Turkish Muslims Plan an Interfaith Dinner to Celebrate Understanding
Scientists at UAH, A&M say dialogue can solve problems
Straddling the divide between Europe and Asia, Turkey has long felt the strains of coordinating East and West, Muslim and Christian, Arab and European.
But Turkey, too, can provide a model of cooperation among those groups, say two men who have established the Peace Valley Foundation in Huntsville. The foundation is organized in cooperation with the Istanbul Center for Culture and Dialogue in Atlanta. That center is devoted to the practice and propagation of the teachings of Muslim leader Fethullah Gülen.
Like the Istanbul Center, the Peace Valley Foundation will support interfaith education, Turkish cultural events and community projects for the homeless in North Alabama, say organizers Ramazan Aygun, a computer scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Satilmis Budak, a physicist at Alabama A&M.
The foundation's first local event is a dinner Oct. 19 to celebrate interfaith understanding.
That understanding, Aygun said, begins with a simple conversation.
"Everything can be resolved if people will just talk to each other," Aygun said Monday. "When we talk to each other, every conflict can be resolved."
Fethullah Gülen, who now lives in the United States, is respected as the father of the moderate Muslim movement in Turkey and an inspirational Sufi, a tradition that emphasizes tolerance and individual action. Since the 1960s, he and his followers have developed a system of schools and conversations to denounce faith-based violence and to promote respect among religious traditions. His Quran-based statement issued after Sept. 11, 2001, was among the first and clearest denunciations of the terrorist attack by a Muslim leader.
Some interfaith leaders in Huntsville attended the Istanbul Center's interfaith dinner in Birmingham last year and encouraged Aygun and Budak to spread the tradition to Huntsville, Aygun said.
"The center sponsored six dinners last year, but will sponsor 16 this year" (across the Southeast), Aygun said.
The dinner in Huntsville is free to those invited, in keeping with the Turkish traditional hospitality, Aygun said. Based on the theme, "The Art of Living Together," it will feature short talks by several local interfaith experts as well as an explanation of the future work of the Peace Valley Foundation.
The event is not a fundraiser, Aygun emphasized. It is a time of conversation for community leaders.
The dinner comes as Turkey, a candidate for membership in the European Union, moves to play a more dominant role in the achievement of a peaceful stability in the Middle East. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, met with President Bush this week on those issues.
"If you visit Turkey, you will see the synagogues, mosque and churches next to each other," Aygun said. "This type of understanding is not common in the world."
Gülen, the inspiration for the work of the center and the foundation, works to translate what he sees as the essential values of Islam to a world that too often equates his faith with terrorism.
"He understood religion very well and tried to gather all people together," Budak said. "If you go to heaven, there will be no mosque, no synagogue - people will be all together."
The Huntsville Times Faith & Values Editor
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