Written by Today's Zaman. Posted in News.

Fethullah Gülen Tops the FP's "The World's Top 20 Public Intellectuals" List

Turkish intellectual Fethullah Gülen, one of the world's most influential Islamic scholars, has come out as the number one in the competition for the list for "The World's Top 20 Public Intellectuals" organized by the Foreign Policy magazine. The survey, closely watched by millions all over the world, showed the top 10 were all Muslim scholars including two Nobel laureates, the novelist Orhan Pamuk, who is also Turkish, at No 4, and the Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, in 10th.

Among the top 20 list were activist Noam Chomsky who is best known for his scathing criticisms of U.S. foreign policy extending back to the Vietnam War; Former Vice President Al Gore who championed global warming campaign; historian Bernard Lewis who is one of the foremost historians of the Middle East; Umberto Eco who is famous novelist in Italy; Amartya Sen who is the premier welfare economist of the 20th century; Fareed Zakaria who is the Editor of Newsweek International and Gary Kasparov, who is democracy activist and chess grandmaster from Russia.

Washington-based Foreign Policy (FP) magazine, in May/June issue, published a list of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" in the world and asked from its readers to cast a ballot for the top 20 which it promised to publish in the current issue. The magazine said they did not expect "an avalanche of voters" as half a million people came to foreignpolicy.com site to pick their favorite candidate, adding that "Such an outpouring reveals something unique about the power of the men and women we chose to rank. They were included on our initial list of 100 in large part because of the influence of their ideas."

Foreign Policy disclosed how it chose a top 100 out of many more candidates: "Candidates must be living and still active in public life. They must have shown distinction in their particular field as well as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of their own country." The magazine has allowed readers select a top 20 from among the 100 mentioned. It also allowed readers to offer write-in candidate. Stephen Colbert, a TV host and satirist, became the top write-in candidate. Colbert is a host of the popular late-night fake news show The Colbert Report. Colbert has become one of young America's go-to sources for genuine news and analysis.

Foreign Policy also made a note that Gülen gathered the most votes after Turkey's largest-circulated daily newspaper Zaman picked up the story and carried in its first page. FP said "part of being a public intellectual is also having a talent for communicating with a wide and diverse public. This skill is certainly an asset for some who find themselves in the list's top ranks." FP indicated that press coverage profiling these intellectuals appeared around the world, with stories running in Canada, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Spain, and elsewhere. Some names in the list like Aitzaz Ahsan, Noam Chomsky, Michael Ignatieff, and Amr Khaled mounted voting drives by promoting the list on their Web sites.

FP included short descriptions of Gülen and Pamuk, saying of the former: "A modernist Islamic scholar and leader of the movement named after him, Gülen is widely considered one of the most important Muslim thinkers alive today. He has authored more than 60 books." As for Pamuk: "Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 after a year in which he faced criminal charges in Turkey for his frank comments about the Armenian genocide. His most famous books are My Name Is Red, Snow, and Istanbul: Memories and the City."

FP credited Fethullah Gülen's supporters for the result saying that "within hours, votes in his favor began to pour in. His supporters—typically educated, upwardly mobile Muslims—were eager to cast ballots not only for their champion but for other Muslims in the Top 100."

Published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the bimonthly is one of America's leading magazines for researching and analyzing international affairs and making recommendations for US foreign policy. The magazine touted the 100 men and women from around the world as "some of the world's most sophisticated thinkers."

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Created on 23 June 2008.