“Never lose hope, my heart,
miracles dwell in the invisible.”
Rumi
In many countries, religious identity, national identity, and the identity of the state are seen as closely intertwined. This results in government restrictions including bans on, and punishments against, particular religions or beliefs. The relationship between religion and the state makes these individuals and communities particularly vulnerable to violations. When it is coupled with the lack of rule of law, checks and balances, transparency, and accountability in a country, it becomes even easier to suppress any form of dissent and criticism, which is also true in the case of Turkey.
Hizmet is an Islamically-inspired social movement, whose core principles and values are based on an interpretive framework around the teachings of Fethullah Gulen and Said Nursi. Over 90% of its participants are observant Muslims who espouse an inclusive, pluralistic understanding of Islam that embraces democracy, secularism, gender equality, and interfaith harmony. Followers of the Hizmet movement have been serving in 170 countries to promote peace, harmony and mutual understanding to help them get educated well and refrained from all kinds of radicalism.
Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet movement embrace the idea of civil Islam and reject political Islam, which is a stance that is at the base of the regime`s enmity towards them. According to Dogan, in Political Islamists in Turkey and the Gülen Movement, their fight against political Islamists started early, thus they have been persecuted, tortured, and deprived of their most basic human rights. Therefore, it is deeply concerning to see these human rights violations, including the persecution of religious minorities and even certain subgroups of the majority that do not adhere to the same religious ideology of the regime, which demands unconditional allegiance to the ruling party. However, the religious freedom dimension of this persecution has been overlooked and often neglected.
According to Gulen, “just as a goal must be legitimate, so must all the means employed to reach that goal.” This certainly has been the case in the wake of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. As Dogan underlines this phenomenon:
“…when political Islamists usurped the most essential rights of the [Hizmet] movement, they did not resort to armed struggle even they realized that there was no hope to gain their rights through lawful means. This is mainly related to their understanding of Islam; it is not permissible to revolt against the ruler even if he is an oppressor, tyrant, and wrongdoer, because, armed struggle against the state causes more injustice, wrongdoings, corruption, and turmoil in society.”
Even though the Hizmet movement’s followers were never resorted to violence or terror, although they were heavily persecuted by political Islamists in Turkey, Gulen and his sympathizers were declared a terrorist group by the regime. In the meantime, although there was not a shred of evidence to prove that the Hizmet movement’s followers were disbelievers, Turkey`s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) accused them of “heresy” based on political motives in its 2017 Extraordinary Religious Council Resolutions. Declaring the Hizmet movement as a “deviated sect” and millions of its followers as “apostates” and “infidels” by ex-communication (“takfir“) was used to legitimize the violence against their opponents in the eyes of the ignorant masses. Obviously, it is not objective to use political means and motives to crackdown on and persecute a movement. It is especially worse when it is done by the highest religious authority of the government, which amounts to religious freedom violations in the hands of political Islamists of Turkey, who distort Islam by their extreme interpretation and use their power to silence the opposition.
Last month, these sentiments were shared with the attendees at the #IRFForum2022 when Rumi Forum hosted a workshop on Turkey with the theme of building international religious freedom (IRF) movements in the MENA region. These sessions were important opportunities for courageous advocates to connect and share best practices.
We will continue talking about these issues to increase public awareness and political strength for the IRF movements in the upcoming #IRFSummit2023, Jan. 31-Feb.1 in Washington. Rumi Forum and Center for Faith, Identity, and Globalization will join the Summit as one of the Convening Partners, which helps to create a powerful coalition of organizations that operate together for the cause of religious freedom around the world. Please join us!