Eng. On The Hizmet (Gulen) Movement

1- Below is My FIRST ARTICLE (in English) about the Hizmet (Gülen) Movement, published  on September 22, 2021 on www.munferit.net . 

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Personal Reflections on the Hizmet (Gulen) Movement (1/2)

Below are my personal reflections on what has happened to us as the Hizmet Community since the July 15, 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkiye...

1-) Since July 15, 2016, the things that the Hizmet decision-makers and their hack writers have generally said/written about the calamities that have befallen this distinguished Hizmet Community are mostly aimed at consoling our victimized and oppressed Hizmet-affiliated brothers and sisters and can be described as a mean discourse of victimhood/oppression. 

Of course, it is important to alleviate, even if only a little, the pain of our fellow Hizmet-affiliated brothers and sisters who have suffered injustice and oppression. 

From this perspective, our sincere brothers and sisters who speak and write in this vein undoubtedly earn reward and merit to the extent that they are able to console our victimized and oppressed brothers and sisters. 

The Lord will not let the reward of our such brothers and sisters who write and speak in this way go to waste.

However, there is also the issue of mistakes, negligence, indifference, stubbornness and insistence, and continuing to make mistakes despite all kinds of warnings and admonitions and causing others to do so, taking mistakes and negligence lightly, glossing over them, covering them up, acting as if nothing happened, saying "this is the fate/destiny of the path" and leaving everything to fate/destiny, and getting out of the situation...

Furthermore, there is also a dimension of :

• betrayals and traps, and 
• leaving those who betray and set traps, 
• leaving them to their own devices, 
• not holding them accountable, and 
• not allowing the judicial authorities to hold them accountable, 
• not sharing what is known in this regard with the public and the judicial authorities, 
• concealing the truths, 
• remaining silent, 
• leaving it to time, 
• spreading it out over time,
• waiting for time to clear the names of this victimized and oppressed community. 

THIS IS NOT THE FATE/DESTINY OF THE PATH, dear friends. 

What have happened and befallen us are the inevitable consequences of the ;

• mistakes, 
• negligences, 
• carelessnesses, 
• lack of foresight, 
• lack of insight, and even 
• the betrayals of certain individuals amongst us…

* What on earth compelled us to never cease our ambition to seize control of the state for forty years? What would we have gained even if every single state position were filled with our 'Hizmet' brothers and sisters?

Here we see, you see, these despicable political Islamists took over the state apparatus, and 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 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,
• humiliated us so deeply that we can no longer walk among people in our own country,
• made our country too small to survive in for us, 
• branded  all of us 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…, 
• 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 wicked ones of our own people compel our 'Hizmet' brothers and sisters to use  that bloody app ByLock on our mobiles? What was the point...?

What I will write below 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..

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 Turkish Republic, are cruel, merciless, and heartless. Just as they go to war for 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, they make no distinction between those on the other side being citizens or not, young or old, married or single, guilty or innocent... 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; even if you are their father's son, even if you are the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons, they will not shed a tear for you; they will destroy you, level you to the ground. 

Just as the cursed Muawiyahs, Yazids, Marwans, and others of that day 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 us.

Despite all his God-given superior qualities, his vast knowledge, and his wisdom, our teacher Fethullah Hodjaeffendi could not see that this would happen.

For in his immediate circle, there were no young, capable individuals with the caliber and qualifications to challenge him on the mistakes, errors, and lack of foresight

that were being made, individuals who could correctly interpret the world and understand religion, who possessed civil courage and

were experts in the social sciences.

*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.

• How will we embody our religion in and syncronize it with our worldly life?

• By reading the world, life, events, societies, and people correctly, by understanding them correctly, by knowing them correctly...

• The fact that not comprehending how the state mind works, not understanding it, means simply misreading the world.

With our tutoring centers and schools, both in Turkiye and around the world, we were raising, educating and training young people who were becoming qualified, honest, and equipped with the qualities required by the times.

What if we hadn't forced our youth into government positions, but instead, let those who wished to enter do so through their own personal efforts? 

What if we hadn't forced our young people into the official state positions, but instead let them enter wherever they wanted, through their own very personal efforts?

2-) 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. They destroyed us because of our goal of infiltrating the state apparatus. Otherwise, why would they be hostile toward us?

Nobody objected/objects to the young people graduating from our schools, or, as we affectionately call them, the 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 and sufficiently successful, they would go and work there, and so serve their country and nation. 

If they don't become successful, they don't go! It's that simple! No one opposed/opposes this.

But..., we organized this for years under utmost covertness. 

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

Show a little empathy, for goodness' sake! If you were in their shoes, you would do the same thing.

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

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

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

If we had let them be 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 so desired, rather than in a covertly organized manner, we would not have drawn all this hatred, resentment, and envy

like lightning bolts and arrows upon us.

Criticizing these secretive and covert affairs is not the same as telling our graduates, "Go back to your villages and towns and become shepherds." Why are we unwilling to understand this?

*Our Lord had granted us the opportunity to serve in over 170 countries. In all those countries, He had made us welcome and honored us with kindness. We had become a distinguished community in the world, admired with envy.

One of our well-known poets (Necib Fazıl Kısakurek) said once ;

• Give the dwarf his poetry,
• My eye is on great artistry!

He was INDEED right.

But, unfortunately, while we could have been the great artists the world looks up to, we chose dwarfism, fixing our eyes on the outdated institutions of an outdated country!

