Discussing Potential Collaboration for Global Peacebuilding

Yet, seeing it with one's own eyes is a completely different but exciting experience. I am in Melbourne to deliver a paper on Islamic politico-legal philosophy in the light of Fethullah Gülen's ideas at a conference organized by the Australian Catholic University and the world-renowned, especially in social sciences, Monash University.

The conference, titled "From Dialogue to Collaboration," aimed to explore, through the prism of Fethullah Gülen's personal and theological profile, his worldwide contribution to Islamic studies, education, philanthropy and inter-religious dialogue. I should say that I was surprised to observe the Australian conference participants' interest in and level of knowledge of Turkey and the Gülen movement in this far corner of the world.

Discussions after the presentations were lively and full of both wisdom and information. Unlike many academic conferences, several participants actively contributed to the discussions with either comments or questions. Having attended several Gülen conferences around the world, I must say that I have found the Australian professors, administrators and politicians' knowledge and appreciation of the movement, particularly with regards to its potential role in global peacebuilding and conflict prevention, comparatively deeper. It is no wonder that the Australian Catholic University is proudly home to the Fethullah Gülen Chair in the Study of Islam and Muslim-Christian Relations. It was nice to observe how the chair, my old friend and colleague Professor Ismail Albayrak, has already become a center of attention and positive energy.

My paper's main premise was based on Gülen's now well-known ideas of discerning political ambition from religious activism and his emphasis on the impossibility of limiting the concept of governance and politics into a single paradigm, unlike the principles of faith and the pillars of Islam. He unambiguously states that establishing an Islamic state is not a religious duty for Muslim individuals and that in this age civil society can independently maintain Islam even where Muslims are not in the majority. I argued that in light of the literature on Islamic political philosophy which underscores the indivisible unity of din wa dawla (religion and state), Gülen's views on the state viz. Islam are products of his new ijtihad, and he is gradually developing a new jurisprudential understanding that espouses the idea of mutual autonomy of state and Islam. In this renewed understanding, he may be aiming to put the emphasis on ulama (religious scholars) instead of the statesmen, which was maybe an aim of authentic Islam as highlighted in the prophetic saying (hadith): al-ulama warasatul anbiya (scholars are the successors and inheritors of the prophets).

The conference ended with a public lecture by Father Thomas Michel, and he was remarkable as usual. He presented us with seven different pictures, or snapshots, of Prophet Abraham based on stories in the Quran, New Testament and Old Testament and skillfully transformed these pictures into guidelines for conflict prevention and peacebuilding. He also proposed that collaboration of Muslims and Christians could easily start with establishing peace centers at universities. It would be wonderful to have a future Gülen conference organized by such a center specifically on conflict prevention and resolution and peacebuilding issues.