European Muslims, Civility and Public Life Perspectives On and From the Gülen Movement

This edited collection deals with the challenges and opportunities faced by Muslims and the wider society in Europe following the Madrid train bombings of 2003 and the London Transport attacks of 2007. The contributors explore the challenges to the concept and practice of civility in public life within a European context, and demonstrates the contributions that can be made in this regard by the thought and practice of the global movement associated with the Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen. The importance and distinctiveness of teaching of Gulen and the practice of the movement is that it is rooted in a confident Turkish Islamic heritage while being fully engaged with modernity. It offers the possibility of a contextualised renewal of Islam for Muslims in Europe while being fully rooted in the teachings of the Qu'ran and the Sunnah of the Prophet.

Editor and contributor biographies \ Acknowledgments \ Fethullah Gülen, the movement and this book: an introductory overview \ Part I: Perspectives from Gülen on Muslim identity and community life \ 1. Dialogical and transformative resources: perspectives from Fethullah Gülen on religion and public life, Paul Weller \ 2. Modern ideals and Muslim identity: harmony or contradiction? A text linguistic analysis of the Gülen teaching and movement, Gürkan Celik and Yusuf Alan \ 3. Turkish Muslims and Islamic Turkey: perspectives for a new European Islamic identity? Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi \ Part II: Civility, co-existence and integration \ 4. Civility in Islamic activism: towards a better understanding of shared values for civil society development, Wanda Krause \ 5. European public sphere, Islam and Islamic authority: Tariq Ramadan and Fethullah Gülen, Erkan Toguslu \ 6. Integration of Muslims in Europe and the Gülen movement, Araks Pashayan \ Part III: European contexts \ 7. From 'new man' to 'world citizen': The replication of Gülen's renovation vision in the Dutch context, Tineke Peppinck \ 8. The emergence of a neo-communitarian discourse in the Turkish diaspora in Europe: the implantation strategies and competitivelLogics of the Gülen movement in France and in Germany, Emre Demir \ 9. The Gülen movement as an integration mechanism for Europe's Turkish and Muslim community: potentials and constraints, Fatih Tedik \ 10. An exploration of the strategic dimensions of dialogue in a Gülen movement organization in Northern Ireland, Jonathan Lacey \ Part IV: Challenging Terrorism \ 11. Robustness and civility: themes from Fethullah Gülen as resource and challenge for government, Muslims and civil society in the United Kingdom, Paul Weller \ 12. A Sunni Muslim scholar's humanitarian and religious rejection of violence against civilians, Y. Alp Aslandogan and Bekir Cinar \ 13. The work of Fethullah Gülen and the role of non-violence in a time of terror, Steve Wright \ 14. Combatting terrorism in Britain: choice for policy makers, Asaf Hussain and Ihsan Yilmaz \ Fethullah Gülen and the Hizmet: towards an evaluation, Paul Weller and Ihsan Yilmaz \ Bibliography \ Index