Islam in the Age of Global Challenges

Abstract

On 14-15 November 2008, Georgetown University’s Copley Formal Lounge
and Philodemic Room served as the venues for an extraordinary conference
on a unique Muslim leader who is finally becoming better known in the
United States: Fethullah Gulen. Beginning in the early 1950s, this graduate
of the Turkish seminary system began encouraging Turkish businessmen and
others to build schools to provide a modern education to as many students as
possible. People listened, and there are now over 600 schools in 100 countries.
This conference, “Islam in the Age of Global Challenges: Alternative
Perspectives of the Gulen Movement,” which was sponsored by the Georgetown
University President’s Office, the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding, and the Rumi Forum, attracted both Muslim
and non-Muslim academics and others.
Of the 170 papers submitted, forty were chosen the address the movement
from the following viewpoints: (1) the man, his thoughts and ideas,
and how he formed his community and (2) what the movement is doing visà-
vis bringingmeaning to people’s lives, who/what were/are his sources, tolerance,
dealing with non-Muslims, issues of religious freedom, women,
peace issues, interfaith dialogue, the role of his schools in peacemaking,
charitable organizations, financial sources, and globalization ...