It's so obvious, so clear!

With our educational institutions at every level, our humanitarian aid activities, our activities promoting tolerance and dialogue between cultures and religions, we could have been a GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR GOODNESS, but we condemned ourselves to Turkiye's narrowness and stunted growth.

What happened in the end?

They even considered our dwarfism too much for us in our own country. They called 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 obliged 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 for our souls, even if it is too heavy to make, we are obliged to make this reckoning in its most severe form.

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

3-) 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 people!

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

• Why are we talking about this so openly? 
• 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 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,

learn this and internalize this. 

*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. 

Both in Turkiye and around the world, those who are to monitor, follow and know secret/covert matters and persons and deeds, that is, the intelligence experts, already knew/know these things.

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

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

I have two objections to and criticisms of Fethullah Hodjaeffendi. 

- Despite his God-given superior qualities, he failed to see the dangers  and risks of securing positions in the cadres of state apparatus. 

- He only gathered “the mullahs” around him.

In my jargon, the “mullahs/the zealots/the bigots/the religionist fanatics” mean those who cannot read the contemporary world around themselves correctly"! 

Anyone who cannot read the world correctly, who cannot grasp the current realities of the world properly, including Turkiye, is A MULLAH!

Clothes, attire, diplomas, etc. are not important!

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

Those in Turkiye who fail to recognize this, who crash the car into the wall, and not only that, but who drove/pushed the Hizmet headlong over a cliff, are short-sighted, lacking in foresight, lacking in insight, lacking in vision, lacking in perspective...!

Those who did not warn Hodjaeffendi in this context, who did not caution him, who could not say that this path is a dead end

are also part of the same sentence.

SUNNATULLAH, 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 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!

• If you try to take over the state, you will be destroyed, you will be razed to the ground.

Be careful! I don't mean the state is right, I'm not saying the state is right.

States, from the very first state established in 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, KINDNESS are NOT WRITTEN IN THEIR BOOK. 
• FOR THEIR SUPREME INTERESTS,
• THEY WILL EVEN KILL THEIR OWN FATHERS' SONS!

*If those in charge of this blessed Hizmet Movement, those occupied positions in the higher echelons of this movement along with Fethullah 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...

The rest is just empty talk and bullshit...

4-) My views on 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, ruthless; mercy and compassion are not written in the book of states.

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

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

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

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 unfeasible. 

Thus, the state should not be the Muslims’ 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. 

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?

Give the dwarf his poetry...!

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, definitely will not!

May Allah grant him peace, unfortunately, our Fethullah Hodjaeffendi could not overcome this uncurable obsession of him with the state.

5-) Below are my thoughts on the speech, dated 20.11.2017, of mullah Gültekin Bibar whom most Hizmet-affiliateds do know very well, at this link https://youtu.be/hEiQm3Xdfg4  .

I will try to express my thoughts and opinions on his question, "Is Hodjaeffendi being manipulated/could he be being manipulated?" as follows:

Hodjaeffendi’s positive influence and contributions are immense in all our lives and in our spiritual perfection.

May God be pleased with him forever in this sense.

For my part, I have learned a great deal from Hodjaeffendi whom I have been listening to and reading for forty years, and I have benefited greatly from his sincere and selfless guidance.

I say without hesitation and with all sincerity—and of course, this statement should not be taken as an exaggeration—that I owe a great deal to him for the solidification of my faith.

We witnessed in him the love for Allah, the Prophet and his Companions and learned much from him.

This distinguished Community of Hizmet, inspired by him, his encouragement and support have signed up for honorable works that have been well received by humanity, both in Turkiye and in more than 170

countries around the world.

Everything up to this point is complete, everything is beautiful. In fact, it is more than beautiful; it is perfect.

Now I will come to my objections:

*Like Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Hodjaeffendi is one of the great representatives of the classical Sunni scholarly tradition from which he comes. 

I would give my life for his knowledge, wisdom, piety and religious devotion and his sublime moral virtues. 

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."

As Said Nursi once said : The service to Faith and the Qur’an... and spreading the Sublime Name of Muhammad throughout the world... are critically important and essential. They are indispensable. In a sense, they are of the nature of a personal obligation (fard al-ayn). 

In fact, this obsession with seizing the state is not limited only to these two esteemed masters; it is present in the dreams of all Sunni and Shiite scholars and sheikhs.

Whether in past centuries, in the last few centuries, or in our own era, the dream of seizing the state and Islamizing it has been existential in 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 exception.

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

In fact, I believe that the saying "Religion and State are twin brothers" is a well-known, famous but FAKE hadith, established by the Seljuk Vizier Nizam al-Mulk.

In fact, we know that this phrase, "Religion and State are twin brothers," 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 science and to the Muslim community.

This phrase is not an authentical saying of the Prophet. It is a FAKE saying attributed to the Prophet. 

In fact, 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 and his peers as if it were a hadith, authentically attributed to the Prophet... 

I believe it is beneficial to remember/keep in mind/recall such concrete and accurate historical information.

In other words, in the minds 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 Osman, solidified during the caliphate of Ali with the objections of that dishonorable man named 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, while he was still alive, he also appointed his cursed son Yazid (Yazid the first) as his heir apparent, 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 accept the entire history of Islam as ;

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

To be continued...

Cordially,

Abdullah Erdemli

Switzerland