Time, Foreign Policy Name 4 Most Influential Turks
Four Turks — well-respected Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, author Orhan Pamuk, world renowned surgeon Mehmet Öz and Greek Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Bartholomew — have made their way onto lists of the globe’s most influential figures drawn up by two famous magazines.
Fethullah Gülen, one of the world's most influential Islamic scholars, and Orhan Pamuk, a Nobel Prize-winning novelist, are on the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" list published by the Washington-based Foreign Policy (FP) magazine in its latest issue. 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."
Mehmet Öz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and award-winning author, and Patriarch Bartholomew, made American newsweekly Time's "100 Most Influential People in the World." Bartholomew, head of the Greek-Orthodox Church of Fener-İstanbul, also holds Turkish citizenship. Playwright, actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are among the newsmakers on Time magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people. The 2008 list, appearing on the magazine's Web site Thursday morning and on newsstands today, also includes presidential contenders Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Obama and Clinton also made the list last year. Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and President George W. Bush also are named.
Foreign Policy also 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 is also letting readers select a top 20 from among the 100 mentioned and will publish the results in its next issue. Readers can vote for their favorites www.foreignpolicy.com until May 15.
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."
If readers think the list excludes their favorite intellectual, Foreign Policy magazine offers the option for readers to submit "write-in candidates" to the magazine. (Mehmet Rifat Yegen, Istanbul)
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