describe this long process of decline/collapse as "the last three centuries when the yoke was laid down"!

- Tanzimat Edict,

- Islahat Edict,

- Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümayûn,

- The Auspicious Incident (forced disbandment of the centuries-old Janissary Corps by Ottoman Empire)

- The Nizam-ı Cedid, 

- The Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammediyye, 

- The compilation of Majallah of law codes,

- The Majlis-i Mebusan, 

- The Islamic Mashihat,

- Maktan-i Sultani,

- Maktab-i Tıbbiye,

- Maktab-i Mülkiye,

- Mühendishane-i Bahri-i Hümayun,

- Mühendishane-i Berri-i Hümayun,

- etc... 

- All these and similar efforts and endeavors to modernize and keep up with the times were insufficient and inadequate, and the Ottoman Empire, which considered itself “the Eternal State”, passed away.

Especially in the last century of the Sublime State (Ottoman state), among the educated and enlightened Ottomans of all ranks and classes who pondered these matters, the thesis that "religion is an obstacle to progress" took root as a strong current of thought and became widespread.

This topic was debated for a long time between its defenders and opponents, and this vein of thought that "religion hinders progress" continued to exist and take root.

This thesis was also widely advocated within the Committee of Union and Progress. 

Mustafa Kemal and his brothers-in-arms did not, after all, descend from the heavens in a basket (out of thin air)! 

They were the most brilliant, best-trained and best-equipped staff officers of the Ottoman General Staff. 

However, their minds and hearts were perplexed (conflicted) regarding religion, namely Islam. 

They experienced serious fluctuations within their own mental and spiritual worlds; they did not clearly know where to place religion—Islam—in both their private lives and in the life of society. 

In fact, for some among them who embraced Positivism, religion was long off the agenda—it had no standing whatsoever!

We must sit crooked and talk straight (be honest), think correctly, listen to our conscience, and practice empathy without losing our sense of fairness. 

These people did not come from outer space and were not extraterrestrials. 

Influenced by the contemporary Western intellectual movements of their time, they viewed religion as an obstacle to progress while taking the Ottoman society in which they were born and raised, as their primary reference. 

They looked at an Ottoman Muslim society which was paralyzed by ;

• superstitions, 
• old wives' tales, 
• ignorance, 
• breath-healers,
• sorcery, and 
• a crude, bigoted fanaticism opposed to innovation and modernization... 

We can see abundant examples of these tragic expressions regarding the state of Ottoman Muslim society in the poems of our Islamist poet, Mehmet Akif Ersoy. 

A society that could not change, renew, or update itself over centuries had gradually become putrid and began to decay materially and spiritually. 

This social regression did not occur suddenly or on its own. 

The Palace—namely the Sultanate—along with the associated state officials, the Ulema (religious scholars), and the Mashayikh (Sufi and tariqat leaders), froze, tainted, corrupted, and decayed the Ottoman Muslim society specifically, and the Arab and all other Muslim subjects under their rule generally, as well as the Islamic life within that society.

What I refer to here is not Islam itself, but the 'Muslimhood' of the Ottoman society. 

That is, it was not the religion of Islam in Quran itself, but the manifestation of Islam in social life—the 'Muslimhood'—that froze, stagnated, and rotted. 

In my view, diyanet (the religious practice, in the context here) is the religion taking on flesh and bone and appearing in social life.

When the stage was reached where the Sublime Ottoman State (Dawlat-i Aliyya-i Uthmaniyyah) collapsed and the Republic of Turkiye was established from its ruins and ashes, the minds and hearts of Mustafa Kemal and his comrades—who constituted the last Ottoman intellectuals—were occupied with these very issues. 

Unfortunately ;

• the bitter experiences they lived through, 
• their inability to stop the rapid collapse of the state, 
• the atrocities they witnessed in the Balkans and on all other fronts, 
• and many other pains, mistakes, and 
• the resulting massive territorial losses 
• alienated them from religion, that is, from Islam.

It is our debt of honor to properly learn about our War of Independence, that is ;

• how the crusader imperialist Western powers that destroyed the Sublime Ottoman State 
• did not even seem to let this tiny Anatolian peninsula for us—the Muslim Turks, Muslim Kurds, and all other Muslim peoples of Anatolia—and 
• how they occupied every side of it, 
• how they let the Greeks occupy its Aegean region and 
• how we saved Anatolia, which we call our 'Last Outpost,' 
• through the military genius and leadership of Mustafa Kemal and his comrades. 

