The Gülen Movement

[Jetavan]

Wow. There's hope for us yet.

"PROFESSOR HELEN EBAUGH (Dept. of Sociology, University of Houston; Author of The Gülen Movement): When Fethullah Gülen began preaching in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in Turkey, his message was we don’t need more madrassas. We need schools that would promote science and math and secular subjects, and his contention was that one can be modern and one can be scientific and still be a good Muslim.

SEVERSON: Bill Martin is a senior fellow in religion and public policy at the James Baker Institute at Rice University. He says the Gülen movement is different from fundamentalist Islam because they respect all faiths and believe religion is compatible with science.

WILLIAM MARTIN (Senior Fellow, James Baker Institute at Rice University): I think it’s fair to say that Islam has had difficulty in coming to terms with modernity, and in that I think that the Gülen movement offers a much more positive picture of what Islam can be...."

[LBK]

Islam and higher learning are not mutually exclusive, nor has the Islamic world been always hostile to education, particularly in sciences and mathematics. Where did we get our way of writing numbers, for example? During the Dark Ages of western Europe, the University of Baghdad was a magnet for scholars from much of the known world.

[Jetavan]

Where did we get our way of writing numbers, for example?

India, from the Hindu-Buddhist-Jain cultural complex. But I agree with your major point.

[orthonorm]

Islam and higher learning are not mutually exclusive, nor has the Islamic world been always hostile to education, particularly in sciences and mathematics. Where did we get our way of writing numbers, for example? During the Dark Ages of western Europe, the University of Baghdad was a magnet for scholars from much of the known world.

Not to mention chemistry. Just a mere acquaintance with the subject and you will the contribution of Islamic thought and vocabulary.

   

[LBK]

Not to mention chemistry. Just a mere acquaintance with the subject and you will the contribution of Islamic thought and vocabulary.

Exactly. Such as the words alcohol, algebra, cotton and alkali, for example.

[Theophilos78]

Wow. There's hope for us yet.

There is still hope for Muslims who practice taqiyya. 

"PROFESSOR HELEN EBAUGH (Dept. of Sociology, University of Houston; Author of The Gülen Movement): When Fethullah Gülen began preaching in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in Turkey, his message was we don’t need more madrassas. We need schools that would promote science and math and secular subjects, and his contention was that one can be modern and one can be scientific and still be a good Muslim.

Interpretation: "We need schools that would adapt every science to Islam. One can be scientific and still be a good Muslim as exemplied by Harun Yahya". 

SEVERSON: Bill Martin is a senior fellow in religion and public policy at the James Baker Institute at Rice University. He says the Gülen movement is different from fundamentalist Islam because they respect all faiths and believe religion is compatible with science.

Bill Martin does not know a lot about the Gülen movement. What mostly concerns Gülen is actually how science can be made compatible with Islam. Gülen has also written several books to bash Christianity and Judaism. In one of his books written in Turkish he gives praise to Allah for revealing the Qur'an, "without which it would be impossible to understand the original message delivered by Prophet Jesus due to the absurdities and contradictions of the New Testament texts and fabricated Christian tenets". Islamic form of respect for other religions. 

WILLIAM MARTIN (Senior Fellow, James Baker Institute at Rice University): I think it’s fair to say that Islam has had difficulty in coming to terms with modernity, and in that I think that the Gülen movement offers a much more positive picture of what Islam can be...."

It is true that Gülen offers a more positive picture of what Islam can be, but it is not what Islam actually IS. Only a false picture drawn by him in accordance with taqiyya.

[Theophilos78]

Islam and higher learning are not mutually exclusive, nor has the Islamic world been always hostile to education, particularly in sciences and mathematics. Where did we get our way of writing numbers, for example? During the Dark Ages of western Europe, the University of Baghdad was a magnet for scholars from much of the known world.

It is rather saddening to see that Christians fall for such Islamic legends and hoaxes. 

http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/thomas/west_owes_islam.html

The Arabs only got access to the Greek scientific heritage. Their advancement in sciences had nothing to do with Islam.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Roark/science_islam.htm

[NorthernPines]

Islam and higher learning are not mutually exclusive, nor has the Islamic world been always hostile to education, particularly in sciences and mathematics. Where did we get our way of writing numbers, for example? During the Dark Ages of western Europe, the University of Baghdad was a magnet for scholars from much of the known world.

It is rather saddening to see that Christians fall for such Islamic legends and hoaxes. 

http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/thomas/west_owes_islam.html

The Arabs only got access to the Greek scientific heritage. Their advancement in sciences had nothing to do with Islam.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Roark/science_islam.htm

Then why do 2/3rds of all the stars that have names, have Arabic names if Islamic culture had NOTHING to do with advancement in sciences? If you know anything about astronomy, stars are named for and/or by the people discovering them. It may have been a LONG time since Islam was pro-science but it was at one time, and did a lot that we benefit from. We use the Arabic numeral system for crying out loud. Just because Islamic society is something TODAY doesn't mean that is what it was at all times. We need to be careful as well to be clear and make proper distinctions between "Islam" and Islamic culture. Just like we need to differentiate between "Christianity" as "Christian culture". The religion of Islam did nothing in science one way or the other, but the culture and the people who happened to be Muslim certainly did, until someone got the idea that science was a tool of SATAN! One is a by product of the other, the religion helps produce the culture, but that is not all that is at play. If it was then the New Atheists would be right since "Christian culture" has done some horrific things. It also has done some great things. it's funny, that even Orthodox will take credit for the discoveries of Isaac Newton even though he's "of the west" and a "heretic", yet we have no problem, while debating Muslims claiming that he is a product of "Christianity and Christian culture." In reverse, many are quick to deny Arabic advancements in science just because they were products of Islamic society. Sure, they took what the Greeks had ran with it, but um, that's no different than what the Church itself did. Are we to assume that because the Greek philosophers FIRST came up with the idea that slavery was wrong that Christianity had absolutely NOTHING to do with ending slavery? Or how Philo, the Hellenistic Jew systematized Logos theology into monotheism FIRST, that Christians can take no credit for further expanding and enlightening the world with this knowledge? Certainly this cannot be. History is history, Muslim Bagdad was once the center of thought and science, period. You can't argue it away anymore than a Greek-O-Phile can argue away the fact that THEY borrowed stuff certain ideas from the Egyptians. That's they way of history and human society. Sometimes cultures are set back, sometimes they advance. But to deny any one culture's role in society is a-historical. Debunking myths is important, but sometimes the debunkers need to be debunked to.

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