Are there any groups targeted by the Gülen Movement?
Fethullah Gülen expresses that his goal is not to target a specific group to diffuse his teachings. Sensitivity and attraction to his message emerges mostly at the individual level. Those who carry this sensitivity and attraction develop common projects or join projects already initiated in the Fethullah Gülen.
Fethullah Gülen believes that the most important factor to attract people to the movement is the importance that they attach to education and pioneering efforts in the establishment of the model schools. He discusses nurturing both “the light of mind and the ray of heart.” He talks about the need for a type of human united with, on one hand, the comprehension of the mind and, on the other, the generosity and love of the heart.
He criticizes the groups which do not solve their own problems, but always wait for a “savior.” These groups assess problems, not as part of a larger system, but as individual, isolated events, and they try to solve the problems accordingly, whereas according to Fethullah Gülen:
… Social troubles, national problems, and natural disasters, the crises that besiege a society cannot be overcome or resolved by mundane measures. Solutions for such crises depend on the insight, knowledge, and wisdom, which become widespread in a society. It is of no use—indeed, it is a mere waste of time— to try to solve such crises with aimless, limited, unpromising policies that are like mundane political maneuvers.[1]
A man of ideals feels responsibility to the society in which he lives:
To reach their targets, the first of which is, of course, the pleasure of their Creator, they sacrifice everything that God has bestowed on them, without giving the matter a second thought; they have no fear or concern for anything worldly, their heart is captivated by nothing other than God…[2]
… The future laborers of thought will be the builders of tomorrow and the guide for the generations to come. The world will be re-established with the thought, ideas, and ideals being synthesized in their hands. The future would be enlightened and illuminated with the messages they would give.[3]
[1] Fethullah Gülen 2007b, 123.
[2] Ibid., 126.
[3] Fethullah Gülen 2008b, 66.
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