• We must never forget the sacrifices paid to save Anatolia from the hands of crusader imperialist west.
• We must understand this issue very, very well. 

In other words, ; 

• we must analyze deeply why these people remained distant from religion and why they shielded the Republic of Turkiye—which they led and pioneered—from the religionist bigots; 
• we must accurately diagnose and identify the intellectual background of this cadre.

We cannot get to the bottom of this by simply saying, 

• Oh, they were godless, 
• they were enemies of religion.
• That’s why they kept the new Republic away from religion and the religionists!” 

Saying this is ;

• escapism; 
• it is to have NO grasp whatsoever of the essence, the reality, or the inner workings of the matter—in other words, 
• it is 'mullahic attitude' (narrow-minded clericalism), 
• it is to speak or write based on clichés and 'from the gut' (baselessly) without listening to the truth of the matter, without pondering it, and without investigating it."

We must research and understand, with the utmost seriousness, why these people took a stance against religion and the religionist, why they abandoned religion—namely Islam—and why they opposed it.

If we wish to understand the segments of society today that are resentful toward or distant from religion, we must first practice empathy. 

We must put ourselves in their shoes and strive to correctly understand, read, and decipher their mental and spiritual worlds. 

We have to understand how we look/seem through their eyes. 

This cannot be done by cutting clichés or producing hackneyed rhetoric.

Neither the cadre that founded the Republic of Turkiye came from outer space, nor do the segments of Turkish society that are indifferent today to religion and its practice live in outer space.

We are obliged to 'prick ourselves with the needle before we drive the packing needle into others' (we have to practice self-criticism first). 

As a sayer of the sayers once said (كما قال قائل من القائلين) : 'Was there an Oxford in the Turkish city of Urfa and we just didn't go and study there?' 

He whoever he was was indeed right!

In exactly the same way, we must ask: If there were decent Muslims around them, would these people still have turned their backs on religion?

If Muslims of the then would have ;

• read the world and their age correctly, 
• interpreted them accurately, and accordingly 
• understood their religion correctly,
• these people would not have turned their backs on religion and took a stance against the religious, in fact religionist…

I believe this with all my sincerity : 

Those ;

• who cannot read, analyze, or evaluate the world they live in correctly,
• who cannot truly know their own society or global humanity, or 
• understand the stage Turkiye and the modern world have reached,
• cannot understand religion correctly either.

• This was the case yesterday, in the final century of the Ottoman Empire and during the chaos of the Turkish Republic's founding years.
• It is the case today.
• And it will certainly be the case tomorrow...

If our Muslim forefathers had been able to read our world and our age properly and realistically, the late Ottoman intellectuals would not have become enemies of religion. 

Likewise, today’s segments of Turkish society who keep thdmselves distant from religion would also be at peace with religion.

Of course, this situation is not only related to us Muslims.

The Christian world suffered from this same plight. 

Four hundred years ago, through the Reformation and Protestantism, they broke the reign and domination of Catholicism—that is, the Church of Vatican. 

But they suffered great pains, paid heavy prices, and experienced massive crises for this cause. 

Their historical experience belongs to them.

However, there are, and must be, lessons for us to take from there—from the West.

Ultimately, humanity's attitude toward religion, its relationship with it, and its approach to it are more or less similar across all geographies and societies throughout history. 

This is why the Lord has sent messengers and prophets to humanity in every era since the time of our very first father Adam.

In the past century, the role, the fault, and the sin of the 'clericals' (the clergy in Christianity and the Ulema class in our tradition) in the gradual cooling of humanity toward religion, its alienation from faith, and the widespread rise of atheism is immense... truly immense.

At this point ;

• I do not admit that the cadre that founded the Republic of Turkiye—Mustafa Kemal and his comrades— were right in their opposition to religion and the religious, in fact religionist. 
• But I find them understandable (excusable).

Unfortunately, the religious (religionist, in fact!) people who were their contemporaries were bigoted and crude fanatics to such a degree that they left no room for that cadre to be at peace with religion.

We must descend down from our ivory towers, wake up from our worlds of fantasy—come to our senses—and be shaken by the nakedness of the truth."

In my view, and according to my reading of history, Mustafa Kemal’s invitation of Bediüzzaman Said Nursl to Ankara and the National Assembly was a great stroke of luck, a massive opportunity.

