On the Hizmet (Gulen) Movement 2/2

II-(Eng.) Personal Reflections on the Hizmet (Gulen) Movement (2/2)

(This article was first published on 23.09.2021 at www.munferit.net. It is the second and final part of the article I shared on my blog on 15.02.2026)

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6) 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 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."

7) 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 West and, consequently, territorial losses began, the 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 scholars describe this long process of decline/collapse as "the last three centuries when the yoke was laid down"!

- Tanzimat Edicts, 

- Islahat Edicts, 

- 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 Mecelle, 

- The Meclis-i Mebusan, 

- The Islamic Meşihat,

- Mekteb-i Sultanis, 

- Mekteb-i Tıbbiyes, 

- Mekteb-i Mülkiyes,

- Mühendishane-i Bahri-i Hümayuns,

- Mühendishane-i Berri-i Hümayuns,

- 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 and best-equipped staff officers of the Ottoman General Staff. 

However, their minds and hearts were 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. 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 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.

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 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 or Islam 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 (Devlet-i Aliyye-i Uthmaniyyah) collapsed and the Republic of Turkiye was established from its ruins and ashes, the minds and hearts of M. 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: how the Western powers that destroyed the Sublime State did not even seem to let this tiny Anatolian geography for us—the Muslim Turks, Muslim Kurds, and all other Muslim peoples of Anatolia—and how they occupied every side of it, 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 M. Kemal and his comrades. 

We must never forget the prices paid to save Anatolia.

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.

*8-) 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 religious, 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 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 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 one once said: 'Was there an Oxford in the Turkish city of Urfa and we just didn't go and study there?' 

He was indeed right!

In exactly the same way, we must ask: 'Were there "men among men"—Muslims who read the world and their age correctly, interpreted them accurately, and accordingly understood their religion correctly—and yet these people still turned their backs on religion and took a stance against the religious?'

I believe this with all 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 point 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 during the chaos of the Turkish Republic's founding.
• It is the case today.
• And it will be the case tomorrow...

If we Muslims had been able to read our world and our age properly, the late Ottoman intellectuals would not have become enemies of religion. Today’s distant segments of Turkish society 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 pain, 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 our forefather Adam.

In the past century, the role, fault, and 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 find the cadre that founded the Republic of Turkiye—M. Kemal and his comrades—justified in their opposition to religion and the religious. 
• 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 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 Parliament 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.

9-) No matter how indifferent or distant that founding cadre was toward religion and its practice, they were, in the final analysis, all remnants of the Ottoman Empire.

If Said Nursi had remained among them, he could have filed down and softened some of their extremes with kawl-i layyin (gentle speech). 

By doing so, he would not have lost the feelings of respect and reverence held for him by that cadre, nor would the decades of persecution against him and his students have occurred after he 'talked tough' to M. Kemal and left.

Said Nursi dedicated his life and all his being to what he beautifully termed 'الخدمة الإيمانية والقرأنية-Service to Faith and the Qur’an.'

However, lest forget that in the final analysis, he too advocated for an Islamic state. 

It is impossible for you not to know this. After all, it is no secret, and one need not be an astrologer to know it. He, too, was a 'STATIST!’

From here, now let us move to Fethullah Hodjaefendi;

Fethullah Hodjaefendi, despite all his knowledge, wisdom, and God-given superior talents and virtues, is both a sincere Turkish nationalist and sincerely in favor of an Islamic state.

In this context, both Said Nursi and Fethullah Gulen are among our venerable Sunni scholars who, in the final analysis, prioritize 'the state' and aim to capture the state in the medium and/or long term.

I am sure you do not need further explanation or proof for this. 

If you do require proof regarding the fact that both of them were STATISTS, it means you have never truly known either of them!

*Now you might say, 'Look here, brother Abdullah! Why do you keep talking about the state, being a statist, aspiring for the state, or capturing the state? Why should aspiring for the state be a crime?'

I have been pouring my heart out since morning—and I apologize for sounding pedantic or playing the know-it-all—for this very reason! 

I have no insistence on convincing you!

As someone who ponders these issues, as someone who—in the words of our Islamist poet Necip Fazıl—suffers the 'intellectual agony' of this matter, I am writing because I believe in the necessity of sharing my thoughts and feelings with you.

For the terrible persecutions and injustices that this distinguished community of 'Hizmet' (Service) has recently faced deeply wound and distress me. I am grieved.

As I always say ;

• this beautiful story should not have ended like this. 
• This poem should not have been rhymed this way.

Unfortunately, those who acted as 'caravan leaders' for this Caravan of Hizmet started like Turks (!) and finished like Turks (!). They wasted it...

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 the top down.

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

Although Bediüzzaman and Fethullah 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, that is, between those openly political islamists and us, the unnamed/covert islamists, namely, us the communities of Epistles of Nur or Hizmet. But, we are the Nur/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 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.

As long as our Sunni ulema do not rid themselves of this obsession with the state, our heads will never be free from trouble.

10-) 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 understood; 
• if the reasons why they shielded the state from the religionists (not the religious!) and 
• why they were reluctant to share strategic state positions with them had been researched; and
• if the causes leading to these could have been eliminated—that is, 
• if the crisis of trust between us and them could have been resolved and 
• we could have given them confidence—then
• we would well have lived together harmoniously, and consequently
• religious (not religionists!) people would have been employed in important, sensitive, and vital state positions based on the criteria of justice and merit.

But this was not attempted. On the contrary, by creating 'covert services' (mahrem hizmetler), 'covert imams,' 'covert elder brothers,' and 'covert duties,' there was a persistent and insistent attempt to infiltrate the bureaucratic cadres that those men (i.e., those who have taken on the duty of protecting and safeguarding the state!) guarded as the apples of their eyes. And this was done with great ambition and greed...

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 brothers and sisters in the Hizmet must think about why these calamities have befallen us, ponder this, and realize that the activities called 'covert' have been our undoing.

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

Cordially,

Abdullah Erdemli

Switzerland