Said-i Nursi, in my opinion, could not capitalize on that great chance; he simply wasted it...

By saying, 'Pasha! Pasha! The greatest truth in the universe is faith; after faith, comes the prayer. He who does not pray is a traitor, and the judgment of a traitor is to be rejected!” he used prayer as a pretext to—to put it bluntly—'talk tough' to Mustafa Kemal and walked away. 

In my view, he missed and let slip a stroke of luck, a massive opportunity.

First of all ;

• prayer is not the greatest truth after faith in Qur’an. 
• The second greatest commandment of this religion after faith is "to READ," to seek knowledge, to use the reason, the intellect bestowed by God. 
• In this order of priority, prayer comes maybe as the EIGHTH (8th) ONE of the Quranic commands…!

And prayer has INDEED been turned into a CURSE upon this ummah by the propagandists of this fabricated and fake Muawiya religion. 

Let us never forget that Said-i Kurdî (Nursî) in the final analysis, was advocating for an Islamic state. It is impossible for you not to know this. 

After all, it is not a secret, and one need not be an astrologer to know it. He, too, was a 'STATIST!’

Moreover, he also had a KURDIST SEPARATIST AGENDA which is skillfully concealed by the so-called "Rentier Big  Brothers of Said Nursi’s Epistles of Light Collection!”  

Islamism and political Islamism are essentially the same thing.

Both Said Nursi and Fethullah Gulen aimed ;

• to capture the state by whatever means or methods, 
• then transform and 'Islamize' the state from top to bottom, 
• and subsequently 
• use state power to force the 'Islamization' of society from top down.

In Turkiye, without exception, all sufi orders (tarikats), religionist communities (jama’ats), Erbakan’s National View parties, and the AKP constitute the Islamist vein.

Although Said-i Kurdî (Nursî) and Fethullah Gulen Hodjaefendi did not/do not publicly say 'we are Islamists,' they are, in the final analysis, Islamists because they hold the 'ideal' of possessing the state.

Rhetorically speaking ; ‘There is actually no difference at all between ;

• us, the unnamed/covert islamists, i.e., the communities of Epistles of Light (Risale-i Nour) or Hizmet 
• and
• the other islamists who openly declare that they are political islamists. Because we are the Nour/Hizmet Community…!

Said Nursi says both ;

• ‘The physical sword has entered its scabbard; in this age, victory over the civilized is through persuasion' and 
• ‘For the state to be Islamized, the problem of faith for such-and-such percentage of society must be resolved.'

Fethullah Gulen Hodjaefendi also has many talks regarding the Islamization of the state. 

You can search, find, and listen to them. They are abundant on the internet.

In fact, if the efforts spent on capturing the state in Turkiye had instead been spent on ;

• getting along well with the current owners of the state; 

• if their concerns had been taken seriously and understood well,
• if the reasons why they shielded the state from the religionist bigotism (not the religious, not the pious!) and 
• why they were so seriously reluctant to share strategic positions in state apparatus with them had been researched; and
• if the causes leading to this inconfidence could have been eliminated—that is, 
• if the “CRISIS OF TRUST/ CONFIDENCE” between us and them could have been mutually resolved and 
• İf we could have given them confidence—then
• we would well have lived together with them harmoniously, and consequently,
• religious (not religionists!) people would have been employed in important, sensitive, and vital state positions based on the criteria of justice, justification and merit.

But this was not attempted. 

Just on the contrary ;

• by creating and organizing covert services (mahrem hizmetler) and covert duties,
• by assigning and employing covert imams, covert elder brothers, 
• FG and his close circle of Big Brothers have, for decades, persistently, insistently, stubbornly and with great ambition and greed attempted to infiltrate the bureaucratic cadres of the state of Turkiye that those who have taken on the duty of protecting and safeguarding the state guarded as the apples of their eyes. 

To sum it up, it is these 'covert deeds and activities,' 'covert imams,' and 'covert persons' that have finished us off... 

The rest is just empty talk.

All our Hizmetkâr (Hizmet-affiliated)  brothers and sisters in the movement  ;

• must think about why these calamities have befallen us,
• must ponder all these, and 
• must realize that the activities called 'covert' have been our undoing. 

If I am wrong, let our 'mullah' aGabeys (elder brothers), who always know the best (!) of everything, convince me...!!!

Cordially,

Abdullah Erdemli

Switzerland